AlexWhite.org » Politics

Election Diary, Day 1

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 06:21:58 +0000

When I got up this morning, instead of cartoons on Channel Nine, there was live coverage of Julia Gillard’s trip to the Governor General’s resident at Yarralumla.

The election was being called. All this week, I’ve heard “insiders” say it would be called today, so I’m sure they’ll be gratified that they’ve been proven right.

This is the first entry of my election diary. It will be an occasional post about the election, commentary, or update on what what I’m doing

The first thing I’m commenting on is the new Tony Abbott Revealed site I’ve set up. It’s really an experiment to see how many people (if any) I can interest and engage, using the various social media tools that I’ve picked up and written about.

A particular feature is the wiki – an easily editable section of the website that anyone can change and update.

With the Twitter-sphere going wild this morning, and things only looking like they’ll heat up over the next four to five weeks, this should be an interesting experiment indeed.

UPDATE:

Hmmm… my comment didn’t get published yesterday on The Punch.

Thanks to everyone who’s replied to my comment.

Given that I’ve written about my involvement with TonyAbbottRevealed.org.au on my blog: I hardly think it’s a secret.

The union I work for is not affiliated to any political party, and certainly is not affiliated to the ALP. The site is not paid for by any political party, but from my own pocket.

All the site does it put Tony Abbott’s own words on the internet. Visitors such as your good selves are free to make up your own mind.

A case for reforming the election of Labor leaders

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:18:10 +0000

Labor members are able to directly elect the Federal President, and through representative delegates at conferences both rank-and-file members and union affiliates are able to elect State Labor Presidents.

The most important leadership position, that of Parliamentary Labor Leader, is solely the preserve of Members of Parliament. This state of affairs had led to leadership instability over last two decades.

Labor must reform and re-engage with its roots in participatory democracy. Australian Labor must consider expanding the pool of people involved in the selection of Parliamentary Leader, at both State and Federal levels.

The UK Labour Party

The UK Labour Party elects its Parliamentary Leader at its regular Party Conferences through a ballot of rank-and-file members, affiliated organisations (unions, socialist groups, etc) and Parliamentarians (including Members of the European Parliament). UK Labour allows the members of unions (and other affiliates) to participate in the vote for Leader

This election gives the Leader great legitimacy within the Party, and allows them to claim support not just of MPs but of the entire Party. Furthermore, it dilutes the influence of powerful sectional interests, ensuring that the Leader has widespread support.

The UK Labour leadership process also ensures greater leadership stability during times of potential crisis, ensuring that the leadership of the Party can see through controversial reforms. This makes the leadership less vulnerable to the media noise machine, and the herd mentality of the Canberra Press Gallery.

An Australian Labor Model Based on UK Labour

Labor has already embraced direct election of one of the most senior positions within the Party – that of Federal President. The great strength of Labor is that it bridges political, industrial and community.

Labor at a Federal level should reform its rules to expand the franchise of voters in election of Federal Parliamentary Leader.

Franchise

Rank-and-file members, affiliated unions and Members of Parliament must all participate in the election of Parliamentary Leader. The Leader and Deputy Leader must be elected from the pool of Labor Members of Parliament. Elections should take place at National Conference.

Nominations

Candidates must be nominated by a set proportion of MPs (such as 12.5 percent as in UK Labour). Where there is no vacancy ( that is, in the case of a challenge), nominees must receive a higher proportion of nominators (such as 20 percent).

Voting

Voting should take place consecutively in three sections. The votes of each group would be aggregated as a percentage and then given a weighting of a third each.

Members of Parliament: Each MP is entitled to one vote.
Rank-and-file members: Each Labor member is entitled to one vote.
Affiliated unions: Either: each union member of an affiliated union is entitled to one vote, provided that they are not a member of another political party; Or: each accredited State Conference delegate from an affiliated union is entitled to one vote.

The candidate who reaches more than half the total vote is elected. Preferential voting would be used to allow for elimination of candidates in the case of no candidate receiving half the votes.

When Labor is in Government, and the Leader is Prime Minister, a vote should only be held if requested by a majority of delegates to the National Conference. When in opposition, election of Leader should take place every National Conference.

The refugee debate dilemma: you can’t be “too tough”

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 07:15:29 +0000

The big public relations dilemma faced by progressive asylum seeker activists is that the overwhelming view from Australians is negative.

A case in point is today’s Essential Media report, which asked about the Government’s approach to asylum seekers.

The most alarming figures is the high number of people who think that the Government is being “too soft”. The low number of people who think it is “too tough” is also concerning.

UPDATE:

Possum Pollytics over at Crikey looks at the Nielsen poll, finding that there is high levels of approval on “getting tough” on asylum seekers.

With 63% approving of the policy change (or rather, approving of the notion of “getting tough” that was inherent in the question asked), Labor must be thinking “job well done” about now.

The NT Intervention: a case study in dog whistle politics

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:28:14 +0000

I wrote earlier in the week that dog whistle politics is about saying one thing that is interpreted differently by a specific, targeted section of the community to the rest of the community.

In 2007, the Howard Government was hemorrhaging support to Labor from its traditional “base” in the mortgate beltways. The Rights At Work campaign run by the ACTU had successfully made the “battlers” question whether Howard was really on their side.

Howard needed a circuit breaker – something he could use to cut through to these people while not alienating the more affluent blue-ribbon Liberal supporters in the inner city.

The Northern Territory Intervention was exactly that. It was a political dog whistle dressed up as a compassionate response to poverty and child abuse in indigenous communities. The NT Intervention was never about better outcomes for indigenous people, but was all about tapping into a feeling stirred up by Pauline Hanson and One Nation a decade earlier of anti-Aboriginal sentiment. It was targeted at the same people who see nothing wrong with Rugby and Football figures calling Indigenous players “black c-nts” or “boongs”.

Many Indigenous policy experts, including the authors of the Little Children Are Sacred report, noted at the time that the Intervention actually ignored most of the recommendations of the Report and of many other inquiries into disadvantage in indigenous communities.

Instead, the Intervention focused on the One Nation-esque policies: quarantining of welfare, suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, compulsory acquisition of townships, removal of customary law and cultural practice considerations from bail applications and sentencing within criminal proceedings, and so on.

The Pauline Hanson attacks on Indigenous Australians focused on the perception that Aboriginal people get more government support than white Australians. If you look at the things the Intervention does, it targets specifically the areas that Hansonites focus on when attacking Aborigines.

The dog whistle is evident, because mixed in with the policies of controlling Aboriginal welfare payments, taking their land off them and removing racial discrimination protection was Mal Brough’s rhetoric about “improving the wellbeing of children”, stopping abuse, and fixing up the “squalor” of the Aboriginal communities. So, for the audiences in leafy suburbs, it sounds like the Intervention is a compassionate action; for its intended audience however, it is underscorring the punitive policies and saying that Aborigines will no longer get so-called preferrential treatment or special privileges denied to white people.

Clearly the Intervention dog whistle was unsuccessful for Howard in retaining government.

However, it was a spectacular dog whistle of the first order, and has been so successful that it continues to wedge progressive Indigenous policy activists to this day – with some supporting it, and others opposing it. For Labor, there is no joy in my view. The voters at the Intervention sought to capture can be persuaded to vote Labor on other issues, like job security, education or health. Instead, it just marks Labor as continuing a failed, conservative policy of discrimination.

As the Intervention has largely been (from what I’ve seen and read about it) unsuccessful in achieving its stated aims, I believe that Labor should junk it and approach Indigenous policy from a fresh angle; one that isn’t stained with veiled racism and conservative dog whistle politics.

Trust and unions: some polling

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:40:47 +0000

Possum Pollytics reports on the 2010 professional rankings for honesty, conducted by Roy Morgan. The rankings are part of a ten-year series and asks people to rank various professions on their “perceived levels of honesty and ethical standards”.

The list is an interesting one in and of itself, but I’m particularly concerned about the ranking of “union leaders” – which ranks with a mere 15 percent for “high” or “very high” in terms of honesty and ethics.

While this doesn’t differentiate between union leaders and union officials (like organisers or industrial officers), or unions as institutions, the low ranking – below lawyers, politicians and bank managers – should be worrying for any unionist.

Of course, there are some mitigating circumstances. Both Howard and Rudd Governments ran smear campaigns against union leaders – campaigns that were out and out hostile. Targeted at both blue and white collar unions (construction unions and teachers unions for example), it would be odd for union leaders to rank as highly as nurses or the police.

Nevertheless, with a new ACTU President, a Federal election likely to be partly fought on WorkChoices, and an urgent need to increase union membership under the Fair Work Act, these figures must be taken seriously.

Dog whistles

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:06:02 +0000

There’s a bit of discussion around the traps to do with dog whistling. The idea is that Tony Abbott is dog whistling to the electorate on the issue of refugees by talking about “being tough on boat people” (one of his 12 point plan is “Enforce strict border security and control”). Similarly, Abbott’s ad showing the “threat” of Australia being swamped by asylum seekers, showing big red arrows attacking Australia has been presented as masterful dog whistle politics.

However, in my view, this is just an example of the Liberals and Tony Abbott sharpening their racist framing openly.

Dog whistle politics is about saying something that is interpreted by a certain section of the population differently to the rest of it. Howard’s statement that “we will decide who comes to Australia and the circumstances in which they come” is a dog whistle because for Australians who are anti-immigration and anti-foreigner, Howard is telling them “we’ll keep the foreigners out”. For the rest of Australia, it sounds like a simple border security issue without overt anti-foreigner overtones.

The red arrows and anti-boat people rhetoric from Tony Abbott and his immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison in comparison are just out and out courting the substrata of racist voters. There’s no dog whistle. It’s just a plain whistle that everyone can hear.

The Liberals have decided to try to legitimise anti-refugee, anti-boat people rhetoric in the public domain – much as Pauline Hanson did. While Howard was never out and out racist, because he courted the centre of Australian politics, Tony Abbott is all about agitating and exciting his ultra-conservative “base”. Because Rudd and Gillard have captured the centre, Abbott is adopting US-style Tea Party tactics.

The asylum seeker debate

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:01:27 +0000

Having put the mining tax “to bed”, political commentators are now stating that Julia Gillard’s (@juliagillard) next big test before the election is to resolve the “asylum seeker issue”.

The Liberals have long capitalised on sensationalising the “threat” of being swamped by boat people. Howard used this as a wedge issue against Labor for years, focusing on stirring up fears in the community about foreigners. The dog whistle politics of this tactic was aimed at legitimising the latent xenophobia that exists in some communities towards foreigners of particular ethnic backgrounds. Howard let people feel that it was okay to be worried that refugees and foreigners were a threat to the Australian way of life, and that there was a hoard of foreigners wanting to come to Australia by boat.

Recent election-eve ads by Tony Abbott featuring pictures of boats, big red arrows and a map of Australia is a more open form of stirring up xenophobia.

For progressive people who are concerned at the latent (or even overt) racism inherent in much of the conservative commentary about asylumn seekers, it is important to recognise that language is powerful.

Conservatives have successfully made the “asylum seekers issue” one about security, both the security of our borders, but also security of our homes and families. For example, conservatives warn about the “health risks” of African refugees “brining in disease”. They warn of “criminal gangs” of Asians or people of Middle Eastern appearances. They warn of the threat to our community from the construction of mosques or Muslim schools. They warn of the threat of terrorism from “terrorists sneaking into Australia on boats”. They warn about foreigners not intregrating or accepting “Australian values”.

The conserative “frame” is one that is variously subtly racist (generally Liberal MPs or Andrew Bolt) or overtly racist (anonymous “shit sheets”, or One Nation-types). It is very powerful. It relies on fear – one of the most powerful emotions. And the most powerful form of fear is fear of the unknown.

How can progressive activists combat this?

This graph, while well-intentioned, is not very effective. Via @robcorr.

For a start, we need to recognise that most people who are concerned about asylum seekers have formed their views based on their gut feelings. A purely information based campaign that logically points out the small number of asylum seekers that come into Australia will not work.

A lot of refugee rights groups for example point out that the overall intake of refugees is miniscule, and the number of asylum seekers that arrive by boat is even smaller. This approach will not work in changing people’s perceptions, because it does not fit with people’s lived experiences. Many people who are convinced by the conservative frame can see foreigners in their communities. They don’t really care if these foreigners are legitimate refugees, skilled migrants or international students – the point is that there is a perception of a noticable increase in non-Anglo people in the community.

Similarly, there are statistics that get used by pro-refugee advocates along the lines of “95 percent of boat people are genuine refugees”. These sentiments don’t recognise that many Australians who are worried about the “influx” of foreigners don’t like any new arrivals, regardless of whether they are legitimate or not.

Most Australians also don’t consider themselves racist, even if they hold views that stereotype certain ethnicities or nationalities. Progressive commentators that label concerns about asylum seeker arrivals as “racist” are actively alientating themselves from the mainstream debate, and are turning off the very people they should be talking to.

Julia Gillard’s first words on the asylum seeker debate as Prime Minister were therefore effective at getting people to listen. She said that it was legitimate to be worried or concerned, and called for a “debate”. While there may be concerns from pro-refugee activists that this legitimises racism, it is an effective way to get people to listen with open minds about a topic that they traditionally would never listen to Labor about.

With the fear of being labeled a “racist” off the agenda, Gillard may have opened the space for progressive pro-refugee activists to actually address what really concerns many Australians. It may also help ensure that the people concerned about immigration may be more open to listening to what pro-refugee activists have to say.

I recently heard an anecdote about a Canadian public awareness from the 1980s about the AIDS epidemic. The campaign was well and truly focus grouped and during one of the focus groups, a middle aged man and a younger gay man got into an argument about the issue. A third focus group participant interjected with the line “let’s just talk about this” – which led (so the anecdote goes) to the campaign slogan of “Let’s Talk About AIDS”. Regardless of the truth of this annecdote, it is a useful story from this point of view.

The asylum seeker debate is one that has many strong emotions from both progressive and conservative points of view. Julia Gillard’s mantra of “let’s have an open debate” to a certain extent defuses the debate. By saying “let’s talk about asylum seekers”, it reduces the polarisation and lets oxygen in for the progressive side who have been largely sidelined. It makes people more receptive to other ideas – so long as they are expressed respectfully and in an understanding manner. It lets pro-refugee groups have a geniune opportunity to change the views of people who have been worried about immigration and refugees.

I hope that Gillard and others make the most of this opportunity.

UPDATE: Polling on immigration

Possum Pollytics has crunched some numbers from a recent Essential Research polling report on attitudes towards immigration. The numbers are stark and underscore why its important for progressive activists to change the way we talk about refugees and immigration in general.

On average, Australia’s population increases by about 300,000 per year (less than 2%). Do you think this is too high, too low or about right?

These numbers underscore the difficulty facing pro-refugee activists. Most Australians think we have too high an immigation level. Even Greens Party supporters hold this view (far more than Labor or Liberal supporters actually) – many probably justifying this view on the basis of sustainability.(This graphic may be updated since there is clearly some missing data from the Greens Party column.)

Gillard and the Labor leadership

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 03:47:39 +0000

Gillard makes history as Australia’s first woman prime-minister. Today marks an important historical milestone for Australian politics and civil society.

Julia Gillard is without a doubt Labor’s best political operative and most effective communicator. She has shown she can cut through. Ultimately, this is what sealed Kevin Rudd’s fate. Rudd was only able to communicate during campaign set-pieces – like the health debate with Abbott or during the election campaign. For the last two years he has mostly sounded like a technocrat – and Australia stopped listening.

While I welcome Julia’s prime ministership, I am deeply concerned about the circumstances surrounding her ascendancy.

The New South Wales Right faction demonstrated its dangerous level of clout. Sick of being ignored, they turned on the man they installed over Beasley. They have shown a remarkable tendancy to quickly do in the leaders that do not treat them with almost slavish attention – Nathan Rees, Morris Iemma and now Kevin Rudd. Rudd largely ignored the factions – now they have strongly reasserted themselves as central to the exercise of power in the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party.

The fact that the parliamentary leadership of the Labor Party is determined by the vote of only Members of Parliament is now shown to be open to the manipulation of powerful, unaccountable factional forces. The destabilisation of Simon Crean in 2003-04 is also testament to this, as was the dumping of Bob Hawke. Rudd’s downfall is testament to the fact that leaders can too easily be destabilised.

Australian Labor needs to broaden the pool of people involved in the election of the leader.

The UK Labour Party has a vote of Parliamentarians, union affiliates and members. Not only do MPs vote, but (of course) their Members of European Parliament vote, as do local “constituency” Labor Parties and affiliated socialist societies. A third of the vote goes to MPs and MEPs, individual party members and affiliated organisations.

This seems to me to be a far better system, ensuring a far greater mandate for the elected leader, as well as ensuring greater stability.

Federal Labor has had some terrible leadership tensions in the past (thankfully avoided in this current very quick leadership change).

Fundamentally Labor needs to modernise so as to become more resilient to the arbitrary exercise of power by a sole group within the Parliamentary Party.

Gillard is the right choice for Labor leader. She will lead Labor to victory. It is just as well that the NSW Right has made the correct decision in this case. But they will not always do so, and Labor as an organisation must secure itself against the possibility of future bad decisions.

Joe Hockey doesn’t understand productivity: Great news for Tony Abbott

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:06:45 +0000

Joe Hockey’s budget reply speech yesterday to the National Press Club, universally described as a “shemozzle”, has revealed that the Shadow Treasurer doesn’t understand what productivity is. This is, of course, good news for Tony Abbott.

Joe Hockey doesn't know what productivity is. Photo: AAP: Alan Porritt.

Productivity is considered amongst neo-liberal economists as the key driver of economic growth and health. It is the key issue determining the rise and fall of Australia’s economic fortunes. The higher an economy’s productivity, the higher that country’s standard of living (measured in GDP).

Simply put, productivity is ratio of outputs (measured in the national accounts) to inputs (labour, materials, etc). It is a supply-side measure “capturing technical production relationships between inputs and outputs. But, implicitly, it is also about the production of goods and services that are desired, valued and in demand.” Productivity is important to the discussion around workplace relations because “productivity data are used to investigate the impact of product and labour market regulations on economic performance”.

Productivity is measured by aggregating labour productivity and capital productivity. Labour productivity defined as output per united of labour input (typically measured in hours of work), while capital productivity is efficiencies gained through capital stock (such as machines). Multifactor productivity is not widely used but is technically a better measure of productivity performance than labour productivity, and simply put is productivity improvements gained from better training, education, management practices and operational processes, rather than better machines or longer working hours.

Joe Hockey’s definition of productivity is:

Productivity growth, that is growth in GDP per capita…

He then goes into what the the Government should do to increase productivity.

This is, of course, unbelievably hypocritical (and also amazing that he gets productivity so wrong), because one of the main stated aims of WorkChoices was to increase productivity. The central objective, according to the then-Government was to “encourage the further spread of workplace agreements in order to increase productivity and hence the living standards of working Australians.” (Kevin Andrews, Hansard, 2 Nov 2005)

Hockey identifies the MUA/Webb Dock dispute as a good example of increasing workforce productivity. Working harder and longer is the most simplistic way to increase workforce productivity – and it just shows Hockey’s (and the Liberals’) lazy policy making that they consider this to be a good example.

Of course, during the WorkChoices period (2005-2007), productivity growth dropped, and there was negative growth in multifactor productivity in that period.

The Liberal Party, Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott want to bring WorkChoices back. Abbott is on the record as saying:

Let me begin my contribution to this debate by reminding members that workplace reform was one of the greatest achievements of the Howard government

Joe Hockey defended WorkChoices and the (false) claims that WorkChoices increases productivity.

Despite WorkChoices being a key plank in the Liberal Party’s economic plan to boost productivity (which it didn’t do), Joe Hockey has demonstrated that he doesn’t actually know what productivity is.

Good sources on productivity (that Joe Hockey should read):

Productivity Commission, Productivity Primer

Andrew Charlton, Ozonomics: Inside the myth of Australia’s economic superheroes, Random House Publishing, South Australia, 2007

OECD, OECD Compendium of Productivity Indicators, 2008

“Carefully scripted remarks” scandal is great news for Tony Abbott

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 04:18:10 +0000

You know when your remarks are reported by a major overseas news agency as “editor’s pick” that you’re on a winner.

Tony Abbott has been getting great press recent after he told Kerry O’Brien from the 7:30 Report that voters they should only believe his “carefully prepared scripted remarks” and not his off-the-cuff comments.

Anthony Albanese writes on the issue at The Punch:

Tony Abbott said “The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared, scripted remarks”. This extraordinary concession from ‘Phoney Tony’ was followed by ten minutes of evasion and confusion.

We know that Phoney Tony has been receiving acting lessons but quite clearly he’s acting coach forgot to tell him how important it was to stay ‘in character’.We know that Tony Abbott has extreme views on Work Choices, on social policy, on the public sector, and climate change scepticism but he has been trying to keep that in check. We now know from his own mouth that whenever he speaks it will be unclear whether it is ‘gospel truth Tony’ or ‘heat of the moment Tony’.

Tony Abbott has blown his own credibility out of the water and any Australian who was in any doubt over whether he was trustworthy now must take Tony at his word that he is not. Perhaps Tony Abbott will now drop the act for good and expose his extreme out of touch views for all to see.

I suspect though, Tony Abbott will continue to say anything and do anything in his search for power regardless of whether he believes his statements to be true or not.

This was the key exchange:

Abbott: “Kerry, all of us when we are in the heat of verbal combat so to speak will sometimes say things that go a little bit further.”

O’Brien: “Mr Abbott, we are not all leaders of major political parties.”

Abbott: “Politicians are going to be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely, uh, calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. Which is one of the reasons why, the, the the statements that need to be taken absolutely, as, as gospel truth is those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.”

The entire transcript is here.

UPDATE:

Karl Bitar just tweeted the link to the latest ALP ad on Abbott’s admission.