May 2002

The second is the draconian nature of the anti-terrorism legislation. Liberal critics are fighting a toe-to-toe battle with the Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, for changes to protect civil liberties.

The third revolt is over plans for Australia to ratify a new International Criminal Court (ICC) which would try war criminals.

In our highly disciplined party system, backbenchers are often thought of as just ciphers. Hardly anyone ever crosses the floor. And, usually, the way for a government private member to get on is to keep his or her tongue in check.

But sometimes, driven by the pragmatism of electoral survival or higher motives, those who sit behind the ministers on those green and pink parliamentary benches choose to take on key issues.

Both Howard and John Anderson are keenly aware of their followers - they know the dangers of riding roughshod over them.

So, as the Nationals' backbench flares went up over Telstra after the party's Senate leader, Ron Boswell, said on Sunday that services were getting very nearly up to scratch - the Government's condition for sale - Anderson jumped in quickly.

..The big question is whether the Nationals' backbench disquiet could be strong enough to derail the Alston-Peter Costello timetable for a move on Telstra (still very unlikely to pass the Senate) later this year or early next.

..The Telstra struggle within the Coalition will take time to play out. In contrast, we'll see very soon the outcome of the resistance from the backbench attorney-general's committee to the "proscription" section in the anti-terrorism legislation. This gives the Government wide powers to ban organisations with terrorist links.

The backbenchers have gone after Williams like bull terriers. They include the Queensland Liberal George Brandis, who in another guise is Government counter-attack dog on the "children overboard" inquiry.

Williams and Christopher Pyne, chairman of the committee, met this week. What happened is being closely held. What's in the balance is whether the Government drops altogether the proscription proposal.

..While the rebellion over the anti-terrorism provisions is coming mainly (though not entirely) from the Liberal Party Left, that against the ratification of the treaty for the International Criminal Court has been from the Right. The court, which comes into being from July 1, will deal with war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.

..Liberal backbenchers Bronwyn Bishop (NSW), Patrick Secker (SA) and Sophie Panopoulos (Victoria) flagged opposition in the party room on Tuesday - the debate will be next week.

Bishop argues: "It's denying our sovereignty." Advocates say "Australia can pass its own laws and so long as Australia is investigating and/or prosecuting, the ICC can't hear. But the problem is the ICC is the body deciding if [the country] is investigating and prosecuting sufficiently."

..Significantly, one or two backbenchers, previously in favour, seem to be flirting with second thoughts. Brandis, who regards himself as a small-l liberal, began by thinking Australia should accede, but says now he has "growing scepticism".

Adventurous Coalition sources see a possible linkage between the proscription and the ICC debates. On this scenario, some on the Right might agree with the small-l liberals about the evils of proscribing, if the small-l liberals agreed to the killing of the ICC ratification.

Bronwyn Bishop is on record against both proscription and the ICC ratification, by conviction rather than convenience. In the party-room discussion of the anti-terrorism bills she said that if she had been old enough to vote in the referendum to ban the Communist Party, she would have voted no. It's unwise to typecast backbenchers.

- Michelle Grattan, Sydney Morning Herald (May 31)

Nasty Game Better Left Out
There is something politically unhealthy about the Liberal Party's rising demonisation of the word "Left". It has more than a faint stench of the McCarthyism that so ravaged American politics in the late 1940s and '50s.

But at least Senator McCarthy and his ilk had a reasonably focused target, which was the genuinely evil and expansionist communism of Stalin's Soviet Union. Despite all the hysteria generated by McCarthy, there actually were subversive traitors in the United States of the time - the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss among them.

But the present, cynical Liberal Party campaign against "the Left" is less focused and vaguely defined. This does not make it less pernicious. Rather, it widens its scope and makes room for all kinds of people and institutions to be labelled with what Howard and Costello presumably hope will be suspicion and contempt.

At one level the campaign has echoes of Lewis Carroll and the Red Queen: one can almost imagine Peter Costello saying "the word Left means exactly what I want it to mean - no more, no less". But at a deeper level it is debasing the whole arena of serious political debate in Australia.

Last week, for example, Costello spoke about the "entrenched left-wing culture" of the ABC and added "it is even left of the Labor Party". This apparently purported to be the final condemnation of the ABC, yet no serious political observer (including, one would suppose, most Liberal Party professionals) would genuinely consider the ALP to be a raving left-wing political force. It must be among the most conservative and stodgy mainstream leftist parties in the world.

Indeed, many present critics of Labor have difficulty in separating its namby-pamby me-tooism from the policies of the Coalition Government.

The charge that some ABC employees are "to the left of the Labor Party" simply means, at its best (or worst), that they have sharper, more focused criticisms to make of the governance of Australia. It is criticism and scepticism, not leftism, that get up the nose of the Government.

Yet criticism and scepticism are the basis of democratic politics. More than that, criticism and scepticism lie at the very heart of what could be called Australianism. Some might prefer to harden the terms to whingeing and cynicism.. It is one of the solid foundations of our democracy.

By seeking to subvert this, making it initially at least, unacceptable to hierarchies of power, the right-wing Liberals (who these days seem to constitute most of the party) are playing a very nasty game - transforming what was a healthy manifestation of free thinking, into something that has to be thought about twice before a career is ruined or a reputation sullied.

In the present climate these fears do not seem to be exaggerated. The constant harping of the Government on the alleged "bias" of the media has led to almost ludicrous efforts to give the impression of "balance".

..Carried to extremes the call for balance would demand that business scandals such as insider trading, the HIH/FAI affair or the collapse of Ansett would somehow, in the interests of "balance", be treated as though there are no principles involved, only opposing views.

The truth is that in a democracy the public, which is constantly being deluged with information is quite capable of discerning the chaff from the grain of truth. What is needed, though, is a source and a point of view that is established and well known . That is what political parties need, what media need and what commentators must have. Whether Right, Left or Centre, the recipients require a guiding focal point of established philosophies and attitudes from which to judge what they are told.

Incidentally, a dictionary definition of the word "liberal" is "having, expressing or following political views that favour non-revolutionary progress and reforms". That is what R.G. Menzies had in mind when he formed the Liberal Party out of the shell of the old United Australia Party.

It's a pity John Howard and Peter Costello do not seem to remember it.

- Peter Robinson, Financial Review (May 30)

A Brilliant Military Strategy
John Howard has staged a public relations coup with Peter Cosgrove's appointment as defence chief after the PR disaster that rocked his government's relations with the military during the children overboard affair.

There were smiles at the announcement, but the ramifications of the affair cast a pall.

Chris Barrie has played a significant role in modernising the military over the past four years and secured its future with the commitments of the 2000 Defence White Paper, but his credibility was shot by almost farcical support of the government in the overboard debate, putting him at odds with his entire leadership team.

Into his shoes steps a rolled-gold hero, decorated in Vietnam, commander in East Timor and Australian of the Year. Cosgrove, unlike Barrie, is popular across the ranks and adept at handling the media.

His charm should play no small part in rebuilding the troops' trust in the leadership and reassuring a force resentful of being used as a political football. The move completes a remarkable rise, and follows Cosgrove leapfrogging more experienced officers to head the army on the back of his success in East Timor.

Navy chief, Vice-Admiral David Shackleton, who blew the whistle on the overboard claims, is departing, wondering if his frankness cost him the top job. Of those around him, only air force chief Angus Houston remains. Houston's frank advice to the government that it had been misled was pilloried by the Prime Minister earlier this year. He won admiration for his grace under fire, and is seen as next in line for the top job.

Earlier this year Barrie was talking about extending his term, but his hopes went overboard with the controversy. Ironically, he is much more of a modernist than Cosgrove, and it will be curious to see how his successor deals with social change in the military, particularly the controversial issue of women on the front line.

- Mark Forbes, The Age (May 29)

Separate Paths To One End
Oh dear, the National Party is facing imminent demise – again. Last week's musings by senator Nick Minchin over amalgamation of the Coalition parties has sparked yet another round of comment from the usual suspects about this party's place in Australian politics.

Hardly a year has passed in the 82 years since this party was formed without some political commentators confidently predicting its end.

..I take particular exception to the criticism that National Party cabinet ministers hold their positions by political arrangement rather than on merit. If this country has had a better trade minister than Mark Vaile in recent decades, it would only be his National Party predecessor, Tim Fischer. Likewise, Warren Truss stands very high in the ranks of Australian agriculture ministers, and continues the work of myself and Vaile (both former agriculture ministers) in addressing vital reform for agriculture.

All have pushed ahead with often painful but necessary reforms in the farm sector – and fought entrenched interests in our own constituency – knowing reform was needed in both the national interest and the long-term interest of farmers.

..The modern party and its leadership are castigated for losing the influence attributed to the "Black Jack" McEwen era. But when we take a stand on an issue – the further sale of Telstra, for example – we're castigated for being economically irresponsible and standing in the way of progress. It seems that we are to be damned for being the tail wagging the dog – and doubly damned for not wagging hard enough.

The Nationals are certainly a special interest party, but it is not a narrow one. Its special interest is the economic and social development of people who live in rural and regional Australia. We represent some of the nation's most productive and innovative industries, but we also represent some of Australia's poorest electorates. (In the 1996 census, the six federal seats with the lowest median family income were all National Party ones.) WE represent families bearing and bringing up children hundreds of kilometres away from doctors, schools, hospitals and childcare, and we represent seats that are ageing far faster than the rest of Australia. There is more to National Party voters than the dismissive description of them as people "who still want road subsidies and rail lines to nowhere".

..The Nationals fully understand the unique circumstances and challenges faced by regional communities and families, and that these circumstances often require unique means of policy and program delivery.

True, the Nationals' federal representation has been eroded in the 1990s. And it's true that this is in part because of demographic drift. But the National Party has also suffered the political cost of taking the lead in Australian politics against the type of bad policies pursued by the US, Europe and Asia in regard to trade-distorting domestic subsidies.

We have measured this cost in losses to the simplistic, and ultimately misleading, populism espoused by people such as Bob Katter and One Nation – the latter of which we fought long and hard and managed to see off at the last election, to the great benefit of the nation.

If the party has failed its constituents in any way, it is that the forms and structure of the party have not kept pace with the changes that have occurred in regional Australia. That's why, as part of my leadership, I have started a process of reform to restructure the Nationals as a more modern political organisation, better able to reflect and represent the aspirations of modern regional Australia. The success of these reforms will be judged by the people of regional Australia in coming elections.

The core point that the National Party's critics continually forget is that political parties are not formed in parliaments, they are formed in communities. And the communities of regional Australia have given the National Party the largest formal membership of any political party in this country.

John McEwen put it this way when he recorded his memoirs in 1974: "I am sure that if the Country Party were to disappear, if its members were to join the Liberals, then another Country Party would crop up almost the next week. This is because the Country Party represents a distinct and identifiable set of economic and social interests that would want to make their voice heard."

The comment remains as valid today as it was nearly 30 years ago.

- John Anderson, Leader of the National Party, The Australian (May 28)

Carefree Howard To Bat On
If you stick around politics long enough, everything old becomes new again. And in the case of John Howard and Peter Costello there are now emerging parallels with the prequel to the epic struggle in the early 1990s between Paul Keating and Bob Hawke.

There is now evident psychological angst over the inevitable leadership transition in the Liberal Party. It is worth repeating that nothing is actually happening in terms of counting numbers or the Treasurer positioning himself for a challenge. He continues to loyally await Howard's pleasure. But the inherent tension in the dynamic of such a process is producing effects of its own. And Howard, deliberately or otherwise, is not helping. There are games being played here.

So, after two weeks ago insisting he had "nothing to add" on the leadership question, in Beijing last week he chose to answer another way. Howard insisted: "The hands are still relaxed around the grip of the bat."

..The questions followed the publication of a Newspoll in Sydney's The Daily Telegraph showing a majority of voters wanted Howard to stay on as PM. The poll was published under the headline: "Please don't go, John".

Reporter: "Are you pleased that almost 50 per cent of voters want you to stay on? Does public opinion play any role in your decision to step off the stage?"

Howard: "I've got nothing to add on that." And then, after a slight pause, he did: "The hands are still relaxed around the grip of the bat," he said with a smile. The transcript issued by the PM's office then reads: "Does that mean (inaudible)?"

I can tell you what the "inaudible" was, because I asked the question. What I said was: "Does that mean you're loosening your grip?" To which Howard replied: "No. You know exactly . . . didn't you ever play cricket, Glenn?"

Howard is a cricket tragic and I'm a cricket ignoramus. It was later explained to me that "relaxed" hands around the bat relates to playing spin bowling. It means the batsman is totally in charge of the situation, is enjoying his innings, and – most importantly in this context – isn't planning on leaving the crease any time soon.

..Is Costello feeling the effects? That's hard to determine. Last week he gave a speech in Adelaide which The Advertiser reporter present interpreted through a leadership prism. Costello recounted how he'd outlasted most of the finance ministers in Asia. The gag involved recounting the number who've quit, been thrown out or even jailed for corruption.

I know, because Costello first retailed the joke to me privately at least two years ago. He's told it publicly at least a dozen times since, and no one's taken a blind bit of notice. Except this time.

Without knowing this background, The Advertiser saw Costello's suggestion that "finance ministers don't live very long in the job" and "to have stayed here for seven years means I'm a bit long in the tooth" as evidence of a Treasurer who thinks his time's up.

That set the scene for a radio interview the next day, with 3AW's Neil Mitchell during which the Treasurer was asked whether he would deliver next year's Budget: "If I am around, Neil, we will focus on that next year."

There was more in the same vein, all seemingly indicating a man uncertain about his future. At the very least Costello, in the current climate, should have chosen his words more carefully. Those close to him insist there was no intent.

Regardless, his public musings were redolent of Keating's as treasurer. As he watched Hawke digging in and his shot at history receding, Keating used to ruminate semi-publicly about the "Paris option" – code for getting out of politics, making some money and enjoying the finer things in life.

..Then, as now, frustration and ambition denied can be an explosive force.. Obviously it has not yet come to this between Costello and Howard. But it is worth noting that like Howard, Hawke sought to use an international conflict to justify hanging on to office. In his case it was the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. For Howard it's the war on terror.

..Howard and Costello are eyeing each other off, trying to mind-read, and looking at the tea leaves of minor utterances and signals for some clue to each other's intent. In the end this is bound to become corrosive. It's the stuff of dangerous misunderstandings.

As to Howard's ultimate intentions, one of the pro-Keating Labor conspirators who helped finally blast Hawke out of the prime ministership observed yesterday: "He [Howard] will try and stay. It's the lead in the paint at the Lodge, mate. It gets in their brain. Even if they do live at Kirribilli."

- Glenn Milne, The Australian (May 27)

W's Grand Tour
Moscow - This used to be the Evil Empire.

But now we need the old Evil Empire to help us with the new Axis of Evil and the Evildoers. (Even though the ex-Evil Empire is helping the country that dubbed us the Great Satan gain nuclear capability.) So now Russia is the Good Empire.

..Vladimir Putin, once regarded by the foreign policy nanny Condi Rice as a suspect former K.G.B. chief, is now W.'s beloved Pootie-Poot. In Bushworld, especially since 9/11, it's always either good or evil. The Bush doctrine is as basic as a Texas two-step: Either you're with us on terrorism, or agin' us.

W. is Manichaean Man. He used to be his father's White House loyalty enforcer, but had no interest in foreign affairs. Now he's the global loyalty enforcer. Before Mr. Bush left Washington, some Europeans sneered that "Bully Bush" had turned into something even more irritating: a missionary.

In Berlin, Mr. Bush's first stop on a trip full of fabulous cities he had never visited, he was asked by a snippy local peacenik reporter to "try to explain to the German people what your goals are when it comes to Iraq." The president huffed: "He's a dictator who gassed his own people."

It had to be the most powerful statement in postwar Germany, but the president seemed oblivious to its power. He had used the line before, but never in a country that had actually had a dictator who gassed his own people. Afterward, he told German lawmakers that the terrorists were like those who had "killed in the name of racial purity. . . . We are defending civilization itself."

Like Ronald Reagan, W.'s appeal is that he is an All-American who believes what he believes. And he trusted his gut to create a new dynamic with a Russian leader. But such a lack of nuance over the long term could be worrisome. As Murray Kempton said, there is "the evil of lesser evilism." The Bushes exhibit a moral myopia, thinking anything they do must be virtuous because they see themselves as virtuous.

W. has embraced Pakistan because it is helping in our fight against terrorism. But the general is not doing enough to fight his own militants, who are pushing India to the brink of nuclear war. Pakistan does not share our democratic values; this is a place where a young woman was recently sentenced to death by stoning. Her crime? She was raped by a relative.

The Mideast mess also shows the limits of a Manichaean presidency.

..A German reporter advised the president to "look beyond Iraq" and see that "Syria, too, in U.S. terminology, is a state sponsor of terrorism" and that "Saudi Arabia is anything but a democratic pluralistic society."

As a European ambassador to NATO said about Bush's fixation with Saddam, "You Americans want to kill the crocodile, and we think it's safer to drain the swamp."

This trip has shown why Bush likes a world so starkly colored. He does not seem curious about exploring cities he has never seen. He likes to avoid casual contact with the press and stay within his own self-affirming circle (including Deputy Secretary of State Karl Rove.)

In Berlin, Mr. Bush called the presidency "life in the bubble." Since 9/11, he has tried to put America in a black-and-white bubble. His pals Gerhard and Vladimir have tried to show him some different shades, Berlin gray and Kremlin red.

- Maureen Dowd, New York Times (May 26)

Poorly Equipped And Out Of Pocket
John Howard doesn't know it but he missed an opportunity to win a swag of extra seats at the last federal election. You'll recall the PM agreed to participate in only one televised debate with Kim Beazley, which was held ridiculously early in the campaign. The then Opposition leader was adjudged to have won it comfortably.

Later that night, Beazley was having a drink with colleagues in a hotel bar when a few journos were invited to join him. The big fella was pretty happy with his performance, but surprised that Howard hadn't quizzed him about the Collins-class submarines. Commissioned by Beazley when he was defence minister, the "dud subs" had suffered long delays and cost overruns.

He said there had been a deliberate Coalition campaign of misinformation on the Collins subs and he'd prepared a justification of the project on the assumption it would be raised by Howard or debate host Ray Martin.

Unfortunately, Beazley proceeded to regale everyone with his answer. It was excruciatingly long and, from the pool of glazed eyes around the room, mostly incomprehensible. Had he delivered it on TV, those viewer ratings worms would have been sent speeding through the bottom of the screen and into the carpet. Kerry Packer would have leapt straight on the blower demanding the debate be pulled and replaced with something interesting like the test pattern.

Defence, we know, is important because the PM loves surrounding himself with soldiers, has spared the department from budget cuts and has made great play of providing billions of extra dollars for military hardware.

But revelations this week that taxpayers are forking out almost $1 billion for 11 navy helicopters – seven of which are almost 40 years old – make your eyes water.

Again, the Seasprite debacle is complicated – the second-hand choppers are being rebuilt from old airframes – but as anyone who has bought a used car understands, there's a strong whiff of lemon about the deal.

Australia has already paid nearly $800 million for helicopters that won't be in operation for at least four years. We've also forked out $30 million for the facility to maintain the Seasprites – it's got all the hi-tech equipment and a dozen staff, but no choppers to work on.

Now we know from the children-overboard inquiry – yes, it's still going on – that the Defence Department can't organise itself to get a simple, if vaguely unpleasant, message to our senior politicians. If some of the financial debacles that have occurred in Defence happened in other parts of government, you wouldn't be able to move for all the blood and entrails of sacrificed bureaucrats and politicians.

Yet the Government, with the broad support of the Opposition, happily goes on emptying tankfuls of money into the military's coffers while slugging pensioners more for their medicine and scaring the disabled witless.

Apparently this is good politics. Lord defend us.

- Matt Price, The Australian (May 25)

Democrats Fiddle As Budget Burns
Peter Costello's Budget has the capacity to break Natasha Stott Despoja's leadership of the Australian Democrats.

All the conditions that existed before Meg Lees was removed as Democrats' leader last year are applicable to her successor. All it will take is for a strategic mistake over the budget process and another poor state election showing – NSW early next year – and Stott Despoja will be out of excuses and in the firing line.

Not only does Stott Despoja have to make a credible job of negotiating budget changes and legislative amendments through the Senate, she also has to compete for political credibility and publicity with the ALP, the Greens, the National Party and even Liberal Party backbenchers. It is a big ask and there's an electoral test at the end.

It was Stott Despoja who launched a leadership challenge because the Democrats had done poorly in state elections and were well below their peak in the opinion polls.

She and her supporters have used gains last year in the opinion polls, the Aston by-election, and the ACT and Northern Territory elections to justify her leadership and the removal of Lees. Yet the loss of a Senate seat in NSW, a nationwide fall in the Democrats' Senate vote from 8.45 per cent in 1998 to 7.25 per cent in 2001, the return in Newspoll surveys to the levels of support when Lees was removed as leader and a halving of the party's vote in the South Australian state election – the Democrats' stronghold state – have been blamed on Lees's support for the GST or explained as not reflecting Stott Despoja's personal vote.

..Facing his first Budget as Opposition Leader, Simon Crean has survived the initial tests of presenting a considered reply speech, avoiding negativity, remaining relevant, not tying himself down on detail and getting a six-point boost in voter satisfaction, according to Newspoll.

The challenges are the same for Stott Despoja, but by her own reasoning and actions she has invested far more in how the process unfolds than anyone else.

Her initial reaction to the Budget has been to oppose the increase in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and tighter restrictions on the Disabled Support Pension, which she has told John Howard "the Australian Democrats cannot support". She has invited Howard to negotiate directly with her in an attempt to "offer a solution to the budget impasse".

Stott Despoja has offered herself as the solution to the Budget. If the measures fail to pass and the Senate is seen as obstructing the Government, the Democrats have ensured they will be held responsible.

Also, if Crean outmanoeuvres the Democrats and negotiates an acceptable outcome on the measures, it will add to his credibility and take the limelight from the Democrats.

At the same time, the Liberal backbench is in full-blown rebellion over the draconian anti-terrorist laws – specifically the Government's attempts to proscribe certain organisations – and may steal some of the credit for ameliorating the laws, leaving little role for the Senate.

..Stott Despoja has leapt into the budget bargaining process when there are those within her party demanding they get what they were promised. Crean has got to first base; Stott Despoja has to be careful she's not struck out.

- Dennis Shanahan, The Australian (May 24)

Left Cannot Go Forward Looking Back
Throughout history national leaders have promised freedom, equality, moral invigoration and national pride; now they promise more economic growth. If at any time there were doubts about the ends to which a nation should aspire, there are no more.

But in the face of all of the fantastical promise of economic growth, at the beginning of the 21st century we are confronted by an awful fact. Despite high and sustained levels of economic growth in the West over a period of 50 years - growth that has seen average real incomes increase several times over - the mass of people are no more satisfied with their lives now than they were then. If the purpose of growth has been to give us better lives - and there is no other purpose - then it has manifestly failed.

There is a mass of evidence to support this but a simple test is just to ask the person next to you whether they believe that on the whole people are happier now than they were 40 or 50 years ago. Almost everyone says "no".

Over the last 25 years politics in the West have been marked by the ideological convergence of the main parties.

Sharing neo-liberalism's obsession with growth, social democratic parties have abandoned their traditional commitments and converged on the free market policies of the conservatives.

The blame for this convergence must be laid principally at the feet of the social democratic and labour parties. People no longer know what distinguishes parties of the Left.

Party loyalty has been eroded because the sense of class solidarity that once defined the parties of the Left has evaporated. The more the parties converge in substance, the more they must attempt to differentiate themselves through spin. The party manifesto is meaningless because ideas no longer matter. The party ideologists have been supplanted by the pollsters and policy analysts have been replaced by spin doctors. Kim Beazley deserved to lose.

Increasingly, the major parties of Left and Right are dominated by careerists who stand for nothing.

They must therefore whip themselves into frenzies over trivia, lashing out at their opponents while tacitly agreeing not to break the neo-liberal consensus on fundamentals. No wonder people are alienated.

In the age of abundance, the defining predicament is not a lack of money, but a lack of meaning. Meaninglessness is the hollow centre of life in modern consumer capitalism, the hole we try to fill with more consumption.

Persuaded by the marketeers that more consumption is what people really want, Third Way politicians such as Mark Latham have discarded the pursuit of a better society for a "lifestyle politics" based on superficiality and greed, and are reduced to making cheap appeals to "aspirational" voters.

Nor do the slogans of the loyal Left retain their appeal. For all of the nobility of the underlying values, dreaming of a return to the days of Whitlam, most recently expressed by former Whitlam staffer and MP Race Mathews, mean little today.

The Left cannot go forward by looking backwards.

- Clive Hamilton, Financial Review (May 23)

The Bloke Wasn't All Bad
John Gorton was stubborn, wilful, erratic, open, sharp-minded, rubber-tongued, self-destructive, immensely charming (when it suited), immensely natural, just as immensely rude (when it suited), hugely likable (mostly) and, while ever there was breath in his body, intensely and passionately Australian. What he was not was a great prime minister, or even a very good one. Only death has made him either of these in the extravagance of language which is as much a part of the rites of passage as is humbug and hypocrisy.

It is 31 years since Gorton's Liberal Party colleagues dispossessed him and gave the prime ministership to Billy McMahon, a vastly lesser man but an infinitely more accomplished and sly politician... Gorton was destroyed by his own wilful flaunting, throughout his leadership, of conventional policies and attitudes so long embraced by the Menzies era of Liberal rule.. His party would have eaten him, even more noisily, had Gorton not accepted defeat and gone.

It is 27 years tomorrow since Gorton, appalled by the Liberals' election of Malcolm Fraser as leader two months earlier, resigned from the Liberal Party in disgust. Seven months later, in the 1975 election that confirmed the death of the Whitlam government, Gorton's quixotic bid to regain a Senate seat as an independent was just as easily swept aside. He'd even advocated a vote for Labor.

For all of the next 16 years the Liberal Party shunned Gorton, and it was John Hewson, himself a political pariah with his colleagues after his leadership collapsed in 1994, who began the process of drawing Gorton back into the fold a decade ago.

Yet most of those brave Liberal souls who've been making so much of Gorton's "greatness" since his death on Sunday went absolutely missing for two decades, and longer. I can't ever remember John Howard, for instance, in his first 20 years of political life, having a good word for the man he now tells us was a "very distinguished Australian".

However, it wasn't only the politicians.. The press gave Gorton an absolute pizzling for much of the time he was prime minister. My recollection is he was forever being monstered or lampooned by some journalist or editorial or other, while the cartoonists had a picnic.

..Yet Gorton was, in his singular way, exactly what Howard says he was: a distinguished Australian, even if his ambivalent attitude to Aborigines and immigration wouldn't bear too great a scrutiny.. In those three years of his prime ministership, he was a blast of fresh air too many poe-faced Liberals (and too many of us in the press) never really understood.

..When Malcolm Fraser, someone whom Gorton, quite wrongly, never forgave, acknowledged him unreservedly two days ago as "a great nationalist passionate about Australia", I thought it an honest tribute to a party leader and prime minister who, as Fraser told Parliament at the time, had been disloyal to him, one of his senior ministers, and yet, across the next 30 years, right up to his death, never conceded fault.

The great pity is that Gorton should have gone to his grave without any resolution between them.

- Alan Ramsey, Sydney Morning Herald (May 22)

Never Mind The Wedge, Feel The Splinters
A funny thing happened on the road to sticking another wedge into the Labor Party courtesy of the terrorism legislation. John Howard stuck a great big wedge into his party instead. It seemed so easy to rely on the precedent of the first border protection legislation just before the federal election, where he rode public emotion to produce intolerable legislation, forced Labor to oppose its excesses, then accused it of liking boat people.

With terrorism, he rode public fear post-September 11 to release a voluminous package of new legislation one night and get it through the House of Representatives the next. Labor organised a quickie Senate committee inquiry to salve its conscience.

Labor, rigid with fear after the border protection experience - which some blame for the loss of the election - then kept its head down. The media were in no mood to tell the public the facts, either. They protested loudly about an element which affected them - a crushing clampdown on whistleblowers - and the Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, backed down.

Most media then did nothing to bring Australian's attention to the trashing of civil liberties - including the right to protest and to picket - of the ordinary citizen.

Despite this, the Senate committee was inundated with 431 submissions - from the former NSW Liberal attorney-general John Dowd, the Law Council of Australia, a bevy of legal and security academics, Amnesty International, the Uniting and Catholic churches and individual Australians.

The result: overwhelming evidence of a wholesale assault on freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, even freedom of thought. The Liberal committee members - moderate NSW senator Marise Payne, conservative Queensland senator Brett Mason and Country Liberal Party senator Nigel Scullion - joined Labor members to condemn the legislation. All wanted the power for Williams to unilaterally ban political organisations dumped, a significant tightening of the definition of "terrorist act" and the addition of intention as an element of new criminal offences.

That was just the beginning of the collapse of Howard's wedge strategy. The Senate report emboldened Labor to put up stronger amendments, and when Williams put a few amendments to the Liberal backbench committee overseeing his activities early last week, they said no. South Australian moderate Christopher Pyne, centre-right Queensland senator George Brandis - Howard's personal choice as defence counsel at the children overboard inquiry - and West Australian moderate Julie Bishop stared him down.

At last Tuesday's joint party room meeting, Howard told Williams to negotiate a solution but, despite more backtracking, he still got nowhere. Howard faced a full-on assault on the bill by a growing number of Liberals across the factions - a de facto debate on the core values of the Liberal Party.

On Thursday, he called an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis. At a 6.30pm special joint party meeting, at which MPs were sworn to secrecy, the backbench remained split on one key point - the banning of political organisations, now to be done only by Parliament - and almost united in opposition to the plan to reverse the onus of proof for new offences carrying the penalty of life in prison. Howard promised to take on board the dissidents' comments and come back to them with another compromise.

Howard's wedge play has backfired. Labor now wonders just how few of its amendments will be needed. The Liberal Party has told Howard point-blank that his border protection tactic was a one-off (many Liberals kept their mouths shut to win the election), not a precedent to do whatever he wants to split Labor.

Federal politicians have already received thousands of emails from the public protesting against the proposed legislation. The far Right - the Citizens Electoral Council and One Nation - is fighting against it as hard as are the Left, small "l" liberals, and right-wing libertarians including Bronwyn Bishop.

The Liberal impasse wrecked Williams's plan to get the package through the Senate last week. He must now wait until June 17 when the Senate resumes sitting, leaving a month for more Australians to understand what the Government is trying to do to their democracy and their liberties. Watch this space.

- Margo Kingston, Sydney Morning Herald (May 21)

The Nationals, Where Sheep Are Nervous
For the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, while there's no agitation on either side within the Liberal Party, the continuing speculation in the media has generated a dynamic all of its own. And elements of the National Party are not happy about it. And they're unhappier with Costello than they are with Howard.

While the Government is formally a coalition, the Nationals don't have a vote on who becomes the leader of the Liberal Party and therefore prime minister. But they do have a view. And in some sections it's strongly anti-Costello and highly pro-Howard.

..A majority of National MPs, on their colleagues' own estimation, believe that Howard is much the preferred option in the bush and that Costello does not go down well in the regions. "The last round of leadership speculation was particularly destabilising," says one. "They're shitting themselves about the prospect of Costello becoming prime minister. He hasn't shown the slightest interest in regional affairs."

Which is not fair, of course. Take the GST, which Costello drove, along with Howard. The farm lobby had been demanding a broad-based consumption tax since the days when Ian McLachlan headed up the ultra-dry National Farmers Federation. The tax reform package cut diesel fuel excise by 24c per litre and lifted all taxes off exporters. Which is what most of Australia's farmers are.

..That sort of performance though, doesn't still Costello's National Party critics. Among them, tax reform is seen as Howard's achievement, rather than the Treasurer's. I asked one National Party MP whether Costello resonates in the bush. "Oh, he resonates all right," the MP replied darkly. "He resonates."

Where those Nationals do see Costello "resonating", it's for the wrong reasons. For example, national competition policy. Howard, by contrast, is described as "pragmatic". By that, the old agrarian socialists in the "cockies corner" of parliament mean the Prime Minister is not averse to a bit of sectoral assistance, like last year's sugar industry package.

Those Nationals lobbying against Costello give it to the Treasurer both coming and going; he's regarded as too dry on economics and too small-l liberal on social policy, reconciliation, the republic and the like.. The Nats are comfortable with a government that bans films such as Baise Moi and shares the same tough attitude to pornography as Tasmanian independent senator Brian Harradine. That's Howard's comfort zone as well.

Happy to see Howard continue as Prime Minister, the anti-Costello Nationals are particularly angry at what they see as the destabilising effect of continued leadership speculation. Which, of course, has nothing to with the Treasurer. He has been the most loyal Liberal Party deputy leader of the modern era.

But, say the Nationals' anti-Costello forces, continuity is what the bush wants.. Back in 1968, the Nationals' (then the Country Party's) legendary leader, "Black Jack" McEwen, vetoed Billy McMahon from becoming prime minister in favour of John Gorton. No one in the National Party will ever see that happen again. The power balance within the Coalition has shifted irrevocably towards the Liberals, and Anderson is no McEwen.

But those Nationals who are opposed to a Costello ascension do want to have their say. No matter how quixotic their cause. And they just spoke.

- Glenn Milne, The Australian (May 20)

We Will Not Be Safe While Tied To US Foreign Policy
So, under Peter Costello's "Keeping Australia Safe" budget, it is going to cost more to treat the common cold but we will be able to do it in a safe and secure environment. Sounds good and plays well in the electorate, but not so. Not unless Australia and other Western nations show greater vision in formulating defence and foreign policy.

Broadly, Australia's policies in defence differ from those of the Bush administration only in the way we spell it. Australia is part of whatever the US is planning. The next announcement may be the invasion of Iraq and the deployment of up to 500,000 troops. It will make Afghanistan look like a walk in the park.

And while we might support the government's stand, and many of its budget plans for increases in defence spending are sensible, we need to know that under the umbrella of Western foreign policy Australia is now a more prominent target and until that policy changes, no budget can make us "safe".

In a dark legacy from the Sydney Olympics, Australia is now better prepared for a biological/chemical attack than any other country. But that defence is far from tested. While everything possible was done for the Games, a determined attack could not have been prevented.

Yes, there was a marked increase in the efficiency of intelligence services here and overseas, but who had ever heard of Martin Bryant before he slaughtered people in Tasmania? Intelligence systems will not normally detect the Martin Bryants any more than they will detect the dozens of teenagers around the world who are being taught to hate the US and the West (including Australia) to the point that they will strap on explosives and sacrifice themselves in despair and martyrdom.

Yes, the air that visitors to the Games breathed was sampled at various points around the city every single day. And yes, a change would have been picked up because the normal air was tested 12 months before. And yes, mobile laboratories were in place to identify the substance. But once anthrax or smallpox, for example, has been released, it is not a defence but a "whole of agency" approach that is required. That includes police, fire, ambulance, media and health - GPs and hospitals.

And in this "brave new war against terror" the public is going to have to get used to seeing emergency services personnel in biochemical suits and aircraft flying over previously peaceful cities - although as the incident in Sydney demonstrated last week, it will help if defence gets its act together with a simple warning to the public.

If a smallpox attack were made, we would realise that most of the population is not immunised. But such an attack is unlikely at present. There is time for the West, and in particular the US, to have a dramatic rethink of foreign policy.

That policy must recognise the rights of all, not just those of the West. To cite but one example, the Israelis have suffered terribly but of all peoples, they should know better than anyone what it is to have lost your country and to live in ghettos. Until the Palestinians have a state, the Palestinian teenagers who have lost their parents, brothers and sisters and homes at the hands of the West will continue to martyr themselves.

And when science makes it easier to deliver weapons of mass destruction, the air in Flinders Street and other train stations around the country might carry much more than the common cold. Not even the Howard/Costello spin can cater for that.

- Brigadier Adrian D'Hage, The Age (May 19)

But Are We Better Off?
With the exception of a few GST-affected months in late 2000, Australia's economy has been on a steady growth path now for close to nine years. They have been remarkable times. What are we doing with the proceeds?

Unemployment has fallen from 11 per cent to somewhere above 6 per cent, where Treasury expects it stay for another year. The nation still seems well short of full employment, which nowadays would be defined as 4.5 to 5 per cent.

We have low interest rates, which means that quite a few of us are buying homes that look, on paper, like gold mines, given the housing price bubble. Many of us who are on moderate to high incomes demonstrate our financial superiority by driving around in European cars or massive four-wheel drives that cost what a good two-bedroom home would have cost a dozen years ago.

More of us are also redirecting our children from government schools to the private sector. Why gamble with your kid's future, even if the private school costs 20 times as much?

In our entertainment, escapist or fantasy-based blockbuster movies and "reality" television, in which "real" people are seen to be conniving or spiteful or pathetic, are very popular. Most of us are connected, either through mobile phones or e-mail.

We do not like saving; we like borrowing and spending.

After many years of solid growth, these are some of the key elements of our society. We have much more - but are we better off? What is it all about?

In the general run of things it is not done to ask these sorts of questions, especially in a budget week. One is expected to nod knowingly at the wisdom of the political and economic orthodoxies contained in a budget - to perhaps tut-tut at the marginal electoral problems caused by this spending cut or to treat as ineluctable truth the 40-year projections on pharmaceutical costs of economists who cannot say for certain what will happen to the economy in even the next few months.

But the whiffs of insecurity and naked self-interest that pervaded Canberra this week did give pause for reflection: is this what we want from our political system? Putting ourselves into deficit so that we can keep out a few thousand boat people, dramatically boosting the size of the military, spending whatever it costs to keep as many of us as possible away from public schools and hospitals, and to burn up cheap petrol?

After seven years of Peter Costello budgets, it seems time to have a good look at the purpose of what might be called the Howard settlement, the type of Australia this government is helping to create.

It now seems clear that within the government, politics increasingly drives economic policy.. But what a spend-up we've seen this time around; right now, the budget is in deficit. Harnessing the nation's finances to opinion polls, talkback radio feedback and fears of electoral mortality costs a hell of a lot of money.

What has come to be known as border protection receives an extra $0.5 billion. Because of the fear of terrorism, defence gets an extra $2.6 billion.

Thanks to an outcry over the temporary increase in the cost of petrol early last year - what Costello described rather coyly on Tuesday as "community concerns" - indexation on excise no longer exists. Hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, rising to billions in a couple of years' time, have been lost.

Another $900 million has been spent in the past year on people over 55, with tax cuts, a $300 payment to age pensioners, and the handing-out of more seniors health cards. These measures brought the elderly back into the Coalition fold in time for the election. Populism has turned out to be expensive.

Ultimately, government is all about choices. Because of the vigorous policy approach of Costello and Howard in 1996-2000, with the overhaul of expenditure and then the remaking of the taxation system, the present financial regime is arguably the most accurate reflection of any government's world view since Federation.

Essentially, the objective of the government is to allow economic growth itself to determine the solutions of whatever problems beset the society and the economy.

If the economy is growing, there will be enough money for everybody - including the government - to look after themselves.

..The big idea of the Howard settlement, as it was laid out on Tuesday, is to devote a large proportion of the nation's prosperity to keeping out an enemy that is either unseen or unknown. So far, there is little to suggest that most of us, as we wait for our incomes to rise above $60,000, want it any other way.

- Shaun Carney, The Age (May 18)

Labor's Disabled By Mental Block
Labor's decision to block tightening of the disability pension may go down as Simon Crean's first major Tampa-style misreading of the electorate, especially given the focus on border protection, domestic security and external defence in the first Budget of John Howard's third term.

Just as Kim Beazley struggled with voter sentiment on border protection, particularly in traditional Labor seats, Crean is in real danger of misjudging the mood on welfare policy. Worse, he could be open to Government claims that Labor is jeopardising the Budget bottom line – in a Budget aimed in large part at shielding the nation from terror.

People could be forgiven for assuming that anger about the tightening of the disability pension would be strongest in Labor-held seats, where a greater proportion of voters generally rely on welfare as their chief source of income. That may be true – but it may also be true support for a crackdown on welfare recipients is also at its strongest in Labor-held seats.

During our election coverage last year, we met many voters in seats such as Macarthur and Lindsay who had always supported Labor but, since 1996, had switched to and stuck with Howard. Asked why they liked Howard, many of these voters said they strongly supported programs such as work for the dole.

The reason: as people who work hard for a relatively modest income, as motor mechanics, checkout assistants, receptionists, it annoys them that others down the street are rewarded for doing nothing.

..This sentiment seems lost on the ALP. The lilting strain of violins could not be louder from Labor, with politicians from Crean down accusing Howard and Costello of appalling heartlessness towards the most vulnerable.

This knee-jerk reaction to what is a complex social and budgetary challenge is at odds with some of the party's own thinking, past and present.

In her account of Howard's 1996 landslide, entitled The Victory, journalist Pamela Williams reveals that, in Labor's desperate months ahead of that election, then prime minister Paul Keating considered an all-out assault on welfare cheats. The logic, according to Keating's speechwriter Don Watson, went thus:

"To be a social democratic government, you've got to be reactionary as well. If you say, we'll have all the social supports people need, then you've got to be twice as savage on those who are undeserving and rorting the system. You've got to have a velvet glove on one hand and a great bloody rock in the other."

.. [Mark] Latham argued in a July 1999 column that while much had been made of Howard's Work for the Dole scheme, there had been little attention paid to what he calls the Shoved off the Dole program – the Disability Support Pension. He spelled out the figures, noting the "outrageous growth" of the DSP meant that "incredibly, one in every 13 Australians aged between 40 and 65 has been classified as disabled and given the DSP".

He said not only did this disguise the real rate of unemployment, it had the tragic moral result of declaring dead the working life of still-capable Australians.

..It is perfectly understandable that people on the disabled pension have been alarmed and frightened by the news from Tuesday. There should be no suggestion, either, that anyone who receives this pension is a malingerer. For those with concerns, it is worth having a closer look at the policy – it does not necessarily mean that everyone in genuine hardship will be left to fend for themselves.

..Instead, what we seem to have from Labor is the sort of knee-jerk response most commonly associated with the Australian Democrats.

A pity, because while some of their traditional supporters might want them to block it, others would cheer if they proudly lifted their arms and said aye.

- David Pemberthy, Daily Telegraph (May 17)

Policy Of Insane Cruelty
Peter Costello's Budget, designed to secure him the prime ministership, was big on "border protection". But what does border protection actually buy us?

I wish you could meet Humam Al Abbady. All of 16 years old, a talented artist, he is a slightly built boy and darkly handsome. To look at him you'd say he's in the prime of life. Nature intended him to be worrying about the performance of his football team, his marks in school, a future career.

Instead, the systematic and deliberate cruelty of the Howard Government's asylum-seeker policies have driven Humam to the brink of suicide and despair.

I met Humam on Tuesday at Cumberland Psychiatric Hospital at Westmead in Sydney's west. He was there because of his third suicide attempt.

Humam has been dealt a pretty rough hand by life, though nothing as rough as since he came to Australia as a 13-year-old. Humam was born a Shia Muslim in Iraq, where the Shias are a despised minority. His uncle was murdered by the Iraqi security forces, two of his first cousins disappeared. His aunt was arrested, stripped and beaten. Humam's father was twice taken into custody and assaulted and Iraqi security personnel routinely looted his shop.

All this is accepted as fact by the refugee tribunal. However, according to the tribunal Humam's father did not have a well-grounded fear of persecution. Here the reasoning is exquisite. According to the judgment, the Iraqis are very expert at persecution so if they had been planning to persecute Humam's father they would have done so, rather than leaving him at large. On the basis of this logic presumably you have to be actually dead before you qualify as a refugee.

However, the tribunal decided that the act of applying to become refugees meant the family could not be sent back to Iraq because they would certainly be persecuted now.

But, because in their flight they had spent time in Syria they could go back there. Therefore they are not refugees. Syria, with its own appalling human rights record and growing restrictions on Iraqis, will not accept them back so now they are in a wretched no-man's land, in which they must dwell for as long as it suits the pleasure of the Howard Government.

Humam, his brothers and sisters and parents have been in detention almost three years, in Western Australia and now at Villawood. During their time in detention they have been involved in numerous incidents of which, of course, there are various versions. But I would ask anyone with teenage sons to imagine how they might react to year after relentless year of cruel and degrading confinement.

Their treatment has certainly been cruel and degrading. At one point Humam's mother was put in solitary confinement with his young brother and sister. Humam has endured spells of solitary confinement, trapped in a freezing, lightless room, without even a toilet, only a plastic bag to receive his waste.

Humam's family has been several times split up in detention, at one point all the older members of the family being sent away for punitive purposes and no one left to look after the little boy and little girl, then aged six.

..Within the Government, if small-l Liberals are inclined to speak out about the gross inhumanity of Australia's treatment of children in detention they are quickly rounded up by the Prime Minister or his minders and told to keep quiet.

The ABC, which revealed some of the shocking truth about conditions in the detention centres, was subject to a sustained campaign of intimidation by the Government to try to keep it quiet.

If Humam dies while under Australian care it will be the fault of the determined, vicious cruelty of the border protection policy.

This quiet, gentle lad could make a real contribution to Australia. It is insane that he is treated as he is.

- Greg Sheridan, The Australian (May 16)

Costello Gets His Priorities All Wrong
This is Peter Costello's lost budget, the one that could have stamped him as the forward-looking go-getter to replace John Howard. Instead, the Budget is as much about paying for populist election policies and shirking at the hard decisions as it is about getting the Government's economic credentials and budget priorities back on track. As Mr Costello said: "World events can move dangerously and unpredictably." His effort yesterday has proved that governments can too, even when the next bout of election fever is three years away.>? The spending on the last election promises has begun, but the heartburn will continue for years, robbing the Government of a chance to take on the next big challenges of tax cuts, health reforms, education, helping low-skilled Australians into work and privatisation.

Mr Costello notes that "if you don't take small steps now, the steps you'll have to take in 10 years' time will be larger and larger, and less palatable". He didn't acknowledge that if you take a big leap backwards – as the Government did last year in buying votes – the forward steps will have to turn into ambitious jumps. How ironic that Mr Costello now talks about the generational costs to come the very year after handing out expensive middle-class welfare to the aged lobby.

The Australian supported the Coalition at the November 10 election, despite Mr Howard's populist lurch.. The hope was that Mr Costello would bring his economic reform credentials quickly to bear.

He started well yesterday by including with the Budget an Intergenerational Report, which outlined the projected cost to the Budget – about five percentage points of GDP by 2042 – of an ageing population and rising health costs. But the moves to rein in the costs of subsidised pharmaceuticals by modestly lifting the co-payment for drugs is an election cycle overdue. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme should be part of a thorough review of Australia's health system.

The tougher tests for disability pension eligibility are also overdue.

..But much could have been so much better.

While the cash surplus for next year is $2.1 billion, the more accurate fiscal balance is just $180 million in the black – and Mr Costello revealed last night that we're in the red right now thanks to the election spending spree. The lost opportunities for cost savings and the excessive spending on politically motivated policies in this Budget could have been there to shore up the fiscal outlook for years ahead, and paved the way for much-needed tax cuts.

No one begrudges the increased spending on defence directly linked to the increased threat and costs posed by the war against terror. But an extra $1.237 billion will be spent over five years on beefing up Australia's borders against . . . what exactly?

..Despite claiming that the deterrence policy has worked, the Government will spend $200 million on a detention centre at Christmas Island and more than $123 million a year to run it.

..Mr Costello seemed unable to shake off September 11 fears, let alone November 10 populism. His speech included just two paragraphs about sustainable revenues and that, having held over the Trebeck report on fuel taxes, he immediately ruled out the main recommendation – a return of indexation of fuel excise. Why? Because the Government caved in to a political clamour and now was forced to defend bad policy for its own political credibility.

..While the jobless rate is tipped to fall below 6 per cent, there are few substantial reforms to reduce long-term unemployment or to encourage small business to create more jobs. And what about fundamental superannuation changes, so crucial for sustaining retirement incomes in the future?

..The priority for a reformist, free-market thinker such as Mr Costello should be to reduce the tax burden – and in particular by cutting the top marginal rate of tax as both a practical and symbolic reform to encourage enterprise and individual enterprise. Lower taxes would help create more wealth to spread around. Yet most Australians will pay more tax this year. Income taxes on individuals are projected to rise from $87 billion to $93 billion next financial year. Too many ordinary Australians still hand over to the tax office nearly half of every extra dollar they earn. When are Mr Costello and his big-spending Government going to do something serious about that?

- The Australian, Editorial (May 15)

The Bottom Line On Costello's 'Surplus'
'The 2001-02 budget provides for a fifth consecutive underlying cash surplus, establishing the longest run of budget surpluses for almost 30 years.' - Commonwealth BudgetPaper No. 1, May, 2001

Surplus good. Deficit bad. Why? It is self-evident, isn't it? Anybody who has to ask is either off with the pixies or a Keynesian troglodyte who refuses to accept that the power of the state has been reduced to the point where governments have to deliver budget surpluses through "tough" decisions in order to avoid being "punished" by globalised financial-market forces.

But what is a budget surplus? This depends on what's counted and what isn't and whether we are looking at the "underlying cash balance" or the "fiscal balance".

The Charter of Budget Honesty was introduced in 1998. To give it teeth, the Howard Government introduced the concept of the "fiscal balance" in 1999 to make it harder for governments to "cook the books" in their favour.

The "fiscal balance" was the bee's knees. It would prevent future irresponsible governments (Labor) creating surprises (the Beazley $8 billion black hole after the 1996 election) for responsible incoming governments (such as the Howard Government, which of course had to break a whole swag of solemn election promises to clean up Labor's mess).

The fiscal balance can still be found in the budget papers, but like the dreadful happening in the woodshed which traumatised Aunt Mavis, it is no longer mentioned. Why? Because it now shows the government operating chronic deficits.

..The Australian Tax Office collects the $29 billion GST, and the Treasury distributes it to the states and territories. This doesn't appear in the budget papers because it would show that the burden of taxation under the Howard Government is higher than under any previous government. This would undermine its image as a low-taxing, low-spending government.

If the government sells financial assets, such as shares representing the final 51 per cent of Telstra still in government ownership, the capital value of the sale does not go through to the "underlying cash balance" via receipts.

The bottom line is affected only when the money from the sale is used to retire government debt and the savings to the bottom line occur via the reduction in interest expense. Of course there is a net benefit to the bottom line only if the reduction in debt interest is greater than the revenue foregone from the asset sale.

(This rarely occurs over the longer term. The sale of the Commonwealth Bank allowed the government to reduce its debt by $7 billion and saved about $500 million a year in interest expense. The bank's profits are now more than $2 billion a year.)

But the value of asset sales such as the $197 million for the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the $152 million for the Australian Geological Survey Organisation go straight into current revenue and straight on to the bottom line to help create an "underlying cash surplus".

..Meanwhile the Treasury can gamble $44 billion on currency and interest-rate swaps because they are treated as financing transactions like the sale of Telstra shares and are therefore below the line.

If the government adopted the same standards it imposes on business, the results of the gambling on these financial derivatives would affect the budget bottom line. But it doesn't, even though the realised capital losses so far this year up to March are $800 million - more than obliterating the $500 million underlying cash balance surplus calculated last October.

In six years the Howard Government has sold virtually all our physical institutions and devalued many of our social institutions. In doing so it has created a virtual government, which will have to be supported by high taxes or low levels of service.

Well done, Mr Treasurer.

- Kenneth Davidson, The Age (May 14)

Feint Resemblance To Reality
The febrile debate last week about Peter Costello – will he/won't he challenge if John Howard does/does not retire – managed to conveniently mask some divisive soul searching on Labor's left at the weekend, witnessed by Simon Crean.

The Treasurer is not, has not and will not be agitating against Howard. He has been the model of a loyal deputy and will continue to be so. He expects Howard to fulfil his public commitment to review his future when the PM turns 64 next July.

..Both Costello and Howard know the final act looms. But for the moment both are prepared to see out their allotted roles.

..The truth is there was a certain inevitability about it becoming a matter of public discussion ahead of tomorrow's Budget. It's always when treasurers take centre stage and prime ministers temporarily take a back seat. In the context of a looming leadership transition, it was an issue that was bound to rear its head. But it will not be resolved until July next year and, as of now, neither man is quite sure what form that resolution will take.

What is certain about that date is that it will have been a year since Neville Wran and Bob Hawke will have brought down their landmark report, ordered by Crean, into the reasons for Labor's third election loss.

As part of that process of internal discussion, Labor's left held a workshop at the weekend in Canberra. It was attended by Crean, who opened events with a speech calling for the Labor Party to modernise. In Crean-speak, that means watering down the 60-40 nexus with the trade union movement to 50-50.

..By all accounts Crean's exhortation didn't take him far. In the closed-door sessions there was vigorous debate on the 60-40 rule. The tone was set by Victorian left convener Kim Carr who, according to the Sun Herald, introduced Crean with the warning: "There are concerns, Simon, in this room, that modernisation is, in fact, code for the imposition of a Blair-right, neo-Liberal agenda."

..The organisers invited the Australia Institute's Clive Hamilton to give an address. His Australia Institute is regarded as the pre-eminent left-wing think tank in national politics. As such, its director could have been expected to deliver a speech broadly sympathetic to the Left's position regarding Crean's demand for modernisation of the party. He did no such thing.

"The Left must now admit its failure," Hamilton said. "Since the early 1980s, many of us have been searching for a coherent alternative to neo-liberalism, for a way of reinventing social democracy in an era of global consumer capitalism.

"We have failed miserably. So bereft of ideas has the Left been that the vacuum has been filled by the pallid apologetics of the so-called Third Way, Thatcherism with a human face; the Third Way that no one can define, a program in search of a rationale, a social analysis in which conflict is conveniently replaced by complexity in which any talk of power is taboo."

Hamilton went on to make scathing references to Blair's Britain, where the spin-doctor has elbowed out the policy adviser, on the way through dismissing Australian Labor's chief proponent of the Third Way, Mark Latham, as the "Sage of Werriwa".

Hamilton's analysis is based, in Labor's terms, on the most radical of theses: that Howard has successfully managed the Australian economy.

..Hamilton's demand of the Left is that it comes up with a political platform that concedes globalisation has delivered broad-based wealth but addresses the social reasons why that wealth is so unsatisfactory, beginning with ideas such as striking a better balance between working hours and the commitment to family, friends and community. It went over like a lead balloon.

Doug Cameron, head of the most rigidly left of all unions in the country, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, who is vehemently anti-globalisation, told Hamilton to his face that his speech "looked like the view from the eastern suburbs, not Westmead, where I move in life". Which is precisely Hamilton's point. For Labor to be successful again, the Left must acknowledge and be driven by the 60 per cent to 70 per cent of voters who have done well out of economic growth and capitalism rather than what he calls the victims of old.

The problem for Hamilton, however, is that although his theory will not appeal to the Left because it involves an admission that globalisation is a success, it's also unlikely to appeal to Crean because he would have to acknowledge that Howard's economic stewardship has likewise been a success.

- Glenn Milne, The Age (May 13)

Why Senate 'Reform' Is A Threat To Democracy
At the Liberal Party federal council meeting in April, the Prime Minister appeared to support those in his party wanting to hobble the Senate (upper house) by declaring that "the main difficulties we've had over the past six years . . . have been related to the composition of, and the powers of, the Senate". John Howard did not repeat the sentiment this week when the Senate's legal and constitutional committee reported on its inquiry into the proposed anti-terrorism legislation, but I'll bet he felt it.

The report, endorsed by the committee's Liberal chairwoman, Marise Payne, is a classic example of why the Senate so irks those who think that parliamentary democracy means that governments should face no check other than submitting to the judgment of the people every three years (in Victoria, it is four years). The would-be reformers of the Senate at the Liberal federal council did not express this view quite so baldly, since no one ever actually says that they think governments should not be subject to review and restraint, but it is a natural inference from their argument that the system would work more smoothly if deadlocks between the Senate and the House of Representatives (lower house) could be resolved simply by a joint sitting, rather than by first dissolving both houses, as at present.

If the constitution were to be amended as the so-called reformers wish it to be, a joint sitting could be held if the Senate three times rejected a bill passed by the lower house. And, since the government of the day is the government by virtue of having a majority in the lower house, that means it could be confident of mustering enough votes to get its legislation through.

An intriguing question raised by the Senate committee's response to the anti-terrorism legislation is how the Liberals on the committee would have voted in a joint sitting. In the context of the review process created by the Senate's system of standing committees, Marise Payne has some freedom to act other than as a member of the governing party; she and other Senate Liberals may sometimes perhaps prefer to use the proceedings and reports of committees, rather than the closed debates of the party room, as a means of placing pressure on cabinet to amend legislation. The Prime Minister and the Attorney-General may not like their party colleagues using the system in this way, but there is little they can do to stop them.

What would happen, though, if the government had the option of eventually using a joint sitting to push the legislation through unamended? Liberals who had grave doubts about the curtailment of civil liberties that this legislation contains would be under enormous pressure to put those doubts aside and vote with their party. As has been argued before in Undercurrents, the rise of strongly disciplined parties in parliamentary systems of government has effectively undermined the supposed basis of such systems, namely, the idea that the executive is responsible to parliament. On the contrary, it is the executive that sets the agenda for parliament.

Australia has no bill of rights that defines the liberties of citizens, and which may be invoked to contest legislation that infringes these liberties. All we have are the dubious and constantly eroded protections provided by common law, and the willingness of legislators and governments to set limits on themselves. And that willingness, at least so far as members of executive governments are concerned, is notoriously something that cannot be relied upon. To cite but one of the worrying aspects of the anti-terrorism legislation: the attorney-general would have the power to ban organisations deemed to be terrorist. Even if the legislation were to define terrorism narrowly - which it does not - it is scarcely compatible with liberal democracy to grant ministers such enormous discretionary power.

In the absence of a bill of rights, the Senate's role in checking the abuse of executive power is all the more important. Three things have made Australia's form of bicameralism unique, and maintain, at least in the second chamber, something like responsible government. The Senate has powers nearly equal to those of the lower house; it is elected by proportional representation, which ensures that it represents a greater diversity of opinion than the upper house, and makes it difficult for either of the major parties to gain a majority; and its committee system permits a much more intensive scrutiny of legislation than takes place in the lower house. Removing any of these elements would not only reduce the Senate to the status of a retirement home for party hacks, it would profoundly weaken our democracy.

- Ray Cassin, The Age (May 12)

Why A Liberal Dose Of Confusion Reigns
John Howard has only himself to blame for the leadership speculation that threatens to disrupt the cohesion and stability of his government over the next 14 months.

Having raised expectations of a mid-term departure if he won the last election, the Prime Minister now has the task of managing them.

His conundrum is simple. He has encouraged the Costello camp to believe that there will be a seamless transition around his 64th birthday in July next year. This expectation is central to having a united, disciplined government until then. It is also one powerful reason Costello will do everything he can to ensure Howard has a satisfying lap of honour before he bows out.

But Howard has sent a conflicting message to the electorate at large: that he is far more likely to stay on and contest another poll. As he put it almost wistfully yesterday: "On a clear day you can see forever."

It is a message he has to transmit to avoid the perception of being a lame duck PM. But it is one that may test the trust and faith of Costello and, more particularly, his supporters.

This is especially so in the absence of any private commitment from Howard to Costello that the leadership will be his. And it is a safe bet to assume that none has been offered or sought.

And it is especially so against the backdrop of last year's breach of trust, when Howard chose not to tell his Treasurer what Liberal Party president Shane Stone had said about him in that notorious memo leaked to Laurie Oakes.

Costello's remark on television last Sunday that Howard was a man of his word who would keep his commitment to consider his position was a very mild hint of unease at the signals Howard has been sending.

Almost breathless predictions of a challenge if Howard fails to go, sourced to unnamed foot soldiers for the Treasurer, are just another symptom of that same uncertainty.

This uncertainty will grow and prove destructive, particularly to Costello's chances of broadening his own appeal and winning the next election, unless it is managed deftly by Howard and Costello.

The truth, almost certainly, is that Howard doesn't know whether he will want to walk away a winner come July next year. The probability remains that he will.

The truth is also that Costello has not planned how he will respond if Howard digs in his heels. It is far better, and wiser, for him to operate on the assumption that Howard will do the right thing. His response will depend on the situation he confronts, including the numbers, although the odds of a challenge if Howard stays are high.

If one week is a long time in politics, 14 months could prove to be an eternity.

- Michael Gordon, The Age (May 11)

Stepping Stone To Power
Tuesday's Budget has become more important for Australia's two putative prime ministers – Peter Costello and Simon Crean – than it is for John Howard.

Howard has earned his place in Liberal Party history and introduced significant reforms in industrial relations, tax and foreign affairs. The Liberal team he has led in three election victories has won some of the biggest votes and parliamentary majorities since Federation.

..Howard is calm and in control of his destiny. Minor irritations about being labelled a lame duck Prime Minister aside, there is little to upset his equilibrium in a single Budget.

This is not the case for Costello or Crean.

Costello, who would have to rate right now as a far better chance to be prime minister than the Leader of the Opposition, is using this Budget to go beyond the policy and portfolio straitjacket of Treasurer.

..The gleam in the Treasurer's eye is the intergenerational report, the 2040 vision or just plain old Budget Paper No 5. This is Costello's determined and considered attempt to establish a framework for long-term vision (that's Vision with a capital V) and place his own stamp on portfolios outside Treasury, apart from just cutting their spending.

Costello rankles – as much as Howard is riled when asked about retirement – when he's told the intergenerational report is just a blind to justify cuts to pensions and pharmacy benefits. The Treasurer is adamant this is not a cynical exercise but a real attempt to force politicians to address issues such as population, immigration, birth rates, superannuation, pensions, labour market reform and living conditions beyond the annual cycles and bunfights of intakes, indexation and ad hoc answers.

Given that commitment, the public is entitled to use the intergenerational report and how Costello handles it as a true test of his wider vision and abilities when assessing his claim to be prime minister. It will also be the first real measure of how different Costello would actually be from Howard as Coalition leader, beyond the republican cause.

..So, for Costello this Budget – almost certainly his second last, now that his supporters know he is prepared to move out of the comfort zone of deputy leader and Treasurer if there is not a smooth succession – is the first real stepping stone to leadership.

Likewise, as the new Labor leader after three successive defeats, Crean needs to use this Budget as a stepping stone in his own development towards becoming prime minister.

Crean has been quick to act as the new Labor leader to distance himself from the legacy of the Kim Beazley years. He's trying to reorganise and revamp the ALP, something that should have happened after the 1996 defeat. He's formally dumped the whole GST rollback nonsense, which the public treated with the contempt it deserved. And he's also dumped the small-target tactic of not releasing policy.

..But in the scheme of things, the public's reaction to the Budget and the reaction to him is of more immediate importance than all of those fundamental steps.

The hard fact of Australian politics is that the public gauges political performance by budgets, hip-pocket considerations. It was the Budget last year that allowed Howard, with all his giveaways and backflips, to rise from the ashes.

..Despite all his determined efforts, Crean is still seen to be making little impact on Howard. As some of his fellow frontbenchers thrash out policy – or just thrash about – Crean needs this budget reaction to lift him in the competition against Howard to stay in the race against Costello.

- Dennis Shanahan, The Australian (May 10)

Get Over It And Move On, Labor
Like a twisted ex-lover who can't believe it's over, the federal Labor Party keeps returning to the killing fields of Sydney's west. Simon Crean's been loitering there all week and was joined in Parramatta on Tuesday by the full shadow cabinet to unveil the Working Families Policy.

Western Sydney being Mark Latham territory, everyone was on their best behaviour and nobody got decked. Crean reminded journalists that this had been his first port of call upon becoming Opposition Leader, the gang had certainly all been out there taking notes, and they would be returning again many times, don't you worry about that.

Got it? The ALP is all ears for Sydney's west, and you can probably recite the reasons off by heart. They go like this: John Howard has captured the Labor heartland. Like the American "Reagan Democrats" of the 1980s, these working-class folk find comfort in the Howard mix of social conservatism and economic liberalism. Western Sydney is now "strongly Liberal", the next election will be won or lost there, and so Labor had better get back to basics quickly if it is to regain the so-called battlers.

But hang on, the plot thickens, because an exotic new creature has been seen roaming the suburbs – the "aspirational voter" (hereafter called AV). Many claim to know it intimately but pictures are rare and fuzzy. Some seem to use it as just a new phrase for battler, while others construct a related but distinct species with its own special needs.

So that everyone hasn't been talking complete twaddle for three years, let's assume it is indeed a discrete entity: a battler made good, perhaps. Probably that self-employed neighbour who's always in the yard, extending this, laying that, with a four-wheel drive or two in the garage.

Battlers and AVs share a disdain for trendy middle-class issues, but on matters economic they part ways. AVs like nothing better than a tax cut and low interest rates, while battlers would still appreciate a helping hand – maybe in the form of Latham's share scheme.

Got all that? This is the dilemma facing the federal ALP. The story of Howard's Battlers is a great yarn and generates bountiful copy. Unfortunately, a great load of twaddle is what it is.

Get yourself an electoral map of Sydney. Draw a line from Sydney's Town Hall out to Penrith, down to Campbelltown and back in again. You've got a triangle containing every seat that could remotely be classified Sydney's west. There are 16 in all, 13 of them still in Labor hands, notwithstanding last year's "debacle". And an extra three seats does not a victory make.

Labor has never gotten over losing Parramatta and Lindsay in 1996 (Macarthur was always fickle), but they should. The 1996 census figures had these three topping the gang of 16 in median income. Six years on, the gap has probably widened. These are not battlers. The love has died, Labor. Get over it.

It was not just Sydney but the whole of NSW that polled poorly last year. This relative underperformance was due to six years of NSW Premier Bob Carr, and while he's around, things won't improve. The last time NSW unloaded a state ALP administration (1988), it went to the next federal poll and swung to federal Labor to the tune of 2 per cent while the rest of the country went 2 per cent the other way.

So listen, Labor, get a grip on yourself. Some would call this stalking. They're not worth it, try your luck in other states.

- Peter Brent, (mumble.com.au) The Australian (May 9)

Liberals' Serial Grub At The Heart Of A Sorry Affair
Apologise to Tony Staley? Come off it. All those precious petals, including John Howard and Tony Abbott, are kidding. Don't let those crutches fool you. Staley has been one of the Liberal Party's most zealous political assassins, verbal and otherwise, in the past 30 years. And I don't mean just of his Labor opponents.

..He led the charge, as a backbench MP in 1974, to cut down Bill Snedden. As the Liberals' federal president, he did the same to John Hewson 20 years later, in 1994. And when the boy leader, Alexander Downer, whom Staley helped install in place of Hewson, turned out to be such a gormless dud, Staley was quick to help get rid of him, too, in resurrecting Howard's leadership. As for invective, consider this.

In July 1995, the last year of the Keating Labor government, Staley, as party president, made a speech at a state Liberal conference in Perth in which he said, in part: ''... Keating has made abuse and vilification an art form. Lying and cheating your way to office is OK as long as it works. Vile public language which would make a pig's grunt sound elegant has become the order of the day. This is not the stuff of strength but the strutting of a bully and a braggart."

Paul Keating never forgot. Five years later, in March 2000, four years after the defeat of his government and Keating's return to private life, he responded in an interview with The Australian's Greg Sheridan: ''I think the Liberals did unprecedented things in vilifying me, on things that were baseless, which they knew. First, we had that lowbrow Staley for years wandering around attacking me, saying I was one of the richest men in public life, that I was only in public life to enrich myself. I can only say of him: twisted in body, twisted in mind. And he was aided and abetted by Howard, who should have known better, who does know better ..."

Twisted in body, twisted in mind!

Staley's car accident nine years earlier did not shield him from Keating's bitterness. Neither it should have. And nor should it do so now that Mark Latham, a combative politician every bit as unforgiving, feels Labor should never give ground against the ''shocking hypocrites and shocking reactionaries" of ''Howard's inner circle".

..Latham told ABC TV's Lateline last Friday night: ''Rumour and muckraking is the [Government's] stock in trade.. All of Howard's mates are up to it: Michael Baume; that deformed character Tony Staley; Tony Abbott - all that rubbish he threw at Cheryl Kernot. This is the stock in trade of Howard's inner circle."

..Howard, Abbott and Costello have been whingeing ever since. They're having us on, surely? Staley has been an unrelenting and effective political grub for years, with and without crutches. Latham gives him one up the bracket, exactly as Keating did two years ago, and Staley's mates, sensing an opportunity, shriek foul. They barely said a word at the time Keating first mentioned twisted body, twisted mind. But Latham is different.

Know why? Because the Government fears Latham is the next Keating. Latham has courage and ideas. He understands language and how to use it. He does not back off. He believes, like Whitlam and Keating, both his mentors, in making a stand, and not just on negatives. He believes in Labor's history. He is a formidable opponent now beginning to stretch himself.

Just watch. There are those who think Latham will be the next Labor prime minister, whenever that might be. I kid you not. For all these reasons, should the opportunity arise to demonise him in the wider community, his opponents will grab it, just as the Government has done this time. Not all those opponents are on the other side of politics, either.

Understand that, too.

- Alan Ramsey, Sydney Morning Herald (May 8)

When You're On A Good Thing, Stick To It
From time to time there is probably a case for changing both voting systems and the nature of parliamentary terms in democratic countries.. There is something to be said for the idea that it is time to shake up our political system by moving from our present federal system, following the Westminster model, of elections called by the government of the day at times it selects, often without warning, which it thinks will advantage it most.

Linked to this is the view that parliaments ought to be longer. But is there any evidence that the maximum five-year term of the British House of Commons produces any better results than our three-year maximum? It certainly means that there are fewer elections on average. But that is the only apparent benefit. British governments are not noticeably more long-term, or less reactive to opinion polls.

We have had fixed four-year parliamentary terms in NSW for about a decade. What has changed in the behaviour of NSW governments and politicians? Not much. The main result is to be expected from the experience of the United States. This is that election campaigns start earlier and last longer.. Probably it has produced greater instability in oppositions, since it gives them a more stable timescale in which to plot leadership coups.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the change is that it has removed one of the more vacuous types of political story, the purveying of rumours about early or snap elections.

The essence of the problem of lengthening the term of the parliament is the nexus between the House of Representatives and the Senate, with the latter having half its membership elected for twice the Reps' term every three years. Every attempt to persuade the electorate at a referendum to change the nexus has been rejected. So if the Reps' term is extended to four years, the Senate must become eight years.

Then there is the voting system. Despite the theoretical attractions of proportional representation, Australia's experience with it in the Senate (and state upper houses) has been unfortunate. With the exception of the Meg Lees period, the Democrats have shown themselves unable to play a constructive role in legislation because of their dependence on their minority vote.

A great weakness of proportional representation is the destabilising role it gives to crank minorities. This could be partly overcome by dividing the states into regional electorates for Senate purposes, thus ensuring a higher threshold vote for entry.

Our preferential voting system is one of the best devised.. Co-operative behaviour by our major parties prevented the establishment of Hansonism on the federal scene.. The biggest problem of the preferential system is the manipulation of minor party preferences by way of dummy parties or inducements. In principle, this may fairly easily be corrected. In short, though you wouldn't know it from the shortsighted abuse heaped on politicians, our system is one of the best forms of democracy going. There is room for improvement, and for the major parties to listen to discontented elements. (When they do, of course, they are abused by those who think of democracy as an inconvenience.)

There really is only a weak case for reform.

- Padraic P. McGuinness, Sydney Morning Herald (May 7)

Bad Blood, Dirty Politics
So, Simon Crean has his own Bill Heffernan and it's Mark Latham. With Crean still struggling to gain traction against John Howard in the leadership stakes, this was to be the week in which Labor began setting the high-jump bar for Peter Costello's seventh Budget, to be delivered on May 14.

Then along comes Latham. On the ABC's Lateline program on Friday night, Latham referred to former Liberal Party president and Fraser government minister Tony Staley as "that deformed character Tony Staley".

Staley walks - and only just - with the aid of two crutches after his spine was seriously damaged in a car crash in 1990 that kept him in hospital for 14 months. That Staley is even alive, let alone still active in politics and business, is a testament to his toughness and courage, whatever you think about his political views.

That's not the way Latham sees it, however, because Latham is a hater. Challenged by Liberal MP Christopher Pyne on Lateline over his description of Staley, Latham compounded his viciousness, repeating that Staley was "deformed in his views and actions because he's in the garbage bin of Australian politics. Staley is deformed in every sense and so, too, is [Tony] Abbott".

There is no doubt that Staley was, and is, a political warrior for the Liberals. What has made him a target for Latham is Staley's obsessive pursuit of Paul Keating over his previous ownership of a piggery. Staley constantly dug for dirt on Keating, convinced there was something improper (an allegation never proven) about the manner in which Keating acquired his investment.

Staley's venom regarding Keating was renowned. It was as if he resented Keating for making money; as if that were not the entitlement of somebody in the Labor Party, that wealth properly belonged only to the Liberal side of politics. It was a class-driven, prejudiced campaign. But it remained broadly within the mainstream of political attack.

Latham's description of Staley as "deformed" falls outside that category. You could have thought of 10 other words that would have done as well. Latham's intent was clear; to suggest that Staley's physical disabilities reflected his personality.

..What was Latham up to when later in the speech he referred to Workplace Relations Minister Abbott? Latham said: "At a conference in Melbourne last month [Abbott] told a group of academics and public servants that 'the best support structure in our society is an intact family'. He also said that 'we need to discourage children out of wedlock'. Not surprisingly, a shudder went through the room, with people asking themselves, 'Why doesn't this man practise what he preaches?'"

That was a very un-cute reference to the fact Abbott fathered an illegitimate child in his student days, putting that child up for adoption. It's a favourite topic of Latham's; he has referred to it previously in parliament, despite Abbott having volunteered the fact of his paternity several years ago, expressing, in the process, great sadness about his "mistake".

..Latham is one of Labor's few policy intellectuals – he is a party moderniser and one of the Opposition's great white hopes, even, possibly, a future leadership contender.

Except he also has this dark side; a "touch of the Doc Evatts", is the way one MP describes it. It was that touch that last year saw him break a cab driver's arm. His colleagues put it down to the fact Latham is desperate to emulate the reputation for toughness of his idol, Keating. But what Latham seems to forget is that Keating leavened that toughness with deftness. Like Keating, Latham has the capacity to charm the socks off you. But whereas Keating inserted the knife surgically, Latham takes to his targets with a meat axe.

It's a personal indulgence Crean, who has made raising parliamentary standards part of his catchcry, can't afford. Howard knows it. That's why he mustered all the indignation he could find to rush out a statement on Saturday condemning Latham's attacks. And Howard is right; Crean ought to make Latham apologise unequivocally to Staley.

- Glenn Milne, The Australian (May 6)

Sometimes Ma'am, The Facts Are Hard To Pin Down
With the notable exception of John Stuart Mill, whose essay On Liberty touches on the subject of the freedom of the press, the practice of journalism has not got much attention from philosophers. Until now. Onora O'Neill, a Cambridge philosopher and crossbench member of Britain's House of Lords, gave this year's Reith lectures for the BBC. She spoke on the theme of trust, her final lecture last week considering trust in the media.

Like the typical respondent of opinion polls, O'Neill does not have a high opinion of the competence and ethical standards of journalists, and of print-media journalists in particular. In part, as became apparent in her responses to questions, this reflects her own experience of issues being misreported. She writes on bioethics, among other things, and complains that it is all too common to find that political correspondents who have to grapple with scientific issues only succeed in conveying their ignorance of them.

..No process of checking can go on forever, however, and sometimes other people's mistakes are published in good faith. Journalists, like historians, sometimes have to rely on the authority and credibility of their sources. To return to the grand theme of O'Neill's lectures, it is a matter of trust - of the trustworthiness of a journalist's source and of the readiness of readers to trust the journalist's report. Without some willingness to trust, communication between people, and, hence, any kind of social existence, would be impossible.

..We live at a time when the public trust in institutions - parliament, courts, corporations, churches - is under constant challenge. But, O'Neill argues, some of our responses to this problem may be making it worse.

Consider vogue words such as "accountability" and "transparency". What does it mean to demand greater transparency in the procedures of government, say, or of banks and other financial institutions? Transparency is what you want when you are no longer prepared to take something on trust: the more transparent a procedure becomes, the less our relationship with those whose task it is to carry out the procedure can be one of trust. And the less this relationship applies, the more incentive those we subject to demands for transparency may have to engage in deception. According to O'Neill, we need more intelligent forms of accountability, that "focus less on grandiose ideals of transparency and rather more on limiting deception".

Journalists must wear a considerable part of the blame for the corrosion of trust, she argues, since it is they who most frequently, shrilly and heavy-handedly invoke such terms as accountability and transparency.

..O'Neill is not calling for censorship - she accepts Mill's argument that we cannot have democracy without freedom of discussion, and hence a free press. But she thinks journalists too easily shirk the obligations that their freedom gives them.

Journalists fulfil those obligations, O'Neill believes, when they give their readers the means to assess their reports, so that they can judge for themselves whom and what to believe: "The press are skilled at making material accessible but are erratic at making it assessable." Well, up to a point, Lady O'Neill. Is the bar to be set this high in each and every report? How should we report a government's claim, for example, that asylum seekers threw their children into the sea? Such reports are assessable only in the light of subsequent reports based on the evidence that was not available - and may even have been suppressed - at the time. O'Neill's arguments present criticisms of contemporary journalism that are in many respects well-deserved. What she does not acknowledge sufficiently is that the uncovering of truth is, like the building of trust, a piecemeal process.

- Ray Cassin, The Age (May 5)

Let's Hear It For The Protesters
The throng of mostly young people involved in this week's May Day protests had a crowded agenda. They were venting their anger about the harsh management of our refugee detention centres, expressing their concern about the impact of globalisation, questioning Australia's uncritical support for United States militarism and highlighting the role of shareholders in the corporate obsession with short-term results.

Whatever you might think about each of those issues, the fact that people are taking to the streets in large numbers is surely a welcome sign. A healthy society needs a new generation who take nothing for granted and insist on questioning some of our most comfortable beliefs about ourselves and "the system".

We need an active protest movement, just as we need satire and underground humour. Otherwise, we may dull our moral clarity by wrapping ourselves in the warm cloak of complacency, insulating ourselves from debate about issues that should command our lively attention.

This is not to deny that Australia is a wonderful country (especially if you are financially secure).. But, for that very reason, we're in danger of yielding to triumphalism. We resort too easily to that jingoistic mantra - best place on earth! - whenever awkward questions are raised about matters such as poverty, inequality, the degeneration of rural communities, or the corrosive effects of unbridled materialism on everything from our corporate culture to the crisis in university funding.

There are too many homeless, disadvantaged, dispossessed, distressed, drug-addicted, unemployed and unsupported people in our backyard for us to feel smug, just yet. There's more work to be done if we are to present ourselves to the community of nations as an example of how to get it right.

So we could do worse than listen to the voices of those who want to draw our attention to things that disturb them. Their protests are especially welcome when, for years, we've been hearing about the disinclination of terminally bored young people to take anything seriously, and about university campuses where job prospects are a hotter topic than political philosophy.

It would be facile to dismiss Wednesday's protests as either a student jape or just another rent-a-crowd outing. There may be some truth in that, but there's a more compelling truth as well: many young people are not convinced that we've got our values straight, or that we understand where the road we're on is taking us, or that we even care. Such charges might be unfair, but they are worthy of a serious response (and if we're so sure we're right, counter-arguments should come easily).

As capitalism emerges victorious from its struggle against communism, we are in danger of uncritically embracing an extreme version of it.. Should shareholders' short-term interests take precedence over employees' or customers' interests? ..Isn't it possible that corporations have gone too far in pandering to shareholders, treating them all as if they are serious stakeholders rather than self-interested gamblers? I would like to hear the experts debate that question; so, no doubt, would the customers who are squealing about declining service, the former employees who have been sacrificed on the altar of downsizing - and the protesters who marched on Wednesday.

- Hugh Mackay, The Age (May 4)

PM Tightens His Grip
John Howard is rolling back the expectation that he will retire next year and the odds are now that he will remain beyond his 64th birthday – July 26, 2003.

..There is a perception that his retirement will roll round as automatically and inexorably as his birthday, and that Peter Costello will assume the mantle of Liberal leader.

There are two difficulties with that scenario. The first is that Howard is enjoying the job and is more confident than ever and, second, the expectation of a prime minister's retirement creates a dangerous political hiatus for the Coalition.

..Howard has also formed a view that Simon Crean – so far – is not making an impact as Opposition Leader and alternative prime minister. As Howard's supporters point out, Howard cannot lose, whatever his decision when he's 64.

If he does resign as Prime Minister, he will be going at a time of his choosing; if he doesn't, he will do so with a view to winning a fourth term.

There is also clearly an element of Howard's renowned stubbornness to go while subject to shrill personal demonisation from his critics who ascribe to the old bill's actual bodily harm – anyone but Howard.

If Howard continues to be ambivalent, there is likely to an adverse reaction among the Costello supporters, but that is a price Howard will have to pay if he wishes to match his mood of confident energy, a totally engaged political mind, a peak of prime ministerial prowess and physical fitness with the all-important public perception.

..When announcing the election on October 5 last year, he dealt with the inevitable question of whether he would serve a full term by harking back to his birthday quote: "I have said in the past I'd think about my future when I reach the age of 64. Right at the moment, the last thing I want to do is leave government because I have an overwhelming commitment to see the Australian people through the present very great and unexpected challenges that the country faces."

..In the euphoria after the election on November 11, Howard's declaration that "wild horses" couldn't drag him from the job was taken as hyperbole.

Anyone watching the Prime Minister closely, listening to his inner circle and looking at his public pronouncements since can draw no other conclusion than that his mind is not made up about retiring and he is becoming concerned at suggestions he's drifting.

At every opportunity Howard is demonstrating his physical fitness and energy – this week the impressions of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi were that Howard was "vivid and energetic".

Howard has always believed that the longer someone is prime minister, the better they become at the job – he said this publicly before he won his second term.

Now Howard has distilled his leadership into a strong connection with the (voting) mainstream, concentration on long-term plans, such as the Budget strategy last year that brought his dead Coalition back to a competitive position even before the Tampa crossed the horizon, and crisis management.

..There is a lot of activity, but purpose, commitment and the "reform process, which is never completed" have to come to fore. Howard doesn't lack the inclination or the opportunity, particularly with his chosen area of industrial relations, but retirement is putting an opaque curtain over the future.

Howard has a choice of dispelling that cloying perception of semi-retirement and getting on with what he preaches or handing over to Costello.

Right now I'm backing the former, and I think Howard is too.

- Dennis Shanahan, The Australian (May 3)

Why Doctors Stand Condemned
It has not been the medical profession's finest hour. Yesterday's retreat by doctors from their professional and humanitarian duties in the surgery was appalling.

It caused unnecessary distress to patients and further complicated already complex prudential circumstances. All because doctors didn't trust the Government. The rest of us have to, but doctors are different. They must have it in writing.

At issue was the operation of medical indemnity insurance after the declaration of big problems by the board members of insurer UMP, most of whom were doctors. The medical profession had been given public assurances the Federal Government would protect their interests in the event of official liquidation of UMP.

The Government stumped up $35 million in taxpayer money to do the job until June 30 at the earliest, and promised to work on coverage beyond that date.

The Prime Minister gave the assurances, the Treasurer gave them, the Assistant Treasurer gave them.

But until late last night nothing was good enough for a significant number of surgeons who cancelled their commitments despite that Government pledge of support. Presumably many are among those who aggressively demand independence from any Government intervention, including the "socialism" of Medicare.

However, their demands for independence wilt when an insurer run by their peers runs out of financial oxygen.

Then they insist on written assurances that the Government WILL intervene, using taxpayer funds.

If only their patients had that luxury.

- Malcolm Farr, Daily Telegraph (May 2)

Time For Labor To Slay Sacred Cows
The ALP should have sorted out the party's future after our defeat in the 1996 federal election. Instead, we spent six years raking over old debates and practising an old style of politics. It's time to consign the "small target strategy" to the dustbin of history and become a real Labor Party again - bold, creative and reformist.

This is the Labor way. We have always been a party of reformers and modernisers.

The most powerful trend in Australian politics is the emergence of free agents - the new class of consultants, contractors, knowledge workers and entrepreneurs in the new economy. These are people who have broken free from large, hierarchical organisations and become agents of their own economic future.

They use this freedom to create their own rules and lifestyle options. Part worker, part owner, free agents have crossed over the industrial relations divide. Small and self-reliant, they see no need for union or employer representation. Their idea of a good society is a deregulated economy, quality education and safe and supportive neighbourhoods.

..And whom do they vote for? Not surprisingly, they are also free agents politically, with little interest in ideology and the old party system. In their world, what matters is what works.

You don't need to be Einstein to work out what this means for the ALP. Old constituencies based on blue-collar work and organised labour are fading away. Old ways of thinking might produce a nice sense of nostalgia, but they are insufficient to win national elections and form national Labor governments.

We need to find new issues, new constituencies and new ideas on which to campaign. The last thing Labor needs is another round of introspection, reliving the debates of the 1980s and '90s. The language of economic intervention and protectionism belongs in a museum, not a modern political party.

We need to acknowledge the things that are self-evident in Australian politics and move on: that market forces work better than planned economies; that free trade works better than tariffs and industry welfare; that competition policy works better than monopolies, public and private; that governments need to be fiscally responsible, delivering surplus budgets and low interest rates; that the strongest form of job security lies in a good education and lifelong learning; that increasingly, people see themselves as economic owners and consumers, not just as workers.

As a party, we need to put these issues in our pocket and move forward. In the history of the Commonwealth, Labor has never won an election by raking over the past. Our great victories in 1972 and the 1980s were based on serious programs of reform. Whenever we modernise, we win. Whenever we react to old agendas, we lose.

Labor politics has always involved a critique of the private sector. With the end of the Cold War, however, the economic efficiency and productivity of capitalism is beyond dispute. Our critique now needs to focus on the social responsibilities of corporate Australia. We can be pro-market without necessarily being pro-business.

..The reform of capitalism is no longer an economic question. It is an ethical issue. This is fertile ground for Labor policy-making, ensuring that corporations and their executives comply with decent industrial, environmental and social standards.

..During a time of rapid change and uncertainty, it is not unusual for organisations to define themselves in the negative, to cling to the sacred cows and slogans of the past. Some in our party still advocate this approach. In practice, it would kill off the ALP as a viable political force. We would end up like the Greens and Democrats, fringe parties of the left with no hope of governing the nation.

As Simon Crean has said, we must be known for the things we propose, not the things we oppose. This is the authentic Labor way - a party of constant revision and reform.

- Mark Latham, MHR for Werriwa, The Age (May 1)

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