It may be the most frustrating feature of this post election shambles. Commentators from the usual suspects - Devine, Albrechtsen, Henderson et. al. and then the not so usual suspects Kelly, Hartcher and Richo, keep pouring praise on the campaign conducted by Abbott.
That a Prime Ministerial candidate can impress large swathes of our commentariat based on achievements of stamina, focus and a staunch refusal to commit to policy shows just how broken the system is. And how blindingly inside these insiders are.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Friday, 6 August 2010
A climate conundrum....
Who's worse - the person or government that denies global warming despite the overwhelming weight of science, or the person (like me) or government that is convinced it's real, but doesn't really do anything about it?
I wish I could be convinced to deny - especially with my carbon footprint.....
Monday, 14 June 2010
BP, the GFC and the resources giants
So what do the Global Financial Crisis, the BP oil spill and Australia’s mining tax debate have in common? All are a direct consequence of a world where huge corporations wield the same and in some cases more power than governments. But while in a democracy, we can assume that a government will pay for its deceptions and errors at the ballot box, huge companies will only be nominally accountable to their shareholders.
Look at the swagger of Twiggy Forrest, Clive Palmer and Gina Rineheart and then look at the thinly veiled anguish of Kevin Rudd. The resources giants seem to think that they’re more important than our elected leaders. And if they win this debate, they’ll have proved they are. I don’t much like Rudd but I am a lot more ready to entrust the nation’s future to him than his unelected, unaccountable billionaire mining opponents. Their messages deserve the same regard as those of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Moody’s and BP.
Look at the swagger of Twiggy Forrest, Clive Palmer and Gina Rineheart and then look at the thinly veiled anguish of Kevin Rudd. The resources giants seem to think that they’re more important than our elected leaders. And if they win this debate, they’ll have proved they are. I don’t much like Rudd but I am a lot more ready to entrust the nation’s future to him than his unelected, unaccountable billionaire mining opponents. Their messages deserve the same regard as those of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Moody’s and BP.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Gerard Henderson - self styled working class hero?
Gerard Henderson and Miranda Devine poured the acid on Peter Carey, one of the country's most successful authors, in their respective Sydney Morning Herald columns last week. Things must be pretty good if Carey is their greatest irritant.
I’d read Gerard Henderson (Disdain from a lofty height, but funded by the masses) and Miranda Devine’s (A convert to the preaching will have no power to change) tag team canings of Peter Carey in last week’s Sydney Morning Herald before I had a chance to listen to what the man had said to provoke such rabid scorn. So on the weekend, I listened to his Sydney Writers’ Festival speech and watched his performance on QandA.
Carey is far more compelling with a pen than a microphone - but neither Henderson nor Devine are in any position to condemn on those grounds. And they don’t have Carey’s literary CV either.
So what was it that so riled GH and MD?
There were two points to Carey’s speech. One was that the decreasing exposure of young people to great literary traditions deprives them of something especially enriching and valuable. The second was that our schools cannot afford to be churning out people with nothing more than a basic reading competency. A functional democracy he argued, required something more of its citizens - a capacity to analyse and critique.
These are hardly radical propositions. They'd sit very nicely with many conservative thinkers. Carey was well clear of the lunatic left or right.
Henderson’s gratuitous character assassination was based on his view that Carey is “full of contempt for his fellow men and women”. Henderson, implying something sinister, writes “Carey has not released the text of his address but, according to a Herald report, he complained: "We have yet to grasp the fact that consuming cultural junk … is completely destructive of democracy."
Not sure whether Carey has released his speech but it is available along with most other Writer’s Festival material online. That's how I found it. A Google search is all that’s needed Gerard. As for the claim about cultural junk and democracy? Well, what about it? Surely it could have come from the mouths of Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey or Philipp Ruddock? Perhaps even John Howard?
At the heart of Henderson’s rant is a claim about elitism and Carey’s alleged contempt for the tastes of the suburban masses. Carey’s speech (but you will need to hear it to know this Gerard) is a plea for a higher standard of literacy in our culture. And a higher aspiration for the literary potential of all students. He gives an example, and there are many of these out there, including here in Australia, of a group of disadvantaged students in New York who have developed a great passion for Shakespeare through the dedication of a special teacher and a special teaching programme. Rather than being contemptuous of the suburban dwellers, Carey looks at the possibilities for greater enrichment that are so often missed.
It’s a little bit like the doctor that looks at the young obese with early onset diabetes (yes Gerard, they also congregate disproportionately in the suburbs you so admire) and extols the virtues of a more healthy diet. Is he also contemptuous of the suburban dwellers? Is the champion of the Coca Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s diet - Gerard’s culinary equivalent - the real champion of the masses?
Anyone who lives in the suburbs knows that there’s plenty of texture out there. But scanning the ranks of Henderson’s Sydney Institute Annual Dinner, or the regular talks it hosts, I have not noted too many folk from his much beloved suburbs either at the lectern or in the audience. A level of functional and analytical literacy is the key to Gerard’s kingdom and the key to power and success here and everywhere. Gerard clearly likes his kingdom just the way it is. He’d prefer those outside continue consuming cultural “junk” and stay right where they are. Gerard doesn't really cut it as a working class hero.
I’d read Gerard Henderson (Disdain from a lofty height, but funded by the masses) and Miranda Devine’s (A convert to the preaching will have no power to change) tag team canings of Peter Carey in last week’s Sydney Morning Herald before I had a chance to listen to what the man had said to provoke such rabid scorn. So on the weekend, I listened to his Sydney Writers’ Festival speech and watched his performance on QandA.
Carey is far more compelling with a pen than a microphone - but neither Henderson nor Devine are in any position to condemn on those grounds. And they don’t have Carey’s literary CV either.
So what was it that so riled GH and MD?
There were two points to Carey’s speech. One was that the decreasing exposure of young people to great literary traditions deprives them of something especially enriching and valuable. The second was that our schools cannot afford to be churning out people with nothing more than a basic reading competency. A functional democracy he argued, required something more of its citizens - a capacity to analyse and critique.
These are hardly radical propositions. They'd sit very nicely with many conservative thinkers. Carey was well clear of the lunatic left or right.
Henderson’s gratuitous character assassination was based on his view that Carey is “full of contempt for his fellow men and women”. Henderson, implying something sinister, writes “Carey has not released the text of his address but, according to a Herald report, he complained: "We have yet to grasp the fact that consuming cultural junk … is completely destructive of democracy."
Not sure whether Carey has released his speech but it is available along with most other Writer’s Festival material online. That's how I found it. A Google search is all that’s needed Gerard. As for the claim about cultural junk and democracy? Well, what about it? Surely it could have come from the mouths of Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey or Philipp Ruddock? Perhaps even John Howard?
At the heart of Henderson’s rant is a claim about elitism and Carey’s alleged contempt for the tastes of the suburban masses. Carey’s speech (but you will need to hear it to know this Gerard) is a plea for a higher standard of literacy in our culture. And a higher aspiration for the literary potential of all students. He gives an example, and there are many of these out there, including here in Australia, of a group of disadvantaged students in New York who have developed a great passion for Shakespeare through the dedication of a special teacher and a special teaching programme. Rather than being contemptuous of the suburban dwellers, Carey looks at the possibilities for greater enrichment that are so often missed.
It’s a little bit like the doctor that looks at the young obese with early onset diabetes (yes Gerard, they also congregate disproportionately in the suburbs you so admire) and extols the virtues of a more healthy diet. Is he also contemptuous of the suburban dwellers? Is the champion of the Coca Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s diet - Gerard’s culinary equivalent - the real champion of the masses?
Anyone who lives in the suburbs knows that there’s plenty of texture out there. But scanning the ranks of Henderson’s Sydney Institute Annual Dinner, or the regular talks it hosts, I have not noted too many folk from his much beloved suburbs either at the lectern or in the audience. A level of functional and analytical literacy is the key to Gerard’s kingdom and the key to power and success here and everywhere. Gerard clearly likes his kingdom just the way it is. He’d prefer those outside continue consuming cultural “junk” and stay right where they are. Gerard doesn't really cut it as a working class hero.
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Sovereignty risk?
Miners are worried about Australia’s sovereign risk. I’m worried Australia’s sovereignty. While the Government stumbles in its efforts to provide some clarity about the amount of tax paid by miners, one thing is clear - they pay nowhere near enough. And the best evidence of this is the scale of the campaign they are mounting against our elected officials.
The big miners have been accessing Australia’s mineral wealth at bargain basement prices while pushing the resale price of those assets to unprecedented levels. And now they are using the excessive profits obtained from that lucrative exercise to bombard us with dubious propaganda about a tax that is far more intelligent both than the case the government has made in its favour and the distortions of the mining industry’s generously rewarded spokespeople.
We’re told the miners are flooding the Liberal Party coffers in the countdown to the election. Imagine if this industry - irrevocably founded on the short term exploitation of non-renewable assets - was able to determine the outcome of our next election?
Rio Tinto’s Tom Albanese’s performance on Lateline on Wednesday was that of a man incapable of containing his sense of self importance. While he was persuasive in his case that Rio’s profit line and Australia’s national interest were one and the same, he couldn’t resist the threat that Rio would be looking to invest elsewhere should the elected government of Australia enforce a tax that trims his profits - a claim that is widely doubted.
Mr Albanese may shrink in the company of unelected Chinese officials but he feels no compulsion to show regard for Australia’s elected leaders and their policies. His Chairman told the AGM that he was “personally offended” by our government’s actions. He and his cohorts show contempt not just for our government, but for us. All Australians. They are too big and they are too powerful. Let’s hope they continue to overplay their hand and the Australian people see them for who they are.
Note: I wonder why Tony Jones didn’t use the opportunity to ask Tom Albanese about the Stern Hu case?
The big miners have been accessing Australia’s mineral wealth at bargain basement prices while pushing the resale price of those assets to unprecedented levels. And now they are using the excessive profits obtained from that lucrative exercise to bombard us with dubious propaganda about a tax that is far more intelligent both than the case the government has made in its favour and the distortions of the mining industry’s generously rewarded spokespeople.
We’re told the miners are flooding the Liberal Party coffers in the countdown to the election. Imagine if this industry - irrevocably founded on the short term exploitation of non-renewable assets - was able to determine the outcome of our next election?
Rio Tinto’s Tom Albanese’s performance on Lateline on Wednesday was that of a man incapable of containing his sense of self importance. While he was persuasive in his case that Rio’s profit line and Australia’s national interest were one and the same, he couldn’t resist the threat that Rio would be looking to invest elsewhere should the elected government of Australia enforce a tax that trims his profits - a claim that is widely doubted.
Mr Albanese may shrink in the company of unelected Chinese officials but he feels no compulsion to show regard for Australia’s elected leaders and their policies. His Chairman told the AGM that he was “personally offended” by our government’s actions. He and his cohorts show contempt not just for our government, but for us. All Australians. They are too big and they are too powerful. Let’s hope they continue to overplay their hand and the Australian people see them for who they are.
Note: I wonder why Tony Jones didn’t use the opportunity to ask Tom Albanese about the Stern Hu case?
Monday, 24 May 2010
A globe warmed by Annabel and Tony, chilled by Ross, Tim, Clive and Bill
Annabel Crabb's session with Tony Abbott at the Sydney Writers' Festival was a great missed opportunity.
I could easily have exited the Sydney Writer’s Festival last weekend thinking there were two planets - one inhabited by people who seem to spend their lives obsessed by the threat of climate change. And another inhabited by those who remain blithely unconvinced that the the world two decades from now will look substantially different from how it does today.
On Friday, I joined a packed session at the Town Hall where Bill McKibben, Tim Flannery, Ross Garnaut and Clive Hamilton gave a grim but measured update both on the state of global warming and on the national shame that is this country’s approach to it.
On Sunday I heard Annabel Crabb conduct an all too cosy fireside chat (minus fireside) with Tony Abbott. It felt more like she was interviewing a curious, cuddly, blokey Hollywood star than a prime ministerial candidate. Lost was a rare opportunity for an interrogation of Abbott’s political heart - and his views beyond the immediate political horizon. It was wet and cold outside and Crabb chose to make it warm and cosy inside. Didn’t want to stretch Tony. No asking him about the medium and longer term challenges facing the country. No questions on which credible scientific organisations were informing his views on climate change? Or how he might ready Australia for an era of surging Chinese global influence? No probing on the real moral basis of Abbott’s asylum seeker campaigns either.
Yes, I wanted to see Abbott challenged. And I would have expected that and more of a session with Rudd. But he wasn’t.
I didn’t need Annabel and Tony to make me feel warm. And I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know.
But that wasn’t the case at the global warming session on Friday. I was a little embarrassed by the number of things I heard that night that I had not previously heard. And while Annabel and Tony’s session may have generated enough warmth to raise the climate, there was a distinct chill in the air at the global warming session.
Yes, I did know that we were the worst per capita emitter on the planet (something we still don’t hear often enough). I was also aware that our carbon habit has excesses of both abuse and distribution.
I wasn’t aware however that our gross emissions rank not near as far behind much larger European nations like Italy and the United Kingdom as you might expect. I was also surprised, encouraged and shamed by the news that China, Indonesia and other developing countries, are adopting ambitious measures to curb emissions. Ross Garnaut described Australia as a global "laggard" on climate change.
No, Australians are not lesser moral beings. These countries have simply worked out what the future looks like and decided they need to embrace it. Australia’s unique addiction to carbon abuse and distribution and the powerful lobby behind that addiction still determines our policy.
Bill McKibben pointed out that so called global warming scepticism is confined mainly to Australia and the United States. It is a vanquished force in the most other nations. Yes, Lord Monckton continues his campaign but enjoys more enthusiasm in Australia than at home. Britain’s new coalition government with its distinctly Tory tinge is committed to strong climate action he said.
Pity Annabel missed Ross, Clive, Bill and Tim. It was a moving session. It did lack that high emissions energy that Annabel and Tony had. A good thing too. Australia’s record is bad enough.
I could easily have exited the Sydney Writer’s Festival last weekend thinking there were two planets - one inhabited by people who seem to spend their lives obsessed by the threat of climate change. And another inhabited by those who remain blithely unconvinced that the the world two decades from now will look substantially different from how it does today.
On Friday, I joined a packed session at the Town Hall where Bill McKibben, Tim Flannery, Ross Garnaut and Clive Hamilton gave a grim but measured update both on the state of global warming and on the national shame that is this country’s approach to it.
On Sunday I heard Annabel Crabb conduct an all too cosy fireside chat (minus fireside) with Tony Abbott. It felt more like she was interviewing a curious, cuddly, blokey Hollywood star than a prime ministerial candidate. Lost was a rare opportunity for an interrogation of Abbott’s political heart - and his views beyond the immediate political horizon. It was wet and cold outside and Crabb chose to make it warm and cosy inside. Didn’t want to stretch Tony. No asking him about the medium and longer term challenges facing the country. No questions on which credible scientific organisations were informing his views on climate change? Or how he might ready Australia for an era of surging Chinese global influence? No probing on the real moral basis of Abbott’s asylum seeker campaigns either.
Yes, I wanted to see Abbott challenged. And I would have expected that and more of a session with Rudd. But he wasn’t.
I didn’t need Annabel and Tony to make me feel warm. And I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know.
But that wasn’t the case at the global warming session on Friday. I was a little embarrassed by the number of things I heard that night that I had not previously heard. And while Annabel and Tony’s session may have generated enough warmth to raise the climate, there was a distinct chill in the air at the global warming session.
Yes, I did know that we were the worst per capita emitter on the planet (something we still don’t hear often enough). I was also aware that our carbon habit has excesses of both abuse and distribution.
I wasn’t aware however that our gross emissions rank not near as far behind much larger European nations like Italy and the United Kingdom as you might expect. I was also surprised, encouraged and shamed by the news that China, Indonesia and other developing countries, are adopting ambitious measures to curb emissions. Ross Garnaut described Australia as a global "laggard" on climate change.
No, Australians are not lesser moral beings. These countries have simply worked out what the future looks like and decided they need to embrace it. Australia’s unique addiction to carbon abuse and distribution and the powerful lobby behind that addiction still determines our policy.
Bill McKibben pointed out that so called global warming scepticism is confined mainly to Australia and the United States. It is a vanquished force in the most other nations. Yes, Lord Monckton continues his campaign but enjoys more enthusiasm in Australia than at home. Britain’s new coalition government with its distinctly Tory tinge is committed to strong climate action he said.
Pity Annabel missed Ross, Clive, Bill and Tim. It was a moving session. It did lack that high emissions energy that Annabel and Tony had. A good thing too. Australia’s record is bad enough.
Monday, 10 May 2010
Best and brightest?
“It’s abhorrent and it should be eliminated immediately.” “We wouldn’t all be here if Canberra had told the truth. If Canberra had said that this is a nationalisation of 40% of the mining industry, and the first step towards where the despotic economies go when they start nationalising industry.”
Andrew Forrest, CEO Fortescue Metals Group
This outburst from an excitable Andrew Forrest last week left me confused. What the hell was Australia’s wealthiest man getting at - apart from the obvious point that he didn’t like the new “super profits” tax? Was he really proposing that Kevin Rudd was leading Australia down a slippery slope of nationalisation and despotism? It was a big call. And it came from a man who you might expect to be capable of mounting a more meaningful defense of his industry. A man that should know a despot when he sees one.
But something else struck me then. I started thinking about Australia’s richest men. The three that sprang to mind, Forrest, Frank Lowy, and James Packer didn’t leave me feeling very inspired. No Messrs Gates, Jobs, Buffetts or Serge / Larry combos there.
I knew very little of Forrest prior to his media foray last week - but need I know more after that? I also should acknowledge that I'm a big fan of the work of Frank's Lowy Institute.
Still, it's probably not ideal that the triumvirate at the top of our rich list are a miner, a property / shopping centre magnate and a casino baron. These industries are more about commercial opportunism than they are about creativity, innovation and dynamism. Essential industries no doubt - except gambling - but not the stuff of great entrepreneurial inspiration - unless money is of itself a source of inspiration.
They are emblems of a country obsessed with minerals, property, gambling and of course the accumulation of wealth. And I suppose that’s perfectly apt.
Andrew Forrest, CEO Fortescue Metals Group
This outburst from an excitable Andrew Forrest last week left me confused. What the hell was Australia’s wealthiest man getting at - apart from the obvious point that he didn’t like the new “super profits” tax? Was he really proposing that Kevin Rudd was leading Australia down a slippery slope of nationalisation and despotism? It was a big call. And it came from a man who you might expect to be capable of mounting a more meaningful defense of his industry. A man that should know a despot when he sees one.
But something else struck me then. I started thinking about Australia’s richest men. The three that sprang to mind, Forrest, Frank Lowy, and James Packer didn’t leave me feeling very inspired. No Messrs Gates, Jobs, Buffetts or Serge / Larry combos there.
I knew very little of Forrest prior to his media foray last week - but need I know more after that? I also should acknowledge that I'm a big fan of the work of Frank's Lowy Institute.
Still, it's probably not ideal that the triumvirate at the top of our rich list are a miner, a property / shopping centre magnate and a casino baron. These industries are more about commercial opportunism than they are about creativity, innovation and dynamism. Essential industries no doubt - except gambling - but not the stuff of great entrepreneurial inspiration - unless money is of itself a source of inspiration.
They are emblems of a country obsessed with minerals, property, gambling and of course the accumulation of wealth. And I suppose that’s perfectly apt.
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