To Howard's Unwonted Generosity

Tripping about the country dispersing great bucketloads of cash, John Howard looks less like an economic manager than like a penitent Zaccheus. In the absence of any policies that guarantee financial longevity for the groups he now endows, his generosity looks a lot more like reparation for years of dearth than preparation for years of plenty.

To Scare Campaigns

Predictably, the Government's first move in the election campaign has been to release an ad - which looks like something Today Tonight might have thrown together - branding Labor's front bench as Terror - sorry, Trade Unionists. The ad makes us aware, or at least frightened, of the grave dangers of electing a bunch of ex-Trade Union leaders to govern. Since when are trade unions the scourge of our society? They got us minimum wage, eight-hour days and decent labour laws didn't they? Frankly, I'd rather be governed by people with experience in defending human rights and labour communities than by people whose prerogative has been to resist, counter and demonise those defences at every stage.

To Costello on the Red Peril

Peter Costello yesterday made the startling revelation that Julia Gillard had worked in her undergraduate life for the Socialist Forum, whose members were remnants of the Communist Party. Heavens above! How could we possibly trust a politician with demonstrable connections to social and intellectual activism?
Firstly, the Cold War ended some time ago, did it not? Is the word "communist" still supposed to induce a Pavlovian response of fear and trembling? If so, why don't we rethink our various connections with China?
Secondly, Gillard is surely one of several hundred thousand middle-aged Australians whose youthful commitment to socialism has gradually shifted to a more sober and conservative left-middle ground. She needn't be labelled either a traitor or an infiltrator.
Thirdly, I wonder what Costello was doing at uni while Gillard was protesting, debating, campaigning, awareness-raising and developing political experience? Swotting away for his commerce exams, presumably.
PS. I think Gillard might fruitfully adopt "Red Peril" as a hip media tag.

To Nelson on Gillard

In his list of reasons to vote Liberal, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson included the assertion that "a lot of Australians are uneasy about the idea of Julia Gillard as Deputy." Why? Gillard is, if anything, a much more impressive public figure than Rudd. Nelson's failure to expound or support this statement looks suspiciously like prejudice masquerading as discretion. I can only conclude that by "a lot of Australians" he means the chauvinists among us. If that includes him, why doesn't he say so? If it doesn't, why does he solicit and legitimise opinions that contradict his own enlightened view?

To Misplaced Moral Outrage

Six weeks out from the federal election, Kevin Rudd has had ample time to recover from the mini-scandal of his strip-club visit. Indeed, he'd recovered by the following day. If this recovery and now electable stainlessness demonstrates clever handling of the media on his part, it also demonstrates the shallowness of public morality. Far from reflecting deeply held values, this kind of morality is flexible, inflammatory, and easily exhausted in one front page. It's also profoundly hypocritical: if there's something wrong about visiting a strip-club, why do we tolerate them? Why not get rid of them all? If there's nothing wrong with it, why all the fuss?

To Experience

John Howard is an experienced leader. So is Robert Mugabe.

To Andrews on the Sudanese

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews claims that Sudanese refugees and migrants have failed to integrate. Surely the problem with integration, exacerbated by Andrews’ comments, is a failure of the community, rather than of refugees who flee unimaginable suffering and arrive here traumatised, ignorant and defenceless. The responsibility lies with us to help refugees deal with their psychological wounds, to learn how to function here, and to build solid and durable relationships with Australians. Cutting the numbers of refugees accepted will only make Africans an even more vulnerable minority.

To Howard on Assimilation

John Howard’s recent comment that assimilation is the only way for indigenous people to survive is profoundly hypocritical and culturally parsimonious. If the precarious minority must be absorbed by the larger, more successful community, why didn’t this happen in the late eighteenth century? Howard's vision is really one of social Darwinism, betraying a consistent failure to engage with and appreciate indigenous culture. And if all of our migrant populations had been assimilated, Australia would now be one of the most dreary, monotonal outposts on the planet. I can’t imagine Australia without the markets, the accents, the rich palette of colours and flavours. Why shouldn’t indigenous culture be included in our internationally celebrated eclecticism?

To Howard on Prosperity

True to form, John Howard capitalised on the recent American financial crisis to boost his ‘safe pair of hands’ campaign, once again marketing himself as the sound economic manager without whom Australia would inevitably fall into debt and disarray. In fact the crisis is in part a result of precisely the kind of prosperity doctrine Howard has been promulgating for a decade. His vision for Australia as a ‘relaxed and comfortable’ prosperous society has encouraged us to pursue lifestyles we can’t afford. In our consent to the rampant materialism on which his economy thrives, what have we in fact mortgaged?

To Howard on History

The problem with Howard’s replacement of an ideologically-driven social studies curriculum with a ‘facts and figures’ approach to canonical Australian history is that there is – as the past half-century of historiography has laboured to prove – no such thing as history divorced from ideology. Howard’s insistence on a positive tradition of Australian values is equally ideological, and equally determined to inculcate a narrow, prejudiced view of the cultural provenance of the mainstream.

To Howard on Reconciliation

Howard’s speech at the Sydney Institute, promising a Reconciliation referendum within eighteen months if he is returned, is set in a key we haven’t heard from him before: reflective contrition. The speech is full of admissions and concessions, and borders in places on the poetic. Even though he certainly didn’t write the speech (snaps to the wordsmith), he delivered an impressive performance. He sounds sincere, but the rhetoric of sincerity is as old as language itself, and in the shadow of an election seems pitifully transparent. After more than a decade of silence and retrogression on indigenous issues, his promise of action seems decidedly hollow, particularly when accompanied by the persistent refusal to apologise, and the condition that conciliatory moves must be acceptable to “traditional Australia.” Even if that term were not itself an insulting elision, surely the tradition he’s referring to is precisely what needs to be overcome if indigenous wellbeing is to be a priority. Much as I’d like to believe its apparent conversion narrative, this speech is simply the crocodile tears of a desparate politician trying to snare votes from the marginalised.

To Rudd on Capital Punishment

Robert McLelland articulates Labor policy on capital punishment: Kevin Rudd rebukes him for insensitive timing, and suddenly John Howard is calling McLelland a "decent bloke" (whatever that is), and Rudd is overturning democratic policy in his haste to reassure us that the terrorist is, as we've been taught, a special kind of supervillain to whom standard punishments (and basic human rights) don't apply. This is just one example of the way complex moral and social questions are truncated or blurred in our current climate of political skirmishing. Supported by a mercenary groundswell, politicians engage each other in the lowlands of popular feeling, while moral and intellectual authorities inhabit the guerrilla territories. After 11 years, we are accustomed to the silencing of genuine debate; Rudd's ascendancy seemed to promise a new dialogue. However, while Howard certainly has the monopoly on moral myopia, Rudd consistently falls into political traps that have him pandering to ill-digested public sentiment rather than occupying the moral high-ground which Howard long ago left vacant.