The seduction of the chance of a good night’s sleep

AustralianFabian NewsQuarterly newsletter of the Australian Fabians Inc. Vol 49, No 2, November 2009

ChrIs EVANs Asylum seekers:

A global challenge

rIChArD DENNIss Can markets really save the planet?

ANDREW HUNTER, MARK DREYFUS BEN SPIES-BUTCHER, ADAM STEBBING

GEORGE WILLIAMS, MAXINE MCKEW JOFF LELLIOTT, TONY MOORE

FIRST DOG ON THE MOONSHANN TURNBULL, MARYA MCDONALD

VIV FULLAGER, VICTORIAN FABIANS – 2009 EVENTSYOUNG WRITERS COMPETITION

CLARE RAWLINSON, STEPHEN LAWRENCEwww.fabian.org.auISSN 1448-210X

2 www.fabian.org.au

In this editionIn Decisions, Senator The Hon. Chris Evans reviews the complexities and global challenges presented by the recent increase in asylum seekers.

Andrew Hunter and Professor George Williams outline actions that can be taken to address the issues faced by refugees in their countries of origin and Australia in showing the way.

Dr Joff Lelliott reviews Anthony Giddens’ The Politics of Climate Change in Abstracts, and Dr Ben Spies-Butcher and Adam Stebbing ask who is subsiding welfare for Australia’s rich in Advantage receiver.

In Questions on notice, Dr Richard Denniss asks can markets really save the planet?

We present extracts from: Mark Dreyfus QC MP’s speech on building a stronger and more resilient Labor Party; and Dr Tony Moore’s paper on libertarian social democracy and alternatives to big government; and Jan Merriman introduces The Hon. Maxine McKew MP’s address on gender and political power to the Fabian Fringe seminar, held during the ALP National Conference in Sydney this year – all in synopsis.

Dr Shann Turnbull explores Internet alternatives to the role of the central banks in Out of left field.

In Fabian news Marya McDonald reviews the history of the Queensland Fabians and the Trade Union Choir’s upcoming historic tour of Cuba; Viv Fullager reports fresh approaches in South Australia to Ideas, policy and action; and the Victorian Fabians provide a snapshot of their 2009 events.

We bring you the ‘stand out’ articles from the last Young Writer’s Competition and remember, 2009 compe-tition entries close on 14 December 2009.

We welcome First Dog on the Moon to our pages, courtesy of cartoonist Andrew Marlton and www.crikey.com.au; the poetry of Stephen Lawrence, and in 1000 words, Clare Rawlinson.

We farewell Xavier Williams as editor of the Australian Fabian News and thank him for his work, contribution and research for the Australian Fabians. We wish him well in future endeavours.

Thank you, to the contributors of articles and images, our design and printing team, and to the editorial committee for ideas, advice and support for this issue of the Australian Fabian News.

We hope you enjoy this edition and welcome your feedback.

Pauline Gambley

Editor

Australian Fabian News GPO Box 2707, Melbourne, Vic, 3001, www.fabian.org.auEditor Pauline Gambley, editor@fabian.org.au Editorial/media enquiries 0400 253 752Contributions and Letters to the Editor are welcomed and may be sent to editor@fabian.org.au National secretary Evan Thornley, (03) 9662 2596, secretary@fabian.org.auPublication information This edition Vol 49, No 2, November 2009. ISSN 1448-210XDesign Céline Lawrence Printing Dotprint, Victoria.Disclaimer Views expressed by individual contributors to the Australian Fabian News are not necessarily endorsed by the Australian Fabians Inc.Australian Fabians Inc. 2009 President Hon Edward Gough Whitlam AC QCExecutive Officers Chair Rodney Cavalier AO, Deputy Chair Simon O’Hara, secretary Evan Thornley, Assistant secretary Max Dumais, Treasurer Mounir Kirwan, Director Communications Pauline Gambley, Director Youth Mike Griffith.Executive members Victoria Jack Halliday, vic@fabian.org.au Tasmania Ben McKay, tas@fabian.org.au Australian Capital Territory Anna-Maria Arabia, act@fabian.org.au Queensland Terry Hampson, qld@fabian.org.au New south Wales Jan Merriman, nsw@fabian.org.au south Australia Viv Fullager, sa@fabian.org.auMembership enquiries/applications Apply or renew online: www.fabian.org.auFurther enquires 0438 213 532, membership@fabian.org.au

www.fabian.org.au 3

Contents

Decisions Asylum seekers: A global challenge, Senator The Hon. Chris Evans 5

haiku Stephen Lawrence 6

showing the way Make no excuses: The need for an holistic approach, Andrew Hunter 7

Bringing human rights home, Professor George Williams 9

synopsis Building a stronger and more resilient Labor Party, Mark Dreyfus QC MP 11

Advantage receiver Revealing Australia’s welfare for the rich, Dr Ben Spies-Butcher and Adam Stebbing 14

Questions on notice Can markets really save the planet?, Dr Richard Denniss 16

First Dog on the Moon 17

synopsis Political Power: Does gender matter any more?, The Hon. Maxine McKew MP 18

Abstracts Australia, “The Politics of Climate Change” and Anthony Giddens, Dr Joff Lelliott 21

synopsis What’s left: Libertarian social democracy and alternatives to big government, Dr Tony Moore 22

Out of left field Inflation resisting money, Dr Shann Turnbull 26

Wartime refugees Stephen Lawrence 27

Fabian news Australian Union Singers Cuba Tour 2009, Mayra MacDonald 28

South Australia: Ideas, policy, action, Viv Fullager 29

Victorian Fabians – 2009 events 30

Young Writers 2008 Winner: Fairness the key to unlocking health, Shafqat Inam 33

runner up: Leave the lights on: Your emissions reduction efforts are pointless, Jeremy Burke 35

For special mention: Democratisation of democracy, Ben Barnett 37

Housing affordability in Australia, Gerard Kelly 38

The One Nation vote: Up for grabs, Douglas McDonald 40

Environmental education and resource sustainability, Cameron Parsons 42

An end to governing in uncertain times, Simon Tolstrup 43

The return of the radical press: “New” media goes back to the future, Tim Watts 45

1000 words Clare Rawlinson 48

4 www.fabian.org.au

Editorial

What we know We know ... it’s the silly season now. The Melbourne Cup has been run; eyes have turned to the state of the

wicket; budgets are under pressure; and bags come home filled with wet swimmers, and precious artwork.

Ahead is the inevitability of long school concerts, the Christmas Day run-around; and the seduction of the

chance of a good night’s sleep.

We know ... out there, somewhere, like a bump in the night, things are not really right; that most of the

world’s population can’t say they have it as good as us; and that the lot of many, many Australians could

be vastly improved.

We know ... we can write as many well meaning articles about righting the world’s wrongs as we wish;

we can posture with the best of them; we can put our self-interest ahead of everyone else, we can turn a

blind eye.

We know ... we need to take decisive action about critical global challenges because there are real

people and fragile ecosystems relying on us.

We know ... words are not enough.

What Beatrice knew2009 marks the centenary of the Minority Report to theRoyal Commission on

the Poor Laws and the Relief of Distress (1909).

Famous for Beatrice Webb’s pre-eminent role in bringing the report to

fruition, the ground breaking document rocked the British establishment of the

day.

It detailed the plight of the indigent poor, it challenged Parliament to take

action to remedy the impoverished lives and harsh working conditions of so

many of the country’s citizens. It called to account those who would blame the

poor entirely for their own predicament.

The report revealed in minutiae, the underlying social and structural causes of poverty in post-

19th century Britain. It also served as a clarion call to those who would stand up for individuals, fami-

lies and communities caught in the despair of involuntary poverty; and the vision of a fair and just,

civil society.

Beatrice also knew ... words are not enough.

Want to know more?: Visit the UK Fabians website at www.fabians.org.uk and/or the Webb Me-

morial Trust at www.webbmemorialtrust.org.uk

www.fabian.org.au 5

DecisionsAsylum seekers: A global challengeSenator The Hon. Chris Evans

As Australia and other industrialised countries

grapple with the complexity of the problem, there

are those that wrongly claim it is the “pull” factors –

Australia’s domestic immigration policies – that are

driving people to our shores.

We, as a Government, will defend the chang-

es we have made in immigration policy.

Labor has maintained the key border protec-

tion policies of the previous Government – a sys-

tem of excision and the mandatory detention and

offshore processing on Christmas Island of irregu-

lar maritime arrivals.

The Rudd Government has also implemented

a $654 million strategy to strengthen Australia’s

borders by increasing maritime and aerial surveil-

lance, and boosting the AFP’s resources to inves-

tigate people smuggling syndicates.

What we have done differently is to discard

some of the punitive and shameful policies of the

Howard years and implemented a more humane

system of treating asylum seekers who arrive in

Australia seeking our protection. That is why the

Rudd Government ended the internationally con-

demned Pacific solution and abolished the puni-

tive Temporary Protection Visa regime. We make

no apologies for that.

We are not a Government that supports open

borders as some advocates do. We have a re-

sponsibility to control our borders and manage

those seeking entry to our country. Australians

rightly expect that their government only allows

authorised entry and orderly migration to Australia.

Strong border security and management is

not inconsistent with a strong commitment to refu-

gee resolution and resettlement and the humane

treatment of those who have come seeking our

protection. We think this a better reflection of Aus-

tralia’s values.

I don’t think anyone is arguing, even the Liber-

al Party, we go back to locking up children behind

barbed wire, separating them from their families.

No-one wants to see people languishing in deten-

tion for years on end, becoming so desperate that

they sew up their lips, commit self-harm and suffer

mental breakdowns. That is how the Howard Gov-

ernment treated refugees and it is a sad blight on

Australia’s history.

The reality is, however, that we will continue to

see boat arrivals in Australia while people continue

to flee war and persecution. It is not a challenge

that we face in isolation. It is a massive global chal-

lenge and one in which Australia plays its part in a

humane and comprehensive way.

The UNHCR 2008 Global Trends Report re-

leased last month stated there were 42 million forc-

ibly displaced people worldwide – driven from their

homelands by insecurity, persecution and conflict.

In particular, the worsening situations in places

like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have forced many

thousands of people to flee those countries and

seek refuge elsewhere around the world.

The UN Secretary-General recently reported

to the Security Council that “2008 ended as the

most violent year in Afghanistan since 2001”.

The head of the US Central Command, Gen-

eral David Petraeus, said in September that vio-

lent unrest in Afghanistan had risen by 60 per cent

compared with last year and Taliban insurgents

had “expanded their strength and influence”.

Little wonder that the number of Afghan asy-

lum-seekers claiming protection in industrialised

countries worldwide rose by 85 per cent in 2008.

So far this year, more than 14 000 Afghans have

claimed asylum in Western Europe. This compares

with the 752 Afghans who have arrived by boat in

Australian waters this year.

In the case of Sri Lanka, violence in the long-

running civil war escalated in 2008 before the

bloody conflict ended earlier this year.

There are now some 250 000 Tamils from

the north of Sri Lanka in camps for internally dis-

placed people and there are significant numbers

The recent increase in asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat is part of a global phenomenon as desperate people flee war and persecution to seek a better life in a safe country.

6 www.fabian.org.au

of people fleeing Sri Lanka to seek refuge in indus-

trialised countries and Australia, as a secure and

stable democracy, is one of these destinations.

In 2008, there was a 24 per cent increase in

the number Sri Lankan asylum-seekers claiming

protection in industrialised countries worldwide.

While some 700 Sri Lankan asylum seekers have

been intercepted on boats in Australian waters this

year, more than 4000 headed to Europe, princi-

pally France and Switzerland. This represented an

increase of nearly 20 per cent on the same period

last year.

In Australia, there have been boat arrivals in 25

of the last 33 years. From 1976 to 1981 under the

Fraser Government, there were 2059 boat arrivals

sparked by the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.

From 1999 to 2001 under the Howard Gov-

ernment 12 176 people arrived by boat, including

5516 arrivals in 2001 alone.

The Liberal Party didn’t claim then that pull

factors caused that movement of people – and in-

deed pull factors were not to blame. The asylum

seekers were mainly Afghans and Iraqis fleeing the

brutal regimes of the Taliban in Afghanistan and

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

The Taliban regime fell at the end of 2001, and

in 2002 a large scale voluntary return program of

Afghans began – the single largest repatriation op-

eration in the UNHCR’s 59-year history. By 2004,

more than 3.1 million people had returned home

to Afghanistan.

Coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003 and the

Saddam Hussein regime ended. The fall of these

two brutal regimes saw boat arrivals to Australia

decline dramatically and a dramatic decline glob-

ally in the numbers of asylum seekers from those

countries.

In 2008 and 2009, we have seen a resurgence

of mainly Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers

fleeing their countries due to worsening circum-

stances.

The overwhelming majority of asylum seekers

seek safety in Western Europe. Last year, 13 000

asylum seekers arrived by boat in Spain; 36 000

arrived in Italy; 2700 in Malta; 15 000 in Greece.

And in Yemen, 50 000 people arrived by boat from

Somalia.

Preventing people from embarking on danger-

ous journeys in leaky boats is the priority along with

capturing and prosecuting the people smugglers.

But punishing refugees is not something that

this Government will engage in and Australian’s

won’t tolerate.

The Rudd Government firmly believes that

regional engagement and cooperation with Indo-

nesia and other South East Asian neighbours is a

vital component of a successful policy to combat

people smuggling.

It is morally right that we should treat people

who seek our protection humanely, and it is right

that we meet our international obligations under

the UN Refugee Convention. People found to be

owed protection will be allowed to apply for a pro-

tection visa. If they are found not to be owed Aus-

tralia’s protection, they will be removed.

The challenge for Australia and our regional

neighbours is to prevent the people smugglers

from exploiting these vulnerable people in the first

place. A more humane system for detaining and

assessing asylum seekers does not undermine

border security, nor is it the principle driver in peo-

ple smuggling.

Chris Evans is senator for Western Australia in the

Australian Parliament, the Minister for Immigration and

Citizenship and the Leader of the Government in the

senate. www.minister.immi.gov.au

haikuAs sea levels riserefugees in slow motionwill fill news reports.Stephen Lawrence

www.fabian.org.au 7

showing the wayMake no excuses: The need for an holistic approachAndrew Hunter, Secretary ACT Fabians

The reality of course is that the overwhelming ma-

jority of applicants for refugee status processed in

Australia arrive not on a boat, but by plane.

An objective portrayal of this complex policy is-

sue to an increasingly aware electorate, which ac-

tively seeks to connect the problem to its causes,

and shows appreciation of the tribulations faced by

recently arrived refugees, would equate to policy

which we would need not make excuses for.

2001 to 2009: A full circle?

We recall the feeling of angst within the Labor

Party when it was decided that there was no al-

ternative but to take a strong moral stand on the

Tampa incident. We knew that it was the only mor-

ally defensible stance to take but also understood

that adopting this position in the face of Howard’s

inward-looking, populist approach, would lose La-

bor the 2001 election.

Regrettably for many, much of the rhetoric

used in the past few weeks seems very similar to

that used by the Liberal Party in 2001. This is de-

spite the electorate now having a far more sophis-

ticated understanding of why the planet is awash

with people seeking refuge from the dislocation

of war, persecution and, increasingly, of climate

change. This fuels a real sense of frustration, even

disenchantment, in those who hold progressive

values close to their heart.

To some, the belief that the country is best

served by achieving a multiple-term Labor Govern-

ment will justify the current political positioning. It

would be preferable however, that the current policy:

• engaged the electorate in an unemotional por-

trayal of this situation, in all its complexity,

• emphasised the strategic and humane neces-

sity to address the root causes of increased

refugee outflows, and

• ensured that refugees are received in a way that

is conducive to their long-term participation in

an inclusive Australian community.

Evidence baseIn April this year, the ACT Fabians convened a pan-

el to explore foreign policy alternatives for Afghani-

stan. Professor William Maley of the Australian

National University, considered to be Australia’s

foremost authority on Afghanistan, shared the

stage with journalist Nicholas Stuart and Ataulla

Naseri, an ethnic Hazara and formerly one of How-

ard’s infamous Temporary Protection Visa holders.

The majority of Afghans who seek asylum in

Australia are Hazara, the largest ethnic minority in

Afghanistan. Historic adversaries of the dominant

Pathan and Pashtun groups (as are the other sig-

nificant minority ethnic groups, the Tadzhik and

Uzbek), the Hazara reside in an area of central

Afghanistan afforded little protection by interna-

tional forces.

Addressing the problem at the source

Providing the Hazara with increased security

in their own country would significantly reduce

the number of Afghans seeking refugee status

in Australia. Development assistance providing

basic infrastructure and improved health and ed-

ucation for the Hazara would further erode the de-

sire to risk their lives coming to Australia in search

of a future free of constant fear and immediate

danger.

Due to the level of volatility that blankets Af-

ghanistan, Australia’s development assistance is

concentrated in the Oruzgan Province, where the

Australian Defence Force is based. Consequently,

the central highlands region, largely populated by

Hazara, does not benefit from Australia’s generous

military or aid commitment to Afghanistan.

Not all asylum seekers are Hazara, but nor is

military protection the only instrument of foreign

policy available. Foreign aid, diplomacy and trade

policy aimed at releasing communities or coun-

tries from a cycle of dependency are valuable in-

vestments.

Images of overcrowded boats heading towards Australian waters capture people’s attention. These images invoke emotive responses and sentiments that can easily be manipulated.

8 www.fabian.org.au

Australian aid to Sri Lanka does little to ad-

dress conditions experienced by another large

source of asylum seekers coming to Australia: eth-

nic Tamils. Whilst the level of Australian aid going to

Sri Lanka in the 2009-10 budget was estimated at

$35 million, for much of this period the Sri Lankan

Government has blocked most aid agencies from

accessing the north of the country, where Tamils

have been herded into overcrowded camps where

there is an ongoing food shortage, poor sanitation,

and a desperate medical situation.

Addressing the root cause of increased refu-

gee outflows would in this situation, require a

level of diplomacy that could only be met through

statesmanship of the highest calibre. Devoting

diplomatic energies to this effort, rather than ne-

gotiating a complex set of arrangements with the

Indonesian Government, would bring a greater re-

turn on our investment.

Whilst the successful implementation of a

broad-base policy that incorporates many of these

instruments may limit the number asylum seekers

from Afghanistan, Africa and Sri Lanka – it is un-

likely that we will ever see a perfect world, com-

pletely devoid of war, persecution or famine.

Vilification of those who profit from deliver-

ing asylum seekers to Australia through non-

conventional means diverts attention from an

increasingly progressive constituency. It also re-

directs the public’s attention away from issues of

far greater import. When one considers the ab-

horrent situation of a Hazara living in a refugee

camp in Quetta and the circumstances they must

endure daily, the issue of people smuggling is a

drop in the ocean of an equitable and humanitar-

ian approach.

Ataulla’s story

Ataulla arrived in Australia in 2001 and has since

spent time as an active refugee advocate, princi-

pally for the Hazara community. He now lives in

Queensland but his immediate family, including his

wife, live in a refugee camp in Quetta, Pakistan. For

over two decades, sectarian violence has made

Quetta a dangerous place for Hazara, and dozens

of Hazara have been murdered this year alone, in

further escalation of violence.

A large proportion of Afghans who seek to

come to Australia have immediate family here.

Most Hazara asylum seekers who arrive in Austra-

lia had first fled to Pakistan, only to suffer further

ongoing persecution. For nearly a decade, Ataulla

has lived with the uncertainty of when and if he will

be reunited with his wife. This situation is born of

either inefficient process or unsuccessful policy.

The transition to citizenship: Fostering a sense of belongingAnother fundamental element of an holistic policy

approach to asylum seekers is a level of engage-

ment and support that result in a sense of security

and self-respect. Such an approach will enhance

the prospect of those seeking asylum positively

participating in a functional and prosperous soci-

ety whether they gain permanent residency, and

ultimately citizenship, or not.

We can be serious about having a benevolent

approach to refugees, policy formation but also be

motivated by the desire to ensure that refugees are

given opportunities to be comfortable in their new

surroundings.

As well as appropriate visa application pro-

cesses for the immediate family members of resi-

dents who arrived in Australia as asylum seekers,

the Government can and does play a strong role in

facilitating positive social inclusion.

In South Australia, the Norwood Volleyball

Club embraced the local Afghan community with

open arms. A team consisting entirely of Afghan

Australians represented the club in the first division

of the local state league and made it to the grand

final. Two years after the club approached this

community, and with the assistance of Centacare,

they received funding under the Diverse Australia

Program, a relabelling of the Living in Harmony Pro-

gram – a Howard government initiative. Of the 290

small grants applications received, only 64 proj-

ects received funding in 2009 (just over $300 000).

Such community-driven initiatives, with strong

Governmental backing, are positive stories that

www.fabian.org.au 9

should be publicised. Education is an integral part

of leadership, and sets the tone for future genera-

tions’ acceptance of progressive policy.

What is ‘good politics’?After two weeks of intense debate over this issue,

Newspoll confirmed the rapidly evolving com-

munity attitudes to asylum seekers. There seems

little doubt that the 14 point swing in the two-party

preferred poll was directly associated with this

debate. What the polls don’t tell is the source of

dissatisfaction: whether it is because they see the

policy as too soft or too hard, or even if they are

repelled by the proclivity of playing both sides.

Paul Keating often said that good policy is

good politics. Populist sentiments formulated to

achieve a product ‘slightly better than our oppo-

nents’ should never be seen as a viable alternative

to good policy from a progressive party.

Our current Government was elected because

it was able to neutralise the debate on the econo-

my and offer a point of difference on social policy.

Maintaining this point of difference is this Govern-

ment’s mandate and it should make no excuses

for fulfilling it.

Bringing human rights home Professor George Williams

1940s played a pivotal role in the creation of the

United Nations and in the drafting of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights.

While Australia has rightly been regarded as a

leader in the cause of international human rights,

this is not always reflected in our actions at home.

Adverse findings against Australia by international

bodies dealing with matters such as racism and

refugees have been ignored. This has contribut-

ed to the notion sometimes adopted in Australia

that human rights are important, but that they only

need to be asserted overseas.

There is much to be proud of in our political

freedoms and democratic institutions. The prob-

lem is that while our system of government gen-

erally works well for most Australians there are

too many examples of it failing to protect the

rights of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged

After all, more than just border protection is at

stake, with the lives and futures of 78 people des-

perate enough to flee their own country, lying in

the balance. Unfortunately, Australia’s treatment of

asylum seekers over many years reveals how our

collective commitment to human rights, as well our

sense of compassion, can quickly go astray. When

human rights matter most, they can be too easily

forgotten.

On paper, Australia has a long and proud

record of international engagement with human

rights protection. Australia is a signatory to the

most important international human rights conven-

tions, such as the International Covenant on Civil

and Political Rights as well as others on racism

and the rights of people with disabilities. Australia

has also had its own global champions for human

rights, most especially H.V. Evatt who in the late

The impasse over the Oceanic Viking raises large questions about Australia’s approach to human rights, especially to those of asylum seekers. What has been lost in much of the public debate are the key humanitarian concerns.

10 www.fabian.org.au

in the community. We possess problems of law

and accountability that range from restrictions on

freedom of speech under sedition law to the re-

moval of Aboriginal people as part of the Stolen

Generations to the treatment of people with mental

illness. Despite the many good things about our

democracy, Australian law still routinely permits the

mistreatment of people in ways that are unjust and

infringe the dignity, respect and freedom to which

all human beings are entitled. We should aspire to

do better.

It is long past time that Australia matched its

international advocacy for human rights with do-

mestic recognition of their importance and more

effective protection of the rights of those in need.

Other countries have done this by incorporating in-

ternational human rights standards into their legal

system. In fact, Australia is now the only demo-

cratic nation in the world that has not adopted a

national law such as a bill of rights, charter of rights

or human rights act.

Every federal Labor government since World

War II has sought to bring about new national pro-

tection for human rights. The governments of Chi-

fley, Whitlam and Hawke/Keating all sought major

reform, but all failed. Their attempts were consis-

tent with the long standing policy of the Australian

Labor Party to introduce a national human rights

law. It is a policy that remains unfulfilled after sev-

eral decades.

The Rudd Government’s 2007 election plat-

form included a commitment to ‘initiate a public

inquiry about how best to recognise and protect

the human rights and freedoms enjoyed by all

Australians’. This promise was honoured on 10

December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Uni-

versal Declaration of Human Rights, with the ap-

pointment by federal Attorney General Robert

McClelland of an independent committee chaired

by Father Frank Brennan.

The results of the consultation are now in, with

the committee’s report released in early October. It

recommends a national human rights act for Aus-

tralia, an ordinary law that could be changed and

improved over time. This should have come as no

surprise. It has been apparent for many years that

there are major problems with human rights pro-

tection in Australia. The report catalogues this from

the ground up. It is a remarkable initiative in being

built upon the stories of thousands of Australians

from across the nation.

While human rights problems come to light pe-

riodically in the media, the report shows how many

Australians live with their rights being breached on

a daily basis. Despite often being avoidable, these

problems continue to cause grave distress and

harm to those involved. Remedial action is often

absent, and may only occur if the story reaches the

media and so comes with the possibility of political

embarrassment.

I saw this first hand in chairing the committee

that helped bring about Australia’s first State human

rights act, the Victorian Charter of Human Rights

and Responsibilities of 2006. There is a remarkable

consistency between what the community told us,

the Brennan committee and recent like inquires in

the ACT, Tasmania and Western Australia. All found

that Australians want better protection through im-

provements in education and government practice

and by having a new human rights law.

The Brennan committee found that a clear

majority of Australians want to see their basic

rights, such as freedom of speech and the right to

equality, protected by the law. People responded

in droves to the opportunity to have a say about

human rights. Over 40 000 people put in a writ-

ten submission to the Brennan committee or came

to a community roundtable at any of 52 locations

around Australia. The public response, the largest

to any government consultation in Australia’s his-

tory by a factor of thousands of people.

87% supported a human rights act, with

equally strong support from peak community or-

ganisations such as ACOSS and many religious

bodies including the Uniting Church. This mirrors

opinion polls taken over many years. In 1997, a

survey of 1505 citizens found that 72% supported

a bill of rights. Similarly, in 2006 a Roy Morgan poll

of 1001 voters found that 69% would be very likely

or likely to support a bill of rights. Most recently,

www.fabian.org.au 11

a March 2009 Nielsen poll of 1,000 people found

that 80% supported a law to protect human rights

in Australia.

The Brennan committee recommended a hu-

man rights act after exhaustive consultation and

careful and expert analysis of the evidence. Even

then, it was only prepared to recommend change

that would not give rise to a significant increase in

litigation, nor undermine the sovereignty of parlia-

ment.

Now is our best chance in over half a century

to bring about change to the law to better protect

human rights in Australia. Now is also the time for

the supporters of stronger human rights protection

to act. The Rudd government has yet to respond to

the Brennan report, and should be encouraged to

fully implement its findings. The government must

not miss this once in a generation opportunity to

achieve a key reform that has escaped its Labor

predecessors.

George Williams is the Anthony Mason Professor of

Law and Foundation Director of the Gilbert + Tobin

Centre of Public Law at the University of New south

Wales. he is also an Australian research Council Lau-

reate Fellow. www.law.unsw.edu.au/staff/WilliamsG

synopsisBuilding a stronger and more resilient Labor PartyMark Dreyfus, QC, MP

The Labor Party has worked consistently and tire-

lessly to protect and improve the rights of working

people. We have built an open economy that is en-

gaged with the world and in which there is an active

role for government. We have created real opportu-

nities for all Australians through the school, technical

and tertiary education systems. Universal access to

health care is a reality because of our commitment to

public hospitals, to Medicare and to the Pharmaceu-

tical Benefits Scheme. And we have built an open

and tolerant society through a non-discriminatory

migration policy, through working towards equality

for women, and through the long battle for the rec-

ognition of the rights of indigenous Australians.

Our ability to advance a progressive agenda is

founded on our effectiveness as a political organi-

sation which wins elections. We must be therefore

be constantly receptive to new ideas about how we

operate as a political party – how we attract mem-

The Australian Labor Party is the great party of Australian politics. We have a proud history of more than a century of progressive reform that has helped to shape the modern Australian nation.

bers, how we retain members and make full use of

their talents and energies, how we engage with the

communities in which we live, how we campaign –

at elections and between elections.

Organisationally, the Labor Party has some

clear strengths. We have a stronger, younger

and more active membership base than the Lib-

eral Party. We continue to have reasonably strong

membership among the generation who joined in

the 1960s and 1970s, among ethnic communities

and in the inner city.

Reforms to party administration, including

the principle of proportionality in internal elections

and affirmative action for party positions and pre-

selections for public office, have resulted in more

representative internal processes and better pre-

selection outcomes. And we do have innovative

branches which are engaging with both ALP mem-

bers and their local communities.

12 www.fabian.org.au

We have also been highly effective at cam-

paigning and winning elections. Since 1980, the

Victorian ALP has beaten the Victorian Liberals in

15 out of 19 State and Federal elections. I want to

see that continue next year as we work to re-elect

the Rudd and Brumby Governments.

But politics goes through cycles and we will

no doubt face challenging times in years ahead.

And in that context, there are also some very clear

challenges that the Party continues to face.

We do not have an active membership pro-

gram, either to recruit members or to retain exist-

ing members. Many members feel disconnected

from the decision making processes of the Party.

There are large areas of Melbourne and Victoria

where we hold seats but which lack a strong party

organisation. The current structures don’t properly

engage young people in the political process and

relatively few members of affiliated trade unions

are actually members of the Party.

In 1998, I was asked to conduct a review of the

Victorian ALP, resulting in a report that I delivered

to a Special State Conference of the Party in De-

cember of that year. In the report, I suggested the

following five objectives for the Party:

• a Party which is re-engaged with the community

and with its own membership

• a Party with a larger membership

• a Party which operates democratically

• a Party which fully uses the talent and energy of

its volunteer members

• a Party, focussed on winning government.

I received over 200 written submissions from

a wide range of Party members, branches, parlia-

mentarians and affiliated unions, many of which

reflected serious concerns about party administra-

tion, membership procedures and branch stacking.

Eleven of the 27 recommendations in the 1998

report concerned membership and membership

procedures. Some were reasonably straightforward

and simple measures for membership, including:

• The principle that the membership fees of ev-

ery member be paid by that member, except in

cases of real financial hardship or temporary

absence;

• That members be required to sign annual re-

newal forms; and

• That membership of affiliated unions for affili-

ation purposes be determined by reference to

the membership figure stated in that union’s

last return lodged with the Industrial Relations

Commission.

These measures were taken up and I think

have played an important role in stamping out

some of the more egregious examples of branch

stacking and undermining of the Party’s principles.

By contrast, the recommendation that the Party

establish a recruitment unit, staffed by people with

recruitment expertise was not implemented. Nor

does it appear that the detailed recruitment strategy

designed to substantially increase Party member-

ship has ever been prepared or implemented.

It is indicative of the Party’s approach on these

matters. We have been able to deal in a technical

way with the worst examples of rorting and branch

stacking, but we have been unable to make the

necessary cultural changes for a truly engaged

party membership.

My key suggestion for the future health and

electoral success of the Party would be a larger

membership base, one that is involved in the cen-

tral decision making processes of the Party and

involved in Party bodies that are connected to the

communities around them.

To achieve this, we need a new culture centred

on greater openness. One of the most striking de-

velopments over the last decade, at least in English

speaking countries, has been new forms of engage-

ment in the political process driven by technological

and cultural change. This has included less formally

organised, but no less passionate, engagement in

politics. Our party has to open its processes to meet

these new forms of engagement.

We should throw the doors of the Party wide

open to all of our supporters. The best way to

stamp out branch stacking is to expand the mem-

bership base. We need to encourage as many La-

bor supporters to join the Party as possible.

Many people in our Party actively recruit new

members to the ALP. There is nothing wrong with

www.fabian.org.au 13

this – in fact, it should be supported. But, as with

other party activities, this must be done with integ-

rity. My conclusions in the 1998 Report are worth

repeating:

“The Party needs to encourage recruitment of new

members, and welcome new members into the

Party and its activities. It is an indication of an over-

intensification of factional activity that the recruit-

ment of new members into particular branches is

viewed with suspicion: in a fully functioning Party,

recruitment should always be welcomed.”

The concept of “membership” must also un-

dergo a shift within the party. Some suggestions:

• A single flat membership rate of $10 or $20.

• A removal of the requirement to attend branch

meetings.

• Members should be able to form groups which

they could register with the State party.

• Head Office should establish a Party intranet

– perhaps based on the principles of social

networking sites such as Facebook – through

which party members could easily engage and

communicate with one another and through

which they can organise on-line.

• Members should be able to join as many branch-

es or groups within the party as they see fit.

We need the party administration to be devel-

oping tools for members that are not prescriptive

but that are supportive. We need a recruitment

strategy which trains local members to be activists

for our party. We need materials that can be adapt-

ed for local circumstances through the simple use

of desktop publishing programs and that could be

produced out of the party administration.

Instead of holding up membership applica-

tions at Membership Committee, or preventing the

creation of new branches, the party administration

should be providing party members with the tools

to attract more members and establish more party

groups.

While we should retain the formal structures of

the Party around election of delegates to Confer-

ence, pre-selections for public office and the elec-

tion of policy committees, we should otherwise allow

members to organise in the best way they see fit.

Some people will want to organise locally. For

others, they may want to organise around issues

or interests or organise on-line. They might only be

interested in campaigning or solely stimulated by

policy development. And some people may want

to do a combination of the all of these.

A new member might join a local group, per-

haps one organised by the local state MP, but might

also join a state-wide Labor environmental group or

a regional women’s network. Some people won’t

be interested in joining a local branch at all.

There needs to be an incentive for affiliated

unions to be pro-active in encouraging union

members to join the party. One idea would be for

union representation to be based not on the num-

ber of members of the union, but the number of

union members who are members of the Party.

To encourage this, members of the party who are

also union members could pay a much lower ALP

membership fee.

Another possible reform would be to have

union delegations to State Conference directly

elected by union members, while retaining the re-

quirement that such delegates be party members.

Adjusting union representation in these ways might

lead to more party members feeling that they have

a say in the running of our party.

The Labor Party must be more than simply

easy to join. It must also be good to belong to. Any

or all of these suggestions would help to pave the

way for a broader-based party membership that is

more active and better reflective of the communi-

ties in which we live and work.

The danger exists that when electoral fortunes

turn, we will not have the capacity to recover as

quickly as we should be able to. I hope this point

is many years away but we can only ensure this

by renewal and by avoiding stagnation. We need

to keep our focus on the Party’s main resource,

which is the energy, the dedication and the skills of

Party members.

Mark Dreyfus is the Federal Member for the electorate

of Isaacs in the Australian Parliament.

www.markdreyfus.com

14 www.fabian.org.au

Advantage receiverrevealing Australia’s welfare for the richDr Ben Spies-Butcher and Adam Stebbing

Surely if anyone ever entertained such a scheme

they would be run out of parliament and be the

butt of endless horror stories on commercial cur-

rent affairs. Yet, such a scheme already exists, and

almost nobody says anything about it.

Debates about welfare often focus on the

most disadvantaged. Critics claim that the mea-

gre payments to protect citizens from unemploy-

ment may cause dependency. Or payments to

families with children create bureaucracies to sim-

ply give people back their own money. Yet Peter

Whiteford has recently shown that by international

standards, these payments are very tightly target-

ed to those in need and, outside family support,

relatively modest.

The debate about those on low incomes ob-

scures attention from the most inequitable aspects

of Australia’s welfare state. These exist not in the

more obvious form of cash payments, but in com-

plex and difficult to understand aspects of the tax

code. Here payments can be made to multimillion-

aires and most Australians will never be the wiser.

A prime example is the rules that govern su-

perannuation. Superannuation receives consider-

able financial support from government in the form

of concessionary tax treatment. Contributions to

super funds and fund earnings are subject to a

concessional tax rate of 15 per cent, which means

that individuals pay a maximum tax rate of 15 per

cent regardless of the income they earn. Super

benefits collected at retirement receive even great-

er tax treatment and are totally deductible from tax

if individuals are over 60 years old.

Tax concessions act much the same way

as cash payments (such as the $900 tax bonus

most of us received). Both have a cost on the

budget, redistribute income and usually involve

some change in behaviour in order to access

the benefit. But as the Auditor-General recently

reported, tax expenditures avoid many routine

forms of budget accountability – and so receive

less press.

Recently the Australian Treasury released its

report on tax expenditures for the 2007-08 finan-

cial year. In total, the Treasury estimates that the

Federal government handed out $73 billion in tax

expenditures during 2007-08. Of this, $39 billion of

the funds allocated through tax expenditures were

directed towards social security, health, housing,

and community services.

Super receives significant funds through tax

expenditures. Government support for superannu-

ation reached $29 billion in 2007-08. This is more

than the $25 billion that the government spent in

the same year on the Aged pension.

Tax expenditures are essentially forms of tax

concessions, allowing tax payers to reduce their

tax bill by undertaking particular forms of activity

– like investing in superannuation. But unlike a tax

cut, governments continue to direct how the mon-

ey is spent, usually encouraging people to spend

it on private welfare companies, like ABC Learning

or private health insurance.

Many might think this appropriate – after all if

people look after themselves, shouldn’t the govern-

ment help out? The problem is, tax expenditures are

far less equitable than government spending, and

far less accountable. Most tax expenditures allow

people to avoid paying income tax. Because Aus-

tralia’s income tax system is progressive, meaning

the rich pay more, tax expenditures do the oppo-

site, giving the most support to those least in need.

One of the most striking examples is super-

annuation. If we just look at the 9 per cent com-

pulsory super paid by employers as part of the

Superannuation Guarantee, we find that the tax

expenditures for super contributions gives all the

benefits to the top income earners. Those in the

top tax bracket earn over $200 000 and receive

more than $11 000 on average every year. While

those earning up to $34 000 a year – which is well

above the minimum wage – get nothing.

An analysis we did for the Centre for Policy

Development showed that if we redirected that as-

Imagine a welfare scheme that gave minimum wage earners nothing, but paid those earning over $180 000 a year $11 000.

www.fabian.org.au 15

sistance so that all tax payers got the same pro-

portional benefit, a minimum wage earner would

finish $24 000 better off. By restricting the full ben-

efit to low and middle income earners, those earn-

ing up to $80 000 a year, we could increase the

retirement savings of 85 per cent of wage earners

– at no cost to the Budget.

Such a change would also support self-reli-

ance by helping those that actually need it – low

and middle income earners, rather than support-

ing those that can most easily help themselves.

And by converting tax expenditures into rebates,

we could shine a light onto the billions in welfare

spending that currently goes under the radar, in-

creasing accountability.

The truth is Australia spends much more on

social support than we realise, but much of that

is hidden in complex schemes that only really

benefit the rich. The recent changes in the Bud-

get, which reduced the limits to salary sacrificing

arrangements for super, only amounted to baby

steps and did nothing to redress the underlying

inequities of the scheme. The current Tax Review

being undertaken by Ken Henry provides the per-

fect opportunity to address the more fundamental

design flaws of the tax arrangements for super,

and create a more inclusive and equitable welfare

state for all Australians.

Dr Ben spies-Butcher is a Lecturer in Economy and so-

ciety in the sociology Department at Macquarie Univer-

sity and a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development.

www.soc.mq.edu.au/staff/staff_spies-Butcher.html

Adam stebbing is a PhD candidate in the Department

of sociology at Macquarie University, sydney. his re-

search is focused on tax expenditures and their impli-

cations for the Australian welfare state.

Adam.stebbing@scmp.mq.edu.au

Be a Fabian – join the discussion.

Forgotten?It’s not too late to renew your membership now!Not a member? Well now’s the right time to consider joining.

Apply to join or renew online at www.fabian.org.au and receive a range of membership benefits, including invitations to events around the country, Fabian publications and other information. Further enquires: phone 0438 213 532 or email membership@fabian.org.au

16 www.fabian.org.au

Questions on noticeCan markets really save the planet? Dr Richard Denniss

Put simply, if other countries are as unambitious

as Australia when it comes to timid emission re-

duction targets then we will be responsible for the

misery of countless humans in the coming centu-

ries, and of course, not to mention the destruction

of our natural environment. Can that be described

as the moral thing to do in any meaningful sense

of the word?

The CPRS has a number of fundamental

flaws. First, the targets are so low that they are

irrelevant in the context of the actual problem. If

someone was exposed to a toxic dose of radiation

would moving the source of emissions a metre fur-

ther away from them be seen as a step in the right

direction? If you believe the science we need to

cut emissions a lot and we need to cut them soon.

The targets in the CPRS ignore this science. Telling

ourselves that we plan to make bigger cuts on a

‘per capita’ basis might work in the media, but it

means nothing to the atmosphere.

The second big problem with the scheme is

that rather than following the ‘polluter pays’ prin-

ciple and auctioning the pollution permits to pol-

luters the Rudd Government is proposing to give

away up to 94 per cent of the permits needed by

our biggest polluters. Even polluters such as our

brown coal power stations will be given billions of

dollars in compensation because the CPRS will re-

duce their profits! Imagine if we proposed a com-

pensation scheme for tobacco companies who

were adversely affected by tobacco excise.

The third big problem is that there will be so

many pollution permits that Treasury’s modelling

makes clear that the CPRS will not lead to the clo-

sure of a single black or brown coal fired power

station until at least 2033! If you listen carefully to

what the Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is

saying she is spending billions of taxpayers’ dol-

lars to compensate power stations not for closure,

but for the inconvenience and slightly lower profits

they might earn.

The fourth problem is that while the Rudd

Government is proposing to give generous com-

pensation to the big polluters and to individual

households they are not offering a cent to state

and local governments. While it might not be obvi-

ous, the fact is that hospitals, schools and trains

use a lot of electricity. Higher electricity prices

mean increased costs in the provision of state

and local government services. Unless the Rudd

Government provides compensation to their state

government counterparts the only option for state

treasurers will be to increase taxes or sack teach-

ers and nurses.

And finally, the CPRS is so badly designed

that if individuals, community groups, or even

state governments try to reduce their emissions

by changing their behaviour or investing in low

emission technologies, they will simply free up ad-

ditional pollution permits for other polluters. That

is, if households save one million tonnes of emis-

sions by turning off their appliances this will not

result in one million fewer pollution permits being

issued, it will simply result in a million permits that

the steel or aluminium industry can use to expand

their emissions.

The CPRS is a deeply flawed scheme, but the

design flaws are only part of the problem. What

should be of even greater concern is that the Prime

Minister’s response to a so-called ‘moral chal-

lenge’ is to rely primarily on market forces to fix it.

Bizarrely, the benefits of any altruistic attempts to

tackle climate change will accrue to polluters, not

to the atmosphere.

If we are to take the task of reducing green-

house gas emissions seriously we need to trans-

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that tackling climate change was a ‘great moral challenge’. If the proposed emissions trading scheme, the so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is anything to go by then it looks like either we will fail that challenge or the PM’s morals are not what I hoped they would be.

www.fabian.org.au 17

form our energy and transport systems. The Rudd

Government is determined to rely on ‘market

forces’ to achieve this task, but what have markets

achieved in the past.

Was it the market that built our road system?

Our water supply? Our sewers? Our phone lines?

The market didn’t even build our existing electricity

system. The public sector has built all of the large

and integrated infrastructure networks in Australia.

Sure the private sector builds the odd tollway, but

when it comes to big picture infrastructure it’s the

government that has always lead the way.

Lets be clear about this, the Rudd Govern-

ment isn’t even leaving it to the market to build the

national broadband network!

First Dog on the Moon

It’s often said that markets make a good ser-

vant and a poor master. Climate change is an

enormous economic, environmental, social and

national security problem. A well designed market

instrument might play some role in tackling climate

change, but the dog’s breakfast that is the CPRS

will simply lock us into failure.

Dr richard Denniss is Executive Director of The Austra-

lia Institute. www.tai.org.au

Reprinted with the permission of firstdogonthemoon from crikey.com.au

18 www.fabian.org.au

synopsisPolitical power: Does gender matter anymore?The Hon. Maxine McKew MP

As at previous conferences, we held our forum

during the Friday lunch break on board the South

Steyne Floating Restaurant at Darling Harbour.

With the advent of Anna Bligh as the first

elected female state premier and Julia Gillard as

the first female deputy prime minister, could advo-

cates of increased representation of women in po-

sitions of political power in Australia relax and take

some pleasure in their successes? This seemed a

good time to pose the question: ‘Political power:

Does gender matter anymore?’

Maxine McKew spoke first and has made her

speech available for publication in the Fabians

newsletter.

“Jan (Merriman) thank you very much. It’s a plea-

sure to be on the same platform as Julie (Owens)

because we are in adjoining electorates, and I do

remember going back to my previous life as anchor

for Lateline, in fact I think it was the night after the

‘04 election, I had Julie on as a new Labor member

and Malcolm Turnbull as a new Liberal member. It

was a joint discussion about ‘the rookies.’

But I remember Julie and I lingered afterwards

in the lobby of the ABC, and perhaps I had an ul-

terior motive and I remember saying, ‘Come on –

how did you really do it?’ And I do remember Julie

your response then, and you were dead right. You

said at the time no seat is unwinnable.

I never forgot that.

Jan, it’s also interesting you make reference to

Jesse Street – one of my heroes. I don’t have many

but Jesse’s one of mine. And I think I’m right... If I’m

wrong I know Bob Ellis will correct me. That Jesse

actually had to run in Wentworth because the Labor

Party denied her pre-selection in Eden-Monaro.

First of all I would like to acknowledge that

gender studies is a recognised field of academic

expertise, and I’ll put in a disclaimer. I am no ex-

pert. I’m also aware that gender roles in Labor poli-

tics is a galvanising topic.

Maxine McKew, MP for Bennelong and Julie Owens, MP for Parramatta were the guest speakers at the NSW Fabians ALP National Conference Fringe event in July this year.

So where to start?

I think we can say that during the 20 months

of the Rudd Government – Australians appear that

much more comfortable than ever with women

wielding political power. We have certainly come a

long way since 1975 when as a young cadet jour-

nalist in Queensland I practically risked a night in

the watch house because I aired a couple of sto-

ries about the need for anti discrimination legisla-

tion. Those were the days…when a Rockhampton

mayor called Rex Pilbeam – I was back up there

recently – Rex Pilbeam was famous for sacking

any woman who worked for the council the mo-

ment she went to the altar. Those were also the

days when a young University of Queensland law

lecturer called Quentin Bryce advocated a hereti-

cal troika…affordable childcare, paid maternity

leave and fairness in the workplace.

Thirty five years on, the Australian Govern-

ment requests Quentin’s assent to every piece of

legislation that passes through the federal Parlia-

ment. That Queensland of the 1970s has now be-

come the first state in Australia to elect a woman

as premier.

So clearly the landscape we survey today is

very different. Thankfully preconceptions about

gender and gender roles aren’t set in stone. They

are constantly changing and evolving. So when

I’m asked the question – does gender matter any

more in relation to political power – I guess the

short answer is yes, it will always matter.

But right now I think gender matters a little

less.

There’s been widespread acknowledgement

of the strong performance in government by the

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, of Nicola Rox-

on, of Jenny Macklin in Labor’s most important

portfolios of Education, of Health and Families.

The election of Anna Bligh and the appointment

of Quentin Bryce as the first female Governor-

General were – to me at any rate – unsurprising.

www.fabian.org.au 19

Anna was clearly the best candidate, Quentin an

excellent choice. Every time an articulate success-

ful woman stands up to represent the Australian

public, another bubble bursts for those remaining

‘gender skeptics’ out there... the people who be-

lieve that because a candidate is a woman it might

be a negative in some voters’ minds.

It’s a little bit like the issue of race at the last

US election – when some American commentators

murmured about “the Bradley Effect”– the idea

that white voters, no matter how good the candi-

date and in spite of what they told pollsters, just

couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a black can-

didate. But, as the writer Kate Jennings has said,

Obama wasn’t elected for the colour of his skin –

‘he was elected because he offered the hope of a

wise, steady and healing leadership to a country

bullied and battered in the name of patriotism,

plundered and pillaged in the name of free mar-

kets, neglected and abandoned in the name of

small government.’

I think every time we see off these shibboleths,

it seems like everyone blinks, opens their eyes a bit

wider and says – ‘What were we worried about?’

I know that many feminists are disappointed

that a woman is still to be elected as commander

in chief in the United States…. and that 2008 rep-

resents for them something of a missed opportu-

nity. I have a slightly different view. I think the girl

won and her name is Obama.

If we look at this in Jungian terms Barack

Obama has an exceptionally well developed ani-

ma….that is, his feminine side sits easily alongside

his male persona. Obama prevailed I think because

he had a conversation with America. He talked in a

different way. His campaign was expansive, empa-

thetic, and full of promise. People felt that he was

on their side, and it wasn’t all about him.

Obama to me is a symbol of how gender

roles, both male and female are shifting, and how

showing traits that are considered ‘female’ are no

longer a negative for a male politician.

I’m not so sure the reverse works.

The search for gender equality shouldn’t

mean that women in politics slavishly adopt traits

considered ‘male.’ The aim should be that women

are afforded all the same opportunities as men to

develop as politicians with whichever voice works

for them.

That said, the old stereotypes still rear their

heads from time to time. I don’t see much report-

ing on what male politicians wear, or what their hair

looks like.

On balance though, it’s still women who cop

maximum attention for what they’re wearing – con-

sider the forest of literature on Hillary Clinton’s

many-hued, ubiquitous trouser suits. It’s fair to say

some other countries are further down the gender

equality path in politics than we are. The Spanish

cabinet, for one, has more women than men, and

when Spain’s 38 year-old Defence Minister Car-

men Chacon took over the portfolio last year she

was seven months pregnant.

The fact that we are where we are today is the

culmination of many years of hard work. It’s the ad-

vocacy of groups like the National Foundation for

Australian Women, the Women’s Electoral Lobby,

Emily’s List and many others who’ve helped to re-

cast gender roles in politics in a more equal and

unbiased way. And I know Julie and I will always

say we stand on the shoulders of others. When

I think of the Hawke ministry, for example, I think

in particular of Susan Ryan, and the extraordinary

hard yards that Susan put in ensuring that we have

national legislation on affirmative action and anti-

discrimination laws.

Susan and women of the women of her gen-

eration dared to imagine a different future and they

copped a lot of pain for it. But they were true to

their ideal, and they kept those ideas circulating

in the public sphere even when it was very difficult

to do so. They remain an inspiration for all of us.

For that we all owe them and many of you – an un-

ending debt. So thank you. While we celebrate our

victories – I still think there are hurdles for women

in politics.

The New South Wales ALP is having another

crack at branch reform, so more power to your

Rosie the Riveter arms for doing so. But we cer-

tainly won’t attract the best and brightest to our

20 www.fabian.org.au

party unless we make it easier

for women to get involved and

stay engaged. Many women lose

touch with the party when they

have children, or have other car-

ing responsibilities.

Many women though do

have strong connections to their

local community, often through

their children, through schools

and sporting clubs. Women are

often involved in local politics and

smaller forms of political organi-

sation. The potential is there for

the ALP to tap into this resource

of female community leadership.

Not only is it about making branch

meetings more accessible it is also about shifting

the message to appeal to women and changing

the way the party views and treats women.

Back in 2000 in her contribution to the book

Party Girls Julia Gillard noted that the Party’s Na-

tional Secretary and state secretaries at the time

were all male: Julia observed how inherently inac-

cessible such positions were to women: She said:

‘The work-till-you-drop ethos which pervades the

political class means there has been no real at-

tempt to facilitate part-time work or working pat-

terns which recognise family needs.’

‘In addition, these jobs tend to become a life-

style in which being at the right pub or the right

dinner at the right time can be as important as per-

forming professional duties during the day.’ Well,

roll on the day when state secretaries can horse

trade outside the school playground.

Getting back to the original question about

does gender still matter, I think the short answer is

‘less than it ever has, but still more than it should.’

We’ve come a long way. Our task now is to con-

solidate the gains and keep building for the future.

Recently News Limited journalist Glenn Milne

coined a phrase to ‘do a Maxine McKew.’ He was

talking about the need to run, as he said, a high

profile Labor candidate against Malcolm Turnbull

in Wentworth. A catchy slogan, but I think it misses

the point. I want to reassure Glenn that victory in

Bennelong had to do with many things.

One of the most important things was that it

was a great grassroots disciplined campaign. I

think my name and whatever recognition factor at-

tached to it was somewhat down the list.In fact I

find the whole business of a ‘celebrity candidate’

is laughable because there’s nothing glamorous

about campaigning. It’s relentless and I knew that

when I took on the job.

But having done so I now find my present job

about as rewarding as it gets. I’ve had some ex-

traordinary days and some spectacular days since

I became the Member for Bennelong. I’ve also had

some very, very ordinary days.

They will never make the front page of any

newspaper, but the wheelchair-adapted house that

you find for the mother with two disabled children

will never be forgotten. Nor will the small com-

munity grants that you find for the scouts hall or

the netball team. Nor will the things that cost you

nothing – your attendance at a combined schools

concert, or a seniors’ afternoon tea. That’s what

I’m out there doing every day in Bennelong. If I get

any say in the matter that’s what I’d prefer “doing a

McKew” to actually mean.

Thank you very much.

Maxine McKew is the Federal Member for the elector-

ate of Bennelong in the Australian Parliament and the

Parliamentary secretary for Infrastructure, Transport,

regional Development and Local Government.

www.ministers.infrastructure.gov.au/mm

www.fabian.org.au 21

AbstractsAustralia, ThePoliticsofClimateChangeand Anthony Giddens Dr Joff Lelliott

In Australia, it will also be remembered for the on-

going shenanigans over passing or not passing

the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation by fed-

eral parliament.

In this context, Anthony Giddens’ new book,

The Politics of Climate Change, could not be better

timed.

Giddens is well-placed to write this book. He

was one of the leading sociologists of the late-

20th century and head of the London School of

Economics. He wrote groundbreaking books on

globalisation and put the ideological flesh on Tony

Blair’s media-friendly Third Way, ultimately being

rewarded with a seat in the House of Lords.

In his new book, one of Giddens’ main argu-

ments is particularly pertinent to Australia – climate

change needs to be lifted above conventional

party politics, so that long-term solutions can be

agreed which are not then vulnerable to a change

of government.

Giddens might be disappointed the issue has

become one of Australia’s most politically treach-

erous for many years, with the Liberal Party ac-

tually moving away from the consensus position

that a cap-and-trade Emissions Trading Scheme

(ETS) is the way forward. It seems likely, however,

that the Coalition’s current wranglings are actually

the death throes of climate change scepticism in

mainstream politics.

Climate change needs to be lifted above

conventional party politics.

This wrangling has led to the paradoxical situ-

ation where the ALP is proposing a market-based

mechanism and the supposedly pro-market Liber-

als want to simply tax people more (which will not

control the level of emissions, only the price that

people have to pay to pollute).

While any party enjoys watching its oppo-

nent rip itself and its credibility apart, this debate

Worldwide, 2009 will be remembered for the Global Financial Crisis. Many hope it will also be remembered as the year the world came together at the Copenhagen Conference and set out on the post-Kyoto path to tackling climate change.

is stopping Australia dealing with climate change

and giving business the certainty it needs to make

investments in capital and R&D.

One of Giddens’ strongest points is that Green

parties cannot offer the answer. Being rooted in

anti-capitalist, anti-industrial ideologies means the

Greens do not offer credible ways to tackle climate

change – partly demonstrated by their effectively

being dealt out of discussions on the ETS and Re-

newable Energy Targets. Hence the answers need

to be resolved by the traditional left and conserva-

tive parties.

Unlike many writers on climate change, Gid-

dens offers us hope. He discusses at length coun-

tries that are making significant changes. Sweden

has halved its oil consumption at the same time as

it is phasing out nuclear power. It also has a stated

aim of being oil-free by 2020. Iceland is turning to

hydro-electric power and (along with Norway, New

Zealand and Costa Rica) aims to be carbon neu-

tral within two decades.

In part countries are being motivated by ener-

gy security issues – witness Israel’s strong support

for electric cars, over oil from its Arab neighbours,

with a nationwide programme of installing plug-in

points and other infrastructure. Giddens stresses

repeatedly that for many countries there will fre-

quently be a coincidence of climate change miti-

gation work with energy security interests.

By discussing such strong examples, Gid-

dens undermines his claim that people will not

deal with climate change until its effects are being

felt directly, when it will already be too late. Vainly,

he refers to this as “Giddens’ Paradox”.

As to the current haggling about the post-

Kyoto world, Giddens argues that a tight, detailed

agreement is not what is required. Instead, the

world needs a broad, relatively loose agreement,

which allows each country to determine its own

22 www.fabian.org.au

synopsisWhat’s left: Libertarian social democracy and alternatives to big governmentDr Tony Moore

path to a lower-carbon future, based on local po-

litical realities, the existing policy mix and the tech-

nological possibilities for that country.

This is in part the argument of developing

countries like China and India. They may not simply

follow Western prescriptions on climate change,

but the vital point is that there is the same under-

standing of the core issues and their magnitude.

China sees more clearly than many people re-

alise that it has a direct interest in tackling climate

change due to the profound changes in weather

patterns in its heavily populated south. Earlier this

year China announced plans for the biggest so-

lar plant in the world – big enough to power three

million homes. The Economist has given optimistic

reports about serious, high-level, pre-Copenhagen

talks between China and the USA – the two most

important countries in any global agreement.

Giddens is good at identifying issues and ana-

lysing them. Unfortunately, despite his claims, he

is not able to translate his analysis into clear policy

proposals – especially around raising the issue

above party politics. That is where those involved in

political parties need to pick up his ideas and analy-

sis – and hopefully come to a long-term bi-partisan

and international consensus on climate change.

Anthony Giddens’ The Politics of Climate Change

is published by Polity Press.

Dr Joff Lelliott was recently part of a panel discussion

on climate change for the Queensland Fabians. he has

been a member of the Queensland Labor Party’s Eco-

nomic Management state policy committee and the

Environment and heritage state policy committee. he

works on climate change issues in the private sector.

Social democracy ensures collective intervention

in the market place to enhance structural equality

and advance the full development of our poten-

tial as human beings. Libertarianism cultivates a

skeptical attitude to the self-serving claims of state

bureaucracies and rent seeking businesses alike,

and ensures vigilance against the encroachment

of our governments on individual and community

freedoms.

Taken together social democracy and liber-

tarianism can promote alternative ways for us re-

I call myself a libertarian social democrat but many of my left wing mates condemn such a position as a contradiction. They forget that the potency of the French Revolution lay in its marriage of Liberty with Equality and Fraternity, and that left libertarianism has a fine pedigree.

imagine the old Westminster public service as a

democratic commons more accountable to grass-

roots communities. Many Australians, especially

in traditional Labor areas, have lost faith in the

capacity of government to deliver even the most

basic services, and restoring faith in the public is

one of the key challenges for progressives today.

I am not arguing for less public intervention.

Rather I challenge the left to think beyond the fre-

quently illiberal bureaucratic state as the only way

to achieve social goals.

www.fabian.org.au 23

The United States extols liberty above all else,

but without the balancing commitment to equality it

can be a land of the strong rather than of the free.

Communist countries that relied on an authoritar-

ian state to force through equality not only pro-

duced societies damaging to human life and the

human spirit but also created a class of bureau-

cratic overlords who were manifestly more equal

than the masses they claimed to elevate.

Political libertarianism often suffers in Australia

where our utilitarian roots have cultivated a winner

takes all approach, where the minority can be sub-

ject to the majority. The Labor Party’s birth in the

unions means it values solidarity in defence of ma-

jority decisions –– essential for industrial disputes

but impatient of individual liberty. ALP governance

itself is in practice illiberal, where the losing fac-

tion or sub-faction must abide by the majority vote.

While the ideas-orientated Fabian society has al-

ways been a bastion of the small ‘l’ liberal in Aus-

tralian political debate, the dominant ALP culture

has little respect for dissent or pluralistic models

of governance despite warm fuzzy slogans about

multiculturalism. Still, Labor has thrown up finer lib-

erals –– in the democratic reform/civil libertarian/

human rights/cultural diversity sense than the Lib-

eral Party, including Evatt, Whitlam, Wran, Hawke,

Keating and possibly Rudd. Yet all of them share

Labor’s fondness for the state.

“Death or liberty” was a call to arms for a host

of revolutionaries, rebels and reformers transport-

ed as political prisoners to Australia who had no

reason to idealise the British state that had exiled

them to our fatal shore. Late 19th-century English

socialist William Morris was appalled by the Marx-

ist and Fabian obsession with the state as the

agent of reform or revolution, believing it would

extinguish the rights of freeborn Englishmen as

surely as industrial capitalism.

In the US and also Australia, the Industrial

Workers of the World were influenced by the an-

archist critique of the state and advocated a syn-

dicalist socialism based on unionism: an idea that

had currency among radical unionists in Australia

until the new Communist Party succumbed to a

Marxist-Leninist recasting of the state as the dicta-

torship of the proletariat.

Many stalwarts of the Sydney intellectual Left

cut their radical teeth in the bohemian Push, at the

philosophical core of which was the prickly Lib-

ertarian Society. Inspired by free-thinking profes-

sor John Anderson, the Libertarians were critical

of communist claims that authoritarianism could

deliver a utopia and Labor’s faith that state power

was neutral. They styled themselves as pessimistic

anarchists, cautioning that even the most idealistic

reformers become a new elite.

Armed with a healthy scepticism of the state

we on the left can deepen democratic accountabil-

ity of collective institutions that deliver social goods

and consider alternatives to the traditional public

sector. In doing so we can draw on older ideas like

cooperatives and mutual’s to devise new types of

partnerships between the communities and mar-

kets. But the Australian Labor party is obstinately

romantic about the state and uncritical about the

exercise of ministerial power over ordinary people

by often heavy-handed government departments

like Centrelink, the Department of Immigration or

the Classification Board. Newly elected Labor Min-

isters certainly might impose new policies on their

minions and change the officers at the top of the

public service pecking order, but the actual form of

the state remains unchanged: centralized, secre-

tive top down bureaucracies with little avenue for

citizen participation.

I grew up in working class Port Kembla and

Dapto, from a blue-collar family. I owe my edu-

cation, good health and much of my working life

to the remaking of the state that occurred under

Gough Whitlam and Neville Wran. But somewhere

in the 1990s the quality of government services de-

clined in the wake of corporatisation, so that these

days it is with trepidation that I enter a public hospi-

tal, jump on a train or commit to a comprehensive

high school. Perhaps this is because of my experi-

ence living under the NSW Labor Government?

It is traditional Labor voters in communities

like the Illawarra who have been let down by the

infestation of government services by manage-

24 www.fabian.org.au

ment consultants and cronies. Privatisation gained

traction because the unreconstructed monopoly

public corporations like Telstra or the CES were so

unresponsive to citizens, rebadged as ‘custom-

ers’. To make matters worse, party discipline, com-

plexity, secrecy, the preselection of staffers and a

presidential style of leadership have weakened the

public’s capacity to scrutinise or control the acts of

government through MPs.

Merely having as Minister a pollie hailing

from the Socialist Left does nothing to change the

power relation between the state and its citizens.

Back in the 1970s New Left British political scien-

tist Ralph Miliband warned Labour Party reformers

that The State in Capitalist Society is never neutral,

and even the most determined socialist is seduced

by the pomp and circumstance of Her Majesty’s

Government and ends up identifying the sectional

interests of business with the national interest. To

prove his father’s point David Miliband became a

Blairite Minister and is now Foreign Secretary.

Notable revisionists of Labor’s state fetish

in the last decade were Mark Latham and Peter

Botsman who joined with Noel Pearson in a the

book The Enabling State, to criticize the initia-

tive –sapping effects of welfare dependency and

over-regulation of private life on communities. They

asked how social support might be better provided

so that governments empower, rather than lord it

over, poorer people. At some point many on the

left abandoned their 1970s critique of the welfare

state as at best a necessary half-measure on the

way to the good society, to a defensive position

that merely defends the status quo, defending

people’s right to be a passive welfare client of the

state as if this was the last word on progressive

social policy.

The ALP does have a counter-tradition. During

the period of Labor’s birth there was great debate

internationally and in Australia about the most ap-

propriate way to civilise capitalism, deliver public

services and for the more radical, create a social-

ist society. Many working and middle class people

were more practical in the face of the private sec-

tors’ indifference to their needs, and set up mu-

tual building societies so they could borrow for a

home, or set up cooperatives for the provision of

groceries or other necessities. Such institutions of

social service were controlled by members living

locally rather than unseen bureaucrats or arrogant

ministers in far-flung capitals. Unions and early La-

bor leaders embraced this grassroots experimen-

tation, and extended mutualisation to the provision

of funerals for the poor and roadside motor service

(this championed by like PM John Christian Wat-

son). Yet in recent years the mutuals and coops

such as the NRMA have rushed lemming like to the

stock exchange and become private companies.

Meanwhile in Europe cooperatives like Mondragon

have grown to become giants of the economy –

Fabian stalwart Race Mathews has been a tireless

advocate for this alternative to the state.

But in contemporary Australia the only choice

presented is between the state or neo-liberal solu-

tions. Since the 1990s State Labor Governments

have remained obsessed with all-out privatisa-

tion or delivering public goods through the Third

Way orthodoxy of Public Private Partnerships, with

mixed results and negligible participation by the

public. Now the Rudd government unthinkingly

reaches for old style PPPs to realise its worthy in-

frastructure vision, but NSW shows that this model

has pitfalls for the service user and tax payer alike.

An alternative is to reimagine ‘the public’.

If Australian governance alienates most of us

perhaps it is because its form retains many colonial

features designed to do just that. Whereas govern-

ment services such as schools and police in the

United States and Britain are often accountable

to local communities through direct or municipal

election, here they remain trapped in the colonial

model where the centrally located representative

of the Crown dispatched its officers to administer

HMG’s laws to a people who could not be trusted.

Though self-government was introduced early,

the people’s participation was limited to parlia-

mentary election and juries, rather than an ongo-

ing say over the operation of schools, hospitals

or the constabulary. Where boards exist they are

too frequently stacked with political mates rather

www.fabian.org.au 25

than meritocratic or reflective of the community or

stakeholders. The post 1990s triumph of manage-

rialism and PR has only served to further distance

ordinary people from the institutions that govern

their lives, and all but extinguished the principle of

ministerial responsibility. For evidence look no fur-

ther than the Howard government’s AWB and im-

migration debacles or the ongoing tragic-comedy

that is the NSW Government.

It may be difficult for a PM who is the very

model of a managerial mandarin to see that bu-

reaucracy itself is the enemy of Labor’s goals. But

just as Labor has come to appreciate the value of

markets to economic prosperity and infrastructure

investment so too can it enlarge its concept of

the commons beyond the old colonial idea of the

Crown, ministers and public service. Here a shift

to a republic is important as a means of enhanc-

ing democratic accountability and citizenship. But

Labor needs to move on from the Keating/Turnbull

obsession with merely changing the head of state.

The Rudd Government should build on the

governance work of Carmen Lawrence and Sena-

tor John Faulkner and accompany the campaign

for a republic with democratic reforms to the oper-

ation of our parliaments and quangos. Meanwhile

the broader left should debate the creation of new

public institutions, both centrally and especially at

the local level where municipal government is mor-

ibund, that will enhance our say over the services

that most impact on our lives.

I have long argued for the election of pub-

lic boards and local officials. Why? It is now im-

possible to control public utilities through MPs

and Ministers. Traditionally Labor has prioritized

people as producers rather than consumers of

services. In a land of oligopolies, both public

and private service providers have long got away

with looking after their management and workers

ahead of consumers, and consumer power has

never had an advocate of the stature of Ralph

Nader. I prefer to think of the users of public ser-

vices as citizens rather than the voguish ‘cus-

tomer’, and call for a new politics that empowers

citizens to have a say over how area health ser-

vices, local schools or police meet the needs of

communities.

The broader left protests when ministers and

officials favour business mates or cruelly lock up

refugees, but many of us have a vested interest

in the status quo. As compensation for its authori-

tarian streak, the state has become a generous

benefactor to progressives, either employing us to

manage its utilities and programs for the margin-

alised or making everyone from artists to commu-

nity groups to scholars jump through hoops of red

tape in a scramble for the next grant. But the state

is more tar baby than magic pudding, leaving a

residue of compromise and passivity on those too

dependent on its patronage.

In conclusion, social democracy must look

beyond the old version of the state to empower the

social.

Dr Tony Moore is a lecturer at Monash University’s Na-

tional Centre for Australian studies, a Fellow of the Cen-

tre for Policy Development and former president of the

NsW Fabian society. his book,DeathorLiberty:Rebel

Exiles inAustralia will be published next year. Tony is

also commissioning editor of the Cambridge University

Press issues-based book series, AustralianEncounters.

arts.monash.edu.au/ncas/staff/tmoore.php

26 www.fabian.org.au

Out of left fieldInflation resisting moneyDr Shann Turnbull

This possibility was recognised by the Governor of

the Bank of England, Mervyn King. In a 1999 paper

to the US based Cato Institute King stated “Soci-

eties have managed without central banks in the

past. They may well do so again in the future.” In

considering e-money, King said: “There is no rea-

son, in principle, why final settlements could not be

carried out by the private sector without the need

for clearing through the central bank.” This is now

occurring. In many developing countries mobile

phones are used to transfer value without involv-

ing a bank.

Multiple currenciesSince 2004 technology has developed to allow the

Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) in mobile phones

to be used like a debit card. The ability to introduce

inflation resistant money was created as SIM cards

could store and transmit value in various units of

account. Transit authorities issue debit cards with

a unit of account based on the amount of travel

in a specified area and/or time. Internet cafes sell

vouchers with a log-in key to provide access to the

world-wide-web for a specified time.

In many developing countries the village store

sells vouchers for mobile phone owners to obtain

a specified amount of airtime. The airtime stored in

one phone can be transmitted to mobile phones of

family members or service providers. Another vil-

lage store can redeem airtime into cash. This is a

huge advantage for rural city workers wanting to

send money home.

Poor countries leadThere are now 4 billion mobile phones operating in

the world populated by 6 billion people. Only 25%

of mobile phones are in advanced economies.

Chinese manufacturers sell mobile phones for un-

der AUD$15. Even in poor communities the rev-

enues generated from instant communications to

sell produce, transfer money or co-ordinate social

activities can payback the cost of a mobile phone

and its airtime in just a few months. Various studies

have reported that increase use of mobile phones

in developing countries is directly responsible for

increases in GDP.

Instead of using airtime as the unit of account,

a number of Central Banks in developing countries

have approved the use of mobile phones to store

and transmit legal tender domestically and inter-

nationally. The World Bank reports that hundreds

of billions of dollars are being remitted in this way

by guest workers in one country to their families in

another.

Liberation from bankstersE-money becomes a disruptive technology in ad-

vanced economies. The 3% or so credit card fee

paid by merchants could be avoided with e-money

to yield substantial cost savings. The cost of non-

cash transactions in Australia is between 1 to 2 per

cent of GDP. (Refer to “What a gig! Making money

out of money”, page 28, AFR August 15-16, 2009).

If the government does not facilitate the use

of legal tender in SIM cards then an irresistible in-

centive will be created for e-money entrepreneurs

to introduce an alternative unit of account. An in-

flation resistant unit would provide an additional

incentive for merchants, investors and firms to es-

tablish contracts in e-money.

Constant global valueTechnology is also providing new options for es-

tablishing an inflation resistant unit of value. The

cost of internet usage is defined in terms of units

of data measured in bytes and megabytes. The

Technology has made inflation resistant money feasible. There is now no need to use the blunt instrument of interest rates to knock the economy on its head to control inflation. Thumping headaches from monetary policy can be avoided with electronic money that also removes the need for central banks.

www.fabian.org.au 27

value of each megabyte is not altered by it car-

rying voice or video, transmitted near or far, or

shared with one or many around the world. The

value of internet access measured in megabytes

per unit of time would provide a global unit of ac-

count highly stable over both the short and long

run at any place.

Carbon trading alternativeTechnology is also making renewable energy an-

other highly stable unit of account measured in

Kilo-watt-hours of electricity. However, the value

of each kWh in each region would vary according

to its endowment of renewable energy. But rath-

er than being a disadvantage this would provide

a basis for resources to be allocated by market

forces in the most efficacious manner to sustain

humanity on the planet. Carbon trading and tax-

ing could be minimised with renewable energy

becoming the new “gold standard”. It would also

remove the need for central banks and thumping

economic headaches.

Dr shann Turnbull has been a serial entrepreneur

founding a number of enterprises, three of which be-

came publicly traded. since writing Democratisingthe

WealthofNations in 1975 he has been a prolific author

on reforming the theory and practice of capitalism with

his books and academic articles posted at

ssrn.com/author=26239

Wartime RefugeesStephen Lawrence

“You’re not in a prison camp now”—Bonegilla.

Unloaded from trains, buses, the first 12,000 welcomed:

“Australians and migrants are treated equally!”

Black winter greatcoats clog camp bins—hides of extinct

European beasts. “You’ll learn the Australian way of life.”

Magazine correspondents stroll the corrugated carapace

Of the barracks—lavender and rock rose seedlings

Displace stones dusted white and orange, popping

Like distant gunfire then crumbling underfoot—

Seeking copy from inmates with refugee English.

To sternly coquettish girls: “What pretty faces—

Are there camp romances? You were a gymnast?

In Hitler’s Games? Will you care to Anglicise your name?”

“Our democratic ideal is A Fair Go for All.”

One journalist goes to ground for his story,

Returns in country-dark to tup a snaggle-toothed girl,

Standard-issue pinafore tucked beneath against

Rough, exotic scrub. Dry insects in her head,

Redgum veins the sky, she wrestles this hemisphere’s

Inverted moon through branches, face no longer aghast

But with a full-cheeked grin. He will remember rolling

In her body’s rich smell. Her baby will be born feet-first.

stephen Lawrence has four published collections of poetry, and is working towards a PhD

in Creative Writing. he has been a judge for the Adelaide Festival Literary Awards since 2001.

28 www.fabian.org.au

Fabian newsAustralian Union singers Cuba Tour 2009: The Queensland Fabian connection Marya McDonald, Queensland Fabians

Fabians Newsletter article October 2009 Australian Union Singers Cuba Tour 2009: 

 

 

The Queensland Fabian Connection  

Brisbane Combined Unions Choir Inc (BCUC) have been writing and performing songs about workers’ rights and social justice for the past twenty years and, as the Chair of the Queensland Branch of the Fabians Society, Senator Claire Moore is also their Patron.  The BCUC represents the oldest collaborations between arts funding and working life that exists in the trade union choirs of Australia, as the original “Arts in Working Life” grant which established this dedicated little band was made all of 21 years ago. 

The other Fabian connection is that the original group who proposed the notion that the voice of workers and their experiences could be heard via a cultural avenue and that was via song, came from a gathering on Fraser Island with Fabian co‐ordinator Terry Hampson, Sue Yarrow and Wendy Turner and others, particularly women, Members of the Miscellaneous Workers Unions and active musicians and Trade Unionists like Flo and Stan Irvine who were deeply socialist leaning. They aspired to the Fabian tradition that spreading the message of progressive, socially just movements was not only grounded on the empirical evidence of struggle (so commonly found in worker’s songs) but that popular acceptance of this message ought to be conveyed in appealing and emotionally satisfying forms, such as 

The BCUC represents the oldest collaborations

between arts funding and working life that exists in

the trade union choirs of Australia, as the original

“Arts in Working Life” grant which established this

dedicated little band was made all of 21 years ago.

The other Fabian connection is that the origi-

nal group who proposed the notion that the voice

of workers and their experiences could be heard

via a cultural avenue and that was via song, came

from a gathering on Fraser Island. The group in-

cluded Fabian co-ordinator Terry Hampson, Sue

Yarrow and Wendy Turner and many others, par-

ticularly Members of the Miscellaneous Workers

Unions, women activists, musicians, and Trade

Unionists like Flo and Stan Irvine, who were deeply

socialist leaning.

The gathering aspired to the Fabian tradition of

spreading the message of progressive, socially just

movements, grounded on the empirical evidence

of struggle (so commonly found in worker’s songs).

Brisbane Combined Unions Choir Inc (BCUC) have been writing and performing songs about workers’ rights and social justice for the past twenty years and, as the Chair of the Queensland Branch of the Fabians Society, Senator Claire Moore is also their Patron.

The popular acceptance of this message found its

expression in emotionally satisfying forms, such as

singing. Hence an application made to the govern-

ment for “Arts in Working Life” funding was suc-

cessful and the rest, as they say, is history!

The BCUC grows and thrives to this day and

the immediate past Queensland Fabian Secretary

is now also the BCUC’s Secretary and an enthu-

siastic soprano, yet another strong link with the

Queensland Fabians. Fabians would never hold

their Christmas celebrations in Brisbane without

song provided by the BCUC!

The Choir is a not-for-profit, incorporated

organisation with significant support from the

union movement and progressive community or-

ganisations. Our excellent musical director Ma-

rina Aboody Thacker follows in a line of illustrious

predecessors. She is significantly beloved by the

Choir who have worked with her for 13 years now,

which is quite an extraordinarily productive col-

laboration in community choral contexts.

The Brisbane choir has a record of achieve-

ment not only in performance but also in collab-

oratively writing original workers’ songs which

reflect evidence for the need for progressive social

reform. For example in 2006, they created Fair Play

Cabaret, a live show of original songs, skits and

satire about the Work Choices legislation. Fair Play

Cabaret played to enthusiastic audiences in South

East Queensland, and was completed with a CD

recording of songs.

The Choir has recently been funded to pro-

duce a CD with four songs about occupational

health and safety based on research of OH and

S in Queensland by the Choir members. The CD

will be available not just for entertainment but for

public education in this area which is so vital to

the health and well-being of Australian workers

and their families.

The Brisbane Choral motto “A movement that

sings will never die” is being adopted as the leg-

end on the Australian Union Singers performance

shirts. The motto is reflected in the longevity of this

Choir but it has as much to do with shared values

and ideals of working people in their struggles for

www.fabian.org.au 29

a fairer deal and for Fabians ideals of peace, pros-

perity and justice as it has to do with the sheer joy

of raising your voice in song with your fellow man.

The Brisbane Choir’s latest and most ambi-

tious project is to act as the co-ordinating and lead

agency in a massed Choir of Trade Unionists from

around Australia and represent our country and its

workers at an international Choral Festival to be

held in Cuba in late 2009. In order to get there, the

BCUC had to submit to an audition process all on

its own, something to which members of that choir

are not subjected. It was a big ask by anyone’s

definition, so the BCUC was thrilled on behalf of

all the other keen Australian Union singers to have

prevailed through the audition phase and won their

way through to Cuba.

This is quite a historic achievement since to

all the choir members’ knowledge, this will be the

very first time any Australian choir of any descrip-

tion will have been able to perform in Cuba at this

prestigious International Festival, which was es-

tablished in the 1960’s and went international in

1991. Singers en masse from the Sydney Trade

Union and Victorian Trade Unions Choir, the West-

ern Australian Trade Unions Choir and Canberra

Union Voices will practice in their separate states,

learning a big repertoire in four part a cappella har-

monies from sound CD’s and some visits from the

Choir director, never coming together completely

before going to Cuba to hone the craft and sound

of the Australian Union Singers.

This is a very ambitious undertaking but one

which is being managed with members, Unions,

Fabian and community support. The combined

choir will perform competitively but also will sing

and bring gifts for exchange at the hospitals,

schools and factories at which the choir will be ex-

pected to perform.

south Australia: Ideas, policy, actionViv Fullager, South Australian Fabians

The Australian Fabians in South Australia have re-

formed during the last 12 months and have made

steady progress revitalising Fabian activities espe-

cially amongst young people in the state. We have

held three major events under the banner of Ideas,

Policy, Action. The Fabians association with the

Don Dunstan Foundation was also revisited and

we are pleased to advise that a new partnership

is underway.

National speaker seriesA timely suggestion from Assistant National Sec-

retary, Max Dumais, that a National Speakers Se-

ries be introduced, resulted in our first two events

which were organised around the visits to South

Australia of Dr Richard Denniss, and Dr Ben Spies-

Butcher and Adam Stebbing.

Meeting the cost of climate changeThe Australia Institute’s Executive Director, econo-

mist Dr Richard Denniss, shared his views on the

strengths and weaknesses of the current climate

change proposals including the Carbon Pollution

Reduction Scheme, in two forums in June 2009.

The first was a lunch time seminar held at the

University of Adelaide and attended by academ-

ics, students, Fabians and guests – a challenging,

thought provoking discussion. Dr Denniss then ad-

dressed the Fabian Friday Forum during lunch, at

the ASU offices Kent Town.

Welfare for the rich? How tax breaks are transforming Australia’s welfare state Flinders University was the August venue for the

second event in our speaker series. Dr Ben Spies-

Butcher and Adam Stebbing from the Depart-

30 www.fabian.org.au

2009 Victorian Branch events

March: sustainable Cities sustainable Transport

seminar convened by roger Taylor, the semi-

nar aimed to address the extent to which global

change will shape our cities and to consider what

future we should be planning for. It was attended

by over 118 participants and led to a submission

being made to the Federal Senate inquiry into Cli-

mate Change.

Dr Ian McPhail, the inaugural Commissioner

for Environmental Sustainability for Victoria opened

the seminar which was moderated by Norman

swan of the ABC. Speakers included: Professor

Will steffen, Executive Director of the ANU Climate

Change Institute at the Australian National Univer-

sity (ANU), Canberra, and is also Science Adviser,

Department of Climate Change, Australian Gov-

ernment. Dr John Finnigan, Director, CSIRO Cen-

tre for Complex System Science CSIRO Marine

and Atmospheric Research. Dr Graham Turner,

senior scientist at CSIRO sustainable Ecosystems.

Dr Damon honnery, Associate Professor at the

Laboratory for Turbulence Research in Aerospace

& Combustion Department of Mechanical and

Aerospace Engineering, Monash University. Dr

Peter Brain, one of Australia’s best known econo-

mists in the development and application of mac-

ment of Sociology at Macquarie University, both

addressed over 80 students and staff at Flinders

University at a morning seminar. Organised in

conjunction with Associate Professor Fiona Verity,

the address was well received. Later that day, our

guests joined the Fabian Friday Forum, again at

the ASU over lunch, with the ensuing discussion

moving quickly from topic to topic, including refu-

gees, education, taxation and welfare.

Community conversationsIn late August, Fabians were offered the opportu-

nity to take part in the Marion Learning Festival: a

week-long festival of ideas, discussions and work-

shops. Two of our members facilitated workshops,

one on “Education in SA” and the second on “Mid-

dle Class Welfare”. The latter, with permission, ex-

panded on the views of Dr Ben Spies-Butcher and

Adam Stebbing, and was well attended by mem-

bers of the public. Both events involved the lively

exchange of ideas and were excellent for raising

the profile of the Fabians in South Australia.

2010 programThese events have demonstrated that there is a

place in South Australia for the Fabians and will un-

derpin the development of our 2010 program. We

will continue to focus on promoting – the healthy

discussion of ideas, the formulation of new policy,

and action for positive outcomes.

Wonderful supportA special thank you to:

• The Don Dunstan Foundation for their help with

the organisation of the University of Adelaide

seminar. In particular to Chair of the Don Dun-

stan Foundation Trust, The Hon Greg Crafter,

and Executive Director Claire Bossley and her

team; and to Dr John Spoehr, Executive Direc-

tor of the Australian Institute for Social Research

and the Centre for Labour Research at the Uni-

versity of Adelaide.

• Associate Professor Fiona Verity from the

School of Social Work and Social Planning at

Flinders University for facilitating with fellow

academics, the Flinders University seminar.

• The Australian Services Union whose premises

we have visited for our Friday Forums, and

• The Australian Fabians Inc. for providing finan-

cial assistance and support to enable us to

bring speakers to Adelaide, and to reinvigorate

the organisation in South Australia.

www.fabian.org.au 31

roeconomic models. Dr Peter Newton, a Research

Professor in the Cities, Housing and Environment

Program within the Institute for Social Research

at Swinburne University. Professor Currie, holder

of Australia’s first professorship in public trans-

port based at the Institute of Transport Studies,

Monash University. Professor Nicholas Low, the

co-Director of GAMUT, the Australasian Centre for

the Governance and Management of Urban Trans-

port. John stanley, Adjunct Professor at the Insti-

tute of Transport and Logistics Studies, University

of Sydney.

April: Urban Planning for sustainable Living with

panellists Jenny Donovan, (Walkable Cities), Max

Walton (UK – Eco cities), and roger Taylor (Mem-

ber of Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and

Management Inc.) and moderated by roger By-

rne (GHD and Victorian Fabian Executive).

May: Meeting the cost of Climate Change was

run in conjunction with The Australia Institute and

addressed by their Executive Director, Dr richard

Denniss with respondents, Kenneth Davidson

(Arena) and Julia Thornton.*

July: Welfare for the rich – how tax breaks are

transforming Australia’s Welfare state was run

in conjunction with the Centre for Policy Develop-

ment and addressed by Dr Ben spies-Butcher

Co-author with Adam Stebbing of the CPD study

‘Reforming Australia’s Hidden Welfare State.’*

August: The Victorian Annual dinner was held at

Ormond College with 165 members in attendance.

The hon. Jenny Macklin – Minister, Families,

Housing, Community Services and Indigenous

Affairs and Fabian, shared her experiences from

traveling and listening to indigenous Australians

and brought us up to date on Labor’s focus on in-

digenous policy and the results so far.

October: Dying – the last rights in conjunction

with Dying with Dignity, Victoria was addressed by

Dr rodney syme, author of A Good Death, and

Vice-President of Dying with Dignity Victoria, and

Iola Mathews OAM, author of My Mother, My Writ-

ing and Me: A Memoir.

November: Next Left? Libertarian social democ-

racy and alternatives to big government intro-

duced the first in a Fabian series of talks on new

directions for left of centre politics and policy and

presented by Dr Tony Moore, lecturer at Monash

University’s National Centre for Australian Studies

and Commissioning Editor of Australian Encoun-

ters, a new issues-based book series by Cam-

bridge University Press. Tony was former President

of the NSW Fabians and publisher of Pluto Press.

December: Innovation in the 3rd sector – how

the not-for-profits are leading governments and

corporate Australia in policy and partnerships

for community benefit. The panellists were har-

old Mitchell AO, founder of the HM Foundation, Dr

rhonda Galbally AO, CEO Our Community, and

sarah Davies CEO Melbourne Community Foun-

dation with Mary Delahunty as Chair/facilitator and

member of the Victorian Fabian Executive.

* Fabian National Speaker Series

Lapel badgesAn Australian Fabian lapel badge would make

a great present for Christmas or any occasion.

Made in pewter and individually hand-finished,

they are designed by jewellery artist Marylyn

Verstraeten based on the Australian Fabian

logo by graphic designer Simon Kwok. They

come in two sizes, the small around a five

cent piece and the large a ten cent and come

beautifully presented in a small black box.

The cost is $27.50 each, plus $5 postage and

packaging.

Enquiries to Pamela McLure (03) 9481 1289 or

pdmclure@ozemail.com.au.

32 www.fabian.org.au

A return airfare to LONDON. A living allowance and month-long internship at DEMOS, one of the UK's leading think tanks. Your article published in THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper.

A month-long internship at Australian think tank Per Capita (Melbourne or Sydney).

The competition is open to all young political thinkers and activists in Australia aged 18 - 28. Opinion pieces can be on any policy issue facing Australian progressive politics today.Entries should be no longer than 1,000 words, with no footnotes. Entries will be judged for their originality, fluency of style and their practical solutions to current issues.

LINDSAY TANNER Author, Federal Minister for Finance & DeregulationCHERYL KERNOT Author, Director of Teaching & Learning [Centre for Social Impact, UNSW]JOHN QUIGGIN Author, Economist and Professor at the University of QueenslandREBECCA WEISSER Journalist, Opinion Editor of The Australian

AUSTRALIANFABIANS

www.fabian.org.au 33

Young Writers 2008Winner:Fairness the key to unlocking healthShafqat Inam

While the final report is eagerly awaited, the di-

verse opinions on the draft are indicative of the

challenges presented by the myriad of competing

demands from an immensely complex system. It

feels necessary to focus these fragmented discus-

sions and articulate an overarching vision for re-

form that considers “health” in its broadest sense.

In 1948 the World Health Organization pre-

sciently defined health as “a state of complete

physical, mental and social well-being and not

merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Yet it

is only recently that attempts have been made to

widen the focus of our “illness system” from symp-

tomatic treatment of disease to a more holistic ap-

proach. Certainly the adequate provision of acute

care services is a pressing concern: the shortage

of beds and rates of post-surgical infections are

emblematic of the strain on our public hospitals.

Ongoing reform must address the chronic under-

funding and poor management, and focus on im-

proving the quality of patient care.

Nevertheless it is in the community and not

the hospital where additional resources can make

the greatest difference. General practitioners are

the lynchpins of our primary care system, and are

best placed to combat the tide of chronic disease

that threatens to impose an enormous burden on

future generations. A disease such as diabetes

can cause devastating blindness and kidney dam-

age, and yet can be prevented if we employ proper

nutrition and daily exercise to reduce our bulging

waistlines. Unfortunately the current remuneration

structure rewards the quantity rather than quality

of patient consultations. The NHHRC draft report

proposes a pay for performance system, and a

scheme that rewards GPs for achievements such

as immunisation coverage, reduction in smoking

rates and patient education has already been suc-

cessfully implemented in the United Kingdom. Our

approach must balance flexibility for doctors and

patients with aspirational benchmarks that should

encourage healthier lifestyles.

Of course GPs are not the only players in the

primary care landscape, and indeed people in ru-

ral and remote communities may have trouble ac-

cessing their services. In the context of such severe

workforce shortages we must utilise the range of

skills possessed by nurse practitioners and allied

health workers to provide comprehensive and ac-

cessible care. The NHHRC has already signalled

the broadening of the Medicare benefits scheme,

although some medical practitioner groups have

voiced fears about the threat of task substitution

and compromised quality. The key to overcoming

these professional turf wars is cooperation: there

should be a specific Medicare item to reward mul-

tidisciplinary meetings to discuss and coordinate

the care of patients.

A testament to this professional fragmenta-

tion is the ludicrous exclusion of dental care from

the Medicare system. The lack of readily available

public dental services is such that the state of teeth

and gum health in some communities can only be

described as third-world. Further the artificial bar-

rier that has separated the management of teeth

from the rest of the body is increasingly being

challenged by new scientific evidence, with poor

oral hygiene linked with the risk of heart disease.

The Denticare model proposed by the NHHRC

is based on a levy that funds a mixture of public

and private services. Regardless of the funding

arrangement any new system must ensure equity

and access for all that has been so sorely lacking

from previous dental care schemes.

We should not limit policy initiatives to the re-

strictive medical paradigm, as systems research-

ers are increasingly realising the power of the

social determinants of health. Disease burden and

The draft report from the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC) has certainly sparked debate about proposals ranging from a universal dental scheme to regional management of hospitals.

34 www.fabian.org.au

life expectancy correlate astonishingly well with so-

cial circumstance, income and the level of educa-

tional achievement. The World Health Organisation

recently released a landmark report that declared

that social inequality as much as any single dis-

ease was the root cause of millions of avoidable

deaths in the last 10 years. Tackling entrenched

poverty, the lack of affordable housing and youth

employment tangibly improves the well-being of

our population, and the formulation of govern-

ment policy must be integrated across domains of

health, welfare and social services.

Amongst the most critical of these broader

health domains is education. Convincing evidence

shows that quality early childhood learning has

multiplicative benefits that last well into the fu-

ture. It is a travesty that government funded pre-

school places, are not provided for all children in

Australia. Although various state governments are

inching towards this goal, the federal government

must coordinate these efforts to ensure coverage

for all, including disadvantaged minorities and In-

digenous children. For later years of schooling we

must develop a robust health education strategy

beyond the traditional message of “practice safe

sex” and “say no to drugs”. The democratisation

of health delivery, including ready access to hos-

pital statistics and the myriad of resources on the

web, has the potential to revolutionise the patient-

doctor relationship. Tutorials on the biology of

disease, the roles of health professionals, and reli-

able sources of medical information would verse

students in health literacy and empower our future

health consumers.

In addition to these social determinants, the

environment can remarkably shape the health of

communities and individuals. Flawed urban de-

sign in our outer suburbs encourages residents

to drive to nearby destinations rather than walk or

cycle, and contributes to inactivity and obesity. The

blight of pollution has been curtailed by stronger

environmental protection laws, but the spectre of

climate change looms large. The consequences of

rising temperatures range from higher rates of vec-

tor born diseases such as dengue fever to more

kidney stones from dehydration. We must ensure

that major planning proposals require environmen-

tal impact assessments that explicitly consider

the health of the community. And we must all en-

deavour to combat the great challenge of climate

change.

The media’s fixation on waiting lists and

emergency rooms has distorted our perceptions

of what we need from an integrated and efficient

health system. My proposals may seem a dispa-

rate collection of ideas, but are not intended to be

a comprehensive reform program – I’ll leave that

to the NHHRC. They simply illustrate a holistic

concept of health that encompasses acute and

chronic disease, social factors such as education,

and the environment. Our community and politi-

cal leaders must embrace this broader definition

if we are to achieve the aspiration to become the

healthiest nation by 2020.

About ... DEMOS “is a London-based think tank. We generate ideas to improve politics

and policy, and give people more power over their lives. Our vision is a society of free and power-

ful citizens. “ www.demos.co.uk

The winner of the Young Writers Competition receives a return economy class airfare to London

to undertake an internship at Demos. A small living allowance is also provided and the winning article is published

in The Australian newspaper, as well as the Australian Fabian News, and at www.fabian.org.au

www.fabian.org.au 35

runner up:Leave the lights on: Your emissions reduction efforts are pointlessJeremy Burke

A Research Paper by Dr Richard Denniss, of The

Australia Institute, has put the Scheme design un-

der the spotlight. The particularly concerning as-

pect is that the CPRS will set a cap and a floor

to Australian emissions. This implication can be

seen from a seemingly innocuous statement in

the CPRS Green Paper (subsequently altered in

the White Paper): “As long as the cap remains

unchanged, the total abatement outcomes will re-

main the same”.

In these 15 words the Government kicks sand

into the faces of the millions of Australians taking

action to mitigate emissions every day.

The message is clear; no matter what you do,

it will not matter. Emissions will be fixed and any

action to decrease household or business de-

mand will not decrease them. Not by one tonne.

Individual actions like replacing globes, installing

insulation and solar water heaters and collective

actions like Earth Hour, will be to no avail. Suc-

cinctly described by Dr Denniss, the CPRS only

varies “who pollutes and what price they pay to

do so”.

Sure your action will decrease your personal

demand for emissions credits. But this will only

lead to a decrease in the market price of permits.

Other (dirtier) market participants will purchase

permits rather than undertake abatement op-

portunities that the market price should dictate

as economically attractive. A light switched off in

Melbourne will lead to extra emissions at a cement

factory or power station.

Surely this is not the true intention of the

Scheme?

Yet the Green Paper acknowledged the reality

when discussing complementary Schemes: “with-

in a fixed cap, reductions in emissions in one part

of the economy simply result in more emissions

elsewhere”.

So without appropriate complementary mea-

sures we say goodbye to GreenPower reducing

emissions. Will the Department of Climate Change

inform the 800,000 voluntary GreenPower custom-

ers that they no longer have the ‘power to make a

real difference’? That they will just be passive end

users of a carbon price, not active emission reduc-

tion agents.

Despite these issues opportunity remains for

positive community based emissions abatements.

The Government should introduce a number of

mechanisms to allow individuals to mitigate their

emissions in a positive manner, fulfilling their de-

sire to reduce overall Australian emissions and re-

warding them for their impact on decreasing the

emissions price in the market.

Firstly, the Government should move from fo-

cusing on maintaining standards of living to focus-

sing on moving rapidly to a low-carbon economy

that will ultimately save our standard of living and

decrease ongoing living expenses. Rather than

cash assistance and tax offsets the Government

should provide direct incentives to households to

lead emissions abatement, while acknowledging

and rewarding efforts already undertaken.

By expanding the Climate Change Action

Fund to include individuals, and creating and dis-

tributing Emission Reductions Credits (‘ERC’s’),

we can enable further low cost abatement oppor-

tunities to be rapidly realised. Having no redeem-

able monetary value (and not being tradeable) the

ERC’s would enable individuals, households or

collective groups to choose how they want to pur-

sue individual abatement opportunities.

Individuals could decrease the cost of pur-

chasing efficient light bulbs, installing insulation

and/or solar heating, purchasing a bike or catch-

ing public transport. The ERC’s could be created

with an appropriate multiplier to determine their

Following the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (‘CPRS’) White Paper release, comment and discussion has concentrated on the targets announced. While these targets fail a scientific research test, the actual CPRS will fail any fairness test.

36 www.fabian.org.au

redemption value. The greater the expected ben-

efit to the community the greater the multiplier. For

example installing insulation may be valued at a

$200 redemption value and efficient light bulbs at

$50. ERC’s could also bridge the incentive gap

between tenants and landlords, preventing direct

Government intervention being required.

ERC’s will enable individuals to indicate how

they want to respond to climate change. No more

focus groups or market research, individual ERC

redemption would speak for itself. Using this infor-

mation the Government could better direct further

resources to areas where the lowest abatement

cost opportunities are being neglected.

People will engage in discussing how to re-

spond to climate change, rather than being con-

cerned about inaction. Households, sporting

groups, community organisations and workplaces

will be abuzz with discussions on abatement op-

portunities that will kick start the transition to a low-

carbon economy. No more negativity about what

to do or guilt at a collective lack of action. We will

be incentivised and empowered to respond and

engage at all levels of the community.

Secondly, the annual emissions abatement

GreenPower generates should be specifically ex-

cluded from the following year’s pool of auction

credits, and not count towards any Renewable En-

ergy Targets.

Thirdly, to further encourage voluntary abate-

ment a portion of the CPRS credits should be set

aside for larger voluntary abatement activities. This

‘top-slicing’, as it is referred in North America, can

then be claimed by individuals or groups undertak-

ing abatement actions exceeding those covered

by the ERC’s. As Dr Denniss notes payments for

emissions abatement will be received by the emis-

sion reducing party, enabling the gains to accrue

to the party that deserves them.

Climate change and the environment are

key concerns across the world. Thousands have

marched across Australia to demand action and

the Alternative Technology Association is experi-

encing 25% annual growth in members and has

readership of nearly 70,000 for its quarterly publi-

cation on sustainable living. The signs for positive

action exist; collective interest and goodwill now

just have to be harnessed.

So to Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Wong

the challenge is clear. The people of Australia

have spoken with their actions, voices and votes

already. The Rudd Government can create an

emission trading scheme that engages and incen-

tivises communities to meet the climate change

challenge and leads the world on positive individ-

ual actions. Or we can all fail in the greatest chal-

lenges of our times.

Let’s move on from discussing emissions re-

ductions to actually achieving them. And let’s do it

quickly and together!

About ... per capita “is an independent progressive think tank. We are dedicated to building a new vision

for Australia with original ideas backed by hard evidence.” www.percapita.org.au

The runner-up in the Young Writers Competition receives a one month internship at Per Capita in either their Sydney

or Melbourne offices. The runner-up article is published in the Australian Fabian News and at www.fabian.org.au

www.fabian.org.au 37

For special mention:The democratisation of democracyBen Barnett

Former British parliamentarian, Baron Douglas Jay,

once argued that “the gentleman in Whitehall” –

the administrative heart of the British state – “really

does know better what is good for the people than

the people know themselves”. Though Baron Jay

eventually shifted his position after (one suspects)

a merciless hammering from the British Tories, his

comments are a potent reminder of a pre-War pe-

riod when many in the political class viewed the

state as necessarily paternalistic and all-knowing

of citizenry needs and wants.

Of course, if we fast-forward about a half-

century later, we would expect Baron Jay’s com-

ments to sit even more uncomfortably with most, if

not all, Australian folk. Rising levels of educational

attainment, greater prosperity across the western

world and steep changes in the flow of people,

ideas and culture have made it near impossible for

the state to be across all our needs. It would seem

the archetypal bureaucratic approach – that any

complex problem can be broken into manageable

segments and dealt with through centralised, func-

tional departments of expert administrators – has

reached the end of its use.

But, notwithstanding this emerging complex-

ity to our lives, the Australian state is still curiously

organised in a way that is all too similar to when

Baron Jay was banging the benches as a politi-

cian himself. Functional structures, strict lines of

management and siloed, disconnected policy re-

sponses still, quite perversely, dominate the land-

scape of public policy delivery.

And so, the obvious question that follows is

what can we do to improve, just a little, the way

our state delivers democracy in the 21st century?

Beginning with structure, the obvious devel-

opment since the golden days of the bureaucrat-

ic welfare state model has been the realisation

that social and economic problems do not oc-

cur in isolation. We now know, for example, that

outcomes in primary school drive our capacity to

gain a decent job later in life, and that preventing

criminals from reoffending is more about coun-

selling than putting extra police on the beat. Our

own lives have become more interconnected,

meaning that government solutions must do the

same.

With this in mind, the state must take an un-

ambiguously holistic, whole-of-government per-

spective to all policy matters, and its respective

structures must represent this approach. Early on,

Tony Blair’s British Government created a Strategy

Unit to tackle interrelated and long-term policy prob-

lems like entrenched disadvantage, and a similar

body is required here in Australia. While the tran-

sition to a whole-of-government approach is given

occasional lip service by senior bureaucrats, there

is certainly further scope to mandate structural link-

ages between each of the federal departments.

Over time, a Strategy Unit would also play a

critical role in shaping each of the federal depart-

ments to ensure government resources better

align with the life journey of a citizen ‘from cradle to

grave’. These changes would replace our current

organising structure, which is best described as an

accidental medley of age-, geographical-, lifestyle-

and policy-based departmental categories. Each

federal department would have a citizen-facing

office – co-located with the other departments –

in the major metropolitan and regional hubs of

Australia. This would facilitate a greater person-

alisation of services and the seamless interaction

between state and citizen.

Of course, taking a more citizen-focused ap-

proach to organising federal departments alone

doesn’t break the state free of its ‘government

knows best’ shackles. However, it does create

the necessary conditions for more effective policy

implementation, namely through a genuine com-

mitment to policy co-production.

Co-production, where both the state and citi-

zens are actively involved in the production and

achievement of policy outcomes, starts from the

premise that government services are less ef-

fective if they do not engage the people they are

trying to help. Rather than separating out the pro-

duction and consumption of government services,

co-production promotes the sharing of policy risks

and outcomes to enhance the overall public value

derived from the service provision. One example to

38 www.fabian.org.au

highlight the strength of policy co-production is in

public housing, and how the state might go about

improving accommodation facilities and tackling

mounting incidences of crime on an estate.

The ‘traditional’ method for solving this policy

problem goes something like this: bureaucrats sit

in their departmental ivory tower, develop a list of

urgent repairs based on limited advice, allocate

budget for outsourced security, and then (pas-

sively) hand out enough dollars for the changes to

be implemented

Yet, a genuine commitment to co-production

yields a radically different way of solving this policy

problem. A new approach would be to work hand-

in-glove with the residents’ association on the es-

tate, who could serve as a trusted intermediary

between the state and individual residents. Work-

ing with the government, residents could decide

the most effective way of spending the allocated

resources to upgrade their housing facilities. They

might also find ways of being able to lend a hand

in the repairs, developing a sense of pride in their

surroundings. The residents’ association could

also facilitate a number of community forums to

discuss the causes of crime on the estate (such

as limited civic activities), and to then develop a

series of estate-based programs funded by the

government but implemented by the residents

themselves.

The point being that co-production is not

merely to consult more, but to actually involve us-

ers in the ongoing implementation of the policy. By

involving the users themselves, we don’t just un-

derstand their problems and solutions but we allow

them to contribute to the policy goals through their

everyday behaviours and choices. And when we

blend this approach with a whole-of-government

commitment that brings the right departments into

the tent, we see that co-production can be a pow-

erful way to achieve policy outcomes.

Of course, if we return to the paternalistic views

of Baron Jay, it is clear that times have changed.

While making the state more citizen-centric is far

from the silver bullet, we see that we can improve

the way we deliver democracy by allowing form to

follow function when we think about government.

And, in doing so, we may just realise that democ-

racy is far too important to outsource along the way.

housing affordability in AustraliaGerard Kelly

Australia in the Twenty-first Century faces no short-

age of serious challenges, but for many Australians

today it is housing affordability that presents the

most immediate concern. Until relatively recently,

the fact that most working Australians could realis-

tically aspire to home ownership has been a hall-

mark of the nation’s reputation as a decent, fair-go

society for all. From the 1950s until the early 1980s,

average house prices in the capital cities were

steady at around three times average yearly earn-

ings, increasing to about four times yearly earn-

ings by the mid-nineties. Under the last Coalition

government however, housing prices exploded to

between seven and eight times annual earnings,

making Australia’s housing affordability the lowest

in the developed world.

Month by month, these dizzying prices are im-

posing an effective tax on millions of Australians

in the form of inflated rents and mortgage repay-

ments, recently reaching an all-time high as a per

centage of household income. For many who grew

up during the Howard years the prospect of home-

ownership has become a remote fantasy. Worse

is the growing number of Australians who can-

not even afford the basic necessity of a roof over

their head. Along with the previous government’s

wholesale neglect of public housing, rental costs

are a direct cause of the “national obscenity” (in

www.fabian.org.au 39

Prime Minister Rudd’s words) that 100,000 Austra-

lians go homeless every night.

Some may argue that the housing market,

given time, will correct itself – that the current

downturn will restore prices to a more reasonable

equilibrium. Sydney prices have already fallen

from their peak, and the coming year is likely to

be a cold one for markets across the country. But

unfortunately the issue is not that simple. As the

recent (belated) Senate Committee Report on the

matter described, many of the causes of sky-rock-

eting prices have been “structural, not cyclical”.

They include strong population growth, a reduc-

tion in average household size, and shortfalls in

the supply of well-located housing resulting from

(amongst other causes) high developer costs and

zoning regulations. Without addressing supply

shortages, an economic downturn is likely to affect

incomes more than housing costs.

However, some of the central causes of the

current crisis were excluded from the Senate Com-

mittee’s terms of reference (although they were

touched on in the final report); the market-warping

taxation policies of the Howard government, and

the debt-promoting monetary policies that have

been the dominant economic paradigm in the

West for decades. Seen in this light, the housing

affordability situation is actually part of a broader

global problem; the ballooning of private debt to

historically unprecedented levels, and the shift in

investment from productive capital to the type of

speculative practices that led to this year’s world-

wide crash.

Western public policy since the 1970s, and

especially under the surplus-fetishing Howard gov-

ernment, has emphasised the use of central bank

interest rates, rather than government investment,

to stimulate growth during economic downturns.

Rates have usually been set in reference to a 2-3

per cent consumer price inflation target, excluding

inflation in land prices and ignoring private debt

levels. In the low-inflation environment of the late

1990s and early 2000s, rates in Australia and other

developed countries were seldom above 6%, and

were especially low between 2001 and 2006. It is

now widely recognized that the maintenance of

such historically low rates during a period of eco-

nomic expansion, along with the loosening of credit

standards by banks and the relaxed attitude of con-

sumers toward excessive borrowing, were key fac-

tors in inflating property bubbles in many countries.

In Australia the situation was exacerbated

by a combination of negative gearing and the 50

per cent capital gains tax discount introduced in

1999, both regressive taxation policies that dispro-

portionally benefit those with multiple properties.

These policies, combined with the easy credit of

the time, hugely increased the speculative de-

mand for housing, with residential property viewed

by many as a riskless investment. While the result-

ing boom in property prices certainly increased

the net worth of many home-owning Australians,

it was prosperity built on sand; an exponential in-

crease in private debt from around 80 per cent of

GDP in 1995 to a recent peak of 165 per cent. It

is this huge debt burden that makes the housing

issue such an intractable dilemma for the new gov-

ernment; were the housing market to collapse to

historically ‘affordable’ levels, it would leave many

Australians paying off mortgages well above the

value of their houses, placing deflationary pres-

sure on the whole economy.

Recent policies such as the increased first-

homebuyers grant seem aimed more at propping

up the market than seriously addressing afford-

ability, and stem from the political need to prevent

prices falling in nominal terms. This need dictates

that a reduction in real market prices will have to

be a gradual process, meaning that in the short

term quality public housing on a large scale must

be made a priority. Beyond that, several policy op-

tions are immediately obvious. Capital gains tax

cuts and negative gearing ought to be phased out

via a grandfathering process, or at least limited to

new properties. Zoning regulations and land taxes

should be reformed to encourage greater density,

rather than the type of urban sprawl that transfers

housing costs to transport costs. The government

must initiate a major public investment in ecologi-

cally friendly, higher-density housing, both increas-

40 www.fabian.org.au

ing supply and stimulating the economy during

the current downturn. Growth in regional centres

should be encouraged through a combination of

tax incentives, subsidies and State government

decentralization to relieve pressure on the capital

cities. Finally, bank lending practices need to be

subject to greater oversight, and the overlooked

matter of financial literacy absolutely must become

part of school curricula.

None of these suggestions are radical, but

they do involve a necessary re-examination of ba-

sic attitudes toward the relative merits of private

verses public debt, and the dubious wisdom of

entrusting basic necessities to the invisible hands

of a manic market. Housing affordability repre-

sents a crucial test for Australia’s new govern-

ment. Blaming Howard is easy, but can only work

for so long.

The One Nation vote: Up for grabs?Douglas McDonald

In June 1998, the One Nation Party won 22.68%

of the vote in the Queensland state election, the

second largest total of any single party. In a de

facto two-party system, such a result was an

unprecedented triumph for a third party. Since

1910, Australian politics have been a contest of

‘Labor’ against ‘non-Labor’; even in Queensland,

no party had so disturbed the two-party equilibri-

um. The party had no ‘name’ candidates, beyond

Pauline Hanson (who did not stand); its policies

were amorphous; its finances were limited; its

advertising was largely restricted to the ‘free’

media. The scale of its vote was never hinted at

in any poll.

Despite these disadvantages, a party op-

posed to economic rationalism, opposed to tariff

reduction, supporting greater government inter-

vention in the economy and whose leader praised

Labor leader Arthur Calwell as ‘a great Australian’

enjoyed astonishing support. The consequences

of this movement for conservative politics have be-

come articles of faith, with John Howard’s socially

conservative rhetoric and refugee policies attribut-

ed to his desire to attract the ‘Hanson vote’. How-

ever, the consequences of the Hanson movement

for progressive politics have been little discussed.

In many ways, Hanson’s party may be character-

ised in terms of the social-democratic tradition.

There exists a substantial cohort of voters who

agree with traditional Labor economic policies, yet

are not represented by any major party.

Hanson’s supporters were disproportionately

former supporters of the National Party, drawing

greatest support in Queensland country seats. The

Nationals, deriving their policies not from ideology

but from the immediate practical needs of its con-

stituency, cannot merely be characterised as an

identical twin to the Liberal Party. Barnaby Joyce,

who despite his ‘maverick’ image is more charac-

teristic of Nationals tradition than Warren Truss or

Mark Vaile, describes the party’s ideals as ‘agrar-

ian, socialist principles’, that the market, ‘unguid-

ed...will walk over you’, and that ‘market power

ultimately destroys market theory.’ His self-appli-

cation of the term ‘agrarian socialism’, devised as

a pejorative epithet, indicates a peculiar fusion of

very conservative social policies with progressive

economics, such as Joyce’s total or partial oppo-

sition to voluntary student unionism, workplace re-

form, and the sale of Telstra, which enjoys support

from a significant constituency. This ideology de-

rives from John McEwen’s decades-long support

for tariff protection, industrial development and a

regulated economy, and the National Party tradi-

tion of government subsidies for regional indus-

tries and the promotion of employment.

This Queensland political tradition was inher-

ited by One Nation. Prior to the Queensland state

www.fabian.org.au 41

election, the party released a paltry list of policies.

Their primary industries policy is nearly 3000 words

long, while their budget proposals comprise 666

words – evidence, if more were needed, of the

party’s strong rural focus. Even if insubstantial,

the rhetoric of these policies is premised in more

explicitly anti-market terms than any major party.

One Nation’s ‘budget savings’ are focused on the

peculiar bugbears of the party – multiculturalism,

Aboriginal affairs, political perks – but does not in-

dicate any intent to abolish the expansion of state

spending since 1989. The party declares that ‘eco-

nomic rationalism has no place in the formation of

an education policy’, plans for a $48 million wage

subsidy scheme for training apprentices, criticises

Rob Borbidge for ‘under-funding disability servic-

es, child care and child protection agencies’, and

states that it will maintain ‘constant pressure on the

federal government to resist economic rationalism

and globalisation.’

Admittedly, these do not derive from a deep

ideological attachment to social democracy; they

are populist measures responding to problems of

the moment. However, Hanson’s economic poli-

cies are inextricable from her social policies. Her

attack upon ‘financial markets...world bankers...

investment companies and big business people’

reflect genuine concern regarding income inequal-

ity, the effects of globalisation and an unregulated

free market. The 1998 Queensland state election

was not merely a right-wing revolt against biparti-

san support for multiculturalism, reconciliation and

the secular society, but a left-wing revolt against

deregulation, privatisation and globalisation.

The political influence of this constituency –

socially conservative yet supporting economic

policies well to the left of Liberal or Labor – may

already have been manifested in the election of

Kevin Rudd. The greatest swings against the Co-

alition – in Dawson, Leichhardt, Forde, Flynn and

Blair– were in regional Queensland, areas where

One Nation enjoyed its strongest support. The

magnitude of these swings far outweighed the

over-stated effect of the Sydney suburban vote,

home of the ‘Howard battlers’. John Howard, who

won the support of much of Hanson’s disparate

movement through his policies on refugees and

multiculturalism, alienated this ‘agrarian social-

ist’ constituency through neoliberal economic

policies. This suggests that there is far greater

potential support for an economically progressive

government in Australia than previously realised:

that a significant portion of Coalition voters may be

captured by Labor through populism on trade, cor-

porations and service provision.

In light of this, Labor should make an ag-

gressive play to capture country seats at the next

election. There is precedent in the United States

for this ‘150-electorate strategy’, with conservative

Democrats such as Jim Webb, Heath Shuler, and

Mark Warner winning ‘deep-red’ states through

emphasis on a populist economic agenda, and

distancing themselves from ‘liberal’ social policies.

While the potential for ‘product differentiation’ in

the United States is greater (due to less restrictive

party discipline), this may suggest that Labor’s ex-

pansion into previously hostile regions of the coun-

try would be well-served by reforms to party-line

voting and the operation of the House of Repre-

sentatives. Bob Carr’s abortive idea to establish a

Potemkin ‘Country Labor’ party reflects the same

ideal: that country voters may be severed from the

Coalition base through appeals to economic un-

certainty, much as John Howard used social poli-

cies to divide the Labor base.

In conclusion, Labor cannot be restricted

merely to competing in marginal suburban seats

through a small-target strategy to minimise differ-

ences. Millions of Australians, who saw in Hanson

a populist tribune against bipartisan consensus,

are unrepresented and hostile to ‘politics as usual.’

Labor, a party with a long tradition of anti-estab-

lishment, redistributive policies, is best placed to

capture this constituency.

42 www.fabian.org.au

Environmental education and resource sustainabilityCameron Parsons

In 1732, Thomas Fuller prophetically wrote that

“We never know the worth of water ‘till the well is

dry”. For decades, scientists have been warning

us of the dangers of climate change and the finite

nature of resources. Today, in a global culture that

values short term gains over both long term eco-

nomic stability and resource sustainability, it must

be asked what will be the catalyst to promote a

culture of change? Politicians have tenure of less

than ten years whilst making decisions about the

world’s resources which are formed on a geologi-

cal time-scale. As a result, the well appears to be

drying before our very eyes and the need to find

solutions is critical. This is acknowledged by ex-

perts worldwide. So why has the message been

slow to filter through to individuals so their behav-

iour and consumption patterns can be changed?

The most important issue facing Australia is

resource sustainability. How can we be assured

that our country will enjoy continued economic

growth and stability whilst preserving our unique

natural environment and its resources for future

generations? Generation Z, who will graduate in

2020 – the time at which we will be questioning the

planning of our current government as established

at the 2020 Summit – will be charged with the re-

sponsibility of administrating a country, possibly

facing weather patterns forecasted to be erratic

and destructive. Access to water, food and even

energy could also be unstable.

So who are our future leaders? Members of

Generation Z are being raised in the first truly global

society, connecting instantly to friends from around

the world. They are growing up with an awareness

of the problems facing the world, yet it appears

there is a distinct disinclination to become sustain-

able citizens. Young adults today, members of Gen-

eration Y, are growing up in a society where they

believe that they can have what ever they want,

whenever they want, presented to them on a plat-

ter with twenty months interest free. Being “green”?

To them that means going without... and wearing

hemp. Will our current and future generations be

reluctant to make sustainable life style choices be-

cause they believe that their quality of life will be

adversely affected? Do they think that they will have

to give up material possessions? How can they be

convinced that sustainability is not only necessary;

it can also enhance their quality of life?

In my opinion, a possible solution can be

found in the creation of a national framework for

environmental education. A curriculum which gives

children and young adults the knowledge to un-

derstand that sustainable living is necessary, has

the potential to break down negative stereotypes

and misconceptions which surround environmen-

talism. This in turn will promote the development

of sustainable and resilient communities through

empowering individuals.

Resource efficiency programs have already

been successfully implemented in select schools

and colleges across Australia, most receiving

Commonwealth assistance in their endeavours.

From the installation of photovoltaic cells, storm

and rain water collection systems, recycling and

re-vegetation programs, schools can provide a

learning environment where students can directly

observe the monetary and resource savings pos-

sible through effective resource management.

The creation of the Australian Sustainable

Schools Initiative (AuSSI) has allowed schools to

develop cultures committed to the principles of

sustainable development. This moves students

beyond being aware of the issues we face as con-

sumers of finite resources and creates an “action

learning environment” where sustainable practices

are linked with school curricula. This whole school

development allows for measurable social, envi-

ronmental, educational and financial outcomes to

be recorded and observed by students.

A pilot school in Southern Tasmania has re-

duced its use of paper by twenty per cent in the

first year, and now saves 1.2 mega-litres of water

per annum, with a capacity to store 165 000 litres.

Additional photovoltaic cells were installed with as-

sistance from the Federal Government, significantly

reducing out-goings in rates and electricity. On av-

erage, participants in the AuSSI program have ob-

served reductions in waste of up to 80%, reductions

in water consumption by up to 60% and reduction

www.fabian.org.au 43

of energy usage by a further 20%. These reductions

in resource usage translate to direct savings for the

schools, who can utilise these savings to enhance

the learning environment for the children. Accord-

ingly, being a sustainable school has advantages

on many direct and indirect levels.

Currently grants such as the Federal Commu-

nities Water Grants have assisted schools in im-

plementing resource efficiency programs. These

programs have been highly successful, and have

provided quantitative, factual data which supports

the many benefits of creating sustainable schools.

These benefits of being a sustainable entity reach

far beyond fiscal savings. By promoting concepts

of resource efficiency in the schools context, stu-

dents can then apply this knowledge to not only

their own lives as consumers and home own-

ers, but also within their workplaces. As waves of

graduates begin their lives as adults, empowered

with this new information, a shift in our practices

as consumers and users will be witnessed. De-

signing, building and living green will become the

“norm”. Yet currently, only a select few schools are

benefiting from being developed or remodelled as

a sustainable learning environment.

Our children are in grave danger of having

to grow up amid a struggle for the acquisition

of wealth and yet these resource efficiency pro-

grams, which are beneficial to students, schools,

the community and indeed our national future,

are not adequately publicised or accessible. By

implementing school based solutions to creating

sustainable campuses we are empowering Gen-

eration Z to make informed decisions as consum-

ers, citizens, employees and leaders. Resource

efficiency programs implemented through cur-

riculum create a more engaging learning environ-

ment for students, reduce resource consumption

and accordingly reward the school financially from

the savings from greater efficiency. Our continued

prosperity is now dependant upon the education

our children receive. To realise the mass re-educa-

tion which is required to change the habits of mind

for an entire population, these programs need to

be implemented in every school through a national

framework for environmental education.

An end to governing on uncertain termsSimon Tolstrup

It’s time that Australia’s governmental model was

amended to include fixed four year parliamentary

terms at all levels. Flexible, short parliamentary

terms are an outdated concept that engender un-

fair elections and short-sighted political decisions,

and are a fixable flaw in the Australian governmen-

tal system. Currently, the federal system allows a

maximum term of four years, with leaders able to

call elections at their discretion at any time after

three years. This system was originally replicated

at state level, though the states are starting to see

the light of change.

The Westminster system, on which Australia’s

political model is founded, gives incumbent lead-

ers the prerogative to call elections within a loose

timeframe to accommodate national emergencies

or affairs of state. In theory, the executive is as-

sumed to ignore the obvious potential to exploit

this power for political gain.

The reality is that allowing this rule to continue

remains just another confusing and unpredictable

aspect of a system that already discourages and

alienates voters. Fixed terms would allow voters a

greater degree of certainty around when they will

actually be required to vote.

It is accepted that the modern political

player will press any available advantage to win

elections. The ability to choose the timing of an

election hands a clear and unfair benefit to the

incumbent government, who already have the

44 www.fabian.org.au

luxury of billions of dollars to spend on election-

year sweeteners.

The practical result is that governments often,

if not always, call elections at politically opportune

times. This kind of opportunity can take many

forms, be it instability in opposition ranks, positive

economic indicators, or an international event that

might scare voters into avoiding change.

Of course, the tactic doesn’t always work. In

late 2008 WA Premier Alan Carpenter, sensing vul-

nerability in the opposition, called an election less

than a day after the WA Liberals had elected a new

leader. The move was variously called cynical, un-

fair and opportunistic. It may also have been called

‘tactically astute’ had Carpenter not been summar-

ily thrown out of office.

Probably the most damaging aspect of allow-

ing early elections to be called is a serious loss of

productivity to government. There are two reasons

for this.

First, the practice of calling early elections lim-

its the productive window of each government. It’s

been said before that the first year of a govern-

ment’s tenure is spent fulfilling campaign promises

to backers, and the last year spent preparing for

elections. Within the current three year Federal

system this leaves a scant twelve months in which

our most powerful citizens can try to effect real and

lasting change.

Shorter terms mean that policy decisions,

regardless of their long-term merit, need to bear

fruit, or at least demonstrate progress, within a

three year election cycle. A commitment to a lon-

ger window of policy debate and development al-

lows a greater chance of due process and of long

term strategy rather than easy, quick wins with the

electorate.

John Howard’s 1996 campaign for the Na-

tional Firearms Agreement, coming in the wake of

the Port Arthur massacre, was not a popular one by

any stretch; in fact Howard took to wearing a bullet-

proof vest in traditional pro-gun areas.

The decision was a sound one, but had the

Prime Minister not been mere months into his term

(and therefore years from the next election), the

virtual shunning of the rural vote may have been

too risky for the Liberal political machine to con-

template.

Contrast this with the 2001 election, where

polling and media analysis highlighted the Austra-

lian public’s concern for the hundreds of asylum-

seekers washing up on our shores. John Howard

announced what became known as ‘the Pacific

solution’, moving the problem offshore. The policy

was later panned by critics as a piece of short-

sighted scheming designed with votes rather than

constituents in mind.

Notwithstanding this cynicism, as an election

tactic, it worked. Most commentators acknowl-

edge that the Liberal Party won the 2001 election

based significantly on issues of border security

and immigration.

The point isn’t that lengthening parliamentary

terms will stop this kind of decision making, but

that a longer term gives our leaders more scope

to make tougher calls that might not be as aes-

thetically pleasing as the ‘out of sight, out of mind’

practicality of the Pacific Solution.

The second, less obvious, reason politically

flexible and inevitably shorter parliamentary terms

result in less productive government is that without

knowing the timing of an election, an opposition is

forced to prioritise politics over policy much earlier,

leaving one side of parliamentary debate virtually

vacant.

Without putting too fine a point on it, an op-

position focussed entirely on politics incites unac-

countable governing which the nation can ill afford.

Australian government is predicated on the

idea that those elected to represent us should be

able to act in our best interests at all times. As cus-

tomers in the monopolised business model of gov-

ernment, Australians should be concerned about

gaining value for money from their politicians. Aus-

tralians are entitled to more; from both sides of the

parliamentary floor.

From a purely economic perspective, elec-

tions are expensive. The 2004 Federal election

cost the taxpayer $120 million; surely then, less of

them would be a good thing.

www.fabian.org.au 45

The process to shift Government to fixed

terms on all levels has already begun. New South

Wales, South Australia, Victoria, and the ACT all

operate on fixed four year terms, with legislation to

be tabled in Tasmania early in 2009.

To implement this change at a Federal level,

a change in the constitution is necessary. This

would require a referendum, which was promised

by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during his election

campaign. Whether his intention to hold that refer-

endum at the next Federal election is demoted to a

non-core promise remains to be seen.

For productive government, long-term deci-

sion making, and fairer elections, a commitment

to fixed four year parliamentary terms is a logical

and achievable change to our system of govern-

ment. Far from being reform for reform’s sake,

fixed terms would be a real and lasting legacy to

the fairness and democracy of our system.

The return of the radical press: “New” media goes back to the futureTim Watts

The media in 19th Century pre-Victorian England

looked very different than it does today. Accord-

ing to media historians, the highest circulation

newspapers in this period were; the delightfully

titled Cobbett’s Twopenny Trash, The Weekly Po-

lice Gazette and the infamous Northern Star. While

all of these publications have long since ceased

production, there is something beyond their unfa-

miliar titles that truly sets these media outlets apart

from those that we know today. These publications

were representatives of a partisan ‘radical press’

that was funded by a combination of sales and

subsidies from social movements rather than the

combination of sales and advertising revenues

that support the ‘independent press’ we are famil-

iar with today.

The combination of their large circulation and

explicitly activist approach made these radical

publications extremely influential. They played a

key role in progressive movements like the Char-

tists and causes like extending the franchise in Brit-

ain. However, as technological change pushed up

the capital costs of publication, by the end of the

19th Century the radical press had been reduced

to a fringe medium. Importantly for progressives

today, at the start of the 21st Century, international

experience suggests that the wheel of technologi-

cal change is once again turning. Thanks to the

proliferation of Web 2.0 enabled ‘social media’,

today’s media environment could once again in-

clude an influential place for the radical press.

It is strange to consider in light of the past

hundred years experience, but history shows that

the independence of the media from political pa-

trons is far from an immutable law. In pre-Victorian

England, the circulation of the radical press far

exceeded that of the independent press and the

direct ownership or subsidisation of publications

by partisans was still common through the subse-

quent Victorian and Edwardian periods. Given their

popularity, why, by the end of the 19th Century, had

these ‘radical’ media outlets been marginalised by

the independent press?

In a word, technology. Technological advanc-

es in the media production process dramatically

increased the fixed capital costs of media outlets

in the late 19th century. In fact, between 1855 and

1870, the upfront cost of establishing a daily news-

paper in London increased from around £20 000 to

around £150 000. These increasing costs favoured

business models that rewarded scale and the com-

moditisation of news content. This advertising re-

46 www.fabian.org.au

liant model employed by the independent press

gave the medium a major competitive advantage.

It wasn’t long before the radical press, unable

to compete on the basis of sales and subsidies

alone, was reduced to a shadow of its previous

influence. However, as changing technologies pro-

duced changing business models in the late 19th

century, so too is it changing business models in

the early 21st century. This change presents an op-

portunity for progressive politics to reclaim a direct

voice in the media.

In recent times, technological change has bro-

ken the historical nexus between advertising and

content in the media sector. As Rupert Murdoch

noted in this year’s Boyer Lecture the ‘rivers of

gold’ that newspapers historically reaped from their

classifieds pages are now being diverted by new,

stand alone online competitors. Someone looking

for a house, a car or a job is now just as likely to

go to realestate.com, carsales.com or seek.com

as they are a newspaper. Similarly, the collapse in

content and distribution costs caused by the emer-

gence of extremely low cost online publication

tools has allowed a flood of new entrants into the

new media environment. As a consequence, peo-

ple looking for political news are increasingly likely

to go to the fragmented online media environment

rather than newspapers. In fact, the Pew Internet

and American Life Project recently found that the

Internet is now the primary or secondary source

of political news for 46% of Americans. To be sure,

traditional media outlets will be dominant in this

new media ecology for some time yet, but the pin-

cer movement of falling media costs and revenues

has created room for new players. As Murdoch

has presciently observed: ‘Once upon a time, the

media and entertainment companies could count

on the huge, up-front investments that discour-

aged competitors from entering the business. But

in many sectors the barriers to entry have never

been lower, and the opportunities for the energetic

and the creative have never been greater.’

Importantly for the progressive movement, in

the US and the UK, where these trends are already

well advanced, ‘the energetic and the creative’ that

Murdoch has heralded are overwhelmingly parti-

san. The largest and most influential new entrants

in the US and UK online media environments make

no claims to either independence or objectivity.

There’s no doubt about where sites like the Daily

Kos, Talking Points Memo, Instapundit, Guido

Fawkes and ConservativeHome stand. While the

polemical nature of these outlets has raised eye-

brows recently amongst journalists and politicians,

from a historical perspective the partisan nature of

these outlets is really nothing new. In many ways,

the new media is going back to the future.

The opportunity for progressive politics in

this context is obvious. If talented exponents of

the medium are given structure and support, the

progressive movement could once again have a

direct and influential media voice. With a small in-

vestment in coordinating infrastructure, the mem-

bership base of the progressive movement could

be extremely influential in the new media environ-

ment. It is true that we are still some way from see-

ing these media trends take hold in Australia. The

Australian blogosphere in particular is still in its

infancy when measured by per capita readership.

However, media need not be ubiquitous to be in-

fluential. It’s worth remembering that when FDR

gave his highly influential ‘fireside chats’, only 62%

of US households owned radios. Given that ac-

cording to AC Nielsen, 2007 was the first year that

Australians spent more time online than watching

television, the tipping point for the influence of the

new media cannot be far away. If the Australian

progressive movement acts now, the progressive

media in the early 21st Century could once again

be as influential as it was in the early 19th Century.

Who needs it?

Each year, Australians work more than 2 billion hours of unpaid overtime.

Around half of all employees work more hours than they are paid for. On average, a

typical employee works 49 minutes of unpaid overtime per day. For full-time workers, the

average daily amount of unpaid work takes more than one hour. International comparisons show that Australians work the longest hours in the developed world.

What is it? The Australia Institute (www.tai.org.au) has decided that November 25 will be National

Go Home On Time Day.

It’s a fun, inclusive and guilt-free way of raising awareness of the nature and extent of unpaid overtime in Australia and the important industrial, health and social

consequences it often has.

There is a Go Home On Time Day website - www.gohomeontimeday.org.au - which

allows people to register their intention to participate.

In the weeks leading up to GHOTD we will be releasing the full results of our national

poll and research into the economic impacts of unpaid overtime.

What can you do? Sign-up at www.gohomeontimeday.org.au and we’ll send you a ‘leave pass’ which

entitles you to Go Home On Time on November 25.

You can also invite your friends, family and colleagues to participate.

And most importantly – on November 25, Go Home On Time!

These girls live in Bangladesh’s largest brothel village: Daulatdia. Inside, 1500 women service 3000 men, daily. With virtually no alternative source of employment in the Ganges ferry port town, daughters like these, born and raised inside, look towards to same fate. These girls are three of a fortunate few who have hope at a Save the Children Australia-run school which has boldly placed itself on the fringes of Daulatdia.

Clare rawlinson ©2009

1000 words

Clare rawlinson