The Business Council of Australia and I are seldom singing from the same song sheet - but on one song we are in perfect harmony. That is the one about the renewal of Australia’s economic infrastructure such as roads, rail, energy and water to support future growth. In a time when trade barriers have fallen with greater and lesser success, the one thing we can do to support business - big and small - and ourselves as individuals and as a nation is by investing in national infrastructure. Australia has creaking infrastructure and, as well, has major illnesses to be remedied - such as salinity and associated problems in the Murray-Darling system. But what does our Government do? Hand out tax cuts to individuals willy-nilly as well as the profligate untargeted placement of money in the pockets of individuals prior to elections. Economic rationalists have weaned us - so they think - on to an effecient tax system uncluttered, unwarped by the sorts of tax deductions we used to be able to make for items such as mortgages, rates, and medical insurance. Now the government itself is corrupting the tax system by all sorts of churning of tax rates, tax rebates, family funding and so on. I am not against tax cuts or family support by government in principle. I am against untargeted spending. I am against willy nilly rebating individuals when collective investment in items such as national infrastructure and community-based services such as health, education, and policing would be of greater benefit. Our government clearly thinks that our greatest motivator is greed. It clearly thinks that if our taxes go into funding items of national and community importance we are so greedy we will not give them a priority above our own purses. So in the driest continent on earth we are turning over our water resources to the private sector as we bury ourselves in saline infested land that won't grow a thing. Our transport linkages are inefficient and, quite often poorly placed, and become part of the hidden costs that we all unnecessarily pay. If we fail to take the Howard Govt to task on these matters, then we prove that we agree with their assessment of us. Our personal greed dominates us. And the Howard Govt is happy to keep corrupting themselves and us by buying us and our votes - irrespective of anything else.
The major undercurrent in the turmoil within The Nats is the status of The Nats in Queensland in the run up to the 2007 election. This is what bouncing Barnaby Joyce is all about. This is why he claims to represent the Queensland Nationals in the Senate. His profile and his position on issues is meant to be a major part of the arsenal of the Qld Nats so that they can be catapulted from Opposition to Government. Queensland is the only place in Australia where The Nats can govern in their own right. Queensland is the only place in Australia where The Nats can not be considered a rural rump party. Barnaby has a mate challenging Ron Boswell, Qld's long-time Nat Senator for pre-selection. He was making noises on RN along the lines of "I support the incumbent" which was hardly a ringing endorsement of Ron. Ron, of course, says "I have always won the seat for the National Party". Yeah, Ron, you have. But look at the help you got last time when it was a very close thing. Pauline Hanson was also on the list and a lot of ALP voters voted for the National Party for the first time in their lives. They didn't find you too indigestible Ron and they sure as eggs didn't want Hanson. So they took out insurance against Hanson and voted for you. Those same votes are unlikely to be there next time around, Ron. Your mates in The Nats are probably aware of this too - so the preselection is on shaking ground. If Barnaby's mate, James Baker, who is challenging Ron turns out to be bouncy Baker after the style of bouncy Barnaby you will be on the way out Ron. Your mates in the Qld Nats want government and if you can't deliver to build the state profile you have had it. One thing though - there may be a little less bounce in Barnaby after the McGauran defection. His toes might have to stay closer and more firmly to the party line.
The Nationals are trying to concentrate on their act so they are going to have a crisis meeting. But when you hear what Barnaby Joyce had to say on Radio National's breakfast this morning, you do have to wonder. He suggested that Julian McGauran had not renewed his National Party membership last year. Simply 'mazing. Isn't the bookkeeping too good at the Paris end of Collins Street? Or are the Victorians unable to communicate with their NSW based leader? Or did Mark Vaille know all the time that McGauran was unfinancial and either failed to negotiate with McGauran or was unsuccessful in doing so - and is just covering up for his own failings as a political leader. Which brings us back full circle to the special privileges and pleading with which The Nationals indulge themselves.
To-day is getting warmer and to-morrow promises to be a hot Australia Day - scorching in some parts. I have been out and about to-day: over to Coburg through Northcote and Thornbury this morning and midday found me in Lilydale heading for the hills through Monbulk and Belgrave and back home to Upper Gully. Now if it's that hot perhaps you dream of waving coconut palms. But coconut palms in Melbourne? Someone in Thornbury (or is it Coburg) has solved this problem. The photo above shows a green palm tree complete with yellowy green coconuts. I think it might be made from moulded plastic - note the "carved" effect on the "bark" and the spiky "palm fronds". The sky looks clear blue. Glad the camera was so sympathetic. The reality is that a smoky, smoggy haze from widespread Victorian bushfires covers the inner city extending even to the outer east and the Dandenongs. Even our view of the Dandenongs National Park from our home in Upper Gully is thick with smoke. It makes us think of the firefighters, those who have lost homes and livelihood, and - above all - of those who have lost their precious lives. Our prayers are with you all!
Mark Vaile is almost having an apopleptic fit. The National Party in Victoria is like a stunned mullet. There's no doubt about those not-short-of-a-bob good Catholic Jesuit-educated McGauran boys. They just don't know how to behave. Peter, the reader will recall, resigned as Science Minister in John Howards Liberal-National Party Coalition Government because this well and expensively educated barrister could not get his travel expenses right. Well, to put it mildly, he was playing the system for all he could get - like milking a Gippsland cow. He was forced to resign his ministry and did so on 26 September 1997. Funny though, his entry in Wikipedia does not mention this fact. Is this because he did it himself? Now there's brother Julian. Perhaps he didn't do his own Wikipedia entry because it highlights his controversial career. Julian's behaviour in the Senate has not been impeccable. He is most noteworthy for giving the Senate the finger. And from such a good Catholic family! The McGauran family come from beautiful, conservative, Catholic rural Gippsland. I would be reasonably confident that if you had scratched a McGauran in the 1950s you would have found membership of the National Civic Council and support for or membership in the DLP (Democratic Labor Party). The Nats now have their own rat in the ranks. Mark Vaille, who leads the in-decline Nats, spat the dummy. McGauran's intention to leave the Nats and join the Libs, still leaving him in the Coalition ranks, is not good enough for the Nats. They want McGauran to go from Parliament and give them back their precious seat.
Nigel, you have made the right decision. One day, I hope that the events of this current regime will be seen for what they are - detrimental to humanity. One day, I pray that the pendulum will swing and those of us who are alienated by deeds done in our name but without our support will be able to hold our heads high as Australians once again.
.....the care of children has a whole other meaning than the issue of childcare in mainstream society. Children are still being taken from their families and the groundwork is being laid for the continuing high representation of Australia's First Nations in the prisons of Australia. Two points to consider here:Technorati tags Children
Child care Australia Democracy Aboriginal Noel Pearson Warren Mundine
....they think we're dummies. Crucial to the childcare debate is the issue of the childcare rebate. In other words, the financing of childcare is becoming a huge issue and the government needs to address it. ABC Learning Centres have become the monolith of the Australian childcare system creaming, if not milking, its turnover and profits on the basis of childcare subsidies. Even their URL http://childcare.com.au/ is designed to look generic. They are the world's largest listed childcare provider. They have moved into the US with the takeover of Learning Care and this will be used as a base for expansion across North America including Canada. Could this be said to be the globalized corporation that Australian taxpayers and Australian toddlers built? It is a world away from community and parent controlled childcare.
What a you-beaut Australia Day present. The Ugg Boot (or Ugh Boot, as I prefer) is to be removed from the Australian register of trademarks, meaning it is now a generic name. Get the full story here.
More conservative women join the childcare campaign. They have joined Jackie Kelly and Tanya Plibersek in speaking out for our children's care. Please encourage their voices:And Barnaby Joyce has chipped in too calling for child-care rebates to be extended to cover kindergartens and nannies. Senator Joyce said many rural areas lacked a child-care centre or places, so parents were missing out on federal aid for the care of their children. Strange, he's saying what I was saying twenty years ago in north-west Queensland!
Child care Childcare Teresa Gambaro Judith Troeth Jeannie Ferris Louise Markus Barnaby Joyce Kackie Kelly Tanya Plibersek Working mothers Women and work Bronwyn Bishop Joanne Gash
And Barnaby Joyce has chipped in too calling for child-care rebates to be extended to cover kindergartens and nannies. Senator Joyce said many rural areas lacked a child-care centre or places, so parents were missing out on federal aid for the care of their children. Strange, he's saying what I was saying twenty years ago in north-west Queensland!
Child care Childcare Jackie Kelly Janette Howard Tanya Plibersek Peter Costello Kay Patterson Steve Fielding Family First Working Mothers Women and work Barbara Pocock University of Adelaide Liberal Party of Australia Australian Labor Party Teresa Gambaro Judith Troeth Jeannie Ferris Louise Markus Barnaby Joyce
Only in recent years has childcare been taken anywhere near seriously in this country. Any wonder. Most effective decision-making in our Parliaments is carried out by men who spend long hours in the life political leaving spouses with childraising responsibilities irrespective of whether their spouse is one of the 70% of mothers in the paid economy. John Howard married Janette who has been a stay-at-home Mum and is consistently reported as advising John Howard on how to benefit the stay-at-home full-time wife and mother. Hardly a situation in which a campaign for better and more extensive childcare can take root.Meanwhile, Senator Kay Patterson - the Minister responsible for Childcare as Minister for Family and Community Services and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues - is dragging the chain. Kay's style seems never to appear like she's pushing to get things done.
So there you are mums and dads and kids. If you want things to change, to improve get behind the efforts of Jackie and Tanya (you have real choice here - one Lib, one Lab) and give Costello and Patterson heaps of encouragement in the right direction. Meanswhile, Steve Fielding, the Family First Senator doesn't seem to have figured out how to keep his office going and take a January holiday at the same time - because there is a deathly silence from him on this very important family matter. Oh well!
Child care Childcare Jackie Kelly Janette Howard Tanya Plibersek Peter Costello Kay Patterson Steve Fielding Family First Working Mothers Women and work Barbara Pocock University of Adelaide Liberal Party of Australia Australian Labor Party
If it's on Tim Blair, does that make it official? I am cited in one of his posts headed Heed The Hate Blogs. So does this make me a hate blog? I have earned such an accolade from such a distinguished blogger (Ranked 7/10 on Google) for this. And here is the cartoon at the heart of all the angst. HT Tim, this little blog (Ranked 3/10 on Google) has never seen such traffic. It has come from across the world - including Israel - and the day's not half-way gone yet. And RebeccaH saidEagle’s Child also says (among other moony, misty things) that “No is a very conservative word”. I suspect neither she nor Leunig ever heard that word much when they were growing up.
It's not your fault, love, that you were brought up genteel.
More than 400 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since the occupation began in March 2003. Many more Iraqis have been kidnapped, but it is the abduction of foreigners that makes news, and makes them particular targets....It is because no one listens to Iraqis talk about their suffering. That’s why
they kidnap foreigners, because it makes people and governments all around the
world listen to them.
I have posted previously on the CPT Four here and here. There is no word, nothing but silence from the realm of captivity. Please check the Christian Peacemaker Teams website and the family websites for more information and please keep up the prayers and candles.
Jim Wallis busted
When Governments from Victoria to California compete for investment in their turf within a globalized economy, they can find themselves - as the Bracks Govt has done - between a rock and hard place: corporations getting government encouragement and incentive in real and financial terms and then, when their circumstances change within a short space of time, corporations up stakes and move. It is understandable that corporations will go where the best deal serves their own self-interest - but time and again taxpayers are left with a poor return on their dollar. VicGov says it is unrealistic to expect companies to return the money. But there are two things that are realistic to expect, ask for and get: Corporations say they are accountable: but they are accountable on a very narrow base while ranging over vast distances. Corporations have to recognise their employees as stakeholders in the same way as shareholders are (not that they can't become part of the mushroom club too) and they have to be held accountable to the governments and communities in which they have their corporate base and in which they establish their business.
It has always bugged me that Australian corporations can pollute and deforest other nations in a manner that would not be permitted under Australian law without being held accountable at home. Not only should there be strong domestic accountability but there must be international accountability as well. You can't be a fine corporate citizen at home while being delinquent in responsibilities overseas - as BHP found at Ok Tedi.
The Howard Government clearly sees the Australian voters as mugs. Not only has it foisted an extreme and weird industrial relations system on the nation it now refuses to provide details related to its implementation under the Freedom of Information Act without paying a Howard's Ransom for it and declares the release not to be in the public interest. Horsefeathers! Not in Howard's, Andrews', and the Government's interest. We, the voters, are interested. Our money paid for the so-called information campaign. Now account to us, Howard and Andrews.
A recent journey through Gippsland recently brought Angus McMillan into my consciousness. McMillan has an entry in the Dictionary of Australian Biography. One thing we know now is that there are many aspects, many voices to history. What we learn at school, or what is written in dominant histories is not the whole story. There is an old saying about history written by the victors. Angus McMillan was certainly one of the victors. He is a pioneer of white settlement only in Gippsland. Notice I added the word only. Settlers tend to just say that so-and-so was a pioneer. We forget or gloss over that so-and-so was a pioneer in one sense only. I first heard about Angus McMillan and his journey from Adrian on The Director. I found this interesting since there were other Victorian journeys by whitefellas but only Angus McMillan's is talked about in Gippsland to any extent. This is probably because it had and economic impact that was not present with the other journeys. The first seems to have been in 1797 when the Sydney Cove was wrecked on Preservation Island, part of the the greatest survival trek in Australian history. I am also aware of Thomas Walker's journey publish anonymously as A Month in the Bush Of Australia. Journal of one of a Party of Gentlemen who recently travelled From Sydney To Port Phillip - with some remarks on the present state of the Farming Establishments and Society in the settled parts of the Argyle Country. Catchy title, don't you think? The reason I know about this one is that my four-times great-grandfather Rear-Admiral John Gore gets a mention. And of course, there was Hume and Hovell but they didn't go to Gippsland. These are the histories of the victors. But other voices are heard these days. One place to hear the other voice is at Krowathunkooloong, the Keeping Place in Bairnsdale. It was here I heard and read another side to the McMillan journeys: the deaths, even the massacres of aboriginal people that are ignored or glossed over. These were the deaths of people defending their land, their country. They are recorded and remembered there at Krowathunkooloong. There is an electoral district named for Angus McMillan but aboriginal people would like to see this name removed.In recent years, there has been much debate within the ranks of academic historians about the extent of aboriginal deaths during the taking of land by white settlers. This debate has earned the name The History Wars. While the debate rages and even finds its way into print, one thing tends to be overlooked. Firstly, that some massacres are fairly recent and are within living memory or only a generation behind. Secondly, that the stories of these massacres have been handed down within families to whom they are relevant - both white and black although in many white families they are covered up. I used to live in Mount Isa in North West Queensland. The Kalkadoons, the original people, had some huge, and sometimes successful, battles with white settlers. They were true warriors. In very recent times, along comes Charles Perkins who became quite a controversial figure in modern aboriginal history. One thing that seems never to be realised is that Charlie was a descendant of those Kalkadoon warriors - and he was a fighter too. I once worked with his sister, Nerida, and I sometimes used to give his mother a lift home from the shops to her home in Sunset. These are the things - the stuff of a family's heritage - that are lost in the academic research. So I have a family tree which includes a crew member of The Endeavour and his son, also a naval officer and god-son of Sir Joseph Banks who came as a white settler to a land grant (stolen land?) at Lake Bathurst near Goulburn. The Perkins family has a family tree which includes a fighter for aboriginal equality and rights, as well as fighters for their land and their freedom.So let the academics do their histories and argue and debate. But the stuff which gives flesh to the bones of an academic history lies in local and family histories and the energy and memory that sustains them.
Leunig writes that he has had an invitation to speak at the Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne withdrawn. Stunning! This news comes to me at the same time as herself wanders out to let me know there is a headliner on television's Sky News that Brokeback Mountain won't be shown in parts of north-west Queensland. We are Queenslanders, or ex-Queenslanders, living in Melbourne and we spent many years living in north-west Queensland. The thing we rejoice in the most is the absence of racism and bigotry of the type and depth that prevails there through the community and in its politics and policies whether its the National Party or the ALP in power. What are people afraid of? Are they only up for more of the likes of The Proposition.
...and put us and it out of its and our misery! I don't spend much in major department stores or big shopping malls these days. Income is limited and needs are not so great. But yesterday I was in the city and, because it was sale time and I had time to spare, I decided to wander over to Burke Street and have a look at Myer and David Jones. I went into Myer - and I was looking for a smart pair of black not-too-high heels.
I lost my faith and trust in Kim Beazley at the time of Tampa and the children overboard affair. The failure to open a debate and a point of view of integrity lost me completely. Clearly, the stance was poll driven - but what price a leader who chooses the line of least resistance in the face of the bigotry of a Prime Minister, a government, and a nation? For the first time since I can't remember when, I can applaud something Beazley says. Let's open open a constructive debate on what benefit our presence in Iraq does provide or should provide. What are we trying to achieve? Are we merely trying to be little Mr Tag-along to the US and their views and their decision making? Or do we really want to build our own independent relationship with Iraq? If the latter is the case, then we had better start talking about it and looking at how the future will be built. This is vital in view of the fact that the Bush administration has scaled back its ambitions to rebuild Iraq from the devastation wrought by war and dictatorship and does not intend to seek new funds for reconstruction. The US has shown impatience and incompetence with regard to nation building. Instance Afghanistan. But is this how Australians want to be? Do we really want to go down the Bush/US path. It is time for some mature thinking, grown-up debate. We have our own interests to pursue in trade and international relations. We have citizens and permanent residents in our country of Iraqi origin. There is a life after regime change and oil wars. Let's take off the blinkers of cultural cringe and obeisance to the US and look to the future - a future for ourselves and for Iraq.
John Langmore has a realistic opinion piece here on the ANZUS Alliance. Our destiny as English speaking nations in the western European tradition are intertwined whatever we or they think. Does the US have to be so self-centred and we so culturally cringing that we cannot have an independent and mature relationship? Can we not affect their point of view and can they not take our view into sound consideration? Both nations have negative psychologies to overcome. We need to grow up and make considered judgments in which we have faith: judgments for which we need no international permission. The US is at a time in its history when the grace to see itself as others see it is deep wisdom. If the US takes the narcissistic line of "How great we art", their judgments will be faulty. I hope there is more discussion on the US-Oz alliance - a discussion, like Langmore's contribution, which is realistic in regard to the prevailing situation but seeking a mature relation which asserts and recognises the independence of each to pursue its own national goals - sometimes without support of the other.
Three men in Sydney have been refused bail to-day in connection with December's Cronulla riots. The men are named in newspaper reports and these names caused me to think about ethnic origins. The surnames are Kelly, Shanahan, and Murray. Proud Celtic names! The first two of Irish origin and the last of Scottish origin. The Irish and the Scots know about oppression on the basis of ethnicity. They know about foreign colonisers. They also know about political terror. Makes ya think, don't it. And if you think I am being too critical in bringing up ethnicity or tribal origins - my name is Brigid O'Carroll Walsh.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!
