The Apology

Last week, Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Government. About time!


He'd promised that an apology would be one of the first things his new government did. I'm glad he followed through. It's well overdue, since I think it should have been offered years ago. Still, there was no way John Howard would have done this, and even if he had I don't think it would have been as full or as moving as the one offered by Rudd.

I didn't hear the speech directly, but I have read it now. There was a bit of controversy over Brendan Nelsons speech, but I haven't heard or read it so can't really say if it was justified. As the leader of the Liberal party, though, he was always going to get a rough reception on this issue, so it may have been better than reported.

Anyway, here's one link to the full text of the speech. And here's the link directly to the Prime Ministers site.

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Sir John and the Jihad

Two news articles got my attention this week. One was about John Howard (groan! hasnt' he disappeared yet?) and the other was about Islamic law in the UK.


First to John Howard. Apparently there are rumours going around that he's about to be knighted by the Queen. Sir John. My first reaction was "Oh God not another John Howard story!" I really am sick of hearing about this man. Now that he's lost the election I was hoping that there would be a Howard-free zone for at least a few more months. But it seems that's not to be - he's still regularly making it into the news.

I hope this rumour is false. It's far too soon to talk about giving him a knighthood. For a start, his time in office is still very recent. It's too soon for his legacy to be judged impartially, to see if he actually merits the honour. For what its worth, I think his first two terms (1996-2001) were competent to average. If he'd lost in 2001 he'd have gone down in history as unremarkable. After 2001, though, I think he and his government went from average to bad and then after 2004 to out-of-control. His legacy from this time will ensure his place in history, and not just as our second longest serving prime minister. The policies implemented during this time were controversial to say the least. In my opinion, many of them have damaged Australia - the rule of law, democracy, reputation, social cohesion, and so on. In some respects an over-reaction was natural after the September 11 attacks. But that over-reaction continued was too long and did too much damage. I think John Howards legacy will come to be seen as largely negative due to his actions since 2001.

Overall, then, I'd say he doesn't deserve a knighthood. And certainly he shouldn't get one yet, until some time has passed and we can all be a bit more impartial in judging him.

The other story was from the UK, where Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) seems to have claimed that some elements of Islamic law should be included into the laws of England.

At first I thought this was a bit of a beat-up, with the whole thing being taken out of context. But it seems that he did actually raise the idea of recognising some aspects of Sharia law into the civil law of the UK. He said this would be in the interests of social cohesion and help with community relations in integrating the large and growing Islamic community.

Personally I think its a bad idea. I don't think any specifically religious laws should be included into the law of the state, even (or especially) if they're only designed to apply to one group of people. I think that's a dangerous path to go down.

In my opinion, the state law should be as neutral as possible when it comes to religion and religious rules. It should create an area of legal space in which everyone is judged by the same rules and has equal rights before the law. It should be a space that everyone in the country can recognise as the basis of pretty much all interactions.

After that, if people choose to live to a higher standard (Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, whatever...) that is up to them. If these people then choose to apply the standards of their religion to interactions between themselves, that's fine with me. That only applies, of course, if all the people involved choose freely to apply those standards. If there's any dispute about that, then the state law is the area to resolve these problems. It can't be used to enforce purely religious standards if a person chooses not to submit to those standards - that's a matter of conscience.

So if religious groups in the UK want to set up their own religious courts, that's fine. But they should have no legal standing in the wider civil law system. Any issue that falls under the wider civil law should still be dealt with that way. If people then choose to follow an extra religious judgement, that's their right but should not be their obligation.

So - incorporating religious law into the basic law of the land is a bad idea. I'm not surprised that the Archbishop has got a lot of criticism. At best his ideas were poorly expressed. At worst, I think they were pretty silly.

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Celebrate good times!

And while I was away, the election happened. It was good good news! The Liberals lost, and lost big. John Howard lost his seat!! I wasn't expecting that, but it's great news. The Labor party is in power, and Kevin Rudd is prime minister.

Already they are dismantling the Howard legacy - they're ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and talking about bringing down the disclosure limit on political donations.

I'm so relieved that John Howard lost - I thought he was going to creep back in. I'm so happy to be wrong about that. Now its' just a matter of waiting to see how the Rudd government goes - will it keep its' promises, how much of the Howard legacy will it undo, how will the economy run, will the country start to take back its values of fairness and honesty etc?

Interesting times...

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Voting done - can we just finish the election now?

While I was in town getting my Chinese visa the other day I also went and voted. I'll be out of the country on election day and so will miss all the excitement (what a shame!)


I didn't realise it was so easy to vote early, but they had a polling station set up at city hall. They didn't even ask for any ID - just rocked up, filled out the form which they checked against the electoral roll and away I went. I guess I could have voted for someone else too if I had their name, address, and date of birth. Too easy.

Anyway, I voted. It's done. First preference for the Australian Democrats - vote 1 for Andrew Bartlett in the senate, and the local Democrats candidate Jennifer Cluse in the lower house.

And then I preferenced the Greens and Labor in the lower house. In the senate I voted above the line for the first time. There were 65 candidates. I could wallpapered the booth with that form, it was so big. I've always voted below the line before, but that was when I was living in Tassie. Numbering the 20-30 candidates in that form isn't too much of a strain, but numbering 65 here in Queensland is asking a bit much. Anyway... its a good thing I liked the Democrats ticket.

So good luck to the Democrats. It'd be a sad day for Australia if they lost all their seats, I think. They've done an excellent job over the years.

Still, it's not looking good. 1996 was the first election I voted in, and I voted Democrats then too. That was the year they lost their Tasmanian seat to Bob Brown. Now this is the first time I've voted in Queensland, and it looks very much like the Democrats could go down to the Greens here too. I must be a political jinx of some kind... maybe I should have voted for Howard after all!

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Sorry means... not sorry??

John Howard at his best - again! Yesterday he said he was sorry that interest rates have gone up again. But now he's saying that he's not apologising for it. So sorry no longer means sorry, in Howard-speak.

Sounds familiar, though. The last time he said sorry for anything was when petrol prices were rising. He was very quick to say sorry then. And he was very quick to say it now, too, even though he has just admitted he didn't really mean it.

It's interesting that he chose to say sorry both times for something that isn't technically his fault. There are plenty of things he could apologise for (even in the Howard-speak sense of the word!), but he's chosen to say sorry only when something has hurt voters in his marginal seats. So much for demonstrating leadership, Australian values, morality, taking responsibility...

The guy is a fraud and I really really want him gone from government.

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Interest rates rises are good for you

Interest rates rose today, by 0.25%. And since this is an election campaign, Peter Costello has to jump in and tell us this is a good thing. Or, ate least, that rising interest rates are a sign of good economic management.


Well, if everything is so good (as the Labor party ads keep reminding us, according to John Howard we've never had it so good) then maybe Peter Costello and John Howard can pay my mortgage for me. That'd be nice!

And anyway, if rising interest rates are a sign of good economic management, what did they mean when they promised to keep rates at record lows during the last election? Does that mean Howard and Costello were promising to give us bad economic management?

These guys really need to pick a line and stick to it. At the rate they're backflipping at the moment they'd outperform most circus acrobats!

Thanks, John Howard!

(Of course, I know the government doesn't directly control interest rates. But when they claim low rates as their responsibility but try to dodge the blame for higher rates, then they deserve everything they get! I really really hope they get voted out)

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The Liberal Party tells the truth!

Found on Road to Surfdom - a good laugh. And a lot of reasons not to vote for John Howard.

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Tasmanian Politics

I came across this site the other day. It's always interesting to keep up with whats going on back home in Tassie, and this looks like a good way of doing it.

Tasmanian politics might not rate much attention unless you live there, but I'm still concerned and interested in it. The current Tasmanian state government is a bit of a disgrace and the whole pulp mill decision process was disgusting. Anyway...

It'll be interesting to read this site as it develops.

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Laugh out loud Howard moments

He really is ubelievable.

After spending all of the 2004 election campaign telling us that interest rates would always be low under his government, he's now denying it. Apparently we have to forget everything he promised last time, because that's all in the past. I burst out laughing when I heard that - is this guy serious??


He might have a point though, technically. Its hard to say now, three years later, whether he personally ever made the claim that interest rates would remain at record lows under his government. He might be right when he says that all he ever said was that rates would be lower under him than under Labor.

But it really doesn't matter if it was his words or a Liberal party ad. It's basically the same thing. And he wasn't actually out there correcting peoples misunderstanding, was he? No, he was very happy for us to believe that he'd promised to keep rates at record lows, even if that's now what he technically said.

And now he wants us to forget he even said that! Apparently the past doesn't matter and we have to concentrate on the future - while at the same time we have to remember that interest rates got to 17% under the last Labor government. So which is it? Is the past important or not? If we can remember Labors interest rates, can we remember his (broken) promises? Or if we forget his lies, can we forget Labors rates?

He really is a tricky politician. He has a way of telling the truth that makes lying look honest. He has to go, and so does his government.

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Debating greatness

I made myself sit through the great debate between John Howard and Kevin Rudd on Sunday night. Actually, it wasn't that hard in the end. I thought it was quite an impressive performance, and all the associated drama over the worm on channel 9 was even more entertaining than the debate itself.


Anyway, it was obviously Kevin Rudds night. I was quite impressed by what I saw of him in this debate. He doesn't always come across well in the 30-second soundbites used on the evening news, but this format suited him. He was able to make his points, clearly and with conviction. Before the debate I was hoping he would win the election basically because he wasn't John Howard. Now I'm much more confident that he can really run the government and be an effective leader.

John Howard, on the other hand, was pretty bad. He is not a good debater - he may be a clever politician but public speaking really isn't his strong point. He looked tired, old and angry. He almost lost his temper a couple of times. It was a really bad look. And to top it all off, even when he was speaking with conviction he wasn't convincing. On his strong points of the economy, I'd heard it all before. His attacks on unions were nothing new and just fell pretty flat. If you weren't convinced by his rhetoric before the debate, nothing he said would change your mind.

Even when he was talking about his new policies on climate change and reconciliation he was not believable. His main problem here is that after 11 years most people know that he really doesn't believe in them as issues. At one point he accused Kevin Rudd of having an election campaign conversion to economic conservatism. I almost laughed at that, since that charge is much more likely to stick to him because of his new position on Aboriginal affairs and climate change. Less than convincing stuff.

So, Kevin won the night. Convincingly. But it's still a long way to election day, and John Howard is a tricky and clever campaigner. And its a huge job for Labor to win the 16 seats it needs. Here's hoping they can do it!

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Ok ok - can't get away from politics this week!

Here's an ad just for John Howard - he'll love this one.

So what have those evil unions done for us? Lets find out...


Seen via Road to Surfdom

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Turn off the phones!

It's been a really busy week, in all sorts of ways.

I've been snowed under at work this week, and so I'm very glad its now Saturday morning. Still, weeks like this are the fun ones - keeps me from getting bored at work, which is an increasing problem lately.


On the downside, weeks like this at work mean that I get almost nothing done outside of work. Try getting to the bank when you're working 10+ hours a day! It just doesn't happen. I have to say that bank hours are awful, and they need to make more of an effort to be available and open when people can actually get there. Bank business hours of 9am to 4pm are just incredibly inconvenient for anyone with an actual job to do...

Still, I guess they have no motivation to change, do they? They're making huge profits and there's not a whole lot of competition. And it's so inconvenient trying to change banks, moving accounts, loans, credit cards... once they've got you sucked in you're pretty much trapped and just have to put up with the crappy service.

Ok - that rant is over now...

This week also saw the beginning of the election campaign. Finally! The J-Ho finally called it, for November 24th. All that means is we've got six weeks (five, now) of electioneering, dirty politics, awful ads, and generally getting harrassed by our so-called leaders. Up until this week I was actually interested in the election - I want John Howard gone, and was getting really frustrated that he hadn't called it. Now I've lost interest - I just want to get to polling day, cast my vote, and hopefully get to watch John Howard concede defeat. Go Kevin! There are so many reasons to want the Liberals gone - just the fact that they're not really liberal in anyway is enough, though... I'll probably write a bit more about that later.

I'm just hanging on now for the election to be over. I just don't want to watch, becauswe it'd be too painful watching Kevin Rudd self-destruct. I really really really hope that doesn't happen, though. So I'll stick my head in the sand for the next few weeks, and hold my breath. It'll all be over soon, but I'm not sure I can face another three years of Howard and Friends. I'm just scared that he'll find some dirty little rabbit in a hat somewhere and pull off another win. That's a scary thought...

Anyway, back to my relaxing recovery weekend. I'm off for lunch with friends in the city today, then the movies tonight, and tomorrow - well, we'll see. If its a nice day it might be another trip to the beach for me!

Can't wait...

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Undoing Howards legacy

Paul Kelly, in the Australian, has an interesting article explaining what Kevin Rudd plans to do with the public service if he gets elected. The article is here.


As he explains, John Howard has tried to intimidate and control the public service while he's been in office. He doesn't want impartial or independent advice - he just wants the public servants to do exactly what he wants without question or dissent. This makes for bad policy, and Paul Kelly identifies this as a blunder. I agree. The public service should be free to give impartial and independent advice to the government. Obviously, it should also impartially and competently implement government policies after they've been passed by Parliament, but that's not what John Howard has asked for. It looks to me like he's tried to turn the Australian public service into another arm of the Liberal Party, with the aim of keeping the Liberal Party in power. That's just an abuse of our system of government, in my opinion.

According to the article, Kevin Rudd wants to restore the independence of the public service while also lifting its standards. That's a great aim, and if he can pull it off that will be fantastic. It'll be interesting to see if he can do it, though. A compliant public service would undoubtedly make life easier for any government, even if it means public policy suffers. But I think its a good idea, and I hope he gets a chance to do it. John Howards legacy of abuse towards our system of government and democracy needs to be undone, and this is one step towards doing that.

And on that note, here's another article over at The Road to Surfdom on a similar topic - the abuses of power committed by the Howard Government.

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The lost plot

Here are two more stories that show how badly John Howard and his government have lost the plot on all things climate change.

The first is about solar power and the second is on the future of Australia as global warming kicks in.


The story about solar power is interesting, and frustrating, and a good example of lost opportunities. The Australian company couldn't find support for its Australian product in Australia, so does the sensible thing and moves offshore. Then it gets picked up by an American company, lands a huge contract providing clean renewable energy on a huge scale.

I've always thought that Australia is the logical place for solar power to take off. We've got a large amount of space, and lots of sunny weather. It should be an obvious combination. But we've got a government that talks about solar power being inefficient, expensive and unable to provide baseload power, and so they've not invested in it or provided any significant subsidies for research and development. And now, an Australian company is going to provide all those things to the Americans. I guess that'd be a shock to John Howard and friends, although they'll probably waffle on about how it's still not in production and there's a lot of risks etc etc. And in the meantime, our country loses out on the benefits of the project, and we waste our money on trying to develop clean coal technology that will take at least as long as solar power to provide any decent returns or environmental benefits.

The second story shows what this could cost us. While we're basically refusing to take any serious action on climate change or reducing our emmissions, our country is going to get hotter and dryer and the seas will continue to rise. That's bad news all around, and yet our government has continued to deny there's a problem. Until recently, that is, when they realised they might actually lose this election. Now we've got some token acknowledgement of the problem for them but their only action seems to be more political spin. As in dressing up already existing schemes and presenting it as something new. Anyway... bring on the election, lets get a new government!

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Telling it like it is

Politics the fun way! This is the ad created by GetUp! and hopefully will be screened during the AFL grand final tomorrow. Spoofing John Howards taxpayer funded election campaign ads. Good for them.

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The politics of fear

Here's a new scare campaign being run against the Labor party. No prizes for guessing that the government is behind it. Bring on the election!





Personally, I don't care if Labor is in power right across the country. Maybe that will be an incentive for the Liberals to get their acts together and actually offer some quality opposition. I just can't wait to get rid of John Howard and friends from Canberra. I think they've been a very damaging government, especially over the last 5-6 years. The sooner we get rid of them the better.

As for the Labor government being run by the unions, I think that's probably a bit overstated. Yes, there are a lot of union officials in the party. Hopefully that means that they will be concerned about the rights of employees more than the current government. They will hopefully care more about fairness - I know John Howard talks a lot about a fair go and mateship, but if he has to talk it up so much I think it just means that the concept is in trouble. You don't have to talk about something that is taken for granted by everyone; you only have to keep emphasisng it and encouraging it when the idea is in trouble. So John Howard has, I think, pretty much killed off the idea of a fair go at the political level. It's still alive and well for most people in their everyday lives, but it isn't reflected in our national politics. Hopefully Labor can do something to restore that.

Anyway, enough political crap - bring on the election and get it over with!

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Life in the alternative universe

That would be politics, of course - it seems to bear little resemblance to real life, and yet people take it all so very seriously. A couple of interesting statements have been made this week. Andrew Bartlett picks up on one, made by Julia Gillard.


She made a statement saying that Labor would expect the Senate to pass their new IR laws almost immediately, if they were elected. She said that in that case Labor would have a mandate to pass its IR package, and so the Senate should just pass it - just rubber-stamp it, in effect.

This means, I guess, that Labor has learnt nothing from the example of John Howard. Over the last few years the coalition has had the numbers in the Senate, and have used them to rubber-stamp all sorts of awful legislation. WorkChoices is the one causing all the political grief at the moment, but others include the anti-terror laws, and the land-snatch currently underway in the Northern Territory. They've cut debates short, refused to consider amendments, given virtually no notice of upcoming debates or legislation and have guillotined bills through. It's been a disgraceful abuse of the Senate and Parliament.

As I said in my comment on Andrew Bartlett's blog (comment #11 in the linked post), I think this will be John Howards lasting legacy. His government will be remembered as a case study in what happens when a government has total control. (The other example would be Queensland, where there is only one house of parliament) Hopefully that will be a warning to voters, who will never let this situation happen again. Because the Senate has acted as a rubber stamp for the Howard government, lots of dodgy legislation has passed into law without proper review. That means a lot of work will have to be done in the future to undo the damage.

Unfortunately, from Julia Gillards comment, it appears that Labor doesn't see the problem. They would happily use the Senate as a rubber stamp if they had the numbers. The instinct for power would be too hard to resist. As much as I agree that WorkChoices should go, and I hope Labor wins government, they should be willing to work with the Senate rather than insisting that their version of IR laws be forced through untouched. It would show that they take our democracy seriously, and that they have respect for our style of government - a respect that has been lacking in the current Howard government. But I'm cynical, so I don't expect Labor would be any better. They'll bluster, and if they have the numbers they will use them, just like Howard has. The only way to ensure they don't is to make sure neither major party has the numbers in the Senate.

I'm hoping that the balance of power will rest with the Democrats, independents, Greens and any other minor parties elected. That sort of grouping would ensure proper debates, review and compromise - giving a much better chance at a balanced outcome. I just hope enough people have learnt the lesson from Howards abuses and vote Democrat/independent/Green in the Senate...

In other news, Malcolm Turnbull has delayed his decision on the Gunns pulp mill for thirty days. That should put it nicely into the whole election time frame - providing a wedge opportunity, maybe? Hmmm...

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Great Gunns... again!

It seems like everyone is talking about the Gunns pulp mill now. There are reports in all the papers about it. The Australian has had a good run with the story, as have other media outlets such as the ABC. It's a bit late, though - the mill is virtually approved, and now the media starts talking about it... but better late than never.


I guess the main reason it's suddenly become a story is that Geoffrey Cousins is running a large publicity campaign about it in Malcom Turnbulls electorate in Sydney. The papers obviously don't think it's a story unless there's a Sydney angle, right? Anyway...

Still, the debate goes on. There is a vote due any time now in the Tasmanian upper house, giving final approval from the state. And there are reports of new environmental concerns. This latest report finds that the mill will not meet 15 environmental conditions. That has to be disturbing for anyone who's interested in the project.

There are even reports that Malcolm Turnbull might be considering telling Gunns to move the mill to another site (Hampshire, rather than the Tamar Valley) I think that would probably be a good idea, although I doubt Gunns would consider it. They'd probably just pull the plug on the whole thing rather than try and re-design the whole mill so that it could be done at the Hampshire site. It'd almost be as bad as starting from scratch again.

I can understand why Gunns is frustrated. This project was originally proposed several years ago now, and should have been resolved before this. Now it's got caught up in all the election-year politicking. Since the federal government has to sign off on the assessment before the mill can go ahead, it's become a federal issue. Neither side of politics will want to make a committment before the election because whatever they decide will annoy some voters. And those voters are in a marginal seat which might turn out to be critical to the election result...

So what's going to happen? I've got no idea. What should happen? Everyone should forget about the politics and focus on the actual effects of the mill. I still think the whole approvals process has been a sham so far - maybe the federal government process will be better, but since this is an election year I think the final decision will have more to do with electioneering than an actual assessment of the mill on its merits. Hopefully, I'm just being too cynical here, though...

And I still think the mill is dubious on all sorts of environmental grounds. I don't think the approvals process has taken these fully into consideration.

Basically, the whole thing stinks. The Lennon state government really needs to go, in my opinion. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an opposition. Anyway...

Previous entries: Gunns part 1, Gunns part 2.

Also: An interesting piece in today's Crikey about the politics of the mill and Geoffrey Cousins. Like I said, Tassie only gets national attention when there is an outsider involved...

Update 2: An article by Warwick Raverty in New Matilda lays out the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the mill. And here's a conflicting view from Jennifer Marohasy, pointing out that the mill is supposed to be built in Tasmanias largest industrial estate. It's true that Bell Bay, with the Rio Tinto aluminium smelter is in the same area, along with other industries. I think, though, that the mill will be built further upriver than Bell Bay, away from the rest of the industrial sites. And that doesn't answer the other environmental problems, either. Still, it's an interesting point, and I can't comment much more than that since it's been a long time since I've been through the area.

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John Howard keeps a straight face while...

In other political news, John Howard announced today he'll be over-riding some parts of Peter Beatties new laws on council amalgamations. That's not particularly surprising, as Howard's been looking for a fight up here. But I can't believe he managed to keep a straight face while saying things like this:

He said the "arbitrary jackbooted fashion" in which Queensland sought to impose amalgamations was "beyond the pale".



And this, from the Australian:

Mr Howard said he was acting because the “arrogant” Beattie Government was behaving in a “dictatorial fashion’’, particularly the “outrageous’’ trampling of peoples rights.

This really is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Just a few days ago, Howard said the Beattie government was power mad. He may be right, but can John Howard really say that without looking at his own record? The federal government has spent most of the last few years grabbing more power for itself, acting arbitrarily and riding all over peoples rights. And now he complains about the Queensland governement doing the same thing...

Queensland does have an accountability problem in government, though. With only one house of state parliament, there is no effective opposition. The government of the day can do what it likes almost with impunity. That really needs to change - either with the creation of an upper house, or an electoral system of proportional representation that could create minority/coalition-style governments.

Anyway - back to reality after this weird episode in Howard's Australia...

Links (upper house for QLD): Online Opinion, Andrew Bartlett

Meanwhile, it's beginning to look like Howard shot himself in the foot of the Mersey Hospital bribe down there in Tassie. Hah! Can't make his promises stick for more than a couple of weeks now, can he?

Links : The Australian, Brisbane Times

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Greens vs Democrats

There's a post over at Online Opinion that's worth reading about the differences between the Greens and the Democrats. I've posted a comment there, which I'll copy here.


This is a very interesting article. I agree - the Greens haven't been asked the hard questions, and the media does need to do more work here.

To me, it seems that the Greens are very good at managing the media. If you want someone to wave a protest banner in front of a tv camera, the Greens will be there every time. They're at their best when they're instinctively saying "No!" to any proposal put forward. Beyond that, though, they find it very hard to negotiate and reach a satisfactory conclusion for both parties. They just seem to thrive on conflict.

Their record in the Tasmanian parliament shows this, I think. Even during the Labor-Green accord, when they had the balance of power, they found it very hard to reach agreement with anyone, and it didn't last very long. From memory, Bob Brown and Christine Milne (both now Senators) were in state parliament for that period.

The Democrats, on the other hand, haven't been so good at getting attention in the media - they're more willing to talk than fight. As
Malcolm says in this article, the Democrats have achieved quite a bit, but haven't been recognised for it.

I think it would be a sad day if the Democrats lost their seats to the Greens, even if it would mean more drama on the nightly news


So, that's my comment on the article. I do like the Greens, and they'll get my preference before the ALP or Liberals, but I do think the Democrats are better.

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