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Showing posts from February, 2007

Many True Words are Said In Jest

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Monday, 26th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   The real purpose of the McKew candidacy is to irritate and annoy the Prime Minister. A good journalist does not necessarily make a good politician said Tony Abbott this morning as Maxine McKew was welcomed in to the world of electoral politics. As a former editorial writer for The Australian, the Health Minister should know. In recent memory Abbott has gone from being seen as a potential leader of his party to just another useful bully boy of a minister. Which is a role Ms McKew is unlikely to ever play for her adopted Labor Party. She is much too refined and nice for that – perhaps too much so. Candidates who dare to tackle a Prime Minister in his own seat can expect the going to get tough and it is yet to be seen how the dignified interviewer from ABC television adapts to a bit of rough and tumble. As the weeks go by Ms McKew will find obscure details of her past dredged up for public examination. It is hard for even real ha

A Parliamentary Role Reversal

Monday, 26th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Oppositions normally welcome parliamentary sittings in the run up to an election because they offer the chance of sharing publicity with the government. This week things are different with the Prime Minister John Howard being pleased to get back in to the House of Representatives and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd wishing he could continue gallivanting around the country forever. Rudd has surprised the Coalition by the skill with which he has generated his own headlines in the last week. He seemed up upstage Howard from Monday to Saturday, from Perth all the way to Sydney. Even vice president Dick Cheney waving Australia good bye with his remark that the American alliance would not be weakened by a pullout from Iraq was giving more points to Labor. Thus this week in the Parliament we will see a Government desperately looking for diversions that will tarnish the nice guy image of Mr Rudd. Any subject will do even if it rebounds a

Holding a Government Accountable

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Friday, 23rd February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   In the light of recent revelations at the hearings of the Crime and Corruption Commission, former Premier Dr Geoff Gallop’s retirement suffering from severe depression appears more and more understandable The West Australian Greens put a premium on government deliberations, decisions and actions being "transparent to the community who can hold them accountable." It is right there under the heading Participatory Democracy as one of the party’s four key policy principles. What is not spelled out in the policy document is what those words about holding a government accountable actually mean. As more and more details of the extraordinary Labor Party way of doing business are revealed at the hearings of the Crime and Corruption Commission, West Australians will soon find out. The two Green members of the Legislative Council have it within their power to force a corrupt government to an election by refusing to pass the Gov

143 Years On and Still Talking

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Thursday, 22nd February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   River Murray Commissioners and Staff before the first Commission meeting at the Department of Works and Railways in Melbourne on 14th February 1917. From Left to Right: J.S. Dethridge (Victoria); H.H. Dare (New South Wales); Senator the Hon. P.J. Lynch - President (Commonwealth); P.A.Gourgaud - Secretary; G.S. Stewart (South Australia) Photo courtesy MDBC The colonial governments of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia met in Melbourne in 1863 to discuss a management plan for the Murray Darling Basin. The conference concluded that the commerce, population, and wealth of Australia could be largely increased by rendering navigable and otherwise utilising the great rivers of the interior such as the Murray, Edward, Murrumbidgee and Darling. There was nothing concrete decided mind you. Just the agreement that something needed to be done. It would take the great drought of 1914-15, when memories were still fresh of the ‘

Not John

Wednesday, 21st February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Down here where I am in the Barossa Valley, the locals tell me that the best thing about Kevin Rudd is that he is not Johnny Howard and the second best thing is that he is so similar to Johnny Howard. They don’t know much about the Labor Leader really, just that he looks like a serious bloke who doesn’t drop his aitches. My suspicion is that the popularity that the opinion pollsters are finding is thus based not a positive endorsement of Rudd but on negative feelings about his opponent. Politics was a bit boring when old Kim Beazley was challenging good old Johnny. Now at least there’s a bit of interest in the contest with the young bull going after the old one. That the bulls seem to be the same breed stops the contest being threatening. The unrepresentative sample of people I mix with in this staunchly Liberal area think you can treat the Rudd versus Howard contest as a game because nothing much would change whoever wins.

Adding a Iemmaism to Orwell’s Slogans

Monday, 19th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH To these classic George Orwell slogans from 1984 we can now add an Iemmaism: MORE TO DO BUT WE’RE HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION Morris Iemma yesterday launched his NSW State election campaign with that plaintive plea. Just when you thought Labor could not move any further to the right! Watch out One Nation, we’re coming to overtake you. Or are these Iemmaisms really Orwellian. Does this slogan mean that the left has gained control? Do all our political slogans now have opposite meanings to the ones advertised? Stand by for the new Labor Government’s Department of Freedom to impound all yachts in Sydney Harbour after cunningly pretending to allow free extra moorings to the city’s rich and famous. Rejoice. Morris is Jack Lang reincarnated. More to do indeed! Swallow that bunkum, return Labor and have another four years of costly tunnels and a shortage of water. You ain’t se

Climbing the Economic Freedom Table

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Friday, 16th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   The next time Treasurer Peter Costello feels the need to defend his credentials as an economic reformer he will surely turn to the  Index of Economic Freedom  prepared by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. Under his stewardship of economic policy Australia has steadily progressed up the table which measures and ranks 161 countries across 10 specific freedoms - things like tax rates and property rights. In the just released 2007 rankings Australia comes in number three with an overall score of 82.7. Back in 1995 when Labor was in charge, Australia was ranked eighth on a lowly 73.8. The index's objective is to provide an empirical measurement of economic freedom in countries throughout the world, specifically to measure how close each country comes to the ideal of providing "the liberty of individuals to pursue their own economic interests" to enhance prosperity for the larger society. click to

A Handy Change of Subject

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Wednesday, 14th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Barack Obama There’s one thing to be said about Barack Obama. For John Howard, the heat generated by talking about him is less than when the subject is global warming. After a week or two of climate change headlines the government needed the focus to be switched to something different. The pollsters tell us that all things environmental are a plus for Labor. Security and foreign policy is where the Coalition reigns. The first and obvious point to make about Howard’s attack on the Democratic Party presidential candidate is that it will do Howard no harm at home. The diplomatic niceties of not interfering in the politics of another country will concern very few voters here. If anything there will be merit marks for getting stuck in to an American. Puts an end to that notion that our PM is too subservient to those Yanks doesn’t it! Show our PM is a tough old blighter too when he wants to be. We admire a bit of toughness

Bob Carr Upon the Stair

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Wednesday, 14th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   "Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away." On Sunday former Premier Bob Carr will be the man who wasn't there. Also absent from the stair to the stage at NSW Labor's policy launch will be Graham Richardson. Premier Morris Iemma just wants to begin his formal campaign before, in the words of his spokesman Ben Wilson, "people who have supported Morris throughout his career and people he wants to acknowledge." Thus no celebrities at the Hurstville Civic Theatre, just community members and people he has worked with. As Carr supported Iemma by promoting him in to the ministry and Richardson elevated him from obscurity by giving him a job on his staff, presumably the pair is in the category of people he does not want to acknowledge. That is a very un-Labor like attitude but one that the state Liberals will surely seize

Gerard Henderson’s Sleazy Tactic

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Tuesday, 13th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Sydney Morning Herald columnist, Gerard Henderson In his  Sydney Morning Herald column this morning Gerard Henderson came to John Howard’s defence for attacking the "US Democratic Party presidential aspirant Barack Hussein Obama". Let’s not worry about the Henderson view that Howard was "essentially correct", if "undiplomatic", in declaring that Obama was ecouraging those who wanted to destabilise and destroy Iraq when he called for a withdrawal of American troops by March next year. The Sydney think tank man is as entitled as the next person to think what he likes. It is with that "Hussein" word that Henderson has sunk down to the sleazy depths of the very worst of the right wing apologists for the George Bush war machine. The Washington Post put it rather nicely in its  editorial of 26 January this year. "It’s become a fad among some conservatives to refer to the junior senator f

A Portuguese Lesson in Reform

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Monday, 12th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Prime Minister José Sócrates tried to avoid any backlash against his new government by letting the people decide on abortion laws. Politicians in democracies dislike dealing with questions about which their supporters have passionately different opinions. There is always the risk that the group the politician does not side with will be so upset they will use the next election to administer punishment. Only the foolhardy and those in safe seats need not worry and it explains why there are so few votes in the world’s parliaments on what can broadly be called matters of conscience. In Australia the fate of the late Victorian liberal Liberal MHR Barry Simon remains in political memories. He fell victim to a campaign against him by Right to Life supporters in his marginal seat after casting a vote in favour of a woman’s right to abortion. Wherever possible those in marginal seats would prefer not to be forced to make a choice on su

The Silent Peter Principle

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Monday, 12th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Peter Debnam The last thing NSW State Liberal Leader Peter Debnam needed was a renewed interest in the Federal election. He is a man desperate to find a way of showing he is a fit and proper person to become Premier of the nation’s largest state but the only election the Sydney media is interested in is Kevin Rudd versus John Howard. There is a fascination with Rudd that is leaving no room for that other opposition leader. The bookmakers are reflecting the difficulty. The Glug NSW Election Indicator, based on the prices of the major internet players, has the Labor Government of Morris Iemma a 77% chance of retaining office with Debnam a 23% outsider. Perhaps the best course for the State Liberals is to make a virtue out of their underdog status and quietly accept that their best hope is that enough people will cast a protest vote against a long serving Labor Party to elect enough independents to make a hung Parliament

Playing for Kevin in the Grandstand

Friday, 9th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   The newspapers this morning might be talking of states baulking at the planned federal water grab but Prime Minister John Howard on television reviewing his meeting with the Premiers looked very relaxed that everything was going to turn out fine in the end. The Premiers were doing their best to pretend that there were still serious concerns about the Howard plan but their body language suggested too that agreement was not far away. Only as far away as this morning’s meeting in Sydney where the Premiers allowed Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd to pretend that his intervention was important in securing the future of the Murray Darling Basin. Letting their man in the grandstand get his face on the television was the least a set of Labor colleagues could do. Who knows, Kevin might be Prime Minister one day and it never hurts to have a federal leader grateful for your help. Howard is a politician and he well understands the rules of t

Bald Headed Men Don’t Win

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Friday, 9th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Until John Howard came along, a bald headed party leader had not won a general election in Britain or Australia since the television era began. It seemed to reflect, in the words of a BBC commentator, the potent cocktail of associations "that connects hair with power, attractiveness and vitality." With a receding forehead that met an expanding bald spot at an early age I was delighted that our PM broke the pattern but I could not help wondering watching Peter Garrett on last night’s television debate whether his totally hairless look was just too disconcerting. Experience studying focus groups has taught me how little television viewers actually take in of the words they are listening to. Judgments are more likely to be made on how someone looks than on what they said. Not that it mattered to those looking at Garratt and the well coiffured Malcolm Turnbull on the ABC’s 7.30 Report. There was nothing in the wor

Advice from a Tabloid Editor

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Thursday, 8th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Environment and Water Minister Malcolm Turnbull - the House of Representatives is a strange forum in which many great lawyers before him have failed to shine. One thing tabloid newspaper editors are good at doing it is understanding the prejudices of their readers and then playing to them. There was thus a warning note sounded for politicians when the London Sun reacted to British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s endorsement of the Stern report with the headline: "I'm saving the world...YOU lot are paying." There was another one this morning on ABC radio in Canberra. Not that the national capital is representative of the country as a whole. It certainly is not which is what made the phone in so remarkable. This is a left of centre city which traditionally votes 60% Labor yet the overwhelming reaction of talk back callers asked to give their reaction to global warming was scepticism about the scientific evidence. Vi

New Leader but Same Old Adviser?

Thursday, 8th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Federal Labor might have a new leader but reports this morning indicate that Kevin Rudd is about to recycle an old party adviser into the key position on his personal staff. Simon Banks has worked over the years for five Labor members including former leader Simon Crean. Perhaps one policy cause he will push is the establishment of an independent institute of fiscal studies to promote research and debate on key fiscal issues and to monitor and advise on the Government's fiscal statements. Banks advocated such an institute in an article published in The Australian last year. "We need more policy debate in Australia, not less" he wrote in what Crikey colleague Henry Thornton described at the time as "a great opinion piece."

After the Trading Scheme Comes the Hard Part

Thursday, 8th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   As Australia moves slowly toward following the Europe with an emissions trading scheme, motor industry lobbyists are already preparing to delay a second stage of proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that have just been proposed by the European Commission. In the House of Representatives yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard tabled an issues paper arguing that emissions trading is a "more flexible, market-based policy tool than imposing a carbon tax on industry." A few hours later in Brussels the EC proposed binding rules that would force car manufacturers to produce vehicles that would emit less carbon dioxide. The Financial Times reports that by 2012 the average new car in the European Union will have to emit no more than 120g of carbon per kilometre, from 161g at present, if the measures are approved by EU governments. The proposals were watered down after fierce lobbying from carmakers, who say the move w

An Attack that Should Rebound on Labor

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Wednesday, 7th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Labor's immigration spokesman Tony Burke and shadow attorney-general Kelvin Thomson (above) owe Prime Minister Howard an apology. Labor thinks it is on a winner with its attack this morning on John Howard for having to go back in to Parliament to correct an answer on climate change but in truth the Labor spokespeople are showing appalling taste in attacking a man with a hearing disability. The Prime Minister told the House of Representatives in Question Time yesterday that the "jury was out" when asked about the connection between emissions and climate change. He went back later to explain he had misheard the question, which he had thought was about the connection between climate change and drought. "Just for the record I do believe there is a connection between climate change and emissions, I don't really think the jury's out on that," Mr Howard said. Labor's immigration spokesman Tony

Betting on a Fall

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Wednesday, 7th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Treasurer Peter Costello will he happy this morning that the Reserve Bank has kept interest rates steady and hoping that in the months to come that the seven out of  24 economists surveyed by financial news agency Bloomberg  are correct in predicting a fall before year’s end. Costello knows that his chances of becoming the next Liberal Party leader, and perhaps the next Prime Minister, depend on economic conditions remaining favourable. He certainly does not want the three economists who told Bloomberg this morning that the next interest rate movement will be up to prove right. The government, and Mr Costello, could live with the majority of 14 in the no change brigade getting it correct provided other things go their way. In the view of the betting market, things are now getting very close. The Crikey election indicator based on the odds offered by the country’s three leading bookmakers this morning has the Governme

A Temporary Greens Decline?

Tuesday, 5th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   The surge in support for Labor as measured by the Newspoll out this morning has been at the expense not just of the Coalition but of the Greens as well. Newspoll has Labor’s primary vote at 47% - up nine percentage points on its effort at the last election. The combined vote for the Coalition Liberal and National parties given as 38% is down nine percentage points on the election figure. A fall of three percentage points for the Greens to 5% coincides in the same improvement for other minor parties and independents. If preferences are distributed in the same way as happened at the 2004 election, Labor ends up with a two party preferred vote of 56% to the Coalition’s 44%. The Greens will be disappointed at the signs of a decline in their support (back in November Newspoll put them as high as 9%) as Labor embraces climate change as a key weakness in the government’s position and presumably attracts back some people who had deserte

The Next Round of Leadership Speculation

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Tuesday, 5th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   We will all know to start taking opinion polls showing Labor comfortably in front seriously when the next round of Liberal leadership speculation begins. The subject has been off the agenda since Peter Costello accepted that John Howard would not be retiring but there is no one like a back bencher fearful of losing to bring it back again. For the moment, Liberals in marginal seats continue to believe in the invincibility of their great election winner. A Newspoll like today’s putting Labor in front 56 to 44 in terms of the two party preferred vote eight months before the scheduled polling day is not enough to dent their confidence. But let there be three or four more in a row showing similar figures and the speculation about changing Howard for Costello will surely begin. Watch for it. Just as backbench Liberals do not believe the polls, neither do their Labor counterparts. The idea that Howard is some kind of super campaign

Labor’s Latest Third Party Endorsement

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Tuesday, 5th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Federal Labor Leader Kevin Rudd clearly has a soul mate in South Australian Premier Mike Rann. In announcing yesterday that Sir Rod Eddington would chair a council of business advisers for a future Labor Government, Rudd is following down the path pioneered by Rann who gave Robert Champion de Crespigny the title of chair of his state’s Economic Development Board and started inviting him to Cabinet meetings. Speaking yesterday to the Business Council of Australia, the would-be Prime Minister suggested that the former boss of Ansett and British Airways and current News Corp director Eddington would have similar privileged access to decision making. "From time to time, I plan to bring members of the Council of Business Advisers into the cabinet room," Rudd said. He described the role of the Council as providing "a sounding board to improve the quality of policy making." What he could have added is that

Playing Prime Minister

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Monday, 5th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   There is a danger for Labor Leader Kevin Rudd that his gimmick of having what he is calling a climate change summit will end up being one of those things that seemed to be a good idea at the time. To put it somewhat crudely Rudd is at risk of being seen as a smart arse – a politician being too clever by half. While John Howard is delivering an actual policy to deal with at least part of the country’s water problem through his meeting of state premiers to arrange a federal take over of the Murray-Darling Basin, Mr Rudd will be engaging in a talk-fest. Actions will surely create a better political outcome than words. The motivation for Rudd’s summit is understandable enough. He is trying to overcome the advantages that being able to actually do things gives to an incumbent government. Yet by settling on the need for a discussion to determine a broader strategy than that of Howard, Rudd is being left open to attack on the

A Novel Definition of Attempted Murder

Monday, 5th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Debate about whether or not the offence of 'material support for terrorism' is or is not an example of retrospective legislation being applied to David Hicks has dominated the discussion on the charges finally being laid by United States military authorities under their revised military commission. Supporters of Hicks being returned to Australia to face any relevant charges are making much of an alleged hypocrisy by the Howard Government. The argument is that Attorney General Phillip Ruddock has said there could be no such charges unless new laws were applied retrospectively and the Government was opposed to such retrospectivity but was not opposing the US Government doing exactly that because material support for terrorism was not an offence until the Military Commission Act of 2006 made it one. It is an interesting debating point for lawyers with the US military prosecutor Colonel Moe Davis appearing on ABC radio this

Not Refugees – Just People Seeking Refuge

Monday, 5th February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   The next time a boat load of Papuans arrives off the north Australian coast Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews will have a perfect answer for denying them access. He will just have to apply the definition given this week by an Indonesian official to some 2000 people who have left their homes near the Yamo river and are now facing starvation. According to Yamo district head Philipus Tabuni, as  recent revelation in the Jakarta Post  those fleeing were not classified as refugees, but only as people seeking refuge! At least there has been some change in Indonesia There might be a novel definition of refugee but the press is now more open and frank about discussing the country’s problems. The recent stories in the Jakarta Post clearly suggest that Australia has not heard the last about problems in West Papua. According to the paper, thousands of people fleeing a crackdown on Papuan separatists are now facing food shortages following

Michelle Gets Passionate

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Friday, 2nd February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   During the 30 plus years I have known Michelle Grattan I have not found her to be a passionate person. Thorough, measured, controlled and accurate have been the hallmarks of her journalism and partisan politics does not intrude into the thoughtful reflections of her opinion pieces. I would not have a clue as to how she has voted over the years. Which is what makes her recent writings on the detention of David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay so remarkable. As you can see for yourself in this morning’s offering in The Age  the Press Gallery veteran seems almost angry. Writing of "the government's mishandling of the affair" she declares that "everything reported back from Guantanamo is also another reminder, both by implication and from what we know of the obvious faults of the US military commissions, that Hicks will get the roughest of justice when he comes to trial." What the impact of this verdict is on

A Dam Problem

Friday, 2nd February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   When the last major dam to provide Sydney with water was completed at Warragamba in 1960, New South Wales had a population of 3.9 million. Today the population is up 75% to nearly 7 million but there is not even a site chosen for a new storage reservoir. Melbourne 's Thompson dam was finished in 1983 and Victoria has added a million people to its population since then without any addition to water capture. Little wonder that water supplies in our major cities are running short. A combination of nimbyism by people who do not want to have their own land flooded and the prevailing anti-development ethos of most of the environmental movement have bluffed politicians from addressing this most basic of human needs. The initial signs from the much heralded Federal intervention into water policy suggest that nothing much will change. All the current rhetoric is about better use of what is available rather than providing more. S

Bad News for the Ssangyong Korrando

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Thursday, 1st February, 2007    - Richard Farmer   Parking your Ssangyong Korrando Hardtop four wheel drive wagon with its 2.9 litre, five cylinder engine outside your home is about to become an expensive business in the  London borough of Richmond  and the indications are that inner city councils in Australia are about to slug owners of big petrol guzzlers as well. At a packed meeting at York House in Twickenham this week councillors listened to more than two hours of passionate submissions from members of the public before deciding on parking charges that will see residents in controlled parking zones (CPZs) pay for their permits based on the CO2 emissions of their vehicles. It will mean that owning a monster like the Ssangyong will cost the equivalent of $764 a year to leave in the street. Cllr Serge Lourie, Leader of Richmond Council, said "Climate change is the defining issue of our age - it is clear that we must all change our behaviour to combat its effect