Oh Tom, we've decided to ditch one anachronistic old dinosaur of a mayor for another far more ridiculous one that will hugely damage our international reputation and make us the subject of stereotype ridicule for decades.
13 February was been a big day for Australia. The Prime Minister officially apologised to the Stolen Generations. This term refers to Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people forcibly removed from their parents and sent to live either with white foster parents or in camps governed by white people. This was a nationwide and state-by-state policy in Australia ostensibly to protect children at risk of harm but in fact enforced as a brutal piece of 'ethnic cleansing' and out and out racism as has been seen at any time in history. It lasted a hundred years or more.
Apologising for this atrocity has been a sticking point with governments ever since the idea was suggested. A large part of white Australia feels that it has nothing to apologise for; that Aboriginal people do nothing but drink, sniff petrol and laze around. Apologising to indigenous people for Australians of this viewpoint is feeding a victim mentality and validating the perceived lack of endeavour. This is, obviously to me, ignoring the fact that the parlous state of a lot of indigenous communities is a result of the interference of another culture.
This is not to ignore that child abuse, alcoholism and petrol sniffing are immense problems in many indigenous communities. These are symptoms of much bigger problems to do with poverty arising from the treatment of the indigenous population. A distributed hunter-gatherer culture had a concentrated capital economic white culture imposed on it that attempted to force its own values to the fore, removing autonomy and self-determination along the way. This was also done without providing a framework for development or progress – i.e. opportunity to access education and employment – without which many of these communities lapsed into third-world level poverty where they remain today. The average indigenous life expectancy is 17 years shorter than that of the white population.
There are reasons for this too; many indigenous communities are very remote making it very difficult to provide these opportunities even when the impetus to do so is present (from either side of the equation). The traditional ways of living, which supported these communities in the past, had been devalued and eroded by the encroaching culture, hopelessness and an apathetic helpless inertia was the result.
It is against this background that one federal MP when asked whether he supported an apology commented on camera that there were places in Australia where he thought children should be removed from their parents (his emphasis).
Nice one Kev
The wording of the apology needed to be right. Australians of any background are straight talking honest people and any half-hearted effort would have rendered the exercise pointless for absolutely everyone. The word sorry was particularly important as an apology can be without regret and regret as well as recognition of the past ills are what was needed. In the photograph is Sally Pierce who was herself removed from her parents. For years she has worn a black tee shirt with the word Sorry on it, after the PM’s speech she changed it.
Below I’ve included a couple of things, some thinking on what the apology might mean from the Special Broadcasting Service, a video of the PM’s speech, the full text of it and some reactions to the speech again from SBS.
Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation. For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians. A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity. A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed. A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.
My coverage of the federal election here hasn't been what I'd hoped but buying a flat and changing job roles seem to have got in the way of it a bit. However, it is election day in Oz and so I shall be going to go surfing all day and then to a party in the evening as I am not elligible to vote.
Australia's electoral practices are far more progressive than a lot of other westernised nations. All citizens have to vote, even if overseas a plane ticket actually has to be produced to avoid a substantial fine. Australia also uses a proportional representation system in which voters order the candidates to match their preference (a 1 for the first choice, 2 for the second etc.).
For some arcane reason that I don't really understand some seats in the senate are also being decided and for these you can either order the candidates or just put a 1 in a box for your party of choice. You can actually practice voting at the Australian Electoral COmmission's website.
If you're worried about the lack of sanity evidenced by writing about politics at 3 in the morning don't worry. I was woken by a bizarre noise from next door that sounded like an entire skelton being dropped on a hard surface from a great height. Worry about that instead.
I was covering the Australian election from an TV/internet and ex-pat perspective when all of a sudden having a life got in the way. Oh yes, and the whole thing became really tedious.
We've had more of the same from both sides. Liberals first:
And now Labor:
We've also seen some genuine thinking by the two main parties. Liberals first, again playing to their economic record versus that of the oposition and doing so against the background of an interest rate rise (the first ever during a general election campaign in Australia):
Labor's latest plays to the uncertainty of electing a Prime Minister who will be stepping down soon (Howard said yesterday that he would probably be in office for at least 18 months):
To give you a taste of what it's actually like here if you're reading from outside Australia all of these video embeds are on television here. You can't get through an ad break without seeing at least two of them.
Street canvassers have been at a minimum and I am grateful that an English accent can give you the instant get-out of not being able to vote. I can't help feeling that with 10 days to go something a bit more dramatic ought to be happening. The fact that it isn't is probably because both of the parties set out their stalls pretty early on and have stuck to their guns pretty doggedly.
Some spending plans were announced on Monday from the Liberals but Labor doesn't seem to have done quite the same thing and in the interest of research and reasonable comparison I'll go through those later in the week.
At the weekend a worm caused a storm in a teacup. The worm in question is not a political candidate but a screen graphic used by Channel 9 to measure public approval of candidates. It takes the form of a line at the bottom of the screen that changes colour and tracks up and down an onscreen graph based on the real time electronic voting of a studio audience of undecided voters.
The storm in a teacup was because Channel 9 did not have permission to use this under the rules the National Press Club applied to allocate broadcast rights of the debate between Kevin Rudd and John Howard. They used it anyway and the NPC killed their feed. Channel 9 then switched to rebroadcasting ABC's feed with the worm patched over the top and claimed that the Press Club had bowed to pressure from the Government in killing their feed and called it a violation of free speech.
Almost everyone is ignoring this non-story except the two broadcasters involved and the international press who love a claim of free speech violation. Channel 9 may not have had permission to use the worm but do they really need permission? The damn thing was more of a distraction than anything, particularly if, like me, you had absolutely no idea what it was.
Oddly though Channel 9 had a news crew inside the online production suite; not something you do without good reason. Might they have had an inkling that this was going to happen and have actually bent the rules deliberately in a cynical ploy to gain ratings? Surely not.
The worm was an issue because John Howard does not fare well under the gimmick. He had only been on screen 3 seconds when the graph(ic) went into a negative reading from Rudd's immediately positive reading. The worm being left out of the broadcast was almost certainly part of the negotiations to actually get a debate aired. Rudd had wanted 3 debates, Howard has cleverly agreed to only one.
Cleverly because Howard is a very professional and polished politician with 11 years practice at being PM. People know who he is and his extempore speaking seems natural, he appears to know what he's talking about even when he is winging it. Rudd is not a familiar face nor do people necessarily feel they know what he's about. There is an air of Blair about him, although he is much less creepy and seems more genuine. Actually on those criteria he's nothing like Tony Blair but you take my point.
Rudd used the time well outlining policy and using phrases like "what my party stands for", "what I would do in office" etc. but on balance I'd have to give the debate to Howard. The PM consulted his notes far less, seemed more composed and didn't make the error of breaking eye contact with the camera or the person posing a question when he had finished talking, which Rudd did. Phone polls by the broadcasters and the newspapers broadly agree with me. Political analysts though split the honours evenly, citing Rudd's better use of detail and Howard's slight hesitancy on reconcilliation with Aboriginal people and troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq.
The worm firmly gave the debate to Rudd. If the audience really was composed of undecided voters then Howard may not be the totem he once was. This election is going to be a hard faught one in the marginal seats and if Howard provokes disapproval just by appearing on screen then he is going to need something extra. For me though the debate was proof that Howard is still tough and definitely more than a contender. [lazy joke about electorate being worm that turned goes here]
I either have astonishing reach and influence or a talent for stating the blindingly obvious. Today’s video clip is the Liberal Party response to the Labor response to the Liberal unions campaign ad.
Look, it’s Howard and he’s perched on a desk (they must have sawn the legs off). In a bit to out-casual Rudd he’s also jacket-less; how outré! This is begging the question how far will they go? Until Vladimir Putin’s recent photo shoot and since Mussolini politicians don’t really strip off. The fat Italian fascist’s favourite political posturing involved going bare-chested and do manly thinks like mucking in with the hay balers. In a close election are Rudd and Howard prepared to bare flesh? Will we see Kevin in his grundies and a string vest? Will there, the Australian public wants to know, be Prime Ministerial nipple? According to the viral marketers the two are already prepared to change their hair.
As the dominant narrative of the moment the election has considerable use as a marketing too if you can get in people's heads. The election has been expected for so long that companies and their agencies have had plenty of time to prepare and as a media meme an election is all pervasive. Commercial ad campaigns are beginning to mirror the political one.
Apologies, I haven’t actually watched the video above, I’m at work and can’t be bothered. It’s probably Howard saying that he’s not scaremongering but engaged in informing the public about the potential unionist content of a Labor cabinet that would mean the thin end of the wedge for [small] businesses. He probably says something about flexibility in employment and industrial relations and taxes too.
I have noticed from the front page that the theme of embedding your rival’s advert in your own is continuing. Will we also then see this repeated so that by the time a government is elected you will be able to trace the story backwards by finding the adverts referenced in each clip? Has that actually been the case and are you reviewing this post 6 weeks from now tracing things backwards to see how Australia ended up with a naked PM? Interesting.
For speed, and appropriateness of response the Liberals score some points here but this is a definite ‘me too’ advert. It’s the same thing without a jacket (I reserve the right to change my opinion after having watched the video, but I doubt I'll have to).
The first blows in the election campaign fell early in the week. Things are going to move quickly of necessity, 6 weeks is not long to win hearts and minds especially when people already have a well formed impression of your party. Possibly this is why I was a little disappointed with the standard of the opening salvo.
The Liberal Party, rather predictably, weighed in to Labor for its’ Union connections, as it has been doing for the last month.
The move was so predictable in fact that Labor had a reply ready to go which was posted on their website within half an hour of the Liberal ad going live.
Perhaps it is a little early to expect innovation. The Labor – yes, that is the correct spelling here as wrong as it looks – political movement has been linked to Unions since its’ inception (in Australia 1891). That the Labor front bench might contain unionists seems a little obvious.
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