Anthony Albanese - thegoodwills.com

War is Over – Lennon’s plea for peace, 52 years on

So goes the simple counter melody to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1971 song, Happy Christmas/War Is Over. The Vietnam war was still raging when Lennon penned this universal message for the album, Imagine.

Fifty-two years later, the 30 children from the Harlem Community Choir who sang on the recording would be in their 50s and 60s now, if still alive. I wonder if any enterprising journalists have tried to find and interview these people.

What in Lennon’s name would they think about the simple call for peace contrasted with what’s going on in December 2023?

As I wrote this, the UN Security Council was trying once more to have its Israel/Gaza ceasefire resolution passed, hopefully without another US veto. Israel insists that a ceasefire will leave it defenceless against Hamas attacks. The inference is that Hamas, as a terrorist group, will pay no heed to a UN resolution.

In case you are confused, the ceasefire resolution passed last week by the UN Assembly is a non-binding agreement. The UN Security Council, however, can force a ceasefire if it gets the resolution passed.

I turned to Al Jazeera for the latest on the Israel/Gaza war, which started on October 7, after Hamas fired missiles on Israel, with 1,200 Israel civilians killed.

The bombing raids and subsequent invasion by Israel has left at least 20,000 Palestinians dead, including large numbers of children.

Which made me wonder when our Prime Minister took the podium at a Lowy Institute function this week and backed Israel’s right to defend itself. Mr Albanese and foreign Minister Penny Wong came out early in the conflict supporting Israel, as did US President Joe Biden

Last week Penny Wong sided with the UN Assembly’s call for a ceasefire, which is a fair U-turn on the original statement. The UN General Assembly resolution was passed 153 votes to 10, with 23 abstentions.

It’s fair to say that any discussion between friends and family over the Israel/Gaza war will inevitably become terse. It usually comes down to one’s heritage and previous experience with sectarian conflicts (Ireland, the former Yugoslavia and Ukraine), which tends to divide families.

My life partner is a Canadian-born Australian who has tracked her Jewish maternal family back to Latvia, where her ancestors fled the pogroms in the late 1800s.

The key difficulty is if you disagree with Israel’s position you are seen as anti-Semitic.

(Ed: I certainly disagree with Israel’s position, and it would seem odd to classify me as ‘Anti-Semitic’- more accurately, anti-uber Zionist).

This a summary of the most recent history from the Council for Foreign Relations: (words in parenthesis are my attempts to clarify)

In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. (Britain was given the mandate in 1917 by the League of Nations after seizing Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire).

On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, sparking the first Arab Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israel’s victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the territory was divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.

Over the following years, tensions rose in the region, particularly between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Following the 1956 Suez Crisis and Israel’s invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defence pacts (against Israel). In June 1967, following a series of manoeuvres by Egyptian President Nasser, Israel attacked Egyptian and Syrian air forces, starting the Six-Day War. After the war, Israel gained territorial control over the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria.

It is demonstrably the case that trouble was expected from the formation of the nation state of Israel. In short, both sides believe they are entitled to occupy the land. These beliefs go back centuries, to biblical times, even. When the British decided to leave Palestine (which they had occupied since the end of WWI), they created a doctrinal vacuum in which Arabs and Jews were supposed to co-exist.

Israel has been accused of genocide (meaning the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group). Israel in turn says it is focused on rooting out and destroying the terrorist group, Hamas.

Whatever you want to call it, the daily footage of ongoing destruction and killing in Gaza, accompanied by hawkish statements from Benjamin Netanyahu, does not point to the UN successfully brokering a lengthy ceasefire.

I just happened to be reading The Fog of Peace, a memoir by French diplomat Jean Marie Guéhenno. Early in his tenure with the United Nations, Guéhenno was asked to review UN peacekeeping missions which had been in place for decades.

The brief was to weigh up the importance of the missions against the ongoing costs of maintaining them.

This is how I learned of the existence of UNTSO, an observer mission formed in 1949 to monitor the ceasefire between the newly created state of Israel and its Arab neighbours. This mission, based in Jerusalem, is still in place today.

Guéhenno writes that while closing down the mission made good management sense, maintaining it meant making the political point that the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours remains a big issue.

The UN loves acronyms so I should explain that UNTSO is The United Nations Truce Serving Organization. In 2023, the mission has 53 military observers, 81 international civilian personnel and 148 national civilian staff. Some 27 countries including Australia contribute to the ongoing operation of UNTSO. Since we are recording facts, 50 people working for UNTSO have been killed since its establishment 74 years ago.

Meanwhile, our PM and his Foreign Minister remain tied to the US, which is highly unlikely to say Yes to an immediate ceasefire without substantial amendments to the resolution.

Which brings us back to War Is Over, If We Want It.

Lennon is dead, shot by an allegedly disturbed fan in 1980. In the nine years between Lennon’s ultimate call for Peace and his death at an assassin’s hand, 84 wars, civil conflicts, military coups and insurrections went unchecked. Vietnam ended but other wars began.

As Jackson Browne observed in Lives in the Balance:

There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interests run,

In the 43 years since Lennon died, there have been 104 wars in which the US was involved. While the US is not actively involved in the Israel/Gaza war, it provides aid to Israel and its foreign policy dictates what happens from here on. Should Australia be aligning itself so closely to the US, given the divisive signals that sends to the Australian people?

Forty percent of us were born overseas and 213,900 of our citizens were born in one of the 23 Middle Eastern countries.

As Lennon sang in 1971: “And so it is Christmas”.

Yes indeed, but it won’t stop Pro-Palestinian public protests in our capital cities and who are we to say they shouldn’t.

I’d probably recommend banning the above discussion at the Christmas table, even though you are now as up to date as you’d want to be.

Find a soothing playlist which should include Silent Night, O Holy Night, a couple of Australian carols (Carol of the Birds, The Silver Bells), and this one, a version of The First Noel set to Pachelbel’s Canon.

Play Fairytale of New York if you must. We prefer Dirty Old Town.

Bob and Laurel

Referendums and why they often fail

referendums-fail-free speech — Photo: (Ed: this is not Peter Dutton, says She who says Yes (in this instance)

You’d have to give the Internet prize this week to the wag who posted a photo of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (against a background of jubilant Australian soccer players).

“Peter Dutton needs more details before he will support the Matildas,” the satirical headline read.

The Matildas meme most accurately portrays the intransigence of the Opposition Leader’s approach to the Voice referendum, saying No because he doesn’t have enough ‘detail’.

Mr Dutton, perhaps unfairly, has been tagged the poster boy for the No vote. There are many others and some far more to the right than the LNP Leader and that’s saying something. But as a friend said during a discussion last week, those who say they are going to vote No cannot mount any form of rational argument as to why.

The Voice is a national vote to change the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia. The advisory body would give advice to the Australian Parliament and Government on matters that affect the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

On the face of it, you’d have to wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, in 1967, 91% of Australians voted to change the Constitution so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population. As such, the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them. At the time, the thinking was that if Australians did not pass this referendum, we would be viewed as a Pariah state, as South Africa was at the time.

As of 2023, 44 nationwide referendums have been held, only eight of which have been carried. Since multiple referendum questions are often asked on the same ballot, there have only been 19 separate occasions that the Australian people have gone to the polls to vote on constitutional amendments, eight of which of which were concurrent with a federal election. There have also been three plebiscites (two on conscription and one on the national song), and one postal survey (on same-sex marriage). Australians have rejected most proposals for constitutional amendments. As Prime Minister Robertt Menzies said in 1951, “The truth of the matter is that to get an affirmative vote from the Australian people on a referendum proposal is one of the labours of Hercules.”

The sticking point with referendums is that to be passed they need to return a majority in each State, not just a majority nationally. (Votes from those in the ACT and Northern Territory count as part of the national vote.)

Of the 44 referendums which have been held, there have been five instances where a ‘yes’ vote was achieved on a national basis but failed to win because some States voted against. Some issues arise again and again.

Votes on whether or not to adopt daylight saving time have been held in three States. Daylight saving (where clocks are wound back one hour for the summer months) is now observed in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory. Daylight saving is not observed in Queensland, the Northern Territory or Western Australia.

In WA a referendum was held on 16 May 2009, the fourth such proposal put to Western Australian voters. The 2009 vote followed a three-year trial period.

After trialing daylight saving in Queensland for three years, a referendum in 1992 resulted in a 54.5% ‘no’ vote. Popular myth is that the referendum failed because ‘people out west’ feared it would fade their curtains.

In 1977, a plebiscite was held to vote for a national song. The choices included Waltzing Matilda, Song of Australia and God Save the Queen (the latter garnered only 18.78% of the vote). The dirge we now call our National Anthem topped the poll with 43.29% of the popular vote and was enshrined as the anthem.

After the Voice referendum is run and won or lost, Australians may not have an appetite for another. But surely at some stage we will be allowed to vote for I Am, You Are, We are Australian, which was not a choice in 1977, primarily because Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton had not written it yet.

And, although Prime Minister Albanese says now is not an appropriate time to revive the Republic debate, we do note the appointment in May 2022 of Matt Thistlewaite as Assistant Minister for the Republic, among his several ministerial appointments.

On the latest Voice polls, six of 11 are showing a ‘No’ result. This is being widely construed as a sign the referendum will fail. What the polling does not take into account is that nobody under 42 has ever voted in a referendum (the last one being the failed Republican vote in 1999). Are we game to take a gamble on which way Australia’s 4.6 million Generation Zers might vote? And how many of them are voting for the first time?

The outcome of referendums has been notoriously difficult. In the lead up to the 1999 Republican referendum, the proposition was looking like a shoo-in. But there was too much difference of opinion amongst Republican factions about how a president would be elected.

In 1916, then Prime Minister Billy Hughes was reportedly ‘devastated’ when the government’s push for conscription failed. Despite Australians not being obliged to vote in those days, the turnout was high and the vote was narrowly defeated. Perhaps it was due to the complexity of the question, which did not explicitly mention conscription.

Are you in favour of the Government having, in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service, for the term of this war, outside the Commonwealth, as it has now with regard to military service within the Commonwealth?

The reference to existing military service meant the requirement for compulsory military service within Australia for all men aged between 18 and 60 (in existence since 1911).

No-one seems to be overly worried about the cost of the referendum, a figure for which has been reported as high as $169 million. If you’ll forgive a rather loose calculation, on that basis Australia has spent more than $7.5 billion on referendums, only eight of which have been won.

We both decided this weekend to throw our hat into the ring, so to speak, posting selfies wearing a Yes cap from the 1999 campaign. If you are going to vote Yes it is obvious why – you have empathy for indigenous people and the hand they have been dealt and want to stop future governments from undoing all the good work that has previously been done.

The Australian Financial Review summarised the reasons why people may vote No.

“…understanding and awareness of the Voice remains poor as the Yes campaign struggles to convince undecided voters to vote for the Voice. Polling shows many Australians still don’t understand what the Voice means, or they are concerned that it risks dividing Australians or giving Indigenous people special rights.”

After they helped write the constitution at the end of the 19^th century, Sir John Quick and Sir Robert Garran sought to make sure future generations understood safeguards that would allow the document to be changed only in precise circumstances. Referendums were designed with a double majority needed, in order “to prevent change being made in haste or by stealth”.

If you are still confused about what those ‘special rights’ might be or not be, here’s some intelligent thoughts on what Albanese hopes to achieve:

And (to be fair), here’s both sides of the legal debate, including a belief it will erode a fundamental principle of democracy – equality of citizenship.

(Ed: I’m constrained to say I completely disagree with the implied notion that Indigenous people already have ‘equality of citizenship’.)

The cost of having a say in world politics

cost-global-politics — Sydney Opera House, venue for the cancelled Quad. Image by Patty Jansen www.pixabay.com

On the eve of what was to be Australia’s first time as host of the Quad meeting, let’s reflect on the proposed cost – some $23 million according to Budget papers. It is understood more than 20% of the budget was allocated to the Federal Police, to ensure the security of invited dignitaries.

The planned Quad meeting, with the leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US to be arriving in Sydney, was scrapped after President Biden cancelled owing to ongoing debt ceiling negotiations at home.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Albanese continued with plans to host an official visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mr Modi arrived in Australia on Monday, with his arrival in Sydney causing great excitement in the suburb known as ‘Little India”. Coincidence or not, SBS reported this week that after a community appeal, the suburb of Harris Park is to be officially known as Little India.

A high proportion of Sydney’s 188,000-strong Indian population live in or around Harris Park. On Tuesday night, Mr Modi attended a rally of 20,000 at Qudos Bank Arena in western Sydney. Modi is a polarising figure, though, both here and at home. Indian Muslim community groups have already declared they do not welcome the visit, citing human rights violations against minority groups in India.

This is Prime Minister Modi’s first visit to Australia since 2014. His two-day stay will include holding talks with Mr Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. I should point out Modi came to Australia via Papua New Guinea, where he met with Pacific Islands leaders.

The Australian Financial Review said Mr Modi and Mr Albanese are expected to build on a communiqué issued after the first annual leaders’ summit in New Delhi in March (which Mr Alabanese attended).

There will be talks on economic co-operation, Australia’s status as a critical minerals supplier, and India’s opportunities for low-cost manufacturing in green technology. Defence co-operation will also be on the agenda, with Australia preparing to host India’s naval war games.

So that’s India covered. What about the other Quad members?

The Quad is a strategic security dialogue amongst Australia, India, Japan and the US, maintained by talks with member countries. One could argue that much of this business could have been done at last week’s G7, the big brother of international talk-fests.

I don’t usually watch the ABC’s Sunday Morning political talk show, ‘Insiders’, but on occasions come in at the end for Mike Bowers’ entertaining ‘Talking Pictures’.

Mike and a guest cartoonist go through their selection of the best political cartoons for the week. Not surprisingly, David Pope’s detailed drawings often feature, as do the works of Cathy Wilcox, Peter Broelman, Jon Kudelka among others.

David Pope’s cheeky depiction of US president Joe Biden swiping a maxxed-out credit card tells the story of President Joe cancelling his proposed attendance of the Quad in Australia.

Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese caught up last week at the G7, another expensive talk fest, both for the host country (Japan) and the countries sending delegations. This year, the G7 was held in Hiroshima, one of two Japanese cities obliterated by a US-delivered atomic bomb in August 1945.

Biden and Albanese reportedly held close talks at the G7 about climate change. Albanese has been quoted as saying that action on climate change was “the entry fee to credibility in the Indo-Pacific”.

The US president said in turn that the two nations were launching a new joint initiative to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

By that, as The Guardian reported, Biden meant building more “resilient critical mineral supply chains”.

Biden said action on climate and clean energy would be another central pillar of the Australia-US alliance. He said he looked forward to hosting Mr Albanese for a State visit in Washington DC later this year.

That’s all very well, but that will also mean another (expensive) international VIP trip for the PM and a team of hand-picked Ministers and advisers.

As we can tell by the tabling of former PM Scott Morrison‘s travel expenses in his first year in office (2019), it’s a costly business.

SBS News did a bit of digging (they submitted Freedom of Information requests), to publish a report in November 2019.

Scott Morrison served as Australian Prime Minister from August 2018 until May 2022. SBS found that Mr Morrison racked up more than $1.3 million in travel costs. He made 12 international trips, visiting 17 nations, in the first 12 months since he had taken office in August 2018.

It is hard to argue that an Australian PM and indeed senior Ministers should not travel to other countries for diplomacy, negotiations and photo opportunities. Our is a vast, isolated continent surrounded by water and many hours’ distance from even our nearest neighbours.

But when you consider the proliferation of international meetings and conventions on climate change, security, the economy, peace and stability, the five-star hotel chains and limo hire companies must be doing OK.

When the G7 was held in Cornwall in 2021, the cost to British taxpayers was put at 70 million pounds ($A131,112m). It’s more difficult to establish what the G7 cost Japan. Al Jazeera reported Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to ‘send a strong message’ about the need for a world without nuclear weapons, hence using Hiroshima as the host city.

It’s interesting to think how much money was saved during the first 18 months of the Covid lockdown. Conferences and meetings were universally held over internet portals such as Zoom, where the biggest expenses were cyber security and bandwidth.

Michelle Grattan had a bit to say about politicians and travel last year. By June 2022, Mr Albanese had visited Indonesia, took part in a Quad meeting in Japan, was about to attend a NATO summit in Madrid, and, despite some internal advice to the contrary, visited war-torn Ukraine. Not to be thwarted, Albanese also visited Paris, at a time when the Australian government was in ‘mauvaise odeur’ over Scott Morrison’s decision to cancel a submarine contract with France.

Grattan defended the right of a PM to visit foreign shores.

“International conferences give an opportunity for the new PM to meet multiple leaders, gather information and signal continuities and change (for example on climate policy) in Australia’s national priorities.

By she added that a newly-elected Prime Minister must be careful in deciding how much foreign travel to undertake. In mid-2022, ordinary Australians were finding the rising cost of living a challenge. The situation has worsened in mid-2023.

“At some point, being away too much stirs criticism,” Grattan wrote.

Despite the cost of staging global conferences, the Group of Seven agreed upon strong moves against Russia, including sanctions and export controls.

Still to come this year, the G20 in New Delhi (September) and the climate change summit, COP28 (Expo City, Dubai) in November. Somewhere in amongstall that, the PM and his troops would do well to stay home and work on the most important (domestic) issue of all – the Voice to Parliament referendum.

As The Conversation observed earlier in May, the latest polls suggest 54% Yes and 46% No. (Come on, Queensland, come on, come on. Ed)

Much work to be done at home.

Coronation, what coronation?

How well I remember the coronation of Princess Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953. Then resident in Scotland, I was four years and seven months old and had just finished reading Das Kapital and was moving on to The Condition of the Working Class in England. I had also asked for Stories,Tales and Fables by the Marquis de Sade but faither said ‘Nae bairn should be reading that’ and offered instead ‘Noddy on the Runaway Train’.

Memories can be unreliable, as we know, certainly for people of my age, recounting the glory days of bygone youth. Just don’t ask me what I had for breakfast yesterday.

But I digress, as the world awaits tomorrow’s pageant involving the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Charles officially ascended to the throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth. eight months ago. Now the official ceremony begins, just as many of us ask, will this ancient ritual then finally be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Charles has requested a lower-key affair than his mother’s coronation. For example, the guest list is capped at 2000 dignitaries, well below the 8000+ who attended Lizzie’s crowning at Westminster Abbey in 1953.

There’s a goodly scattering of Australians and expats among the invitees; including, of course, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese and the Governor-General, David Hurley. I should observe that the invitation goes to whoever is Head of State at the time, so it could just as easily have been that back bench bloke.

Mr Albanese was then asked to nominate a certain number of Australians and expats to attend. No doubt Dame Edna Everage would have been on the list, had she and her alter-ego not so recently died.

Rock singer Nick Cave’s fans were perplexed by his decision to accept the invitation. It should be noted that Cave, though Australian, has not lived here since 1980 and usually resides in England.

On his quirky blog, The Red Right Hand Files, Cave answered fans who wanted to know if the young Nick Cave would have been so inclined.

Cave answered that the young Nick Cave, like so many younger selves, was ‘young and mostly demented’. Cave, who says he is no monarchist, nor a republican, is nevertheless fascinated by the royals.

“I guess what I am trying to say is that, beyond the interminable but necessary debates about the abolition of the monarchy, I hold an inexplicable emotional attachment to the Royals,” he wrote in his blog.

Cave is not listed as one of the performers at the ‘Coronation Concert’ to be held in the grounds of Windsor Castle the day after the ceremony. Lead performers include Kate Perry, Lionel Ritchie, Take That and Andrea Bocelli. The Coronation Choir, whose members include refugee choirs, NHS choirs, LGBTQ+ choirs, and deaf signing choirs, will also perform. Ten thousand tickets were issued free via public ballot. We’ll get to watch it free via the BBC, which is producing and broadcasting the concert on Sunday.

Rolling Stone, while delving into the Nick Cave controversy, named musicians who were reportedly asked to perform but declined, including Sir Elton John, Harry Styles, Adele and Robbie Williams. Gone are the days, it seems, of being ‘commanded’ to perform.

Australia’s entertainment world will be well represented at the coronation ceremony, with invitees including ballet dancer Leanne Benjamin, soprano Yvonne Kelly and comedian Adam Hills.

The Prime Minister’s selection includes indigenous artist Wiradjuri, and expats British gallery owner Jasmine Coe, Barbican Centre CEO Claire Spencer, NHS nurse Emily Regan and Oxford vaccinologist Merryn Voysey.

The Australian Financial Review reported that Mr Albanese and UK High Commissioner Stephen Smith this week hosted a function for the Australian group at the envoy’s Kensington residence. Smith, if you’ll recall, served as a Minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments from 1993 to 2013.

Charles and Camilla have invited foreign royals to Saturday’s ceremony, as reported by People magazine. They include Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary, Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia, and Monaco’s Princess Charlene and Prince Albert.

After much speculation to the contrary, it is confirmed that Charles’s sons, Princes Harry and William, will attend.

Our friends in the folk music world may be pleased (or displeased) to see the motif of the Green Man used in the official invitation (see above) by heraldic illustrator Andrew Jamieson. The Royals interpret this as “The Green Man (being) an ancient figure from British folklore, symbolic of spring and rebirth, to celebrate the new reign”. We’ll take that as a win.

While Buckingham Palace is talking up the Coronation as an income-producing tourism event, economists are dubious. Bloomberg’s Tom Rees notes that the extra bank holiday is set to drag down what otherwise may be gathering momentum in the UK economy.

Forecasters warned that the additional day off on May 8 will help trigger a 0.7% slide in GDP in May and could tip the economy into a minor contraction in the second quarter.

It will be the second time in a year that royal events have weighed on growth, but analysis suggests the impact of those events is declining.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that extra tourism and spending in pubs, (which are allowed to stay open later over the weekend), will provide a £337 million boost to the economy.

Britain’s GDP was down 0.1% in the three months through September, after an extra day off at the end of the period for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

There has been inevitable criticism of the cost of the coronation (upwards of £100 million). It comes at a time when Britons are battling a cost of living spiral (inflation of 10%), a nurses’ strike for higher wages and other dramas.

Despite a budget dramatically lower than the equivalent spent in 1953, there is still the largesse of the gold carriage.

After the coronation, the couple will take part in the Coronation Procession, seated in the Gold State Coach. The coach is 260 years old and used at every coronation since William IV in 1831. According to Yahoo News, which should know, the coach was commissioned in 1762 for a then cost of £7,562. Today it is worth over £3.5m.

Comparisons are odious, I know, but last year the Trussell Trust, which administers Britain’s biggest food bank, spent £7.5m, £4.5m more than in the previous year, replenishing food bank stocks for the needy. The Guardian explained that this is due to food donations from individuals and local charity food drives failing to keep pace with demand.

The coronation is undoubtedly an historic occasion and should be rightfully observed as such, even as members of the Commonwealth such as Australia may soon consider a referendum on whether we should become a Republic. Charles had reportedly asked that the coronation budget be a modest one, in light of tough economic times. Not that Charles will have to put his hand in his purse* – the coronation is funded by the British taxpayer.

As British songwriter Leon Rosselson said in his sarcastic 1979 song, On her Silver Jubilee:

‘Oh, the magic of the monarchy, the mystery sublime
Growing gracefully and effortlessly richer all the time’.

*King Charles inherited $500 million in assets from his mother and is overseer of a vast portfolio worth $46 billion. (Forbes magazine).

One big climate COP-out

climate-change-copout — Image: Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe reading a speech in 2021 delivered electronically at COP26. Source: Facebook/Ministry of Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs, Tuvalu Government

The United Nations Secretary-General set the tone for the 27^th annual COP climate conference by saying the world was “on the highway to climate hell”. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg no doubt agreed, earlier describing the two-week climate conference in Egypt as an exercise in ‘green-washing’.

Fair to say the representatives of 198 nations who gathered in Glasgow last year for COP26 have not done as much about climate change mitigation as we’d all hoped.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the ABC he would not be attending the COP27 conference at Egyptian resort town Sharm el-Sheikh.

“This COP will be all about implementation,” he said, delegating the task to Climate Minister Chris Bowen and other representatives.

Team Albanese have made big strides in Australia’s climate policy since being elected six months ago. Albanese is banking on mending fences by backing his government’s turnaround of the Morrison administration’s poor climate record.

Unlike British PM Rishi Sunak, who has been forced by political pressure to reverse his decision to stay at home, Albanese justified his absence, saying “I can’t be in all places at once.”

“I have a very busy schedule of parliament, then the international conferences, then back to parliament again, making sure that our agenda gets through and that includes our agenda on clean energy and taking action on climate change.”

COP is a shorthand acronym for an alphabet soup of descriptors – the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Despite this being the 27^th year this global talkfest has been held, there have been many promises and commitments, yet little has been done to slow the global ravages of climate change.

Despite Egypt’s police state reputation, climate activists are there and some have already said harsh things about COP27’s major sponsor, Coca-Cola.

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said it was baffling for COP27 to choose the “world’s biggest plastic polluter” as a sponsor, given that “99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels”.

On what it cost to stage COP26 in Glasgow last year, this year’s conference in the Egyptian town of Sharm el-Sheikh will probably top $200 million. It is clearly now an annual ‘Expo” that wealthier countries want to host. It’s expensive to participate, with organisations being charged as much as $500,000 to hire a pavilion. More than 30,000 people registered to attend this year, representing governments, businesses, NGOs, and civil society groups.

Australia’s Climate Council, which has sent several delegates to Cop27, reminded us that Australia signed the Glasgow Pact in 2021.

The Pact called for countries to bring forward a 50% emissions reduction plan to COP27 and increase on that target during this decade.

Australia may be pressured to finally sign the Global Methane Pledge and other important deals it avoided under the Morrison Government.

Key issues which will emerge at COP27 include “loss and damage” financing. This refers to developing countries at the frontlines of the crisis who are suffering from the consequences of climate change. As one example, the low-lying Pacific island of Tuvalu, population 12,000, is suffering serious consequences from the CO2 emissions of others.

The Climate Council says countries like Australia, which have built considerable wealth off the back of fossil fuels, can and must do more to support climate action beyond their shores.

Back in 2009, developed countries committed to mobilise $100 billion per year in climate finance to developing countries, but have consistently fallen short. Australia would need to lift its annual contribution by 10 times to fulfil its share towards this global goal, the Climate Council said.

The UNFCCC Secretariat is the United Nations entity tasked with supporting the global response to the threat of climate change. There has been almost universal commitment to join, with 198 countries signed up. Until this year, Australia was seen as a laggard, to the extent that former PM Scott Morrison was initially not invited to attend COP26.

Heads of State and Government attended the Climate Implementation Summit at COP27 on November 7 and 8 with a high-level meeting for climate Ministers from 15-18 November.

The main aim of the UNFCCC is to uphold the 2015 Paris Agreement. As we all should know, this bare-minimum pledge was to keep the global average temperature rise this century as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Seven years on though, only 190 of the 195 signatories have ratified the agreement.

The ultimate objective is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. The sticking point, I suspect, is the proviso that this is done in a time frame which “allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development”.

The Guardian’s pre-conference report posed some scenarios for the Australian delegation, led by climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen. The Guardian’s environment writer Adam Morton said Australia can expect questions about what it is prepared to support on finance and loss and damage. Questions could be asked about the Australian government’s exit (under the Morrison government) of the green climate fund. Morton expects Australia to be under close scrutiny due to its bid to host COP in 2026.

There will (or should be) an examination of Australia’s support for an expansion in fossil fuel exports, at odds with its green policies at home.

The UN secretary-general’s COP27 opening address, where he twisted the meaning of the famous AC/DC song, was not wildly inaccurate. He was no doubt reflecting on the ongoing effects of flooding in Pakistan.

Since mid-June, unprecedented floods in Pakistan have killed 1,717 people. The floods were caused by heavier than usual monsoon rains and melting glaciers; these events following a severe heat wave. All are linked to climate change, with poor urban planning playing a significant role.

In Australia, we might make pale comparisons with the inundated New South Wales town of Lismore, battered by one flood after another. There is talk of writing the town off and rebuilding it on higher ground. Many of those badly affected by the floods have not waited to find out, relocating to supposedly less flood -prone towns (like Warwick).

The agenda-setters for climate change mitigation may well be the world’s largest manufacturing industries. International vehicle manufacturer Volvo chose this week to announce it would stop making fossil fuel-driven cars in Australia by 2026. This is unlikely to stampede the manufacturers of cheaper, mass market vehicles. All the same, it is a line drawn in the sand. We must hope that rising tides do not wipe it away too soon.

As for Tuvalu’s social media post (above) which went viral last year, it is probably not much of an exaggeration. Climate change in Tuvalu is particularly threatening for the long-term habitability of the island state. The average height of the islands is less than 2m above sea level, which has been rising at 3mm per year, about twice the global average. On a per capita basis, its CO2 emissions are 0.9 metric tonnes, compared to between 15mt and 17mt for developed countries.

As Sunshine Coast songwriter Noel Gardner sarcastically comments, in a pithy song of the same name:

So it’s toodle loo to Tuvalu, it’s not that we don’t care

But I can’t support this warming crap, taxes and despair

We can’t reduce our standards, two houses, shares and land

So its Toodle loo to Tuva Lu, I hope you’ll understand.

Harping on about the arts

The Morrison government’s $200m RISE grants scheme for the arts helped many arts organisations and individuals revive their careers after the Covid hiatius. According to the Opposition, there’s still $20 million in the fund not yet distributed.

harp-arts-grants — The Brisbane Philharmonic strings with Emily Granger (harp) and Jonathan Henderson (flute). Photo by John Connolly.

In the aftermath of ‘Albo’s first 100 days,’ it could be constructive to talk about one good thing the previous Federal government did – creating the RISE scheme for the Arts.

The $200 million RISE (Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand) grants scheme was designed to arrest the declining financial health of arts organisations and creative individuals. The Covid-19 stimulus program was welcomed by the arts community as organisations large and small shared in the bounty.

We were witness to the fruits of one such grant application by the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra. The BPO has been touring regional towns with its newly acquired Salzedo concert harp. This $75,000 instrument looks and sounds gorgeous. The BPO toured a string quintet with two soloists – Emily Granger (harp) and Jonathan Henderson (flute). This ensemble played for 110 people at Warwick Town Hall last Saturday. Apart from the interesting and varied programme (Ralph Vaughan Williams, Mozart, Schoenberg, Faure), this was an occasion for ‘show and tell’.

Audience members were invited to come up to the stage after the concert and inspect the concert harp close up. BPO director John Connolly told the audience the custom-made concert harp used up a lot of the grant the orchestra received last year. He briefly explained the complexity of the instrument, built from maple and spruce and invited the audience to come up and inspect it after the concert.

The BPO’s application brief was to acquire this instrument and then take it on tour to places where people have probably never seen a concert harp. On this tour, the ensemble played at Pomona, Maryborough, Warwick, Toowoomba and Brisbane.

The RISE Fund was established to support the arts and entertainment sector to re-activate after two years of Covid disruption. The program offered arts and entertainment sector organisations assistance in the presentation of cultural and creative projects. The funding of activities and events was aimed at rebuilding confidence amongst investors, producers and consumers (hate that word.Ed).

The first RISE grants were issued in December 2020 in support of artists and organisations affected by COVID-19. The aim was to fund the delivery and presentation of activities across all art forms to audiences across Australia. Projects aimed at audiences in outer metropolitan, regional and remote areas were taken into account, as were projects that involved tours and use of local regional services and support acts.

The grant scheme provided $200 million over 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 to assist the financial viability of arts organisations. Among the first grants awarded was $1 million to the Byron Bay Blues Festival and $1.46 million to Woodfordia for its smaller-scale Bushtime festival.

Queensland grant recipients included Kate Miller-Heidke and her husband and musical partner Keir Nuttall. The pair, known for ‘Muriel’s Wedding – the Musical’, received a $200,000 grant to produce a new musical, Bananaland. QMusic, the umbrella organisation that represents musicians in Queensland, was another grant recipient.The Granite Belt Art and Craft Trail received $80,000 to help present a three-day showcase of artists and artisans around the region. Some grant awards have attracted criticism, however (see footnote).

In what one might term its ‘death throes’, the Morrison government allocated a further $20 million to the scheme in March this year. Just this week Opposition Shadow spokesman for the Arts Paul Fletcher took aim at Arts Minister Tony Burke for failing to distribute the last batch of funds. I reached out to Mr Burke’s office to ask (a) has the money had been allocated and (b) did this Labor government intend to extend or supplement the scheme.

Citizen journalists don’t often get a response to approaches like this. We make do with public statements, published details of grant schemes and quoting other publications. In this instance, given there was no response from Mr Burke’s office, we’ll let the Opposition have a free kick.

Fletcher took the chance to turn Albo’s headline into ‘100 days of lost opportunities for the Arts’.

“Since the election, Minister for the Arts Tony Burke has repeatedly failed to confirm $20 million in funding from the last round of the (RISE) program,” Mr Fletcher said in a statement.

“The RISE fund helped to create over 213,000 job opportunities across Australia by assisting the arts and entertainment sector re-establish itself post-pandemic,” he added.

“In recognising arts and entertainment as one of our hardest hit sectors during the pandemic, the Coalition Government extended the RISE program as part of the 2022-23 Budget.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony (Albo) Albanese spent much of the week explaining what he and his government had achieved in its first 100 days. A lot of what was said had been said before – diplomatic forays into the Pacific, the mercy dash to Ukraine, the Quad meeting, mending fences with France and all that. There was the commitment to reducing the impact of climate change, and, if you did not know, the quiet scrapping of the cashless debit card previously imposed on some welfare recipients.

As the Canberra Times pointed out, the first 100 days was not without its challenges. The incoming Labor government was met by a perfect storm – rising interest rates together with high inflation and the subsequent higher prices at the petrol pump and supermarket checkout. Mr Albanese is already flagging budget measures in October to tackle soaring energy prices.

All up, it seems ‘Albo’ is still enjoying a honeymoon, although some of the Opposition’s gainsaying is gaining traction. I’m fairly sure that allowing ex-basketball giant Shaq O’Neill to make a surprise visit to the PM was what young people would call a ‘fail’. The story was that Shaq, a black man from the US, was lending his support to Albo’s campaign for recognition of indigenous Australians. Shaq is these days maybe better known for betting ads than his time with the LA Lakers. Besides, he made the PM look small, and we can’t have that.

It will indeed be interesting to see what kind of funding Albo and his team direct to the arts and entertainment sector. It would be great if organisations like the BPO or talented individuals like Keir and Kate could depend on more of the same. Covid-19 has not gone away and there are still many challenges facing those providing live entertainment.

Anyway, we thought the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra’s travelling concert at $20 concession was the bargain of the year. The BPO’s grant application proposed just such a concert series. The aim was a regional tour built around the acquisition of a new Concert Harp. The $102,000 grant was released in July last year. It shows how long it can take for an arts group to plan for and execute a tour like this. As with most arts presentations, the door take was clearly not going to cover tour costs, not to mention wages.

The BPO is Brisbane’s leading community orchestra with up to 200 musicians a year performing a variety of orchestral music. It is sustained by donations, sponsorship and grants.

We looked around Warwick’s beautiful town hall, built in 1887, and were astonished by how many faces we recognised. We’ve only been here two years or so, but somehow seem to have gravitated to the side of town that loves a bit of culture. I hear the famous Birralee children’s choir is coming here later this month. You might have even read it here first.

Today’s FOMM is brought to you by the letter P for patronage. There should be more of it.

Footnote: The RISE scheme has its critics

Australia enters a brave new world

crossbench-history-green — Australia’s crossbench in history. Chart courtesy of Ben Raue

The reactions to Labor’s somewhat unexpected election win on Saturday night have reflected the about-turns that occur when the political climate changes. As always, there were positive opportunities for some. Sydney University wasted no time congratulating incoming PM Anthony Albanese, an alumni member. It should also be noted that former Prime Ministers who attended Sydney University included Gough Whitlam, John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull. So much for universities being the breeding ground of Marxists.

Former Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull took to social media to wish Albo (as he is known in Aussie shorthand), all success in his new job ‘from one good bloke to another’.

Another former PM, John Howard, was drafted late into the Liberal campaign to mix it up in marginal Sydney seats in an election Howard said was ‘too tight to call’. As far as I can tell, Mr Howard has not had anything to say in the aftermath of Saturday’s poll. Why would he?

The Guardian’s top satirist, First Dog on the Moon, gave a harsh farewell to Scott Morrison’s government: “Good riddance you jabbering ghouls.” At the same time, the cartoonist was sharpening his quill ready to skewer the incoming PM. One dog says “I love Albo, I really do” while the other says Albo is a “gazillionaire landlord with a bunch of properties”. (His register of interests doesn’t indicate this. Ed) It won’t take long for the honeymoon to end.

Fair to say the Labor Party did not win this election – rather, the Liberal Party lost it, giving up seats not only to Labor but the Greens and Independents. The Greens improved their national vote, up 1.9% to 12.3%. This might give you some clue to the voting tendencies of young voters. As polls had shown, the 18-34 cohort was most worried about climate change. Given that neither of the major parties had bold things to say in the campaign about the climate crisis, it’s not surprising that young people would vote Green.

My favourite pundit accurately predicted the partial disintegration of the major parties vote in favour of independents. Veteran blogger Everald Compton wrote an unequivocal essay detailing why the Liberals would lose seats (and where) and who would gain. He was mostly right.

Top of Everald’s wish list was that we would end up with a Prime Minister who is neither Albo or ScoMo. Well that didn’t quite happen, but as the 90-year-old blogger rightly asked:

“Why have we reached this point where politics is at its lowest ebb of my lifetime. Indeed, a huge percentage of voters rank it as the lowest of the low?

“The cause is that political parties on both right and left are tightly controlled by small groups of power brokers who produce privileges for elite people, while arrogantly insisting that it is all really ultra democratic.”

The mainstream media, represented for the most by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd., is still to fully mount a persuasive argument as to how and why their editorials got it so wrong.

Retired News executive Chris Mitchell came out swinging, blaming journalists, particularly the ABC, for inaccurately portraying Scott Morrison as someone who had a problem with women.

Peta Credlin and others on the conservative channel Sky News had some predictably caustic things to say which lost their sting as a result of the undeniable swing to Labor, Greens and Independents.

Former PM Kevin Rudd, who is leading a campaign for an inquiry into News Corp and the power it wields, posted a telling graph on social media. It showed that in the lead up to the election, News Corp front pages ran 188 pro-Liberal stories, compared with just 38 for Labor and 99 ‘neutral’. Our State newspaper, the Courier-Mail, carried more than a few anti-Labor stories, going hard with an ‘Albo’s S****show’, story based on the Labor leader’s first campaign gaffes, including not knowing the current official interest rate. (By the bye, I didn’t know what it was either).

The media in general will have some dungeon-searching to do, given the extent to which their political writers failed to see the rout coming, particularly Western Australia’s swing against the Liberals.

American broadcaster CNN reported the election result as a clear win for climate action. CNN said the election showed a strong swing towards Greens candidates and Independents who demanded emissions cuts far above the commitments made by the ruling conservative coalition.

CNN said the climate crisis was one of the defining issues of the election, as one of the few points of difference between the Coalition and Labor, and a key concern of voters, according to polls.

Marija Taflaga, lecturer in politics and international relations at the Australian National University, said the swing towards the Greens was remarkable. “I think everyone has been taken by surprise by these results…I think it will mean there will be greater and faster action on climate change more broadly.”

Labor has promised to cut emissions by 43% by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050, partly by strengthening the mechanism used to pressure companies to make cuts.

As the Prime Minister-elect headed to Tokyo for talks with the leaders of the US, India and Japan, China made its first official comment on the election win.

As the ABC reported, Beijing showed it is willing to patch things up with the newly elected Albanese government after more than two years of a cool relationship with the former government.

Premier Li Keqiang’s congratulatory message used ‘warm language’ referencing the Whitlam Labor government’s establishment of diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic 50 years ago.

Mr Li said China was “ready to work with the Australian side to review the past, face the future, uphold principles of mutual respect, mutual benefit.”

While vote counting continues (it could take a week or more to decide the close seats), one thing is certain, this government will have the largest cross-bench in our history.

The cross-bench refers to independent politicians who usually vote with the government but can and will cross the floor to vote with the opposition if so moved. Australia has only ever had between three and five cross-benchers.

This time around, there will be 15 and maybe more Green and Independent politicians helping to inform the government of the day.

As Everald Compton said last Friday, this will create a long overdue and stable government that achieves progress and prosperity with justice and compassion.

“The Coalition will be decimated and divided and in need of total reform as they have self-destructed.

“The remnants of the Liberal Party will break up, with the Pentecostals separating from the Moderates. The National Party, having lost seats, will have a bitter leadership turmoil. Their extreme right will join with the Pentecostals.” (Everald was wrong about the National Party losing seats- they were re-elected in all of the seats they held before the election. Otherwise, his predictions are pretty accurate. Ed)

The one big loser from Saturday’s election is the United Australia Party, which reportedly spent $100 million trying to make an impact. UAP won no seats and only improved its vote by 1.7% to 4.1%. By contrast, the Legalise Cannabis Party attracted more than 75,000 Senate votes on a shoe-string budget and may gain a Senate seat, at the expense of perennial campaigner Pauline Hanson.

The shape of things to come may be that Albanese’s Labor government will need support from the cross-bench to introduce new policy. The numbers so far suggest Labor should be able to govern in its own right. Failing that, welcome to a European-style government where Greens and Independents have the final say. It’s not a bad thing.

Albo in poll position to win election

albo-poll-election — Image: Australians casting votes, circa 1940s (who were the flowers for?) Wikimedia CC.

Now there’s a headline that could come back to bite me on the bum – election polling being the unreliable artifice it always has been.

Polling is a mainstay of Australian electioneering. Various polls take the social temperature of a broad cross-section of the community. From this, they distil the information into numbers which they hope will predict who will win the election.

Before we get into that, I consulted my preferred pollster, on-line bookmaker Sportsbet. Labor was and still is a clear favourite at $1.55, but this has eased somewhat from $1.35 a month ago. The LNP has tightened from $3.00 to $2.55 with ‘all others’ at 67-1.

Pollsters meanwhile have the Labor Party holding onto a 53/47 lead (it was 57/46 a few weeks ago) over the Liberal National Party (LNP). But polls are notoriously unreliable. In 2019, most polls were predicting a win by then-Labor leader Bill Shorten, even though Scott Morrison was the preferred leader.

As we now know, Shorten lost to Scott Morrison, with analysts falling over each other in hindsight to explain that ‘the people’ didn’t like Bill’s long and complicated list of fiscal policies.

The first week of the election campaign reminded me of those Three Stooges movies where the so-called comics trip each other up and mash cream pies in each other’s faces. First there was the ‘gotcha’ moment when a journalist asked Labor leader Anthony Albanese if he knew the official interest rate. Albanese said he didn’t, then later gave an incorrect answer to a question about the unemployment rate. The Honest John approach then morphed into a press statement that if he (Anthony) made a mistake, he would fess up to it (not berate his minders for not predicting the obvious).

Albo’s not quick on his feet. He could have dismissed the question as trivial and suggest that the reporter do what we’d all do (look it up on our phones). I never thought I’d agree with John Howard about anything but I admire his coming to Albanese’s defence.

Howard was asked by reporters in Perth if he thought Albanese’s incorrect answer to unemployment rates was unsatisfactory.

“Is that a serious question? Okay, well Anthony Albanese didn’t know the unemployment rate. So what?” Howard said.

Howard himself had a similar pre-election bungle over interest rates in 2007, in an on-air interview with A Current Affair.

It’s time we moved on from the “gotcha’ question, where journalists try to put campaigning politicians on the spot by asking them if they know the price of milk or what the inflation rate is. Who could forget John Hewson’s failure in 1993 to work out the GST on a birthday cake (he was at the time promoting GST as a saviour for the economy). The ‘gotcha’ questions, I suspect, are set by editors of my vintage, who revelled in the black humour of Monty Python.

Why else would they want to promote these pointless public gaffes as front-page news. It’s like the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the bridge keeper casts people into the abyss if they cannot answer questions.

As he asks Arthur (King of the Britons):

“What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?” (It’s 20.1 miles an hour, apparently).

Arthur thinks about this for a moment and asks: “African or European swallow?”

Bridge keeper: “What? I don’t know that!” (then he is cast into the abyss and Arthur’s convoy proceeds).

Gotcha questions aside, much is made of ‘preferred PM’ polls, the numbers from which will vary depending on whether you read The Guardian and listen to the ABC or read The Australian and watch Sky News.

What is clear about personal polling is that Scott Morrison has blown the 68/32 advantage he had in April 2020 (when he was creating the JobKeeper and JobSeeker schemes and doling out relief payments to all and sundry).

Morrison’s personal popularity has now slipped to 44% or so, but still ahead of Albo at 39%.

The latest two-party preferred polling has Labor slipping from 57% to 53% with the LNP at 47% (up from 43%). Despite Labor slipping in the polls, the party is in front in all six States. Albanese might still be Labor’s best chance of winning government since Kevin Rudd in 2007.

The major problem for both parties is that neither the PM nor the Opposition leader can muster personal support of 50% or more.

This simply means that the voting public are not inspired by either party leader, at least not in the way they responded to Rudd, Hawke, Howard or Whitlam at the peak of their powers.

Bob Hawke’s popularity peaked at 75% in November 1984, Kevin Rudd commanded 74% in March 2009 and John Howard 67% in January 2005. Gough Whitlam, the great reformer, was polling 67% in 1973.

If you don’t trust polling, don’t understand the UAP’s billboards and still have no idea who to vote for, there are several things you can do. The first is to make sure you are on the electoral roll. You need to do it by 8pm on Easter Monday (April 18). To enrol, complete the online form.

If you are confused about who to vote for, the ABC’s Vote Compass will give you a fair idea. I completed mine this morning and was chastened to find that 6/10 was the best I could do for a preferred leader.

My Vote Compass result was identical to 2019 when polling showed Scott Morrison (46%). ahead of Bill Shorten (34%) as preferred Prime Minister. Even though that poll was on the money, polls like these can be decidedly inaccurate.

Paul Keating went into 1992 with a personal approval rating of just 25%, ebbing to 17% just before he won the 1993 election. Other PMs who failed to garner support as preferred leaders (at their lowest point) include Julia Gillard (23%), Tony Abbott (24%) and Malcolm Turnbull (34%). Yet they all prevailed at various points in the political cycle.

I cited the online magazine www.startsat60.com earlier and now remind you of a survey from a 2019 FOMM. The survey asked readers to rank Australian PMs between 1968 and 2018.

John Winston Howard won in a hand-canter with 58.3%; despite saying he’d never say sorry, despite the children overboard mistruths, despite following George Bush Jnr and Tony Blair into an unwinnable and unjustifiable war. Bob Hawke ranked second in the over-60 survey with 17%, just behind Gough Whitlam (15.2%).

The other nine leaders all scored less than 5%. Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd polled equally poorly with 0.6% while with Malcom Fraser and Scott Morrison attracted no votes at all..

This survey is what we would call a ‘straw poll,’ meaning it has no real authority or influence. But it is illuminating to find that this one small segment of the over-60s cohort rated our former leaders so poorly.

We were driving from Melbourne to Warwick this week so will bring you our impressions of Tasmania next week. The election circus can keep rolling on without us, what do you say?

Last week: Wayne Goss lost the Queensland election in 1996, not 1989 (when he broke the Gerrymander and beat Joh Bjelke-Petersen). Thanks to Ted for the alert.

FOMM back pages

Pork barrels and billboards ahoy

pork-barrels-billboards — Image: Welcome to Queensland – an apolitical billboard

You can tell there is an election looming when the government promises to reduce the price of beer – a classic example of ‘pork barrelling’. The move to halve the excise on draught beer would save beer drinkers 30 cents on the price of a schooner (a New South Wales term for three quarters of a pint of beer).

Pork barrel, or simply pork, is a metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for localised projects, usually designed to bring money to a representative’s district.

According to Investopedia, the phrase ‘pork barrelling’ harks back to the 1770s when people who owned slaves gave them pork in barrels as a ‘reward’. Before refrigeration, pork was salted and preserved in large wooden barrels.

But in the cut and thrust of 21^st century politics, the phrase now means trying to win votes by appealing to voters’ basest instincts.

Social media, being the untamed beast it is, was quick to condemn the wafer-thin beer excise promise. What about spirits and wine, they asked (not unreasonably). Sexist, said others. DISCRIMINATION, said another post (words in capital letters means shouting).

As pork barrelling goes, 30 cents off a schooner of beer amounts to little more than a head of froth. More to the point, we could use some excise relief on the cost of fuel, don’t you think?

On a five-day round trip towing a 14 ft caravan through New England and back last week, we totted up a $350 fuel bill . The most expensive diesel was sighted at Wallangarra on the Queensland/NSW border ($1.79.9 cents a litre). In Brisbane this week $1.85 seemed to be the going rate.

I’m surprised the government would even risk attracting attention to the $46 billion it earns through excise and custom duty on petroleum, alcohol and tobacco (budget projection for 2021-2022).

Election campaigns are usually fought over relatively lightweight matters such as the cost of beer or fuel. But as we all should know, there are more pressing matters, domestic and global.

Mike Scrafton, writing in Pearls & Irritations, says the media can play a role by simply not repeating the trivial utterances devised by politicians to seduce voters.

“Election campaigns never rise much above budgetary baubles, three-word campaign slogans, pork barrelling, name-calling and personal slurs, and straight-out deceptions. The electorate and the media have been conditioned to expect nothing more profound or visionary from their leaders.”

Scrafton, a former senior bureaucrat in the Victorian Government, was commenting on Scott Morrison’s National Press Club speech, which “typically infantilised voters and kept the focus on economic growth”.

“We’re facing a climate calamity, yet the PM believes Australians are more focused on the next holiday than threats to their children’s future.”

Scrafton says the federal election should be about global warming, increasing wealth inequality, irreversible environmental degradation, widespread species extinction and the seemingly inexorable march to great-power war.

FOMM feels obliged to add to this list the most immediate social issues of our times – housing affordability and our appalling treatment of refugees/asylum seekers.

Pork barrelling aside, even in these early stages, with the election yet to be called, the major parties are throwing out none-too subtle hints about what to expect.

In late January, Labor’s leader Anthony Albanese promised $440 million to help teachers and students navigate the challenges mounted by Covid-19. He is also promising a Royal Commission of Inquiry or similar into the handling of the pandemic. An Albanese government would also tackle Federal reform. At the time, Albanese skilfully scooted around questions about whether this would include an overhaul of the tax system.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will continue to pledge financial support for smart technology, particularly that which can help meet our net zero climate change targets. The big question is can he keep to a 2019 promise to establish a Federal Integrity Commission? Ironically, Morrison was roundly defeated over an election promise he tried hard to deliver.

We can expect some kind of a re-run of the Religious Discrimination Bill, whichever party wins the election. It was Labor’s amendments (protecting the rights of trans students), that saw the bill shelved indefinitely. (Some wag suggested that ‘Scomo’ had suffered splinters from his own wedge. Ed)

Election promises often return to haunt the leaders who made them. The most egregious of broken promises was former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard’s distinction between ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ promises to explain why they did not materialise.

In 2014, Crikey compiled a list of the worst ‘porkies’, (as opposed to Pork Barrels. Ed) that is, political promises made and not kept. It is worth repeating that in 1995, John Howard said there would “never ever” be a GST then introduced one in 1999. This list makes fascinating reading at a time when we are being asked to trust what politicians tell us. The ‘porkies’ include then Health minister Tony Abbott’s promise before the 2004 election not to change the Medicare ‘safety net’ (This is meant to limit the annual amount a person must spend on medical treatment and medications before paying a subsidised rate- currently about $6 for a prescription.) After the election, the Coalition raised the ‘safety net’, leaving Abbott to say, “I am very sorry that that statement back in October has turned out not to be realised by events.”

Even further back, Bob Hawke’s 1987 pledge – “by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty” didn’t happen and still hasn’t happened.

Crikey’s investigative unit recently compiled a ‘dossier of lies and falsehoods’ – an analysis of 48 statements made by Prime Minister Scott Morrison. It’s here if you have the time and inclination. There has been no comment from the PM’s office.

As history shows, it is easier to offer voters something they will like, or promise not to do something they will hate, than it is to reveal complex policy ahead of the vote.

Honest politicians who come out with carefully costed plans to introduce necessary but controversial legislation don’t win elections. Remember John Hewson, who as Opposition Leader in 1993 lost the election to Paul Keating, after trying to sell a plan for a GST? Likewise former Labor Opposition Leader Bill Shorten paid the price in 2019 for campaigning on a long list of complex policies.

I am not expecting Anthony Albanese to fall into the same trap. Thus far, his modus operandi appears to be to criticise and rebut most things the government does or tries to do. The problem with that strategy is that voters don’t really know what he stands for, as this week’s Four Corners programme tried to establish.

While I was trying to escape to the bush and disengage from media, the Canberra protest filtered through via the all-pervasive ABC and social media. It did not surprise to learn that Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party has hitched its wagon to that loose collective. If you travel through the backblocks of New England, it is hard to miss the yellow and black colours of the UAP on billboards set in paddocks along the highways and byways.

“Freedom…freedom” is the common slogan. I’m pretty sure there is no link between that and the song by Beyonce and rapper Kendrick Lamar (the lyrics of which empower black women).

Nevertheless, the billboards are out there, spreading the gospel as understood by anti-vaxxers, sovereign citizens, religious zealots, conspiracy theory followers, ‘preppers’ and genuine if misguided people whose lives have been severely disrupted by Covid-19 controls and mandates. It falls to me to remind readers that protests like the one in Canberra last week happened simultaneously in places as far removed as Ottawa (Canada), Wellington (NZ) and Paris (France). Van Badham’s overview of the global movement is required reading if this issue troubles you – and it should.