Thanks Bernie…

Australia has lost a great hero with the passing of Bernie Banton. The fight against James Hardie Industries has been well documented, but the true legacy of Bernie Banton is the inspitation that his courage has given all Australians.

At a time when it would have been entirely understandable for Bernie to quietly battle his disease in the privacy of his own home, Bernie decided to make a stand. Bernie took up the challenge of fighting against injustice, not only for himself and his family, but for all the victims of James Hardie Industries. In a sense he was fighting for all Australians, for our belief in a fair go. And it was not an easy fight. There were dirty tricks and personal attacks thrown in Bernie’s path, but he brushed it all aside because in the end his cause was just and true. Others played their part in the battle, but it was Bernie’s personal courage that really made a difference for so many people.

It was a wonderful victory when James Hardie Industries was forced to provide proper compensation to its victims. Bernie at least had the comfort of knowing that he had won that battle. Of course, the other great battle in Bernie’s life was the battle against the disease itself, and that was a battle that sadly he could not win. We have lost a truly great Australian, but thanks to Bernie’s efforts, Australia has been left a better place.

THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD

I’m not going to waste any time saying “I told you so”, but the election victory of Kevin Rudd was no surprise. Anyone who has followed the polling over the last year could have seen it coming. Some have been surprised by the magnitude of the win, but as I wrote in this blog last week, when the sticks are out nothing will stop a flogging.

For Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party a magnificent opportunity lies ahead. It’s now up to the new government to seize that opportunity and deliver on all the expectations that it has worked so hard to create.

As for Mr. Howard, it seems that he and a few of his closest colleagues were the last people in Australia to realize that he had missed his opportunity to retire as a hero. Nevertheless, it should be acknowledged that Mr. Howard has been the Liberal Party’s second most successful Prime Minister ever, and leaves a significant legacy, despite the humiliating end.

Now the task for the Liberal Party is to select a new leader without tearing itself apart. I have said for many years that Malcolm Turnbull will be the next Liberal Party Prime Minister, and I believe that now more than ever. It is right and proper that all who aspire to the leadership of the party have the opportunity to put themselves forward. However, the party needs two things from a leader: the ability to rally the party behind him (or her), and the ability to bring the voters back to the party. Contenders like Tony Abbott, Brendan Nelson, or even Alexander Downer should he be tempted to try, aren’t in a position to take the party forward because they have too much baggage from the past.

For my money, Malcolm Turnbull is the best choice. Of course, it will be a long road back to government, so even if somebody else takes the leadership now, Malcolm will still be there waiting in the wings.

PLEASE WELCOME THE FAT LADY TO THE STAGE…

So, after six weeks of unrelenting political campaigning, annoying television commercials, stumbles, bumbles and dirty tricks, the Fat Lady is about to sing. As you know, I have been off the air for a few weeks for health reasons, but I am pleased to say that I plan to be back on deck on Monday. By then we will all know just what tune the Fat Lady chose to perform on Saturday night. So, now is the time for considering the issues, assessing the campaigns and making some observations. The overwhelming consensus in the press appears to be that Kevin Rudd has powerfully out-campaigned the Prime Minister, and that the A.L.P. is set to take office. There are some who believe the outcome is not so clearcut, but they appear to be in the minority.

With a majority of opinion polls declaring a Rudd victory, and a majority of newspaper editorials predicting such an outcome, it would seem to be a no-brainer. However, there are some potential hitches for the opposition.

First, there’s the underdog effect. If everybody believes that Rudd is guaranteed victory, some might believe that it doesn’t matter which way they vote, and may choose to support the Howard Government. By and large, the underdog effect is often exaggerated and is far from a reliable source of support. If the sticks are out, nothing will stop a flogging.

Second, there is the fear factor. Not just fear of the unknown, which is an obstacle for any potential new government, but also the specific fear of Union dominated irresponsible economic management. This has been the Coalition’s not so secret weapon, and it is an effective one. There is no shortage of people with genuine concerns about the economic credentials of Labor, and about the influence of the Unions. The truth is that these concerns are grossly exaggerated, but that doesn’t mean they won’t influence the way people vote. The catch cry “Labor can’t manage money” is for many people a statement of the obvious.

Third, the fact remains that Labor must win sixteen seats or more to take government, and that all hinges on how many marginal seats will change hands. History demonstrates that a party can win the two party preferred vote by as much as 53% and still not win enough actual seats to take government. It happened to Kim Beazley and it happened to Andrew Peacock.

So, it’s not a lay down mizarre. John Howard can pull of an apparently miraculous victory. But I don’t believe he will. My prediction is a Labor victory, and if I had to pick a number I would suggest that the A.L.P. can pick up more than 20 seats.

But it’s not up to me, it’s up to you. So what do you think?

Normal Service Will Resume...

I’m not on the air at present as I am recuperating from some minor surgery. I hope to be back at the microphone in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, here’s something to think about.

It’s always a mad time during an election campaign. The carousel of endlessly elevating hysteria known as election advertising can be relied upon to reach ridiculous levels of hyperbole, and thus provide more entertainment than Sex & The City. If election advertising was to be held to the same standards of truthfulness that are applied to ordinary everyday commercial advertising then there wouldn’t be one campaign director amongst them who would escape serious jail time. The coalition’s union bashing fear campaign is nothing short of an assault with a blunt instrument.

The sanctimonious tone in which judgement upon all unions and unionists is handed down would be in any other context offensive. Here we see a gallery of Labor Party frontbenchers lined up like mugshots, with almost three quarters of them identified as unionists. Fair enough. The Labor Party is supposed to be the political wing of the union movement. It’s like saying most teachers at a Catholic school are usually Catholic. Derr. Then to drive the point home with the subtlety of a bloodstained axe those identified as unionists are stamped with the slogan “Anti-Business”. From the morally superior ground of the hard core right wing the two are assumed to be interchangeable, and together an indictment of a person’s character as being only slightly removed from Satan worshipping child abusers. It’s a campaign that rivals McCarthyism for both its paranoia and its stupidity. The sad thing is that they do it because it works. Some people actually believe that anything related to a union must be, by definition, undesirable.

Joe Hockey has proudly proclaimed that this is a fear campaign. He says it is a fear campaign rooted in fact, but of course it is important to recognize the difference between the facts and the opinions that people have about those facts. It is a fact that lightning bolts do sometimes kill people. But it is an opinion that all storms are evil and we’d all be safer if it never rained at all. If I campaigned to have all rain made illegal because thunderstorms are dangerous, that would be a fear campaign, but a fear campaign that I could claim was rooted in fact. That’s the level of logic we are currently being dealt in this election campaign.

To blithely label every unionist as “anti-business” completely dismisses all common sense. Yes there have been any number of “colourful characters” in the unions over the years who have at times been fond of business bashing. Where are they now? Have those characters ever actually advanced the cause of unions and their members? Natural selection has seen those dinosaurs gradually edged out of existence because those who genuinely support a union movement know and understand that such behaviour is unsustainable. By the same token, there have been many monsters of business who have raided, plundered and pillaged, leaving only bankrupted investors and retrenched workers somehow trying to piece together broken lives. But a handful of corporate cowboys doesn’t prove that all business people are greedy, unscrupulous thugs sucking the lifeblood out of their workers, their shareholders, and their customers.

How can unionists be anti-business? If there are no businesses, then there are no jobs. If there are no jobs there are no workers. If there are no workers, then there are no union members. If there are no union members, well then, who’s going to pay those union dues to cover the salaries of union officials? And yet people actually believe this nonsense. Of course the shoe fits on the other foot too. If there is no business there can be no jobs, but at the same time, if there are no workers there can be no business. Did I hear somebody say “skills shortage”? The reason we have these problems is because of a lack of forward planning and investment in the future inspired by bottom-line thinking. It’s that same thinking which marginalizes the value of ordinary everyday people and their place in the community. But that’s a topic for a whole other discussion.

By Joe Hockey’s logic, it would be perfectly legitimate for the Labor Party to launch a counter campaign with mugshots of the Coalition frontbench lined up on the screen. Given the contention that the introduction of Work Choices has undermined workers’ rights it could be concluded that those ministers are anti-workers’ rights. Now let’s not get confused between facts and opinions again. It is a fact that the Work Choices package removed unfair dismissal rights. It removed the No Disadvantage Test. It reduced the number of guaranteed conditions in awards. It reduced access to collective bargaining. Those are facts. Whether or not those are good or bad things is a matter of opinion. But if you are of the position that those things are bad for workers then it is entirely reasonable to denounce those Ministers who supported them. So, in our hypothetical Labor Party advertisement, every minister in the gallery could have stamped across his or her face the slogan “Anti-Worker”. Or even better, “Anti-Family”.

That makes just as much sense as Joe Hockey’s ludicrous propaganda campaign. Probably more.

So what do you think? Feel free to leave a comment, that’s why this blog is here.

Crumbs from the table...

For the first time that I can recall a politician has made an election promise to give pensioners a better deal. The Prime Minister has unveiled a $4 Billion package increasing the utilities allowance for age pensioners, carers, and disability support pensioners from just over $100 up to $500. That’s a significant increase in anybody’s book. Even more importantly, the Prime Minister has also promised to introduce a new cost-of-living index to apply to the twice yearly indexation of pensions. This recognizes the fact that the CPI measure of inflation does not accurately reflect increases in day to day living costs. While the package falls short of truly lifting pensioners out of poverty, it is at least a recognition that not everybody is sharing the benefits of Australia’s much vaunted prosperity. It’s a small step, but a step in the right direction. Ultimately however, the only way to elevate pensioners out of the poverty trap is to increase the pension. Instead of one quarter of male average total earnings, it should be at least one third. And longer term, if compulsory superannuation is allowed to perform as it was originally intended, fewer people will need to be on the full pension anyway. Wouldn’t that be the best option?

So, is the Prime Minister’s offer to the pensioners enough to pick up the grey power vote? Or is it too little, too late? Leave your comment here…

Is respect out of fashion?

This is not exactly headline news, but it strikes me as being worthy of comment. For two days in a row, Prime Minister John Howard has been accosted by total strangers and verbally abused. On Monday, as the Prime Minister took his morning walk around Lake Burleigh Griffin, a man shouted at him, “You’re a disgrace John!” Then on Tuesday in Adelaide another middle aged man took it upon himself to tell Mr. Howard that he is a “bloody arsehole”. Now, maybe it’s just me, but I find this sort of behaviour completely unacceptable. If our children did it they would be sent to the naughty corner! If it was your father or your grandfather out walking and this was dome to him, you’d want the culprit put in his place wouldn’t you? No matter how strongly you might disagree with John Howard’s politics, there is no call for this kind of nonsense. Abusive behaviour always says far more about those who are dishing it out than it does about those who are unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end. So, is this sort of thing acceptable now? Is this the way good people behave? Maybe I’m just getting old, but why should we have to put up with it? If you don’t like John Howard’s policies you can send him a message where it counts… at the ballot box!

So, how do you feel? Is the Prime Minister entitled to a bit more courtesy, or am I completely out of touch?

Is DOCS failing us all?

There is never going to be an acceptable or adequate explanation for why Dean Shillingsworth is dead. Despite the fact that the Department of Community Services had been contacted over concerns for his wellbeing, there was no adequate to prevent his death. Now there is never going to be a perfect system, and there may always be some cases that are not caught in time. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be asking questions about the procedures and competencies at the Department of Community Services. If there are any calls for help that are going unanswered, then the system is failing all of us. And while many people have very strong feelings about how the mother should be dealt with, that is not the answer either. The angry crowd that called for her to be drowned in the lake represents the feelings of many in the community. But those feelings are misguided. There has been no evidence yet put before a court, no conviction or acquittal yet recorded. It achieves nothing to indulge mob mentality. What might achieve something is a thorough review of the question of why the Department of Community Services is apparently unable to respond effectively to the 240 000 calls for help it receives each year.

What do you think? Is the Department of Community Services to blame for not intervening?