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Showing posts from 2005

Killing the Voters

Monday, 24th October, 2005 Free drinks distributed by politicians seeking votes in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh killed 19 people in two days because the alcohol was laced with insecticides and other potent chemicals. Government spokesman Narendra Sinha described the scenes in Gorakhpur, 155 miles south-east of Lucknow, as "a free for all" in which five people died with 20 more made seriously ill. "Villagers came in hordes to have free alcohol and food." said Mr Sinha. "Within hours, people started vomiting. Before they could be shifted to hospital five persons died." Two days earlier 14 people had similarly died in two separate villages after being served spurious alcohol.

Pesky Nationals a Welcome Distraction

Monday, 1st August 2005    - Richard Farmer   With the Senate about to meet for the first time with its new members, a little reminder about the piece we wrote back in December entitled  Blackmailers in the Ranks  where we described blackmailers outside the Coalition being replaced with blackmailers within it. What we will see in the coming years, we argued then, is not a Senate where the executive can ride roughshod over democracy but a Senate where the power has shifted from third forces like the Greens and the Democrats to backbench Government Senators. Prime Minister John Howard clearly understands what the "new" Senate regime will be like because his political memory goes back to those days of his boyhood when Senators Reg Wright and Ian Wood crossed the floor regularly on points of principle. That is why Mr Howard is taking the trouble to be extremely cooperative towards the new representative of the Family First Party even though that newcomer's vote should

Memories for a Glug Grower - a Treasurer turned grape grower

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Monday, 27th June, 2005    - Richard Farmer   Politicians retiring voluntarily while at the top are a rare breed but National Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson joined their ranks this week. The timing of his decision to return to the farm at Gunnedah might have caught the members of the fourth estate napping but the decision itself came as no surprise. It was in fact very well previewed. Which reminded us of the last such high ranking minister who really did surprise the pundits of the press when he handed in his badge without even a whisper before hand. The only reason we mention John Dawkins and his retirement as Paul Keating's Treasurer is that he has since become an Eden Valley grape grower and it was a pleasure to sample the other day a chardonnay which St Hallett's largely made from his 2003 crop. So impressed were we that 2006 will see grapes from the very same vineyard turned in to one of our very own single vineyard wines.

Preparing for an Embarrassing Report

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Monday, 20th June, 2005    - Richard Farmer   The best way to blunt the impact of a critical report is to make changes before the report becomes public. No one knows that better than Prime Minister John Howard. So we have had some concessions on the way illegal immigrants are treated in detention camps. Stand by for the report into the system which resulted in an Australian resident being held in detention. The PM might not have had the report of former Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer in his hand when he reached agreement with the backbench critics of the detention policy, but he would surely have known the broad thrust of Mr Palmer's findings. The Immigration Department is sure to get a caning and Mr Howard will continue trying to get the public service to carry the can for the detention abuses. As the impact of the report is played out over coming weeks we should note it down as the formal end of the Westminster principle of ministerial responsibility.

Raiding the Poker Table When the Horse Has Bolted

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Tuesday, 14th June, 2005    - Richard Farmer   South Australia's finest struck last week to shut down a poker tournament being conducted at a local licensed club. Over in London they prepared the flotation of a company that hosts on the internet a billion poker games a year. A wonderful contrast and an example of how the world is changing faster than some national law enforcers. The Adelaide police huffed and puffed about poker not being a game of skill and hence an illegal activity. Their job was to ensure that the only gambling going on in the City of Churches was gambling condoned by government. Hence the amazing scenes of a platoon in blue storming in to take down the names of those bold enough to have paid an entrance fee so they could compete for the title of champion. Meanwhile, sitting at home in front of their computer screens, there were goodness knows how many South Australians betting dollars on hands with like minded souls around the world. Plenty of

A Cautionary Tale for Political Mr Fixits

A trial started in Adelaide this week that should have the attention of political apparatchiks throughout the nation and from both sides of politics. Facing the court is a former ministerial adviser to the South Australian government and as details of the case unfold there are sure to be many Mr Fixits who think that “there but for the grace of God go I”. Randall Ashbourne, 51, has pleaded not guilty to improperly using the influence of his position “to bring benefit to former state Labor backbencher and deputy leader Ralph Clarke” between 1 April and 21 November 2002. The allegation is that Mr Ashbourne offered Mr Clarke a seat on a government board if he agreed to drop a defamation suit he had brought against Attorney General Michael Atkinson. With the trial just under way, this is not the time for commenting on the use by politicians of all stripes of jobs for the boys. Suffice it to say that the Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson should take particular notice of the potential

Not Listening to His Master's Voice

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Monday, 9th May, 2005    - Richard Farmer   Less than a month ago Rupert Murdoch gave a speech in which he declared that "too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers." It was no wonder, the News Corporation boss told the American Society of Newspaper Editors, that people, in particular the young, were ditching their newspapers. Today's teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings "don't want to rely on a god-like figure from above to tell them what's important." So what did I find in this morning's Australian previewing its 2005 Budget Special Edition? The promise that 10 of "the nation's most experienced political, economic and business writers" would be featured. All but one of them covered their first budget at least 22 years ago. I could not tell you what the 20-somethings of my acquaintance think of the likes of Paul Kelly (first budget 1973), Alan Wood (first budget 1967) and Mike Steketee (1970)

A Poisonous Relationship - Howard and Costello

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Sunday, 8th May, 2005    - Richard Farmer   When politicians talk, what they do not say is every bit as important as what they do say. Consider this exchange on yesterday's Channel Nine Sunday program: LAURIE OAKES: ... I mean, people must wonder how two people with a relationship as apparently poisonous as yours and John Howard's can get together and produce the right budget for this country. PETER COSTELLO: Well, I can because I've been fully focused on the budget. LAURIE OAKES: He hasn't? PETER COSTELLO: Since — well, since February. And I take responsibility for the budget. Of course I do. I'm the Treasurer. Treasurer Peter Costello did not even try to deny that his relationship with Prime Minister John Howard is 'poisonous'. Nor did he pretend that the leader and deputy leader of the country are working together on the budget. According to Mr Costello he has been fully focused on the budget but since February Mr Howard has not been.

Relaxed No More - Peter Costello waiting for the leaderhip

Tuesday, 3rd May 2005    - Richard Farmer   John Howard gave a perfectly understandable answer to those journalists who asked him questions about his plans for the future. Of course he gave no hint of an impending retirement. To have done so would have made him a lame duck for the 12 months or so more in which he will be Prime Minister. The only surprise about this whole affair was the response of Treasurer Peter Costello. He reacted as if he had somehow been dudded. And to think just two weeks ago I made the mistake of writing how relaxed he was about the future. ( Changing the Guard  - 20th April 2005). Peter Costello should return to being relaxed. The only way he will not be the leader of the Liberal Party at the next election is if he upsets his colleagues to such an extent that they either implore John Howard to stay on or choose someone else as their leader.

Wonderful Double Standards - The case of Koongarra's uranium

It was depressing to read in this morning's papers that there is now but one person classified as a traditional owner of the land which contains the Koongarra uranium deposit in the Northern Territory. When I started working for the grand father of that sole survivor we would have 40 or 50 people at meetings under the trees considering whether they wanted mining on their land. And mining they certainly did want despite the desperate efforts of do-gooder environment groups to stop them exercising their right to determine their own future. Unfortunately for those now departed after a life of abject poverty, Labor Governments stuck to their absurd three mines policy and the mine that would have delivered the traditional owners a taste of economic security was vetoed. Unfortunately the arrival of the Howard Government coincided with a low point in uranium prices so there was no pressure to give belated approval. Not that the environmental groups stopped agitating. The traditional ow

Changing the Guard - John Howard preparing to retire?

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Wednesday, 20th April 2005    - Richard Farmer   There is little doubt in my mind that John Howard is planning his orderly retirement as Prime Minister. For a start he is engaging in an orgy of international travel which is not at all surprising. If you want to be remembered as a major player on the international stage you have to tread the boards in foreign parts as well as having foreign leaders starring in your own political theatre. Then there is the fascinating spectacle of John Howard taking the rap for the decision to blatantly abandon a key part of last year’s re-election strategy. Substantially increasing the Medicare safety net will cause considerable anger and that anger will grow as the months go by. A Prime Minister considering yet another term in office would have flicked the announcement to his Treasurer or his Finance Minister. Instead the PM is doing the decent thing by his successor in the hope, perhaps, that the anger will depart with him. The third

A Stupid Defence - no personal responsibility for criminal behaviour

Wednesday, 20th April 2005    - Richard Farmer   There is something wonderfully refreshing about the Indonesian legal system. Defence lawyers do not go into attempts to shift the blame from their clients with long descriptions of deprived child hoods and years of abuse. They just make statements of the obvious. Like today when the counsel for two of those arrested as heroin couriers described them as: “Stupid. Just stupid.” The point was to disassociate the two from any involvement in the planning of the attempt to import heroin into Australia. They were simply simple couriers without the intelligence to understand the risks they were taking let alone develop the strategy to be an importer. The lawyer’s advice to her clients was that spilling the beans was the only way to avoid the death penalty. No wonder the Australian Federal police were happy enough for their Indonesian colleagues to make the catch. It will avoid three or four years of listening to Sydney criminal lawyers

Adelaide's Extraordinary Guessing Game - Who is the alleged pedophile?

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Tuesday, 5th April 2005    - Richard Farmer   In the ranks of the South Australian Parliamentary Labor Party is a member described in a fax sent to 100 media organisations by two voluntary workers for an independent MP as being a pedophile. That independent MP, one Peter Lewis, just happened, until he resigned yesterday, to be the Speaker of the lower house. Now the Labor Government is attempting to have legislation passed to temporarily suspend parliamentary privilege to prevent Mr Lewis or anyone else from naming the alleged pedophile. Hence the great guessing game as the good burgers of Adelaide try to work out whom is being referred to. It is impossible not to have considerable sympathy with the Labor MP tangled up in this affair. The faxed statutory declaration apparently contained no evidence about the offence allegedly committed and past police investigations uncovered nothing untoward. Yet the Labor Government is going to extraordinary lengths in the attempt to

Start an Organisation and Give Yourself a Title

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April 2005    - Richard Farmer   Former minor level military officers who leave the army with a huge chip on their shoulder generally find it hard to have their views taken seriously in the debate about Australia's defence policy. Give that same officer a grand title with an independent sounding organisation and those same views come blasting out of radios and appear on televisions and in newspapers all over the nation. So it was this morning when Australians woke to find Neil James, the executive director of the Australian Defence Association, giving them the opinion that the nation's Sea King helicopters should have been replaced years ago. He was the media's darling as journalists desperately sought to find somebody, anybody, to talk about Saturday's tragic helicopter crash on Nias Island. Now the opinion of Mr James might well turn out to be absolutely correct but expertise in the subject was not the reason his views were being sought. Today's

Dramatic Switch in Glug WA Election Indicator

In three weeks the West Australian Labor Government has gone from the 42% outsider to the 67% favourite on the Glug WA Election Indicator. It is a dramatic reversal but not completely surprising. I noted back on 28 January that despite the opinion of the bookmakers and the predictions of the pollsters "Governments rarely lose office after a single term and the underdog is the position to be in when campaigning gets underway."

The Whitlamites Ruling in Canberra

No wonder the old fellow refuses to fade away. Gough Whitlam’s dedication to reforming Australia’s system of government to make the states largely redundant has never had such support. The nation’s rulers seem to want to get their hands on everything - from industrial relations, to secondary school examinations, to running public hospitals, to reforming the Senate. It is like Canberra in 1972 all over again. So there was the revered Labor Leader yesterday endorsing the proposals for a federal takeover of industrial relations. "Liberal Prime Minister John Howard correctly wishes our national parliament to have jurisdiction to make laws with respect to the terms and conditions of industrial employment," Mr Whitlam said in a statement which will be studiously ignored by his successors in the Labor Leadership. These days it is the so-called conservative side of Australian politics that is the advocate of change and the so-called progressive Left that advocates the status quo

Beazley Wins – ALP Not Completely Stupid

Kim Beazley has had the easy win he needed. Notwithstanding the two poseurs who pretended they were after Labor’s top job, this was no contest. The survival instinct saw to that. The overwhelming majority of Caucus members realised that Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard are not yet the kind of people that the voters they need to attract are attracted to. Kevin Rudd smugly gets his face on television and speaks in contrived 15 second grabs that television journalists like because they need so little editing. Yet the subject matter of his comments is irrelevant to winning elections. Foreign policy is not what Labor needs to be worrying about. It is a hindrance rather than a help to have Kevin Rudd available at the flash of a microphone. It creates the impression that the Labor Party is more interested in the dilemmas of Iraq than the housing prices at Blacktown. Over the next year or so Mr Rudd will best serve his Party by virtually disappearing until he gains a new shadow Cabinet position

Avoiding Boredom on the Back Bench

Most members of Parliament – certainly those not in the Ministry or the Shadow Ministry – have little say in how the country is run. They turn up in Canberra but their opinions are rarely sought and even more rarely listened to. Which is why the selection of a new leader was such an excitement for so many of the Labor lot over the last few weeks: for once they had a role that might even get them interviewed on the radio and their name put in the newspaper. Now that the choice has been made it will be back to anonymity and the discipline of the factions until the next ballot for positions. For those in the Liberal Party things are probably worse. The only election they get involved in is for the Leader and with John Howard firmly in control there have not been many of them in recent years. Liberal backbench boredom is behind the talk of reforms to the taxation system which is getting a bit of an airing in the Murdoch press but that issue is unlikely to amount to much. Neither PM

Find a Speech Therapist - Julia Gillard's voice

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A quarter of a century ago Labor had a leader with a voice that grated on many who heard it. Whenever Bill Hayden got a little excited and raised his voice, his pitch went up and it sounded like he was whining. A bit like the howl of a drover's dog really. During the 1980 election campaign Bill had a bad case of laryngitis which temporarily solved the problem becaused he physically couldn't raise his voice and people started saying how much better he was performing. That encouraged him to seek a permanent solution by employing the actor/director George Ogilvie to give him some voice training. If Julia Gillard is serious about ever becoming Prime Minister she should follow Bill Hayden's example. Her accent is appalling and would surely turn-off voters in droves.

Age and Experience the Pre-Requisites

Mark Latham does appear to have inherited something from his mentor Gough Whitlam - a dislike of having his summer holidays interrupted. In 1974 Prime Minister Whitlam was most reluctant to return to Australia from Europe when Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin and even when he came back he did not hang around for long before resuming his overseas sojourn. In 2004 Opposition Leader Latham was well enough to play for an hour or two with his kids in the swimming pool at a holiday resort but not able, apparently, to phone his press secretary to put out a few token few words of sympathy for the victims of the Asian tsunami. There is perhaps a touch of arrogance there and it is providing Mr Latham's detractors with new ammunition to fire at him. The airwaves are full of breathless journalists quoting unnamed sources in the Labor Caucus predicting his downfall. Those that are not dwelling on the absence of words of sympathy are claiming to be concerned by their leader's pancreatiti