Australia Votes - political commentary traduces our Democracy - open letter to the ABC

Dear ABC

In your attempt to provide 'balance' in your political reporting you have unleashed a bunch of narrow minded 'me me ' generation 'reporters' on to the political commentary stage, most of whom think they're the news. Apart from some notable exceptions, the commentary from the likes of Trioli, Crabb (who just can't get enough of Abbott unplugged - yuk!), Kelly, Uhlman, etc etc has been tortuous.

The so-called 'expert' commentary has been equally vacuous. After the Labor launch last Monday poor Joe fielded two right wing usual suspects to assess the launch. In the manner of Trioli, they both looked like they had eaten a shit sandwich every time Julia Gillard was mentioned. This is frankly not good enough.

It is bad enough that the Murdoch press have adopted an editorial line that traduces our democracy, but I expect a lot more from the ABC. The other day even the World Today fell into the trap. Eleanor Hall, whom I do admire, had Kennett on as an 'expert' on health policy. Spare me, Kennett can be called many things but an 'expert' on health policy he ain't.

And much as I have admired Red Kes over the years he has of late taken on some of the attributes of the 'me me' crowd - in other words, get out of my way because I'm the story! It is rank and it does our body politic a disservice.

If Abbott is elected on Saturday the ABC will have had a substantial hand in this outcome through mediocre analysis and mind-boggling glad-handling. And please, please don't ever let Tony Eastley go wandering off into the never never again. He may have had a rural epiphany but it was excruciating as political analysis!

Abbott wants to slide into govt on the back of more bribes to Nauru

Deja vu, we've seen it all before. A policy bankrupt party expecting to win electoral favour by ramping up its rhetoric on asylum seekers. Howard & Reith offered bribes to Pres Rene of Nauru to get the Pacific Solution up & running. Now, Abbott & Morrison are doing the same nasty two step shuffle.

I was ringside as the Howard fiasco played out. Public servants were threatened with career damaging outcomes if the Nauru 'program' went off the rails.

There should have been a full judicial inquiry into the governance and human rights abuses that underlay this strategy to ensure it could not happen again. I lobbied Senator Evans to this effect and got the standard she'll be right mate response from his department. Wrong, wrong, wrong.....Click here to read an account by a Doctor familiar with Nauru to appreciate one aspect of why the Pacific Solution was a disgrace.

Susan Metcalfe has written a book on the Pacific Solution that will be launched in Melbourne on 17 August. I encourage people with an interest in this benighted area of asylum seeker governance to read her book.

Human rights set to go to hell in a handbasket in Abbott's Australia

After a lengthy lay off due to travel and major surgery I have re-emerged to find Australia on the brink of electing a man who would re-introduce the 'Pacific Solution' for asylum seekers.

The dog whistle has worked again. Supported by the mainstream media, Abbott's ugly message has filtered through TV sets yet again; into the consciousness of average Australians who lack the critical skills to see through the ugliness of the strategy. Intelligent people, who would consider themselves decent and fair minded, are seriously contemplating electing a man who lost his moral compass a long time ago. He dresses his so-called conviction politics in a false religiosity, but his pitch to credulous people, who think a few people arriving by leaky boats is a threat to this country, is nasty in the extreme.

His extremist views on welfare, migration, women's rights, industrial relations will take this country backwards again. We lost valuable time in our march toward realizing a progressive and moderate body politic under Howard, evincing nothing more than lackey status to a regime now considered one of the most reactionary and incompetent in US history. Abbott is more extremist than Howard in many respects. Howard's asylum seeker policies brought shame to this country. We are now on the verge of revisiting these and worse.

The worst side of Australia has come to the fore in this election campaign. Media driven hate mongering, sexism, 'dumbing' down of political debate, the endless round of media grabs on petty nothings. We are ill-served by today's media. It is driving a 'me me' celebrity culture that enables an inadequate opportunist like Abbott to run for the highest office on a platform of unbridled entitlement politics, encouraging division, selfishness and 'get out of my way' pitches to people who think Government is about nothing more than serving their narrow interests.

The shabby state of our body politic is alarming. It is in these circumstances that extremist politics flourish. I am amazed that we have sunk so low yet again and so quickly. Public intellectuals and serious journalists need to ask themselves how this happened. It is a canker and nothing good will come of it......

Asylum seekers in Australia: PM Gillard has a chance to show some statesmanship

The PM is about to announce 'changes' to asylum seeker policy. She has asked for an open debate and for the name calling to stop on both sides of the argument. On the face of it, Gillard appears to want to try to take the partisan politics out of the refugee debate.

A worst case scenario would be a pandering to the fear whipped up by Abbott and his fellow travelers, who see political opportunity in pandering to fears of 'boat people' harbored by many in the community. Howard turned this into an art form.

It seems to me that Gillard has an opportunity to present the facts on refugees and seek to conjure a return to bi-partisanship on immigration and refugee policy. Of course that won't happen while the extreme right has control of the Liberal Party, but it is a sound message for the broader populace. Fear politics has no part to play in immigration. It smacks of xenophobic and entitlement politics, which has become a stock in trade of the right wing in Coalition circles. However, there is a rump of labor support drawn to these drum beats as well.

It is time to show true leadership and chart a course that is both practical and humane.

Julian Burnside has a piece worth reading in Tuesday's Age.

Get Riz's Story on Air & send Tony Abbott a message

Click here to see GetUp"s new TV ad featuring Riz, to take his story to all Australians.

Methinks Abbott may have bitten off more than he can chew with Riz and his tale.

Open letter to the Minerals Council of Australia

Dear Mitch

Congratulations on your incredibly obtuse response to the RSPT. Your TV commercials are so effective I now change channels as soon as I see that chap pretending to be a concerned player and I am far from being Robinson Crusoe. This will ginger reform of your industry faster than anything the Federal Government does.

Reform of this sector’s tax regime is overdue. The replacement of a royalties regime by a super profits tax is the most efficient way of doing this. By all means argue about the transition arrangements and other structural issues, but by politicizing the Federal Government’s policy response you may have done this industry a disservice.

You can now be assured that every Federal agency and regularity authority with any interest in this industry will be charged to make a forensic analysis of your membership’s operations and financial dealings. I imagine there are some slightly nervous directors out there who had better have their houses in pristine order. You may even see calls for a review of the way mining leases are managed in this country.

I suggest you make the launch of this type of partisan political campaign at your peril. You have now got the complete attention of everyone with a brain that believes this tax reform is necessary.

Probably this is a good thing as it would be excellent to think Australian mining demonstrates world’s best practice in terms of corporate governance and global mining operations.

Good luck with that…

ABC Insiders give Abbott another free kick

My message to ABC's Insiders today:

"Congratulations on today's political cabaret. Every position adopted by your panel was anti-Rudd. My god, he must be a dreadful person. He obviously does'nt tickle the journos fancy enough. Swearing off-line, golly gosh. Fraser, Hawke & Keating were such paragons of virtue in that area & 'life's a box of chocolates'. My only disappointment is that Hawke & Keating are'nt around to let you lot know a few home truths about your shoddy journalism in 'appropriate' language.

Please, please stop being a paid commercial for Abbott and bastardy inc. and do some cerebral analysis. Your take on the mining tax politics is breathtaking in its superficiality. And, Iemma dudded by Rudd! Keating would have got a giggle out of that. He kicked people from within and without the bastions of the NSW right as a bloodsport.

I for one am happy that Iemma might have got some comeuppance - he certainly dished plenty out. Why are'nt you focused on the backstabbing of Tripodi et al?

The only snippet of Petro's timely valedictory you showed was the joke about Playboy, rather than his take on human rights violations.

Nudge, nudge, wink wink, let's go get a latte and think of more ways to give Abbott our endorsement. If that @#$%^&* becomes PM you lot can take a long look at yourselves because the MSM will have had a huge hand in it, won't they Lenore? (& bonuses all round)...."

Abbott morphs back into Howard & finally reveals his true colours on asylum seekers

It has been obvious to anyone that takes any notice of these matters that the Coalition lost its moral compass on the question of the human rights of refugees early in Howard's stewardship.

In a breathtaking leap back to the future Abbott and Morrison have announced today that TPVs and the Pacific Solution are to be dusted off. Forget about dog whistles, the loudhailer is out again, reminding us of Tampa and the fallout.

The Age reports "Mr Abbott said his party would find unnamed countries to process Australia-bound asylum seekers, as it did when under the dismantled Pacific Solution.

Asylum seekers were detained on Nauru and Manus Island.

As leader, Mr Turnbull upset moderates by announcing without consultation the Coalition would introduce temporary protection visas.

Both measures were described by Liberal MP Petro Georgiou as "cruel" and "regressive"."

It worked a treat for Howard. It will be interesting to see whether the body politic has matured somewhat since those depth plumbing times.