Honesty, thy name is Kevin

Integrity in major party politics may not be dead.

ABC1′s Q and A program last night featured the Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. There were a few others on the panel, but for the most part, the focus was all on the former Prime Minister. (In retrospect, the producers must have wondered if they slipped up by not making it a single guest show.)

Inevitably, the question was asked – did Rudd regret his decision to delay putting the ETS legislation to Parliament for a third time?

Now, we’re all comfortable with the way Q and A operates. We get a few questions that seem to be drafted by party strategists, the odd incoherent rant and a few intelligent enquiries that are inevitably sidestepped and spun into an opportunity to deliver a political message.

That’s not what we got last night. Rudd looked up at the questioner and said simply, ‘I think my judgment then was wrong.’

La Trobe University politics lecturer Robert Manne, sitting next to Rudd, commented idly, ‘It’s very rare in Australian politics for that to happen’.

Understatement.

Contrast Gillard on the carbon price announcement – the so-called ‘broken promise’, the alleged ‘lie’. Even after she admitted that yes, she had changed her mind, she made a point of stressing that it was because of ‘changed circumstances’ (the minority government). She wasn’t ‘wrong’ to have ruled out a carbon tax during the election campaign; it was all about what had happened to her.

Contrast Abbott on paid parental leave or carbon pricing. He eventually said he’d changed his mind – and vigorously defended his right to do so.

Rudd, last night, copped it on the chin. He told us he’d been assailed from all sides by his own party, each pushing their own point. Some wanted the ETS permanently shelved. Some wanted to push aside, despite the hostile Senate. Rudd looked for the middle ground, hoping that he could gamble on the Senate changing in the next election. By delaying the ETS, he thought he’d found it.

It sounded like it was shaping up as typical spin. They made me do it, I didn’t want to, but they made me! Indeed, Julie Bishop – who seemed completely unable to stop herself from repeatedly interrupting with remarks that clearly she thought were clever, but which only showed her to be doing a fine job playing the role of Party animal – said that several times. Rudd wasn’t having any of that, however.

‘It was the wrong call,’ he said. ‘You make mistakes in public life. That was a big one. I made it … and I’m responsible’.

No attempt to lay the blame off on the so-called ‘faceless men’. No attempt to say he was forced into it. Rudd was clear about it; he was the man at the top, he wanted to unify his party and preserve a piece of legislation in which he believed. He failed. He was wrong. His fault.

It’s what people have been waiting to hear from Rudd – or, in fact, from any politician. Honesty, accountability, integrity. And – if the audience reaction and the Twitter feed are anything to go by – it shocked everyone who heard it. Within minutes, messages of congratulation flooded in addressed to Rudd’s Twitter.

But, of course, overnight, the worm turned – the ‘worm’, in this case, being the media, the pundits, and the pollies.

Rudd had ‘breached cabinet confidentiality’, he’d ‘gone rogue’ – Sky News. Rudd ‘exposed the deep splits that are damaging this government’ – George Brandis on AM Agenda. NineMSN’s report on Rudd included a mention of the latest Newspoll as ‘more trouble for the government’ (apparently, Rudd’s powers include an ability to influence polls that have already concluded). The Herald-Sun focused on the fact that Rudd ‘did not specifically clear the Prime Minister’. Cabinet was ‘split’ – the Sydney Morning Herald (apparently trying to convince us that ‘normal’ Cabinet meetings feature lockstep thinking). And Crikey commented that Rudd ‘put the knife into Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan’.

The thesaurus was in demand this morning. It was ‘extraordinary’, ‘incredible’, ‘unbelievable’, ‘devastating’. Possibly the tamest word used to describe Rudd’s words was ‘entertaining’.

But what’s missing here?

The reporting is uniformly negative. Even when the articles start by commenting on the ‘frankness’ Rudd displayed, they quickly drop that and move on to the ‘juicier’ stuff.

We bitch and moan about how our politicians don’t answer questions. We lament that everything they say is spin and lies dressed up as concern for ‘working families’. Where oh where, we cry, can we find honesty?

We saw it last night. We saw a former Prime Minister make the choice to admit the mistake, take all the responsibility without making excuses, and refuse to allow anyone on that panel to spin his words into anything other than he meant. He didn’t accept Manne’s compliment, or attempt to show himself as somehow better than anyone else.

But he was better.

Does it make up for the catastrophic decision to shelve the ETS, an action that severely damaged the government in the eyes of the Australian people? No.

Does it make up for his many other mistakes, particularly the botched home insulation program? Absolutely not.

But then – and this is the crucial thing – Rudd didn’t ask us forget all that. He didn’t even ask us to excuse or forgive him.

Should he have said, ‘Sorry’? Maybe. But what he did do was show us a man who had learned a bitter lesson.

Oh, we all loved to call him ‘Kevin 747′ when he raced around the world apparently currying favour with other countries. We tsked that he was ‘Kevin 24/7′ when he worked his Department into the ground, forcing them to keep up with his own punishing schedule. And who could forget ‘Kevin O’Lemon’?

But what we saw last night was just Kevin Rudd, the sadder and wiser man.

The last Q and A questioner commented that sometimes positive results can flow from personal disasters, and asked Rudd if he’d learning anything from being ousted as Prime Minister. Rudd laughed it off, but I think his earlier answer was the real one.

Rudd acted with integrity and honesty last night. It’s what we said we wanted in our politicians.

We shouldn’t allow media spin and partisan punditry to distract us from that. And we should require all our politicians act the same way, all the time.

We have that ability. We should start exercising it.

USQ Toowoomba puts flood levy nay-sayers to shame

As the rhetoric surrounding the proposed flood levy grows ever more hysterical (as exemplified by Senator George Brandis’ performance on Sky’s AM Agenda this morning), it’s easy to succumb to despair. Sometimes, though, you hear things that restore your faith and admiration in people.

Toowoomba in Queensland was incredibly hard hit by the flash floods that hit the Lockyer Valley, killing at least 20 people. Some of the images from that horrifying day were collected by The Chronicle. As you click through, you can see just how much of the town was affected. The cost of cleaning, rebuilding and replacing everything that was damaged is still being calculated, but is undoubtedly very, very high.

People in Toowoomba could be forgiven for feeling just a little bit selfish right now. The job ahead of them is tremendous. The University of Southern Queensland, though, has its eye on the larger situation. While its Toowoomba campus was relatively unaffected by the floods, USQ has been heavily involved in helping with flood relief for its students and the wider community. They’ve undertaken to provide fleet cars for police and volunteer groups, counselling services through its Faculty of Science and organised collection centres where people can donate food, clothing and money.

It goes much further than that. Yesterday I learned that USQ has also set up a system whereby employees can donate to the flood relief through payroll deductions. Judy Halter, USQ’s Senior Public Relations Co-ordinator, confirmed that the total amount of money raised so far is $29,500.

Many of the staff at the Toowoomba campus live in the surrounding area, which was devastated by floods. They would be automatically exempt from a flood levy. It would be understandable if they decided that under the circumstances, they were going to save their money for their own recovery needs.

They’re not. Judy Halter wrote, ‘USQ’s commitment to assist the people in our communities is supported by all levels from Council, Senior Management, staff and students’.

People at USQ understand the importance of lending a helping hand. Even when their own situations are adversely affected, they’ve dug deep for the whole community.

And yet there are people in Melbourne and Sydney whining about having to sacrifice a single cup of coffee each week so that their fresh fruit and vegetables can make it into the supermarkets. They should take a long, hard look at themselves.

Congratulations, USQ Toowoomba. You provide a wonderful example of generosity and real understanding of community spirit for the rest of us.

There’s more to the NBN than YouTube

The government released the business case for its National Broadband Network yesterday. In a marathon media conference, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy and NBNCo CEO Mike Quigley talked up the high points.

In a nutshell, it boils down to: the business plan was examined and found to be good. At the most conservative estimates of uptake, taxpayers would still see their investment (now set at $27.5 billion) returned with a 7% gain. Wholesale prices range from $24 per month for 12 Mbps to $150 per month for 1 Gbps. Pressed to give an idea of what a retail figure might be, Conroy favoured the questioner with a pitying look and pointed out that you don’t show your hand when you’re trying to build a competitive market.

So, for about $1.5 billion more than originally announced, the minimum expected outcome is to pay back the investment and then some. The wholesale prices are far below the hundreds of dollars that were bandied about by the Coalition during the year. The country will be thoroughly connected, and the regions won’t suffer if the demand is likely to be low. The NBN will be available in places that private companies would consider too remote (read: unprofitable) to connect.

Cue the storm of criticism. On the mild side of things was the Coalition’s predicted response of, ‘Yes, yes, that’s all very well, but where’s the cost-benefit analysis?’, which is a question deserving of an answer. You might be forgiven, however, for missing that in the hysteria that’s building now.

Perhaps sensing that the average viewer really didn’t care about the difference between a cost-benefit analysis and a business case, the Coalition reverted to more high-flown rhetoric. It’s a $50 billion white elephant! It’s monstrous! (And no one can say ‘monstrous’ in those terribly disappointed tones like Shadow Communications Spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull.)

Senator George Brandis hinted darkly that the government must be hiding something. The NBN business case was supposed to run to 400 pages, but only 160 pages were released.

There was this from the Sydney Morning Herald. The NBN will cost $24 wholesale per month? Why, that’s outrageous! We can get ADSL2+ already for about that. Why should we be forced to pay for something we don’t want?

In The Australian, there was this assertion: we ‘know’ that most people will only want 12 Mbps, so why should we pour all this public money into building something faster?

The Herald-Sun cried, ‘Won’t someone think of the networks?’ After all, it warned, the NBN will kill free-to-air and pay television, because everyone will watch the internet instead.

And my personal favourite: the questioner in yesterday’s media conference who asked, in tones of confected outrage, why the government was willing to spend all this money on the NBN while people were stuck in traffic in Western Sydney and waiting for operations in hospitals. Is it so important to allow people to upload videos of themselves at high speed? What about our schools?

That’s a lot of objections. Taken at face value, they paint a picture of a fatally-flawed plan that no one wants and that will drag the country into financial ruin.

Funny thing is, most of those criticism just don’t stand up under scrutiny.

Let’s start with the ‘$50 billion white elephant’. This figure has been a favourite of the Coalition for months now. In fact, they’ve done a reasonable job of muddying the waters with it. Unfortunately, it’s a mythical number. The amount of money allocated from public funds is $27.5 billion. That’s it. The remainder, adding up to approximately $43 billion, is to be sourced from private investment – so even the total amount is less than the Coalition claims will be ripped out of ‘taxpayers’ money’.

Where did the $50 billion figure come from, anyway? Well, it’s debate hyperbole. It’s a figure that the Coalition used during debates on the Telstra separation bill and in Question Time to scare-monger about the NBN. How do we know it will cost what the government says, they asked. Maybe it will be $50 billion … maybe 100. We just don’t know. Except we do.

Then there’s Brandis, with his deep suspicions that the government are hiding a terrible secret in the unreleased pages of the business case. Why can’t we see them? What have they got to hide? The answer, according to Conroy, is just a bit anti-climactic; they’re ‘hiding’ commercial-in-confidence data. This is absolutely no different to any other business case. It’s common sense; if you’re trying to build a project with commercial and competitive intentions, you don’t go telling the world your fall-back position or your planned tactics to get the best possible return. You just don’t.

How about the claim that people will be forced to sign up to the NBN? Frankly, I’m embarrassed for Fairfax. This story was put to bed months ago. To trot it out again now just looks like fear-mongering. It’s very clear; there is nothing in the NBN plan that will remove choice from people. Everyone is free to opt in or to stay with their current situation. The fibre will be laid; that doesn’t mean you’ll be forced at gunpoint to sign on. In this, it’s no different to a telephone line. New houses are automatically supplied with the cabling for a telephone line – but the tenants are in no way required to sign up to a Telco.

Then there’s the ‘no one wants this’ argument. The thinking runs something like this; your average household probably doesn’t ‘need’ stupidly high speed connections to the internet. We can upload our videos now, so why would we pay more for something that won’t get us anything?

This is a pretty sneaky one. It’s arguable that many households won’t want more than about 12 Mbps, at least at first. The problem is that not every user of the internet is one of these homes. If you’re running student accommodation, you’re going to want a service that doesn’t slow to a crawl the minute half of the residents log on. If you’re a small business moving data, you want something fast. If you’re big business, an educational institution or a department at any level of government, it’s a no-brainer.

(And just by the way, there are plenty of homes out there with several members all wanting to access the net at once – and if you’re stuck on ADSL2+, you know the frustration that comes with watching your bandwidth grind to a halt because just one more person needs to do their email.)

And that’s without even looking at potential future needs. Conroy pointed out over and over that the NBN was ‘future-proofed’. What that means is that yes, right now it might be a bit more than the family at 47 Generic Street need so that they can do their homework and download movies – but the applications for internet communication are growing all the time. In ten years’ time, we don’t want to be in the position of having to start all over again, just to meet the demand. It’s called forward planning.

The dire warnings that the NBN will kill television might sound familiar. That’s because they’re recycled, with very little change, from the same warnings that were sounded when pay television first came to Australia. If people have pay TV, they won’t watch free-to-air, and people won’t invest, and there will be no good programs, etc. etc. Well, in over 20 years, that hasn’t happened. There are more free-to-air channels than ever, showing first-run quality programs from both overseas and made here in Australia. New programs are still being made here.

And there’s no reason to think this won’t continue when the NBN is implemented. Internet TV – either live stream or download – already exists. It hasn’t killed television networks anywhere in the world yet, even in those places where high-speed broadband is in place. The idea that we can have one or the other, but not both, stems from a false assumption – that there’s a finite amount of viewing out there, and not everyone can have a share of the pie. In practice, the reverse seems to be true.

What Internet TV is likely to do is democratise television. Currently, there are a few community broadcasters in Australia that limp along, supported largely by donations. They often have very weak signals, and can’t be picked up by many televisions – and if you have pay TV, forget it. Your tuner won’t even acknowledge community broadcasters exist. Using the internet removes the need for massive capital outlay just to get set up – signal towers, just for a start, become irrelevant. The internet creates a space, and where a space is created, it tends to be filled very quickly. In this case, it will be filled by those who don’t have the profile or money to compete with the big television networks and production companies.

Will these new internet channels be good? Well, as with current television, I suspect we’ll see a fair amount of rubbish. But it’s hardly the End Of TV As We Know It.

And so we come to the ‘people-are-dying-in-gridlock-waiting-for-operations’ criticism. When asked this, Conroy responded with barely-contained anger – and not without cause. This argument, frankly, is rubbish.

For a start, many of the problems cited are the responsibility of the States. Last time anyone looked, the Federal government had not nationalised roads or hospitals. Schools are slightly different; they exist in a strange limbo where both governments get to look after them (and, all too often, neither do).

Then there’s the implication that, by building the NBN, the government is somehow taking away money that can be ‘better’ spent on things that people ‘really’ want and need. This is called rank populism. There’s no basis to it at all, but it sounds good. No government projects have been starved of funds to pay for the NBN.

Far nastier is the insinuation that the government just doesn’t care about the real needs of the battlers. If they did, they wouldn’t be spending our hard-earned money on a ‘video entertainment system’ (to quote George Brandis on AM Agenda this morning). Conroy’s response was scathing; he detailed a series of initiatives that were either already in place or to be implemented next year directed at schools and hospitals, and joint projects with the State governments on roads and infrastructure.

To drive the point home, Conroy listed a handful of the benefits of the NBN. For health: E-health, the ability for ageing people to stay at home and be properly monitored, and better communications between health services in metropolitan and remote areas. For education: online learning, access for those in remote areas to real-time learning environments, and whole-class access to virtual learning environments all over the world. He even had an answer to Western Sydney’s gridlock: high-speed tele-commuting.

All of that is a far cry from the accusation that the NBN is good for nothing but allowing people to take stupid videos with their mobile phones and upload them to YouTube or Facebook. (And do we detect a note of snobbery in those who deride the idea of people uploading their personal videos and displaying them to the world? Why, I believe we do.)

So what’s left? Well, it pretty much comes down to the objection that there is no cost-benefit analysis. This is a question that keeps coming up – and the answers seem a little wishy-washy. Either there’s a problem with commercial-in-confidence data, or it’s just not possible to adequately do such an analysis on future benefits as yet unknown. The Coalition, of course, is having a field day with the latter idea.

Mind you, when was the last time we saw a cost-benefit analysis for a defence material purchase? Or new medical imaging equipment for hospitals? Now, some might object that we don’t need one for things that are self-evidently ‘good’.

But we’re talking about a massive infrastructure upgrade that will touch almost every area of Australian life – from traffic lights to train switching, health monitoring to real-time consultation, online and virtual learning to tele-commuting. We’re talking about putting in place a system with capacity to expand in the future and potentially transform the way we live. Might we not then argue that very high-speed broadband, made available throughout Australia, is also self-evidently good?

When did we lose sight of the idea that not everything in life has to be about profit? When did we give up the idea that quality of life may be just as important – if not more – as how much money rolls in?

We’ve seen higher education suffer because, somewhere along the line we got the notion that universities should be places of profit rather than of learning. We’ve seen health suffer because we figure that it’s more important to have a good profit margin than extend affordable health care to everyone in the country.

Maybe we should learn from those disasters and try looking at the NBN as something that builds and enhances the nation, rather than a bunch of numbers on a balance sheet.

And if that means we see a few thousand more drunk videos turning up on YouTube – well, I’m sure the country will be able to withstand the onslaught.

After all, we’ve managed to cope with reality TV and talk shows …

Abbott – the real backstabber

You have to wonder, really, just what’s going on in Tony Abbott’s head right now. It seems he’s hell-bent on tearing down the reputation of our public institutions. As @Paul_Jarman so succinctly put it, he may well have ‘jumped the shark’ this time.

First, it was Treasury. During the election campaign, Abbott and his Coalition colleagues repeatedly tried to tear down Treasury’s credibility. They claimed that Treasury was responsible for leaking some of their costings, at the behest of the caretaker Labor government, and withheld their numbers from the Charter of Budget Honesty. Once it became clear that the election was going to deliver a hung parliament, Abbott developed his argument even further. When the Independents asked to see the Coalition’s ‘independent’ costings, Abbott refused – and gave several reasons for doing so, all of which were outrageous.

Treasury was incompetent – it couldn’t handle the job of assessing the costings. Treasury was untrustworthy – they leaked documents when told to do so. Worst of all, Treasury was so corrupt that it would deliberately ‘fiddle’ with the numbers in order to make the Coalition look bad. Even though Abbott eventually consented to let the costings be examined – resulting in the discovery of a $7-11 billion shortfall – the accusations still get trotted out from time to time.

Not content with attempting to destroy Treasury’s standing as the economic managers of the country, Abbott next took aim at the Solicitor-General. Part of the agreement with the Independents that was signed by both major parties dealt with the matter of pairing the Speaker. Although his representative had signed off on this, Abbott reneged, claiming that such an arrangement was unconstitutional.

The Solicitor-General investigated the idea, and concluded that there was no bar to an informal pairing arrangement. That wasn’t good enough for Abbott. He engaged his own lawyer – Senator George Brandis – who, unsurprisingly, backed up his leader. Armed with that information, Abbott set about declaring that the Solicitor-General was not only wrong, but perhaps a little bit suspect – after all, he was part of the government’s public service, wasn’t he? Abbott would therefore trust Brandis’ opinion, he stated.

By the time the 43rd Parliament opened, Abbott had attacked two of the most crucial government departments – the one responsible for managing our economy, and the one called upon to deliver the definitive legal opinions on constitutional and legislative matters.

This week, he’s gone after the military. Three Australian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan were charged with manslaughter, dangerous conduct, failing to comply with a lawful general order and prejudicial conduct after a raid in which five Afghani children were killed. Brigadier Lyn McDade, the military’s chief prosecutor, brought the charges – and became the subject of a dreadful campaign of abuse and threats as a result. You might think that, after Abbott worked himself up into a lather chastising Gillard for allegedly ‘politicising’ our participation in the war in Afghanistan*, he might stay well out of this court martial issue. Not so.

Abbott let fly with an extraordinary spray. Gillard, he said, was at fault here. Australian soldiers were being ‘stabbed in the back’, and the government should be doing something about it. Now, although ostensibly aimed at Gillard, Abbott’s comments have graver implications. There is a strong insinuation here that the military justice system either does not work, or that McDade is abusing her position – and that the military are allowing her to do so. By not intervening, therefore, Gillard’s government condones this kind of abuse. What’s more, Abbott carefully did not contradict radio host Alan Jones, who – when interviewing the Opposition Leader – described McDade as a woman who had never fought on the front line, and who had ‘too much uncontrolled power’.

The military justice system is completely independent of Government, as Defence Minister Stephen Smith pointed out today. The Prime Minister cannot intervene, nor should she. At best, the government could make some submissions to the military. Even the Chief of the Army, Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie, and the executive director of the Defence Force Association, Neil James, were moved to comment. Both criticised the Opposition Leader’s remarks and stated that they were supportive of the legal process – and urged all defence personnel to be the same.

Yet Abbott maintains that Gillard should get involved on behalf of the accused soldiers. In other words, that political power should be brought to bear on the military, with the aim of pressuring McDade to drop the charges altogether – to do an end run around the legal process. To help the process along, Abbott seems happy to consent by silence to the character assassination of the chief prosecutor.

Abbott’s position is easy to see – our soldiers in wartime should not be subject to this sort of prosecution. It’s not far removed from the US saying that they would not participate in the International Court, in case their soldiers were prosecuted. Australia, like the US and Great Britain, mercilessly pursued German war criminals from World War II, and recently hanged Saddam Hussein, yet Abbott’s words suggest that there are two standards at work here. Crime in war cannot be committed by ‘our’ side, only ‘the enemy’.

It is precisely this attitude that leads to the creation of justice systems in the first place – impartial organisations dedicated to the pursuit of justice for all, rather than being subject to the whims of politicians. In fact, this was part of the rationale behind the formation of our own system under John Howard’s government. It’s a laudable goal, but one that Abbott now seems to think should be dictated to by the government. In fact, it seems likely that he would have interfered in this prosecution had we ended up with a Liberal-National minority government.

So now Abbott has three notches on his belt. He has called into question Treasury, the Solicitor-General’s office and the military justice system. You have to ask, what might be next – the Australian Electoral Commission, perhaps? Will we see legal challenges to election results that don’t favour the Coalition?

It’s difficult to discern a sound political strategy in what Abbott is doing. More and more, he seems to be on an uncontrolled slash-and-burn. Despite his protestations that he is ‘holding the government to account’, and ‘engaging in robust debate’, the real effect of his words and actions serves only to undermine his character. He’s like the angry kid in the sandpit who kicks over the other children’s sandcastles, because he didn’t win the blue ribbon and the praise from the teacher. He blamed his recent drop in popularity on the Prime Minister calling attention to his ‘jetlag’ gaffe, but the truth may have more to do with his apparent willingness to disparage without foundation anyone or anything that may stand in his way – in effect, to be the backstabber he accuses Gillard of being. Remember, Abbott still considers himself the Prime Minister-in-waiting.

What kind of Prime Minister builds his argument for legitimacy of government by tearing down the foundations of the country?

Yesterday, Abbott described himself as the gatekeeper for the nation’s values. ‘I am the standard bearer for values and ideals which matter and which are important,’ he said. Which values might those be? That the ends justify the means? That it doesn’t matter who or what is damaged, discredited or torn down, as long as power is ‘properly’ vested in the ‘legitimate’ contender (Abbott himself)? Or that, while truth might be the first casualty of war, integrity is the first casualty of politics?

* I refuse to call it the ‘War on Terror’. That title is nonsensical – we are at war with Afghani people, not some abstract emotion.

Abbott’s jetlag excuse – more than it seems?

Julia Gillard is in Brussels right now on her first official overseas trip as Prime Minister. Apart from attending the Asia-Europe meeting, she’ll be expected to meet with as many other national leaders as possible. As if that wasn’t enough, she’s floated the idea of a new research and development treaty with the European Union, stopped off in Zurich to sweet-talk the heads of FIFA into awarding Australia the 2022 World Cup, visited troops in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province and talked with leaders in Kabul. To say this is a busy week is definitely an understatement.

Tony Abbott, meanwhile, is travelling to London to meet with the British Prime Minister David Cameron for the Tory party conference. He had been invited to accompany Gillard to Afghanistan, but declined the offer. When asked why, he initially said that he felt that travelling to Afghanistan before going on to London would leave him jetlagged. He added that he he felt it was important that he do the trip to England ‘justice’.

This is pretty much a gaffe of the first order. Media leaped on his remarks with glee, serving them up to Labor politicians in the hope of getting a snarky soundbite. Gillard indulged in a little comparison, commenting that she had managed to get eight hours’ sleep despite her busy schedule, but otherwise let the issue fall flat. Some members of the public, meanwhile, were outraged. The father of an Australian soldier recently killed in Oruzgan province was particularly scathing; for him, Abbott’s remarks were nothing short of disrespectful to his son’s memory.

Should Abbott have chosen his words more carefully? Of course he should have; no one suggested that he meant to be disrespectful to Australian troops, but he left himself wide open for criticism. But really? Talk about a non-story.

Except for what Abbott’s party men did a little later.

Senator George Brandis came out of his corner swinging on the subject. How dare anyone criticise Abbott, he thundered. Meeting with Cameron was the most important thing any politician could do in Europe. Gillard, he sneered, was simply ‘speed-dating’, while Abbott was consulting the leader of a sovereign country. “A profligate Labor government drove Britain into deeper levels of debt than Britain had ever known in peace time … just as we’ve had in Australia,” Brandis said, implying that Abbott would be discussing our dire economic situation with the Man Who Will Save Britain.

Joe Hockey wasn’t far behind. The invitation to visit Afghanistan was nothing more than ‘silly’, and by making it, Gillard was playing ‘political games’. Of course Abbott would visit the troops – in fact, he had always been planning to do just that – so Gillard’s inviting him to travel with her was ‘low-rent politics’. He finished up with a warning that made no sense at all: ‘It’s Julia Gillard that is playing this game of snakes and ladders, and I say to Julia Gillard, be very careful of where you are treading.’

Oddly, Senator Barnaby Joyce offered the most reasonable comment. Abbott knew he’d made a mistake, was now going to rectify that mistake by visiting the troops, and for that he should be commended.

It’s important to point out here that all these responses were far out of proportion to any comments made by Labor, and even by the media. The sudden, vicious attacks from Brandis and Hockey turned a momentary gaffe into an issue of note.

Brandis’ contribution sent the message to Europe that, in Australian eyes, it was simply unimportant compared to Great Britain. It trivialised Gillard’s meetings with the heads of NATO, the European Union, Korea and China. It was also sexist; I think it’s fair to say that no male Prime Minister would ever be accused of ‘speed-dating’ world leaders.

And Hockey? The notion that it’s ‘silly’ to invite the Opposition Leader undertake a bipartisan trip to visit Australia’s troops serving overseas defies logic. Even if Abbott had always planned to visit the troops later (which seems unlikely, given he said nothing about any such ideas until after his ‘jetlag’ comment), surely he could have said as much to Gillard and the public at the time the invitation was first extended? Hockey’s assertion goes further, however; apparently, even the very idea is laughable. Using Hockey’s reasoning, it is simply ridiculous to expect that both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader might appear in the same place at the same time to give support to the troops.

Both of Abbott’s would-be defenders have inflicted more damage on the Liberal leader than any of his own words. But why on earth would they do this? Was this a case of standard attack politics – divert attention from one’s own problems by creating an issue out of nothing? Were they just caught on the hop, and unable to come up with anything more substantial?

I suspect this is all a very clumsy diversion. Today, The Australian reported that several Coalition MPs had expressed dissatisfaction with Abbott’s hands-off position on industrial relations. Two of the loudest were Steve Ciobo, dumped from the Coalition’s frontbench after the election, and Jamie Briggs, the man appointed to head up the so-called ‘Committee to Scrutinise Government Waste’. These are not small voices, and for them to be so openly critical of their leader exposes the party to severe criticism.

Labor were quick to capitalise on the report, proclaiming that here was ‘proof’ that WorkChoices was not – as Abbott claimed – ‘dead, buried, cremated’. Coalition MPs scrambled to provide damage control, but there was real potential for this to become a real point of vulnerability that Labor could exploit, both in the House and to the media. The alternative was to meet the ‘jetlag’ comments head on, and attempt to spin that situation as both exemplary behaviour by Abbott and a matter for criticism of Labor.

Unfortunately, that strategy did more harm than good. Abbott now vehemently asserts that his trip to Afghanistan has been planned ‘for a long time’, but cannot explain why he did not volunteer the information earlier – nor can he justify why he made the ‘jetlag’ remarks in the first place. He apologised to the families of soldiers killed while serving overseas, but could only say that his words were ‘ill-chosen’.

Meanwhile, his defenders – intentionally or not – gave the impression that the Coalition is completely disinterested in bipartisanship where supporting our troops is concerned, trivialised important meetings with leaders from around the world and communicated to those leaders that they believe attending a political party conference is more important than treaty negotiations and briefings on the war in Afghanistan.

It’s a very bad look for the Coalition, and particularly for Abbott. They appear to be gambling that the industrial relations issue will be overtaken by ‘jetlag’. Labor certainly won’t forget about it, though – and hopefully, neither will the media.

Abbott should have to answer some very pointed questions about his words, his defenders and his dissenters. If this interview with Laurie Oakes tonight is any indication, such questions are likely to prove extremely uncomfortable for the Coalition.

Paid parental leave – the policies side-by-side

Australia has lagged behind much of the rest of the world when it comes to paid parental leave (the US being a notable exception). Countries as diverse as Japan, Israel and the UK all have schemes, varying in terms of amount and duration. Sweden’s paid parental leave scheme, for example, lasts for up to 15 months. Various groups have been agitating for Australia to institute a scheme of our own.

Now, after years of failed attempts, we have two policies to choose between at this election. Both of these policies have been around for a while, but they haven’t come in for a lot of scrutiny until this week.

So let’s have a look at them side by side. The devil is definitely in the details here.

The ALP’s policy is fairly straightforward. New parents (including those who adopt a newborn) will be able to receive 18 weeks’ parental leave, set at the federal minimum wage (currently $544 per week). People in casual or contract work, or who are self-employed, will also be eligible. The scheme will also allow parents to share the period of leave according to their needs – for example, if both parents wish to spend time as primary carers, they will be able to do so.

Funds for the scheme were set aside in the 2010 budget.

The immediate objection that is likely to be raised is that people taking leave under this scheme may well incur a pay cut. The median gross wage in 2009 for males aged 25-34 was around $1100 per week, and $913 for females (sourced from ABC Diamond). Unlike the normal weekly income, however, paid parental leave is expected to be tax-free, which narrows the gap.

There is also the question of whether 18 weeks is a sufficiently long period. Opinions from experts in early childhood development differ wildly on how much time is ideal, to the point that there is no consensus. In the end, though, personal circumstances are likely to be more important to any family than suggested figures. Parents also have the option of taking their normal holiday leave entitlement after paid parental leave ends if necessary, negotiated with their respective employers.

The most attractive part of the ALP policy has to be its application to both genders. In 2003, men were the primary carers in only 3.4% of families. The major reasons given for this were economic, and many fathers stated they would prefer to spend much more time with their babies. The male median wage is still approximately 20% more than the female, meaning that a man would likely face a greater pay cut if he chose to stay home under the ALP scheme. He would, however, have the option.

The Coalition’s policy as it currently exists on the Liberal Party website is out of date. This week, a press conference with Tony Abbott in Mackay and interviews with Sharman Stone (via news.com.au) and George Brandis (on Sky News AM Agenda program of July 27) have confirmed that the details I’ll outline here now form the policy that the Coalition will take to the election.

Under the Coalition’s scheme, a mother will receive 26 weeks’ paid leave at her normal pay rate (up to $50,000) or the minimum wage, whichever is greater. As with the ALP policy, this includes casual and self-employment. A father will be eligible to receive two weeks’ paternity leave at his normal pay rate. If he becomes the primary carer, however, he will be paid at the mother’s rate.

The scheme will be funded through a levy on businesses earning over $5 million a year.

The original policy referred simply to a ‘primary carer’ as a recipient of paid parental leave, without any mention of different rates for each gender. The change to the current scheme was defended by Sharman Stone, who said it was simply ‘too expensive’ to pay men their full wage for six months. Tony Abbott’s defence focused less on the figures, and more on ideology. The policy is, Abbott said, ‘fundamentally designed to allow mothers to bond with their newborns’ (my italics). It was ‘very good for mothers, very good for women, for families and ultimately our economy as well’.

The policy is deliberately discriminatory. It is designed on the assumption that the primary carer of a baby should be the mother, and effectively penalises a father who wishes to stay at home. There is no provision for shared care – the presumption is that only one parent will be the primary carer during the early weeks of a child’s life. Finally, there is no mention in the Coalition’s policy of adoption, so presumably a family who adopts a newborn baby would not be eligible. This discriminates against couples who are unable to have children through natural conception or IVF. It also discriminates against same-sex couples, particularly males, who may adopt under Australian law.

I should point out that these comparisons operate on the assumption that both parents are working at the time a child is born, and receive the median wage. Neither policy addresses a situation where only the father works, and then takes parental leave. This may be for a number of reasons, including illness related to pregnancy and birth, postpartum depression, existing illness or disability and other family circumstances. As a matter of pure speculation, the ALP policy would likely still apply as is, since the mother’s wage is irrelevant. What would happen under the Coalition’s policy, however, is unclear, since the mother’s wage is the determining factor for the rate of payment.

Purely in financial terms, the Coalition’s policy is likely to be better for some fathers who stay home. Six months at 80% of a normal wage is a higher rate than 18 weeks at approximately 60-70% – so families who are economically disadvantaged would theoretically be better off under the Coalition’s policy. In practical terms, however, women in low-income families tend to earn below the minimum wage – so the end result is that neither policy would be of greater benefit to them. Unless a parent earns below the minimum wage, they would no better off under either policy. The real winners would be high income families, where the mother was earning well above the median wage, since high income families tend to have greater savings and greater economic capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. Under the Coalition policy, moreover, they would be less likely to need to spend those savings.

The ALP’s policy assumes that a level playing field is the best possible outcome in terms of fairness, while the Coalition’s is aimed at preserving the family’s before-baby economic status quo – no matter how this might discriminate against some parts of Australian society.

Voting down same-sex marriage: violating human rights

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young introduced the Marriage Equality Bill 2010 into the Senate today. The aim of the bill was to amend the Marriage Act 1951 to remove the definition of marriage as between a man and woman only, with a view to facilitating same sex marriage. In effect, it was a re-run of a defeated bill introduced by the Democrats in 2006.

In their great generosity, the Government allowed thirty minutes for debate. Yes, you read that right. This was a bill with profound implications for Australian society. You’d think that a reasonable amount of time would be set aside to talk about it in Parliament, wouldn’t you? Oh, but maybe there are just so many bills that there isn’t that kind of time.

Not so. Since Parliament recommenced for 2010, amendments to finer points of income tax law were debated for over an hour. Changes to Youth Allowance took up nearly three hours only yesterday – and let’s not forget the hours and hours and hours that have been spent so far debating the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation over the past two sessions.

No, the simple truth – the ugly truth – is that the debate was deliberately gagged.

It isn’t hard to see why, really. Of the people in the chamber, only a few would have stood up and spoken in support of the bill. Perhaps the Government felt it wasn’t worth taking up the time for all of them to have a say. After all, it was fairly obvious that the bill was going to be defeated, so really, what was the point?

The point is that the decision was made before that bill even made it to the Chamber. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that it was made before it was even drafted. Those thirty minutes were nothing but lip service – and patronising lip service, at that. Effectively, the major parties patted Senator Hanson-Young on the head, smiled tolerantly while she gave an impassioned speech in favour of human rights, and then sent her to bed without any dinner. They stood up first, though, and smacked down the bill with the kind of pathetic reasoning that would get you booted from any high school debating team.

Let’s take a few samples.

Senator Steve Fielding – no one ever expected him to support the bill. His party’s stated platform is in lockstep with the Assemblies of God churches that back him, and there was no way he was going to deviate from the dogma. ‘Marriage is between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others, for life,’ he proclaimed.

Apparently Senator Fielding has not seen any divorce statistics, and is absolutely against second or subsequent marriages. I’m sure that millions of unhappy, abused spouses will be comforted to know that.

Note, however, that he was not quoting any religious text here. He was actually quoting the Marriage Act itself, from the Interpretation section: ‘”marriage” means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life’. If one were to strictly interpret that definition, there could be no re-marriages – or divorces, for that matter. Nonetheless, over 47,000 people identified themselves as divorced on the 2007 Census, and over one-third of marriages solemnised were second or subsequent unions.

Guess the definition isn’t so strict, after all. Selective interpretation? You decide.

Then there was Senator George Brandis, from the misnamed Liberal Party. ‘Marriage has never ever in any society in history been regarded as anything but between a man and a woman,’ he intoned solemnly.

Senator? Step right this way, please. We have some information for you. We’ll put it in chronological order, so you can see just how wrong you are.

There’s evidence from ancient Greece of male-male unions – cited by Aristotle (c. 500 BCE), for example – which were not the more well-known teacher-pupil type. These relationships were considered identical to heterosexual marriage, even to the point where the men in question could adopt children and arrange for them to inherit.

Rabbinic Jewish midrashic texts on Leviticus refer to same sex marriage contracts taking place in Canaan (which puts it around 200-1500 BCE). In fact, it’s one of the Canaanite practices that made the rabbinic writers foam at the mouth on several occasions – so well-attested, in fact, that it appears in at least four different treatises.

The Emperor Nero married one of his male slaves in the 1st century CE. Later, in the 2nd century CE, the Emperor Elagabulus followed suit. In fact, it was pretty common in Rome right up until Constantine specifically outlawed it in 342CE.

France, in the late medieval period (before around 1400) had a kind of contract that was considered legally equivalent, but there was no religious component. It was symbolised by the sharing of bread and drink in a ceremony.

There’s also a rather curious, if disputed, tradition among medieval Christian monks in France, where they were bound together in a religious ceremony whose text reads exactly like a marriage ceremony, including the exhortations to faithfulness. It was postulated by the historian Boswell, but is generally not accepted – you can imagine why.

From Ming Dynasty China (c.1300-1644) there is evidence of binding contracts between women, and between men.

More recently, among certain Native American tribes, there was the phenomenon of ‘Two-Spirit’ marriage, where one male partner was considered a ‘wife’ and took on a female social role. This marriage was recognised as identical to a heterosexual union.

‘It’s not a discrimination issue,’ stated Brandis. Oh, we rather think it is.

And Senator Brandis? This information is not hard to find, nor (unless otherwise noted) disputed. Five minutes in a library would have told you that.

By far the most shameful performance of that thirty minutes, however, came from the government, led by Senator Nick Sherry. ‘The Government is committed to removing all forms of discrimination,’ he vowed, and went on to list a raft of tax and social security issues that had historically discriminated against same sex couples, and which the Government was going to abolish. Good start.

But then there was this: ‘equally, we are committed to preserving the Marriage Act’. Specifically, the Government stated that it was committed to the ‘man and woman’ definition of marriage. Now, we’ve already seen that Australian society and law plays fast-and-loose with that definition when it comes to divorce and re-marriage. In fact, you could say that it’s not so much selectively interpreted as ignored altogether. Why not, then, ignore the ‘man and woman’ description?

Apparently, it simply cannot be done. To borrow a phrase from Prime Minister Rudd, ‘for reasons passing understanding’ it must not be done.

No explanation is given that holds up under even the most cursory scrutiny. The appeal to history fails miserably. Holding to the strict definition of ‘marriage’ from the Act is completely flawed, and in fact could be said to make a case for allowing same sex marriage, given its ‘more honoured in the breach than the observance’ status. Claiming that prohibiting same sex marriage is not discriminatory is, frankly, ludicrous.

I’ll give Senators Brandis and Fielding this: they stated matters of principle in their objections. Yes, they were patently wrong, but at least they tried. Fielding has even said that it is a form of discrimination, one that he supports. Points for honesty, there.

Senator Sherry, however, weaselled around the issue, pathetically offering up a few sops that – in effect – only further ensure that same sex couples are treated as second-class citizens. Same sex couples will be subject to the same income testing for purposes of tax, superannuation and social security as heterosexual couples. On the face of it, that’s pretty egalitarian, right? No. A heterosexual couple can walk into any Government office in the country and have their marriage instantly recognised, and gain the benefits of that. A same sex couple cannot. They are, when it comes down to it, gaining most of the disadvantages of being married – yet Senator Sherry, speaking for the Government, would have us believe that this is removing discrimination.

It is hypocrisy, plain and simple. The Government does not have the excuse of faulty reasoning, or a lack of knowledge of history. They are flat-out stating that what they are doing is not discriminatory, merely holding to the law. Even as Government MPs and Senators say that, though, their eye shift and they rush to fill up their answers with convoluted reasoning that twists in and around on itself, and goes nowhere. They know.

So what is behind it?

One could speculate that Mr Rudd and his fellow politicians have learned their definition of marriage not from the Marriage Act, but from their churches. Homophobia and discrimination against same sex relationships is well-enshrined in all but the most progressive of Christian religious institutions.

There is also the unpleasant truth that Australia has, socially, a history of discrimination and hatred towards same sex relationships that goes hand-in-hand with ‘mateship’ and ‘true blue Aussie bloke’ mythology. Perhaps the Labor Party learned it there.

Whatever the reasoning behind the statements, the bill was voted down. The Government, Opposition and Senator Fielding united to preserve a shameful violation of human rights. Even Senator Nick Xenophon, who had supported the removal of some forms of discrimination in his home state of South Australia, lived up to earlier statements that he was a ‘bit more reluctant to support gay marriage’. And all after barely thirty minutes’ discussion, most of which was taken up by speeches like those from which I’ve quoted.

There is no excusing this. It was incredibly disrespectful – not only to Senator Hanson-Young, but to all those who believe that everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law of Australia. It was blatantly gagged, ensuring that only a single speech supporting same sex marriage made it into Hansard. It was a demonstration of how faulty reasoning and lack of knowledge determine who has rights, and who does not.

And it was an exercise in hypocrisy for the Government,resulting in a devastating loss of whatever credibility it still retained. The Labor Party, under Prime Minister Rudd, stands condemned in the eyes of Australia.

It is my devout hope that this inequality, this meaningless discrimination, will be struck down soon, and that Australian law finally lives up to its ideals of equality and fairness. Until that time, our elected representatives should be constantly aware of one thing:

We are watching you. We see how you act, and we will call you to account for it.