Every now & then I stumble upon a piece written by someone who gets the agony of being outcast and demonized because you escaped tyranny. It is not an intellectual exercise in legalese or political rhetoric to drum up votes, but a heartfelt plea for decency and a fair go.
I have been banging away on this blog for five years or so in a quixotic way to try to convince a few souls that we have got asylum seeker policy badly wrong; that we have betrayed ourselves by letting our society tolerate a regime of punishment and persecution for people who dare to seek sanctuary on our shores.
I came across this blog post today by a barista! Here's part of what it had to say:
"Truth is no government has ever stopped the boats & the reality is no government can. I don’t know why we can’t extend our hand & help people who are desperate and are at risk, considering this is something we have committed to. We live in country where we haven’t been subjected to these types of experiences & yet we are one of the biggest critics of how people should conduct themselves when they are trying to survive. Who the hell are we to judge to people on how they should go about surviving? Life or death situations generally do not come with a guidebook with instructions on how it should be conducted in an orderly manner. Scared people do desperate things to survive, such as board an unseaworthy vessel & sail across the high seas to a country that isn’t even welcoming of them…"
When are we going to get our mojo back and treat these people as we would want to be treated in their shoes...?
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Asylum seekers in Australia - is it legitimate to have punishment of boat people as a centre piece of an election platform?
As you would expect from a political party that reaps returns from its investment of political capital on the demonization of refugees, the Coalition continues its obnoxious rhetoric on boat people. Make no mistake, this is not a reasoned debate on the rights and wrongs of refugee policy. The Coalition has gained rich pickings from fear-mongering, as evidenced by the Queensland vote. The 'tea party' rump of the One Nation party has drifted back to the LNP, in thrall to simple minded messages on debt & deficit, the mining tax and good ole refugee bashing.
Following are some links to people who think and worry about this phenomenon in our body politic:
The refugee myth: How to make things seem worse than they are.
Pacific Solution no real answer.
Simplistic scare tactics will not stop the boats.
While I am no fan of our engagement in Afghanistan, to suggest all young Afghani men should fight the Taliban rather than flee from violence and persecution is reminiscent of those who criticise Holocaust victims of the Nazis for not fighting. A lot of them were young men! Following is an example of this execrable nonsense, fuelling intolerance and hate:
Our boys arrive by bodybag.
Following are some links to people who think and worry about this phenomenon in our body politic:
The refugee myth: How to make things seem worse than they are.
Pacific Solution no real answer.
Simplistic scare tactics will not stop the boats.
While I am no fan of our engagement in Afghanistan, to suggest all young Afghani men should fight the Taliban rather than flee from violence and persecution is reminiscent of those who criticise Holocaust victims of the Nazis for not fighting. A lot of them were young men! Following is an example of this execrable nonsense, fuelling intolerance and hate:
Our boys arrive by bodybag.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Australian media and political bastardry - finally someone (John Menadue) in the know calls for a public enquiry!
A comment on Poll Bludger this morning went like this:
"Deb Cameron on ABC 702 has just had an interview with John Menadue re the bias of the Press during the campaign in which he served it up to the ABC and the rest of the media big time.
The interview will be posted on the ABC website under Mornings on 702 later this morning and she is asking for comments – it is really worth a listen. He is calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the behaviour of the press."
Menadue's earlier critique of the media in Melbourne recently can be found at the Centre for Policy development website.
This is overdue and much needed, before we are picking over the bloodied carcass of our body politic and wondering where we went wrong. The skewed opinion settings of the mainstream media have galled me for a long time. Narrow sectional interests get a helpful leg up in most areas of debate on public policy. We also get a diet of reactionary, simple minded drivel on asylum seekers, deficit financing, interest rates; a plethora of important areas of public policy are 'spun' through the lens of media celebrities who survive on a dumbed-down strategy of sound-bites, 'gotcha' moments and limpid sensationalism. Political analysis has been reduced to talk-show patter and info-tainment for a presumed audience with the concentration span of a distracted gnat.
Well, hey, many of us out here in listener land have maintained a healthy interest in the state of our body politic, and are frankly sick of the 'me me' crowd setting the media agenda. It is time for serious journalists to re-assert themselves. There are plenty of punters that will thank them for it....
"Deb Cameron on ABC 702 has just had an interview with John Menadue re the bias of the Press during the campaign in which he served it up to the ABC and the rest of the media big time.
The interview will be posted on the ABC website under Mornings on 702 later this morning and she is asking for comments – it is really worth a listen. He is calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the behaviour of the press."
Menadue's earlier critique of the media in Melbourne recently can be found at the Centre for Policy development website.
This is overdue and much needed, before we are picking over the bloodied carcass of our body politic and wondering where we went wrong. The skewed opinion settings of the mainstream media have galled me for a long time. Narrow sectional interests get a helpful leg up in most areas of debate on public policy. We also get a diet of reactionary, simple minded drivel on asylum seekers, deficit financing, interest rates; a plethora of important areas of public policy are 'spun' through the lens of media celebrities who survive on a dumbed-down strategy of sound-bites, 'gotcha' moments and limpid sensationalism. Political analysis has been reduced to talk-show patter and info-tainment for a presumed audience with the concentration span of a distracted gnat.
Well, hey, many of us out here in listener land have maintained a healthy interest in the state of our body politic, and are frankly sick of the 'me me' crowd setting the media agenda. It is time for serious journalists to re-assert themselves. There are plenty of punters that will thank them for it....
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Australia votes - the challenge will be to keep the bastards honest - the media I mean!
And so it goes on. The MSM have already launched into a partisan trammeling of the minority government outcome. Willful distortions of independent statements to suggest lack of legitimacy is the current stock in trade of the lumpen commentariat. LP has a good post on this subject.
How can we protect our democracy from the elements of the feral fourth estate that are in hock to reactionary forces in this country? It is a version of the 'howling', where wraiths run riot over the twisting and wailing body politic or a political take of the 'underworld' trilogy (I can feel a movie coming on!). It is sad that so many in the mainstream media have morphed into spruikers for the lumpen mediocrity creeping across the land.
As noted previously, we are at risk of an upsurge of lumpen commentary to assist a tea party type response to this election. Abbott is the type of politician to encourage low rent reaction as it plays to the fear and division game book. Watch the banners as the blooms of bile billow forth from the bowels of the benighted bastions of ole Grubb Street (apologies, apologies, apologies....).
How can we protect our democracy from the elements of the feral fourth estate that are in hock to reactionary forces in this country? It is a version of the 'howling', where wraiths run riot over the twisting and wailing body politic or a political take of the 'underworld' trilogy (I can feel a movie coming on!). It is sad that so many in the mainstream media have morphed into spruikers for the lumpen mediocrity creeping across the land.
As noted previously, we are at risk of an upsurge of lumpen commentary to assist a tea party type response to this election. Abbott is the type of politician to encourage low rent reaction as it plays to the fear and division game book. Watch the banners as the blooms of bile billow forth from the bowels of the benighted bastions of ole Grubb Street (apologies, apologies, apologies....).
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Aid to PNG - Lack of oversight - Australia's awry aid model
I WAS STRUCK by the report in PNG Attitude (No 150, August 2010) on alleged corruption within the aid program.
In 2003 I was lamenting the approach that was fast being adopted by AusAID to devolve administration and program management to Port Moresby. The setting up of sector-based program silos seemed novel at the time, but I had worries about loss of corporate memory in Canberra and, of perhaps more concern, a lack of oversight in contract governance. It seemed to me that full program devolution would bring with it a raft of problems.
One of the scenarios I aired at the time went like this: What happens when one of our large projects in the law and justice sector has a contractual problem involving misuse of funds? Under the previous arrangements, desk officers and contract managers in Canberra would oversight all aspects of a contract. It was sometimes an unwieldy process, particularly if the hands-on managers were inexperienced, but there were checks and balances in the system to minimize the opportunity for ongoing misuse of funds.
Of course,the reality of delivering complex projects on the ground throws up implementation delays, personnel problems, administrative inefficiencies and so on, and it is important to have people in the field to liaise with government counterparts and contractors and to report on these matters. But it is equally important to have a cadre of people back in Canberra who understand the activity, manage the contract and who are hands-on with the Australian managing contractor. You also need highly skilled and independent monitoring and evaluation that can be mobilized as required. Officers in the field are on two year postings. The majority move on to other things on completion of the posting. Whether they are program or contract managers, their corporate memory is limited to their time in country.
Much of the management of the program has been devolved to sector-based units, made up of high-priced consultants, AusAID officers and locally engaged staff, who manage contracts and liaise with government and project personnel. Posted officers and consultants have limited tenure in country and it beggars belief that all the complexities and governance issues associated with delivering large program activities can be managed effectively under this regime. Some of these activities can involve implementation periods of five years and more. Certain activities in the police and corrections area have been implemented over several phases covering 10-15 years or longer.
It comes as no surprise to me that corruption has raised its ugly head in these circumstances.
Two other pieces in Attitude caught my eye. One called upon Australia to scrap the aid program because it is feeding corruption and another focused on the need to get the arrangements between local government and civil society right as a starting point to reform of the PNG political system.
I would conflate these issues so that Australian aid shift focus abruptly to the urgent reform of local level government systems (including the administrative enabling and regulatory framework), decentralization of service delivery and the governance of financial and program administration at all levels of government.
Golly gosh, what a novel idea!
In 2003 I was lamenting the approach that was fast being adopted by AusAID to devolve administration and program management to Port Moresby. The setting up of sector-based program silos seemed novel at the time, but I had worries about loss of corporate memory in Canberra and, of perhaps more concern, a lack of oversight in contract governance. It seemed to me that full program devolution would bring with it a raft of problems.
One of the scenarios I aired at the time went like this: What happens when one of our large projects in the law and justice sector has a contractual problem involving misuse of funds? Under the previous arrangements, desk officers and contract managers in Canberra would oversight all aspects of a contract. It was sometimes an unwieldy process, particularly if the hands-on managers were inexperienced, but there were checks and balances in the system to minimize the opportunity for ongoing misuse of funds.
Of course,the reality of delivering complex projects on the ground throws up implementation delays, personnel problems, administrative inefficiencies and so on, and it is important to have people in the field to liaise with government counterparts and contractors and to report on these matters. But it is equally important to have a cadre of people back in Canberra who understand the activity, manage the contract and who are hands-on with the Australian managing contractor. You also need highly skilled and independent monitoring and evaluation that can be mobilized as required. Officers in the field are on two year postings. The majority move on to other things on completion of the posting. Whether they are program or contract managers, their corporate memory is limited to their time in country.
Much of the management of the program has been devolved to sector-based units, made up of high-priced consultants, AusAID officers and locally engaged staff, who manage contracts and liaise with government and project personnel. Posted officers and consultants have limited tenure in country and it beggars belief that all the complexities and governance issues associated with delivering large program activities can be managed effectively under this regime. Some of these activities can involve implementation periods of five years and more. Certain activities in the police and corrections area have been implemented over several phases covering 10-15 years or longer.
It comes as no surprise to me that corruption has raised its ugly head in these circumstances.
Two other pieces in Attitude caught my eye. One called upon Australia to scrap the aid program because it is feeding corruption and another focused on the need to get the arrangements between local government and civil society right as a starting point to reform of the PNG political system.
I would conflate these issues so that Australian aid shift focus abruptly to the urgent reform of local level government systems (including the administrative enabling and regulatory framework), decentralization of service delivery and the governance of financial and program administration at all levels of government.
Golly gosh, what a novel idea!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Australia votes - or should it be, 'News Ltd lumpen commentariat and ABC lap dogs decide election!'
Malcolm Fraser nailed this on Q & A last night. The Murdoch press has sought to remove Labor from office by a devious editorial policy that spins most key federal political issues in favour of the Coalition. Malcolm observed Murdoch media is doing the same to Obama and did a job on Labour in the UK. When a few members of the audience giggled at this observation, Fraser asked them why they thought this was funny. He's right, its a tragedy for our democracy.
The relentless banging of the fear drum on refugees, pink batts, BER, debt & deficit, etc etc has seen the lumpen commentariat of the Murdoch press shape public opinion in an unhealthy way. Commercial TV has been a disgrace for a long time as far as balance in political reporting goes. Why Laurie Oakes is considered a serious journalist has escaped me for years. For whatever reason, and I expect corporate business interests and the appeal to the lowest common denominator to chase ratings are largely to blame, commercial TV media favour the Coalition. Abbott has been glad handled by key media personalities and gallery journalists throughout his tenure as Coalition leader.
That leads us to the ABC. The trend in recent times has been for serious current affairs programs to use Murdoch media style approaches to covering political issues. We get the constant crosses to so-called expert commentators, many of whom are so politically biased as to verge on the farcical. There is also the tendency to use the Murdoch media lumpen stalwarts as guest commentators. Fran Kelly regularly seeks the views of Denis Shanahan (gulp!), one of the most compromised of the lumpen players in the gallery. News 24 constantly relies on right wing commentary to 'fill' the analysis pieces. ABC Insiders often has Murdoch 'info-tainers' masquerading as journalists, sprouting an endless indictment of Labor and glad handling the Coalition. The serious journalists spend most of the program counter-balancing the paid advertising of these 'spruikers'.
The latest glaring example of skewed coverage is the reporting on the 2PP position on vote counting. Of course, the Murdoch press has spun this relentlessly in favour of the Coalition. Sadly, the ABC has fallen in to the same biased cesspit, thereby poorly serving the public. Antony Green has exposed the nonsense at the heart of this mindless chicanery. There must come a stage when it is questionable whether the ABC is meeting its charter to deliver fair, objective coverage of political affairs. I have seen little evidence of it in recent times.Poll Bludger has a good post on this issue today. As one comment on this post put it, "The media still doing their best to undermine democracy. Maybe from now on we should just let them decide for us seeing as they think they know better. Sad state of affairs." It seems our media is in a race to the bottom ...poor fella my country!
The relentless banging of the fear drum on refugees, pink batts, BER, debt & deficit, etc etc has seen the lumpen commentariat of the Murdoch press shape public opinion in an unhealthy way. Commercial TV has been a disgrace for a long time as far as balance in political reporting goes. Why Laurie Oakes is considered a serious journalist has escaped me for years. For whatever reason, and I expect corporate business interests and the appeal to the lowest common denominator to chase ratings are largely to blame, commercial TV media favour the Coalition. Abbott has been glad handled by key media personalities and gallery journalists throughout his tenure as Coalition leader.
That leads us to the ABC. The trend in recent times has been for serious current affairs programs to use Murdoch media style approaches to covering political issues. We get the constant crosses to so-called expert commentators, many of whom are so politically biased as to verge on the farcical. There is also the tendency to use the Murdoch media lumpen stalwarts as guest commentators. Fran Kelly regularly seeks the views of Denis Shanahan (gulp!), one of the most compromised of the lumpen players in the gallery. News 24 constantly relies on right wing commentary to 'fill' the analysis pieces. ABC Insiders often has Murdoch 'info-tainers' masquerading as journalists, sprouting an endless indictment of Labor and glad handling the Coalition. The serious journalists spend most of the program counter-balancing the paid advertising of these 'spruikers'.
The latest glaring example of skewed coverage is the reporting on the 2PP position on vote counting. Of course, the Murdoch press has spun this relentlessly in favour of the Coalition. Sadly, the ABC has fallen in to the same biased cesspit, thereby poorly serving the public. Antony Green has exposed the nonsense at the heart of this mindless chicanery. There must come a stage when it is questionable whether the ABC is meeting its charter to deliver fair, objective coverage of political affairs. I have seen little evidence of it in recent times.Poll Bludger has a good post on this issue today. As one comment on this post put it, "The media still doing their best to undermine democracy. Maybe from now on we should just let them decide for us seeing as they think they know better. Sad state of affairs." It seems our media is in a race to the bottom ...poor fella my country!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Australia Votes - open letter to GetUp
Dear GetUp
As I emailed you earlier, much as I appreciate a lot of your advocacy work, your idealistic glad handling of everything Green was indulgent frippery with potentially dire consequences! As the Greens never have to contemplate Govt it is easy to pitch to all their soft-left friendly policies. In their lovely paradigm all these areas would be addressed as per the Green agenda, but our body politic is beset with serious problems….
The worst side of Australia came 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 a rank 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. Labor had to tip toe through an electoral mine field of electors easily in thrall to hate mongering, which has become an acceptable political tool when you have little else to convince the electorate you are fit for government.
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......please get real when you try to influence voters. GetUp preached a soft left line relentlessly, playing into the hands of the far right. The naivety of your strategy is there for all to see. Yes, the soft left vote swung to the Greens, but how does this help the cause of progressive politics when you enable a reactionary fear monger like Abbott to crow about his electoral success?
The hemorrhaging of Labor’s primary vote to the Greens will be a major factor if Abbott is elected. Trust me - you will have to re-set your progress meter to negative in some key areas of human rights and social justice under this scenario. Are memories of Howard so short?
Abbott's macho, pseudo religiosity and manic physical self-flagellation clearly appeals to many of the 'me me journalists' and the crypto-Hansonite set but it makes my skin crawl. What does it say about the psychological health of a country that goes within a whisk of electing a major political party that had as the centerpiece of its electoral pitch the punishment of a few miserable refugees? It beggars belief that in the 21st century our body politic can be so trivialized.
As I indicated earlier in another email (also not replied to) politics is not a zero sum game...and I'm afraid Getup has been played in the extreme right's game plan. When you split the progressive vote in this country the right fills the vacuum and thus you get the Queensland result.....
As I emailed you earlier, much as I appreciate a lot of your advocacy work, your idealistic glad handling of everything Green was indulgent frippery with potentially dire consequences! As the Greens never have to contemplate Govt it is easy to pitch to all their soft-left friendly policies. In their lovely paradigm all these areas would be addressed as per the Green agenda, but our body politic is beset with serious problems….
The worst side of Australia came 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 a rank 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. Labor had to tip toe through an electoral mine field of electors easily in thrall to hate mongering, which has become an acceptable political tool when you have little else to convince the electorate you are fit for government.
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......please get real when you try to influence voters. GetUp preached a soft left line relentlessly, playing into the hands of the far right. The naivety of your strategy is there for all to see. Yes, the soft left vote swung to the Greens, but how does this help the cause of progressive politics when you enable a reactionary fear monger like Abbott to crow about his electoral success?
The hemorrhaging of Labor’s primary vote to the Greens will be a major factor if Abbott is elected. Trust me - you will have to re-set your progress meter to negative in some key areas of human rights and social justice under this scenario. Are memories of Howard so short?
Abbott's macho, pseudo religiosity and manic physical self-flagellation clearly appeals to many of the 'me me journalists' and the crypto-Hansonite set but it makes my skin crawl. What does it say about the psychological health of a country that goes within a whisk of electing a major political party that had as the centerpiece of its electoral pitch the punishment of a few miserable refugees? It beggars belief that in the 21st century our body politic can be so trivialized.
As I indicated earlier in another email (also not replied to) politics is not a zero sum game...and I'm afraid Getup has been played in the extreme right's game plan. When you split the progressive vote in this country the right fills the vacuum and thus you get the Queensland result.....
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Australia Votes - MSM, Greens & GetUp enable Abbott to contemplate his new 'pacific ' solution
Ironic as it may seem, the combination of a heavily biased MSM, including the ABC, and the hemorrhaging of Labor's primary vote to the greens and in response to campaigning by groups such as GetUp, has almost delivered Government to the most thuggish, reactionary politician this country has produced in recent decades. He will return to the Pacific solution, he will scrap the NBN, he will revisit unfair work practices, he will implement a harsh regime to make those on welfare suffer.
Queensland has reverted to type, attracted to Abbott's Hansonite agenda. Parts of Western Sydney have been equally in thrall to the hate messages.
The debt and deficit fear drum has also been beaten relentlessly, with the acquiescence of a lemming like media train that has played a huge role in determining the outcome of the election.
GetUp preached a soft left line relentlessly, playing into the hands of the far right. The naivety of their strategy is there for all to see. Yes, the soft left vote swung to the greens, but how does this help the cause of progressive politics when you enable a reactionary fear monger like Abbott to crow about his electoral success?
I was afraid this would happen. The body politic will change as a result of this election. I am fearful that the tendencies in the Australian electorate that saw Howard elected four times on the back of fear politics have been lurking under the surface, awaiting to re-emerge and further traduce the human rights record of this country.
Abbott's macho, pseudo religiosity and manic physical self-flagellation might appeal to some of the 'me me journalists' (Annabell, oh Annabel) but it makes my skin crawl. What does it say about the psychological health of a country that goes within a whisk of electing a major political party that had as the centerpiece of its electoral pitch the punishment of a few miserable refugees? It beggars belief that in the 21st century our body politic can be so trivialized. Can I suggest a few ‘journalists’ might benefit from a stint in the wilderness to re-discover their bearings and don't forget your flagellation tool!
By direct intent or by default, a large number of Australians have opted for a return to fear and division. They say you get the politicians you deserve. What does that tell us about the maturity of our emerging national consciousness? We are on the verge of becoming the soft rump of the reactionary 'tea party' set that is turning politics in the US very ugly. It will not be much prettier here if Abbott takes the reins.
As I've said repeatedly on this blog, be careful what you wish for!!
Queensland has reverted to type, attracted to Abbott's Hansonite agenda. Parts of Western Sydney have been equally in thrall to the hate messages.
The debt and deficit fear drum has also been beaten relentlessly, with the acquiescence of a lemming like media train that has played a huge role in determining the outcome of the election.
GetUp preached a soft left line relentlessly, playing into the hands of the far right. The naivety of their strategy is there for all to see. Yes, the soft left vote swung to the greens, but how does this help the cause of progressive politics when you enable a reactionary fear monger like Abbott to crow about his electoral success?
I was afraid this would happen. The body politic will change as a result of this election. I am fearful that the tendencies in the Australian electorate that saw Howard elected four times on the back of fear politics have been lurking under the surface, awaiting to re-emerge and further traduce the human rights record of this country.
Abbott's macho, pseudo religiosity and manic physical self-flagellation might appeal to some of the 'me me journalists' (Annabell, oh Annabel) but it makes my skin crawl. What does it say about the psychological health of a country that goes within a whisk of electing a major political party that had as the centerpiece of its electoral pitch the punishment of a few miserable refugees? It beggars belief that in the 21st century our body politic can be so trivialized. Can I suggest a few ‘journalists’ might benefit from a stint in the wilderness to re-discover their bearings and don't forget your flagellation tool!
By direct intent or by default, a large number of Australians have opted for a return to fear and division. They say you get the politicians you deserve. What does that tell us about the maturity of our emerging national consciousness? We are on the verge of becoming the soft rump of the reactionary 'tea party' set that is turning politics in the US very ugly. It will not be much prettier here if Abbott takes the reins.
As I've said repeatedly on this blog, be careful what you wish for!!
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