By 2353NM

You have to wonder if some with a high profile in the ALP have a political death wish. Recently, the government’s performance was summed up by the Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck sitting at an enquiry into aged care, speechless for half a minute because he couldn’t answer a pretty obvious question on the number of deaths in aged care homes due to COVID-19. Rather than kicking back and watching the train wreck, Agriculture and Resources Shadow Minister Joel Fitzgibbon sticks his head up the next day and suggests that the ALP will split at some point over environmental issues, but not in his political lifetime.

Fitzgibbon represents a large chunk of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, and anyone who has ever driven through that area will attest to the extent of the mining infrastructure. Apparently Fitzgibbon has been arguing for a while that the ALP needs to support the continuation of coal mining in Australia. Regardless of Fitzgibbon’s opinion, the use of coal has been falling for years in most parts of the world, with demand likely to fall further — for example Japan has announced it will close its older and inefficient coal fired power stations by 2030. It’s ridiculous to plan to maintain or increase the production of a product when there is no demand.

We live in a world that is constantly changing. If we go back to the beginning of the 20th century there was a considerable industry in horse drawn transport, from farriers to wagon builders to the people who supplied the hay used as ‘fuel’ for horses and those that cleaned the hay up after ‘processing’. While the horse drawn wagons still exist, they are more an advertising medium rather than a genuine attempt to move the product from point A to point B. Those supporting the horse drawn transport industry had to adapt as the internal combustion engine gained popularity.

In the 21st Century, renewable energy production is increasing as evidenced by the Clean Energy Council claiming that 2 million Australian homes now have solar panels on the roof and

An average of six panels per minute are being installed in Australia, with the Australian Energy Market Operator estimating an average of 10-20 panels per minute if large-scale solar projects are factored in.

which suggests we won’t be taking up the slack locally as our coal exports reduce.

Regardless of the machinations of those that want to keep the status quo, a number of institutional investors and financiers have announced that they will no longer invest or insure fossil fuel infrastructure. While there might be a commercial advantage to the promotion of a newly discovered environmental focus, if there wasn’t a business case to be made for a swift exit from fossil fuel investments, it wouldn’t be happening.

Surely, someone like Fitzgibbon is supposed to be a leader in his community. He should be having discussions with concerned residents that his side of the political fence is aware of the problem, working on ways to adapt the local and national economy to ensure continual growth when the inevitable happens. Rather, he seems to be sticking his head in the sand and humming ‘Kumbaya’ in the vain hope that the world will go on as it has without radical change. Is it any wonder that the ALP’s primary vote has declined? About 10% of the population now vote for the Greens — a lot of them probably used to vote for the ALP but shifted on the basis that the environment is changing for the worse and some in the ALP seem to be hoping for a miracle (or even hoping and humming Kumbaya), which really isn’t a great mitigation strategy.

What makes Fitzgibbon’s publicity stunt even less intelligent (if that was possible), the government isn’t looking all that good at the moment. We’ve already mentioned Colbeck’s failure to remember details of his portfolio. Let’s face it, if Colbeck was asked if Mrs Jones’ en-suite door was on the left or right wall in Room 15 at the Happy Valley Aged Care home, he would be forgiven for not having a clue. The number of people who have died from COVID-19 in his care — aged care is a federal responsibly and he is the responsible minister — shouldn’t be an obscure fact that requires the ruffling of what appeared to be numerous briefing notes before he could answer. On August 21 (the day Colbeck couldn’t recall the number), Morrison claimed he had confidence in his Aged Care Minister.

Ahead of the August 21 ‘National Cabinet Meeting’, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton re-entered the fray claiming that Queensland’s ALP Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was playing populist politics in the lead up to the October state election by keeping the borders closed to those from New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT. Queensland’s Chief Medical Officer responded, demonstrating that pandemic management is yet another thing that Dutton is clueless about. Queensland Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles offered to accompany Dutton around some shopping centres in the northern outskirts of Brisbane (where Dutton is the federal representative and Miles is the state representative) to actually ask the public. Dutton seems to have crawled back into his box and Queensland announced an unknown origin COVID-19 cluster the next morning, giving further fuel to those demanding the borders remain closed.

Morrison has some problems with his trusted ministers which the ALP has been capitalising on by generally keeping quiet and enjoying the show. However, when ‘the other mob’ are continually demonstrating they can’t manage their way out of a wet paper bag, let alone a pandemic, why on earth would you tip a bucket on your own side of the political spectrum as Fitzgibbon did, giving ‘the other mob’ a chance to point and suggest that we all look over there?

We all get that the transition from a fossil fuel economy to one based on renewable energy is not business as usual. Nor will it be stress free for all involved. Certainly, there needs to be a discussion on how the ALP will manage a transition to a renewables based economy while supporting workers that are in sunset industries, but surely it should be behind closed doors until there is a policy.

Then, and only then, there needs to be a public discussion on what the problem is, what the ALP has planned to mitigate the problem and help those adversely affected. That would explain to a lot of their supporters past and present why the ALP is a far safer environmental bet than the Greens who seem to have a problem articulating agreed policy in a number of areas. Both however are a better option than the Coalition that wants to fund the business case for construction of new a coal fired power station as a sop to vested interests who can’t see the wood for the trees.

What do you think?

By Denis Bright

What should be Australia’s responses to those mega Chinese commercial and development initiatives which have already transformed the global political economy?

This article merely offers some thoughtful resources relating to the impact of current investment and trade hostilities towards China. This is one of the most vital issues of our times. Badly handled, it could reimpose the heaviest burdens of war and militarism on future generations. Hard-line supporters of military build-ups might be endangering our future security and living standards in difficult times ahead with a focus on defence over sustainable development for the Indo-Pacific Basin.

Better relations with China would indeed be a return to normalcy when, and if, President Trump vacates the White House.

Trump’s gun-boat diplomacy is a return to a bygone era. Colonies like Hong Kong were acquired by force to facilitate exports of opium to China by the British East India Company and other agencies. Colonial expansions worldwide were stained by similar antics and especially in Australia where a whole ancient civilisation became a captive of global capitalism. Revolutionary America once stood up to such antics in the War of Independence (1776-83) and resistance to the British occupation of Washington in 1812-14 when many national monuments were set ablaze.

The fall of the Berlin Wall offered some fond hopes of a return to better times in a century which had been marred by ongoing wars, a global pandemic in 1919 and a Great Depression.

The BRICS partnership between China, Brazil, India, South Africa and Russia and The Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) were both Chinese initiatives that assisted in the stagnant global economy of the post-GFC era. The biggest positive impact of a resurgent China became associated with the multiplier effects of its global investment and trade in countries, rich and poor alike.

Australia should be ecstatic with all these economic positives. The lives of a vast swathe of humanity across the Indo Pacific Basin are still in the process of being ameliorated. The immediate benefits for Australians were far-reaching.

China takes almost half our exports. This share has increased since the current COVID-19 crisis as the Chinese economy rebuilds after its own pandemic. Only security controls through the Foreign Investment Review Board and now new powers proposed for use by our Foreign Minister are placing brakes on future Chinese investment (AFR 26 August 2020).

This enthusiasm for a strengthening of relationships between China and Australia was upheld by China’s Deputy Ambassador Wang Xining to the National Press Club on 26 August 2020. Here are some key extracts. The full text is available from the Chinese embassy web site.

China has been Australia’s biggest trade partner for 11 years in a row and is now Australia’s largest source of international students and tourists, and more promisingly, most important collaborator on scientific research on account of the number of university research papers and mentions in the top 1 per cent of most-cited articles.

On top of these impressive statistics, there have been more heartening accomplishments on the human dimensions of our relationship. The constantly growing business connections and cultural exchanges have consequential impact on deepening our mutual understanding and appreciation and forging stronger friendship and affinity between our peoples.

This balanced perspective contrasts with a repeat of that continued bluster against China in The Australian with its scoops from ASIO press releases and other conservative insiders who have the ear of the Murdoch press.

The current emphasis on the Thousand Talents Plan from China should be balanced by consideration of the invitations offered by the US Government to other talented Australians and future leaders:

Meanwhile, the charm offensive by Chinese leaders seems to be working with fresh winds from a Chinese economy that is recovering from the recent pandemic. Why indeed should only one side of the global political divide be entitled to use a charm offensive?

From the Chinese perspective, the charm offensive has worked well in the recent past.

The Chinese-focused mass investment initiatives complemented the more conventional market-based development priorities of the Washington-based IMF and the World Bank at a time when recovery from the GFC was imperative. US firms could indeed benefit from a consumer-led recovery across the developing world and in affluent consumer societies which make use of Chinese manufactured products to fine-tune their brand names.

Is Australia Now Hedging its Options in Anticipation of a Biden-Harris Victory?

Although the Australian Government always seeks consensus with the Trump Administration, it is not deaf or blind to the possibility of a democratic regime change at this year’s US Presidential elections. There are certainly different currents of opinions within the federal LNP about the leadership qualities of President Trump. I expect that most members of the federal LNP have positive perceptions about the prospects of a Biden-Harris victory. These MPs are keeping very quiet about this vital issue and cite the need for non-interference in the domestic affairs of the USA as their justification for silence about issues like the extent of racism and poverty as precincts of cities go up in flames again.

Foreign minister Julie Bishop suggested at the last presidential election that Hillary Clinton was likely to win in 2016. She correctly warned Australians of the consequences of a Trump Presidency on our commercial outreach to Asian countries (AFR 30 October 2016). Where are the signs of such independent assessments amongst the current crop of federal LNP leaders?

The current trade and investment wars between the Trump Administration and China in the interests of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) strategies will continue to hurt Australia badly. Capital flows to Australia have been headed in the wrong direction for over two years and long before the arrival of the current pandemic (Data is shown in millions of Australian dollars):

Back in the days when China was a valued partner in post-GFC globalization, the Abbott Government first negotiated our involvement in the AIIB. Its outreach was to assist with Belt and Road Projects across Central Asia and Southern Asia along the New Silk Road to Europe and the Maritime Road to Africa:

Image from Asia Green Real Estate

As the fifth anniversary of the AIIB approaches in January 2021, there are 102 countries signed up with this major global development bank, including 26 prospective members.

Ironically, the Washington based IMF continues to warn of the financial risks which have been associated with the Trump Administration’s ongoing trade and investment wars with China and EU countries in its latest Annual Report:

Back in the Obama-era, former IMF President Christine Lagarde, supported the formation of the AIIB:

“Mrs Lagarde said there was “massive” room for IMF co-operation with the AIIB on infrastructure financing. The US has criticised the UK and other allies for supporting the bank. The US sees the AIIB as a rival to the World Bank, and as a lever for Beijing to extend its influence in the region.”

Meanwhile, it is the AIIB which pushes on with its commitment to progressive globalisation while the Trump Administration has retreated into its bizarre MAGA agendas with threats of punitive tariffs and investment controls which contradict its own free-trade agreements.

With the Obama Administration well into its second term in 2014, this era was still a very positive phase of contemporary globalisation. With Australia’s support, the US widened its commitment to the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-Operation Forum (APEC).

While Secretary of State John Kerry disagreed with Australia’s commitment to join the AIIB, our choice caused no real problems. Allied countries in Europe had generally made a similar call. Even Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt chose to give the AIIB a chance to spread economic and community development to those areas most in need. There was a similar attitude towards the formation of BRICS. Only Japan followed the US directive to boycott the new AIIB and played no part in BRICS.

Australia’s DFAT was upbeat about the prospects for APEC which had assisted in dissipating Cold War tensions from the Vietnam War era.

Image of the APEC Network from Ministry of Trade and Industry Singapore

There are no ideological barriers to extend the APEC community of nations. Countries between Peru and Mexico can be expected to join the current 21 members of the APEC community as well as Timor Leste and smaller island states in Micronesia and Melanesia. Even China was gracious enough to allow membership from Taiwan China. It is not just a typo error as both countries are represented separately but co-operatively.

In the favourable climate for international relations in 2013-14, the consolidation of the APEC community was a plus for Australian diplomacy from the 1980s. It was an initiative which both sides of politics supported until the arrival of those MAGA strategies from the Trump administration.

Australia proceeded to foster the integration of China and even Russia into the Pacific community of nations. Membership of the AIIB was not even a subtle challenge to the global role of the IMF and the World Bank in international affairs (AFR 24 October 2014).

US corporations generally welcomed the integration of China into the contemporary globalisation. Only President Trump failed to grasp an appreciation of the symbiotic relationship between the emergence of China as an economic superpower and the longer-term stability of the US economy.

Both sides of politics in Australia can and should work with an incoming Biden-Harris team to expand APEC into a broader Indo-Pacific Basin Forum as a substitute for the current style of gun-boast and megaphone diplomacy.

Current Realities of Australia’s Shareholdings in the AIIB

The latest update on shareholdings in the AIIB is based on the 2019 Annual Report. Australia has a subscribed capital of AU$5.25 billion in 2019. Deposit instalments were not increased this year, possibly under pressure from the Trump Administration.

To Australia’s credit, it has maintained a strong financial association with the AIIB. It has voting rights on the AIIB Board in Beijing at a time when warning bells about the resurgence of China has been noted by the White House:

“China is beginning to erode this financial system by erecting a new institutional system based in economic dependency to Chinese informal economic practices, rather than to the West and its formalized rule of law. Western financial institutions require significant macroeconomic reforms, austerity measures, and other accountability measures to secure investment. However, the Chinese provide credit without such preconditions and even offer their own workforce to deploy such investments through large-scale infrastructure projects. Such an approach increases China’s informal power over a country’s internal economic and political affairs.

China first brought this approach to Africa where they took advantage of perceptions on the continent that the existing Western financial system was exploiting them. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Paris Club, a group of largely Western creditors, loaned African nations $540 billion from 1970-2002. Despite paying close to $550 billion, these countries still owe $295 billion. As such, African nations increasingly see these loan agreements as punishing them, rather than providing a pathway towards restored economic health.

Leveraging African scepticism of the West, China solidified its influence through investments in Africa’s infrastructure as part of their “One Belt, One Road” initiative, built and funded as a $200 million gift a new headquarters for the African Union, and is writing off or reducing $1.2 billion in African debt — a stark contrast to a Westernized system that Africans perceive is continually indebting them.

China’s infrastructure investments in Africa has already yielded social and political capital returns. Africa increasingly views the Chinese system as an attractive one that advances not just its own economic interests but theirs as well.”

While the Australian Government continues to support all the strategic rhetoric of the Trump Administration against China, our commitment to the AIIB carries a lingering spark of the Whitlamesque in Australian foreign policy.

The more eccentric initiatives of the Trump White House against China at a commercial and strategic level can be negotiated away by an incoming Biden-Harris administration that is supported by a huge mandate in the US House of Representatives. It can probably extend to the senate if some Republicans break ranks by deciding to support a new administration as only one third of the senate plus two casual vacancies will be re-elected in 2020.

In an opinion piece in the Canberra Times (22 August 2020), Crispin Hull calls on the governments of Australia and New Zealand to distance themselves from the strategic antics of President Trump if he is re-elected this year.

Hopefully, there will be a decisive result in the forthcoming presidential election. China will undoubtedly use its charm offensive to invite a return to normalcy. All significant parties in the Australian parliament will welcome developments as they focus inwardly on their own varied responses to the current public health, economic and wider social problems afflicting the nation.

By 2353NM

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of the USA in the aftermath of the ‘Great Depression’ that commenced with the stock market crashes of 1929. Rather than riding out the Depression, promising business as usual at some point in the future, Roosevelt instituted a series of economic programs across the USA that focused on ‘the 3Rs’, relief for unemployed, recovery of the economy and reform of the financial system. Roosevelt also overcame the objections of a large isolationist campaign in the USA to provide help to the allied forces in World War 2, first of all through the ‘lend-lease’ program where armaments were ‘given’ to the allied forces and subsequently through a direct involvement in both the European and Asian ‘theatres’ of war. Arguably, Roosevelt also set the USA up for its financial and political domination of the remainder of the 20th Century.

In short, Roosevelt was a leader. He didn’t do everything correctly and despite being the President that repealed the USA’s prohibition, you could argue that in terms of the norms of 2020, his actions left a lot to be desired. However, in the terms of the era, his actions were radical and met by significant opposition with the US political and legal systems of the day. Sadly Australia’s response to the ‘Great Depression’ was nowhere as near as successful. The economy in Australia remained generally depressed until the economic stimulus caused by additional expenditure on raising and outfitting the military at the commencement of World War 2.

Conversely in the current malaise generated by COVID 19, Australians are certainly managing better than the Americans from a medical viewpoint. When compared on most measures, Australia is one of the world’s leaders in ‘flattening the curve’ and reducing deaths while managing to maintain some economic activity. Despite the marketing, the leadership we are seeing is not due to the actions of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Sure, he is making the right noises and seems to be (generally) saying the right things, but there is a disconnect between Morrison’s actions and the marketing of the actions.

Paul Bongiorno recently discussed Morrison’s leadership throughout the current pandemic in The Saturday Paper (paywalled). It is noted that

Scott Morrison keeps misreading the mood of a nation gripped by fear. Nowhere is this more obvious than his now-abandoned legal case against state border closures — or to be more precise, against the lockouts in the Labor-governed states of Western Australia and Queensland. The Liberal-governed states of Tasmania and South Australia escaped his censure.

If the ‘mood of the nation’ is represented by the survey conducted by The Australia Institute in May where 3 in 4 Australians surveyed supported state border closures, the misreading was not something that could be claimed to be within any reasonable margin of error.

However, Morrison was still supporting failed politician and self-described ‘businessman’ Clive Palmer’s Court Case against the West Australian Government’s border restrictions during July and August, until a campaign was mounted by the (only) Perth newspaper. Morrison issued the instruction to federal Attorney-General (and Western Australian) Christian Porter to withdraw from the case. It was a rushed decision — the previous week, according to Bongiorno, Porter was texting WA Government’s Attorney-General, taunting him for being on the losing side.

In March, the ACTU called for payment of two weeks ‘pandemic leave’ for all those who are required to self-isolate. Morrison ignored the request which has to an extent worsened Victoria’s recent ‘second wave’ as those that couldn’t afford to stay home and isolate went to work and assisted the pandemic to spread. Recently the Unions and the Business Council of Australia wrote a joint letter to the Coalition Government again requesting pandemic leave — which Morrison has since agreed to, initially as a Victoria only arrangement, a couple of days later the payment was extended if required across the country.

Over at The Guardian, Greg Jericho has been looking at wages policy over recent years and — surprise, surprise — wages generally haven’t been growing at or better than inflation for about seven years (or 2013 — when the Coalition was elected to government). As Jericho suggests

As the pandemic crisis continues, we need to focus not just on the economic recovery but what kind of economy and society we want that recovery to lead to — because the government is using this crisis to push its agenda.

Discovering this week that 2.5 million people are either out of work or underemployed is pretty scary, but add in record low wages growth and you can understand people being fearful of what the future holds.

Morrison is talking about flexibility for employers to enable them to employ more people, however as Jericho notes

Flexibility is always code for the ability to reduce employees’ hours. And with that comes lower wages growth because workers constantly feel pressure of a trade-off between better wages for fewer hours.

The government is negotiating with employer groups and the ACTU for changes to the IR system, but has threatened to “go it alone” should no agreement be reached by the end of this month.

In addition to his lack of understanding of public opinion and lack of regard for the economic circumstances of those with insecure or low paid work, Morrison’s government is the responsible authority for aged care in Australia and there have been a number of COVID 19 clusters based in aged care homes. Morrison is attempting to duck shove responsibility back to the states, as demonstrated in Victoria where the state government were supplying staff to operate privately owned aged care homes as this article was being prepared. Greg Jericho also commented

This week as well, the head of Scott Morrison’s Covid advisory commission, former gas company director Nev Power, confirmed to a Senate committee that the commission was pushing for a gas-led recovery rather than one underpinned by a shift towards renewable energy.

The government is clearly using the crisis to favour fossil-fuel energy and sideline renewables as it hopes people’s attention has shifted from the climate-change crisis. (By the way, the first half of this year was the second hottest on record.)

Roosevelt took advantage of a crisis to make a better USA. You would hope Morrison and those that support him can live with the realisation that they could have made a better Australia for the next 50 to 70 years — and blew it.

What do you think?

By Denis Bright

The arrival of Kamala Harris as the running-mate to Joe Biden has energised this year’s US Presidential Campaign. As a fringe-benefit, the Biden-Harris team is challenging some of that old-time emphasis on corporate ideology and military intrigue which has been part of the Republican agenda since the Nixon era in the 1960s. As keynote speaker at the Virtual National Democratic Convention, former first lady Michelle Obama is kicking off a second week for momentum for the Biden-Harris team.

Progressive leaders worldwide should look at the excellence of Michelle Obama’s speech. Here are just a few extracts:

A president’s words have the power to move markets. They can start wars or broker peace. They can summon our better angels or awaken our worst instincts. You simply cannot fake your way through this job…

… Four years later, the state of this nation is very different. More than 150,000 people have died, and our economy is in shambles because of a virus that this president downplayed for too long. It has left millions of people jobless. Too many have lost their health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple with whether and how to open our schools safely…

… So, let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is…

Michelle Obama’s rhetorical excellence increases with this moment of self-criticism:

Now, Joe is not perfect. And he’d be the first to tell you that. But there is no perfect candidate, no perfect president. And his ability to learn and grow — we find in that the kind of humility and maturity that so many of us yearn for right now. Because Joe Biden has served this nation his entire life without ever losing sight of who he is; but more than that, he has never lost sight of who we are, all of us…

… So, it is up to us to add our voices and our votes to the course of history, echoing heroes like John Lewis who said, “When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something.” That is the truest form of empathy: not just feeling, but doing; not just for ourselves or our kids, but for everyone, for all our kids.

And if we want to keep the possibility of progress alive in our time, if we want to be able to look our children in the eye after this election, we have got to reassert our place in American history. And we have got to do everything we can to elect my friend, Joe Biden, as the next president of the United States…

Future roadblocks may slow down this momentum of this political renewal across the US where only 55.7 per cent of registered voters answered the call to vote in 2016. However, political momentum for change is in the wind in both the US and across the countries in the US Global Alliance which are largely in the grasp of centre-right government with a profound loyalty to corporate ideology and commitment to peace through military strength above diplomatic initiatives which acknowledge profound changes in global political economy since the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Latest electoral map graphics are based on a summary of the results of major US polling networks. Those which were too close to call have not been included in this national tally which should cover all 538 votes for the US Electoral College. At this stage, the Democrats would still win a majority of 270 without any of these additional states.

Map from 270towin.com

Even without 101 US Electoral College Votes from so-called Toss-up States, the Biden-Harris team is definitely headed in the right direction, but the situation changes every day. The vital state of Florida keeps moving in and out of the Democrat camp and now in the Toss-up category. The state of Ohio is also in this category. This is very relevant to this story-line as later sections of this article will show.

Expect future roadblocks to this initial momentum. Support from minor parties like the Greens and Libertarians gained enough support to deny victory to the Democrats in 2016 in a national electorate where only 55.7 per cent of registered constituents cast a ballot. Current polling has Florida leaning towards the Democrats.

Back in 2016, votes from the minor parties in Florida were enough to push the Republicans into the lead. There was a similar situation in five other swing states:

Image from New York Times, 13 August 2017

Another potential roadblock comes from the siege mentality of President Trump as some fellow-Republicans to break ranks with him on issues such as rigged elections (Criticism from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost in the Cincinnati Enquirer 17 August 2020).

In the traditions of those crazy musical lyrics from Lily the Pink in 1968, literally anything could happen under the directives of an unstable global leader with a penchant for exotic medicinal remedies.

Critical probability theory adds new dimensions based on chance factors in the Toss-up states and a very unstable global community where the election outcomes have great significance.

Don Smith’s article on Ubiquity is a handy reference to assist in anticipating the Unexpected.

In this context, the best option for the Democrats is surely to talk up their emphasis that Blue Wave Road to ways out of the multi-faceted crises facing the USA. President Roosevelt (1932-45) made a similar break as Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives at the Mid-term elections in 1930 at the economic and social crises of the Great Depression grew.

From Wall Street to the swing constituencies and states which have vacant senate spots in 2020, there is an increasing commitment to the value of pragmatic government intervention in an ailing economy under siege from COVID-19 and social tensions associated with profound disadvantage. Increasingly, the Biden-Harris economic agenda is a very mainstream agenda which can assist in bringing the world’s still most influential superpower back to the political centre over the aberrant phase under President Trump.

On the important US military fronts, the Council on Foreign Relations notes that Kamala Harris’ policies on maintaining US global hegemony offer highly pragmatic calls on the specifics of Russian and Chinese challenges. However, these calls on specific theatres of international tensions are balanced by support for steady US military engagements abroad and the diversion of $10 trillion to sustainable economic agendas and related environmental and energy policies.

Wavering Loyalties to Corporate Political Values?

Days before Kamala Harris became Joe Biden’s running mate, the swing from corporate values to support for pragmatic reform and commitment to social justice had already gained momentum.

Here Jose and his wife are some of the many New Yorkers receiving produce, dry goods and meat at a Food Bank For New York City distribution event. This is hardly a plus for a repeat of those Make America Great Again (MAGA) hopes generated in 2016.

Image from Washington Post, 1 August 2020

President Trump of course continues to talk up that populist spirit of natural resurgence and will try to ask the conservative leaders of Allied Countries to answer the call to collective greatness if President Trump is indeed re-elected.

There was a different mood less than a year ago on that Fall Day when President Trump took Australian Prime Minister to the opening of a paper mill in Wapakoneta in North Western Ohio on 22 September 2019. Here the unity ticket between corporate ideology in a militarised state is available to be revisited. This is the MAGA media strategy in full swing at the opening of the Pratt Holdings Paper Mill.

Fancy Footwork Between Elites at Work in Wapakoneta, Ohio?

Australia’s Prime Minister became caught in the vortex of a bizarre event.

This was a euphoric day for a town on Interstate 75 with a population of 11,000 in safe Republican Congressional District 4. Wapakoneta was also the birthplace of Neil Armstrong (1930-2012). His contribution is revered at the Armstrong Air & Space Museum.

In the mainstream media’s focus on eyewitness coverage, the background details about the Pratt Holdings Paper Mill tend to be overlooked. They have real implications for US Allies like Australia.

The theme of the US Global Military Alliance as a bastion of market ideology and conformist militarism was a cornerstone of a day of celebration in Wapakoneta as the global media networks descended on Wapakoneta. Readers can check out the media sites to investigate the details for themselves and to avoid tedious block quotes in this story-line. Each site offers subtle differences in the interpretation of the media hoopla at Wapakoneta that Fall day on 22 September 2019.

The Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt negotiated some helpful tax concessions for his investment in the state of the art Pratt Consolidated Paper Mill in Wapakoneta long before the media throngs assembled that day (Wapakoneta Daily News, 29 November 2017).

The Cincinnati Enquirer (22 September 2019) talked up this spirit as entrepreneur Anthony Pratt from Australia beamed with delight in the presence of President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Morrison. Interested readers should search out the coverage given to this event.

The Guardian (29 October 2019) in Australia had a less upbeat coverage of the event with its emphasis on Anthony Pratt’s tax minimisation efforts in both Australia and the USA.

Scott Morrison showed no hesitation in supporting both President Trump and Anthony Pratt in Wapakoneta. Some interpretative details are provided by the Australian Pulp & Printer Strategy Group:

“We would not have invested in this plant if it wasn’t for President Trump’s election,” Pratt told reporters at the opening.

“He has given us a tremendous faith in investing in America and we have redoubled down on our investment in America. With the construction of this plant we will have 9,000 American manufacturing jobs in the United States.”

Pratt also applauded Morrison for being the “Don Bradman of Australian job creation” as the trio walked the floor of the new billion-dollar facility which employs hundreds of local workers.

Morrison joined Trump in making an official address at the opening and said Pratt, like all Australians, had kept his promise in building the plant following the election of Trump in 2016.

“To Anthony Pratt and the whole Pratt Enterprises here well done on a fabulous investment,” Morrison said.

“We’ve got Wagga Wagga, Wollongong, Wallerawang, Wangaratta, Warrnambool and Wooloomooloo so Wapakoneta fits right in. This is a bit of Australia right here in Ohio.”

Morrison also pointed to the low unemployment rate in Ohio, the birthplace of Neil Armstrong, and said this relates to the investment that has taken place in industry.

“The reason that is happening is because people are investing in policies that are seeing the economy grow and that is what Anthony is doing right here in Ohio. Anthony is a wonderful Australian who has taken a good company to a great company, you might say a company as strong as steel to a company as strong as titanium, Mr President,” Morrison said.

“This is a great Australian who is building an even greater company and a company that is investing both in the United States and of course in Australia. Twenty-seven states he now is in, 70 factories, but the thing about Anthony that is true of all Australians is we keep our promises.

“When we make a promise, we keep it. When we make a promise to be in an alliance, we keep that promise and Anthony promised that he would invest in the United States with the election of the president and the jobs that are here because this man keeps his promise.”

Corporate Ideology in the Shadow of a Militarised Culture?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Media Centre offers an official transcript of his informal address at the Pratt Holdings Paper Mill. Beneath the rhetorical hoopla, our prime minister’s version of the event contains some interesting anecdotes. The unconventional rhetoric commenced with an emphasis on Veterans to fire up an enthusiastic US audience.

AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Thank you. Well thank you Mr. President, Donald. It’s wonderful to be here with you in Ohio. G’day Ohio How are you? You good?

Can I also acknowledge veterans who are here today? Put your hand up if you’re a veteran here today. Thank you for your service.

Not just to the United States but to the great alliance between Australia and the United States.

Senator Rob Portman, Jim Jordan, it’s great to see you guys here today. Ambassadors’ Hockey and Culvahouse you guys are doing a tremendous job.

But to Anthony Pratt and the whole Pratt Enterprise here and Ed, well done on a fabulous investment and project here.

This introduction added a very US Republican tone to our Prime Minister’s informal address. It is a very American genre to place emphasis on Veterans.

Of the guests mentioned in the introduction, there is no evidence that President Trump, Scott Morrison or Anthony Pratt were indeed veterans. Does this tag really matter at the opening of a recycled paper mill?

If the Veteran tag is really important, I can see no evidence that either the Australian Ambassador Joe Hockey or the US Ambassador in Canberra, had a military service background.

As Wapakoneta is in Trump Heartland in Ohio’s Congressional District 4, the US Congressional guests are all from the Republican Party. Steve Chabot is from District 1 and Jim Jordan from District 4. Ohio’s Senator Rob Portman has served in Congress since 2011. There is scant evidence of their military careers.

However, like most Republican politicians they like to stand tall in the shadow of the military as in this memorial event at the funeral of Neil Armstrong in 2012 which shows Senator Rob Portman in an appropriate statesmanlike mode:

Image from NASA

The extent to which Prime Minister Morrison made concessions identify with US political culture is showing up in the conclusion of his official speech transcript from Wapakoneta:

So, Mr. President thanks for the opportunity to be here today.

Thank you for the opportunity for Australia and the United States to work together in the way we do, not just an alliance based on security and our defence forces but an economic partnership where together we’re making jobs great again.

Cheers.

Is the National Political Mood Changing Across the USA?

Hopefully, the national political mood in the USA has probably changed during the past year but as the Presidential Campaign map shows it has statistical quirks each day based on margins of error in the sampling as well as possible drifts in public opinion.

Republican Congressional District 1 in Cincinnati now highly marginal from the Mid-term election in 2018. Congressman Steve Chabot of District 1 in Ohio was on the guest list at Wapakoneta. He will be under challenge in his District 1 on 3 November 2020 from an energized youthful Democrat, Kate Schroder.

A blatant gerrymander divides Metro Cincinnati into two Congressional Districts continues. The trick is to link Metro urban areas with adjacent middle-income precincts and rural areas which always seem to support the Republicans.

Even in the strong Republican Precincts of Wapakoneta Precinct in Ohio’s District 4, the Wapakoneta Daily News offered a favourable pictorial coverage of Kamala Harris in Campaign mode:

Positive endorsement from the Enquirer in the more Democratic Party leaning precincts of Cincinnati is even more empathetic towards Kamala Harris (Cincinetti.com 12 August 2020). Here journalists also strive to report real issues of concern like the deaths 2,500 people in nursing homes across Ohio which can be looked at on the newspaper’s web site. The horrors of a mass shooting in Cincinnati’s Grant Park added another twelve fatalities early by early on 16 August 2020 to the mix of last weekend’s stories.

Republicans continue to spin populist rationalizations for these enormous structural problems as reviews are made of the swings to the Democrats at the 2018 Mid-term elections, at least in the House of Representatives. Only one third of the Senate plus two casual vacancies were up for re-election. These contests delivered gains to the Republicans in North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana and Florida with Democrat gains in Nevada and Arizona.

Republican Congressman Steve Chabot in Ohio’s District 1 keeps communicating those old themes which have little relevance to many constituents. Perhaps some of this rhetoric was refined through his attendance at the media circus on Wapakoneta on 22 September 2019.

Expect more rhetoric from Congressman Chabot about the need for tax reductions for the rich and famous, controls on government spending, commitment to peace through military strength, improved school security, more financial support for small businesses and of course those registrations for tours of Washington monuments.

As Co-Chair of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, Congressman Chabot supports quite benign initiatives to promote more trade and investment with Taiwan and a sharing of public health policies in the current COVID-19 crisis. Ironically, China supports similar initiatives in its pragmatic relationships with Taiwan.

Parts of the Chinese city of Xiamen with its population of at least 5 million are within sight of Taiwan territory. It is indeed a popular tourist, golfing and education centre for residents of Taiwan.

However, Steve Chabot wishes to extend these ties with Taiwan to other sabre-rattling agendas as part of his commitment to peace through military preparedness (Press Release from Steve Chabot 30 November 2016):

WASHINGTON – The Associated Press (AP) reported on November 29, 2016 that a Chinese state-run newspaper, Global Times, had issued a blistering critique of Singapore’s defense cooperation with Taiwan. This editorial came on the heels of nine Singaporean infantry-fighting vehicles being impounded in Hong Kong. Representative Steve Chabot (R-OH), Chairman of the House Small Business Committee and senior member of the House Foreign Affairs and Judiciary Committees, stated that the U.S. needed to reaffirm its commitments to Taiwan’s security.

“These are the latest in a series of aggressive steps that China has taken in its long-running campaign to isolate Taiwan. The United States has a legal and moral commitment to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty in the face of attacks,” Chabot said. “It is in America’s national interest to bridge the gap and foster solidarity among our allies in Asia. The development of closer ties between Singapore and Taiwan should be welcomed. If anything, we should be doing more to integrate Taiwan into the regional security architecture.”

In a concession to grim local realities, Steve Chabot has tabled a letter to US Treasury Secretary and the Inland Revenue Service in support of the continuation of the Economic Income Payment (EIP) with some reservations in the current crises facing the USA on his web site.

Talking up issues like the right to carry weapons as recommended by the NRA and support for the US Global Military Alliance are more often features of Republican communications.

In the forthcoming US presidential campaign from the Democratic Party’s Biden-Harris team most of the running on strategic issues will be left to Joe Biden.

Even on this sensitive issue, Joe Biden can infuse a progressive agenda and seems to be on a winning streak with his pragmatic needs-focused agendas.

Should the Military Establishment Fear the Biden-Harris Team?

US Think Tanks have not fully evaluated Kamala Harris’ national economic perspectives or her strategic perspectives. Joe Biden will fine-tune commitments to the US Global Alliance to prevent it from becoming a political play-tool of the White House.

Even the US Government-funded Military Times has given even-handed space to Joe Biden’s campaign.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about foreign policy at The Graduate Center at CUNY on July 11, 2019, in New York. (Bebeto Matthews/AP) (Image from Military Times)

Previous Democrat Administrations have been highly supportive of US Global strategic alliances and strategic bilateral relationships. There is no reason why this will change under a Biden-Harris team. No administration in the past has striven so much as President Trump to control these vast strategic global networks by Twitter or bombastic executive decisions which features in our nightly news coverage in Australia for example.

Maintaining such a vast global military alliance has indeed become a financial burden to an ailing US economy and future Republican administrations will undoubtedly require more cost sharing of these financial burdens with other countries like Australia in the US Global Military Alliance. In a pre-retirement speech, Republican President Eisenhower warned of the growing influence of the military industrial complexes through its effective lobbying on democratic public policy settings.

How far indeed is the current growth of the US Global Alliance too much?

Image from the Smithsonian Institute

A Republican Administration will want to extend the outreach of the Global Military Alliance further through cost-sharing with other allied countries for new generation space warfare and anti-missile shields.

Should Australians Welcome the Biden-Harris Dream Team?

Progressive opinion on both sides of the Pacific should welcome the Biden-Harris team as a way out of our multi-faceted problems facing developed countries like Australia in the immediate future.

Hopefully, Prime Minister Morrison will learn to stand up to pressures from our Allies to impose that insistence on the importance of corporate economics and strategic re-armament as the solutions to our current problems.

In 1951-2, Labor supported the formation of the ANZUS Alliance with the proviso that decision-making on strategic issues affecting Australia, New Zealand and the US should be consultative and democratic.

Thirty years later New Zealand ceased to be an ANZUS member. The Hawke Government with support from the Reagan Administration replaced three-way consultative meetings with the formation of the Australia United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN).

With the old ANZUS Alliance now lapsed, what are the democratic protocols which guide Australia’s role on the US Global Military Alliance and its Associate Membership of NATO? Perhaps the Biden-Harris Team will explain just where we stand on this vital issue.

Also, there is that advice from US Ambassador which is alienating Australians from our most profitable trading and investment partner (US Embassy, Canberra, 6 July 2020).

Press Statement – 6 July 2020

“I join Secretary of Defense Esper and our National Security Council in commending our Australian friends and allies on the release of their 2020 Defence Strategic Update. In a rapidly evolving world, our unbreakable alliance is more important than ever. This important strategic document strengthens regional stability and helps secure our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. We applaud Australia’s robust and ongoing leadership in the region.”

– Ambassador A.B. Culvahouse Jr.

Perhaps the Biden-Harris Team will end this interference in our national sovereignty by adding some accountable protocols to AUSMIN in the future.

This is an opportunity for progressive opinion in Australia to ask for some more breathing space and national sovereignty as our profitable commercial trading ties with China continue to grow despite the current trading and investment dispute between the Trump Administration and China.

At this stage, Australia’s commercial trading partnerships with China continue to grow but there are warning signs in the latest proposed Chinese tariffs on Australian wine exports.

From far-off Britain, the Financial Times (FT) seems to be more in tune with the economic threats to Australia from US interference in our relationships with China in pursuit of the current agendas of the Trump Administration (4 August 2020).

The new Democrat Dream Team offers some more Post-COVID 19 Sunshine through a return to normalcy in both economic and strategic policies which give allied countries opportunities for enhanced national sovereignty and freedom to set our optimal rates of defence spending.

Let’s have your comments through the Replies Options available on AIM Network on these vital issues in the best traditions of Citizens’ Journalism. Readers have nothing to lose but their dependence on flamboyant Twitters and interview clips from the White House.

By 2353NM

On Thursday 23 July, Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced an ‘eye watering’ projected deficit of $1,844 Billion dollars in the 2020/21 financial year. For the Government that was announcing (with tortured grammar and celebratory coffee mugs less than 12 months ago) they were ‘already back in the black in the next financial year’, it’s a dramatic turn around. There aren’t too many that are critical of the about face, after all there has been a need to provide support during a pandemic. As Finance Minister Mathias Cormann suggested at the same media event — ‘what was the alternative?’ — which is deflection at best.

It’s not hard to argue that there was a need. The unofficial unemployment rate is now above 10%, there are predictions that younger workers in insecure and ‘gig’ jobs, school leavers and females will be feeling the brunt of underemployment for years to come and there are thousands of small businesses that will never reopen their doors. As Cormann suggested, there is a need for Government to support the members of our society so that we actually retain a society. It’s also ironic that a conservative Government has correctly, after a bit of dithering, come to the realisation that austerity is not the response to economic turmoil.

But all the support is hiding some real issues.

Casualisation of the workforce has ensured there is a significant number of Australians that rely on a number of part-time jobs to live. The government recognised this in the framing of JobKeeper to be only claimable from one employer. While most part-time employees don’t earn $750 a week (or $1500 a fortnight) from any one employer, the reality is that across two or three part-time jobs, there is probably a large number of individuals with a number of ‘part-time’ jobs that have taken a wage cut (in addition to those who have had scheduled pay increases delayed).

The Coalition (who have been the party of government since 2013) have aided and supported the casualisation of the workforce in the name of ‘flexibility’. While some would appreciate the flexibility of working around family or study commitments, a considerable number of people don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing their hours or employment status. A lot of people have 2, 3 or even more jobs to make a ‘living’ wage. The problem with that is that there are 2, 3 or more employers — none of which would probably be all that keen on a discussion around their arrangements not being as important as other commitments in people’s lives, leading to employment insecurity.

Until we have a pandemic, the holders of casual and insecure jobs were seen as dispensable rather than the actual essential workers such as transport drivers, child-care workers, shelf stackers, shop assistants, hospitality staff and so on. There is also a significant number of health professionals such as nurses and aged care workers in casual and insecure employment. While in theory, casual workers are paid a loading to ‘compensate’ for the lack of sick leave, holidays and the other benefits of permanent full-time employment, usually the loading is insufficient to do so. It’s also common that casual and insecure workers don’t have a financial security blanket to fall back on if disaster strikes. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating recently alluded to this at a superannuation webinar

Of the income support in Australia to date during the COVID crisis, $32 billion has been found and paid for by the most vulnerable, lowest-paid people in the country,” he told a superannuation webinar. “And $30 billion has been provided by the Commonwealth under JobKeeper [so far].

Treasury estimates that by the time the scheme ends on December 31, workers will have withdrawn a total of $42 billion from their super accounts, up from the original forecast of $29 billion.

The scheme has proven so popular that 590,000 Australians are estimated to have completely cleaned out their retirement savings, the majority of them under the age of 35.

It isn’t only the typically younger people that don’t have secure employment that have a problem. For years, a number of government ‘services’ such as the aged care system have been run to encourage ‘for profit’ operators to do what they are best at — making a profit. Certainly the federal government has a number of standards and processes that must be followed, but at the end of the day those in need of assistance in the later years of their lives are being used as a commodity for making profit by operators with the full encouragement of the federal government. While most of the staff working with the residents in aged care facilities seem to care about how they do their job, the Aged Care Royal Commission saw fit to table an interim report in October 2019 entitled ‘Neglect’, which implies there are a lot of people employed to minimise the cost of compliance rather than maximising the care we show for our seniors.

Cormann was half right when he suggested during the pandemic there was no alternative to massive funding injections into the economy to ensure that people could continue to live through uncertainty. What Cormann didn’t address was that the casualisation of employment, privatisation of core government services that should be looking after the aged, the young and the homeless, the refugees and the environment with the care and respect they deserve, rather than the profit motive, since 2013 are large contributors to the economic problems the Coalition currently finds itself dealing with.

While it’s too late now to avoid throwing heaps of money around to mitigate the effects of the Coaltion’s long term strategy being proven demonstrably wrong, there is a viable alternative for the next ‘crisis’. The alternative is that in the future, core government services are offered and funded appropriately by government, those that suddenly lose income aren’t required to raid their savings or superannuation to live, we treat climate change seriously (including funding renewables over fossil fuel) and never again are those that need our assistance commodified to the stage where the Australian media can run headlines such as Maggie Beer says food budget of $7/day per aged care resident is ‘impossible‘.

What do you think?

By 2353NM

A few years ago, we were in Canada. One cool and wet day in St Jacobs, Ontario (a couple of hours west of Toronto), we walked into a building dedicated to The Mennonite Story because it looked dry and warm inside. Unsurprisingly, the building went someway towards explaining the history and beliefs of the Mennonite Church. The Mennonites are a branch of the Anabaptist Christians and the easiest way to describe their beliefs is to suggest that the Amish are an offshoot of the Mennonites.

Like the Amish, the Mennonites tend to refrain from a lot of technology unless it gives them more time to contemplate the wonders of their God’s work. For example, the reason why they use horse drawn buggies and carriages for transportation rather than cars and trucks is they don’t have time to see, observe and wonder at the glory of the flower produced by the plant growing at the side of the road if they are travelling past at 60 miles an hour. While not promoting that everyone should immediately invest in horses and buggies or join the Mennonite faith, they have a point. You don’t see the individual flower growing beside the road when travelling on the highway and as you don’t see it, you don’t have the opportunity to marvel at its beauty or contemplate the work of ‘the creator’ (if that’s your ‘thing’).

Taking the time to reflect and consider isn’t the sole property of the Mennonite faith either. Most of the literature about how to gain and retain good employees will discuss work/life balance. Work/life balance isn’t just some 21st Century corporate mumbo-jumbo either, most of us would have heard the adage ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’. Crikey daily ‘worm’ reported on 16 July

Niki Savva (The Australian): “Morrison’s decision to go on Saturday to watch his side get thrashed incited outrage on Twitter for daring to seek a few hours respite while Victorians were being treated like lepers. A ‘Scotty at the footy’ hashtag trended and not in a nice way. Those getting stuck into Daniel Andrews defended Morrison and those defending Andrews berated Morrison. Morrison has refrained from criticising Andrews, nor has Andrews criticised Morrison. They need one another.”

Anyone, regardless of their position has the right to some time off. Constant work without time to connect with family, enjoy hobbies and interests or just sit in the lounge and doze off is hazardous to health. Certainly you can criticise Morrison’s sport of choice or his support of a particular team but Morrison attending a football game for a couple of hours is not going to change the country’s response to the current pandemic. Neither did his family holiday to Hawaii at Christmas during the bushfires.

The difference between the two events is that Morrison’s office attempted to convince the Australian public it wasn’t happening last December, despite the photos circulating in the media. Attempting to cover up something that may be used to attack a politician is shonky. A far better strategy would have been to announce he was in Hawaii on a family holiday, receiving regular briefings and the holiday will give him the opportunity to clear his mind to concentrate on the recovery effort when he returns. They could have even discussed the theory behind work/life balance.

Around the same time as Savva wrote the piece discussed above, a former Liberal Party staffer Chelsea Potter wrote a piece in the Nine Newspapers about the 10th anniversary of Julia Gillard becoming Australia’s first female Prime Minister. The piece was an apology for Potter’s past behaviour. The first paragraph is instructive

Dear Julia, In politics, you’re never meant to apologise. Especially publicly. That’s backflipping. And, as you well know, that can come at a political price. In our industry, changing your mind — even if it’s completely genuine and informed by lived experience or research — isn’t the done thing.

Potter goes on to discuss why she acted the way she did 10 years ago, which is well worth reading and will give you some insight into politics as it is played in the 21st Century. However, let’s tease out the expectation in the political industry is that changing your mind isn’t the ‘done’ thing and demonstrates ‘backflipping’ or weakness. It is a crock that we can’t change our outlook or the way we do things — we do it every day.

As you’re reading this, there are probably political operatives in some dark and dismal place creating a ‘dirt file’ on the other side who have had the temerity to criticise an insignificant or long forgotten action of a leading light of the operative’s party. Apart from the questionable work/life balance implied by working at all hours to climb the greasy pole and maybe be nominated for a safe seat in a parliament one day if they are good, wouldn’t the country be better off if the work was directed towards suggesting improvements to government policy and process that doesn’t blindly follow the individual political party’s orthodoxy without original thought? At the very least they should have some time to smell the roses — if not wonder at ‘the creators’ work in getting a small flower to bloom at the side of the road.

The ultimate outcome of competing ‘dirt files’ thrown at political enemies can only be similar to the ridiculous situation of the Cold War where both the USA and Russia had enough weapons to destroy the world hundreds of times. The theory of ‘mutual assured destruction’ seems to still be current in politics. In the end no one wins. Both sides of politics (and their fanatical keyboard warriors) are too busy throwing insults like ‘socialist’ and ‘neo-con’ at each other rather than understanding that the majority of us consider them all to be self-serving. The rise of the ‘anti-politician’ such as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson is a direct result of political games such as someone dredging up a nine year old statement from Morrison criticising a police commissioner for going to dinner during a bushfire emergency to attack Morrison for going to Hawaii last Christmas (the link is to The Chaser’s version of the story because this stuff shouldn’t be taken seriously).

Currently politicians seem to have to defend the party orthodoxy, illogical claims or an unsupportable position to the political death. How refreshing it would be for a politician to admit to not being ‘on duty’ 24 hours a day, apologise if a decision is shown to be wrong or change their mind on an issue publicly without the finger pointing and harassment from their internal and external political ‘enemies’. Maybe they could suggest ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’ They wouldn’t be the first.

What do you think?

By Denis Bright

Authorities at state and federal levels have been less than frank excusing the exemptions given to a young Afghan security guard to travel straight from Kabul to Sydney. There were probably transfers at international airport hubs unless our security staffer travelled at least part of the way on defence aircrafts authorised by the US Global Alliance through the local NATO Command in Afghanistan. That would make the exemption story even more intriguing for investigative reporters with the resources to assist in filling in the missing details.

Allied commercial aircraft routinely use Afghan airports for transfers to and from Afghanistan for allied government and military personnel. This cover might have been extended to our unnamed security staffer. This link covers the use of Croatia Airlines for a special flight to Afghanistan (Simple Flying, Croatia Airlines Sends A320 To Pick Up Army From Afghanistan, 28 March 2020).

There is little real secrecy about military transits to and from Afghanistan (everycrsreport.com, 25 September 2020). An inquiry into the movements of the Australian security staffer between Afghanistan and Sydney hardly needs to be censored on security grounds. Other countries do not see the need to censor their news services.

While the Morrison Government warns us about Chinese military penetration of the South China Sea, the encirclement of China and Russia by military ties through Central Asia between Georgia and Mongolia is always overlooked.

After last year’s AUSMIN Meeting at Kirribilli House the defence and foreign ministers of Australia and the US conferred on matters of mutual strategic issues. The US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper went on to sound the political waters in New Zealand and Mongolia. There was a brief stopover in South Korea to confer with allies on the sustainability of the welcome for US troops on the Korean Peninsula.

In Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Mark Esper was gifted with a tiny horse by the Mongolian Government (Business Insider Australia 9 August 2019). This justified the use of a military aircraft on that sector of his return to the USA, possibly with the horse in the vast aircraft.

It seems that diplomacy with a Genghis Khan flavour is still the rage at the White House.

Wasn’t it Genghis Khan who advanced the spread of the Mongul Empire into China in the thirteenth century with the aid of dissidents within China itself from the Merkits, Naimans, Mongols, Keraites, Tatars, Uyghurs and other scattered smaller tribes.

Map Image from FutureLearn

What is odd about the Australian security staffer’s travel movements is the capacity of lame excuses to over-ride our public health lockdown protocols. There were indeed no extra precautions required from for his transfer from a COVID-19 hotspot in Afghanistan through Sydney Airport with an added domestic flight to the Sunshine Coast and then a road trip to Toowoomba.

In the interest of future public health problems associated with diplomatic movements, Australians should be aware of the flight paths used by our unnamed Australian security staffer on this occasion. The case is more intriguing if any of these flights were actually on military planes as there are no direct flight as between Afghanistan and Australia. Commercial carriers would have required a change of flights at one or more airport hubs on the route to Australia. Was the authorisation from our embassy in Kabul flash at every airport on route to Sydney?

It is to be hoped that inquiries into the spread of COVID-19 in Australia do not dismiss this case when ordinary Australians are being given on the spot fines for breaches of COVID lockdown directives and border infringements.

ABC News has tended to excuse the breach of lockdown protocols (5 August 2020):

Queensland authorities have revealed they gave permission for a man returning from overseas to catch a commercial flight back into the state, with police now finalising an investigation into the process.

The man in his 20s, had been working for the Australian Government in Afghanistan and returned to Queensland, via Sydney, last week, to quarantine at home.

The exemption to bypass hotel quarantine is allowed for diplomatic and consular officials, but the Queensland man was a security contractor.

A police investigation that was launched yesterday to investigate the validity of documents used by the man to re-enter the state has now been finalised with authorities saying he had done nothing wrong.

The ABC news coverage item fails to identify the name of the security officer or the rationale for his employment in Afghanistan. The letter of his authorisation for travel from Kabul to Sydney was possibly made in good faith from our embassy in Kabul. It was a clear mistake to extend this authorisation to domestic travel beyond Sydney Airport. Why was the Queensland government asked to offer a nod of approval in the interests of national consensus?

The 7.30 Report, Four Corners and The Guardian are well equipped to take up these issues. The media should be seeking details from the ministers responsible for border protection and foreign affairs.

Does the security officer’s employment brief with the Australian Government extend to security assignments within the Australian Afghan community? Is his non-quarantine justified by his possible Australian Intelligence links? Should the immigrant community in Toowoomba be concerned by his presence in Toowoomba with its large refugee population?

Awareness of Kabul and regional centres in Afghanistan at hot-spots for COVID-19 is no classified secret.

Even the most politically loyal staff member at key ministerial officers in Canberra or at least the DFAT staff at the Kabul embassy should have been aware of the threat from COVID-19 on our security personnel across Afghanistan. Their local operations are probably always cleared by the NATO Command which controls security operations by the US Global Alliance in Afghanistan. Australia is a part of this strategic network as an active associate member of NATO since 2010 (Parliament of Australia Authorised by Nina Markovis of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Security Section 17 December 2010):

The new Strategic Concept calls for the deepening of cooperation between NATO and its partners, including Australia. This includes collaboration on strategic, political and burden-sharing activities.

According to Benjamin Schreer from the Australian National University, the Lisbon Summit delivered two major outcomes for Australia:

NATO members agreed on a phased transition of security responsibilities to Afghan Security Forces by 2014—a development which will prominently feature in Australian policy planning, and the Strategic Concept as ‘NATO’s premier conceptual guideline defining its major goals, ends and means’ opens up new possibilities for collaboration between Australia and NATO, both in terms of closer security cooperation and the ability to provide a greater contribution to NATO-led operations.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited NATO Headquarters in October 2010 and met with the NATO Secretary-General to discuss the Afghanistan mission.

The NATO-led ISAF mission in Afghanistan is Australia’s most comprehensive defence commitment overseas with about 1550 Australian military personnel deployed to Afghanistan under Operation Slipper (which also incorporates elements located in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa).

In 2009–10 Australia provided additional civilian personnel (from AusAID, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Australian Federal Police) to NATO’s civil-military stabilisation efforts in Afghanistan.

In November 2010 Julia Gillard and Defence Minister Stephen Smith attended the NATO Summit in Lisbon, where they held discussions with NATO members and senior partners (including non-NATO members) towards enhancing collaboration, particularly in crisis management and post conflict reconstruction.

An official statement by the Australian Government read, in part:

In particular, the Summit will be an opportunity for the international community to set out further detail on the objective of Afghan authorities assuming lead responsibility for security in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

During the Summit, Australia will highlight our strong commitment to mentoring and training the Afghan National Security Forces in Uruzgan Province to enable them to take on responsibility for security arrangements in the province over the next two to four years.

Perhaps the ministerial staffers and intelligence personnel need to ease up on news blockage strategies within Australia like this recent coverage from Aljazeera (6 August 2020). Ironically the headquarters of Al Jazeera is in the Doha, Qatar which is not noted for its media transparency.

This recent Al Jazeera coverage service warned of the dangers of COVID-19 in Afghanistan. As early as 3 May, the Afghan Health Ministry advised that one third of the residents of Kabul were carriers of COVID-19 antibodies. More recent estimates from a sample study of 9,000 in Kabul from blood tests claimed that almost half the population of Kabul carried these antibodies.

Contrast the laxity with the Australian security staffer to the plight of the Tamil family from Biloela who have lost their bid to stay in Australia.

Even the US Department of State’s magazine Foreign Policy (FP) has dared to take up the inconsistencies in Australia’s handling of refugee applications:

The antics of Sri Lankan intelligence services in Australia is of course an old story which was covered by The SMH on 13 January 2013):

PROTESTERS calling for a boycott of the Sri Lankan cricket team’s tour of Australia say they are being stalked by intelligence ”operatives” who are gathering information about them for the Sri Lankan government.

Hundreds of protesters who have staged events in Sydney and Melbourne in the past two weeks to draw attention to alleged human rights abuses in the country are complaining they have been filmed and photographed in an intimidating way by men they believe have links to Sri Lankan officials in Australia.

A Melbourne doctor who attended a protest at the Boxing Day Test said three men had been overtly photographing them in a tactic that was creating a climate of fear in the Australian community.

The organiser of the Boycott Sri Lanka Cricket Campaign, Trevor Grant, has written to the Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, complaining about the conduct of the men and saying he had been a victim of the stalking at the SCG.

Mr Grant, a former sports journalist, said the Tamil groups who had seen the men were convinced they were connected with the Sri Lankan government. ”They say they have done this before, using the photographs and film for identification, in order to harass relatives back in Sri Lanka,” he said.

”We have photographs of these men and I can send them to you in order to identify them through the Sri Lankan embassy. We believe we know the identity of one man.”

But when Fairfax Media approached the Sri Lankan consul-general in Sydney, Bandula Jayasekara, last week to try to identify the man and inquire about the alleged intimidation, he refused to answer whether the man was known to consular officials.

Mr Jayasekara did say in an email that the protesters at the Test matches in Sydney and Melbourne were some misguided Australians.

”I am told that the protesters wore separatist T-shirts.”

Australian governments on both sides of the political divide have usually been deaf to the plight of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka with a bias towards the Rajapaksa Family Dynasty which has been in power throughout the civil war with the Tamil community and now under the leadership of Gatabaya Rajapaksa after a brief period in Opposition (Straits Times 6 August 2020):

COLOMBO • Sri Lankans shrugged off fears of the coronavirus and streamed into polling centres yesterday to elect a new Parliament that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa hopes will clear the way for him to boost his powers.

The tourism-dependent island nation of 21 million people has been struggling since deadly Islamist militant attacks on hotels and churches last year, followed by lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Mr Rajapaksa is seeking a two-thirds majority for his party in the 225-seat Parliament to enable constitutional reforms to make the presidency more powerful, so he can implement his economic and national security agenda….

… Mr Rajapaksa won the presidency last November vowing to restore relations with China, which had been strained by disputes over some Chinese investments.

He is hoping to install his older brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is a former president, as prime minister.

The brothers built their political careers as nationalist champions of the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community.

They are best known for crushing ethnic minority Tamil separatist insurgents who battled for decades for a homeland in the island’s north and east.

The 26-year civil war ended in 2009 when the elder Rajapaksa was president amid allegations of torture and killings of civilians in the final stages of the conflict.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s rapport with most western governments during the Civil War Years while at the same time cultivating new trade and investment ties with China. Chinese support was offered to infrastructure for the Port of Hambantota including a new railway connection to this more isolated location in South East Sri Lanka (The New York Times 25 June 2018):

HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka — Every time Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, turned to his Chinese allies for loans and assistance with an ambitious port project, the answer was yes.

Yes, though feasibility studies said the port wouldn’t work. Yes, though other frequent lenders like India had refused. Yes, though Sri Lanka’s debt was ballooning rapidly under Mr. Rajapaksa.

Over years of construction and renegotiation with China Harbor Engineering Company, one of Beijing’s largest state-owned enterprises, the Hambantota Port Development Project distinguished itself mostly by failing, as predicted. With tens of thousands of ships passing by along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the port drew only 34 ships in 2012.

And then the port became China’s.

Mr. Rajapaksa was voted out of office in 2015, but Sri Lanka’s new government struggled to make payments on the debt he had taken on. Under heavy pressure and after months of negotiations with the Chinese, the government handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land around it for 99 years in December.

Australians deserve a more transparent and independent foreign policy with an explanation of our selective support for dodgy quasi-dictatorships in its assessment of these complex issues.

And back to the presenting challenges posed by the transit of the unnamed security staff employee from Kabul.

It’s perhaps time to bring back that ANZAC tradition which our LNP ministers in Canberra claim to live by. Has it really migrated across the Tasman to the ministerial offices of Jacinda Ardern? Will it be taken up by the Shadow Ministry in Canberra as it strives for some pragmatic bi-partnership with the Morrison Government in challenging times.

By Ad astra

It was twelve years ago, on July 10, 2008, before The Political Sword was inaugurated, that I wrote Is adversarial politics damaging our democracy?. It was published on The Possum Box hosted by Possum Comitatus, who gave me my start at political blogging, for which I continue to be grateful. Some of that piece is reproduced below because recent political events demonstrate that its messages are as relevant today as they were then.

While most readers will have their own ideas about the meaning of ‘adversarial politics’, so that we’re all on the same page, let’s use the following definitions: “Adversarial politics exists when the proposals put forward by government are routinely criticised by opposition parties. Any stance taken by government is automatically opposed, whatever its merits,” and “Adversarial politics takes place when one party (usually not in Government) takes the opposite (or at least a different) opinion to that of the other (usually the Government) even when they may personally agree with what the Government is trying to do.” It is a characteristic of the Westminster system, and if one can judge from its most flagrant manifestation, Question Time, most parliamentarians seem to revel in it. They enjoy the contest, which at times takes on gladiatorial proportions.

Because it provides a rich source of sensational copy, the media thrive on adversarial politics, and contribute powerfully to it through the press, TV and radio. Without it, life for journalists would be less lively and the preparation of material that might interest the public more demanding.

But to some who closely follow events in the political arena, it is a source of irritation because inherently it involves dishonesty and at times downright deceit. The main game seems to be winning or scoring political points even if that requires taking an opposing position that is inconsistent with previous positions or policy, and in the process demeaning or humiliating the other person or party. All observers of the political process applaud informed and vigorous debate that teases out the issues and ensures that sound decisions are made. But is an adversarial approach required to achieve this? Some might argue that it is; most would disagree.

The COVID-19 disaster

We are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. No one is certain about how to manage it; it is unique. Medical experts and epidemiologists have guided political decision making. A piece on TPS titled Listen to the experts showed how effective this strategy was.

Some of the rubbish served up to Daniel Andrews (Image from Twitter)

Victoria’s Premier, Dan Andrews has been at the forefront of this wildly spreading infection, giving stark updates and offering predictions and advice every day for the people of Victoria and beyond. He is exhausted. He, like everyone else, is operating in an environment in which no one knows what to do with certainty. He takes the advice of the medical experts. Nobody should doubt his sincerity, his earnestness, his integrity. He wants to do the right thing for the people of Victoria. Does anyone seriously doubt that?

Yet we have State Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien out every day miserably bellyaching about what Andrews has said, done, or advised. He thinks he knows better. He is sure of his position despite working on the same data. His carping criticism is as irritating as his words: ‘bungling’, ‘inept’, ‘hopeless’, ‘dictator’, ‘Chairman Andrews’ or ‘Chairman Dan’. How depressing it must be for Andrews to have to endure such talk!

And it’s not just O’Brien. If you can stomach it, tune into Peta Credlin on Sky News, or Andrew Bolt on The Bolt Report where he brings on assorted right wing stooges who embellish his sarcasm. Or listen to so-called ‘Sky after Dark’ where you can hear Chris Kenny, Paul Murray and other luminaries ridicule Labor at every opportunity. Then read the assessment of it on The New Daily.

Question Time shenanigans

Because adversarial positions are more often taken by parties in opposition, many examples are seen in Question Time, where acerbic questions are aimed at the PM and his ministers. The Government too uses Question Time to score political points via ‘Dorothy Dixers’ where backbenchers read a question written elsewhere and designed to give the responder an opening to attack the Opposition.

It’s not just at Question Time that we see adversarial politics. It’s seen at press conferences, doorstops, and radio and TV interviews where journalists are at times downright aggressive and rude in interviewing politicians. While we all want probing interviewers, with the courage to challenge politicians, their stated policies and their utterances, why do journalists persist ad nauseam in asking questions that no prudent politician would or should answer?

Perhaps as a reaction to adversarial probing, there are two words that are seldom used by politicians: ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Some politicians manage to avoid ever using them, instead preferring “let me make this point”. Frustrated interviewers yearn for those blessed, unequivocal words, yet seldom hear them. Instead they so often get a long and convoluted response that doesn’t answer the question, and when it occasionally does, a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have saved everyone a lot of time and irritation.

Some interviewers on TV or at doorstops are devotees of the ‘will you guarantee’ or ‘will you rule out’ syndromes, hoping for a ‘Gotcha’ moment. Sometimes it’s justified, but at times it’s sheer harassment in an effort to get a scoop.

The language of adversarial politics

Language creates perceptions. In adversarial politics exaggerated language is used to embarrass, put down, demean or diminish. It is designed to give the user a ‘win’ or an advantage over the other. There are many examples: ‘Back-flip’ and its colourful variants, ‘back flip with double pike’, ‘back-down’, ‘about-face’, or the more benign ‘about turn’ or ‘U-turn’ are terms used to indicate a change of mind or a different approach. Politicians are entitled to change their minds in the face of new evidence, different thinking or changed circumstances; the opposite, sticking stubbornly to an outdated or untenable position, is foolish. So why not use terms such as ‘change of mind’ or ‘different approach’, or ‘new tactic’ or ‘changed attitude’ or ‘revised position’?

Columnists enjoy describing ideas, proposals or political structures with which they disagree as being in ‘tatters’, in ‘disarray’, even ‘a shambles’, or in ‘chaos’. These terms imply a disastrous turn of events, yet usually nothing catastrophic has occurred. Parliamentarians making submissions to cabinet are sometimes unsuccessful – the proposal is declined or deferred. The individual is then described by journalists as having been ‘rolled’ or ‘humiliated’, or has ‘rolled over’, and is therefore painted as a loser.

Slogans and mantras

Slogans are part and parcel of the language of adversarial politics. ‘Stunts’, ‘gimmicks’, ‘symbolism’, ‘all style and no substance’, are frequently used. ‘Control freak’ is another used by opponents. Yet what evidence is ever offered to support the ‘control freak’ mantra? It seems this phrase often refers to the clearing of written statements for distribution to the public through the leader’s office. Is that unreasonable, is it a serious restriction? Or is it a sensible approach to transmitting consistent messages to the public? Alternatives to ‘control freak’ could have been ‘having a finger on the pulse’, or ‘aware of everything that is going on’, or ‘directing traffic’, but they would not have had the desired affect that pejorative labelling achieves. Slogans and mantras are used because they work. Start a catchy slogan and soon many will be mindlessly repeating it. It doesn’t have to have much or even any substance, so long as it sounds believable.

Is adversarial politics damaging our democracy?

Those who despise adversarial politics find it to be contemptible, a damaging affliction on our political system. They resent the stifling impediments it places on governing, on governments carrying out what they promised the electorate they would do. They see it as focused on ‘winning’, on gaining a political advantage, rather than telling or establishing the truth, or contributing usefully to the discourse. It sets the teeth of the electorate on edge, which ‘turns off’ in despair. Voters would prefer politicians to be open and upfront, more focussed on the good of the nation, less willing to corrupt the usually-worthy principles that brought them into politics in the first place. At least our PM and Opposition leader are now cooperating well during the COVID-19 crisis.

What can we ordinary citizens do?

We might be able to bring about change if we, who pay our politicians’ wages via taxes, raise our voices against the use of exaggerated, depreciatory, derogatory and dishonest language by politicians, commentators and columnists. While the media might miss the theatre and the ‘newsworthy’ copy adversarial politics provides, the public would applaud a more measured approach, free from adversarial behaviour – so wasteful, so unproductive, so distasteful. We could write to our parliamentarians individually. Responders to this piece may have other suggestions. Sadly though, if history tells us anything, any change for the better is probably a vain hope.