Hockey fumbles the ball – again – on Coalition economic policy

May 20, 2013

Sometimes, I rather feel sorry for Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey – and then I remember that this is the man who might well end up being responsible for the nation’s finances, come September.

After Abbott’s Budget reply speech last week – a speech for which he received a good deal of criticism, and (for once) a heck of a grilling from the media – someone was going to have to attempt some damage control. And that someone pretty much had to be Hockey. After all, if you don’t send out your nominee for controller of public revenue from time to time, it’s going to be hard to sell your plan. As a bonus, Hockey doesn’t look or sound like the stereotypical Liberal. No private school vocabulary, no plummy accent. There’s a bit of the bogan in ol’ Joe, and the party uses that to its advantage whenever it’s trying to ‘connect’ with the people.

Accordingly, Hockey fronted up for an interview on ABC1′s Insiders program yesterday. Generally, the Coalition get a fairly easy ride in most interviews (the notable exception being – sometimes – ABC 730). Hockey, arriving early on Sunday morning, apparently expected the same comfortable treatment.

Instead, he was metaphorically nailed to the wall by Barrie Cassidy.

Asked to justify why the Coalition insisted on using the phrase ‘budget emergency’, Hockey at first flatly denied ever doing so (even though Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is still using it as of this morning), then fell back on familiar talking points. The budget isn’t in surplus, it will never be in surplus under Labor, we’re vulnerable because we’ve borrowed money from overseas, etc. He claimed that the major reason Australia holds a AAA credit rating from all agencies was due to the Howard government – oh, and that it was ‘cute’ that we’d achieved the rating from Fitch. It doesn’t mean much, anyway, he argued, because everywhere else is so bad. Naturally we’d look good in comparison.

In one stroke Hockey dismissed the across-the-board AAA credit rating, and the agencies. He would have us believe that it’s ultimately meaningless, that it has nothing to do with our actual economic status, and the fact that countries in Europe are undergoing incredible economic stress is the only reason we have this rating. (And, in the case of Fitch, that it’s just ‘cute’.) Hang on a moment, though. Didn’t the Opposition pooh-pooh the idea that our high dollar (among other economic factors) was directly related to European circumstances? Oops, never mind. Little details like consistency aren’t important, right?

It’s all about stability, said Hockey. That’s what the Coalition was going to provide. That statement surely had Cassidy mentally rubbing his hands with glee as he invited Hockey to give some examples, and Hockey was happy to oblige. Delay the superannuation contribution increase (from 9% to 12%) for two years. Scrap Schoolkids’ Bonus. Scrap Lower Income Superannuation Contribution Scheme. Scrap 12,000 public service jobs via ‘natural attrition’ (which is a fancy way of saying, ‘we’ll merge various departments and restructure people out of existence without actually having to call it redundancy’).

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine exactly how these cuts provide any stability whatsoever.

The delay in implementing the 12% superannuation contribution was where Hockey really got lost. Cassidy was relentless, pushing for figures, and Hockey either couldn’t or wouldn’t provide them. ‘I don’t have the actuarial tables in front of me,’ he repeated. ‘It hasn’t kicked in …’ He ended up utterly tangled in his own argument, unwilling to admit that there would be any effect on people’s retirement savings. In fact, he said that the delay was effectively a good measure, since people would have ‘more money in their pockets rather than in superannuation for just a short period of time’.

This is flatly wrong, and a very disturbing error for the putative Treasurer of Australia to make. Compulsory superannuation contributions do not come out of your take-home pay. They are paid by the employer on top of your salary or wage. Delaying the increase to 12% will have no effect whatsoever on the ‘money in the pocket’. Hockey should know this. It’s simple. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt – that perhaps it was a simple slip of the tongue – it speaks volumes about his ability to think on his feet about financial matters.

The rest of Hockey’s interview only added to the impression that here was a man who just didn’t know why he was there, or what he should be saying. He fell back on talking points at every opportunity. Whenever Cassidy pressed him, he would interpret it as a ‘sanctimonious’ lecture from the government, and throw in an assertion that the Coalition was ‘honest’. Even then, he seemed unable to stop himself.

On the NDIS, he said that there was no possibility of delay – but in the next breath, hinted that it might not be implemented because he didn’t trust the government’s figures. That undermined Abbott’s Budget Reply, in which he not only supported the NDIS, but actually claimed it was as much the Coalition’s ‘achievement’ as the government’s.

On the Gonski reforms, he tried to say that the budget actually cut education spending, while being funded from the mining tax (it’s actually funded from general revenue). At the same time, he admitted, ‘I don’t know what Gonski looks like, what the whole education plan looks like’.

On the Coalition’s proposed tax review, he ruled out any change to the GST – then suggested they might, possibly, perhaps look at it. In a year or two. By the next election, certainly. Assuming ‘key stakeholders’ (read: big business) went along with it.

Overall, Hockey gave the impression that he really didn’t know what he was doing, or why he was even in front of the cameras. It might be poor preparation, but this isn’t the first time Hockey has given such a dreadful performance. He’s been caught out on the Reserve Bank cash rate, sources of funding for various programs, the difference between zero growth and low growth, unable to explain the Coalition’s own figures, and – famously – redefining the word ‘tax’ in order to criticise the government. These might explain why Hockey so rarely fronts the media without Abbott right there to step in, since Shadow Finance Spokesperson Andrew Robb is nearly as inarticulate as Hockey himself.

It’s really not a good look in an alternative Treasurer. But there’s this to consider. Polls have (inexplicably) shown that, after the Budget was handed down last Tuesday, Hockey is preferred Treasurer. As the election nears, Hockey will have to front the media more often. If he acts as he has until now – unable to provide figures, contradicting his own party’s stated aims and policies, and making glaring errors on the simplest of economic questions – the Coalition’s claim to be better at managing the economy will be seriously tested.

It needs to be. The Coalition rests on the laurels of Peter Costello’s work as Treasurer in the Howard government (glossing over the fact that it was a much higher taxing government than Labor under either Rudd or Gillard), tends to be long on rhetoric and short on policy detail, and has a history of not releasing its costings until so close to an election that Treasury and the Australian people cannot sufficiently scrutinise them. That’s if they give their costings to Treasury at all – remember back in 2010, when they got out of submitting their costings to Treasury byaccusing them of colluding with the government to ‘steal an election’? In fact, the Coalition’s had a ‘pass’ on the kind of scrutiny that is absolutely necessary, while feeding talking points on ‘Labor mismanagement’ to the media that, too often, are merely repeated.

Hopefully, Cassidy’s interview with Hockey is just the first hint that the tide may be turning, and we can look forward to seeing both major parties (not to mention the Greens, and newcomers like Katter’s Australia Party and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party) subjected to real investigation and interrogation from the media – whether mainstream or independent.

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Posted by theconsciencevote

Honesty is its own punishment

March 19, 2013

There’s an old saying that goes something like this:

How do you know when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.

This has never been more true in recent times. Lies about children being thrown overboard. About young single women trying to get pregnant so they can buy televisions with their baby bonus. About people who ‘jump the queue’ so they can laze around on welfare. About same-sex marriage threatening our Judeo-Christian way of life. About unions, who only exist to line their pockets. About those same unions not being responsible for sacking leader after leader. About third parties who hold themselves, self-righteously, above the trough.

And it goes on. Lies, lies, lies. And the worst lies of all? The ones that we hear, day after day, when someone says that an issue is ‘too important to politicise’ – and then goes to to do exactly that.

Abortion. The National Disability Insurance Scheme. Asylum Seekers. Newstart. Climate change. Bridges, trains, the NBN, the list goes on.

And not one party is immune. Not Labor, with its ringing tones of condemnation. Not the Coalition, with its fake sorrow that the government ‘just doesn’t listen’. Not the Greens, with their insistence that only they truly care, even as they’re busily politicising every issue that comes near them.

And you know what’s really sad about all this? The few people in Parliament who aren’t solely interested in scoring political points, or holding power for power’s sake, are either silenced or sidelined as nuts.

Look at the ridicule heaped on Bob Katter. This is a man who stands up, time and again, and politically shoots himself in the foot for his beliefs. He champions his farmers, excoriates the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths, roundly criticises all and sundry for taking advantage of indigenous people. He gets very little air time, either in the Parliament or the media – and when he does, what gets reported has nothing to do with what he says. Instead, there’s laughter if he can’t get his question out in the allotted time, or applause if he does. There are barely concealed smirks around the chamber when he rises.

How about Tony Windsor, possibly the sole voice of sanity in the House of Representatives? He holds a huge amount of power – his vote can make or break legislation, and he knows it. When he gets asked how he’ll vote, he says he’ll consider the matter very carefully, and refuses to be drawn. That’s not good enough, apparently, and out come the accusations that he’s a traitor, that he holds his seat under false pretenses, since what people ‘really’ wanted was for him to support the Coalition. Then there’s the uglier muttering, never quite said to his face, but implicit in so many comments from media outlets – that he’s power-mad, and just enjoys making the major parties wait upon him.

That same accusation gets flung at Rob Oakeshott, but it seems to be far more ‘fun’ to make comments about his tendency to be long-winded in his speeches. Ever since his joint speech with Windsor announcing support for a Labor government back in 2010 – in which his contribution lasted around 17 minutes – people make a point of ridiculing him. Strangely, those same people don’t stop to consider there may be a good reason for such comprehensive answers – that perhaps Oakeshott may simply want to be clearly understood. Heaven forbid.

Andrew Wilkie – accused of everything from being a turncoat from the Liberal Party to something of a tinpot dictator destined to fall in some kind of 2013 election ‘coup’ – exposed the hypocrisy of the entire minority government bargaining process, at least as far as the Coalition was concerned. For that he was viciously attacked, and the Coalition simply haven’t let up. His concern for problem gambling made him the target of an amazing smear campaign, and when he was hung out to dry by the government, his justified anger received nothing but indifference.

Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott, Andrew Wilkie & Tony Windsor

Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott, Andrew Wilkie and Tony Windsor

These are the MPs who hold the balance of power in the House. These four men have exercised their responsibilities wisely and well. They don’t play the game. They don’t lie to make themselves look better, or to score a point. They engage with their electorates and across social media personally. Take a look at their Twitter feeds and see how many threats they receive every day – threats of personal harm, harm to their families, even death. The language is vicious, and frightening.

Of course, they’re not the only ones to receive that kind of abuse. The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader are just as much victims as the Independents, and that is something we shouldn’t forget – or condone. It doesn’t matter who the targets are – there’s no excuse for threatening someone’s safety.

But this is about honesty. This is about not playing the game of politics with false pronouncements of truth and compassion. This is about what happens to those who do their jobs without always looking to the next poll, or the next election, but who actually want to get something done – even at the expense of their own careers. Does anyone believe Wilkie, Oakeshott and Windsor are under any illusions that both major parties will go easy on them in the upcoming campaign? The Coalition’s already said it will throw everything it’s got at them – don’t think the government will do any less, or the Greens in Tasmania.

We live in an era where lies are spoken with utter sincerity by those who are supposed to represent us, and go unchallenged by those who are supposed to investigate and interrogate on our behalf. We live in a country where those who buck this trend are attacked, abused, undermined and ridiculed.

Honesty is its own punishment, I guess. And if that doesn’t make you wake up and start doing something – well, I guess nothing will. And you’ll get the government you deserve, come September.

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Posted by theconsciencevote

Reblog: The Geek on ‘What Happened to our ABC?’

February 5, 2013

Just a quick reblog before Parliament resumes, to highlight one of the best articles I’ve seen on the current state of our national broadcaster when it comes to reporting on Australian politics. But first, a little background.

The ABC had a charter forced upon it by the Howard government, using the pretext that the broadcaster was consistently demonstrating a ‘leftist’ bias. The government argued that, since the ABC was a taxpayer-funded organisation, it had to be completely impartial. As such, for every interview with a ‘leftist’, there must also be an interview with someone on the ‘right’ side of politics.

In theory, it’s not a bad idea. Getting both sides of the story – and subjecting both sides to the same tough scrutiny – is rarely a wasted effort.

But then there’s the Senate Communications Committee (thoroughly populated by Coalition members), that regularly hauls the ABC onto the carpet to make it defend its actions. This can go to absurd lengths, sometimes. In 2011, some wit on Twitter decided that comments on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s Budget Reply speech should be hashtagged ‘#budgies’ (an obvious reference to the many photos of Abbott in his Speedos, as well as a pun on ‘budget’). In order to reach their social media audience, the ABC’s journalists (and every other media figure on Twitter) went along with it. For this, they were roundly abused by the Committee; at the height of the diatribe, the ABC was castigated for not forcing Twitter to use a hashtag that was ‘not offensive’.

As if any media organisation has ever been able to force Twitter to do anything it doesn’t want to do.

The result of ridiculous charges like this, though, and the constant harassment from the Coalition, has led to a parlous state of affairs in the ABC. It’s rare, these days, we’ll see a hard-hitting interview of a Coalition member (ah, remember that wonderful time when Kerry O’Brien utterly shredded Abbott’s arguments on The 7.30 Report?), let alone a balanced piece of news about something involving the current government. Opposition members virtually have the run of the ABC, while shows like Insiders regularly allow flagrantly Coalition-partisan journalists like Andrew Bolt or Piers Akerman to shout down any dissenting view.

And that’s just the background.

The Geek, over at Australians for Honest Politics, has gathered a damning collection of examples of just how this pressure from the Coalition has warped our national broadcaster. The ABC leaps to apologise if it catches a Coalition guest in a lie, or pushes them for an answer until they get worked up and complain – yet it treats the ALP (and the Prime Minister) completely differently. The list of incidents goes on and on; it’s comprehensive, and disheartening, but it’s an article that is absolutely required reading. In a country where claims that our media has a ‘leftist’ bias, this piece lays out the evidence that – if anything – the reverse is true. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The Geek asks, quite rightly, ‘What Happened to our ABC?’ That’s something I’d like to know, and I suspect I’m not alone in that.

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Posted by theconsciencevote

The media should not be the message

February 2, 2013

Sometimes I despair of our media, I really do.

Today Attorney-General Nicola Roxon and Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans announced their resignations from the Ministry and the Parliament. Evans will stay on until a replacement can be found for him, and Roxon will step down at the next election. Both said they’d discussed their plans with the Prime Minister a year ago, and decided that their family obligations (and in the case of Evans, the long commute from Perth) were the major factors in their decisions. They stressed their decisions were not due to a lack of confidence. The Prime Minister added that she’d decided to make the announcement now, after the election date was set and before Parliament sits again next Tuesday.

Cue the wild speculation. Cue the hyperbole. Cue a mainstream media frenzy, hurriedly written scream-sheet stories, and any number of pundits dragged from their Saturday brunches to give us their ‘expert’ analysis.

This is probably my favourite headline: Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Campaign In Disarray As Chris Evans Resigns And Robert McLelland May Vacate His Seat. Really, all it needs are four or five exclamation marks.

The campaign – you know, the one that hasn’t commenced, except in the minds of headline writers – is ‘stuttering’. The resignations are ‘shock’. The carefully chosen photo of the PM blowing her nose is captioned as ‘an emotional PM’. The government is ‘in chaos’. It’s triggered a ‘major reshuffle in Cabinet’ (affecting four out of over thirty Ministers is major, it seems). These resignations are a vote of no confidence in Labor. No less than seven – count ‘em, seven – Labor Parliamentarians are about to resign. Oh, and these resignations are ‘really’ about punishing Kevin Rudd’s supporters. (The niggling detail that Roxon was one of Rudd’s most vicious critics when he challenged for the Prime Ministership last year seems to have escaped some reporters.)

Never mind that seven Liberal Parliamentarians have also announced their intention to resign. Most of them gave similar reasons – family commitments, felt they’d served their electorate well but wanted to move on, etc. Judi Moylan is one of those. She’s well known for crossing the floor on asylum seeker issues to oppose the Coalition’s draconian measures, and being a vocal critic of the Pacific Solution. Strangely, no reporter’s suggested that she was ‘invited’ to resign because of this.

And how about Mal Washer? He’s gone head to head with Abbott himself. His was one of the loudest voices arguing that Abbott should not have the right to veto the abortifacient drug RU486, and opposed Abbott’s proposal to make teens’ medical records accessible to parents. Again, no one has ever speculated on whether he’s being pushed.

I guess ‘personal reasons’ only apply to Coalition members when leaving Parliament. No Labor politician would do that – there must be a hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda. At least as far as our media is concerned.

One reporter even helpfully suggested to Shadow Education spokesperson Christopher Pyne, in a media conference today, that it was a case of ‘rats leaving a sinking ship’. Well done, that journalist. Your cheque from Peta Credlin is in the mail.

Parliamentarians leaving before an election is nothing new, and the degree to which their departure might cause problems for their party varies. For example, before 2007′s election, 16 Coalition members resigned – including two who were under scrutiny for links to a convicted fraudster and for failing to make proper financial disclosures. Arguably, for Roxon and Evans to go now serves the government well; it allows time for the new appointees to settle into their roles and prove themselves. Not that you’d hear that from the media.

Then there’s the matter of the election date announcement. Senator George Brandis, Shadow Attorney-General, all but called the Prime Minister a liar in his appearance on Lateline, suggesting that had an ulterior motive. How curious, he said, that this happened just the day before former Labor, now Independent MP Craig Thomson was arrested and charged with fraud. Not that he’s saying anything, oh no, but isn’t it curious?

Pyne took up that theme today, but – as usual – went one step further. The PM had announced the election when she did simply so that she could avoid a by-election in Thomson’s electorate, he asserted.

For reasons passing understanding, these statements went entirely unchallenged.

For a start, it’s a ridiculous notion. If Thomson is convicted of fraud and sentenced to 12 months or more in jail, he will have to step down, and that will trigger a by-election. Announcing the date of the national poll does nothing to change that, and any political journalist would know it. So why did no one go after him?

Secondly, this is the third time in as many days that the Coalition has either implied or outright said that the PM is lying. There is no Parliamentary privilege here to protect them, yet they’re getting away with it. There’s not even a token ‘Mr Pyne, are you really accusing the PM or lying’ soft question.

And while we’re at it, what about the media and the circumstances surrounding Thomson’s arrest? Very interesting, those. Someone tipped off the media that the arrest was about to take place, and as a result some very tasty footage of Thomson being escorted out of his office by no less than six burly detectives was obtained. Remember, this man was arrested on suspicion of fraud – he was not considered violent, or known to be armed. But oh, what a lovely circus that was. And of course, no one employed by a news organisation who was there is going to ask questions about just where they got their information. Even though they should.

I know it’s an old and tired drum, but I’m going to keep beating it. News media exists for a number of reasons – but feeding soft questions to politicians and letting them get away with rehearsed answers that amount to mere noise is not one of them. We have a right to expect that if a politician makes unsubstantiated accusations, investigative reporters will uncover the truth and present it without fear or favour. We have a right to expect that a news organisation will attempt to be objective – or at least not show outright partisanship in its reportage. Op-ed columns (or more commonly, these days, blogs) are almost always going to display some leaning towards left or right, but there’s no excuse for the Daily Telegraph article mentioned above. That’s not news. It’s a Coalition media release dressed up in respectable clothing.

So often, mainstream organisations direct sneers towards independent and citizen media. This usually takes the form of accusations that bloggers, etc., are (a) not bound by journalistic ethics, (b) not properly trained (and therefore don’t know what they’re writing about), or (c) biased.

Insert obvious declaration of self-interest here. I’m not going to pretend that such accusations don’t infuriate me, and that’s at least partly because some blogs are little more than mouthpieces for a party line. But the rise of independent media isn’t just about having access to the internet, especially where politics is concerned. It’s born of frustration.

When the media people pay for is blatantly partisan … when the reporters appear to be either too lazy to ask hard questions or too oblivious to realise they’re being managed … when they don’t seem able to do even a little research into the claims of politicians … sooner or later, we’ll start to speak up for ourselves.

Maybe we don’t have access to the politicians (and I hereby invite any politician who’d like to be interviewed by independent media to step right up, leave your email address in the comments; I’d love to sit down with you), but we can ask the questions. We can challenge the message and demand answers instead of evasions and slogans. We can be aware that we have the power to shape the message, and the responsibility to do so in a way that relies on facts, not spin or outright fabrication.

In other words, we can be what the mainstream media should be – Marshall McLuhan’s watchdog of the mind.

Here’s an idea. Let’s replace the Canberra press gallery with independent media for the first sitting of 2013, and see what they produce. Let’s hold independent media to the standards of mainstream media, and judge the questions asked in pressers accordingly.

I think the results would be … interesting.

Even better, though, would be a situation where independent and mainstream media co-existed to call all politicians to account, to inform the public of the facts and to safeguard against the political desire to change not only what we think, but how we think.

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Posted by theconsciencevote

Craig Thomson’s day in kangaroo court

May 21, 2012

Another day, another way in which the state of Australian politics sinks lower and lower. We reached the gutter about the time the Opposition decided that it wasn’t going to grant pairs for the purposes of allowing the Prime Minister to great foreign heads of state, or for a backbencher to be at the bedside of his wife as she delivered their child.

We got to the sewer when allegations of sexual harassment and improper use of funds against Speaker Peter Slipper (and yes, he is still the Speaker, certain commentators’ assertions to the contrary) were capitalised upon by the Coalition. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was only the loudest of his party in denouncing Slipper – and, of course, the government. Slipper was tried and convicted by the Opposition, with the enthusiastic co-operation of the media, and pressured to step down from his position until the matter comes to civil court. That pressure continues even now, and Slipper’s name may well be irrevocably tainted, regardless of the outcome of the civil case.

I’m not quite sure what comes below that. Perhaps the bedrock, because today Parliament treated us to the unedifying spectacle of an MP forced to ‘prove’ his innocence against a series of unsubstantiated, highly questionable allegations ranging from electoral fraud to (apparently) frequenting a brothel.

It was surely a coincidence that this was the same member who’d been denied a pair to be with his wife – the Member for Dobell, Craig Thomson. Persecution? Surely not.

Well, front Parliament Thomson did, and delivered an hour-long speech that started with a few choice quotes from the death threats he’d received. He defended himself from the allegations against him, contained in the Fair Work Australia report into the Health Services Union. He denied any wrongdoing whatsoever, and alleged in turn that he had been deliberately set up by those who were unhappy with the changes he’d made to the way the union operated. He named Marco Bolano, an HSU official, as having threatened to ‘ruin’ his political career by ‘setting him up with hookers’. Of course, he could not prove much of what he asserted was untrue – and acknowledged as much, but he did thoroughly tear apart the FWA report, pointing out how much of it weighed on the uncritical acceptance of testimony by Kathy Jackson and Michael Williamson, both of whom he said opposed him from the beginning.

Thomson reserved his harshest criticism for the Opposition, who he said had stirred up a ‘lynch mob’ against him, and for the media. Nearly in tears, he described the hounding he’d received from the latter, singling out Channel 7, who he said had stationed a crew underneath his bathroom window, while his pregnant wife was showering. (For the record, Channel 7 later issued a statement denying only the presence of any reporters under the window.)

About the Opposition he said this, ‘You have damaged democracy’. I think it’s fair to say, however, that this criticism could be just as easily levelled at the government, who expelled him from the Caucus some weeks ago in an obvious attempt to put him at arms’ length. After months of previous support, it looked like the government was cutting him loose while it still could, and it lent weight to the idea that he was as good as convicted already.

It was clear that Thomson was both furious and deeply upset. And he had every right to be, because between them, the Parliament and the media forced him into actions he should never have had to undertake.

What’s so terrible about making him front Parliament? Oh, just two little things – the presumption of innocence, and the separation of powers. Two little things that underpin our judiciary and our system of government.

All Australians are considered innocent until proven guilty. Thomson has not fronted a court. He has not been charged. As of this writing, there is no indication that he will be charged. A report was handed down by Fair Work Australia, a statutory body with no authority to bring prosecutions or make determinations of law – something it acknowledged in the report – and passed on to other bodies. The NSW police brought no charges. The Australian Electoral Commission found the report in error as regards its assertions of wrongdoing on Thomson’s part. The Victoria police are still looking.

Not that this, apparently, matters to either the Opposition or the media.

Then there’s the matter of separation of powers. This isn’t quite as clear-cut here in Australia as it is places like the United States, but one thing is unequivocal: only courts of law have the power to make findings in law. Even a Federal Commission can only make recommendations – it can’t enforce them. The Parliament’s only judicial power is in the area of contempt of Parliament, and even then the decisions are subject to review by Federal Court.

Thomson is entitled to his day in court, fairly and without prejudice. That idea isn’t good enough for the Opposition, who have kept up consistent pressure to force him to make a statement to Parliament ‘explaining himself’. The Parliament’s reputation was in danger! It was a ‘stinking, putrid mess’! Et cetera. They lost no opportunity to cram it into questions to Ministers, interviews with obliging media, and hijacked Question Time twice in the last sitting alone in an attempt to suspend Standing Orders and drag Thomson to the dock.

They finally got their wish – perhaps just because Thomson couldn’t take it any more. He certainly looked like a man at the end of his tether, and no wonder. He hadn’t been legally represented, or a jury of peers. There was no judge, no sworn testimony, no finding made against him, but he was treated as a convicted criminal making a plea for mercy.

In any court in the country, that would be considered a miscarriage of justice.

But, oh wait – we’re not in a court, are we? Unless it’s a kangaroo court.

Surprise, surprise – they weren’t satisfied with what they heard. As soon as Thomson sat down, Manager of Opposition Business Christopher Pyne was on his feet, wanting the Parliament to ‘take note’ of the statement. Basically, the Opposition wanted another crack at Thomson, and through him, at the government. They tried this no less than three times, and each time failed – twice due to political manoeuvring on the government’s part, and once because the Opposition did not gain an absolute majority.

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey pronounced it ‘a moral victory’ in booming tones reminiscent of a revival tent preacher or a priggish schoolmaster. It wasn’t. It wasn’t any kind of victory.

The reputation of the Parliament suffers every day in its present form. Contrary to Abbott’s oft-repeated assertions, that’s not because it’s a minority government. Let’s not forget, after all, that were the Coalition in power it would also constitute a minority government. It’s not suffering because Craig Thomson continues to represent the people of Dobell – he was duly elected, and has done nothing to warrant his being removed from that seat. And it’s certainly not suffering for lack of key legislation passing through both Houses.

It’s suffering because time and again, some of the most fundamental standards of Australian culture and society are flouted.

The courtesy to let someone speak without being shouted down – ignored every Question Time.

The decency to keep personal attacks on someone’s marital status, sexuality, mental health, etc., out of public and Parliamentary discourse – ignored at every possible turn.

The respect for Parliamentary procedure that enables it to function at all – exploited, twisted and sometimes outright dismissed.

The adherence to the principle of the presumption of innocence – Exhibits A and B, Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper.

The acknowledgement that the Parliament is not a court, and not entitled to decide the guilt or innocence of anyone.

The basic standard of behaviour we teach our children – that you do not tell lies. And no, I’m not talking about the ‘carbon tax’ – I’m talking about the Opposition’s willingness to play fast and loose with facts, statistics and law whenever it suits them.

And finally, the integrity not to set out to deliberately ruin a man’s life, his family’s peace of mind and his chances of ever being trusted again just because you think it might win you an election.

Craig Thomson is entitled to every protection under the law. He has been treated shamefully, and even if he is guilty of the allegations made by Fair Work Australia, the chances of an untainted prosecution are close to zero, thanks to the concerted efforts of the Opposition and the media.

I’ve said all that before. I shouldn’t have to keep saying it. No one should.

UPDATE:

Oh, and lest anyone still doesn’t get it …

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Posted by theconsciencevote

More on Doctors for the Family and their ‘evidence’

May 14, 2012

Last night I revealed that ‘Doctors for the Family’ were not simply an organisation of health professionals with valid health concerns about same-sex marriage, but rather a religious lobby group who used their qualifications to obscure their real agenda.

That knowledge still, apparently, hasn’t made it to the mainstream media – nor have they bothered to check the sources cited in the letter submitted by the group to the Senate marriage equality enquiry. Now, we can understand that the Herald-Sun might not be too interested in looking closely; it was originally their story, after all. (And readers might be interested to check out the redacted version, which now includes quotes from the AMA and Australian Marriage Equality – described by reporter Brigid O’Connell as ‘gay rights’ activists’. It also includes quotes from Dr Lachlan Dunjeny, though strangely, fails to mention his other crusades.)

But what’s the excuse for no one else doing a bit of elementary research? This isn’t simply some obscure Senate paper; it was splashed all over the media yesterday, becoming the lead story for some news providers. Extraordinary claims were published and re-published, and never challenged.

The story is out now that there is a religious agenda driving Doctors for the Family. But what about the apparently authoritative sources they use to back up their arguments that same-sex marriage (specifically, marriage between two men, which seems to be their major preoccupation)? Who are they?

Let’s take a look.

The major study cited looks, on the face of things, to be above reproach. It was completed by the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney, and only last year. Looks pretty damning. But wait.

The study was commissioned by our old friends the Australian Christian Lobby, and ‘made possible by a generous grant from the Vos Foundation’. It also thanks someone named Antoine Kazzi.

The Vos Foundation are an interesting group. Primarily, they’re land developers – one of those stories where a family business grows from humble beginnings to become incredibly successful. Some of that success finds its way into what they describe as a ‘philanthropy vehicle’. Just so that everyone’s clear on what kind of philanthropy, the Foundation helpfully provides information on their values – and right up front is a profession of faith, followed by ‘family and marriage relationships’.

Antoine Kazzi, whose research was so invaluable, works for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney – specifically, their Life, Marriage and Family Centre.

The study also thanks Focus on the Family Canada, a multi-national group well-known for their opposition to same-sex relationships and marriage equality. The acknowledgements wind up with statements of gratitude to several people for reading and comments – including Lyle Shelton and Paul O’Rourke from the ACL.

These are clearly partisan individuals and organisations, with a massive agenda to push. Any credible academic study should seek data which is as neutral as possible – or at the very least, balance the contributions with data or statements from opposing views.

The ‘evidence’ on which it relies is sketchy, its bias clear, and its original premise is shaky. It’s the kind of study that would earn an undergraduate student a verbal spanking and a low grade – and it’s certainly not of the standard expected by learned and lauded Professors.

And the unsurprising conclusion? Everything – everything that is wrong with our kids today stems from their not being raised in a two-parent heterosexual marriage environment.

This study is the equivalent of those ‘scientific research papers’ that used to say that smoking cigarettes was not only harmless, but might actually benefit us – you know, the ones that were commissioned and underwritten by tobacco companies. It’s questionable at best, worthless at worst.

Of all the sources cited in Doctors for the Family’s letter, this one is the most credible. The rest are either statistics taken out of context and twisted to serve the agenda, or partisan articles from international groups pushing the same religious agenda – notoriously, the hate-group Mass Resistance. That group is particularly vicious – reading their diatribes against same-sex attracted and transgender people is actually sickening. The Southern Poverty Law Center details some of their more revolting actions, including attempts to criminalise male-male sex as a form of ‘bestiality’ and to plant false allegations that ‘normalising homosexuality’ had led to skyrocketing levels of domestic violence.

And these are the groups on which Doctors for the Family based their submission to the Senate. These are the arguments that the lobby group attempted to give a veneer of respectability through using their professions to obscure their true purpose. And – most importantly – these are the groups that are easily exposed, and who have not been investigated even after the letter was made public.

Part of the media’s job is to challenge those sorts of assertions, so that those of us who work in other sectors can learn the facts behind them. It’s not enough to simply reprint part of a media release and get a comment from the most easily identified opponent to someone’s views. You need to investigate.

The letter from Doctors for the Family is going to the Senate. It will form part of a raft of submissions to an enquiry whose recommendations could have serious ramifications for thousands of Australians, their families and friends.

So-called ‘health organisations’ that cite partisan studies and rely on propaganda from hate-groups should be exposed for what they are, and that knowledge should be shared as widely as possible. The Senate should know what they’re getting.

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Posted by theconsciencevote

Who are ‘Doctors for the Family’?

May 13, 2012

Mother’s Day. It’s one of those terribly sentimental holidays where media gush about the importance of giving Mum a day off, department stores hold sales where everything is pink (right down to a cute little pink cordless drill for the ‘Handy-Mum’, god save us), and we all get to see news anchors say hi to their own mothers and make jokes about perhaps not giving them the right present.

This year, though, every potential parent in Australia got a slap in the face, thanks to News Limited. In itself, that’s not so surprising – but what is worrying is that no media organisation seems to have done more than the most rudimentary of investigation into the report.

The Herald-Sun published a letter signed by 150 doctors, who all expressed their concerns that same-sex marriage – oh, sorry, “so-called same-sex marriage” – posed a health risk to any children those couples might parent.

A health risk. That’s right. And just in case we weren’t sure what that might mean, the letter helpfully spelled it out in a footnote telling us about increased rates of HIV among those who engage in male-male sex.

The letter didn’t stop there, though. There is a further concern for children – that there might be terrible health consequences associated with ‘further “normalising” of homosexual behaviour’. Not least of these consequences is that people might be charged with “hate speech” (their quotes) if they speak out against marriage equality (sorry, sorry, “so-called same-sex marriage”, I keep forgetting), or that their kids might be somehow irrevocably damaged by remaining in Health Ed classes where they’re taught that sometimes boys wants to have sex with boys. Quite what that damage might be was left unspecified. Perhaps that they might learn how important safer sex practices are, and that they’re not damned to hell for who they love?

Naturally, other media jumped all over it. The AMA practically fell over themselves to get into the TV studios so they could denounce the letter, and a raft of evidence showing that same-sex parenting was no more or less damaging than any other kind made it to the airwaves. Uncomfortably, one of the signatories was Professor Kuravilla George, who serves as Victoria’s deputy chief psychiatrist. He’s also a board member of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

Oops. How did that guy slip through the cracks? That’s the question everyone’s asking. How did someone with such blinkered – and frankly wrong – views make it into such a sensitive position? And it’s a good question. But there’s more going on here. What we’ve seen is just the surface.

The letter is headed up, ‘Doctors for the Family’. Question is, just who is this organisation?

It takes about five minutes to find out.

Doctors for the Family describes itself in this way:

“There are many organisations in Australia and internationally that support marriage – the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others – as the basis for family and a healthy society.

Doctors for the Family is a supporting medical organisation to highlight the health aspects of marriage and family and ensure a healthy future for our children.

Its purpose is to be a source of information and at times make representation to parliament or appropriate organisations to ensure policies that enhance and preserve the health and future of our nation.”

There’s no wriggle-room there. It’s an organisation that was specifically set up for the sole purpose of pushing a homophobic, anti-marriage equality agenda. It does not claim to make any form of objective analysis, merely to ‘be a source of information’. And there’s no one presented as a front person. Those who wish to contact the organisation are invited to email ‘web@doctors4family.com.au’ as generic a web address as I’ve ever seen. In itself, that should have rung alarm bells with journalists everywhere to start digging.

Go behind the website, however, and you find out what’s really going on here.

Via whois lookup, a moment’s work discovers that the site is owned by a Doctor Lachlan Dunjey, the first signatory on the letter. So who is he? Behold, everyone’s best friend Google.

Lachlan Dunjey just happens to be one of the driving forces behind the Church in Perth – a fundamentalist Christian group. The site helpfully provides us with a list of his articles, and we can see straight away that same-sex marriage is only one of Dunjey’s crusades – and that the ‘Doctors for the Family’ website is only one of his soapboxes. There’s anti-abortion via Choose Life Australia and Conscience in Medicine; so-called ‘personhood’ issues which affect stem cell research, contraception and embryo destruction; anti-Bill of Rights; and euthanasia.

All of these articles are liberally sprinkled with out-of-context quotes from the Bible, pseudo-science, and outright lies. Far from being simply a group of doctors concerned about the health implications of policy, Doctors for the Family is just another front for a fundamentalist Christian group with a hate-mongering agenda.

Here’s a sample, and it shows just where Dunjey is coming from:

“It is one thing to pass a law that permits evil but it is something more to pass a law that compels evil. We have not been here before in a civilised society. Yes, we need to change people’s hearts and minds by bringing them into the Kingdom of God.”

It doesn’t get much clearer than that. Dunjey is spear-heading a fundamentalist Christian attack (complete with recruitment drive) disguised as concern for the health of children – which is utterly reprehensible.

Oh, and best of all? Dunjey is a member of and former Senate candidate for the Christian Democratic Party.

All of that research and reading was accomplished in less than 30 minutes. And that brings up two questions:

1. How many signatories to that Senate submission knew who they were signing up with?

2. Why did no one in the media do even rudimentary research on Doctors for the Family, and find out who was behind it? Dunjey even fronted the media for a very brief soundbite, but nothing was said about his blatant religious agenda.

And here’s a final point – Doctors for the Family clearly attempted to deceive the Senate enquiry by misrepresenting themselves as a ‘health organisation’, rather than a religious group whose arguments are cherry-picked, distorted, and backed up by the flimsiest of ‘evidence’, all operating from a basis of religious dogma rather than science.

That should be the focus for the media, not whether their arguments hold any validity whatsoever.

There’s simply no excuse for letting that slip.

UPDATE:

Nickandrew analysed the signatories of the letter, and discovered around a 35% overlap with those who signed the Liberty of Conscience in Medicine declaration. That particular document affirmed that it had no specific ties to religion or faith, only conscience. Thanks to the efforts of

82 Comments | Media, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by theconsciencevote

NDIS launch obscured by political noise

April 30, 2012

When you’re a political blogger, you never know what you’re going to get (unless it’s an attempted censure motion by the Opposition in Question Time, of course). There are good days – some juicy bit of policy to pick apart, strategy to analyse, election campaigns to follow. There are frustrating days – when all you have to work with is the same old message. And there are dead days.

But on some days, it just doesn’t do to get out of bed.

Today is one of those days.

It might surprise you to know that Gillard launched the National Disability Insurance Scheme today, committing $8 billion and commencing building for the initial sites a year ahead of the Productivity Commission. The NDIS was supposedly bipartisan, yet now the Coalition is backing away from it, describing it in ‘aspirational’ terms and trying to point the finger at the government as somehow being at fault for going ahead with it.

Substantial policy stuff, the NDIS is the kind of program that has been needed for decades, and hundreds of people have worked tirelessly to lobby successive governments on the matter. For this to finally be happening – funds committed, legislation passed – is a real victory for disabled people, their relatives and their carers.

And if you want to find out about it, you have to wait until the bottom of the half hour on the news channels – because, apparently, there are much more important things to discuss. Because, apparently, political scandal, hypocrisy and the demonstrated contempt of our politicians for both the political process and their representatives rates higher in media priorities than letting vulnerable sectors of society know they will be able to access help they desperately need.

First, there’s the ongoing Craig Thomson saga. The embattled Member for Dobell remains firmly in the Opposition’s sights, despite never having a single charge levelled against him, either civil or criminal. There’s been a Fair Work Australia investigation into the Health Services Union, with which Thomson was involved before entering Parliament. Nothing has come of it to date. FWA found it was probable that the union criminally misused member funds. The Australian Federal Police called for a proper brief. To date, they have not received one.

Nonetheless, the Opposition were relentless. Thomson should resign! Thomson is tainted! The PM is clinging to power through a corrupt vote! This government is illegitimate! Et cetera.

Either Abbott employs a team of super-psychics, who can discover dirt that no one else in the country can find, or this is simply the same grandiose political manoeuvring that’s led him to call for an election on almost a daily basis since the Coalition’s loss in 2010. Either way, he kept at it, and finally got a victory.

The government was firmly behind Thomson and firmly on message. He’s entitled to the presumption of innocence. There are no grounds to remove him. We support him. Which is exactly what they should have done. But then yesterday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that Thomson had been expelled from Labor Caucus, and would move to the cross-benches.

To make matters worse, she went on to say that Speaker Peter Slipper, who stood aside when allegations of fraud were made against him by a former staffer, would continue to be out of the Speaker’s chair until civil proceedings from that same staffer were resolved. It was another about-face; right up until the day before the government staunchly defended Slipper’s right to return to the Speaker’s chair if he was not facing criminal charges, while the Opposition called for him at least to stay out of the job until the civil matter was resolved, and preferably resign altogether.

In both cases, she justified the action as stemming from a public perception of a shadow over the Parliament. In other words, it looked bad to keep supporting them.

It’s a big call, but this is very probably the weakest thing Gillard’s done since becoming Prime Minister. She allowed herself to be stampeded by an Opposition led by someone Independent MP Tony Windsor describes as ‘a rabid dog’, and did exactly what he’d been demanding.

Maybe she thought this would defuse the issue. With Thomson out of the Caucus, maybe Abbott would have no talking points. If so, it was a shocking misjudgment. Having gained ground on the Thomson issue, Abbott immediately upped the stakes. It’s not good enough to have Thomson out of the caucus, he argued. His vote shouldn’t be counted at all – it was ‘tainted’, and Gillard would rely on that corrupt vote, rendering the entire government illegitimate. The only way out of this situation was – you guessed it – an election. ‘There is nothing wrong with our country that a change of government can’t fix,’ he said today at yet another media conference on the evils of the carbon price and the mining tax.

Of course, he’s not going to attempt a no confidence motion, because he knows he won’t win. Thomson would vote with the government, as would Bandt. Wilkie’s a question mark, but self-interest alone may lead him to support the government (given the Coalition’s oft-repeated dedication to tearing him out of his seat at the next election). The crucial votes, then, are those of Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott – and neither of them support Abbott’s policies. The likely result, then, is a tie, which would be resolved in the negative by Acting Speaker Anna Burke, Labor MP for Chisholm.

But Abbott doesn’t need to bring a no confidence motion. He just needs to keep grabbing the media spotlight, and hammering home his message. Gillard’s backdown on Thomson and Slipper is the best thing to happen to him, and he will capitalise on that every moment he can, while continually pushing for more capitulation. At the same time, he can sideswipe Windsor and Oakeshott by implying in the national media that they’re not listening to their constituencies, who want the minority government gone. And of course, he doesn’t have to provide any evidence – with much of the media slavishly repeating his assertions as fact, and Gillard giving them legitimacy by backing down.

And let’s no forget these standards Abbott sets for the government don’t apply to the Opposition in his eyes. Oh, no. Just take a look, and you decide how far the hypocrisy goes.

Coalition front-bencher Sophie Mirabella is entangled in civil action at the moment connected with a probate case – but Abbott won’t ask her to step aside until it’s resolved.

Senator Mary Jo Fisher was the subject of criminal proceedings, and stepped aside from her Senate Committee position while they were underway – but continued to be paid for that role, and was never called upon to resign altogether.

The Coalition was happy to accept Peter Slipper’s vote when allegations were made against him in 2003, arguing that there were no charges against him – yet now says the government must not do the same with Thomson.

On the subject of poaching Parliamentarians for political advantage – in 1996, Labor Senator Mal Colston left the ALP at the urging of the Coalition, who installed him (as a nominal Independent) as Deputy President of the Senate. A year later he was charged with defrauding the Commonwealth – yet continued to serve in the Senate right through the investigation period.

And finally, Abbott’s declaration today that ‘I don’t do deals’, when asked why he didn’t approach Windsor and Oakeshott directly to gain their support for a no confidence motion – despite offering a swag of money (including no less than $1 billion for the Royal Hobart Hospital) to Andrew Wilkie for his vote to form government in 2010.

And knowing all this, Gillard still backed down. It’s a monumental blunder, and Abbott is far too wily a political animal not to seize on that weakness. Any way you look at it, you can file this under ‘FUBAR’.

At least we have a little absurdity to relieve the seemingly unending round of blunder, bluster, hypocrisy and posturing. Strangely, that comes in the form of mining magnate Clive Palmer.

We’ve seen a lot of Palmer lately. He’s become a bit of a poster child for opposition to the mining tax and carbon price packages – and, apparently makes good television. He secured a guernsey on QandA to regale us all with his considered opinions on how the Greens were running the government and exporting all our jobs to China. He got the media running to Canberra for his announcement that the Greens were, in fact, funded by the CIA – then, when confronted by the ridiculousness of his own claim, grinned and claimed he’d done it deliberately to pull focus away from a government announcement.

This is the man who wants to build Titanic II (thought apparently without the help of James Cameron); who thinks cutting off government subsidies to millionaires will jeopardise their children’s future (perhaps they’ll only have three cars and two homes); and who avowedly ‘loves to litigate’. He’s a long-time contributor to the Queensland Liberal National Party, a vocal opponent of anything that smacks of environmental responsibility and a staunch defender of the right to cut benefits to poor people while maintaining upper class welfare.

And now he wants to go into politics. Specifically, he wants to run against Treasurer Wayne Swan in the seat of Lilley at the next federal election. He announced he would seek LNP pre-selection today against a backdrop emblazoned with the motto ‘Swan’s Song’ – not the clearest of messages, mind you. Palmer put his metaphorical hand on his heart and pledged to work to ‘grow the nation’s prosperity and lift standards in Parliament’. Of course, he doesn’t see why he should give up his business while he’s actually in Parliament. It’s ‘only a small family company’, after all.

Yeah, you read that right.

Uh, Mr Palmer? Have you ever heard of a little thing called ‘conflict of interest’? It’s when your private interests and investments clash directly with your duty as a Parliamentarian. You’re proposing to sit in Parliament as a member of a government that is pledged to repeal taxes and schemes that you’ve shouted far and wide will significantly disadvantage you – and yet you think you can continue to run your mining company at the same time?

(Mind you, this isn’t the first time Palmer’s taken a run at federal politics. As far back as 1984, he stood for pre-selection in the LNP and was soundly defeated.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that he was beaten by Peter Slipper.)

Seriously, Mr Palmer, get a political strategist to go with that media advisor you so desperately need. Even Abbott isn’t comfortable with this – he repeatedly refused to endorse you today. Take a hint.

Even before the sun’s set, this is the kind of day in politics we’ve got. And this is what’s taking up all the air in the media. ABCNews24 just announced their afternoon current affairs program would focus on Thomson and Palmer. Not a whiff about the NDIS. Really, it’s enough to make anyone interested in actually examining policy weep.

Like I said, some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

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Posted by theconsciencevote

A reality check on the Peter Slipper ‘scandal’

April 23, 2012

It’s not exactly news by now that Peter Slipper has stepped down from his Parliamentary role as Speaker. That much is clear – but that’s where the clarity ends, and the obfuscation, spin, accusations and general idiocy begin.

So let’s take a look – and a bit of a reality check – at what we actually have before us.

We have a compensation complaint made by James Ashby, a former staffer for Slipper, and lodged with the Federal Court, that alleges Slipper handed him blank Cabcharge vouchers for personal use. That’s an allegation of fraud, a criminal offence.

That complaint also alleges a raft of sexual harassment claims that would do any Hollywood thriller proud. Ashby claims that Slipper only hired him in order to pursue a sexual relationship, repeatedly made unwanted sexual advances, and even that Slipper asked him for a massage – which he provided – and responded to it in a sexual way.

Along with this Ashby claims that Slipper’s alleged behaviour was known about as far back as 2003 (and that there is video evidence of this), and that there was a cover-up by the then Howard government. For this, he is suing the Commonwealth, claiming that it did not provide a safe workplace.

The accusations of fraud – and, now, misuse of other entitlements – are under investigation from the Finance Ministry. The Australian Federal Police confirmed it was notified, and would ‘assess’ the claims.

Slipper denied – strenuously denied – all of it. Nonetheless, he stepped aside from his role as Speaker, saying that he believed that was appropriate pending the outcome of those investigations.

Ugly, right?

But let’s get a few things straight.

No criminal charges of fraud have been filed to date. (Not for lack of urging on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s part, mind you – it really seems as though he believes the Australian Federal Police as his to order around.)

No criminal charges of sexual offences have been filed to date, despite some of the accusations potentially falling under stalking and breaches of the Telecommunications Act.

There is no formal investigation being undertaken by the Federal Police. Their spokesperson has confirmed only that ‘the AFP is aware of the new allegations of fraud and will be taking action to assess that information’.

No allegations have even come before the Court, let alone been proven. Documents were lodged. That’s it so far.

Given all of this, Slipper is absolutely entitled to the presumption of innocence. There’s no question about it. Abbott and his colleagues should not be out there referring to these matters as though they were beyond question. In particular, his Shadow Attorney-General, George Brandis, who is always so quick to remind us that he is a qualified lawyer (and so quick to forget that so is the Prime Minister), should be the first to remind his own party of this fact.

Oh, Abbott’s clever enough to avoid saying anything that’s actually defamatory. He talks about the government, not the man – but no one can mistake the message. It’s ‘tawdry’. It’s ‘squalid’. The government should ‘die of shame’. And let’s not forget the ‘sleazy’ deal made to elevate Slipper to the Speakership. The language is clear – it’s the language of gutter sexuality.

And the media is quite happy to go with it. It’s a ‘scandal’. Some are even happily adopting Abbott’s actual language – Paul Sheehan in the Sydney Morning Herald seems to like the word ‘tawdry’. A few moments ago, Channel Ten asked itself, ‘How did Labor not know who it was getting into bed with?’ (my italics) All the focus is on the sexual allegations, even if only as metaphor.

(And just by the way, media – what’s with the constant repetition of ‘a male staffer’? We can all see Ashby’s male. We know his name, and it’s not ambiguous. Why do you keep reminding us of his gender? Could it be that you think you can drum up a bit more outrage, make it more ‘dirty’ or ‘disgusting’, by focusing on alleged sexual behaviour between two men? Perish the thought.)

It’s worth repeating. Slipper did not stand down because of civil complaints of sexual harassment. He stood down pending the outcome of investigations into alleged financial impropriety.

It wasn’t required of him – after all, it wouldn’t be the first time a Parliamentarian continued to serve while his use of entitlements was under investigation – but he judged it the proper thing to do.

That’s not good enough for the Coalition, apparently. Christopher Pyne wants Slipper to be ‘suspended’ until the civil allegations are also resolved. Never mind that when former Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull and former Education Minister Michael Wooldridge were involved in civil actions – in Turnbull’s case, for hundreds of millions of dollars – both continued to serve in the Parliament.

Of course, there’s politics at the heart of all this. It’s as though someone wrapped the whole issue up in a big bow and handed it straight to the Coalition. With Slipper stepping down, the government returns to its previous one-seat majority. This won’t make it impossible to pass legislation – the best the Coalition could likely hope for is a tied vote, which would be resolved by Deputy Speaker (and Labor MP) Anna Burke – but it does give Abbott even more ammunition for his tried-and-tested diatribes against minority government.

(Always carefully failing to mention that any Coalition government would also be a minority, of course. That’s what happens when four different parties decide to work together.)

Abbott says he’s unlikely to try for a no-confidence motion when Parliament resumes on May 8. He says he doesn’t do such things ‘lightly’ – but that rings rather oddly against his other assertions. He’s claimed that ‘the strength of the whole democratic process relies essentially on the good name of the Speaker’s office’. If so, why isn’t he rushing to place a no-confidence motion on the Parliamentary agenda, and making his case to the Independents and Adam Bandt? Surely that would be the only appropriate, and responsible action?

Or could it be that Abbott won’t even try because he knows such a motion would fail? Perhaps he realises that he’s gained a reputation as the Opposition Leader Who Cried Wolf for his many attempts to censure the government (now around 50) for everything from legislating a price on carbon to allegedly bringing Australia to the point of financial ruin. No-confidence motions are traditionally incredibly serious – you just don’t attempt them unless the situation is urgent and potentially threatens the Parliament.

But then, censure motions are also supposed to be used only for serious purposes. Abbott’s made that into a joke – to the point where people now informally bet on what time he’ll move his next one. Perhaps now he’s reaping the consequences of that.

But back to Peter Slipper, and the allegations against him.

In December 2010, I wrote about the arrest of Julian Assange. At the time, I commented on the storm of accusations of ‘conspiracy’ that surrounded this issue. There was a rock-solid belief that Assange was little more than the victim of what amounted to a multi-national conspiracy designed to bring down Wikileaks – that the allegations made against him, and contained in the Interpol warrant under which he was arrested, were entirely fabricated. There was no evidence to suggest that this was the case at all – what we had instead was an appalling outbreak of rape apologism and ‘blame the victim’ mentality aimed at the two women involved in the complaint.

And this belief wasn’t confined to any one area, either. Mainstream media, politicians, bloggers, tweeters, Facebook users – the outcry was amazing. Leaving aside any question of Assange’s guilt or innocence (which is for a court to decide, if the cases ever come to trial), and leaving aside the question of conspiracy, one thing united these people – their absolute adherence to the presumption of innocence.

Assange is entitled to the presumption of innocence. But – and here’s the thing – we’re not seeing the same courtesy being extended to Peter Slipper. Mainstream media have all but convicted him of being a serial sexual predator. Opposition politicians likewise skate right up to the edge of a defamation suit. And as for social and new media – well, some of what’s being said doesn’t bear repeating. Dip a toe into the #auspol thread on Twitter if you’re feeling particularly like being revolted.

The reminder today that Slipper is an Anglican priest only added fuel to the more vicious of these commenters. Of course the allegations must be true, right? Everyone knows that priests abuse children, so Slipper must be guilty.

Yes, it really is that ugly.

What it comes down to is this: Peter Slipper is entitled to the presumption of innocence. He is entitled not to have his reputation destroyed. He is entitled to expect that any and all investigations into his alleged conduct will not be subject to political pressure, if not outright interference. In short, he is entitled to the same rights as every other citizen of Australia.

If – and I stress if – investigations conclude that he is guilty of misconduct, or a court finds him guilty of fraud, or sexual harassment – then he will pay the appropriate penalty. Until that time, he is an innocent man, and it’s about time organisations like the Opposition and News Ltd started remembering that.

The only truly shameful thing about this entire business is that anyone should have to point that out.

8 Comments | Media, Politics, Reality Check | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by theconsciencevote

Shameful Australia Day shouldn’t be obscured by spin

January 28, 2012

Remember when Australia Day was all about having a barbecue, going to the beach or just generally bludging at home? Remember when the pressing issue of the day was whether you’d bought enough ice, or had your radio tuned to Triple J? Oh sure, there was always muttering from boring people who said the day had ‘lost its meaning’. And lately, a lot more people have jumped on the ‘Invasion Day’ bandwagon in an annual display of disapproval for the way indigenous Australians were treated by the first colonists. (Which is not to denigrate those who work tirelessly to redress the situation, or those who have to bear the scars of its heritage.) Mostly, though, Australia Day was an excuse for a long weekend, and nobody gave it much thought beyond that.

This year is different. If no one remembers anything else from Australia Day, they’ll remember the footage of Prime Minister Julia Gillard being dragged to safety from the Lobby restaurant in Canberra by her protective detail, surrounded by angry protesters from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

The Prime Minister is dragged to safety by her protective detail. (photo via Getty Images)

Regardless of your personal opinion of Gillard, her government or politics in general, it’s a shocking image. And the footage is even more confronting. People banging on the glass windows of the restaurant, screaming. Gillard being rushed down the steps, stumbling and ending up almost being carried after she nearly fell. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott hurrying along, surrounded by the Prime Mister’s detail. Protesters pushing against the police line. A woman triumphantly holding up Gillard’s shoe, lost in the panic, as though it were some kind of trophy. (And that shoe later turned up for sale on eBay.)

It was an ugly display, and it did nothing good for the cause of the Tent Embassy.

So what happened? How did a largely peaceful – albeit angry – protest on the lawn of Parliament House turn into a howling mob?

First reports said it was because Abbott had called for the Tent Embassy to be torn down. Social media erupted in outrage. The milder responses called Abbott irresponsible. The more extreme labelled him ‘racist’ and ‘scum’.

Then the actual footage surfaced. Abbott was asked if he thought the Tent Embassy was still ‘relevant’, or whether it was time to ‘move on’. He gave a long, rambling answer that ended with ‘it’s probably time to move on‘.

At which point the outrage turned on the Tent Embassy. The protesters had ‘deliberately’ twisted Abbott’s words. They’d behaved ‘like animals’. Former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr opined that the Embassy should have been ‘quietly packed up years ago’. And this morning, so-called ‘non-partisan online activist community’ Menzies House (in actuality, a right-wing mouthpiece for Coalition policy founded by Senator Cory Bernardi), announced the launch of its latest website, closethetentembassy.com. Describing the Embassy as racist, illegal and ‘reverse-apartheid’, Menzies House even had the unbelievable cheek to quote Dr Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in support of what is little more than a dogwhistle to racists. Apparently the irony of this was lost on them.

But wait … the saga’s not over.

Last night, one of Gillard’s media staffers, Tony Hodges, resigned. He admitted that he’d spoken to someone about Abbott’s comments, adding that the Opposition Leader was in the Lobby restaurant. That ‘someone’ informed indigenous activist Barbara Shaw at the Tent Embassy, but what subsequently went out over the loudspeaker to the crowd was not Abbott’s actual quote, but something far more inflammatory – that Abbott had said the Embassy should be torn down.

And suddenly – incredibly – Abbott was the victim. It was a conspiracy within the government! Abbott was set up! The media unit incited a riot to get at Abbott, and it backfired!

Never slow to capitalise on any perceived advantage, Abbott and Shadow Education spokesperson Christopher Pyne went on the attack in full spin mode. It was a ‘grubby business,’ said Abbott. (Not the violence, mind you – the ‘grubbiness’ was all the PM’s fault.) It was ‘the most serious security incident to befall our nation’s leaders for quite a few years’. (Notice how he refers to himself as the Prime Minister’s equal?) ‘A member of the Prime Minister’s senior staff was trying to trigger something … potentially dire … for political advantage’. (Point of fact: Hodges was only recently promoted to a junior media position.) Most hilariously hypocritical of all: the Prime Minister needs to ‘stop the spin’ about this issue.

Then came the absolutely unsubstantiated claims – that the information was ‘fed’ to the Tent Embassy, that it was ‘deliberately false’, and that Abbott’s location was ‘classified’. There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest any deliberate fabrication on Hodges’ part. Equally, there’s no evidence that Hodges in any way intended to create any kind of disturbance, let alone what actually happened.

As for the suggestion that Hodges somehow leaked ‘classified’ information – well, where do I begin? Abbott’s basically suggesting that anyone who spotted him, and picked up the phone to tell their mates, would somehow be guilty of espionage.

Abbott was quick to praise the actions of the Prime Minister’s security detail, who – at Gillard’s request – escorted him safely from the building. They were under no obligation to do so, as the Opposition Leader is not usually afforded the same protections as the Prime Minister. The footage shows that as soon as she was made aware that her security considered the situation to be deteriorating, Gillard moved to make sure Abbott was safe. It was an entirely decent act, and Gillard has in no way tried to capitalise on it. There was little else Abbot could do than be gracious.

Except that on Saturday Agenda, Abbott was asked by Chris Kenny, ‘You’re not suggesting the Prime Minister was aware of this, that she sanctioned this?’ His answer? ‘She has to give a full explanation.’ Abbott’s ‘sure there are decent people in the Prime Minister’s office,’ but nonetheless it’s up to Gillard to explain herself to the Australian people. He’s not suggesting anything, but …

Not to be outdone, Pyne publicly called for a police inquiry into Hodges’ actions, and the extent to which the Prime Minister’s media unit was involved – not that he’s actually asked the police. And he doesn’t have to, really. With News Limited merrily repeating unsubstantiated rumours and printing what amounts to Coalition talking points, a real policy inquiry would just get in the way.

Right now, the news services are reporting that Hodges mentioned Abbott’s location to Kim Sattler, the Secretary of UnionsACT, who passed it on to Barbara Shaw. It doesn’t take a genius to see how the Coalition will use this information, given their persistent stereotyping of union leaders as Labor ‘lackeys’ and ‘thugs’. It’s certainly helped along by the media description of Sattler as a ‘national Labor figure’ and ‘well-connected’. Never mind that Sattler denies saying anything to Shaw.

But let’s back up a bit. What we know is that a junior media staffer admitted he mentioned Abbott’s location to someone, who passed it on to Shaw – and that somewhere along the line the message was distorted to include a false quote about tearing down the Tent Embassy. What we know is that protesters at the Tent Embassy, hearing that distorted message, surrounded the Lobby restaurant, engaged in intimidation and violent tactics, pushed against police lines. What we know is that the Prime Minister’s security detail judged the situation to be unsafe, removed Gillard and escorted Abbott out at her request.

The rest is supposition and spin.

What remains, then, is a shameful display of behaviour that did nothing but harm the cause of indigenous rights, and the Tent Embassy in particular. Footage of Gillard being held up by her bodyguard has turned up all over the world, including on some of the US’ biggest news and current affairs programs. It conveyed an image of Australia that we should all repudiate.

Keep that in mind over the next few days, as Abbott pulls the victim’s mantle over himself, Pyne thunders self-righteous condemnation, and Gillard is pursued by media who are apparently more interested in rumour than reporting.

Because ultimately, that’s what this Australia Day was all about – a Prime Minister forced to flee on the advice of trained security professionals with protesters in pursuit …

(photo courtesy The Sydney Morning Herald)

… and the display of a trophy gained through mob intimidation.

(photo courtesy Brisbane Times)

And it’s inexcusable.

8 Comments | Media, Politics, Reality Check | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by theconsciencevote

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