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An Open Letter to the Australian Financial Review

To the Australian Financial Review

I wanted to make you aware of the behavior of one of your columnists which is damaging your brand. I was also going to tell you that this columnist is diminishing public decency in Australia, however I don’t think you care much about that, so let’s stick with your brand.

The columnist in question is Wendy Grace Collier (now known as Grace Collier). Grace writes for you on what appears to be a fairly regular basis about industrial relations and unions. She is Managing Director of Australian Dismissal Services. Considering how many non-expert columnists there are in the Australian media, commenting on things that they have no expertise in, you should ordinarily be congratulated for finding someone who works in a particular field to provide expert commentary. In other circumstances, I might even go as far as saying this shows balance, and a respect for the facts.

But there’s just one problem. And this is that Grace Collier has shown on her Twitter account, in numerous examples, that she is not fit to be providing expert commentary on anything related to the Labor government, when she has such a deep, nasty and personal hatred of our previous Prime Minister, Julia Gillard and most of Gillard’s Labor colleagues. I’m not sure if you’ve seen Collier’s Twitter feed, which is why I’m bringing it to your attention now. After your parent company, Fairfax Media, severed their working relationship with columnist Catherine Deveny, it concerns me that you have not taken similar action over Grace Collier’s behavior. Wouldn’t it be slightly hypocritical for you to continue publishing Collier’s columns, when your company gave this explanation for why they could no longer publish Deveny:

“We are appreciative of the columns Catherine has written for The Age over several years but the views she has expressed recently on Twitter are not in keeping with the standards we set at The Age”.

Standards. Let’s have a look at the standards of behavior which Collier thinks are acceptable, which I assume that you don’t. I should mention here that I did not know Grace Collier existed until I recently heard her on Jonathan Green’s ABC Radio National Show Outsiders on June 16 of this year, where she said it was unprofessional for the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to show cleavage in parliament. I was horrified. After Googling Collier’s name, I found her business, and I found that she was an AFR columnist. I also found Collier’s Twitter feed. At first I thought this must be a satirical account, as I couldn’t believe that someone could be this nasty and rude about Julia Gillard, and also get given space to provide opinion in what I then regarded as a fairly professional, national newspaper and media website. But I have seen no evidence that this is a faux account. It appears to be Collier’s own words. Hence why I felt the need to bring these words to your attention.

As it says clearly on Collier’s profile, she is not a journalist, and everything she Tweets are opinions she stands by:

MsGraceCollierTwitterProfile

That is fine. Not everyone who writes for a newspaper is a journalist. And of course everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. But, in a respectable society, I would have thought there was some standard to be adhered to when it came to voicing these opinions. I would have thought that those people who choose to be blatantly derogatory, who choose to accuse the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard of being a criminal, who take great pleasure in spreading vile and nasty messages of hate on social media, would not be the very same people that respectable media outlets would choose to comment on political policy and industrial relations. It beggars belief that Collier is the one calling Julia Gillard ‘unprofessional’ when she is the one producing this mess of hate filled commentary, accessible to anyone with a Twitter account or access to Google.

As outraged as I was by Collier’s comments on Outsiders, I was far more upset by her Tweets last night during Kevin Rudd’s leadership challenge. At a moment when I was watching Julia Gillard, a woman who has achieved so much for the country, who has been bullied by the media, undermined by many in her caucus, who has stood up for ordinary Australians and never stopped fighting to secure once in a lifetime reforms, a woman who I admire as deeply as Collier hates her, a woman who is stoic in the face of all the hatred, the ‘ditch the witch’ placards, the comments about her deceased father, the nastiness around her childlessness and her partner’s sexuality, who has put up with all of this and retained her dignity, and while she was finally torn down, I see this Tweet from Collier:

MsGraceCollierTweet1

Then this:

MsGraceCollierTweet2

Then this:

MsGraceCollierTweet3

At this point, I would like to ask the AFR a question about standards. What has happened to the standards of behavior in this country if one of your columnists thinks it acceptable to direct this sort of public commentary towards Julia Gillard at a moment of devastation for her and those who have supported and admired her? I understand that Collier might not agree with Julia Gillard’s politics, but how has it come to be that a civilized country can be so full of such personal and derogatory hatred towards our first female Prime Minister, and how can these people not set higher standards for themselves? Because of course, this isn’t just about Collier. This is about everyone who behaves like her and who make people like her think it’s ok for them to behave like that too. It’s for the thousands of people on Twitter and Facebook who produce hate speech about Gillard, it’s for the Shock Jocks, it’s for the comments on news sites which are full of bile, but are completely unrelated to anything Gillard has ever said or done as a politician, as part of her service to the country as Prime Minister. And how has it come to be that you, a national business newspaper, would employ someone who behaves in this way to provide commentary on the policies of Gillard’s government, when it’s clear Collier’s personal opinion of Julia Gillard couldn’t possibly be put to one side when she is writing about Gillard’s government and the policies of this government? Surely there is someone with higher standards of acceptable behavior who could provide commentary on industrial relations, who doesn’t denigrate the act of providing commentary, the act of putting words to paper, with her vile behavior on social media? If you can’t find someone better, I suggest you haven’t looked very hard.

If you’re not already convinced, and slightly ashamed of ever publishing Collier in the first place, here are some other tweets from her Twitter feed which give further insights into the type of behavior I am talking about:

(Is this one promoting violence towards the Prime Minister?)

McGraceCollierTweetA

MsGraceCollierTweetImage

MsGraceCollierTweet13

MsGraceCollierTweet14

MsGraceCollierTweet15

MsGraceCollierTweet11

MsGraceCollierTweet9

MsGraceCollierTweet8

MsGraceCollierTweet7

MsGraceCollierTweet6

MsGraceCollierTweet5

Please consider what I’ve said, and for your own self-interest, if not also the interests of our society, think about whether Grace Collier is an appropriate representative for your brand.

Yours sincerely as always,

Victoria Rollison

 

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An Open Letter to the Mainstream Media

Dear Mainstream Media,

I know we haven’t exactly got along in the past, but I’m just writing to let you know the status of our relationship is now in an emergency zone. I’m no longer just pissed off. I’ve reached the point of contempt. It’s not like I didn’t already know you were a broken-record narrative, full of bias, inaccuracy and completely anti-balance, but now I have a fictional model of just how good you could be if you gave a shit. And this just makes the reality of your inadequacy even more obvious. Yes, I’m watching Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom and it’s completely depressing.

Since you probably haven’t watched Newsroom, and if you have you’re no doubt laughing it off just like your biggest defender, @sclark_melbs, calling it ‘fictional’ and ‘drama’, I thought it might be timely to let you know you could really learn something from this television series. And yes, you can learn something from fictional stories – they are just words formed into ideas which, after all, is your stock-in-trade.

In Episode 2 of Season 1, the fabulous Executive Producer of News Night, MacKenzie McHale, informs her staff of the standards they will be working to in her newsroom. These four beautiful rules are so simple, yet so ignored by your journalists day in day out:

  1. Is this information we need in the voting booth?
  2. Is this the best possible form of the argument?
  3. Is this in historical context?
  4. Are there really two sides to every story?

Do you ever think that maybe if you showed this sort of integrity in the news reporting process, you might actually do some good in our society? I realise this isn’t your ultimate goal, and not the reason you go to work every day, but wouldn’t it feel nice inside to actually know you were contributing to society rather than ripping it up and stamping on it? Standards of decency. Do you even have such a thing?

Let’s look at these rules in regards to your favourite topic of political reportage – Kevin Rudd and his shambolic quest to undermine the Prime Minister. Apparently this story trumps news of policy success, and pretty much anything the Labor Party wants to say on any topic which isn’t related to bringing Gillard down. And I can’t for the life of me work out why? Unless of course you are just hacks. I’m looking at all of you – from Murdoch’s unprofitable rabble, all the way to, upsettingly, the Guardian, which we all hoped was going to be above this bullshit Groundhog Day leadership tension story. But alas, the Guardian is not. And neither is the ABC, so the commercial interest excuse fails here. I would welcome a journalist explaining to us how Kevin’s white-anting antics are important information to the electorate. Do we need these stories to make up our minds in the voting booth? I’d say emphatically, no, it’s just Labor bashing. 

Based on the historical context, we already know Kevin doesn’t have the numbers after one challenge, and one aborted challenge. Based on these simple facts, which you are all very aware of, is there any relevance in the news that Kevin is still upset that he’s not PM anymore? My cat doesn’t have the numbers to challenge the Prime Minister, but if I started a rumor that she wanted to, would you run with that too? How about more historical context? Like the fact that Kevin was shit at being Prime Minister and was replaced by an extremely competent Deputy Prime Minister who has had ten times the policy wins Kevin had? This just doesn’t ever get a mention. How is this not relevant to your bullshit stories that weren’t relevant in the first place?

How about we look at all the times you break standards 2 and 4. When you quote ‘the Opposition says’ without actually giving any thought to the accuracy of what the Opposition says. I heard a cracker tonight on South Australia’s ABC news. Some of the relevant facts were, thankfully, included; South Australia’s Premier Jay Weatherill had confirmed his state’s support for the Gonski education funding deal. I’ll note here that when the ACT signed up, you made the story about a sandwich. Seriously, you did. But credit where it’s due, you reported Gillard’s success in reaching agreement with South Australia. And then you ruined it by adding that the leader of the South Australian Liberal Opposition had criticized the deal, saying it was not delivering an education funding boost to South Australian schools, but rather a funding cut.

So here I ask, did anyone check if the Liberal Opposition Leader was correct in this statement? Because I actually think he was unashamedly incorrect- the whole point of the Gonski deal is that every school will be better off. But just the fact of reporting this inaccurate statement makes the electorate think it is true. When you do this, you’re not informing the public; at best you’re confusing them, at worst you’re lying to them. Does it really take very long to verify the facts of someone’s statement before quoting it on air? Is the overused knee-jerk technique of adding ‘the Opposition says’ to every news bulletin really the best form of the argument?

How about getting an expert in to speak about education funding if the Opposition don’t have anything relevant or truthful to add (in other words – if they don’t actually have an argument)? And are there really two sides to every story? I would say if the Opposition are just making shit up, they have no right to be included in the report. And if your journalists can’t verify the veracity of the Opposition’s statements before you quote them, why the f*ck are you putting them in your news story? This is not balance. This is lazy. Do you ever think that if you did hold politicians to a very basic, base-line standard of only reporting their slogans and sound-bites when they are factual, you might actually improve the quality of political discourse in this country? Never considered it? Didn’t think so.

It’s when you don’t bother to find out who else was at Brough’s dinner. It’s when you take the word of the restaurant owner over the chef’s evidence and you decide not to investigate the truth. It’s when you don’t ask why Brough apologised long before the restaurant owner said the menu was never printed. It’s when someone is lying and you don’t care.

It’s when you stalk Craig Thomson and ignore James Ashby. It’s when you beat up stories about Gillard’s ex boyfriend 20 years ago, but make nothing of Abbott’s current slush-fund court case. It’s when you report everything from the worn out, inaccurate narrative of Labor ‘chaos’ and ‘failure’ and you actively support Abbott’s teflon-un-scrutinised stunt show, that we know you are campaigners, not journalists. It’s when you forget that it’s your job to find things out and to tell us the facts, that we remember we can’t trust you. And if we can’t trust you, why should we bother with your words? It all comes down to integrity and respect for the audience. Of which I would question if you have any.

Ever noticed how the only people defending you on social media are your own members? Why is that? How can all of us be so outraged by you on a daily basis yet you still ignore the criticism? Time and time again we see you saying you’re getting disapproval from supporters on both sides of politics so you must be doing the right thing. This is bullshit. You’re getting criticism from everyone because you are doing a terrible job of reporting the news. This is why watching Newsroom is so sad. I’m watching a hypothetical scenario of how things could, in a decent world, work. But you, the mainstream media in Australia, do not belong to this world. So this world remains an unattainable fantasy.

 

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An Open Letter to Bernie Brookes

Dear Bernie Brookes,

I’m sure you can guess why I’m writing you this letter. You’ve no doubt had many similar complaints this week surrounding your comments about the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the effect this policy will have on Myer consumer spending. So here’s another one to add to the pile. Even if you don’t have time to read it, please do me the favour of handing it around your mates, fellow CEOs of big companies who think they’re entitled to an opinion about political policy. These words are for all of you.

First off, let me just say that I am a very grateful person. I am grateful that I live in a society where a brand like Myer exists. But I don’t wake up in the morning and curse that Myer isn’t open yet. I, like all other Australians, don’t need Myer. We don’t rely on Myer providing us with products. This is because nothing your store provides could ever, in anyone’s warped sense of reality constitute a ‘necessity’. Necessities, things needed to live, for lucky Australians like me, include shelter, food, water and healthcare. Everything else is lifestyle. That’s what your store sells isn’t it? Lifestyle choices. As an Australian, I get to enjoy a whole raft of lifestyle choices, Myer being one of them. I get to enjoy so much more than just bare necessities, and that’s why I’m so grateful.

I am also grateful that my life has not been touched by the difficulties of disability. Yet, if I was to find in my future that, for instance, I had a child with a disability, I don’t think my first concern would be that this child might cost me more money, and reduce the amount of cash that I could spend at Myer. Thousands of Australians have been looking after themselves or loved ones who have a disability, buying all the expensive healthcare and equipment needed to give them a life that’s nowhere near as privileged as most of your customers, without the government offering them the support that it has always been able to afford. Hence why Gillard’s Labor Government has introduced the National Disability Insurance scheme. But rather than applaud this social policy, you whinge to your investment banker crowd that the policy is going to hurt your shareholders. How pathetic a human being you are. When I think of your shareholders, somehow I don’t manage to conjure the sort of pity that I have for people who are prisoners in their home due to a disability, or for their carers who have been by their sides their entire lives. Giving up trips to Myer. Giving up everything for their loved one.

It’s clear that you have a predictable view of government spending on social welfare. You don’t like it. You don’t seem to think the government can afford to do anything. Although I didn’t hear you complaining when Rudd’s Labor government stimulated the economy during the early stages of the Global Financial Crisis by giving your consumers money to spend in your stores. Are you grateful at all for that Bernie? That this country didn’t plunge into recession like the US and most of Europe?

When you found your statements about the NDIS had made their way out of your investment banker echo-chamber and into the general populace (your consumers) and you realised your words might affect your shareholders’ income, you issued the most cowardly format for an apology – a press release. And in this release, you stuck by your criticism of the funding model for the NDIS – a minor increase in the Medicare Levy. You said you would prefer the NDIS was funded using ‘existing revenue streams’. Well thanks Bernie. Thanks for this insightful advice. Have you not heard that government revenue isn’t doing so well lately? You are constantly complaining that your retail sector isn’t performing well but do you ever put two and two together? While you and your CEO mates might find the economic conditions difficult, might it also be so that government taxation revenue is also dropping due to large companies like your own not contributing as much in tax revenue? Or is the government meant to be responsible for this as well? Last time I checked, Australia is doing incredibly well economically compared to other developed nations – would you prefer to run a group of department stores in Greece? And while you and your mates are constantly backing Tony Abbott’s catch-phrase that the government MUST be in surplus, how do you expect that government to afford the NDIS, which you now seem to agree we need, without an increase in taxation? What’s this magic pudding you seem to know about that the government doesn’t? Please enlighten us.

Speaking of your buddy Tony Abbott, what are your thoughts on his plans to fund his inequitable-middle-and-upper-class-welfare-election-bribe paid parental leave with a 1.5% increase in the company tax rate? Myer will be paying that I would think. I totally understand big business. I know the cost of this tax increase will be passed onto Myer consumers. Aren’t you concerned that if you charge us more for your lifestyle choices, we might not be able to afford as many lifestyle choices? Or we might give up on your lifestyle choices altogether? Heard of the internet? I’ve only got a rudimentary understanding of economics and supply and demand, but that’s how it works doesn’t it? Prices go up, demand goes down. I would personally agree with you if you were to come out and criticize Abbott’s paid maternity leave policy. I don’t want your prices to go up so Abbott can ensure women who earn way more than the average wage, get paid more than an average salary when they go on maternity leave. I don’t want to see every company in Australia put their prices up so women can pay for expensive lifestyle choices whilst being full-time mums. If the company tax rate was increased for an equitable policy like the NDIS, I would have no complaint.

I guess it all comes down to priorities, doesn’t it Bernie. My priority is the poorest and most disadvantaged in society. I am thrilled to be given the opportunity to contribute from my taxable income, to ensure disabled Australians are better supported with their challenges in life. Your priority is your shareholders. How’s that working out for you this week Bernie? Are your shareholders impressed with your public relations disaster?

 

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An Open Letter to the Economy

Dear Economy

I have cause to write this week because I wanted to remind you that I am still here. And I am still angry. I know there’s been a bit of talk since the passing of Margaret Thatcher about her famous line denying my existence. History has shown time and time again how wrong Thatcher was about most things. However there still seem to be some people in positions of considerable power who would like to perpetuate the lie that you are more important than me. It’s true, people watch you much more closely than they watch me. We get a stock market report on the TV news every night, even though most of my constituents wouldn’t even know what a stock was, let alone own any. This obviously gives you delusions of grandeur. But what’s become really apparent over the last couple of decades is that you think you own us all. And you don’t. You might own the greedy and the very rich. The likes of Rupert Murdoch and Gina Rinehart bow down to you like a god. In your eyes, these two are probably favourite pupils. However, if you use my very different measures of what constitutes a successful life, both these lowlifes are complete and utter failures of the highest magnitude.

Speaking of failures, this is another reason for my letter. It’s not good manners to reject me completely when you’re having a good time, and then to call me when you’ve got a problem or when things go wrong. This ‘too big to fail’ argument is just silly. If you fck up badly enough, sure, I’ll always have to pick up the pieces. That’s just who I am. But you can at least work with me a little to make sure I have the resources I need to build the safety net that you expect me to have whenever you do fck up, which is pretty frequent of late. You see, I’m not just some doormat you can walk all over and treat like a ‘get out of jail free’ card when you’ve stuffed up. If you want me to look after you, you need to better look after me. If everything I own gets privatized, by the way, I don’t own it anymore. That might not make sense to you, but think about it for a second. You want me to take responsibility for things that I need, to make sure that my people have a good chance to be happy and effective members of my club, but then you steal these things off me and try to sell them in your market. How am I meant to make sure everything is working and available to everyone who needs them if you suddenly own them! There’s no middle ground with you either, it’s all or nothing. Dog eat dog. You really should stop being so selfish and think about everyone, like I do, and not just your rich buddies who get richer by buddying up to you. If you had your way, there would be no minimum wage and your best buddies, the very rich, would happily see those invisible people who I look after die in the gutter from starvation and exposure to the elements.

Speaking of the elements, isn’t it time you had a think about the climate? I know you don’t believe anything matters if it doesn’t have a price tag, which is obviously why you think I’m so inconsequential. But seriously, haven’t you noticed that the climate is costing you? It shouldn’t be up to me to remind you of this. You’re meant to be good with numbers and I’m no accountant. But I’ve seen the insurance pay outs that go to victims of natural disasters. Surely you can’t be blind to these. You might be blind to the human tragedies of drought and flood: the deaths, the loss, the upheaval of people’s lives. These are all my problems. But the money cost? It’s going up and it’s going to affect you more and more as the temperature keeps rising. You never were quick on the uptake and I really can’t help but think you’ve become quite lazy in your old age. Sure, the old energy sources of coal and gas have helped you to chug along without a care in the world for the side effects but the profit isn’t going to last. Why you might ask? Because this stuff is going to run out you buffoon! And you expect me to have all these people ready to solve this problem, ready to find some way to keep you running using sustainable energy sources, yet you won’t invest in research and development. So no, I don’t have anything or anyone ready to solve this problem. I’m barely able to keep some of my lot alive in the wreckage you have left behind from your greedy pursuits, let alone having them ready to build a car that runs without petrol. Stop being so stingy and go to work to solve this problem yourself. For once in your life, think of something in the future that will happen more than a day down the line.

Speaking of looking to the future, I hope you know that all my poor friends are eventually going to come and bite your rich friends on the arse. I’m not talking about a revolution, so don’t go organising private security armies and building more gated communities yet. I wouldn’t mind if an uprising happened, by the way. I think it would be a good way to shock you awake. But unfortunately my guys don’t have time to mobilise to that extent, when they are working long hours just to feed their families and keep themselves from being evicted. No, the way they are going to ruin your rich people’s lives is by collapsing you in on yourself when their wages are crushed, and their spending becomes so minimal that you can no longer flog your shit to them. You see, if they are barley earning to survive, they can’t afford your shit. Makes sense doesn’t it? When I say ‘shit’, I mean all the useless stuff you produce to make a profit. Nothing that benefits me. In fact, most of this shit is completely useless to me and if anything, it is to my detriment. Especially when they all try to get rid of it and find they can’t because it won’t wash down the drain. Somehow you’ve managed to convince my people that your shit will make them happy, that somehow they’ll find satisfaction from buying it and looking at it. That the more shit they have, the more successful they are. But this is all part of your con and one day this fraud of yours will be exposed. As will the lie that you need to keep growing to survive. It’s time you went on a diet! You don’t need to keep growing. You’re fat enough already.

The more I write, the more I realise just how unhappy I am with you. You promise the world, and all you deliver is mess for me to fix up. You were meant to solve all your own problems. That’s what you promised when I first met you. But you don’t solve problems, you just make them. I think it’s time we met up to discuss this problem further.

Yours sincerely
Society

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An Open Letter to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd

Dear Julia and Kevin,

Sorry to address you both informally by your first names, but I’m assuming I’d start off on the wrong foot if I wrote this letter to the Prime Minister and Kevin. And the relationship between you is what I’m writing about. It’s time to get over the sensitivities and to unite for a good cause. Julia and Kevin, I’m calling on you to build a bridge and get over it.

So let’s recap how we got to this awkward place. Kevin, I want you to know that I used to be one of your biggest fans. I wore the Kevin07 T-Shirt proudly as you defeated John Howard in the 2007 election. Yes, it was a brilliant win and a time of great anticipation and optimism. I’ve always thought your policy ideas were fantastic, and you do seem to be a smart and personable man. Being the Prime Minister of Australia, especially throughout 2007 – 2010, was not an easy job. You worked your guts out. Your response to the GFC was top notch. You never got enough credit for that. Your ETS policy and Mining Tax policy were also fantastic ideas. I’m sure, you, like I, will always wonder what might have been if the Greens hadn’t looked a gift horse in the mouth and rejected the ETS policy. I’m sure your mate Malcolm Turnbull wonders the same thing. But it wasn’t just your failures to pass policy that were the problem. It was also you Kevin. Your leadership style left a lot to be desired. You see Kevin, being a leader isn’t just about proposing things and taking the praise. Being a leader is about working with other people to get things done. And that’s where you fell down. Your team didn’t support you anymore because you were a crap boss. And you can’t run the country if you’re a crap boss. It broke our hearts to see you cry when you were forced to step down from the leadership of the Labor Party. And it’s not surprising you were so upset. No one likes being fired. But your behavior since then has also left a lot to be desired. Particularly your behavior towards Julia, who, it would seem, you are blaming for your downfall. Is that really fair Kevin? Is it Julia’s fault you lost the support of your team? I don’t think so.

But maybe you should look on the bright side. You should feel pleased that your horrible experience of losing the support of your party has now paved the way for other people to go through a similarly awful experience, without the subsequent abuse and ridicule that was reserved for you and Julia, the Labor Party and anyone who supports the Labor Party. You see, you’re a trailblazer now Kevin. You’ve made the leadership spills experienced by Ted Baillieu and Terry Mills into regular run-of-the-mill, not even front-page-worthy news. I know it’s taken the mainstream media a long time to get used to the idea that a party decides who their leader is, and some of them are still obsessing about you and Julia a bit too much (don’t worry, I’ve written to Michelle Grattan about that), but I don’t think you’re helping this situation Kevin. I don’t think your supporters are either. The mainstream media will keep reporting ‘Labor leadership tensions’ while there is even a tiny whiff of this in the air, however insignificant, because this suits their narrative of Labor ‘chaos’ and ‘desperation’. The only way to wipe this narrative out is to kill their story. If they can’t write about Labor leadership tensions, there is a minuscule chance that they might find some space in their tiny minds to scrutinise Abbott. And even if this is far too optimistic an idea, maybe they’ll look at Labor government policy instead of just crucifying personalities. Isn’t this at least worth a try?

The thing is, Kevin, I know deep down you want to do what’s best for Australia. I know you have a very keen interest in promoting progressive reform, and that this interest is far more important than your hurt ego. In your heart of hearts, you know in order to do what’s best for a progressive Australia you need unequivocally to support the Labor Party at the upcoming Federal Election. You must promise to stop leaking, and tell your supporters in the Labor caucus to follow your example. You have to understand Kevin, the only way you are going to positively influence the country’s future is by sucking up your disappointment about not being Prime Minister anymore, and supporting Julia in her campaign to beat Tony Abbott.

Julia, it’s not just Kevin who needs to suck it up. I can see you’ve been doing your best to run this country with a lot of obstacles, Kevin being one of them. I have been very proud of your policy successes and your personal resilience in the face of challenging conditions. But it’s time you realised that your message just isn’t getting through. Sometimes it seems that the electorate and the mainstream media are by default either supporting Kevin’s reinstatement as Prime Minister, or campaigning for Abbott’s election as Prime Minister. This has to change. You have a fantastic story to tell. You just need to stop being so afraid of telling it. I know this is not going to be easy for you to hear, but you could actually learn something from Kevin about how to go about political campaigning. The Labor Party needs an inspirational message. When you speak passionately, you are inspirational. When you told Tony Abbott that you would not be lectured by him about sexism and misogyny, I was moved to tears. I, like so many Labor supporters, would love to see this passion more often. We want to help you defeat Tony Abbott, but first you need to help yourself.

You need to find a way to make up with Kevin. For your own sake as well as his. We know how great you are when you come across relaxed and in control. With Kevin constantly undermining you, it’s no wonder you sometimes appear slightly on edge. It’s time to try something different. Pretending that Kevin isn’t white-anting you isn’t helping. The leadership vote of 2012 was a good idea, but unfortunately it had the unintended effect of fuelling the media’s campaign to force another vote, rather than putting it to bed. So as unpalatable as this might seem, it’s time to be the bigger person and help Kevin. Not for Kevin’s sake, but for the sake of the country. If Kevin wants a ministerial position, give it to him. And then hold a joint press conference and smile, laugh and say every corny thing the mainstream media will love to put on their front page. For crying out loud, give each other a hug! You know they’ll love that!

You both need to agree to get the band back together and then tell the public that you are working as a team to win the election. Admittedly, it is a very sad state of affairs that this country seems to care more about who is in the top job than what the person in the top job is achieving. I’m sick of Labor supporters fighting amongst ourselves about whether we like Julia or Kevin better. It’s like children fighting over a red smarty or a yellow smarty. It’s ridiculous! I know that you know that the Labor Party is more important than the leader. I know that Julia replacing Kevin as Prime Minister is not as big a deal as the mainstream media would like to make it. I know that ultimately the government’s policy successes are the work of the whole Labor Party, as well as often the Greens and the Independents. But after two years and a continuous ground hog day of reporting on this issue, I implore you both to give my advice some consideration. If you don’t, I fear the successes of the Labor government will never be the focus of the electorate’s attention. I fear that the progressive reforms implemented over the last five years will be repealed and destroyed. And I fear that neither of you will ever get the chance to make a difference to this country ever again, and will instead be faced with the worst prospect of all: Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. Please do not abandon us to this fate. We’re counting on both of you.

 

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An Open Letter to Tony Abbott

Dear Tony Abbott

I notice that you’ve been getting a free run in the mainstream media over your whole career and it occurred to me that you are out of practice in responding to scrutiny. So I thought I’d do you a favour and scrutinise your supposed vision for our country, on the off chance that this experience might come in useful one day. Like, just say, if you become Prime Minister of Australia and someone dares to ask you what on earth you might actually do during your time in the top job. Assuming anyone cares.

Now bear with me as I examine your policies, as I do understand that you are very keen not to reveal these until the last minute before the election. So I’m just going to have to go by ideas that you’ve floated and talking points that your colleagues have mistakenly inserted in between the barrage of harassment, verbal abuse, smear and stunts that is your unique brand of Opposition conduct.

Let’s start with an important policy – the Carbon Price. We haven’t missed that you don’t like this policy. You resigned from Turnbull’s Shadow Ministry in 2009 in protest against his support of Rudd’s Emissions Trading policy. You won the Liberal leadership by one vote (probably Peter Slipper’s) by promising to attack this policy. You won the support of your fossilized front bench by mounting a mission to destroy the Carbon Price. And most importantly, you won the support of Gina Rinehart, someone who appears to hate the Carbon Price more than you do, by promising to ‘axe the tax’. This strategy has literally paid dividends to your party. So I can see, from your point of view, your opposition to this policy is a winner. But this is where I have a slight problem. It’s the whole ‘your point of view’ thing. You see, Tony, when I look at your policies, all I can see is that they are going to benefit you. You personally. When your policies also coincidentally benefit some of your rich mates like Rinehart, the end result is that these rich mates pay your party money to continue your quest to help them. Their support personally benefits you. You’ve made it very clear that you’re an ambitious person and you obviously desperately want to be PM. Tony Windsor has a voice mail from you that outlines this desperation succinctly. But here’s the rub. I feel you’ve also made it blatantly clear with your behaviour and ideas over your time as Leader of the Opposition that you are more interested in short term personal gain for yourself, than long term, difficult but ultimately beneficial reform for Australia.

Your Direct Action Policy is obviously bullshit and won’t go anywhere near meeting the emissions reduction target agreed to by your party. You don’t seem to mind that you’re attacking market based mechanisms (Carbon Pricing and the ETS), which is odd because your party is very fond of letting the market run free. Instead, you are advocating a centrally controlled, government funded scheme that will cost tax payers $30 billion dollars and would definitely be labeled ‘Communism’ by your friends from the Tea Party. $30 billion dollars, Tony, is a lot of electricity bills. And worst of all, you don’t seem to give a crap about the environment and the effect that Climate Change will have on my generation and future generations of Australians. (Notice how I used the word crap).

The Carbon Price was a difficult reform for the minority Labor government to implement. Good reforms are often challenging political battles to win. Successfully implementing the policy, of course, was made a lot harder by your anti-Carbon Price circus, but thankfully the Labor government prevailed, the sky didn’t fall down and Whyalla hasn’t been wiped off the map. In fact, emissions are already reducing. Good result! But rather than applaud this policy success, and acknowledge the good that it will do for reducing Australia’s emissions, and also the importance of acting as a responsible global citizen, you are basing an election campaign on a promise to kill this crucial, once in a lifetime reform. To deliver what exactly? Slightly cheaper electricity bills. So you’re appealing to the electorate’s lowest common denominator – their hip pockets – today – rather than being a leader and making the necessary tough decisions to ensure the safety and economic security of our nation’s future.

What about the National Broadband Network? Your so-called mate Turnbull is trumpeting this reform around town as a waste of money. Like a used car salesman trying to undercut a dealer down the road, Turnbull is offering a cheaper, lesser quality broadband network, in the place of the one that experts in the technology sector say is the only viable option for sufficiently increasing broadband speeds Australia wide. Getting the National Broadband Network right the first time, rather than paying less and installing a lemon, is, in my view, very important for the future efficiency and productivity of Australia’s economy. Your party likes to talk about increasing productivity doesn’t it? But again, you take the easy road to policy popularity and mislead the Australian public into thinking that you can wave a magic wand and fix everything with your supposedly bottomless pit of revenue. It’s clear that experts and you don’t see eye to eye. But I can tell you, the electorate is going to be rightly pissed off if you rip apart a high quality, revenue generating broadband network, and replace it with one that keeps Telstra in the arrangement, relies on rotting copper and will result not only in lower speeds but in tens of thousands of ugly fridge-like cabinets churning away on suburban streets and sucking power. That’s right, the NBNCo cabinets currently being installed around the country are small and don’t require power. The fibre being installed currently is waterproof, so it won’t cut out when an area floods (due to Climate Change) and will provide the fastest possible signal to most of the country. But you plan to replace this technically superior product with a dodgy ‘solution’ that will require a new coal fired power station just to run it, and will keep Telstra happily maintaining copper that is way past its used by date. In fact most experts are now questioning whether Turnbull’s Fibre-To-The-Node solution will end up costing more than the current NBN. It’s interesting to note that you don’t seem to give much thought to what might happen on the other side of September 14. There’s only one thing you care about. You and you being in power, right now.

I noticed that one of your policies (or so called ‘Discussion Papers’) about a northern Australian economic zone accidentally got leaked to the media this week. I see you have been busy denying that this plan will ever be put into practice, but excuse me if I don’t believe you. You see, we know how much Rinehart means to you (your pocket) and your future plans for your career. We know how important getting rid of the mining super profits tax is to Rinehart. Funny that you and your colleagues have been calling on Wayne Swan to resign because the Mining Tax so far hasn’t brought in enough revenue. Don’t you think this attitude is pretty rich coming from the party who has promised to get rid of the tax, and it’s resulting government revenue, altogether? No doubt you think you can get away with such hypocrisy since the mainstream media never call you out on anything. But we all know how much you would like to support Rinehart in her quest to pay little or no tax at all. So we can see that you’re working behind the scenes to bring Rinehart’s plan for this country to fruition. It’s really not a good look that you’d prefer to support Rinehart’s ever growing multi-billion dollar fortune, rather than sharing the benefits from the sale of mineral resources with all Australians. I think the electorate would think this was a pretty bad look too if the mainstream media bothered to make as big a deal out of it as they would if they had any professional integrity and journalistic skill.

The more I scrutinise the bare bones of un-costed ideas that claim to count as political policy, the better I get to know you Tony. You’re that five year old who takes the one marshmallow now, instead of deferring gratification in order to wait for two in the future. You’re offering the Australian people a magic pudding economy of higher government spending, lower taxes, a better economy, lower cost of living and no concerns about Climate Change, that anyone with half a brain can see that you have no hope of delivering. Yet you are so blinkered by blind ambition and selfish yearnings for personal success that it’s clear that you don’t give a shit about Australia. And this is why I think you don’t deserve to be captain of a CFS unit, let alone Prime Minister of this country.

Yours Sincerely
Victoria Rollison

 

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The Search for the Palace Letters

The Search for the Palace Letters: Jenny Hocking v Fuckingham Palace

By guest columnist Tess Lawrence

Warrior Australian historian and colonial upstart Jenny Hocking notoriously took on Queen Elizabeth 11, Fuckingham Palace, Australia’s anal-retentive fortress of ‘forbidden history’, the National Archives, the Attorney-General and the Office of the Governor General – and won!

For years the diminutive, pixie faced Hocking and her formidable team of lawyers stormed the continuum of legal barricades put up by this obsequious group of forelock-tugging monarchical subjugates, dismantling spurious legal argument that basically strove to deny fellow Australians the truth about the role of the/our British monarch and her man in Oz, Governor General Sir John Kerr in the 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam Government.

The ruptures caused by ‘The Dismissal‘ still loom large upon the nation’s political and societal psyche.

The legal stoush was one thing. The years leading up to the Courts quite another. All up a decade or more, and even to this day, Hocking is fighting facile restrictions on her access to our national archives.

What is going on?

The NAA is behaving more like Lubyanka than the guardian of our past and thus a guide to our future. It is our library. It doesn’t belong to our Monarch, and it certainly doesn’t belong to censorial bureaucrats.

The archives belong to us. Our history belongs to us. Shameful or otherwise.

 

 

You would think that our Attorneys General and the National Archives of Australia would both be in Hocking’s and thus our corner, leading the charge to champion the release of correspondence between the late Queen and her hapless self aggrandising and needy lapdog, Sir John. It’s embarrassing to even reflect upon the entire scenario.

The Search for the Palace Letters and The Search for Jenny Hocking

At 8pm tomorrow night in a world premiere, ABC television will broadcast the much-awaited film ‘The Search for the Palace Letters‘ based on Hocking’s own non-fictional historical thriller, The Palace Letters.

The documentary might well have been sub-titled ‘The Search for Jenny Hocking’. 

Despite Hocking’s prolific writings and public appearances, like her opponents in the courtroom and public fora, we do not have her measure.  She is a natural and generous teacher and communicator and her passion for history is matched by her determination to share it. In her writings she has that precious ability to combine academic prowess with literary flourish. In a gumnut shell, she is a compelling storyteller, who breathes life into history. Question and answer sessions are an audience favourite because she has a well-earned reputation for calling it as she sees it, invariably drenching her answers with her wry wit and sense of humour. I know, because I’ve seen her in action.

Last year, whilst appearing on the wonderful podcast series, The Scandal Mongers, Hocking caused spluttering and outrage in the British and international media when she called for our King to apologise for his personal interference (when he was Prince) and support for Sir John Kerr’s role in the Whitlam government’s dismissal.

The Scandal Mongers is presented by the dynamic duo of Andrew Lownie and Phil Craig. You can read about it in full in this article The AIM Network published in March.

Lownie himself has been fighting his own battles in the UK that in many aspects mirror Hocking’s experiences here. He wrote an exclusive article for The AIMN last year on his own struggles with the Palace and the British Government.

 

Below: Hocking’s appearance on The Scandal Mongers remains a popular episode. Lifelong cobbers Andrew Lownie and Phil Craig are wonderfully jovial, irreverent intellects and co-hosts. They are two sharp dudes.

 

The Search for the Palace Letters will give us greater access to Hocking’s personality and what drives her. It’s fascinating that her life and professional partner, Daryl Dellora is the director and again, has teamed up with producer Sue Maslin. Both are festooned with awards and accolades under the Film Art Doco banner.

Of course, this brings an inevitable professional voyeurism and curiosity as to how Dellora treats his subject, with whom he is intimately involved. Then again, as a family, the Hockings underwent so much to take on The Firm and The Establishment. And the third eye of the camera will reveal secrets and provide insight.

Such battles are not always won in the courtroom, but rather around the kitchen table, in the dead of night, in bed. Endless hours of research, fact checking, cross checking, briefings, emails, phone conversations. It’s daunting. At times, frightening. You have to nurture morale. Try not to be dissuaded by the negativity and indifference of others. It’s sometimes scary. One inevitably bites off more than one can chew.

Hocking also whistleblower – exposing corruption within collusive system

Let us not forget Jenny Hocking is also a whistleblower.

Make no mistake, the dismal affair in my book, that led up to The Dismissal constituted corruption and arguably, corruption of constitutional propriety, insofar as royal and direct interference in our political affairs and government leadership are concerned.

These arduous campaigns for justice are all pervasive, as well I know. Subtext and back stories form arterial alleyways to the brain. One has to stay alert. Legal opponents throw everything at you. Vigilance and strategy become endemic bedfellows. You sleep almost with your eyes open. It is not an obsession. It is not even a compulsion. It is a requirement, part of the job, in order to try to stay one step ahead.

 

Hocking on the set of The Search for the Palace Letters. Photo by Hilary Wardaugh.

 

Whistleblower often one person against many

Onlookers sometimes forget that invariably the whistleblower is simply one person fighting a phalanx of opponents to expose injustice for the greater good.

And so often when all is finally revealed and the calumny exposed, we learn that many others knew of the wrong doings. That in itself can be dispiriting, disheartening.

Why did Jenny Hocking’s opponents spend millions of taxpayers’ monies to try and block access to the Queen/Kerr letters? Because they knew what was in the files. They knew that the Queen and Kerr would be exposed as the main key and culpable players in an end game that ultimately was to bring down the Whitlam Government.

It’s all there in the Palace Letters. And to read the bilge written by those who wrote that the palace letters didn’t reveal any such thing, is simply another attempt at fake news and revisionism of history, indeed journalism itself and is an indictment of a lack of knowledge and understanding of the machinations of the Queen, Fuckingham Palace and ‘The Firm’.

Impediment to accessing our own history comes from enemies within

Besides, since the High Court decided in Hocking’s favour and blowout after the publishing of The Palace Letters, container loads of evidence of Palace interference in political affairs have been published, as recently as this week and this day, as the Epstein files attest.

The impediments to accessing our own history comes not so much from ‘foreign’ entities but rather from the enemies within. And they are legion.

The next time someone tells you, one person can’t make a difference, you might consider citing Jenny Hocking as someone who did. As someone who does.

The Search for the Palace Letters. ABC TV, Monday, January 8.24.  8pm AEDT

 

Tess Lawrence is Contributing editor-at-large for Independent Australia and her most recent article is The night Porter and allegation of rape.

 

 

 

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The Prince, The Crown and The Letter

By Kirsten Tona  

Once upon a time, there was a Kingdom called Dwanaland, comprised of the counties Eastbord, West Hale, and Southchurch.

Every year, the richest best and brightest young princes and princesses of the kingdom would gather in Eastbord, and partake in a series of trials designed to place them in a hierarchy to choose which of them would take up various offices of the Court. It was from this privileged talented group that the eventual King of Dwanaland would come, so the trials were hotly contested. In theory, the ruler could actually be a Queen rather than a King, but that had only ever happened once and had not been deemed a success except by the princesses. This, it was felt, was because princesses were usually more suited to the role of obeying princes than to ruling them. Mostly it was the princes themselves who felt this, what the princesses felt cannot be said for certain because the princes wrote and kept most of the official records; the task of recording history being too important onerous for princesses and liable to damage their wombs. It was felt. By the princes.

But by the year 18888, when Dwanaland considered itself a modern and progressive kingdom, the trials contained a surprising number of highly competitive princesses, most of them with intact wombs.

The princes and princesses gathered as usual in Emeraldcityville, the main city of Eastbord, to take part in the trials. Two of the competitors that year were Princess Catherine of Southchurch, and Prince Christian of West Hale. These two were very evenly matched but in the final trial, a speaking competition, Princess Catherine drew ahead and when the trials came to a close, she was judged the outright winner with Prince Christian a close second.

There was much celebration amongst Prince Christian and Princess Catherine’s friends, and dancing well into the night. People said that one or other of them was bound to be King one day, or Queen of course, all wombs being equal, and both were praised and made much of.

After the dancing, Prince Christian offered to walk Princess Catherine home. Just before they reached the castle they were staying in, he drew her aside and professed his love. The princess was thrilled, for she too harboured these secret feelings.

“Meet me at midnight, at the top of the highest tower,” the prince whispered into her ear, and she shivered, and agreed.

So, later that night, Princess Catherine slipped out of her room and went to meet her prince at the top of the highest tower.

When she got there, he was waiting for her. The light of the full moon streamed in, illuminating the room in silver, and the scent of roses wafted through from the climbing vines at the window. Violin music could be heard from far below.

Her prince stood by the window looking out. “Come and look,” he said, and held out his hand to her, “you can see the lake from here.”

She went to him. He gathered her in his arms. Her face turned up to him, awaiting love’s first kiss. He pushed her out the window.

* * * * *

Many years later, Prince Christian – who by now was high in the line to the throne – received word that King Skum was very ill and not expected to last much longer. The prince hurried to meet with the king’s other advisors, and the succession was discussed in secret meetings in private back rooms throughout the castle. There were only two other rivals for the throne: Prince Friedegg and Prince Potater but both were unpopular with the people:  the former for suggesting to the peasants that if they were hungry they should eat more lobster, the latter for attempting to imprison indefinitely all those who disagreed with him on the subject of summary execution for those caught being poor in public. King Skum was also unpopular, mostly for passing a law in secret saying he was not only King of Dwanaland but of all other countries as well including those as yet undiscovered or likely to be imaginary, and that not genuflecting as he passed should punishable by death, preferably by fire ants.

It was felt that Prince Christian was probably the option the people of Dwanaland would consider the least worst, and his succession to the throne was assured. The death of King Skum was a mere technicality at this point, one that could possibly be hastened by a merciful act of medical error. Failing that, he was extremely likely to be soon taken by his most trusted advisors on a tragic hunting accident.

Prince Christian celebrated quietly that night, dining on expensive wine, lobster, and his chambermaid. He drank a toast to himself for being finally about to achieve the honour he and his family had plotted for so carefully since he was born. King! It was everything he’d ever wanted and practically in his grasp. He went to bed in a mood of heady exhilaration.

But in the midnight hour, Prince Christian dreamed a terrible dream.

He was in a crypt: cold, silent, with dark archways and deep shadows.

Before him, on an altar, glittered the kingdom’s crown, its gold and jewels the only bright thing in the room.

Between him and the crown lay a coffin.

He reached out to grab the crown but suddenly, with a creak and a groan, the coffin lid opened, and from it rose a woman’s dead hand, holding a letter.

Prince Christian woke with a start into his own bed chamber. It smelt of roses, moonlight was streaming through the window, and from far below he thought he could hear violin music.

He remembered his dream, and shuddered. “Too much lobster,” he told himself, “or possibly not enough chambermaid,” and he went back to sleep.

The next day, as the prince was breakfasting and daydreaming of future glories, a page came with an urgent summons to the throne room.

“Maybe the king is dead,” he thought. ”This could be it.” And he shivered in anticipation.

But when he arrived at the throne room, King Skum was propped up on the throne, resting comfortably on the incompetence of his underlings, seemingly unaware he should be dying.

In front of the king stood one of his senior advisors. On the man’s face was a heavy scowl and, in his hand, a letter.

* * * * *

No one had faulted Prince Christian for his gentlemanliness after the terrible accident that broke Princess Catherine’s spine. He was quite magnanimous about it, offering to marry her, telling her that there were still many tasks to which she would be suited: raising his babies, answering his phone, and ironing his shirts as he rose through the ranks in the quest to become King of Dwanaland. Others said this was remarkably generous of him considering the fall was her fault in the first place: she should not have been wearing those ridiculous shoes. It was clear that the way she was dressed was simply asking for trouble.

It is assumed that Princess Catherine was very grateful to him for forgiving her lapse in shoe-wearing judgment, although no one actually bothered to record her thoughts at the time given that Prince Christian was entirely capable of interpreting them for her for the permanent record.

In the event, Princess Catherine did not go on to marry the prince. She returned to Southchurch and spent the next years undergoing different treatments for her broken back. Unfortunately, the injury was too great for her to ever really again be considered a contender in the kingly stakes. But doctors told her that with a healthy diet and a little gentle exercise, the worst of the shattered bones could be kept from interfering too much in her ordinary life, as long as she did not attempt anything really tricky such as gymnastics, or walking. They also discreetly suggested she lose a little weight, give up on the fine lobster perhaps, a sedentary lifestyle was hard on a woman’s body but that was no excuse for letting herself go.

 

 

The princess did everything she could to recover from her terrible accident, but the pain was a constant reminder that she was not fully capable of protecting herself. She found it hard to trust, and she always felt sad. One day, she reached the end of the line. She had tried all possible treatments, and still the pain and sadness ate through her.

That day, on a visit to her mother, her back gave out for the final time, and she tumbled all the way down a staircase to her death.

But before she died, she wrote a letter.

* * * * *

In the throne room, the king’s advisor told Prince Christian that Princess Catherine – whom by now he barely remembered – was dead, and that she had written a letter saying she did not fall from the castle tower that night, Prince Christian pushed her.

The prince was shocked. He denied it vociferously. When the ministers and advisors of the King’s Council asked why she would say such a thing if it wasn’t true, he said the thing that men always say about women who stand against them: that she was crazy. He said that she was vengeful, that she was bitter, that she was a liar. He said she was nasty, vindictive, too old, probably ugly, and likely to own many cats but most of all, he repeated, she was crazy.

Although the ministers and advisors were always inclined to believe that a woman was crazy, it was too late to hide the news about the letter. Word had leaked out, and the people were demanding action.

King Skum did nothing, as was his wont, but Prince Christian was dragged before the Court of Public Opinion where he pleaded his case. He said he’d never met Princess Catherine, then that he had met her but didn’t remember her, then that he had met her, did remember her, but she was lying. He told them she was crazy, crazy, crazy. He begged for them to believe him. It is quite possible he actually believed himself by this point. He asked for sympathy. He cried.

But the people had no sympathy. They had suffered too long under the rule of men like Prince Christian. And King Skum’s time on the throne had been a nightmare full of corruption, incompetence and cruelty. The people wanted a head.

So they took Christian’s.

He was stripped of all his titles and influence, removed from power, and sent back to West Hale where he still had some friends, who organised for him a sinecure collecting the shit of the donkey belonging to the man who collected the shit of the horse ridden by the woman who emptied the chamberpot of the 4th-in-line to Head Shit Collector of the Royal Chickens.

King Skum didn’t die, he was far too cunning to go hunting with his best friends or drink the health potions they kindly prescribed, but he lost power anyway. His Council was sent into exile and replaced by a Council which actually contained princesses as well as princes. The people decided that at the very least, they could not be much worse than the council of King Skum and the Princes Christian, Friedegg, and Potater, and in the event, it turned out that the new Council, who called themselves The Workers’ Champions (although nobody knew why as none of them seemed to actually know any workers) were not much worse. They were not much better either but the people were too tired for revolution so they let it happen, and at the time I write, are watching them from afar with beady eyes.

* * * * *

Princess Catherine was buried with honours and real tears, her tragic letter read by the whole kingdom, and in time, a statue was raised to her with a plaque telling her story and warning of the perfidy of princes, written by media pundits of all of whom it suddenly turned out had known and loved her personally for many, many, many, many, many, many years.

And in West Hale, no-longer-a-prince Christian was left to rot away, a warning to others: here is the man who was almost king, felled by the words of a bloody woman fercrisake, always said ya can’t trust ’em, should never have let ’em learn how to read and write in the first place just look what happens when they get a bloody eddication ffs its a cryin’ shame lowdown bunch a bitches. Ahem.

He never slept very well after that. He was plagued, constantly, by a particular recurring nightmare.

In it, he is back in the crypt. He reaches out to grasp the glittering crown. But the coffin creaks open, and a long arm rises from it. Its cold, dead fingers hold a letter.

 

 

This piece was originally published on Quaerentem and has been reproduced with permission.

©2022

UPDATE

In the Year 18923, the new Council headed by the Workers’ Champions opened an inquiry into a particularly unpopular policy of the previous Council. This policy had insisted that if the very poorest of the citizens could not prove to the Council’s satisfaction that they’d never had more than a single bag of peanuts a fortnight to subsist on, they would be fined 12,000 bags of peanuts or spend 67 years in the dungeons. Which were guarded by sabre-toothed tigers. This was called the Fairness And Recognition of Kingdom Understanding, or FARKU.

The Council had been very pleased with this policy, which had reaped them a lot of peanuts and given the peasants a clear understanding of exactly where they stood in the hierarchy of the kingdom. Although some of the kingdom’s peanut-collectors had baulked, pointing out that the only way peasants could prove their peanut consumption was to obtain affidavits from everyone they had ever met since birth, and that many of these people could not provide said affidavits on account of now being dead, King Skum’s Ministers had responded by saying the peasants should have thought of this when they were born, and that they, the Ministers of the Crown, could not be held responsible for peasant fecklessness. And reminded everyone that the state of the Castle dungeons was such that they now required crocodiles to clean up the sabre-toothed tiger shit.

When the Workers’ Champions were elected, they showed a pleasing predilection for vindictiveness. They opened an Inquiry into FARKU and stocked it with Royal Lawyers with deceptively mild-mannered faces who had actually all been raised on sabre-tooth tiger milk, and had advanced weapons training in Sarcasm, Bullshit Detection, and Attention to Detail.

To date, the Royal Lawyers have spilt so much blood that the dungeon crocodiles have been brought up to lick the Inquiry room’s floors clean after every session, thus providing a neat solution to the disposal of certain soulless peanut-collectors.

Speaking of whom, it is expected that in the next week or two, the former-prince Christian of West Hale will be called to give testimony as to his part in the FARKU debacle. As it is said that his speech these days is limited to the phrases “I never” “I wouldn’t” “we didn’t” “she’s crazy” and “I forget” this is expected to be something of a bloodbath. Their neighbours say the sound of the Royal Lawyers sharpening their teeth on metal grinders can be heard throughout the night.

Stay tuned.

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Reading the COVID Fine Print: The Undoing of the Australian Open

The decision to go ahead with the Australian Open, the first of the grand slams of the tennis calendar, was always going to be fraught with problems. Players journeying from designated “hot spots” of novel coronavirus outbreaks; large entourages of individuals taking up places on chartered flights even as Australians struggle to get seats to return home; and the issue of what training facilities would greet players on arrival, were all ingredients for potential cockups.

Fifteen chartered planes are involved in the project, transporting more than 1,000 players and team members. The initial mood was optimistic, even filled with gratitude. An important international tennis tournament could resume. Business and sport could resume.

Then came the shaking realities. It took only a few of the flights to be compromised. Four travellers on two of the chartered flights had tested positive for COVID-19 on arriving in Australia. These included a broadcaster, coach and aircrew member on a flight from Los Angeles; the other, from Abu Dhabi, saw a stupefied Canadian coach Sylvain Bruneau return a positive result. A stunned Bruneau claimed to have “followed all safety protocols and procedures, including testing negative within 72 hours before the flight departure and felt perfectly fine” when boarding the plane.

This meant that 47 players and 143 travellers would be confined to their rooms in strict quarantine for 14 days, including Victoria Azarenka, Sloane Stephens, Angelique Kerber, Kei Nishikori and Heather Watson. Another flight from Doha, Qatar also had a passenger who tested positive on January 17, meaning the quarantining of more players.

Doing so has meant that tournament participants will have a good slice of their training time cut from preparations, leaving opponents that much better off. Swiss tennis player Belinda Bencic had the following observation: “We are not complaining to be in Quarantine. We are complaining because of unequal practice/playing conditions before quite important tournaments.”

 

https://twitter.com/BelindaBencic/status/1350446300236398596

 

Bencic has a point, but from the perspective of some tennis players, reading regulations and conditions of entering both a tournament and a country are of secondary importance. Tennis and training come first; their minders will do the rest for them, with uneven levels of competence. The rest is just bureaucratic fine print.

This would explain the brattish quality of some of the notes coming from players now quarantining on arrival. All of them have the same running theme: we were not told. “What I don’t understand,” groaned Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, “is that, why no-one ever told us, if one person on board is positive the whole plane need[sic] needs to be isolated… I would think twice before coming here.” Romanian player Sorana Cirstea was in full agreement. “They told us we would fly at 20% capacity, in sections and we would be a close contact ONLY if my team or cohort tests positive.”

 

 

Each player seems to have had a different reading in this feast of postmodern interpretation. Alizé Cornet has her own. “We’ve been told that the plane would be separated by a section of 10 people and that if one person of your section was positive, then you had to isolate. Not that the whole plane had to.” It would be good to have seen this in writing, and also, which body issued such instructions.

Cornet, it should be said, subsequently issued an unreserved apology, having been reminded in the indignant Twitter deluge that Victorian residents had endured conditions less accommodating than her own during the extended lockdown last year. “I guess I feel a bit anxious about all this and I better have shut my mouth.”

The Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, is clear in his mind what was furnished to the players prior to getting on their flights, resisting a stab at any tenuous grasp of reality. “I’m here not so much to be opining about how in touch with the real world these people are. That’s not my job. My job is to make it very clear. People were told what the rules were (before they got here).”

Australian Open director Craig Tilley’s account does not deviate from Andrews. “We did make it very clear at the beginning. That’s why we had the player groups in cohorts. There was always a risk that someone would be positive and have to go into 14 days of isolation.”

Some of the players have even had their own ideas for what the Victorian government and Tennis Australia should do. Perhaps the least qualified to do so, given his previous disastrous foray into COVID tennis, is the world’s number one ranked Novak Djokovic. Djokovic, it will be remembered, tested positive for COVID-19 in June last year after organising the Adria Tour, a tennis exhibition display in Serbia and Croatia that turned sour with infections, calumny and collapse. At the time, Tennis Australia’s Chief Operating Officer Tom Larner saw a bright side in the organisational mess: “There are a fair few learnings that have come out of that (Adria Tour).”

Some of the proposals by Djokovic, outlined in a letter to Tilley, are bound to find a receptive audience among some of the more disgruntled players. They include, not unreasonably, adapted fitness and training material for all the quarantine rooms and appropriate meals.

Then comes the proposed loosening and adjustments that will terrify the COVID-19 strategists: reduced isolation periods for players; the carrying out of more tests to confirm they are negative; permission to visit coaches and physical trainers (as long as they test negative); permission that both player and coach be on the same floor of the hotel; then a move of players to private houses with appropriate tennis court amenities.  Melbournians with tennis courts, please stand up.

Andrews was firm and curt in response. “People are free to provide a list of demands. But the answer is no.” Emma Cassar, Commissioner of COVID Quarantine Victoria, was also unmoved in rejecting the requests. “It’s a firm no from me.” Cassar is also proving rather matronly in her sternness of the competitors in quarantine, noting various breaches of lockdown rules that have so far taken place. These include the opening of hotel doors to communicate with other players on the same floor. “It is really low-level but really dangerous acts which we just can’t tolerate.”

In Australia, the tournament is also causing domestic fraying. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian finds it rich that Victoria maintains a closed border with Australia’s largest city, Sydney, while accepting international travellers from virally ravaged lands. “There is nowhere in Australia currently designated a hotspot, so why shouldn’t people be able to return home?” she stated with unconcealed irritation. “I have always been arguing for that and I think this international event highlights the inconsistency of that.”

But as the Madam Premier would appreciate, money does not merely talk, but growls. Even in this case, her Victorian counterpart, the designated hard man and prosecutor of one of the world’s strictest COVID-19 regulations, has relented in agreeing for the tournament to take place. The result, when it starts on February 8, is likely to be a skewed, scrappy affair.

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Seeking the Post-COVID Sunshine: No More Exemptions for Security Officers with Covering Letters from our DFAT Outposts?

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 MerkitsNaimansMongols, Keraites, TatarsUyghurs 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.

Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.

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Constitutional Umbilical Cords: The Palace Letters and Royal Secrecy

On July 14, Jenny Hocking was breathless. “Forty-five years after they were written,” the political scientist penned with excitement in The Conversation, “hundreds of previously secret letters between the queen and the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, relating to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 will be released by the National Archives in Australia this morning.”

For those outside Australia, this may seem a bit over-egged, a provincial chapter in a country that was struggling to find itself, wedged as it was between Brit-longing and US guardianship. For those in Australia, the release was celebrated like the arrival of a mixed-bag Messiah, telling of good, and bad news, about why the reformist Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was effectively given the chop by an unelected official representing the British monarchy.

The stash of 211 letters, comprising 1,200 pages, have been called the “Palace Letters.” But their revelations are merely one part of the story and still require decent perusal. While commentators and pundits struggle with the subject matter, speed reading and sawing facts to fit their prejudices, the entire event underscores the default secrecy that preoccupies Australian institutions and their continued orbit with the United Kingdom.

Prior to the reluctant release, the correspondence, under lock and key in the National Archives of Australia, had been part of the Queen’s embargo, her “personal” records to be staunchly defended by her subjects in Canberra. The Official Secretary to the Governor-General had lodged the Palace Letters with the Archives with instructions that they “remain closed until after 8 December 2037,” a date later revised to December 8, 2027.

This decision had every reason to be seen as undemocratic and very much in keeping with Royal diktat, a reminder that Australians, strictly speaking, remain subjects rather than citizens. An Australian prime minister had lost his head, metaphorically, but Australians were not to know the nature of the discussions between the man who initiated it in Canberra, and the Palace reaction in Britain. What meddlesome role had the Palace played in Australian politics? Why did the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, seize the sword so adamantly to decapitate Whitlam?

Hocking’s nose had been tickled and put out of place. In 2011, her request to access the records was rejected by the National Archives. Eschewing timidity, she again up the issue in 2016. On being rejected a second time, she initiated legal proceedings. The argument put then as before by the National Archives was traditional and musty: the letters were not Commonwealth records but personal to the monarch, or at the very least, the monarch’s representative in Australia, Sir John Kerr. The property of her royal person was off limits.

The litigation that followed was a reminder that Australia remains a country addicted to secrecy, even on material covering the events of 1975. The commencement of proceedings in the Federal Court caused consternation in Buckingham Palace and to the Australian Governor-General’s Official Secretary, Mark Fraser. In February 2017, Fraser initiated correspondence with the Queen’s Private Secretary, Sir Christopher Geidt. The opening of the first letter is telling: “It is the understanding of the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General that is a matter of long-standing convention that non-official correspondence between the Monarch and Her Governors-General across the 15 realms outside the United Kingdom are private and confidential communications, not forming part of any official government records.”

This formulation was problematic, drawing a false distinction in the correspondence generated between Canberra and the Palace in an official or private capacity. The fact that Kerr was potentially communicating his intimate views about a chaotic political time in Australia could well have been shielded as a “personal” matter, thereby making him, and any decision made by the Queen, unaccountable.

But convention is, without any intended pun, sovereign. At stake, as Fraser explained, was the “fundamental British constitutional principle that communications between The Queen and Her Ministers and other public bodies should remain confidential.” This was also done to also preserve the neutrality of both the Monarch and the Royal Family. Such an understanding was accepted in correspondence between the Office and the Private Secretary in 2011.

In reply, the Private Secretary was in full agreement, “that correspondence between the Sovereign and her Governors-General and their respective offices are made in confidence. These are essentially private communications which are inherently sensitive.” To that end, the Archives Act 1983 did not catch the records in question “but are instead retained on the advice of the Royal Household for a minimum period of 50 years to reflect the uniqueness of the length of a reign.”

The Federal Court, in 2018, found that the Palace Letters were the property of the person then holding the Governor-General’s office, Sir John Kerr. Access, should it be granted to the public, would only be given in 2027 at the earliest, and even then, subject to conditions. In February 2019, the Full Federal Court dismissed Hocking’s appeal, with the majority rejecting “the approach that everything that a person who holds an office does is done by that person officially.” A flicker of hope was supplied by the robust dissent of Justice Flick. “The documents include correspondence between a former Governor-General of this country, written in his capacity as Governor-General, to the Queen of Australia in her capacity as Queen of Australia, concerning ‘political happenings’ going to the very core of the democratic processes in this country.”

The restrictive reading by the majority of the Archives Act, Justice Flick suggested curtly, were not supported, be it the second reading speeches of the former bills, nor the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs. A “Commonwealth record” should be construed simply, unambiguously. As for the Governor-General, he was not some extra-legal entity, being a “representative of the Commonwealth” and “subject to [the] Constitution.”

The Australian High Court duly found for Hocking, claiming that the correspondence were Commonwealth records for the purposes of the Archives Act. They were part of “a legally endorsed concentration of power” and therefore within the possession and control of the Commonwealth. At the time they were deposited, they were property of the “official establishment of the Governor-General” and were as such “Commonwealth records.” This all seemed like common sense in a field often marked by common nonsense. Only Justice Nettle, in a lonely dissent, stayed the traditional course, suggesting that Sir John Kerr exercised control over his communications with the Queen and engaged in such communications on an understanding they would remain confidential.

The entire episode highlighted the continued existence of a constitutional umbilical cord linking Buckingham Palace to Australia, marked by the chemistry of secrecy. For republicans, it is a reminder of continued political infantilism; for conservatives, it is an argument that what works doesn’t warrant change, a point that was sorely tested in 1975. The stillborn republican movement in Australia is unlikely to receive a transfusion from these papers and the paladins of secrecy will continue about their shielding work. But at the very least, Hocking’s efforts, and the High Court decision, will see some light cast on the constitutional curiosities of the Australian political system, along with its monarch resident thousands of miles away.

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Letters between a drunken Kerr and a British toff

For most Australians the release of the Palace Letters had about as much relevance to their daily lives as would a day’s polo at Werribee Park on a sweaty Sunday afternoon.

For those of us who have a sense of history, are republicans, or just happened to live through this most telling time in our history, it encompasses, now that the Palace Letters have been released, but smidgen of closure.

Before I say anymore I should disclose that firstly I am a republican and secondly I am likely to say to you that despite whatever argument you put to me on this matter, a fact that you can never escape is this: It is that an unelected Governor General who on 11 November 1975 dismissed a Prime Minister elected by the people.

This act by an inept, often inebriated Governor General rendered their vote useless.

This being said, let’s examine the Palace Letters and see if they add anything to what became known as The Dismissal.

Additional to the history of what transpired at the time we now have the gripping trove of correspondence between the Queen’s private secretary Sir Martin Charteris and Sir John Kerr.

We learn that The Queen wasn’t forewarned of the dismissal. Sir Martin, using the very best of upper crust British grammar said:

“If I may say so with the greatest respect, I believe that in not informing the Queen what you intended to do before doing it, you acted not only with perfect constitutional propriety but also with admirable consideration for Her Majesty’s position.”

Like fair dinkum, mate.

“Better for Her Majesty not to know.”

Strewth, your not trying to tell me she knew nothing. That’s just highly implausible. I would imagine that she had a daily briefing from her secretary.

But things will never change until we have an Australian as our head of state.

With no good reason the media has been rather dismissive of the release of the Letters suggesting they disclose nothing new or nothing of importance. But to the contrary.

They disclose that in an era long gone the British still had a lot of power, or at least influence over us. They still do because the same thing could happen again unless the good citizens of our nation insist on one of our own as our head of state rather than the monarch of another country who resides in another hemisphere.

Now that 40 or so years have slowly meandered their way through history and my anger of the time has dissipated to a shiver of resentment, I find it truly bizarre that with Australia having matured to that of a world middle power, that the egos of two politicians, Whitlam and Fraser, could have fought over the spoils of Australian politics without there being a constitutional means of resolution.

The Letters do show that Kerr went over and above duty to inform the palace of his every move. (Anything that would cover his arse because he wanted to keep his job.) He was extremely transparent. So friendly was he with the Queen’s secretary that the letters often digress into things like making unofficial trips to Paris and Norfolk.

They had formed an extremely matey relationship.

“If you do, as you will, what the constitution dictates, you cannot possible [sic] do the monarchy any avoidable harm. The chances are you will do it good.”

Charteris – in my view – played Kerr on a string, or maybe Kerr wanted to be. The aforementioned quote, to me, proves, in a modern context, inference. Charteris even comforts Kerr from time to time.

These revelations, I must say, made my blood boil. That the secretary of the Monarch of another country in 1975 is chit-chatting with her representative in Australia while she has little concern about what is happening … seems extraordinary.

The Letters do make it clear that Kerr on a day-to-day basis made his intentions clear to Her Majesty’s private secretary and that she wasn’t told of the intended betrayal of a democratically elected Prime Minister seems astonishing.

The Secretary did confide to Kerr that the Governor General was playing his vice regal hand with “skill and wisdom.” He also expressed the view that the Queen had no wish to intervene. Does that mean that she did know what was going on?

He also counselled:

A that the crisis had to be “worked out in Australia.”

B that Fraser had a vested interest in bringing on an election he would probably win.

C that he advocated caution.

D that he believed the reserve powers – did exist.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed from office on the 11th day of November 1975.

For me all the Palace Letters do is to fill in a missing part of Australian history but perhaps more importantly they reinforce what to me is an overwhelming case for why we should become a republic.

As for Gough Whitlam, well I will leave you with these words:

The Whitlam Government”s achievements

In his book “Crash through or Crash”, Laurie Oakes said that:

“In his brief three years the Prime Minister produced profound and lasting changes – reforms which could not have been so broadly conceived and so firmly implemented by a lesser man. The Whitlam Government without doubt was the most creative and innovatory in the nations history. Under Whitlam, Australia’s foreign policy came of age. His Government made education its top priority and poured money into schools and colleges throughout the country. It created Medibank, set up community health centres, gave a new deal to pensioners, took an active role in urban improvement and development, provided funds directly to local government, and gave a healthy boost to sexual equality and aboriginal advancement. It promoted greater Australian ownership and control of resources, legislated against restrictive trade practices, introduced the most civilised and sensible divorce laws in the world, gave encouragement to the arts, and in its final budget implemented some fundamental reforms, which made the income tax system considerably more equitable. Whitlam himself dominated both his party and the Parliament, and he commanded respect when he traveled overseas in a way no previous Australian Prime Minister had done.”

His record:

  1. ended Conscription,
  2. withdrew Australian troops from Vietnam,
  3. implemented Equal Pay for Women,
  4. launched an Inquiry into Education and the Funding of Government and Non-government Schools on a Needs Basis,
  5. established a separate ministry responsible for Aboriginal Affairs,
  6. established the single Department of Defence,
  7. withdrew support for apartheid–South Africa,
  8. granted independence to Papua New Guinea,
  9. abolished Tertiary Education Fees,
  10. established the Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme (TEAS),
  11. increased pensions,
  12. established Medibank,
  13. established controls on Foreign Ownership of Australian resources,
  14. passed the Family Law Act establishing No-Fault Divorce,
  15. passed a series of laws banning Racial and Sexual Discrimination,
  16. extended Maternity Leave and Benefits for Single Mothers,
  17. introduced One-Vote-One-Value to democratize the electoral system,
  18. implemented wide-ranging reforms of the ALP’s organization,
  19. initiated Australia’s first Federal Legislation on Human Rights, the Environment and Heritage,
  20. established the Legal Aid Office,
  21. established the National Film and Television School,
  22. launched construction of National Gallery of Australia,
  23. established the Australian Development Assistance Agency,
  24. reopened the Australian Embassy in Peking after 24 years,
  25. established the Prices Justification Tribunal,
  26. revalued the Australian Dollar,
  27. cut tariffs across the board,
  28. established the Trade Practices Commission,
  29. established the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service,
  30. established the Law Reform Commission,
  31. established the Australian Film Commission,
  32. established the Australia Council,
  33. established the Australian Heritage Commission,
  34. established the Consumer Affairs Commission,
  35. established the Technical and Further Education Commission,
  36. implemented a national employment and training program,
  37. created Telecom and Australia Post to replace the Postmaster-General’s Department,
  38. devised the Order of Australia Honors System to replace the British Honors system,
  39. abolished appeals to the Privy Council,
  40. changed the National Anthem to ‘Advance Australia Fair’,
  41. instituted Aboriginal Land Rights, and
  42. sewered most of Sydney.

My thought for the day

A commitment to social justice demands the transformation of social structures as well as our hearts and minds.

(For my view on Australia becoming a republic, read this.)

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The “open secret”: when men do nothing

In an independent investigation by a former inspector general of intelligence and security, former High Court judge Dyson Heydon has been found to have sexually harassed six junior court staff during his period on the bench.

More stories of Heydon’s predatory behaviour are coming to light as I write this piece.

Law Society of Australia president Pauline Wright commented after the revelations that harassment is pervasive in the legal profession. In 2019, the International Bar Association found that one in four women had been harassed in their workplace.

Heydon’s sexual impropriety has been acknowledged as an open secret in legal circles. Which might cause one to wonder about the integrity of a profession dedicated to upholding the law, that protects men who transgress that law.

It really is the same old never-ending story. In 2015, surgeon Dr Caroline Tan found her career derailed after she spoke up about being sexual harassed by a colleague. The prevalence of harassment in medicine is not known, however, it is considered sufficiently serious to cause problems for women across the profession. It is likely an “open secret” in that profession as well.

The only way sexual harassment is called out is when victims speak up. We are dependent on traumatised women putting themselves at further risk to tell us what is going on.

Women who disclosed are frequently disbelieved, especially if the man involved is a powerful figure. Women are blamed, both for the abuse and for disclosing it. Women lose their jobs or promotions. Women can be branded as troublemakers or worse, as sexually problematic in the workplace. It isn’t the perpetrators who are subjected to punishment, retribution and shunning. It is the victims. Women are frequently left without sufficient support and face inadequate complaints processes. Women can be further traumatised by the reactions of others, and the all too real fear of losing their livelihoods.

This is far too much responsibility to put on women in these situations. It is beyond appalling that traumatised women are the only ones who disclose these behaviours, and the only ones who name the men who indulge in them.

If the harassment is an “open secret,” as has been confirmed in the case of Heydon by accounts from senior lawyers, men who are in on this “secret” are enabling and protecting the perpetrator. Men who know this secret and stay silent are signalling their willingness to let this behaviour continue. If men stay silent, women can assume they agree with the behaviour. Women can assume that they will receive little assistance if they approach a man with their story.

There is absolutely no doubt that sexual harassment can only happen within a structure that tolerates and enables it. That would appear to be practically every institution and workplace in the country where men are employed.

Men in the workplace must be aware that sexual harassment is taking place. They must hear about it, see it, and suspect it. And yet, they do nothing. As angry and disgusted as we might be at the behaviour of one individual, he could not continue in that behaviour without the enabling silence of other men. It’s time we started demanding of men, why didn’t you say something?  It’s time we started holding men responsible for the behaviour of other men they do nothing to prevent.

Men harass women because they can and one of the reasons they can is because other men let them. It’s called complicit assent.  Men are complicit in a culture that encourages the sexual harassment of women. Men who are complicit betray women, and abandon their ethics. The wide-spread harassment of women will not substantially change until men step up.

The careers of six promising women lawyers have been derailed by the direct action of one man, and the tolerance and complicity of that action by every other man who knew about it. In these situations, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. Men need to realise they are culpable in their silence.

Not all men are sexual abusers and harassers. But as long as they don’t speak up, all men are responsible for their complicity with those who do abuse and harass in their workplaces. It’s time to hold men accountable for that complicity, and remind them that failing to speak up makes them assenters. It’s way beyond time to demand that men start taking responsibility for the actions of other men. Way beyond time.

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Welcome Deaths: Coronavirus and the Open Plan Office

For anybody familiar with that gruesome manifestation of the modern workplace, namely the open plan office, the advent of coronavirus might be something of a relief. The prospects for infection in such spaces is simply too great. You are at risk from droplet-filled babblers, dribblers and gibbering colleagues. Good ventilation and a hyper-vigorous sanitation regime provide little guarantee of safety against the pathogens of a carelessly directed cough.

Employers will have to sort out some measure to ensure continued productivity from workers while still practising those now enshrined words “social distancing” and “1.5 or 2 metres apart.” That the open plan office will be a continued feature of mass productivity (never mind the quality of it all), continues to be the acceptable face of post-coronavirus design. Behind them are the property managers who care little for the quality and much for the efficiency (keeping costs down, maximising the use of space).

The New York Times suggested something along such lines in April. “Workplaces may have significant changes in the long run, including new seating arrangements and the addition of building materials that discourage the spread of germs. New technology could provide access to rooms and elevators without employees having to touch a handle or press a button.” The paper notes the opinions of a vice chairman of a real estate company, a certain Matthew Barlow of Savills who simply sees this as “trying to build confidence and a secure feeling.” Desks can be moved apart; workers can be given more elbow room. Use of sanitisers and around-the-clock armies of disinfecting crews would become an immutable, reassuring norm.

This is all the stuff of implausible, patchwork arrangements. Provided that benching desks were kept to a width of six feet, the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Provision would be complied with. This comes with challenges. “To create a six-foot radius around each employee, companies may have to pull desks apart or stagger employees so they are not facing one another.”

Geoffrey James, contributor editor to the business magazine Inc. is dismissive about such approaches, calling them “ludicrous.” The six-foot guideline was drafted to cope for people in public spaces. For instance, in shopping for goods at a grocery store, you would “keep your distance while transiting from one safe area (like your car or your home) to another.” Social distancing is a dead letter, a nullity in confinement, even with fewer people in a space where employees are held for hours.

The language on infection regarding coronavirus is that of logistics and projections. Designers assume that getting those matters right will be sufficient to minimise the COVID-19 threat. Given the way moisture travels, the essential feature of respiratory infectious disease transmission, they might well be fantasising.

Such moisture is taken to come in either “large” or “small droplets”, a dichotomy that took hold in the 1930s with the tuberculosis work of William F. Wells. COVID-19, however, has ruffled the establishment view on such transmission, one that is still accepted by the World Health Organization and other health bodies. Using methods focused on droplets might be missing the bigger picture on how transmission, notably in coronavirus cases, might work. “Even when maximum containment policies were enforced,” noted Lydia Bourouiba, “the rapid international spread of COVID-19 suggests that using arbitrary droplet size cutoffs may not accurately reflect what actually occurs with respiratory emissions, possible through contributing to the ineffectiveness of some procedures used to limit the spread of respiratory disease.”

Bourouiba offers a rather bleak picture for the office planners taken with merely modifying existing arrangements. Her language is militarily descriptive. Exhalation, sneezing and coughing are part of a continuum of moisture emission. First, the exhalation; then, the “short-range semiballistic emission trajectories,” followed by “a multiphase turbulent gas (a puff) cloud that entrains ambient air and traps and carries within it clusters of droplets with a continuum of droplet sizes.” Any droplet-bearing puffs containing pathogens can travel up to 7-8 metres.

Multiphase turbulent gas cloud from a human sneeze (Image from jamanetwork.com)

Time then to jettison a concept that has been found to defeat, undermine and maul the very things it set out to do. Since becoming a reality of Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision of democratised, spatial openness, supposedly found in the 1906 Larkin Administration Building in New York, it has continued to attract stern critics and a distinct imbecilic enthusiasm.

Did such plans enhance cooperation in a transparent setting with fewer boundaries on human “collaboration”? Not so, according to Ethan S. Bernstein and Stephen Turban. The authors found a decline in face-to-face interaction “with an associated increase in electronic interaction.” From such open-planned spaces emerge the hostile, the estranged, the disengaged.

Good for the well-being of employees? Think again, suggest Rachel L. Morrison and Roy K. Smollan, though the authors were still convinced that a decent open plan arrangement could be arrived at in offices given “good technical design and thoughtful ergonomic assessment of the needs of employees and the requirements of their tasks.”

As Adams reminds us, architects and office designers have not been ignorant to the incubating and transmitting qualities of open plan offices when it comes to disease. “They just didn’t care. Open-plan offices emerged from the same corporate mentality as the ‘work till you drop’ ethos that discourages sick days and vacations.”

Britain’s combative broadcaster Jeremy Paxman is even more pointed in his blows. “An open-plan office is a way of telling you that you don’t matter.” You get given allotted hours at some pod or work station; personal touch is eschewed “while opposite you someone you don’t know shouts into the telephone to a person sitting in an almost identical human warehouse in Bangalore.”

In the meantime, repurposing the home as a workplace is seen as an alternative. This would, in turn, reduce work travel, traffic chaos, pollution. Not all can do so but there is much to be said for those who can. The open plan ideologues, however, still have a following. For Sarah Holder, writing in CityLab, “A pivot to walls is probably still a long way away.” Tinker around the edges; cloak the message with a number of suitably chosen weasel words; hope that the workers will buy it despite being terrified. “The broad stroke is that the open office is over,” suggests the CEO of office interior design firm Knotel, Amol Sarva, “[but] there’s a bunch of different things that that might mean.” Through the looking glass they come.

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A letter to Michael Sukkar from a Deakin constituent

Dear Michael

I saw you on the 9 news last Saturday evening telling us the $60 billion overestimate, if used to help people excluded from JobKeeper support, like casuals, people in the Arts and  university staff, is money our grandchildren will have to repay.

You are an intelligent man. You can’t be that ignorant of how federal government money is raised. If you are, you need educating. This money has been, or would have been, created out of thin air by the RBA. THAT IS HOW ALL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING HAPPENS.

It is not borrowed, nor are taxes used.

To offset spending that exceeds tax receipts, as a guard against inflation, The Australian Office of Financial Management issues a bond tender which, under normal circumstances, is purchased by individuals, banks, super funds, foreign interests and others.

For the buyers of bonds it is no different from buying shares or opening a term deposit. Bonds are issued for a set period, one year, two years, three years and on maturity are retired to the bondholder’s deposit account with the RBA. It is an automatic process and has nothing to do with our grandchildren. The RBA just moves the money from one account to another.

As of today, 23rd May, 2020, the AOFM has $649.2 billion of bonds on issue.

The last $100 billion of these bonds were purchased by the RBA. They had to do that because no one in the private sector could raise the cash to buy them. To suggest that this money has to be repaid is to say the government is borrowing from itself and must repay itself. I’m sure you can see the absurdity of this suggestion.

Federal government bond issues ARE NOT DEBT. A Federal government currency issuer CANNOT owe itself money.

So please, next time you are in front of a camera speaking to your constituency, or to the nation, don’t treat us like fools.

If you are truly perplexed by what you are reading here, I’m happy to meet with you and explain modern macroeconomics in greater detail.

Have a nice day,

John Kelly, a Deakin constituent.

 

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