By Steve Davies

The normalisation and globalisation of moral disengagement

Earlier this year I created The Moral Disengagement Handbook. The handbook focusses on the Australian Government and the Australian Public Service.

Why did I focus on them? Because over the past decade Australians have lived through and witnessed an appalling decline in the behaviour and practices of politicians along with that of the government agencies whose decisions and actions effect the lives of every single Australian.

In 2023 people are very attuned to the fact that all is not well with politics and government. The trouble is that the major parties are not really listening to them. Let alone acknowledging that the problem is them – behaviours and practice – and its systemic.

The persistent sentiments that runs through people’s disquiet is that politicians and government will never change, they are out of touch, they don’t care about people, and they don’t listen. Numerous real-life examples have created and reinforced that sentiment.

These sentiments have not changed with the election of the Albanese Government. If anything those sentiments are stronger than ever. Hence, for example, the rise and rise of the Teal independents.

It may be argued that the Albanese Government inherited the situations that have given rise to these sentiments. While there is no doubt that the extremes of the Morrison Government (along with those of previous LNP Governments), plunged the decline in behaviours and practices to new depths that does not absolve the Albanese Government of responsibility.

Why do I say that? Because … As I pointed out in the handbook:

“Tragically, within the Australian Government the moral compasses of public servants and politicians have been switched off and, indeed, are expected to be switched off. As a result, great harm is done to people, society and the land we live on. To all of our institutions and democracy itself.

Here we are in 2023 and, even with the election of the Albanese Government, we see a government that is fearful of dealing with the fact that moral disengagement has been normalised in government and, to varying degrees, all of our institutions.”

Here we are in December 2023 and what are seeing from the Albanese Government just over halfway through its term of office? A continuing failure to directly address the moral disengagement that has been normalised in government and its institutions. The statement I made in the handbook still holds true today. Moreso.

“Despite the fact that Professor Bandura’s work offers practical solutions to deal with the problem the Albanese Government and the Australian Public Service persists with a tried and failed focus – Culture change and leadership. Over decades millions of dollars has been wasted on culture change programmes and leadership development in the Australian Public Service. They have failed dismally. It is the wrong solution for what is the actual problem – the normalisation of moral disengagement.

2023. The Albanese Government and the Australian Public Service continues to waste taxpayers’ money on tried, failed and wrong approaches despite the very real threats moral disengagement poses to the lives and future of the Australian people. To the health of the public service, government, society and democracy.”

The situation is even more urgent due to the dire need to ensure the behaviours, practices, policies and actions of government actually ensure the well-being of people, households and the community in the face of:

• Social inequality
• Climate change and catastrophe
• The continuing destructive impacts of the policies and actions of the Morrison Government
• Homelessness
• The loss of opportunity to younger generations now and into the future
• The severe distortion of our economy courtesy of the military industrial complex
• The continuing demise of democracy
• Especially our participation in the war and genocide being inflicted on the Palestinian people.

What we are seeing within individual Western nations, is a slide into a 21^st century dark age driven by the normalisation of moral disengagement.

The war and genocide being sponsored and inflicted on the Palestinian people by those nations is clear indication of the globalisation of moral disengagement in action.

If the governments of Western nations dealt with moral disengagement from within would they be participating in the globalisation of moral disengagement? Would they be sponsoring, directly enabling and sanitising the industrial scale slaughter of the Palestinian people?

Would they be going down the path of a Dark Age Within. A Dark Age Without?

And what can we all do, individually and together, to put a stop to the moral disengagement that is driving this comprehensive descent into darkness?

Restoring Moral Engagement in the Australian Government – Ending the silence that feeds bad government and harms people

We all know it. We all feel its the impact. Government is a big, complicated beast. Politicians seemingly never change. Many have lost sight of their real reason for being there – that is to represent their constituents and govern for all Australians.

The only time, it seems, they are interested in us is when elections come around and then many do whatever it takes to persuade us to vote for them. Increasingly, these persuasive tactics have taken on a dark and sinister form with the Liberal party now deploying Trumpian lies, and propaganda imported from the USA to scare and confuse people halting any progress to better future – think the No campaign.

Then there is the Australian Public Service. From the outside, they seem to blindly follow orders and are more concerned about protecting their own careers and political masters than serving the people. If people dare to complain they get stuck on a bureaucratic treadmill.

It’s always the same. The majority of politicians and bureaucrats at the top are in it for themselves. Despite all the money government has (our money), and all the technology it’s got worse.

The treatment of whistle blowers such as David McBride and Richard Boyle and The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry illustrate how bad things have got.

The Robodebt Royal Commission showed us all just how bad things are inside ‘the system’. People died.

Time after time the media ‘reports’ on the goings on in the Australian Government and the Australian Public Service. However are we really getting the true picture? For several years now the mainstream Australian media have not been pulling their weight when it comes to delivering independent journalism.

The major commercial media outlets and, sadly, the ABC have lost their moral compass resorting to presenting False Balance Reporting often spruiking lies and propaganda in the form of news. And it’s very obvious the Murdoch media is running a protection racket for Liberal Party and their vested interests. When the Fourth Estate has fallen prey to vested interests we know that democracy is in trouble.

The persecution of whistleblowers, the stifling freedom of information, rampant secrecy, the win at all costs misuse of the legal system along with rampant spin and denial. The Australian Government has it all. To this day.

No wonder things are a mess, and no wonder most public servants quickly learn to shut up. The threshold for being seen as a troublemaker is nigh on paranoid.

We could go on and on. Despite the good work of many, many good people an awful lot of ‘bad’ things continue to happen. The real question is what drives all the bad things. The answer is the insidious normalisation of moral disengagement. That’s the conversation The Australian Government is afraid to have.

We can have that conversation and, at the same time, hold politicians to account in a very specific way that cuts through all the clutter and denials.

Let’s gets down to it.

What is the status of the work on moral disengagement? Where did in come from?

Professor Albert Bandura (1925 – 2021). Albert “Al” Bandura, the David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology, Emeritus, in the School of Humanities and Sciences Internationally recognised as the most influential psychologist of the twentieth century.

For his extraordinary contributions Professor Bandura was presented with the National Medal of Science at the White House by President Obama on May 19, 2016.

Without Albert Bandura the understanding of the importance of social learning, social modelling, observational learning and how people come to accept and repeat behaviours would be a shadow of what it is today.

Fast track to 2016. The publication of Albert Bandura’s book “Moral disengagement: How people do harm and live with themselves” is a powerful legacy. A practical tool to empower people in Australia and elsewhere to remove and prevent moral disengagement. To restore the health of government, all our institutions and our democracy.

“… people in all walks of life behave harmfully and still maintain positive self-regard and live in peace with themselves. They do so by disengaging moral self-sanctions from their harmful practices. These psychosocial mechanisms of moral disengagement operate at both the individual and social system levels” (Albert Bandura).

The research that underpins moral disengagement is work renowned and rock solid. The specific mechanisms of moral disengagement identified by Professor Bandura are of immense practical use.

Using the mechanisms of moral disengagement?

As Professor Bandura states the “… mechanisms of moral disengagement operate at both the individual and social system levels”. The Australian Government, the Parliament, political parties and the Australian Public Service are intense social systems.

The mechanisms can be used to judge and provide feedback on the behaviours and practices of politicians and officials within government (individual level).

The mechanisms also provide a reliable means of identifying the behaviours and practices that drive every harmful, corrupt, abusive, inhuman statement, decision, policy, process or action imaginable (social system level).

Consequently, we can all use the mechanisms to judge the moral health of the Australian Government in a precise and cohesive way. This is important as it prevents politicians and official from portraying complaints as isolated instances.

The mechanisms of moral disengagement

Advantageous comparison

Making something appear better or less harmful than it is by pointing to something far worse.

Attribution of blame

Blaming the victims or targets that have been harmed by immoral behaviours and practices for bringing it on themselves.

Dehumanization

Portraying people who will be harmed by behaviours and practices as less than human. As case numbers in a system or process.

Diffusion of responsibility

Minimising personal responsibility for any harm caused to people by claiming they are only responsible for a small part of the process.

Displacement of responsibility

Superficially acknowledging the harm caused to people by behaviours and practices, while claiming it’s the result of decisions made at a higher level.

Disregard, distortion, and denial of consequences

Ignoring, minimising and denying the harm (including evidence of harm), caused to people.

Euphemistic language

Using sanitised language and jargon to mask the hurt and harm caused to people.

Moral justification

Claiming behaviours and practices that cause harm to people serve a higher social and moral purpose.

Tips

Start by briefly describing the issue you are concerned about. Is it an individual or system level issue? Or both.

Is your issue about:

• A particular public service agency
• A number of public service agencies
• The Australian Public Service as a whole
• A government minister
• A particular policy or programme
• A particular administrative process
• The behaviours and practices of public servants
• The behaviours and practices of politicians
• The management of staff within a public service agency

Highlight the mechanisms of moral disengagement you have experienced or observed.

It is likely that you have experienced or observed a large number of or all of the mechanisms/behaviours. Consider the intensity with which you have experienced them.

If you have experienced one or very few of the mechanisms/behaviours also consider the intensity with which you have experienced them.

End by pointing out the harm being done, and deaths being caused.

The Australian Dental Association Media Release

The Australian Dental Association (ADA) today announced it was ready to work with the Albanese Government to put into practice some key recommendations form the Senate report into dental access.

The Final Report into the Provision of and Access to Dental Services in Australia which was led by Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, included a number of key recommendations which the ADA has been calling on for a number of years.

“We’re delighted the report agreed that the Government needs to set up a dental scheme for seniors immediately,” said new ADA President Dr Scott Davis. “Now the ADA is publicly calling to meet with the Health Minister in Canberra to get this underway.

“The legislative framework for the Seniors Dental Benefits Schedule already exists with the Dental Benefits Act, and the administrative framework exists thanks to the Child Dental Benefits Schedule.

“Now all it needs is the will of the current government to get it going, thus providing vastly improved oral healthcare for over 200,000 aged care residents around Australia who we know from the Aged Care Royal Commission have some of the worst oral health in the nation.”

Other report recommendations the ADA backs include increased salaries for dental staff working in the public sector, incentives to encourage dental practitioners to work in rural areas, the appointment of a Chief Dental and Oral Health Officer to lead and coordinate reforms provided that person is a dentist, and the extension of access to general anaesthesia for disabled children.

However there are some areas of the Report that require further scrutiny to ensure the provision of high quality dental services, and others which the ADA is concerned may be risky, such as the extension of access to pharmaceutical dispensing by non-medical personnel.

The Report also urged Canberra to work with state and territories to ‘achieve universal access to dental and oral healthcare, which expands coverage under Medicare or a similar scheme for essential oral healthcare, over time, in stages.’

The ADA has for many years held the position that is not a finically viable option for any government, due to the $10 bn a year minimum that it would cost to administer.

“That’s why we think it’s preferable to set up targeted schemes which are more affordable and target those in need first,” added Dr Davis. “That means seniors in aged care first, followed by schemes specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the disabled and those on low incomes.”

“We urge the government to work with us on the implementation of these recommendations and look forward to seeing their official response to the report within the requisite three month timeframe.”

By James Moore

The long life of Henry Kissinger prompted me to think of the short life of a boyhood friend. In the summer of 1968, Kissinger was serving as an unofficial consultant for the United States at the Paris Peace Talks to end the War in Vietnam. Almost wantonly ambitious, the future Secretary of State was secretly working to win a cabinet position from whatever presidential candidate might go to the White House. Thirty thousand American lives had already been lost in the Guerrilla combat of Southeast Asia, and Kissinger was about to play a role in extending the conflict by conspiring with a foreign power to affect an American election.

Roy Raymond Dukes, meanwhile, had just graduated from Southwestern High School in Flint, Michigan. I do not know what his options were regarding his future, but they almost certainly had to include college track scholarships. Dukes was often spoken of as having the potential to become the first school boy to ever break 45 seconds in the quarter mile. I had seen him compete in meets that involved my high school team and remember being astonished by his speed and fluidity on a cinder track.

Dukes’ legs sometimes appeared to reach up to his armpits and he had a barrel chest that fed oxygen and power to his great stride. His heels never touched the surface when he ran and his breathing was almost silent and effortless. In the George Graves Relays Invitational in Midland, Michigan, I recall how other competitors stopped what they were doing to watch Roy anchor Southwestern’s mile relay team. My suspicion is that we all knew we were witnessing greatness and were intrigued by what made the difference between Roy and the rest of us, who he made look like plodding Clydesdales.

Pfc Roy Raymond Dukes, U.S. Army

I spoke with Roy only briefly at a few all-comers track meets that summer but never got any sense of his plans. He was a year ahead of me in high school and was already graduated and to be without a student deferment exposed 18-year-old males to the military draft. Our conversations never got that personal but I assumed he had figured out what was next and maybe had hoped to run for the U.S. Army, if he were not going to attend a college or university. When I heard from another running friend that Roy had been drafted about a year after graduation, I thought maybe he had tried college and gave it up from a lack of interest. I did not know.

I do know now, though, what everyone understands about the Vietnam War. The 1968 peace talks to broker an end to the war concluded with the same terms as the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, which resulted in the 1975 collapse of South Vietnam. The unnecessary delay was a product, in significant part, to the ego and ambitions of Henry Kissinger. In 1967, the author and Harvard professor was cleared by LBJ to launch unofficial peace talks with representatives of North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. They fell apart when Kissinger was unable to convince President Lyndon Baines Johnson to stop bombing the North. Ultimately, the war led to LBJ declining to run for reelection.

There was, however, a very close race for president to succeed LBJ in 1968 and the war was the central issue. In a clear attempt to ingratiate himself with the Democrats, whose support in the polls was growing as the war wagged on, Kissinger contacted LBJ’s advisor Averell Harriman, who a year later was leading renewed peace efforts in Paris. He wrote Harriman that he was “through with Republican politics” and that the “party is hopeless and unfit to govern.” Unsurprisingly, a month later, while young men like Roy Raymond Dukes of Flint, Michigan were trying to figure out their lives without fear of war, Kissinger arrived in Paris as an unofficial consultant to the American delegation. He burnished his credentials with the Democrats by constant expressions of disgust regarding Richard Nixon, the GOP nominee.

Kissinger was looking to join a winning team and if the bombing of North Vietnam could be halted at the negotiation table, Democratic Presidential Nominee Hubert H. Humphrey was almost certain to win the November election that year. Nonetheless, Kissinger was taking no chances and even as he was serving the incumbent LBJ’s efforts at peace, he began back-channel communications with the Richard Nixon campaign. Using a telephone booth so his calls could not be monitored, historians wrote that Kissinger contacted Nixon’s foreign policy advisor Richard Allen to offer information in exchange for a senior cabinet position if the Californian won the White House. When he informed Allen that LBJ’s team had negotiated a pause to bombing campaigns, the information secured him the job as National Security advisor if Nixon were to win. He was playing the same game with Humphrey’s campaign, lobbying for a senior post. Numerous historians have concluded that Nixon and Kissinger conspired to slow down the peace process to give the Republican a better chance at becoming president.

Although Kissinger had publicly criticized Nixon in the past for possessing what he called a “dangerous misunderstanding” of foreign policy, and describing LBJ’s successor as being burdened with “shallowness,” he jumped into his role in the new administration and resumed negotiations to achieve what Nixon hoped would be viewed by history as “peace with honor.” A restive American population had given Nixon the presidency after the Democrats had been unable to stop the bombing and arrive at peace terms before Election Day. Nixon won the total vote by a half percentage point over Humphrey. Whatever conciliatory impulses Kissinger might have had for quickly ending the war disappeared into policy morasses like “Vietnamization” and increased bombing campaigns to force the Viet Cong back to the bargaining table.

About the time in 1969 that the U.S. began carpet bombing Cambodia in what was supposed to eliminate supply lines for the Viet Cong, Roy Raymond Dukes was drafted into the Army. I was never able to learn how he spent his time between graduation and induction but I know he would have had to take his physical in Detroit before being shipped off to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for basic training. Had there been even a tentative agreement to end hostilities in 1968, Roy might have taken a job and begun training in an effort to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials and the 1972 games in Munich. He would have had a real chance at making the team in the 400 meters. Instead, he arrived “in-country” the first week of January 1970.

According to a New York Times article, Roy would have been joining his infantry combat unit at the time a heroin scourge was sweeping through American troops. The report indicated that as many as 60,000 enlisted U.S. personnel were addicted and that some field units had more than 50 percent of their number addicted to the drug. The heroin in Vietnam was 95 percent pure, and cheap. A habit in the U.S. during that era cost an addict as much as $100 a day, and soldiers in Vietnam needed only $5 to satisfy their craving. There was no need to use needles and mainline because the purity of the heroin made it easy to snort or smoke. Facing death almost daily and living in near-squalid conditions when not sleeping in jungles where rain, snakes, and the enemy held dominion, troops sought an easy escape from their circumstances through drug use.

The drug culture was widespread when PFC Roy R. Dukes landed in Vietnam and joined D Troop, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. His outfit was ordered to provide support to combat operations by escorting convoys and conducting occasional air cover. Just six weeks after his arrival, on February 17, 1971, Dukes was manning a gun on a jeep that was part of protecting a supply convoy, which was moving through Phuoc Long Province. The train of military vehicles was near the Song Be River about ten miles northwest of Phuouc Binh when someone discovered Roy Raymond Dukes unconscious over his gun, and he was airlifted to the 93rd Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh. Army doctors indicated he was suffering from anoxic encephalopathy, which is a deprivation of oxygen to the brain. The cause was heroin overdose. Roy lingered for just under two weeks but never regained consciousness. The Army, in its clinical and obtuse fashion, described the cause of his death as “self-inflicted, ground casualty.”

In the years that followed the 1968 tampering with the peace process by Kissinger and Nixon, the war accelerated instead of winding down. America began bombing Cambodia and Laos, which analysts said involved 540,000 pounds of explosives that killed up to 500,000 civilians. Kissinger personally approved each of the 3,785 bombing missions between 1969 and ‘70, an assault that led to the destabilization of the Cambodian government and brought about the Pol Pot regime, which killed more than 2 million people in a genocide. In Vietnam, around 200 American soldiers died each week as the total grew toward an eventual number of 58,220, memorialized now on a black, marble wall in Washington, D.C. In 1995, Vietnam released its estimate of dead with a total number of 2,000,000 citizens and 1,100,000 soldiers.

When I began traveling to Washington on frequent reporting assignments in the eighties, I made it a point to visit the Vietnam Memorial. Often, I ran from my hotel down the National Mall and looked up Roy’s name and was overwhelmed by the dramatic accounting of loss carved into the stone. It’s not a true measurement, though, because there is no way to know what might have been accomplished by those young people had their lives not been sacrificed in a geo-political game that was never destined to have a winner. Kissinger’s life, however, is easily measured by the deaths he helped cause through his political manipulations in Cambodia, Laos, East Timor, Bangladesh, Argentina, and Chile. Atrocities and war crimes he facilitated using American power account for 3-4 million deaths.

His legacy is not likely to be burdened with facts, though, any more than was Nixon’s, who gave Kissinger his initial power. In April of 1994, I was assigned to cover Richard Nixon’s funeral in California and provide live reports for CBS-TV affiliates around the country. Reality, however, was not in attendance as I had to listen to Democratic and Republican presidents, a famed minister, historians and colleagues, lionize a man who nearly brought down the country with a constitutional crisis with Watergate and lingered over a war that was not winnable and wasted American lives and treasure in a vain attempt to salvage an historic political legacy. Only minutes after he had been lowered into the grave outside his presidential library, huge hailstones began to fall after loud claps of thunder and in minutes there were several inches accumulated on the ground. Satellite trucks were knocked off the air. An L.A. weatherman said that night he could find no record of hail ever having fallen in Yorba Linda.

I suspect it is nowhere cool enough for hail to fall where Nixon and Kissinger presently exist.

This article was originally published in Texas to the World.

Within my social media circle and in the news reporting I read, there is growing support for the view that Dutton and the LNP are ripe to win the next election.

This assumption is based on views that Labor has done nothing about the cost of living or that Prime Minister Albanese travels too much and interest rates are too high. Of course, our debt needs to be lowered; asylum seekers should never have been released, and we need to spend more on infrastructure. You can add to that the cost of renting, and more houses need to be built.

Andrew Bolt is certainly confident of a Labor loss (isn’t he always?):

“The Coalition under Peter Dutton could actually win the next election.”

He then advised they needed a reshuffle and suggested they bring back former prime minister Scott Morrison. Yes, he did. Check it out. It really is difficult to take Andrew Bolt seriously.

Or Shadow Attorney General Michaelia Cash, who says that:

“… the Government’s handling of the High Court overturning indefinite detention proves they are ‘hopelessly’ out of their depth.”

Right-wing columnist Gerard Henderson, writing for The Australian (paywalled) was quick to blow Dutton’s trumpet:

“Despite all the naysayers decrying his decision for the Liberals to campaign against the voice, Peter Dutton has been vindicated and is looking strong in the lead up to the next election.”

These astonishing predictions came after The Voice Referendum and Labor’s decision to let some refugees with bad records into the community following a high court decision and before the Court gave its reasons.

Is it possible that at this time in the election cycle, the Coalition is indeed in a position to win in 2025? My first reaction is to say, “no chance”. After all, it was only a short time ago that Morrison lost on May 21 2022, after almost a decade of corruption, immorality, disgrace, continuous scandals, poor leadership, and lying. Keeping up with all the controversy and poor decisions was a daily grind: Lack of action on climate change, a poor response to the pandemic and the tragedy behind Robo debt are just a few.

Is the electorate ready to forgive them and return the same people to office within one term? In normal circumstances, you would say no; they wouldn’t, but I confess, we live in strange times.

Let’s look at where people say Labor is vulnerable, remembering we are some ways out from the next election.

1. The subs deal (a Morrison leftover) has been unpopular. Only time will tell by how much, and there is lots of it. I also disagree with this decision. However, I don’t think it is a front-of-mind issue.

2. Regarding the next tax breaks (another Morrison leftover), people think the money could be better spent other than handing money back to the wealthy. But to break a promise of such enormity. A broken promise for the greater good takes guts. Do it, Albo.

It really is starting to become glaringly obvious that Stage 3 is not just an unfair tax cut that gives massive cuts to the richest, it is also very, very dumb economics. https://t.co/DLqYOXck3L

— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) November 21, 2023

Make some big decisions. Negative gearing is nothing more than a tax rort for wealthy investors that reduces housing affordability. Get rid of it.

3. The cost of living. Coles, Woolworths and others control the cost of living more than any government. Fuel is controlled by external forces. Allow more competition.

4. High interest rates. No government controls interest rates. It is as accurate as that.

5. Albo travels too much. It is in our own interest that he does. It has also been shown that he travels roughly the same – or less- as other recent PMs. Most of it has been restoring the damage done by the previous Government. China, in particular. Labor has restored our trade, which was almost destroyed by Morrison. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will attend the COP 28 Meeting in December.

6. Release of asylum seekers. The Government obeyed the High Court of Australia. The Court has yet to release its reasons for the decision. The legislation passed thus far could be more explicit but can only be so once their reasons are known.

Further news on this story was exposed in The Guardian on November 21. Five of the 93 people affected by this month’s high court decision on indefinite detention had already been released into community detention by the Coalition.

7. Cost of renting. A carryover problem from the Morrison Government. A decade of doing nothing.

8. Build more housing. But both are being addressed, if not to everyone’s satisfaction.

9. Spend more on infrastructure. Yes, but now is not the time. It would make inflation much worse.

10. The Voice referendum. It was a bad loss and poorly sold, but it isn’t an election breaker. The conservatives not only destroyed “The Voice” but also any chance of us ever becoming a republic.

11. The economy. In answer to a question during Question Time, the Prime Minister said:

“Let’s compare our economy, I’m asked about international comparisons of our economy and how it’s going,” “Our unemployment rate is 3.6 – lower than what we inherited; our participation rate is 66.7 – higher than what we inherited; our gender pay gap is 13 – lower than what we inherited.”

Mr Albanese said manufacturing jobs and women employed full-time were higher than what was “inherited”. His time expired.

And let’s remember the enormous debt Morrison left behind.

Labor’s record in office so far might appear bland, but a glimpse at their website tells a different story.

For example, on November 23, Albanese announced his government would “rapidly expand investment schemes for clean energy projects.”

i. Robodebt. People will be reminded that somebody must be responsible. Who might it be? Scott Morrison, Marise Payne, Malcolm Turnbull, Alan Tudge, Christian Porter and/or Stuart Robert?

How damaging would it be during an election campaign?

Would you again put the same people in charge of policies similar to Robodebt?

ii. Many other Cases are before the NACC:

“146 referrals are pending triage. 53 referrals are currently in active triage, and 181 referrals that have been triaged are currently under assessment.”

Some, like Robodebt, will be open to the public. So, a constant stream of bad news stories will emerge from the NACC.

iii. Despite current events, Peter Dutton is still the best thing Labor has going for it. Outside of being tough on immigration, he has little going for him. A personality transplant might be a good idea. He carries a load of baggage.

iv. The Guardian Essential Survey of November 14 showed Australia at its pessimistic best, but I suspect this pessimism will have a brighter smile by the time of the election. Most people felt Australia should stay out of trouble between the superpowers and the war in the Middle East.

Most folks surveyed thought interest rates would go up again and rent would continue to rise. The price of petrol is decided overseas and not by our government.

The new social cohesion report released around the same time was also “sobering“. Katherine Murphy reports that:

“After the polarising voice referendum campaign, amid rising community tensions over the Middle East war and sustained anxiety about the economy, shows little appetite for frivolity.

v. This same apathetic view of the world, like rust, is spreading throughout the community. From its governing position, Labor is well-placed to combat the conservatives’ attacks on institutions and the future of life as we know it.

Importantly, continues Murphy, this:

“… new research suggests many Liberal and National voters are in a severe funk now Labor is in power.

“The number of people in this cohort who say they are pessimistic or very pessimistic about Australia’s future also increased by 27 points.”

If that’s what their supporters think about the future, I wonder what they think of Dutton as a leader. Is he just another Abbott, good at spewing out negative thought bubbles but never able to transition to Prime Minister?

The LNP is a coalition of political parties that took an extraordinary toll, over almost a decade, on our institutions and democracy. They are nothing more than a coalition of capitalistic shysters more interested in the top than those in need and have never apologised for the most deplorable period of governance in Australian political history. For example, see this list of lies that Scott Morrison told during his tenure as Prime Minister. Then there is this list of Peter Dutton’s lies about The Voice.

Am I to believe that the LNP under Dutton, without even a climate change or energy policy, will right all their wrongs when they didn’t even confess to Robodebt (or all the other falsehoods and acts of corruption)? Are they really a serious contender to become our next government after only 18 months?

Many conservatives believe that they have the power to shape society in a way that benefits the elite. They see themselves as the superior class, adhering to the principle of the aristocracy or the ‘betters’. They believe that they are natural leaders and the best suited to rule. They feel entitled to all the benefits that society creates as a reward for their superiority.

Considering that we live in a more complex and scientifically advanced world than ever, it seems unrealistic to expect the LNP, with its Luddite principles, to guide us through these complexities. Since the May 21, 2022 election, Labor has been busy correcting the mistakes made by Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison. Fixing the country’s economy may take years.

Sorry, I cannot swallow this nonsense. Andrew, Michaelia and Gerard should get a grip on themselves.

Anyway, Coalition strategists would know victory next time for them is a huge ask. First-term governments federally very rarely lose.

International Justice Mission Media Release

International Justice Mission (IJM) Australia applauds progress on the establishment of an Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner, with the introduction of amendments to the Modern Slavery Act 2018 tabled by the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus KC MP, in federal Parliament today.

Following advocacy by IJM Australia, the Albanese Government committed $8 million over four years in the 2023 Budget to establish the Commissioner.

The appointed Commissioner would work across Government, industry and civil society to support compliance with the Modern Slavery Act, improve transparency in supply chains and help fight modern slavery in Australia and overseas.

“We are very pleased to see the Albanese Government progressing their election commitment by taking this step to enshrine the Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner in law,” IJM Australia Chief Advocacy Officer Grace Wong said.

“As IJM has long advocated, Australia has a significant role to play in fighting modern slavery both at home and overseas, and a robust and powerful Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner is key to this.

“Independence is important to maintaining objectivity, and we are particularly pleased to see the Attorney-General today confirm the Commissioner will have the discretion to work as they need to.

“We also welcome the commitment to the role of the Commissioner as educator of community and business and ongoing research as well as transparency through annual reporting.

“Tragically, modern slavery is only a growing problem across the Indo Pacific and around the world.

“Australia has a crucial role to play in cracking down on human rights abuses in our supply chains to give Australians the confidence that the products we buy at home are not made off the back of human exploitation.

“We are pleased to see the Commissioner will have the power to make recommendations to the Australian Government about continuous improvement of modern slavery policy and are hopeful this advice will soon include an expansion of the Commissioner’s role to include investigative and enforcement powers.

“We look forward to working with the Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner once appointed on the development of their strategic plan, and together continuing to move forward on this issue, led and informed by survivors of modern slavery,” Ms Wong stated.

For more information on IJM Australia, visit: www.ijm.org.au

One could earn a tidy sum the number of times the word “sovereignty” has been uttered or mentioned in public statements and briefings by the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.

But such sovereignty has shown itself to be counterfeit. The net of dependency and control is being increasingly tightened around Australia, be it in terms of Washington’s access to rare commodities (nickel, cobalt, lithium), the proposed and ultimately fatuous nuclear-propelled submarine fleet, and the broader militarisation and garrisoning of the country by US military personnel and assets. (The latter includes the stationing of such nuclear-capable assets as B-52 bombers in the Northern Territory.)

The next notch on the belt of US control has been affirmed by new proposals that will effectively make technological access to the Australian defence industry by AUKUS partners (the United States and the United Kingdom) an even easier affair than it already is. But in so doing, the intention is to restrict the supply of military and dual-use good technology from Australia to other foreign entities while privileging the concerns of the US and UK. In short, control is set to be wrested from Australia.

The issue of reforming US export controls, governed by the musty provisions of the US International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR), was always going to be a feature of any technology transfer, notably regarding nuclear-propulsion. But even before the minting of AUKUS, Canberra and Washington had pondered the issue of industrial integration and sharing technology via such instruments as the Defense Cooperation Treaty of 2012 and Australia’s addition to the National Technology and Industrial Base in 2017.

This fundamentally failed enterprise risks being complicated further by the latest export reforms, though you would not think so, reading the guff streaming from the Australian Defence Department. A media release from Defence Minister Richard Marles tries to justify the changes by stating that “billions of dollars in investment” will be released. Bureaucratic red tape will be slashed – for the Australian Defence industry and the AUKUS partners. “Under the legislation introduced today, Australia’s existing trade controls will be expanded to regulate the supply of controlled items and provision of services in the Defence and Strategic Goods List, ensuring our cutting-edge military technologies are protected.”

Central to the reforms is the introduction of a national exemption that will cover trade of defence goods and technologies with the US and UK, thereby “establishing a license-free environment for Australian industry, research and science.” But the broader object here is unmistakably directed, less to Australian capabilities than privileged access and a relinquishing of control to the paymasters in Washington. A closer read, and it’s all got to do with those wretched white elephants of the sea: the nuclear-powered submarine.

As the Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy, states, “This legislation is an important step in the Albanese Government’s strategy for acquiring the state-of-the-art nuclear-powered submarines that will be key to protecting Australians and our nation’s interests.” In doing so, Conroy, Marles and company are offering Australia’s defence base to the State Department and the Pentagon.

With a mixture of hard sobriety and alarm, a number of expert voices have voiced concern regarding the implications of these new regulations. One is Bill Greenwalt, a figure much known in the field of US defence procurement, largely as a prominent drafter of its legal framework. He is unequivocal in his criticism of the US approach, and the keen willingness of Australian officials to capitulate. “After years of US State Department prodding, it appears that Australia signed up to the principles and specifics of the failed US export control system,” Greenwalt explained to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Whenever it cooperates with the US it will surrender any sovereign capability it develops to the United States control and bureaucracy.”

The singular feature of these arrangements, Greenwalt continues to elaborate, is that Australia “got nothing except the hope that the US will remove process barriers that will allow the US to essentially steal and control Australian technology faster.”

In an email sent to Breaking Defense, Greenwalt was even more excoriating of the Australian effort. “It appears that the Australians adopted the US export control system lock, stock and barrel, and everything I wrote about in my USSC (US Studies Center) piece in the 8 deadly sins of ITAR section will now apply to Australian innovation. I think they just put themselves back 50 years.”

The paper in question, co-authored with Tom Corben, identifies those deadly sins that risk impairing the success of AUKUS: “an outdated mindset; universality and non-materiality; extraterritoriality; anti-discrimination; transactional process compliance; knowledge taint; non-reciprocity; and unwarranted predictability.”

When such vulgar middle-management speech is decoded, much can be put down to the fact that dealing with Washington and its military-industrial complex can be an imperilling exercise. The US imperium remains fixated, as Greenwalt and Corben write, with “an outdated superpower mindset” discouragingly inhibiting to its allies. What constitutes a “defence article” within such export controls is very much left to the discretion of the executive. The archaic application of extraterritoriality means that recipient countries of US technology must request permission from the State Department if re-exporting to another end-user is required for any designated defence article.

The failure to reform such strictures, and the insistence that Australia make its own specific adjustments, alarms Chennupati Jagadish, president of the Australian Academy of Science. The new regulations may encourage unfettered collaboration between the US and UK, “but I would require an approved permit prior to collaborating with other foreign nationals. Without it, my collaborations could see me jailed.” The bleak conclusion: “it expands Australia’s backyard to include the US and UK, but it raises the fence.” Or, more accurately, it incorporates, with a stern finality, Australia as a pliable satellite in an Anglo-American arrangement whose defence arrangements are controlled by Washington.

West Australia’s council elections seem a strange place to pinpoint a warning about American radicalising political games infiltrating the Australian landscape. While it is strange, it is nonetheless important.

American conservative and commentator Andrew Breitbart declared a (contested) doctrine that “politics is downstream from culture.” According to his institutional heir, Steve Bannon, this means strategists must change culture to open up the possibilities in politics. From his time as Breitbart News editor to Chief Strategist of Trump’s White House, he fomented culture war. He continues the goal through hosting his War Room podcast and video.

It is crucial not to underestimate the importance of podcasting in the conveying of “news” and the creation of information bubbles. Bannon’s War Room podcast and video has become a major influencer in the international Right. It continues to chart in the top 10 political podcasts in the USA and the UK. In Australia, it is charting at No.11. Naomi Klein’s important book Doppelgänger describes how crucial the podcast is to the Mirror World inhabited by the radical and conspiratorial Right.

Bannon’s message is anti-democratic, ultraconservative religious and conspiracist, with his podcast performances pitching him substantially to the right of Fox News, playing to the Trumpist CPAC crowd. His production is described as the “top spreader of misinformation in the conservative media ecosystem.”

Bannon’s repeated advice to his audience is that every possible election must be controlled and contested by their faction. In America this means sowing chaos in school boards and library boards, fired by the energy of outrage against pandemic measures and infiltrated with QAnon talking points about “groomers” in schools and libraries.

It is not clear that Bannon’s approach will work. It has varied outcomes in America. What is true is that it is motivating coalitions on the Right to coalesce and contest the most minor of elections where they can have more impact, shaping decisions on culture war issues.

The group behind Perth’s council campaign is called Stand Up Now Australia which was established by Peter Harris. It runs Community Connect, where candidates who know to keep their “mouth shut when it was needed,” campaign on more mainstream issues, concealing their conspiracy agenda. The group claims to have achieved between 11 and 20 successful candidates, with potentially 3 or 4 of the 9-member Busselton council emerging from the program.

They represent conspiratorial positions opposing the 15-minute or smart city idea, as well as promoting sovereign citizen fantasies.

The other category of special interest targeting council elections, just as it targets state and federal contests, is the Pentecostal movement. West Australia’s experience illustrates the degree to which these two movements are intermingled. “Freedom” movement’s Harris was the founder of, and a key donor to, the federal “Family First” party and a member of the Assemblies of God church in South Australia. Harris claimed in 2005 that his political position was not aligned to the American Christian Right, but around the party’s founding in 2004, it was claimed that the many candidates around the country were “coy” about their religious beliefs “on advice.”

It is noteworthy that the Christian Right gives permission to “lie for Jesus.”

In Australian councils, winning elections means taking steps to gain influence over the “economic, social and cultural development” of the community. Instead of fringe figures bullying councils to the point that they have taken their meetings online, conspiracists would become part of shaping what groups and events the region chooses to fund.

A quorum of 3 councillors allows the setting of agenda as well as considerable sway. The role can also, as in Moira Deeming’s climb to state politics, help build profile.

Anything that could be defined as “woke,” such as events tied to First People or multicultural groups could be challenged. This includes libraries which have become a focal point for conspiratorial opposition to LGBTQIA+ celebrations.

Solving the problem of understanding what Australia must do to address the crisis of candidates contesting our elections with anti-democratic goals is not simple.

Much damage can be done in one term. Trusting democracy to remove problematic representatives at the next election allows harm to be done in the meantime.

A group that secretly plans to deceive the electorate about their intentions could be considered to commit the crime of conspiracy. It is very unlikely that an Attorney-General or Director of Public Prosecutions would act on this, not least because of freedom of speech (or silence) objections. States with an obligation to truth in political advertising might have more scope to pursue such a false impression, even produced by omission.

We need changes to the electoral laws to prevent people from lying or hiding their intentions.

Our media is clearly not capable of conducting the appropriate level of investigation and revelation so voters know what is at stake. The ABC does not have the funding to carry out its core mandate, let alone adding this task to the portfolio. It would, however, have the benefit of being a relatively trusted source by those who care enough to research their candidates’ views and intentions.

Nor are our commercial networks the trustworthy bodies to task with this project. Ninefax is compromised by its leadership, not to mention understaffed. Moves on Australian Regional Media (radio) and Australian Community Media (The Canberra Times etc) in recent weeks need monitoring for the impact on their integrity.

News Corp clearly is not a contender. Added to its integrity crisis is the fact that News Corp bought the body that published our suburban and regional mastheads. In 2020, it stopped printing them, putting 76 online and closing 36 permanently. It cut the number of journalists covering local news to a third of the former force. News that used to be delivered to most homes is now unwritten or locked behind paywalls. In Australia, 2.8 million people remain “highly excluded” from internet access. Online news can also limit access to reliable news for some older Australians. These actions by News Corp function as another of its major blows to Australia’s democratic project.

We require a database across the three levels of government so that voters can see what relevant commentary and affiliations our candidates are disguising. This is not something easily tackled by a civil society organisation. It constitutes a substantial workload. A crowdsourcing platform, for example, would require constant monitoring to prevent defamatory submissions remaining on display.

This is a debate Australians need to have urgently, so that voters can know the crucial facts about the candidates they must elect. Democracy demands transparency.

This essay first appeared in Pearls and Irritations as Deception: radicalised groups are infiltrating Australian democracy in your town

By Denis Bright

Metropolitan growth plans for inner city and outer suburban residential areas operate in all states and territories. Any planning advances provide charismatic leaders with photo opportunities for news bytes of the latest inspirational solutions to affordability, social and cultural problems.

The change of government in NSW has brought only some tinkering with the Greater Sydney Region Plan 2036. There is some new focus on affordability, sustainability, and community engagement but the Minns Government is quite committed to due processes in planning.

These adjustments have been made through a commitment to co-investment partnerships with the private sector rather than on direct government financial support for the NSW Generations Fund to proceed with the Greater Sydney Plan for 2036 (Image: Greater Cities Commission):

The previous LNP State Government was aware of the political volatility of Western Sydney. Despite the best efforts of the LNP in financing planning initiatives, the state seats of Parramatta, Penrith and Riverstone were all casualties of the 6.3 percent swing to the Minns Government after preferences across NSW on 23 March 2023.

Impression artist, Arthur Stretton (1867-1943), captured the spirit of the land along the upper reaches of the Hawkesbury River between Richmond Bridge and Windsor in 1886 with the escarpment of the Blue Mountains in the background. Recycling all this into shopping malls and unaffordable housing estates would be a national crime (Image: National Gallery of Victoria Showing Impressions of the Purple Noons Transparent Might from 1896):

The previous state LNP Government offered financial support to the NW Growth Area Strategy. The WestInvest Community Fund built-up $5 billion in assets from the NSW Generations Fund. The Generations Fund was topped up by the sale of public equity in the M4 WestConnex Motorway to a leading multinational infrastructure provider. In the dash for cash, the NSW Generations Fund placed public funds on global money markets with mixed success in the difficult recovery phase from COVID-19 as covered by Peter Hannam in The Guardian (21 October 2021).

All this financial support to Western Sydney could not protect residents from the essentially neoliberal character of outer metro development in the post-1996 era with its containment of public sector spending, tax avoidance strategies for multinational investors and of course tax breaks for households investing in the property market. Good intentions in the corridors of power and influence could not correct the essential limitations of neoliberal urban systems.

During less interventionist phases in public policy in the post-1996 era, corporate investment soon took over where resources were removed from the public sector in public housing and community development.

Riverstone Mall was acquired by the Vicinity Centre in 2012 at a cost of $250 million. The Riverstone Mall had been operational since 1984. Finance was provided by superannuation investment and overseas institutional investment companies like the US based Vanguard Group, State Street Corporation as well as BlackRock Investment in both Britain and the USA. These US firms are a feature of the investment profiles of so much outer-metro development across Australia.

Realty 1 Partners-Riverstone Shopping Mall, Sydney West

Nearby houses and town units are in the million-dollar price range. Access to this market requires a deposit of well over $250,000 and a monthly repayment of over $5,500 per month for at least 30 years.

More recently, most states and territories in Australia are tinkering with co-investment strategies to the excesses of neoliberal urbanization in outer metro corridors as noted from media monitoring. Without the vast revenue windfalls from mineral and gas royalties in the more resource rich states, NSW is greatly affected by real term cuts in Commonwealth Grants and GST allocations in a slowing economy. The costs of delivering Stage 3 Tax Cuts and future increases in defence spending on the AUKUS deal will not assist with this structural problem.

Similar commitments in Britain have produced a stagnant economy which has been worsened by Brexit from the days of Boris Johnston, a key architect of the AUKUS deal on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Cornwall in 2020.

Overseas, Denmark had a history of using smart co-investment strategies to assist with the provision of multiplier investment for infrastructure and community development. Such alternatives work well in prosperous times but even Denmark has been unable to sustain its post-COVID-19 recovery even under an interventionist social democratic government.

Dissenting viewpoints have emerged from progressive economists and urban planners on the post-1996 style of economic development in Australia as revealed by media monitoring from Saul Eslake, John Quiggin and Cameron Murray from the Centre for Housing Research at the University of Tasmania. Urban Planners Calling for Alternatives to Neoliberal Property Markets and Tax Breaks for Investors. Readers can easily research the suggestions from Peter Mares of the University of Melbourne and Emma Saunders of the University of NSW.

Our current trading ties and investment ties with leading Asian economies are the best protection of even a reasonable degree of national sovereignty and greater affordability for the residents of outer metro growth areas which are always under political challenges from far-right populism.

After decades of commitment by LNP national governments in the post-1996 era, the pathways to alternative ways and means of delivering social justice for the outer-metropolitan growth corridors are not well defined. The International Monetary Fund last week warned the federal government that the nation’s infrastructure spending boom has helped push the economy beyond full capacity (AFR 1 November 2023):

The International Monetary Fund has warned the federal government that the nation’s infrastructure spending boom has helped push the economy beyond full capacity, requiring the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates further to tame inflation.

Transport experts and economists backed the IMF’s call to scale back the record $30 billion a year of public infrastructure spending that is competing for scarce labour and materials and nominated Victoria’s $125 billion suburban rail loop as a prime candidate for the chopping block.

However, some of the criticisms through IMF’s Australian Chief Abdoul Wane is probably ideologically motivated by links to US business lobbies and to the US Department of Commerce which closely monitors Australia’s compliance with the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) relating to investment protocols. AUSTRADE as a possible compliant partner in the ongoing assessments of our joint commitments to neoliberal values in trade and investment.

Commitment to co-investment to diversify investment in outer metro infrastructure and community development received no mentions in the previous LNP’s State Infrastructure Strategy of 2022-42 which was released in May 2022.

NSW Premier Minns and Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully have taken some minor initiatives to improve housing affordability in the Macquarie Park Innovation Precinct (MPIP) adjacent to office market precincts behind Parramatta, North Sydney and Sydney CBD (9 November 2023).

Along with residential development, the revitalisation proposal includes ground level retail for entertainment, dining, and recreation. The new public open space would include play areas, sports fields, fitness stations, BBQ areas along with picnic tables and shelters. The rezoning proposal builds on the vision set out in the Macquarie Park Innovation Precinct (MPIP) Place Strategy finalised by the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) in 2022 which outlines a staged approach to the development and transformation.

With the Sydney Property Market still well-overpriced, it is probably too late for the NSW Generations Fund to invest in new assets to implement co-investment strategies around transport-oriented locations with a significant social housing component. Strategies like that must await neoliberal market corrections fuelled by interest rate increases. Open-Agent has the grim details for Sydney householders to October 2023:

Ironically, Australia’s growing multinational property sectors with its shopping malls and adjacent housing precincts can ride out market corrections as their capital investment sectors are not directly affected by RBA interest rate decisions. New investment on a future falling market is well served by systematic tax avoidance strategies as covered recently by ABC News (8 November 2023).

Difficult times require more such initiatives to take hard-pressed householders out of the neoliberal era. This should not have to be a fully state responsibility. There is still time to ditch more of the economic and strategic policies from the Morrison era before they bring more hardship to voters in outer metro growth areas where federal Labor’s vote is always highly volatile (Image: The Conversation 25 October 2022):

There was no better example of Australia’s politicised public service than its Home Affairs Secretary, Mike Pezzullo. In most other countries, he would have been the ideal conspirator in a coup, a tittletattler in the ranks and bound to brief against those he did not like. Give him a dagger, and he was bound to use it.

His rise to power paralleled that of the emergence of that super amalgam of a ministry that arose during the Turnbull government. Falling for the fatal error that centralising power assures the consolidation of efficiency, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was swayed by arguments that a broader ministry of home affairs was just the sort of thing Australia needed. What the Commonwealth got in 2017, instead, was a monster run by the twin-headed beast of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, and Secretary Pezzullo.

The extent of Pezzullo’s involvement in the machinations of government, and, it followed, party policy, was revealed by texts sent to Liberal Party lobbyist and former vice president of the NSW Liberals, Scott Briggs. These became the subject of a joint investigation mounted by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes.

In August 2018, when the nation’s capital was privy to yet another potential palace coup against a sitting Prime Minister, Pezzullo was opening up to Briggs with indiscreet relish. In one message he longed to be part of history. “I don’t want to interfere but you won’t be surprised to hear that in the event of Scomo [Scott Morrison] getting up I would like to see [Peter] Dutton come back to HA [Home Affairs]. No reason for him to stay on the backbench that I can see.” Briggs does not demur.

Pezzullo’s targets in the government varied. Defence Minister Marise Payne was deemed “completely ineffectual” and a poor fit for office. Former Liberal Attorney-General George Brandis was excoriated for befuddling public servants, though Pezzullo’s reasons for doing so are clear: it was Brandis, as Australia’s top legal officer, who expressed concerns that Canberra did not need a ministry of such size.

While the Coalition was in power, Pezzullo was coarsely candid about his feelings on war and conflict. Fancying himself as something of a historian, he told gathered staff in his 2021 ANZAC Day address that Australians best prepare for war. “Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again, yet again, for the curse of war.” The speech is marked by a blatant misuse and misunderstanding of the legacies left by two US generals: Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Fittingly, Pezzullo ignores one vital aspect of MacArthur: his sacking for being a bit too defiant of the commander-in-chief of the time, President Harry S. Truman.

Australia’s much more modest version of that commander, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has now received the findings of an independent inquiry into Pezzullo’s conduct conducted by Lynnelle Briggs. In a short statement untroubled by any fuss, Albanese revealed that Pezzullo’s position as department secretary had been terminated.

We have little to go on regarding the substance of the findings. But press reports note that the now former secretary used his duty, power, status or authority to gain benefits and advantages for himself; engaged in gossip and disrespectful critique of ministers and public servants; failed to keep sensitive government information confidential; failed to remain apolitical in his office and failed to disclose any relevant conflicts of interest.

Unfortunately, the report itself will not be made public, an unsatisfactory state of affairs that does little to restore confidence in the civil service. The argument advanced in this case is that publication will lead to the disclosure of personal information. But what of it? The insinuation here is hard to avoid: keeping such an investigation buried suggests a closed shop, with officials keen to keep matters out of the public glare. Given that Pezzullo was the most notable panjandrum in Canberra’s bureaucratic tangle, the rot is hardly likely to have remained at the head. Who else, the question must be asked, breached protocol? The list is likely to be ugly and long.

As former Senator Rex Patrick stated, Albanese “has done the right and necessary thing in terminating Mike Pezzullo’s appointment as Home Affairs Secretary. But in the interests of transparency and accountability he must also table Lynelle Briggs’s report in Parliament today.”

Having left the Australian Public Service Code in tatters, Pezzullo will undoubtedly find himself on the board of a defence or security company and take his place in the military-industrial complex. He might finally get a chance to join a thinktank. His sacking, however, was the culmination of a culture long in the making. Over the decades, the major parties have made political appointments a matter of course, subordinating expertise and fearless advice to party loyalties. Perversely enough, Pezzullo was a perfect exponent of that tendency: a political civil servant. The result: Canberra is awash and sinking with officialdom terrified to take a different stance to the political agenda of the day. Agree with those in government, or risk languishing, demotion or worse.

Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock has now told us that the latest iteration of inflation is being driven by demand, reflecting in increased demand for services such as dentistry and haircuts which are driving up prices and interest rates will have to follow.

So, showing my ignorance, which some would say borders on wokeism, I tentatively put my hand up and ask ‘why is it so ?’

Well, as economists roll their eyes at my naivety they patiently explain that interest rates need to increase for a number of reasons :

1. It will put more money in the pockets of bankers and their shareholders and that must be a win win, surely ?

2. Mortgage interest rates will increase – including on existing home loans because the banks don’t like to give fixed interest loans in this country – these increases will immediately flow through to aspiring homeowners and landlords who, in the latter case, will pass it on to renters. So, again it’s win win – it fits into the economist’s mantra articulated by W C Fields that you should ‘never give a sucker an even break’ more commonly, in banking circles, ‘always kick a man when he’s down’.

3. The stated objective of the Reserve Bank is to take money out of the economy to dampen demand ; clearly if people have no money to lavish on haircuts and dentists this is a good thing for the economy.

So my next hesitant question has to be, what about the stage three tax cuts, won’t that pump more money into the economy as the wealthy splurge on their mullets, quiffs and root-canal ?

Again the economists roll their collective eyes and explain that these tax cuts, passed by the Morrison government in mid-2019, begin in July 2024 will cost the economy around $254 billion over the next decade. The Parliamentary Budget Office [The PBO] has found that the tax cuts will cost $20.4bn in their first year, 2024-25, rising every year to $42.9bn in 2033-34. That evidently is a good thing as it directs large amounts of money into the pockets of the generally well-heeled who won’t fritter this windfall on things like dental care and perms but will wisely buy shares in banks because, as bank robber Willie Sutton once noted when asked why he robbed banks : “Because that’s where the money is.”

So the Governor of the Reserve Bank is clearly pointing at you lot for your lavish expectations of living in houses and driving cars and then, to add insult to economic injury, you insist on enriching dentists and barbers – shame on you !

It resembles a chronology of desperation, shifting narratives, and schoolboy howlers. From the outset, the mass lethality of Israeli strikes against Gaza and the collective punishment of its populace needed some justification, however tenuous. If it could be shown, convincingly, that Hamas and its allies had militarised such civilian infrastructure as hospitals, they would become fair game for vengeful air strikes and military assault. Thus, could Israel’s soldiers demonstrate, not merely the animal savagery of Hamas, one indifferent to humanity and suffering, but the virtue of Israel’s own military objectives. The forces of pallid light would again prevail against swarthy evil.

Interest quickly shifted to Al-Shifa Hospital, where the carnage has been horrific. This was said to be the wicked heart of operations, one depicted with exaggerated relish in a video titled “Home to Hamas’ Headquarters, This is an IDF 3D Diagram of the Shifa Hospital”. In an explanatory note, the Israeli Defence Forces state in the crude production that the hospital “is not only the largest hospital in Gaza but it also acts as the main headquarters for Hamas’ terrorist activity.” It goes on to note that, “Terrorism does not belong in a hospital and the IDF will operate to uncover any terrorist infrastructure.”

This bit of amateurish theatrics suitably complemented another effort which made its debut on November 11. In its official Arabic account affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israel posted a selfie video (now deleted) starring a Palestinian nurse indignant at Hamas’ commandeering of the Al-Shifa hospital. A close inspection of the production could only engender doubt: a well laundered lab coat, appropriate positioning of implicating logos, crude simulations of background bombing, the unconvincing accent. “The only thing missing was a degree hanging in the background saying Tel Aviv Upstairs Medical College,” a scornful Marc Owen Jones of The Daily Beast wrote.

Despite these stumbling efforts, support followed from Israel’s staunch backers, the United States. In a press briefing held on November 14, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications, John Kirby, asserted that “we have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages.”

The language used by Kirby, however, did not exactly suggest a thriving command and control centre at work, though he would go so far as to claim that the hospital served as a “command-and-control node”. “They have stored weapons there, and they’re prepared to respond to an Israeli operation against that facility.”

When the IDF eventually made its way into the hospital, the initial evidence was not promising. In videos and photos posted by the Israeli forces none revealed tunnels and evidence of a vast command centre. As Aric Toler of the New York Times reported, a mere 10 guns were found at the first count. “The IDF has claimed that the ‘beating heart’ of Hamas’ operations is beneath Shifa. Presumably they’ll release more photos/videos?” In another post, Toler identifies various “grab bags” with “guns and the body armor scattered around, and a laptop next to CD-Rs.”

The IDF just released their first photos/videos from the Shifa Hospital after last night's raid. I count 10 guns. The IDF has claimed that the "beating heart" of Hamas' operations is beneath Shifa.
Presumably they'll release more photos/videos?https://t.co/gZjhI4WW1X pic.twitter.com/NtWcZorZMI

— Aric Toler (@AricToler) November 15, 2023

In another round of public relations tripping, two new videos released by both the IDF and the Shin Bet security agency purported to document, as the Times of Israel describes it, a tunnel shaft with “a winding staircase from around three meters deep, continuing down for another seven meters until it reaches part of the tunnel network. The tunnel continues for five meters, before turning to the right and continuing for another 50 meters.” At the end of the tunnel lies an obstructing blast door, equipped with a hole for shooters. “The findings,” an IDF statement claimed with weak conviction, “prove beyond all doubt that buildings in the hospital complex are used as infrastructure for the Hamas terror organization, for terror activity. This is further proof of the cynical use that the Hamas terror organization makes of the residents of the Gaza Strip as a human shield for its murderous terror activities.”

Despite some strained satisfaction in the statement, the picture Israel offers is gnarled and tattered. The IDF production teams continue to struggle in reviving a cadaverous narrative, using their own soldiers as props (because that’s convincing) to describe their first impressions on seeing “a terrorist tunnel”. Just as its cream-of-the-crop elite failed to get wind of the October 7 attack, suggesting an expertise drugged by hubris, Israel’s information strategy seems increasingly suspect, slippery and ever subject to qualification. Rifles, a truck, and a hostage or two, do not a central military command centre make.

It is also worth noting that physicians and doctors working at the hospital – the authentic ones, in any case – have also been perplexed by the allegations that Al-Shifa serves as a throbbing command and control hub for Hamas and its combat operations. Norwegian physician Mads Gilbert, who has worked at the facility for 16 years, told Democracy Now! that there was “no evidence at all” that such claims were true. “If it was a military command centre, I would not work there.” At least we can be sure that Gilbert is not a stage extra.

In this bleak mess, it is worth stressing that even if the hospital proved to be a military facility, humanitarian protections would not mysteriously cease for those patients and staff within it. “Anything that the attacking force can do to allow the humanitarian functions of that hospital to continue,” reasons Adil Haq of Rutgers Law School, “they’re obligated to do, even if there’s some office somewhere in the building where there is a fighter holed up.” But the strategy against Al-Shifa was never humanitarian to begin with, starting with depriving Gaza access to fuel, food and water. The rest is Pallywood.