Today’s Spanish election result where the Socialist Party beat the right wing Popular Party will resonate in Australian politics. It is said that the result of the election turned on the government’s reaction to the terrorist bombing, and that therefore Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar paid the price for joining the “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq.
I don’t know enough about Spanish politics to pretend to a definitive Spanish analysis. What I do know is that if the Australian government had dealt with a terrorist bombing in the same way that the Spanish government did, then it too would be in trouble at an election, irrespective of its involvement in the war in Iraq. Electors will punish governments that they think are trying to hoodwink them.
In this morning’s AM radio programme Attorney General Phillip Ruddock says that this bombing does not put Australia at greater risk of a terrorist attack. During the last Federal election campaign I was on a panel on ABC radio and the day before Peter Costello had made a comment that Australia was a potential terrorist target. My two fellow panelists, both of whom were from the left of the political spectrum pooh-poohed this suggestion, as did the interviewer. I was the only one who thought it a reasonable conclusion for Costello to make.
How things have changed. If I were on that panel today those same panelists would undoubtedly be saying that this attack definitely makes Australia a greater terrorist target. The left has moved from denying the reality of risk, because they thought that it worked in Howard’s favour, to overstating it, because they think it works against him.
In fact, this attack probably means that the risk has increased slightly, not the least because the event has apparently changed a government, while the perception of risk will have increased significantly.
For me one of the most disturbing aspects about the way we discuss the struggle with Islamic fundamentalists and the war in Iraq is the way in which we change our tune not to suit the facts but to suit our ideological or political prejudice.
For Ruddock to be saying categorically that this does not increase the risk of Australia being a terrorist target is as nonsensical as saying a few years ago that we weren’t a terrorist target at all.
In terms of ideological bias it will be interesting to see how many of the critics of government policy on Iraq will be keen to claim the Spanish bombing is a result of Spanish involvement in the war in Iraq. I will lay Baghdad to a barrel of oil that many of these people will be the same people who say that there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
While I have never heard of any real evidence linking Hussein and Al Qaeda at a formal level, any analysis of Middle Eastern issues which fails to see that there is a deep and abiding convergence of interest between regimes like Hussein’s and the terrorists, which expresses itself in spontaneous and mutually supportive activity is not analyzing this problem properly. That means, that even if there are no formal links, it is prudent and more effective to deal with them as though there were, because they will tend to behave in that way anyway.
The terror attack in Spain underlines that we are a terrorist target and that any government that attempts to manipulate the threat of terror for its own political gain, puts its own survival at risk. Given the attacks apparent effectiveness in changing a government one should also assume that the risk of an attack in Australia, and the US, will escalate in the period immediately before our respective elections are due.

This post was sent to me be one of our most frequent readers:

“THE day after Peter Beattie named the date for the recent Queensland State Election I told my clients in a written brief I expected he would be returned to office with about 60 seats, and that Opposition gains would be minor.
One of the reasons for my confidence about the outcome was a single comment by the Nationals Leader, Lawrence Springborg, within a couple of hours of the election being called.
For reasons that still escape me, Springborg’s first comment of the official campaign was that the National and Liberal Parties could win the election. That single comment effectively derailed the one chance the opposition has to make a significant dent in Labor’s 50 plus seat majority.
The moment Springborg claimed he could win, he forfeited the chance to use the election to get voters to “send Peter Beattie a message” or to convince them to register a protest vote without changing the government.
Now the Nationals Leader has made the even more extraordinary claim that “probably playing down our chances as much as we did, virtually saying we couldn’t win, I think removed hope from a lot of people.”
During the campaign Springborg did try to “water down” his initial comment. But it continued to haunt him until polling day, and unquestionably contributed to a very poor overall result for the coalition.
In 1991 Jim Soorley beat Sallyanne Atkinson because he never allowed the people of Brisbane to believe he could actually win. In 1995, the Coalition mustered a protest vote against a very popular Premier, Wayne Goss, the same way.
The one window of opportunity Lawrence Springborg had closed the day the election was called.
To now claim he did not do as well as he could have because he downplayed his chances lacks credibility.
Attempts to re-write history are always hazardous. To try and do so when that “history” is but a few weeks old is foolish.
Jeffrey Wall, OBE

Liberal MHR for Ryan, Michael Johnson won an easy victory today by 328 votes to 68 over his only rival, Stephen Huang. This doesn’t really say much about Johnson. Stephen Huang was not the candidate to beat Johnson who won originally three years ago by stacking the preselection council with Chinese (some of them not even Australian). While Huang is Taiwanese Australian, beating Johnson for preselection for Ryan is not about winning the Chinese vote, nor is it about winning the European vote – it is about enlisting a new wave of voters into politics. Councillor Margaret de Wit, who challenged and then withdrew, would have won more votes, but this result suggests she made the right decision by not standing as she would have been fishing in the same stagnant puddle.
Michael Johnson had glowing references from John Howard, Joe Hockey and Alexander Downer. Only the naïve think these things really count for anything. Peter King the recently deposed Liberal Member for Wentworth had all the references in the world, but it could not save him. Malcolm Turnbull ran straight over the top, in the process winning support from many of King’s presumed supporters. In fact there were rumours that the Prime Minister’s numbers man, Senator Bill Heffernan, was in the contest working against the Prime Minister’s expressed wish not to have any challenges at preselection before this election.
The Howard Government is criticized for lacking policies and direction. I am not sure that this is the case, but it certainly needs more depth in its team. That a seat like Ryan, the only jewel in the Liberals’ Brisbane crown, has a member like Johnson is a demonstration of this. Not only is Johnson a lightweight who, despite his references, has yet to make any positive impression in Canberra, he is a major part of the state Liberal party’s problems.
Any polling in Brisbane shows that the Liberal Party as a party is on the nose. This is because of chronic and demonstrated ineptitude and the stench of corruption that the branch stacking activities and manipulation of party rules of people like Johnson has brought. Indeed, Huang treated preselectors to a story about his first encounter with Johnson when he moved into Ryan. He was called in for an audience and Johnson’s first words to him were “Stephen, are you for me or against me?” The meeting proceeded in this bullying tone, with racist aspersions being cast on those of us of a non-oriental origin in a way designed to wring tribal loyalty from Huang. Huang, who as a state candidate defied the whole Liberal Party on the Pauline Hanson issue in 1998, was similarly defiant in this instance. Ironically, while Johnson is part of the problem, within Ryan most voters are indifferent to him, barely knowing who he is.
Mark Latham has made such an impact on national politics because electors have got tired of the hacks who masquerade as statesmen. They have warmed to Latham because he appears in a political context to be unconventional, which is to say in any other context, normal. Malcolm Turnbull’s accession in Wentworth is another indication of this mood and the willingness of Australians to back people from outside the political oligopoly. Voters are so willing to accept non-politicians as political leaders that they will forgive them many of the sins they will not normally forgive politicians – like inconsistency on issues.
Wasting a seat like Ryan on a small-time apparatchik like Johnson underlines how desperate at the moment is the plight not just of the Queensland Liberal Party, but conventional political parties in Australia. Should Howard lose the next election, generational change is likely to engulf the Liberal Party and dispose of should-never-have-beens like Johnson. But the generation won’t be from those who are older to those who are younger, but rather from those who have only themselves to offer to those who have something to offer.
The confirmation of Johnson as the Liberal Candidate also presents the Labor Party with an opportunity. If all the leaked polling is correct (and it can’t be, but unfortunately I have no way of knowing which leaks are correct and which aren’t so for the purposes of this black box exercise, let’s just assume that it is), then some of the more marginal seats are holding firm for the government. This may mean that some of the less marginal seats are in danger. Ryan has once been held by the Labor Party, albeit after a byelection, so it is possible that with an energetic campaign, they could actually win it back this time. It’s a long-shot, but worth a go. Certainly if you painted the state election results onto a map of Ryan the Liberal Party would not hold it.

To continue my theme about the end of old politics and the rise of corporatised mass culture as the new driver of western and increasingly global civilisation, the latest talking point is the new eco-catastrophe movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. The $100 billion Roland Emmerich (yes, the same boy who made ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Godzilla’) epic is about global warming.
The global warming sceptics, including US President Bush, have pushed the line that the problem is still unproven. Most of the world’s climate scientists and a growing number of scientists in other disciplines claim it is already happening with disastrous effect. Meanwhile, the average person ignores the whole thing and watches TV, sends SMS messages and goes to the movies.
Where this US summer they will see a blockbuster on global warming. There is of course a US election this year, and here in Oz there will also be a national election. John Howard, who takes the Bush line on global warming, will no doubt be hoping the movie tanks.
I can just see the 2012 US Presidential election with Michael Moore up against Mel Gibson, brandishing their oscars at each other. If Mel loses he can always reclaim Oz citizenship and run again here for President of the Republic of Oz against ex-PM Turnbull as current PM Maguire looks benevolently on.

In the only speech I’ve heard Latham give in person (before he was ALP leader), he compared Labor’s position with that of the ALP under Gough Whitlam before the 1972 election. He said that the ALP had to do what Whitlam did, and present a genuine alternative to the conservatives. Whitlam of course did this, and no matter what is said about his government, it dragged Oz out of the 1950s and into the 1970s.
But the question I would have asked Latham had there been time was, “Whitlam had a platform that had new and radical ideas on practically every important aspect of Oz life. Where are the comparable ALP policies this time?”
The point is that Mark Latham has made a real impact on national politics, and successfully dragged the ALP along with him. But that impact is mostly courtesy of the media, who can just as easily turn on him. After all John Howard does know how to work the media and he has entrenched support in the media ownership.
So Latham has to move away from the current focus on leadership to one on policies. The ALP really has to present a whole raft of new policies on the issues that are approaching critical condition in this country, especially education, health, the environment, quality of life and industrial relations, and the great wealth divide generally.
No doubt any serious policies will be hammered by the media who are inherently conservative. This is a much a problem with the form of the media as the actual political leanings of media managers. The basic problem is that Labor as the party of reform has to put a coherent, sustained case for reform. All the conservatives need to do is let things go, and ‘market forces’ (or more accurately, the institutions of big business) will pretty much have their way. A few of the quality papers and the odd TV current affairs program (maybe on a Sunday when nobody is watching) will look deeper into issues, but most people get their info from the tabloids or TV/radio news. This form of truncated news, photo opportunities and sound bites, just does not allow presentation of a rational analysis and consistent policy.
What Labor has to do is wrong-foot the media in the same way Latham wrong-footed Howard by constantly raising issues. And the way to do this is to keep the substantive policies coming, and just argue for them like there is no tomorrow. With a little luck, this barrage of information, analysis and argument will itself become a media topic.
This means of course that the whole of the ALP has to get in there and play its part, which is a lot easier if you think you are working for real change as opposed to an inevitably fragile leader as symbol. As a group of people, I wish The ALP was a lot more talented and serious about meaningful social change, as opposed to just political power. But then perhaps a few more ALP personnel will remember what it’s all actually about if they have to think hard and long about the issues and what to do about them.

Gary Morgan complains with some justification that this week’s Newspoll figures and last week’s AC Neilsen ones showing Labor in the lead are not new news at all. His figures were showing it as early as December.
In my view Morgan has been unfairly criticized for being the least accurate of the pollsters. He uses a face to face method while the other organizations use the telephone. There are weaknesses to both forms of polling, but in the end polling with the sample sizes being used only ends up with the right answer more or less by luck.
Morgan also makes the point that “Any astute political commentator or “poll watcher” must realise that Polls do go up and down, and in some cases can be very wrong, such as predicting the result of the recent Wisconsin Democrat Primary vote in the US.” Indeed. They are also not a very good way of predicting the result of elections this far out. I remember reporting on Morgan’s findings of the Liberals at an all time low in October, 2000 of 30%. We all know what happened in the subsequent election.
These opinion polls put John Howard just where he wants and needs to be. The risk of an unintended protest vote has disappeared and as the expectations of a Labor win grow attention will move from Howard to Latham. Voters vote against politicians more than they vote for them. If voters expect Latham to win then Howard is in a position to play Oppositional politics, try to become a small target and aim at Latham for the things that Latham intends to do.
There is certainly a groundswell of opposition to the Howard government out there in all of the polling at the moment, particularly on the issue of health. The equation in voters minds next election is likely to be one that balances the wish to punish or chastise Howard against the fears of what a Latham government will do and we have yet to see any polling that addresses those issues.

A week ago Teresa Mullan media adviser to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs lost her job. My post of three days ago has the details. I’ve checked the Premier’s press releases and no direct reason is given for the sacking. The release on her sacking is oblique. It might be because she broke the law. It might be because “It sends completely the wrong signal about my Government’s commitment to helping Indigenous communities find a solution to the alcohol problem which many of them are trying to deal with.”
Today Teresa Mullan has not only been reinstated, but as an advisor in the Premier’s own department. Why? Again, everything is oblique. We know that Mullan had a meeting with the Premier yesterday to which she took her lawyer, Tony Morris QC. Morris is a distinguished member of the Queensland Bar (and webmaster of Lex Scripta 2004 ), but normally when he gets involved in political stoushes it is on one side or other of a Liberal Party brawl. It looks like Morris is doing this one pro-bono. Normally one would expect only solicitors to be involved at this stage. Barristers are generally kept for court, and only act on briefs from solicitors.
The Courier Mail speculates that Mullan has been reinstated because the airport is not covered by the law because its tarmac is not a “public area”. Bruce Gibson, an Aboriginal leader and candidate for Cook thinks this is all cock and bull. As he says in a press release:

“…sections 37A and 37B within Schedule 1D [Lockhart River]
of the 2002 Liquor Regulation states(sic):
1. Area to declared to be a restricted area
Each of the following areas is a restricted area –
(a) the community area of the Lockhart River Aboriginal Council
other than parts of the road known as Frenchman’s Road and Portland
Roads Road within the external boundaries of the land described as lot
16 on plan 104551;
(b) the Lockhart River Airport.
2. Prescribed quantity
(1) The prescribed quantity for the restricted area, other than the
canteen, is zero.
(2) The prescribed quantity for the canteen is –
(a) for beer – any quantity – and
(b) for spirits or wine – zero
Mr Gibson said the law, as it is above, applied to everyone including
politicians.”

Other lawyers, including Alistair Macadam (what better surname for a legal expert on tarmac) from QUT who spoke on ABC Radio, disagree, but I’d have to say that it looks to me like the only bitumen not covered by the law is at Frenchman’s and Portland Roads, not the airport.
The Premier’s reinstatement of Mullan seems to suggest that she did not break the law, which does no more than beg the question. After sacking Mullan Beattie announced a CMC inquiry into the issue. Shouldn’t he have waited until after the inquiry before sacking anyone. In fact, the CMC is the second port of call in this because the whole thing ought to be a police matter, in which case, one would wait for a police report. Neither of these bodies has produced a report yet, leaving the possibility open that they might recommend that the reinstated Mullan face criminal charges. Where would that leave the Premier?
Perhaps Mullan wasn’t sacked for breaching the law, but because she had “sen[t] completely the wrong signal about [the] Government’s commitment to helping Indigenous communities.” If that is the case and it is a question of the spirit rather than the letter of the law nothing has changed, whether Mullan broke the law or not. In his release announcing her reinstatement Beattie says:
“I accept that Teresa believes she made an honest recollection of events. She did the right thing in correcting her statement to the police.” This almost sounds as though she is being rewarded for her honesty if you paraphrased it like this, “Teresa broke the law and brought my government’s commitment to this policy into question, but she stood up to extreme pressure and honestly presented her side of the story, and therefore I am rewarding her.”
If that is partly the Premier’s reasoning, then what punishment is he now going to hand out to Policy Advisor Catherine Dunne, who had been told about the wine, but chose to keep her mouth closed about it until yesterday? Or member for Cook Jason O’Brien who not only now admits that he knew about the wine, but says that this particular law is stupid? This approach should see them disciplined for not speaking up when Mullan did.
The cynical will see the roll-out of admissions as proof that the reinstatement had nothing to do with the legal intricacies of whether the tarmac at the airport was covered by the law, and everything to do with the need to shut the damage down.
But then, as Mullan is still allowed to stick to her story, what exactly has been shut down? Perhaps Morris gave a lecture to the Premier about unfair dismissal laws, which would be all well and good, except that what embarrassment would there be to the government from dismissing her if Mullan had broken the law? And if she hadn’t, well the government could just deal with it when that was shown to be the case.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but none of this quite adds up. It still looks like the most inept piece of political management for quite some time, and it is not aging any better than the cheap wine at the centre of this brouhaha would either.

Well, I hesitate to enter the highly contested field of military procurement, but there was a sense of inevitability about the choice of the Abrams battle tank for the Oz army. Increasingly the Oz military looks like the regional task force for the US military.
I just can’t see how a tank designed decades ago to slug it out on probably nuclear battlefields in Europe with the monster Soviet equivalents is a suitable tank for Oz. The Abrams just guzzles fuel, is truly weighty and presents all sorts of transport and logistics support problems. As has been mentioned already by various commentators, to operate it would seem to be very difficult without significant US assistance. If the army needs tanks, surely a lot more of a much lighter tank would have been a better buy. The firepower of light tanks these days is still impressive, they are much more mobile, and more readily transported and supplied. Given the size as well as the lack of transport infrastructure of Oz and the region, mobility and support would seem to be crucial matters.
It certainly suggests that the real reason why the Abrams were chosen was so they could operate with US units, probably overseas. This integration of the Oz military into an increasingly aggressive US force structure is a serious business. It indicates a basic shift in Oz foreign policy and as such should be openly debated. Has Oz abandoned multilateral organisations like the UN? Will Oz take directions on hot issues from the US, even in our region (where we are increasingly suspect because of our strong US ties)?
Furthermore, the US is in the early stages of a complete restructuring of their entire military utilising new information and communications technology and other high-tech weapons systems. How, exactly, are we supposed to keep up as it gathers pace?
An Australian Defence Force (ADF) should be just that, not a US auxiliary force.
Actually, this reminds me of the Romans again…

According to British Labour’s leader of the Commons Peter Hain, New Labour is “overcentralised, undemocratic and closed to new ideas”.
I don’t honestly know how true this is of New Labour, but it certainly describes the ALP very well indeed. Despite reforms by Simon Crean following the Hawke-Wrann report, the ALP remains essentially a club for the benefit of party careerists. It is internally focused, driven from the top by a small group of operators, and completely disinterested in the concerns of the rank and file (let alone the wider public). The degree of concentration, due to dynasties and intermarriage as much as anything, is a serious impediment to anything like a proper functioning of the party. New members are welcomed with almost total indifference and a culture that is often actively hostile to new ideas. People with real competence are soon made aware that the old saying –
“it’s who you know, not what” – rules the ALP. Power means everything and power goes to those who organise the numbers. Thinking just gets in the way of following orders.
This culture of mediocrity and opportunism is why Mark Latham is so important. Whatever his failings, he is genuinely smart, and he has fire in his belly. He actually seems to care and he means business. But he is surrounded by the usual suspects, both staffers and parliamentarians, and if he is not careful they will drag him down to their level. If they have anything smouldering in their guts, it is a burning ambition for personal power. Latham will crash and burn if he lets them have their way, just as Beazley and Crean did.
So far leadership has done Latham good, and we can only hope he continues to try to be his own man. Given what the party culture has done to the ALP, and especially its increasingly hopeless leaders, he has nothing to lose.
Of course, I still think the ALP is the only game in town when it comes to effective (not to mention rational) national government, so this entrenched mediocrity is a genuine tragedy for Australia.

This blog has been considering a few religious issues lately, including Mel Gibson’s new film. While we are on this religious theme, I would suggest that there are some interesting parallels between Christ’s death and the current situation in Iraq.
A very hot issue for two millennia has been: who was really responsible for Christ’s death? My answer is this: the Romans invaded Palestine, set up a Roman government there and Roman troops were the ultimate force. So the Romans must accept ultimate responsibility for all major occurrences under their rule.
So, the US invaded Iraq, set up a US government there, and US soldiers are the ultimate force. So all the deaths, injuries and hardship currently being experienced by Iraqis is the responsibility of the US.
Now the US is desperately trying to set up an Iraqi government, and this policy of relative local autonomy was basic Roman policy too. But Roman provinces remained within the empire, and some will argue that the US intends Iraq to stay within a US orbit of influence, although this relationship may be more commercial in character.
Of course, things went very sour between Palestine and the Romans, and some years after the crucifixion there was a devastating rebellion, crushed with their usual brutality by the Romans. Let’s hope this catastrophe does not parallel future events.
What is most concerning about the situation in the Gulf is the failure of the reform movement in Iran. The Iranians are a much tougher prospect than Iraq ever was, and they are very influential in Iraq. They have also actively supported international terrorism (some claim Iran was behind the Lockerbie disaster that Libya has owned up to, supposedly in revenge for the plane shot down by the USS Vincennes). An active, radical Islamism that spreads from Iran into Iraq and beyond (possibly including Pakistan), probably armed with nuclear weapons, is just about a worse case scenario for the west. Especially as Israel has an early first use doctrine regarding its own arsenal of nuclear weapons.