With Tony Abbott having made a "commitment in blood" (but we don't know if it is written down) to repeal the carbon tax, the question has been raised whether it is possible to do so.
The issue rests on timing and our weird electoral system.
In his Media Watch Dog Gerard Henderson takes Richard Dennis to task. Denniss it is claimed said on the BCs The Drum
Richard Denniss: …Even if there’s a 2013 election, the new Senate doesn’t take office until 2014. And you can’t use your double dissolution triggers until the new Senate arrives, you’re not going to have a double dissolution before 2015. The idea that we introduce a carbon price, scrap it in 2015 or 2016, even Greg Hunt says the direct action scheme is an interim measure and by 2020 the Liberals might support a carbon tax. It’s good politics, it’s good theatre. But we’re putting politics ahead of democracy and politics ahead of the economy here.
Henderson's reply is
What a load of tripe. Richard Denniss reckons it is putting politics ahead of democracy to respond to the wishes of a majority of electors. Fancy that. And his political calculations are simply incorrect. If, say, a Coalition government won an election in August 2013 it could put legislation through both the House of Representatives and the Senate by the end of the year. If the legislation is defeated, it could be re-submitted after three months. A further defeat would set up a double dissolution trigger – which could be held by mid-2014.
And Richard Denniss reckons that double dissolution triggers do not apply until a new Senate is in place. Can you bear it?.
My problem is that the position advanced by Denniss I heard being advanced after the 2007 election on Rudd's prospects. He is also not alone in advancing it now.
Two clauses of the constitution matter;
The first is the one that determines a Senator's term;
13. As soon as may be after the Senate first meets, and after each first meeting of the Senate following a dissolution thereof, the Senate shall divide the senators chosen for each State into two classes, as nearly equal in number as practicable; and the places of the senators of the first class shall become vacant at the expiration of three years, and the places of those of the second class at the expiration of six years, from the beginning of their term of service; and afterwards the places of senators shall be vacant at the expiration of six years from the beginning of their term of service.
The election to fill vacant places shall be made within one year before the places are to become vacant.
For the purpose of this section the term of service of a senator shall be taken to begin on the first day of July following the day of his election, except in the cases of the first election and of the election next after any dissolution of the Senate, when it shall be taken to begin on the first day of July preceding the day of his election.
The second is the rules for double dissolution;
57. If the House of representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the House of Representatives, in the same or the next session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. But such dissolution shall not take place within six months before the date of the expiry of the House of Representatives by effluxion of time.
If after such dissolution the House of Representatives again passes the proposed law, with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may convene a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives.
The members present at the joint sitting may deliberate and shall vote together upon the proposed law as last proposed by the House of Representatives, and upon amendments, if any, which have been made therein by one House and not agreed to by the other, and any such amendments which are affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be taken to have been carried, and if the proposed law, with the amendments, if any, so carried is affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, it shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of the Parliament, and shall be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent.
Nothing in the second clause seems to specify an earliest date at which the double dissolution can be triggered. I suspect, however, the issue is that the Governor-General can't dissolve a house before it has formed. The Senators elected due to take office in July 2014 would not have been "dissolved" by the GG in any dissolution before they take office.
The current version of the definitive Parliamentary document makes no reference to an earliest dat, but that could be because it was written after the new Senate sat.
Antony Green on his blog makes the assertion "With the new Senate taking its place on 1 July, it is now possible for the next election to be held as a double dissolution where the House and the whole Senate are dissolved together."
He goes on to note;
While it is not explicit in the Constitution, I believe it is implicit in the fixed terms of the Senate that a double dissolution trigger can only apply to legislation first blocked by a Senate in place after 1 July 2014. The Constitution states the Senators take their place on the 1 July after their election. Any double dissolution triggers attempted before new Senators take their seats would not allow the new Senators to vote on the legislation.
Ultimately there is the issue. The Constitution is unclear and the constitution only refers to the GG may call a double dissolution. I'm prepared to take a bet that NO GG will be prepared to agree to a Double Dissolution before the new Senate assembles. I'd also be prepared to be that following a November 2013 election Abbott couldn't get the Bills twice to a vote before July 2014, and I think it needs to be "the same Senate" that rejects the Bill.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Showing posts with label Henderson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henderson. Show all posts
Friday, October 14, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Strangest headline
Gerard Henderson's SMH column today was headed Unions choose masters over members in carbon tax debate
It is strange in two ways. Firstly, despite commenting on the uniqueness of Australia's unions in supporting action on climate change, at no point did the article assett that their position was determined by the ALP.
But the stranger idea is the implied reversal of roles. After all we are forever being told that it is the unions that are the "faceless" bosses of the ALP. I, of course, blame the non-existent Fairfax sub-editors not Henderson.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
It is strange in two ways. Firstly, despite commenting on the uniqueness of Australia's unions in supporting action on climate change, at no point did the article assett that their position was determined by the ALP.
But the stranger idea is the implied reversal of roles. After all we are forever being told that it is the unions that are the "faceless" bosses of the ALP. I, of course, blame the non-existent Fairfax sub-editors not Henderson.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Leadership speculation
Kristina Keneally made a public appeal to her Federal Parliamentary colleagues under the heading Changing leaders is not the answer for Labor.
I read this just after reading another description that said if the FPLP did change leaders it "will have entered a recently charted, previously unknown, far reach of the Universe, known as the Keneallys."
The current malaise in the ALP, both Federally and more importantly its near elimination in NSW, has had me turning to my somewhat broad political library. In it I found this description;
The [X] Party has a leadership fixation. So it is not surprising that [Y]’s accession to the position …was accompanied by great expectation and standing ovations from among the party faithful. There were references to a new team which would make a fresh start. It sounded exciting until you remembered that much the same had been said about [Z].
[Y] may do better than [his/her] immediate predecessors. Or not. But [his/her] election … will not automatically solve the [X] Party’s problem. … The history of the last decade and more demonstrates that when engaged in national politics, [the X Party] tend to be outperformed by their counterparts. This is true of the leadership, frontbench, backbench, staff, even rank and file. It suggests that the [X] Party’s problems are organisational and cultural – and will not necessarily be overcome by yet another leadership change.
The task for [Y] and the [X] team is not just to win the next election. It is to re-establish [the Party] as the natural, or predominant party of government in Australia by winning three or four terms on the trot. This will require considerable political skills along with an efficient and knowledgeable party machine. In other words, [the X Party] need to set about reform and reinvigoration. ….
There can be no resolution of the [X] Party’s current problems until there is recognition that the party is in long-term decline. …The Party needs dramatic changes to its structure and policy positions. If both were implemented, cultural change would follow.
That could so very easily be a description of the ALP at both levels and of its Federal leader.
But the words instead come from Gerard Henderson's Menzies' Child" The Liberal Party of Australia 1944-94, the leader in question was Alexander Downer, and the year was 1994.
History tells us that the Liberal Party in near despair turned again to John Howard and he went on to win his four terms on the trot (1996, 1998, 2001, 2004). I do not actually think that history would be repeated necessarily with a Rudd return.
But equally I think complete despair is unwarranted...but action is required.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
I read this just after reading another description that said if the FPLP did change leaders it "will have entered a recently charted, previously unknown, far reach of the Universe, known as the Keneallys."
The current malaise in the ALP, both Federally and more importantly its near elimination in NSW, has had me turning to my somewhat broad political library. In it I found this description;
The [X] Party has a leadership fixation. So it is not surprising that [Y]’s accession to the position …was accompanied by great expectation and standing ovations from among the party faithful. There were references to a new team which would make a fresh start. It sounded exciting until you remembered that much the same had been said about [Z].
[Y] may do better than [his/her] immediate predecessors. Or not. But [his/her] election … will not automatically solve the [X] Party’s problem. … The history of the last decade and more demonstrates that when engaged in national politics, [the X Party] tend to be outperformed by their counterparts. This is true of the leadership, frontbench, backbench, staff, even rank and file. It suggests that the [X] Party’s problems are organisational and cultural – and will not necessarily be overcome by yet another leadership change.
The task for [Y] and the [X] team is not just to win the next election. It is to re-establish [the Party] as the natural, or predominant party of government in Australia by winning three or four terms on the trot. This will require considerable political skills along with an efficient and knowledgeable party machine. In other words, [the X Party] need to set about reform and reinvigoration. ….
There can be no resolution of the [X] Party’s current problems until there is recognition that the party is in long-term decline. …The Party needs dramatic changes to its structure and policy positions. If both were implemented, cultural change would follow.
That could so very easily be a description of the ALP at both levels and of its Federal leader.
But the words instead come from Gerard Henderson's Menzies' Child" The Liberal Party of Australia 1944-94, the leader in question was Alexander Downer, and the year was 1994.
History tells us that the Liberal Party in near despair turned again to John Howard and he went on to win his four terms on the trot (1996, 1998, 2001, 2004). I do not actually think that history would be repeated necessarily with a Rudd return.
But equally I think complete despair is unwarranted...but action is required.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Friday, July 08, 2011
Henderson loses it
readers of Crikey might know that Mark Lathamm has started subjectting Gerard Henderson to a bit of an attack over accuracy and pedantry.
Personally I've been finding the monothematic approach of Henderson's Media Watch Dog more of a concern.
His offering today brings out both.
The first is this effort to question the credibility of a person whose account Henerdson wants to discredit.
Scrafton was asked by Labor’s Senator John Faulkner whether he had “checked privately and personally” with his dinner companion as to the number of calls which he had with John Howard. Let’s go to the Hansard transcript:
Mr Scrafton: No, I have not checked – for two reasons. One is that the two very expensive bottles of wine we had were both drunk mostly by her, getting angry while I was away from the table talking to the Prime Minister.
Senator Faulkner: This is a real-world note for our committee.
Mr Scrafton: She probably had less recollection than I do of what happened that night.
You can say that again. Mike Scrafton’s evidence was that his calls with John Howard (he claimed originally that there were three but later conceded there two) occurred over a period of no more than 20 minutes.
There are 14 standard drinks in two bottles of wine – including “very expensive” brands. Since, in Scrafton’s own words, his female companion consumed most of the wine – it is reasonable to assume that she downed no fewer than 10 glasses in a 20 minute period. This is at the rate of a glass of wine every two minutes.
The simple error is that the time period of twenty minutes is listed as how long the calls covered, not necessarily how long Scrafton and the saucy tart were together for.
The second howler is when he seems to confuse his comedians called Dave;
You see, Melbourne comedian Dave O’Neil has just had a vasectomy (Go on. – Ed]. Mr Hughes – father of three, age 46 – started off his column by declaring:
I never really wanted to talk about my vasectomy.
But he did. For another 700 words. Readers learnt what the surgeon said to Dave, what Mrs Dave said to Dave, how Dave was present at the birth of his three children and stayed awake on two of those occasions and how Dave had his private parts shaven.
The rest of the piece talks about Dave - so we are never sure which Dave really had the vasectomy - but then again I couldn't see the point of the entry at all, rather than perhaps to suggest men shouldn't be allowed to write about vasectomies.
Gerard, please note, the media is free to write whatever trivial stories it likes. Stick to concerns of accuracy.
Gerard had started his daily spray by pointing out that political commentary that criticises both Labor and Liberal from the left isn't balanced - though he used the much nicer and more accurate term "pluralist".
But then he decided that Bob Ellis and John Quiggin don't deserve the right to express a leftist opinion because of Gerard's current obsession with "taxpayer funded" jobs. I happily agree with Henderson's general assessment of Ellis - as a writer largely beneath contempt and highly irrelevant. But that's the criticism to make - not that Ellis is soft on sexism so long as it is "balanced".
As for the criticism of Quiggin, it is hard to understand the relevance of a complaint about taxpayer funding of Quiggin when what was being questioned was presumably paid for by the entirely not Government funded Fairfax Media. Indeed it is a surprise that Quiggin still has that gig given how non-pluralist the AFR opinion pages have been of late.
He then finds objectionable the observation that Tony Abbott won't find much support from Australian economists - despite the fact it is true. I can tell Gerard that one economist - Frank Stilwell from the University of Sydney - does support Abbott's direct action plan. That is based on his paper Environmental Policy: Beyond the Market presented to last year's Contesting Markets Symposium. But this provides the delicious irony that Abbott's only support comes from the anti-market Left.
It is a pity to see the only Australian conservative who seemed to have a grasp on informed discussion getting so distracted.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Personally I've been finding the monothematic approach of Henderson's Media Watch Dog more of a concern.
His offering today brings out both.
The first is this effort to question the credibility of a person whose account Henerdson wants to discredit.
Scrafton was asked by Labor’s Senator John Faulkner whether he had “checked privately and personally” with his dinner companion as to the number of calls which he had with John Howard. Let’s go to the Hansard transcript:
Mr Scrafton: No, I have not checked – for two reasons. One is that the two very expensive bottles of wine we had were both drunk mostly by her, getting angry while I was away from the table talking to the Prime Minister.
Senator Faulkner: This is a real-world note for our committee.
Mr Scrafton: She probably had less recollection than I do of what happened that night.
You can say that again. Mike Scrafton’s evidence was that his calls with John Howard (he claimed originally that there were three but later conceded there two) occurred over a period of no more than 20 minutes.
There are 14 standard drinks in two bottles of wine – including “very expensive” brands. Since, in Scrafton’s own words, his female companion consumed most of the wine – it is reasonable to assume that she downed no fewer than 10 glasses in a 20 minute period. This is at the rate of a glass of wine every two minutes.
The simple error is that the time period of twenty minutes is listed as how long the calls covered, not necessarily how long Scrafton and the saucy tart were together for.
The second howler is when he seems to confuse his comedians called Dave;
You see, Melbourne comedian Dave O’Neil has just had a vasectomy (Go on. – Ed]. Mr Hughes – father of three, age 46 – started off his column by declaring:
I never really wanted to talk about my vasectomy.
But he did. For another 700 words. Readers learnt what the surgeon said to Dave, what Mrs Dave said to Dave, how Dave was present at the birth of his three children and stayed awake on two of those occasions and how Dave had his private parts shaven.
The rest of the piece talks about Dave - so we are never sure which Dave really had the vasectomy - but then again I couldn't see the point of the entry at all, rather than perhaps to suggest men shouldn't be allowed to write about vasectomies.
Gerard, please note, the media is free to write whatever trivial stories it likes. Stick to concerns of accuracy.
Gerard had started his daily spray by pointing out that political commentary that criticises both Labor and Liberal from the left isn't balanced - though he used the much nicer and more accurate term "pluralist".
But then he decided that Bob Ellis and John Quiggin don't deserve the right to express a leftist opinion because of Gerard's current obsession with "taxpayer funded" jobs. I happily agree with Henderson's general assessment of Ellis - as a writer largely beneath contempt and highly irrelevant. But that's the criticism to make - not that Ellis is soft on sexism so long as it is "balanced".
As for the criticism of Quiggin, it is hard to understand the relevance of a complaint about taxpayer funding of Quiggin when what was being questioned was presumably paid for by the entirely not Government funded Fairfax Media. Indeed it is a surprise that Quiggin still has that gig given how non-pluralist the AFR opinion pages have been of late.
He then finds objectionable the observation that Tony Abbott won't find much support from Australian economists - despite the fact it is true. I can tell Gerard that one economist - Frank Stilwell from the University of Sydney - does support Abbott's direct action plan. That is based on his paper Environmental Policy: Beyond the Market presented to last year's Contesting Markets Symposium. But this provides the delicious irony that Abbott's only support comes from the anti-market Left.
It is a pity to see the only Australian conservative who seemed to have a grasp on informed discussion getting so distracted.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Friday, June 17, 2011
Question on Gerard Henderson
Gerard has the most extraordinary exchange with Robert Manne in his Media Watch Dog today. The substance of it is itself laughable - from the outside it just looks like two old codgers squabbling over who was the better *something-or-other* in their youth. The reality is its about whether one did or did not say something about the other at some undefined point in the past - somewhere between 1993 and 1999.
It really is quite pathetic from both of them.
But Gerard has recently got a real bee in his bonnet about what people do in their taxpayer funded jobs - be that the ABC, the bureaucracy, a parliamentary pension or academe. At the same time he thinks a different standard applies to him because he "works in the private sector."
I have news for him, he actually works in the community or not-for-profit sector - the Sydney Institute website says it is "a privately funded not-for-profit current affairs forum encouraging debate and discussion." Gerard's life is funded by donations, and what he can generate through memberships.
Now I know that what he is getting at is that his ongoing future is determined by how well he pursues his craft, it is not enough to hold the position, he has to do it well.
But the same is true of all those people funded by the taxpayer, except perhaps the retiree in Mark Latham. But he had to do the far more challenging thing of winning a few elections (yes I know it was a safe Labor seat, but that means the task of winning pre-selection is not exactly simple).
Most academics are no longer tenured, and even if they are they are still measured on their research output or the fee income their courses produce. The ABC hires and fires presenters on much the same criteria as the commercials - does anyone listen to them?
I like Gerard, I like what he has done with the Institute, I generally like the intellectual rigour he applies to the topics he addresses. But I'm getting very tired of his false dichotomy between himself as "private sector" and all he likes to oppose as "taxpayer funded".
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
It really is quite pathetic from both of them.
But Gerard has recently got a real bee in his bonnet about what people do in their taxpayer funded jobs - be that the ABC, the bureaucracy, a parliamentary pension or academe. At the same time he thinks a different standard applies to him because he "works in the private sector."
I have news for him, he actually works in the community or not-for-profit sector - the Sydney Institute website says it is "a privately funded not-for-profit current affairs forum encouraging debate and discussion." Gerard's life is funded by donations, and what he can generate through memberships.
Now I know that what he is getting at is that his ongoing future is determined by how well he pursues his craft, it is not enough to hold the position, he has to do it well.
But the same is true of all those people funded by the taxpayer, except perhaps the retiree in Mark Latham. But he had to do the far more challenging thing of winning a few elections (yes I know it was a safe Labor seat, but that means the task of winning pre-selection is not exactly simple).
Most academics are no longer tenured, and even if they are they are still measured on their research output or the fee income their courses produce. The ABC hires and fires presenters on much the same criteria as the commercials - does anyone listen to them?
I like Gerard, I like what he has done with the Institute, I generally like the intellectual rigour he applies to the topics he addresses. But I'm getting very tired of his false dichotomy between himself as "private sector" and all he likes to oppose as "taxpayer funded".
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Friday, May 06, 2011
Former commies
Gerard Henderson does a good line in questioning the bona fides of former communists. One of his favourite targets is Greens Senator elect Lee Rhiannon.
Today the Oz runs a piece in which Mark Aarons takes a similar shot.
I have no dispute with the many former Communists who erred in their judgement leading up to WWII supporting the Soviet pact with Germany, nor those who looked to Russia and saw nirvana not the gulag. None of us has perfect knowledge.
I do share the concerns of Henderson though about those who won't acknowledge their error.
The ideal of communism is fantastic, the historical analysis of Marx is great (as I've said Bobbitt's is similar) and his economics actually has some valid critiques of what eventually became the orthodoxy. But the practical implementation by terror - starting with Lenin - and its internal inconsistencies are worthy of damnation.
But by the same token, the practice of capitalism in the USA, the harm it inflicts on its poor, the number of its young black male citizens it imprisons, the number of people it executes or cannot keep safe from murder, the absurd rewards paid to people who run the scam known as the financial system and the corruption of its outsourced military means that is a state also worthy of damnation.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Today the Oz runs a piece in which Mark Aarons takes a similar shot.
I have no dispute with the many former Communists who erred in their judgement leading up to WWII supporting the Soviet pact with Germany, nor those who looked to Russia and saw nirvana not the gulag. None of us has perfect knowledge.
I do share the concerns of Henderson though about those who won't acknowledge their error.
The ideal of communism is fantastic, the historical analysis of Marx is great (as I've said Bobbitt's is similar) and his economics actually has some valid critiques of what eventually became the orthodoxy. But the practical implementation by terror - starting with Lenin - and its internal inconsistencies are worthy of damnation.
But by the same token, the practice of capitalism in the USA, the harm it inflicts on its poor, the number of its young black male citizens it imprisons, the number of people it executes or cannot keep safe from murder, the absurd rewards paid to people who run the scam known as the financial system and the corruption of its outsourced military means that is a state also worthy of damnation.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Monday, April 11, 2011
Why does Sheehan bother
Paul Sheehan in today's SMH tried to write something withering about feminism.
One commenter on the article noted;
A derivative article, with ideas lifted from two recent articles in the "New Yorker" magazine on Betty Friedan and Christian Laboutin. You'll have to work harder, Mr. Sheehan. Some of us subscribe to the same sources you pinch your ideas from.
Sheehan himself gave his game away writing;
Academic feminism in the West has turned out to be little more than another flag of convenience for the left, in the way the Greens use environmentalism.
That is he was just trying to bluster about the left ... again.
Apart from some crazy polemic about the fact the fashion industry (continues) to exist the crux of the analysis seemed to be;
All the great recent advances made for women have been made by people - men and women working together. Most of the legislation that seeks to advance the progress of women has been passed by legislatures dominated by men. And no amount of government social engineering is going to stop women behaving badly to women, which happens all the time. Women bully women. Women block women in the workforce.
Of course all the great advances by women have included men in their making - heck it was men who had to vote to give women the vote! And whoever said feminism was about stopping women behaving badly to women? The "sisterhood" is actually a myth of male construction - denigration - to talk about feminism.
The debate is about power - not jobs, or careers or anything else. That's what makes feminism a left issue - it is a challenge to a pre-existing (and enduring) unequal power structure.
PS Why when the SMH publishes Henderson, Sheehan and Hartcher is it usually labelled a left publication?
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/scarlet-soles-are-a-red-rag-to-feminists-ideology-20110410-1d97i.html
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
One commenter on the article noted;
A derivative article, with ideas lifted from two recent articles in the "New Yorker" magazine on Betty Friedan and Christian Laboutin. You'll have to work harder, Mr. Sheehan. Some of us subscribe to the same sources you pinch your ideas from.
Sheehan himself gave his game away writing;
Academic feminism in the West has turned out to be little more than another flag of convenience for the left, in the way the Greens use environmentalism.
That is he was just trying to bluster about the left ... again.
Apart from some crazy polemic about the fact the fashion industry (continues) to exist the crux of the analysis seemed to be;
All the great recent advances made for women have been made by people - men and women working together. Most of the legislation that seeks to advance the progress of women has been passed by legislatures dominated by men. And no amount of government social engineering is going to stop women behaving badly to women, which happens all the time. Women bully women. Women block women in the workforce.
Of course all the great advances by women have included men in their making - heck it was men who had to vote to give women the vote! And whoever said feminism was about stopping women behaving badly to women? The "sisterhood" is actually a myth of male construction - denigration - to talk about feminism.
The debate is about power - not jobs, or careers or anything else. That's what makes feminism a left issue - it is a challenge to a pre-existing (and enduring) unequal power structure.
PS Why when the SMH publishes Henderson, Sheehan and Hartcher is it usually labelled a left publication?
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/scarlet-soles-are-a-red-rag-to-feminists-ideology-20110410-1d97i.html
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
How not to admit your mistakes
Heaps of coverage of News International (the UK outfit of News Corp, the publishers of both The Times and News of the World) and its apology and compensation scheme over the phone-tapping scandal in the UK.
It takes some work to find it, but the full release makes an interesting read.
The key para reads;
That said, past behaviour at the News of the World in relation to voicemail interception is a matter of genuine regret. It is now apparent that our previous inquiries failed to uncover important evidence and we acknowledge our actions then were not sufficiently robust.
"Genuine regret" is probably the weakest apology that could be made, and it appears the greatest regret is about their investigation of the matter rather than the tapping in the first place.
The release goes on;
News International’s commitment to our readers and pride in our award-winning journalism remains undiminished. We will continue to engage with and challenge those who attempt to restrict our industry’s freedom to undertake responsible investigative reporting in the public interest.
There is no element here of the words one might expect to see. That is "News International's commitment is to the ethical standards of journalism and respect for the law." Instead it is to "praise" their journalists and to suggest that they are up for a fight on any attempt to restrict them.
News Corp globally, and Rupert Murdoch in particular, would be amongst the first to employ the standard right-wing littany that "rights come with responsibilities". But here they argue that their "rights" should not be infringed no matter how irresponsible they have been.
I hope this release gets a good airing on the ABC's Media Watch, or even the original Media Watch run by Gerard Henderson!
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
It takes some work to find it, but the full release makes an interesting read.
The key para reads;
That said, past behaviour at the News of the World in relation to voicemail interception is a matter of genuine regret. It is now apparent that our previous inquiries failed to uncover important evidence and we acknowledge our actions then were not sufficiently robust.
"Genuine regret" is probably the weakest apology that could be made, and it appears the greatest regret is about their investigation of the matter rather than the tapping in the first place.
The release goes on;
News International’s commitment to our readers and pride in our award-winning journalism remains undiminished. We will continue to engage with and challenge those who attempt to restrict our industry’s freedom to undertake responsible investigative reporting in the public interest.
There is no element here of the words one might expect to see. That is "News International's commitment is to the ethical standards of journalism and respect for the law." Instead it is to "praise" their journalists and to suggest that they are up for a fight on any attempt to restrict them.
News Corp globally, and Rupert Murdoch in particular, would be amongst the first to employ the standard right-wing littany that "rights come with responsibilities". But here they argue that their "rights" should not be infringed no matter how irresponsible they have been.
I hope this release gets a good airing on the ABC's Media Watch, or even the original Media Watch run by Gerard Henderson!
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The Folk Song Army
Gerard Henderson in today's SMH has made me think of Tom Lehrer's comic piece The Folk Song Army in which there is a refrain;
Remember the war against Franco?
That's the kind where each of us belongs,
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs.
Henderson's thesis is that the outrage over recent ABC Board appointments was misplaced because rather than changing the ABC all it does is has the effect of taking a critic out of the debate.
I happen to agree with him on the outrage being misplaced, but not for the same reasons. More people need to recognise that the Boards or Commissions appointed by Governments first and foremost have to address their establishing legislation, and much of their actions and activity are reflective of it. As a consequence, merely changing the Board doesn't change the "governance" of the ABC.
In addition there is a simple piece of behavioural theory to understand. People repeatedly do things that get "reinforced". An ABC Board member battling the management gets no reinforcement from anyone as it is a private battle, a Board member supporting management gets reinforced and thanked in every contact with the organisation.
However, there is another part of the Henderson thesis, "The fact is that there are few articulate conservatives in Australia and certainly fewer, per capita, than in the United States or Britain. The phenomenon goes back to the Robert Menzies era, when the Coalition won elections while the left dominated the cultural debate."
On this I cannot agree. In fact there seem to be far more printed pages by the "conservatives" - at least the economic "neo-cons" - than by any left/progressive or other like cause. Policy and Quadrant, the column inches devoted to the IPA and CIS staff, the voluminous issues from the BCA and Mr Henderson himself.
More importantly this ongoing perception that "the left" has control of the "cultural institutions" or "the opinionators" or "the elites" is strange - because if these people were as influential as they are claimed to be this should be a country which is a rabid hotbed of collectivism and social experiment. Instead we remain a highly conservative society that has four times elected the most conservative leader in the history of Australia. If that is the consequence of a "left intelligensia" then surely the conservatives want more of it.
What is the benefit to the left if it has the good songs (the articulate left?) if it is losing the battles?
Remember the war against Franco?
That's the kind where each of us belongs,
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs.
Henderson's thesis is that the outrage over recent ABC Board appointments was misplaced because rather than changing the ABC all it does is has the effect of taking a critic out of the debate.
I happen to agree with him on the outrage being misplaced, but not for the same reasons. More people need to recognise that the Boards or Commissions appointed by Governments first and foremost have to address their establishing legislation, and much of their actions and activity are reflective of it. As a consequence, merely changing the Board doesn't change the "governance" of the ABC.
In addition there is a simple piece of behavioural theory to understand. People repeatedly do things that get "reinforced". An ABC Board member battling the management gets no reinforcement from anyone as it is a private battle, a Board member supporting management gets reinforced and thanked in every contact with the organisation.
However, there is another part of the Henderson thesis, "The fact is that there are few articulate conservatives in Australia and certainly fewer, per capita, than in the United States or Britain. The phenomenon goes back to the Robert Menzies era, when the Coalition won elections while the left dominated the cultural debate."
On this I cannot agree. In fact there seem to be far more printed pages by the "conservatives" - at least the economic "neo-cons" - than by any left/progressive or other like cause. Policy and Quadrant, the column inches devoted to the IPA and CIS staff, the voluminous issues from the BCA and Mr Henderson himself.
More importantly this ongoing perception that "the left" has control of the "cultural institutions" or "the opinionators" or "the elites" is strange - because if these people were as influential as they are claimed to be this should be a country which is a rabid hotbed of collectivism and social experiment. Instead we remain a highly conservative society that has four times elected the most conservative leader in the history of Australia. If that is the consequence of a "left intelligensia" then surely the conservatives want more of it.
What is the benefit to the left if it has the good songs (the articulate left?) if it is losing the battles?
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Individuals, Society and History
Gerard Henderson provides another lead.
In today's SMH Gerard Henderson relays a Lateline inteview between Tony Jones and Robert Fisk. I haven't seen the interview, and am relying only on Henderson's report.
In the article it is claimed that Fisk's essential thesis is that the individuals at the head of the various terrorist organisations are now irrelevant. What is important is recognising that these movements are the creation of "the West". In counter, Henderson uses the line that;
One of the lessons of history is that revolutionaries should be taken seriously, since they usually do, or attempt to do, what they say they intend to do. This is true of Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and more besides.
This is one of the delightful, but largely irrelevant, battles being debated in the studying both contemporary and past societies.
There are a number of social network mapping tools that can be used to determine the importance of an individual to a "society", including one called NetMap that was developed in Australia. These tools are applied by organised crime investigators to deterine how significant each individual is to the survival of the organisation. That is, the question of whether the individual is important or not is an empirical question, not an a priori one.
Similarly, as a counterpoint to Henderson, can he imagine a world order in which any or all attributes of "the West" were varied in such a way as the terrorist organisations would not have arisen. I can think of at least one, it goes something like this - the Archduke didn't get shot so the escalating armaments didn't trigger World War I, so there was no treaty of Versailles, there was therefore no World War II and thus no holocaust, and so the West wasn't wearing collective guilt over the treatment of the Jews. Or, in more recent times, the West did not practise a policy of "appeasement" of oil rich states and the propping up of various regimes merely to secure oil resources, but had instead pursued human values before economic values.
In each of these cases terrorism as we know it is far less likely to exist. That doesn't mean, however, that there is something that the West can now simply magically change and terrorism would simply cease to exist. It's one of those unfortunate features of causation, that once the cause has triggered the effect removing the cause doesn't remove the effect. Once the match has lit the fire, extinguishing the match does not extinguish the fire.
History is made up of individuals working within a social construct, each is created by the other. Historical explanation requires the interpretation of both, though it is far easier to relay as a narrative of the lives of influentialmen and women.
In today's SMH Gerard Henderson relays a Lateline inteview between Tony Jones and Robert Fisk. I haven't seen the interview, and am relying only on Henderson's report.
In the article it is claimed that Fisk's essential thesis is that the individuals at the head of the various terrorist organisations are now irrelevant. What is important is recognising that these movements are the creation of "the West". In counter, Henderson uses the line that;
One of the lessons of history is that revolutionaries should be taken seriously, since they usually do, or attempt to do, what they say they intend to do. This is true of Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and more besides.
This is one of the delightful, but largely irrelevant, battles being debated in the studying both contemporary and past societies.
There are a number of social network mapping tools that can be used to determine the importance of an individual to a "society", including one called NetMap that was developed in Australia. These tools are applied by organised crime investigators to deterine how significant each individual is to the survival of the organisation. That is, the question of whether the individual is important or not is an empirical question, not an a priori one.
Similarly, as a counterpoint to Henderson, can he imagine a world order in which any or all attributes of "the West" were varied in such a way as the terrorist organisations would not have arisen. I can think of at least one, it goes something like this - the Archduke didn't get shot so the escalating armaments didn't trigger World War I, so there was no treaty of Versailles, there was therefore no World War II and thus no holocaust, and so the West wasn't wearing collective guilt over the treatment of the Jews. Or, in more recent times, the West did not practise a policy of "appeasement" of oil rich states and the propping up of various regimes merely to secure oil resources, but had instead pursued human values before economic values.
In each of these cases terrorism as we know it is far less likely to exist. That doesn't mean, however, that there is something that the West can now simply magically change and terrorism would simply cease to exist. It's one of those unfortunate features of causation, that once the cause has triggered the effect removing the cause doesn't remove the effect. Once the match has lit the fire, extinguishing the match does not extinguish the fire.
History is made up of individuals working within a social construct, each is created by the other. Historical explanation requires the interpretation of both, though it is far easier to relay as a narrative of the lives of influentialmen and women.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Anzac Day and the "culture wars"
If only it was that easy to win a war!
Gerard Henderson in the Sydney Morning Herald on Anzac Day claimed a victory of sorts in what he calls the "culture wars". He based this on the interest expressed by young Australians in the "facts" of World War I, and argues this means they reject the view that those who died did so in vain fighting someone else's war.
This is simply wrong on so many levels it is not funny. At the most basic, the interest in the young in memory and war graves is about understanding the agony. The baby boomers among us can tell you a different story - we grew up with a generation of parents who took the process of remembering war seriously, but never talked about it. It was really quite hard to associate oneself with these very internal and unstated memories.
This feature that returned servicemen didn't share their stories is something people are only beginning to realise - I think everyone thought it was only their father, or their grandfather, who didn't talk about the war.
It has taken having a half a century between the last war that had mass involvement and today for that sense of wonderment to return.
But the interest in the experience cannot be used to conclude anything about the interpretation that should be placed on the involvement. As I'm fond of doing myself, people arguing against something create for themselves a "strawman" argument to critique. The strawman that Henderson attacks is this;
From the 1950s to the 1980s, the public commemoration of Australia's involvement in World War I was usually associated with the theme that those who had fallen at the Dardanelles or on the Western Front had died in vain fighting other people's wars. This was the predominant view in history texts (Bill Gammage's The Broken Years), plays (Alan Seymour's The One Day of the Year) and films (Peter Weir's Gallipoli) as well as in much journalism.
But let's break this down into its component bits. Firstly, did the Australian (and New Zealand) volunteers understand what they were volunteering for? Certainly not, the view being universally that this would be a short lark - after all war like this had never been seen before (except in New Zealand, strangely, where trench warfare was invented).
Secondly, was there a great purpose to the war? Almost certainly not. There was no great crash of idealogies involved - heck the protagonists were cousins. There had been in defence of empires an escalating arms race that ultimately spilt into war.
Thirdly, was it important to Australia that Britain won? This is probably a most useful debating point. Yes, Germany had ambitions on parts of the British empire. Yes it could have been possible that Australia would have become part of a German Empire. But what would have been different? It was a protestant, capitalist state with developing democratic institutions and effective rule of law. It was economically more advanced than Britain, with Germany joining the US in leading in fields like electrical goods and chemicals - the so called second Industrial Revolution.
Did the young men suffer, bleed and die? Yes. Did they think it was for a good cause? Yes.
The real tragedy of WWI, however, was not that war itself. It was that the settlement of that war led to the preconditions for the war that had to be fought, and had to be won. The war that was against an ideology first and foremost, but also a maniac.
In his suggestion that the values of the diggers are admired Henderson briefly includes a discussion on the story of Simpson and his donkey. He notes the criticisms that have been made, that Simpson was really English who had jumped ship in Australia, that he was a left-winger and refused to fire a shot. But says Henderson;
The fact is that, whatever his background and whatever his views, the values which Simpson demonstrated at Gallipoli are much admired - from the bottom up.
He might be interested to hear a story I've been told. At a dinner at the War Memorial in Canberra to mark the 75th anniversary of Gallipoli one of the diggers was asked what he thought of Simpson. "We shot him" was the brief reply. His version of the story was that Simpson wandering around kept identifying Australian troop positions to the Turks, and since he wouldn't stop they shot him. According to my source at the dinner War Memorial staff said they had researched this and there is evidence that Simpson was shot by Australian troops, but who wants to destroy a hero?
The real message is that history is different to an interest in facts. And as for this being a "culture war" - it seems to me that everyone else gets it that culture, like language, evolves, and hence there never has been, nor can be, a single "unifying" culture.
By the way - my grandfather Henry Leopold Spratt (who added the Havyatt when he migrated to Australia in 1928) fought at Gallipoli and was part of the New Zealand force that took Chunuk Bair.
Gerard Henderson in the Sydney Morning Herald on Anzac Day claimed a victory of sorts in what he calls the "culture wars". He based this on the interest expressed by young Australians in the "facts" of World War I, and argues this means they reject the view that those who died did so in vain fighting someone else's war.
This is simply wrong on so many levels it is not funny. At the most basic, the interest in the young in memory and war graves is about understanding the agony. The baby boomers among us can tell you a different story - we grew up with a generation of parents who took the process of remembering war seriously, but never talked about it. It was really quite hard to associate oneself with these very internal and unstated memories.
This feature that returned servicemen didn't share their stories is something people are only beginning to realise - I think everyone thought it was only their father, or their grandfather, who didn't talk about the war.
It has taken having a half a century between the last war that had mass involvement and today for that sense of wonderment to return.
But the interest in the experience cannot be used to conclude anything about the interpretation that should be placed on the involvement. As I'm fond of doing myself, people arguing against something create for themselves a "strawman" argument to critique. The strawman that Henderson attacks is this;
From the 1950s to the 1980s, the public commemoration of Australia's involvement in World War I was usually associated with the theme that those who had fallen at the Dardanelles or on the Western Front had died in vain fighting other people's wars. This was the predominant view in history texts (Bill Gammage's The Broken Years), plays (Alan Seymour's The One Day of the Year) and films (Peter Weir's Gallipoli) as well as in much journalism.
But let's break this down into its component bits. Firstly, did the Australian (and New Zealand) volunteers understand what they were volunteering for? Certainly not, the view being universally that this would be a short lark - after all war like this had never been seen before (except in New Zealand, strangely, where trench warfare was invented).
Secondly, was there a great purpose to the war? Almost certainly not. There was no great crash of idealogies involved - heck the protagonists were cousins. There had been in defence of empires an escalating arms race that ultimately spilt into war.
Thirdly, was it important to Australia that Britain won? This is probably a most useful debating point. Yes, Germany had ambitions on parts of the British empire. Yes it could have been possible that Australia would have become part of a German Empire. But what would have been different? It was a protestant, capitalist state with developing democratic institutions and effective rule of law. It was economically more advanced than Britain, with Germany joining the US in leading in fields like electrical goods and chemicals - the so called second Industrial Revolution.
Did the young men suffer, bleed and die? Yes. Did they think it was for a good cause? Yes.
The real tragedy of WWI, however, was not that war itself. It was that the settlement of that war led to the preconditions for the war that had to be fought, and had to be won. The war that was against an ideology first and foremost, but also a maniac.
In his suggestion that the values of the diggers are admired Henderson briefly includes a discussion on the story of Simpson and his donkey. He notes the criticisms that have been made, that Simpson was really English who had jumped ship in Australia, that he was a left-winger and refused to fire a shot. But says Henderson;
The fact is that, whatever his background and whatever his views, the values which Simpson demonstrated at Gallipoli are much admired - from the bottom up.
He might be interested to hear a story I've been told. At a dinner at the War Memorial in Canberra to mark the 75th anniversary of Gallipoli one of the diggers was asked what he thought of Simpson. "We shot him" was the brief reply. His version of the story was that Simpson wandering around kept identifying Australian troop positions to the Turks, and since he wouldn't stop they shot him. According to my source at the dinner War Memorial staff said they had researched this and there is evidence that Simpson was shot by Australian troops, but who wants to destroy a hero?
The real message is that history is different to an interest in facts. And as for this being a "culture war" - it seems to me that everyone else gets it that culture, like language, evolves, and hence there never has been, nor can be, a single "unifying" culture.
By the way - my grandfather Henry Leopold Spratt (who added the Havyatt when he migrated to Australia in 1928) fought at Gallipoli and was part of the New Zealand force that took Chunuk Bair.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)