Guy Beres

 

Really. 

How is it that some 14 years after Nelson Mandela became the first ever democratically elected President of South Africa, he is still (and for at least the next week or so) technically considered to be a terrorist by the United States Government? It is an embarrassment and a disgrace for the world’s most powerful democracy that it has taken a 90th birthday party celebration to gather the necessary momentum for correcting this painfully simple legislative injustice.

One would hope that as part of this ridiculous 14 year-old oversight the US Government takes the opportunity to reconsider its processes for periodically reviewing legislation such as this, enacted as it was by the Reagan Administration in the midst of the Cold War. Laws are not things to be made and then left to rust by political parties and the bureaucracy. Both the bureaucracy and a nation’s lawmakers should be constantly striving to improve the national body of legislation as circumstances and public attitudes change, not just as policies change.

It would seem that in our modern, heavily tactical form of democracy that voters are only given a right to vote for the party of their choice when that party decides it is politically worthwhile running a candidate. As Phillip Coorey reports for the SMH, it is looking like Federal Labor is not going to run a candidate (or else only half-run one) in the Mayo by-election forced by the resignation of Alexander Downer. This strikes me as little more than political cowardice from the government, coming as it does a mere eight months after its thumping general election victory. While it may be a foregone conclusion that the Coalition will retain the seat (it is a safe Liberal seat, of course), one wonders why Federal Labor is avoiding the opportunity to try and make this by-election a referendum on Brendan Nelson’s leadership. A few months ago, Kevin Rudd seemed pretty much indefatigable in his role as Prime Minister and Brendan Nelson had all the pressure on his shoulders, his senior peers walking around with sharpened knives at the ready. Does the government really fear that this has changed and that any opportunity to further pressure the Opposition has been lost? Does it want to look to the punters like it is running scared?

The decision to only pursue the by-election halfheartedly seems to be centred around a desire to starve the Coalition of any potential political oxygen. It goes without saying that by far the most likely outcome in Mayo is a victory for the Opposition, and that therefore some positive news coverage for Nelson would eventuate if Labor field a candidate and lose convincingly. From a purely political standpoint, this rationale is not without credence, and certainly we have here in the UK an excellent recent reference point for Labor in the recent Henley by-election in Oxfordshire. There are some telling similarities. In Henley, like Mayo, the by-election was forced by the resignation of a popular, high-profile conservative figure (Boris Johnson, now London mayor), in a safely held seat. Labour decided to field a candidate in the Henley, but did not put very much effort into the campaign, producing a truly abysmal result; fifth place behind the Tories, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the British National Party. Embarrassingly, the combined primary vote for the UK Independence Party’s Chris Adams and Bananaman Owen of the Monster Raving Looney Party superceded that of Labour’s Richard McKenzie.

In the Henley case, then, fielding a candidate and running a half-hearted campaign was indeed a disaster. There is little chance that Labor stand a chance of doing quite so badly in Mayo. Crucially, Labour’s Gordon Brown is polling at subterranean levels currently, whereas by comparison, Kevin Rudd and Federal Labor enjoy a comfortable lead in the polls, and have done so for the past eight months. In this sense, we are really comparing apples and oranges with these by-elections.

I really don’t think that this is the right time for Federal Labor to give into political convenience and go on the defensive by steering clear of Mayo. The Rudd Opposition was successful in the general election last November in part because of its aggression, exemplified by the gambit of fielding Maxine McKew in John Howard’s once blue-ribbon Liberal seat. Federal Labor also won support by taking a noble line on issues like electoral reform and transparency in government (hat lift: Senator John Faulkner) in stark contrast to the grubby politics that the Howard Government accustomed itself to. It may not strictly speaking be the most politically expedient course of action, but fielding a candidate in Mayo and putting some energy and resources into the campaign is both the smart and the right thing for Federal Labor to do here.

While I have less than a glowing view of Alexander Downer’s performance as a parliamentary representative and indeed as a Foreign Minister, I feel I should echo Senator Penny Wong’s comments on Downer’s imminent resignation from parliament today. Downer has been a member of parliament for almost 25 years; since 1984 to be precise. Assuming a basic level of faith in democracy, one would have to think that if the voters of Mayo have deigned to endorse a candidate at the polls on so many consecutive occasions, the candidate must be doing a fairly good job of representing them. I may not agree with that endorsement, but I can certainly respect it.

What I don’t really respect, on the other hand, is Downer’s fairly drawn-out loitering on the parliamentary backbenches over the past eight months, as he evidently waited for some suitably plum job opportunities to come along. It was always assumed after the election that he would leave parliament rather than stay to fight on until 2010, and Downer has certainly foreshadowed his departure quite often in recent months. I am sure that at least in part Downer has sought to shield the fragile Nelson leadership from a by-election by his hanging around, but I am afraid that really isn’t a good enough reason for him to sit around on the taxpayer’s coin like so much dead lumber waiting to be carted off on a truck somewhere.

I would like at some stage to write a more ruminative piece on Alexander Downer’s contributions to public life over the last quarter of a century; a figure of his prominence deserves as much. For the time being though, I wish him well in his new mooted role, am pleased that he is leaving Canberra, and very much glad that the foreign policy of the Commonwealth of Australia is no longer in his hands.

ELSEWHERE: Janet Albrechtsen and Jamie Walker have a bit of an up-beat political obituary of Downer in The Australian. The soon to be former Member of Mayo does seem to be leaving the door ajar for a possible future tilt at South Australian politics, and manages to make himself sound like an ass with respect to smoking laws. What part of “cancer-causing second-hand smoke” do you not get Alex?

I highly recommend reading Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt’s article on the British election that wasn’t in the Guardian today, published as it is on the eve of the anniversary of Gordon Brown’s ascension to Prime Minister. The worrying thing for Gordon Brown and New Labour is that the article really does have the feel of a pre-emptive historical post-mortem to it. Apart from providing a fascinating account of the rationale for the “on-again, off-again” election debate that dragged throughout last year, this article also reinforces what seems to be the widespread public perception; namely that Brown and Labour are not doing enough to interest the voters.

This concluding excerpt sums things up quite nicely:

Brown remains branded in the public mind as a disingenuous ditherer. His aides insist his fate still ultimately rests with the economy, and claim his poll decline follows the downturn in the economy, rather than his decision to skip the election.

Many ministers believe his position is irretrievable, while others believe Brown may eventually recover if voters look to the future.

One cabinet loyalist says: “We can win the election. But we will only do that if it [the vote] is about our future. If it is a referendum on us, we can’t win.”

It is fairly clear that the current senior Labour team does not have the charisma or gravitas to charm its way to victory as the government may have had the ability to do previously, courtesy of figures like Tony Blair and Robin Cook. If Labour want to win the next election (seemingly now against the odds), they need to develop a compelling vision for the future and sell it to the electorate. There is no other way. David Cameron is winning and will win the “shininess” battle – Labour need to win (and be seen to win!) the battle on policy substance to stand a chance at the next poll.

ELSEWHERE Also worth a look are Martin Rowson’s merciless cartoons from the Guardian cataloguing the recent trials of the Brown Labour era.

 

Trivia fact: most people who know of the river Avon in Britain likely know of it in relation to Stratford-upon-Avon, famous as the birthplace of a little-known chap named William Shakespeare. In actual fact however, there are seven rivers Avon across the United Kingdom, and each is distinct and separate.

So why are they all called Avon? Avon is Celtic for river.

One thing I have pondered from time to time whilst living in London is to how the air quality compares to that back in Australia. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the situation might be worse over here, but it is only anecdotal. While obviously London is a much larger and busier city than the likes of either Sydney or Melbourne, it’s probably arguable that the major cities in Australia have much more of a car-centric transport culture than the British capital. During his eight year reign as Mayor for London (which only ended a few months ago), Ken Livingstone made a political point of discouraging commuters from driving their cars into the city, most famously and controversially through the introduction of the London congestion charge.

Mercer Human Resource Consulting have recently released their 2007 Quality of Life Report, which if you are feeling extraordinarily affluent and interested you can purchase for $USD 390. The report compares and ranks 380 cities worldwide with respect to 39 separate criteria across 10 categories. Setting aside for a moment the issues associated with having valuable data like this only available to those willing or able to pay, this seems like a report well worth digesting. Fortunately for freeloaders some high-level summary statistics from the report are available free of charge (including the “Top 50″), from which we can glean the following interesting tidbits in relation to health and sanitation rankings:

• The top ranked Australian city for health and sanitation for 2007 was Adelaide at 35th.
• Melbourne and Perth tied for 43rd place, with Brisbane coming in at 47th.
• Sydney came in at 62nd with London following marginally at 63rd.
• All Canadian cities part of the survey featured in the top 25.
• Seven cities in the United States were ranked higher than Australia’s highest rating city.
• Auckland and Wellington came in ahead of any Australian city in joint 18th place.
• Glasgow is the only city in the United Kingdom to have made the top 50.

Of course these rankings are apparently calculated from a variety of metrics relating to health and sanitation (e.g. hospital and medical services, water and air quality, etc), and not just air pollution, but these comparative rankings are quite interesting regardless. Also of interest is Mercer’s “quality of living” rankings, where patriotically speaking, we must note, Australia performs significantly better.

ELSEWHERE: More in this story from Forbes, which also has an exposè-style photo from each of the worst 25 ranked cities for health and sanitation. Unsurprisingly, most of the worst 25 cities are from third-world nations without strong public health infrastructure or investment patterns.

If I was Kevin Rudd I would be quite royally pissed off about all of this. Perhaps its best for Belinda Neal and/or John Della Bosca to both fall on their swords in advance of any inquiry findings. Federal Labor has been damaged enough by this tawdry episode as it is.

Dear Mr Rudd: Ideas For A Better Australia is a compilation of short essays served up by a decent cross-section of “leftish” Australian writers, edited by Robert Manne. The book, which has been criticised in The Australian as a “wish list” and Manne as a “nervous suitor writing a love letter”, seems to hope to offer Australia’s new Prime Minister a sense of progressive direction in relation to several key policy areas.

The opening piece by Associate Professor Mark McKenna from the University of Sydney sets the tone for the book by looking first to the republican debate. While I would consider myself a fairly staunch republican, like the Prime Minister, I do regard the republican debate in Australia as something of a second order issue. I do think the time is right for Australia to set the wheels in motion and move the country towards its preferred republican model, but I also think that when we talk about a republic we are talking primarily about symbolic change. Removing references to the British monarchy from our constitution and our processes and symbols is a necessary evolution if we consider ourselves a truly independent nation, but it hardly puts food on the table of people living in poverty or does anything to ensure that the next Australian generation of adults is the best-equipped to participate in the global economy in national history.

McKenna, perhaps unsurprisingly given that one of his primary research interests is the history of Australian republicanism and monarchy, seems at least in his expression to take a somewhat more aggressive view on the republican debate. Take for example this synopsis of people’s feelings after Federal Labor’s victorious election campaign last year:

If I were asked to choose one word which reflected the feelings of many Australians following the election of the Rudd Labor government in November 2007, the word I would choose is hope. It is a cautious hope, but it is hope nonetheless. One reason for this hope is that Australia might finally build a national consensus on the two great nation-defining and still unresolved issues of the last two decades, the declaration of an Australian republic and the achievement of reconciliation with Aboriginal people.

I think McKenna is spot on when he talks about the election result restoring a sense of “hope” to federal politics in Australia, but I think his partial attribution of this hope to the republicanism and reconciliation questions is debatable at best. Even in view of the government’s triumphant apology to the stolen generations, it is personally quite hard for me to imagine that either reconciliation with the Aboriginal people of Australia or getting rid of incoming Governor-General Quentin Bryce keeps too many average Australians awake at night. These are issues that some Australians feels strongly about, and rightly so, and I suspect that the majority of Australians have formed some sort of opinion on them. However, I do believe that the majority of people out there are basically ambivalent about these two issues that McKenna so bravely describes as the two great nation-defining issues of the last two decades. It’s perhaps a little painful as a progressive to think about them in this way, but I think all in all, Australia would classify reconciliation and the Australian republic as “nice-to-haves”, and not definitively crucial for the immediate governance of the nation.

McKenna goes on to discuss the next step for republicanism in Australia, which he believes to be the adoption of a new constitutional preamble:

The next part of the republican story involves the task of defining the core values of Australian democracy in a new constitutional preamble. A preamble is necessary, not because of some out-dated Jeffersonian obsession with grand rhetoric, but because the time has passed when Australian can assume its values are understood.

I am not sure how this short excerpt strikes other readers, but it strikes me as completely the wrong approach if Australia is to successfully pursue the republican question; McKenna is engaging in the Jeffersonian obsession he speaks of perhaps even without realising it. The Australian constitution is not like the constitution of the United States of America; it does not play a central role in the civic life of ordinary Australians. Australians do not cite clauses of their constitution in everyday life as Americans do with their umpteen amendments. Revising the Australian constitution to add a preamble as a step in isolation is likely to mean a lot to a few Australians with some vested intellectual interest in that document, but next to nothing to the vast majority of them without such an interest. To be honest, I am not sure there is any way that proponents of an Australian republic could more effectively expose the soft symbolic underbelly of their arguments for minimalist change to their opponents.

If the average Australian is interested in Australia becoming a republic, they are interested in it because they want a truly Australian head of state. This change must form the heart of the republican proposal that is put to the Australian people; proposals that deviate from having this basic change at its core are doomed to failure. Like Rudd’s moving apology to the stolen generations indicated, Australians from all cross-sections of the population are prepared to embrace symbolic changes if they are framed in the right way. The push for an Australian republic must bear this clearly in mind if it is to succeed; even the most cynical Australian is prepared to accept largely symbolic reforms and gestures, but these reforms and gestures must sit comfortably in alignment with what they really want, with minimal deviation in deference to elite opinion.

These photos from the streets of Copenhagen, the Danish capital. Such a simple idea, but such a good idea. The timed traffic lights tell pedestrians how long they have to wait to cross if the lights are red, and how much time they have left to cross if the lights are green. It’s predominantly the little clever touches like this that give the Scandinavians their well-deserved reputation as world leaders when it comes to common sense in urban planning and making life just that bit more livable.