Back to the Barricades …

.. or, The Hidden Dangers Of Nostalgia ..

Sometimes it's not a revolution.
Sometimes it's just trying to protect what you have.

There is, in Brisbane, a feisty, articulate, well-read, witty and passionate young Union Organiser. She works for the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, (MEAA) - the union formed from the amalgamation of the old AJA (Australian Journalists Association) and Actors Equity. She is an outspoken feminist, principled leftist and budding word-smith. Indeed "the force is strong in this one". She will be the primary union official on the latest 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie due to be filmed in Queensland next year. She is also my youngest daughter.

The reason I mention her is that I've just watched Gough Whitlam's state funeral, and was reminded that without Gough this young lady would not exist. That's not to say that he had any personal connection with her conception. Only that until Gough abolished conscription in '72 my family would not have immigrated to Australia. As my father bluntly put it, "I'm not raising sons to be cannon-fodder in someone else's war." And without me, no she.

 

Flight Lieutenant Edward Gough Whitlam served as a navigator
with No. 13 Squadron RAAF, flying in Lockheed Ventura bombers.

Still she's Gough's creation in many ways. The daughter of two immigrants, one English, one German; both families economic migrants from post war Europe. Both families refugees from economic stagnation, ancient tribal enmities, entrenched privilege and ugly, rigid class-systems; from boom and bust economies that serve capital over people and from a continent that's been either a battleground or a breeding ground for war for century after century. 

She's the daughter of hope, optimistic endeavour and reformist politics. And, like her sisters, she was raised in full knowledge of her rights and freedoms in our liberal social democracy, and takes it at as read that they come with the responsibility to champion those same rights and freedoms rights for everyone without discrimination.

Gough prepares for a hectic parliamentary session.

I'm pointedly aware of this because it reminds me of an interview with Gough I did for an obscure magazine on public policy in 1994, a highlight of my brief journalistic career, and one in which we agreed to disagree on a fairly fundamental issue. I remember it very clearly, in part because, sadly, after all these years it appears that I was right and Gough was wrong.

The topic was a Bill of Rights for Australia, something I believed was needed to entrench basic rights to free speech, freedom of conscience, rights to self-determination and personal habeas corpus, and freedom of assembly and association. Gough was quite clear this was both unnecessary, and politically unlikely to be achievable. Instead he championed our international obligations to the UN's Declaration of Human Rights and all the charters and agreements that flow from it. That was our protection, he said. That's what guarantees our rights and limits the behaviour of governments both state and federal. 

How could he know that the current government would stoop so low as to excise from the Migration Act all references to the UN Refugees Convention replacing them with a uniquely Australian set of interpretations that ask, for example: 

"Could this 'illegal/refugee/foreigner' modify his behaviour a bit, you know, and be less irritating, and therefore not be tortured by people when we send him back to, you know, who cares where?" 

I kid you not. 

The dangers of nostalgia…

Edward Gough Whitlam 1916 ~ 2014
Australia's greatest Prime Minister

In his contribution today to Gough's eulogy the brilliant Graham Freudenberg said: 

"You would go to the barricades with such a man." 

Which was and is true. But this is not the time for nostalgia about the heroic age of the Labor Party, or the Whitlam era of social advancement, a nineteen-seventies that was Australia's decade late (as usual) contribution tho the nineteen-sixties of Selma, Alabama, Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" and the Prague Spring and Paris revolts of '68.

Those barricades are still there, and the swing to the right in Australian politics in the last two years means every issue which Gough fought for, and the changes he instigated, are all under threat from the Abbott Government and the passive, flaccid, tacit agreement of the right wing of the ALP which dominates the party federally.

Current labor Leader Bill Shorten rises to the call to arms.

It's in this kind of environment that people write idiotic articles suggesting that unspecified 'problems' with democracy can be solved by taking the messy 'people actually voting' out of the equation.  

These are the times in which we live.

This is the übermenschlich 'Devil take the hindmost' zeitgeist that we face.

A example of this, currently being taken up by MEAA, is the threat of 10 years jail for any journalist falling foul of the new security laws being thrust through parliament by the ever-reasonable, and ever-sensible-to-nuance Attorney-General George Brandis. Senator AG-GB has stated categorically that no "journalist would ever be prosecuted for doing their job". But as the ABC's Media Watch reported, experienced journalists and lawyers do not agree. The Foreign Fighters Bill carries such blanket wording relating to journalists responsibility and culpability that you could drive a News Ltd truck, or Police paddy wagon through it. 

And who really believes that this government, so keen on secrecy, autocracy and belligerent, parochial nationalism would eschew the opportunity to trample on free speech, free reportage, peaceful protest or anyone unwise enough to cross them, by say, leaking unhelpful details to asylum seekers? How on earth, given the last Abbott election campaign and its denouement of bland, shoulder-shrugging brass neck?

Tony Abbott ~ What can you say?

"We lied, what can I say? You were silly enough to believe us. You should've known we were lying. So it's your own fault. And anyway it's too late now. Oh, and, just remember to believe our next campaign, whenever that is. 'Cos that will be true. All of it. Trust me. After all, would I lie about something like that? Again, that is? Doesn't make sense does it? So, just bugger off for now, OK? I'll dog-whistle when I want you."

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys.

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I've tried. God knows I've really tried. But in the end it's just too convenient, just too much of coincidence piled on opportunity to be credible: That the Abbot Government's ghastly new security/anti-terror laws are being bludgeoned through Parliament by that most open-minded and nuanced of thinkers George Brandis while the nation's terror alert status is raised from "Strewth" to "Crikey!", and all while 800 coppers are unleashed in three states to arrest two prize dickheads of a certain swarthy ethnicity and unfashionable religious persuasion. It just defies belief. 

It reached that mathematical degree of dodginess where the number of Politically Convenient Coincidences (PCC) is greater than the degree of Probability and Credibility required to be true. It's a classic example of the famed Australian Bullshit formula:

 
It's an equation that allows right wing shock-jocks and empty-headed tabloid butt-monkey mouthpieces to drool and slaver over rabid headlines and egregious wog-bashing to their febrile hearts' content. It generates the public rubber-necking and under-the-bed-checking (aren't we a flexible people?) that distracts us from the One Big Story of the last year that just won't go away. Which is Diamond Joe Hockey's 'Bugger me, call that a budget?' epic drama of class hatred, social welfare dismantling and economic punishment that THEY CAN'T GET THROUGH THE SENATE!   

(Whoops, I got a little loud there. Nursey, it's time for my happy pills..)

Yet is this being spoken of? Not while there's a fear campaign to be prosecuted and a resolute, firm-jawed Prime Minister to be lauded. Does its myriad of toxic details and subtle undermining of our social fabric make headlines and column inches? Not while we have Clive 'Billion Dollar Loony' Palmer to wave in front of a dazed and puzzled public's alert-but-baffled attention span.

Clive and Tony are two sides of the same political coin. The PM is shown to be softly-spoken but carrying a big - actually put that down Tone, not in public mate, fair go - mandate for war. There is no mandate for war actually, no more than there is for the slash and burn of social infrastructure and disinterested reporting. But there is a precedent, which is the important thing. Howard took us to war on the basis of a pack of lies. And that didn't make him look any less of a tough, nuggetty little PM of our wide-brown-land. So Tony signing us up for a coalition of the "testicularly driven to bomb the bogeymen of ISIS" before there's actually a coalition to join isn't a problem.
 

"Trust me, I'd rather be out there with you guys... Boom! Ka-Pow!"

The Yanks still hadn't got their military shit together this time before Tony already has us shipping out and singing "Waltzing Matilda With Bombs" as if it was a done deal. And our feckless media have been singing from this hymn sheet for weeks now. Back this up with the horrible, terrible, scary, scary threat to all of us from those ethnic bastards who refuse to 'whiten up' and join Team 'Straya and we're off to another lovely war. Which always justifies any oppressive legislation you can dream up. 

"First they came for the bikies,
And I thought, fuck 'em, cos they scare me.
Then they came for the unionists,
And I thought, fuck 'em, cos they ain't me.
Then they came for my civil rights,
And I thought, fuck 'em, that's only for Muslims.

Then ASIO came to lunch, and I couldn't get the bastards to leave..

.. with apologies to Martin Niemöller 

All of which puts a spring in Tony's step and points in his popularity, which is half the battle won. So who cares what it costs us in those oh-so-scarce budget $$ and (other people's) homes and bodies? Our first bombs haven't stopped smoking in Iraq before Captain Aggro has us hinting slyly at sinking the slipper into Syria. Cos what's the diff? They're all just wogs, mate, eh? Trust me, this is going to get much, much worse before it gets better.

And the other half of this game of 'hide the budget sausage'? That's simple. You give the punters what every threatened, frightened, going to war nation needs. Clowns. Something to laugh at. And it's doubly successful if you can neutralise a political threat at the same time. Enter Clive Palmer pursued by bears. I like Clive. He may be a confused right-winger with a social conscience which sees his self-interest clash with his better nature twice a day and thrice on the Sunday show, but he's good for our democracy. He's different. He's unpredictable. He's an independent thinker. All of which means he's just as likely to do something positive as he is to do something selfish. 

And if ever a parliament needed some shaking up this one does. Complacent, comfortable governments produce crappy legislation (I'd tender the Qld Newman government as a current example). A little instability is good for a democracy - the Julia Gillard minority government had to fight for every detail of legislation, every point of principle, and over every public issue. The result was a raft of well-thought out, hard-won legislation that was genuinely aimed at improving this country for every one of us, from Gonsky to Disability Support and an environment we can actually live in.

You can tell this is true because the Coalition couldn't find a single issue in it to fight against at the election. Tony Abbott swore allegiance to every bit of it all across the country, with only Labor's internal shit-fight and the Carbon Tax as points of leverage. The second proof is the speed with which Tony's class warriors have moved to destroy every bit of it he signed up to. But I digress ..

Cuddly Clive has been attacked on all sides by every party, media ratbag and main-chancer for two reasons. First, he's a big soft target. His politics are largely driven by an emotional commitment to "the great Aussie fair go" where it doesn't collide with his own self-interest. He's actually an old-fashioned agrarian socialist (like the National/Country party used to be). He sees people at the bottom being screwed over - as in the government's attack on working class superannuation coupled with its slashing of age-pensions - and gets outraged at both the unfairness and the short-sighted stupidity of it - and opens his mouth and his wallet. 

That he usually can be distracted by a potential cost to himself shouldn't surprise anyone. But he does more to raise those issues than the Big Four parties combined. And he gets airtime - he's good press fodder, his antics and size and un-thought through ideas make good copy - something journos are desperate for in a world of shrinking newspaper circulation.

Which brings us to the second reason he cops such a whacking. He's rocking the boat. And all those in politics and the media who have their bum attached firmly to a place in the Big Show don't like that, not at all. Clive questions the orthodoxy. He says 'No, that's not the only alternative.' And, 'We could do something different about that'. Which makes Bill Shorten, for example, look like what he is: an unprincipled prick without a single idea to his name, or a policy he wouldn't strangle publicly if he thought it would advance his cause, which is Bill Shorten first, last and always. 

  

And it's not just the Shortens, Pynes, Morrisons and Milnes who detest him. It's the media pundits too. The talking heads who sit on the side lines and spout endless amounts of bilge-water about the harsh realities of economics and the cost of caring, and their endless fascination with the picayune details of practical politics. Reserving to themselves  the right and the privilege to decide the issues that matter in our tiny pool of tinier minds. 

They exist like mistletoe, swaying with the prevailing winds of gas-baggery, but rooted in and sucking nutrition from the power structure from which they claim to be independent. They all have a vested interest in the stability of our system of misgovernment. And any threat to the balance of media power threatens their security. So Clive is ridiculed as a gargantuan buffoon one minute and decried as a political hypocrite for his independence the next. From the equally porcine Laurie Oakes to the middlebrow twee of Annabel Crabb, their babble froths and bubbles yet contributes and signifies nothing.

It's like the 1950s never ended.

As I said at the beginning. I've tried, I've really tried not to be sucked into this government's predictable excesses. But in the end, when it's war abroad and class war and the construction of an expanding security state at home, I can't stay silent. But there is a mantra that helps. Just keep repeating
 

"Not my circus, not my monkeys."

"Thank you Nurse, I'm ready for my medication now .."

Theatre Review: Question Time in the House of Representatives ~ 27th June 2013

"Back To the Future  III: Return Of The Master"

 

Was it all a bad dream? How did we fall prey to such an illusion? Has this company finally found its feet after three long years in the wilderness? Today's Question Time saw the return of former matinee idol and teen-hero Kevin Rudd in the role that made him famous. And to the surprise of many he took to the stage with nary a hint that three long years have elapsed since he last trod these hallowed boards. 

Even the Sky News commentary team, long soaked in the titanic struggle of the media's sourness over a hung parliament and no familiar script to cling to, were left bemused, befuddled and be-Kevined. 

"It's as if no time at all has passed..." they bumbled. "It's uncanny, he's so lifelike!"

Indeed. With the return of Rudd the old song burst forth anew. Prepared, polished, Dorothy Dixers all in a row, the once and future PM strode out in an expectant hush. And they never laid a glove on 'im.

Gillard was a deal maker, Abbott a fighter. And in the drama and horror of the last three years the company lurched from Greek drama to French farce. Castigated as the Wicked Witch, Dame Julia gave an honest, creditable, if at times misapplied performance as the honest broker, the deal maker who could knit up the raveled sleeve of Australian politics. The reviews were appalling. Miscast, perhaps, in a country where testicles are considered vital to the role of tyrant, her Lady Macbeth strove to avoid a bloody end, ultimately to Noah Vail, a small town in a country not unlike our own.

Rudd, meanwhile, had spent three years in a traveling repertory company polishing his Richard III, humped with a massive chip on his be-suited shoulder, embittered, if quietly, but determined to play a combination of Don Quixote and Biggles Flies Below The Radar. Overseas tours as the Knight in The Seventh Seal appears to have done nothing to diminish his ability, nor his ambition. Today he came home to the House.

If Gillard (Oh, how I shall miss her) is a deal maker, and Abbott the pugilist, Rudd is undoubtedly a cosmically inspired blend of Steele Rudd's Best Mate; Arthur, King of All Australia; and Galahad the Pure. This shining mix, all too forgivable for past excesses, is bouyed up by impressive stagecraft. 

He's harder to hit than Muhammad Ali in his prime, smoother than the bottom of a Harry Jenkin's pants, more resolutely innocent and well-meaning than ever before, Harry Potter Redux, ready to tackle an Opposition Leader who's recent role as the Smiling Eunuch Who'd Never Tax A Fly is completely out of tune with this new production.

The Opposition, delighted with the fall of Desdemona, seemed stunned, uncertain, lack-lustre in what should have been a concerted statement of intent. In recent weeks the Furies, led by J Bishop in her vintage hair-helmet, had done effective work in both inflating the Coalition's claims to feminist credibility (a hell of a trick in anyone's book) and in providing the teeth in the old dog's bite. But not today. Abbott's questions were limp, uninspired, flatulent. 

His cohorts fared no better. Whipped into a tizzy, the Member for Sturt, Carlos the Jackass (C Pyne) wheedled until his outrage became a high-pitched whine, unbearable to the human ear. The Speaker was forced to eject him under rule 97(c)'s 'Get out you annoying little tit' clause. 

Only in the minutes before the curtain fell did any blows appear to land. When a question on the "pink batts dead baby affair" leapt onto the stage, swinging an axe. For a moment our hero looked vulnerable. But no. Side stepping easily, pleading a grief for the dead too noble to bear, Kevin ducked, weaved and saw off the only threat in the hour. Two Coalition members choked in apoplectic rage, and were also ejected as much for their sake as anything else.

Act Two "A Matter Of Public Insignificance."

Question time had not gone well. But in calling on a debate on A.M.O.P.I, - the no-confidence vote you have when you're not having a no-confidence vote, Abbott sought to rise from the arena's bloodied sands and carry the fight to his nemesis.  But again, his blows were limp-wristed and failed to connect. Desperately, Abbott called on the media to take the attack to Rudd, apparently uncertain of the new script, and out of form in his preferred role of eye-gouging knee biter. Antoninus Severus Pugilator may yet return but so far he's still MIA, Missing, Intellectually Absent.

His attacks appear to cause severe confusion in his own mind, particularly as he's spent so many months playing Cuddly Tony, 'like a big warm hug for the whole electorate'. Stumbling forward like a blind Cyclops he also fell into a trap laid earlier by King Kevin: a challenge, a gauntlet hurled down with force, to debate policy (yes, policy!) at the National Press Club. This bodes, and probably ill.

Meanwhile, King Kevin rolled on without missing a beat, a step, an opportunity to score points in every round. Can he be human? Can he be stopped? Can I stay awake any longer in this Back To The Future III re-run? 

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