Vol 45 No 1 - Australian Fabian Society

www.fabian.org.au Newsletter of the Australian Fabian Society. Vol 45 No 1, January–March 2005ISSN 1448-210XINSIDENewsQueensland AFS Branch Highlights‘Where Are the Women?’Page 3Free ThinkersHas Labor credible answers to thereally big Issues?Page 5Blue Book on ALP blues: reflectionsand responses.Page 8Never mind the Spaghetti Diagram– take another look at “KnowledgeNation”Page 9Book Reviews‘A Wonderful, Courageous,Dangerous but Thrilling Way toTravel Through Life …’Page 12‘A Latest Manifestation of theHubris It Excoriates …’Page 13The Australia-US Killer Agreement.Page 14a r e n am a g a z i n eAustralia’s leadingleft, criticalmagazinesubscriptions/contributionsArenaPO Box 18Carlton North 3054Tel: (03) 9416 5166Fax: (03) 9416 0684Email: magazine@arena.org.auAfter the Deluge: Reflections and Responses 1It’s time … for changes to thesound-bite societyNoel Turnbull respondsto the AFS/ArenaPublications Blue BookAfter the Deluge:Rebuilding Labor andaProgressive Movementwith a review essay onSally Young's great newbook The Persuaders:Inside the HiddenMachine of PoliticalAdvertising (Pluto Press,2004).There is a prevailing myth thatpolitical advertising and spin areessentially a modern invention – despiteabundant evidence that, whiletechnologies may have changed, manyof the techniques are age-old.Peter Burke, in The Fabrication of LouisXIV, demonstrated how the Sun King’simage was consciously shaped bycommunication techniques similar tothose practised by modern politicalparties. The major difference was thatstatues, paintings, coins, medals andmasques were employed rather thanTV ads and direct mail. Lisa Jardine’sErasmus, Man of Letters recounts howErasmus consciously used communicationnetworks to pursue his political andreligious agendas. The Vatican Librarycontains a wealth of materials on QueenChristina’s conversion which would berecognisable to a modern politicalapparatchik. At a conference in the USsome years ago I mentioned that theBoston Tea Party could be construed as aPR event designed to generate publicityand awareness. Scott Cutlipp, a USacademic, used the example in his bookon the history of PR looking at thepervasive role of PR in US history.But while the principles andtechniques are not new, Sally Young,in Persuaders: Inside the Hidden Machineof Political Advertising, providesPersuaders Author Sally Young is an AFSNational Executive member and a politicalscientist and Lecturer in Media andCommunications at Melbourne University.an excellent discussion of howinformation technology and increasedcommunications sophistication hastransformed them. It’s not the fact ofpolitical advertising with which she isconcerned but rather: “it’s because they(political ads) are unregulated, publiclyfunded, backed up by extensivecorporate donations, homogenised andso pervasive that they are a corruptinginfluence and one that debauchesAustralian democracy.”In doing she lays out an importantrationale – with detailed policyprescriptions – for progressive approachesto regulating political marketing; and,perhaps more importantly, reconsideringthe role, functions and purposes ofpolitical parties and their campaigning.Young recounts early in her book herattempt to volunteer for work on apolitical campaign for the ALP. Herinitial approaches were rebuffedalthough eventually someone who knewsomeone who knew someone got her aContinued on page 4

PAGE 2Mark LathamSECRETARY’SCOLUMNOLUMNby Race MathewsNational SecretaryThe untimely departure from parliamentof federal Opposition Leader andonetime NSW AFS Branch ChairmanMark Latham – pictured below withnational Chairman Faith Fitzgerald, onthe occasion of his guest of honouraddress to the society’s 2004Remembrance Day Dinner – is a serioussetback for his party and the widerpublic policy community. Mark was athoughtful, forceful and frequentlycontroversial contributor to policydiscourse, whose contributions will besadly missed. The society wishes him aspeedy recovery of his health and anearly return to the service of thedispossessed, disadvantaged andexcluded, whose interests he has soconsistently championed.SOCIETY NEWSWhat’s New?Consequent on the need to free upspace, in particular for responses to therecent AFS/Arena Publications BlueBook, After the Deluge: Rebuilding Laborand a Progressive Movement, SocietyNews as follows is in dot point form:• Thanks to a great surge of renewals andnew applications, AFS membershipfor 2005 is already well past the halfwaymark to its previous year’s level,and the society is thereby theincomparably better positioned toplan and budget ahead and achieve itscurrent year strategic plan target of1000 members. It will be appreciatedif members whose subscriptions arestill outstanding will return theirpayments, along with the invoiceswhich accompany this letter, as soonas possible.• The society’s Victorian, NSW andQueensland branches now have inplace forward programs of events on arolling basis, which will ensure thatmembers in those states have regularaccess to high quality public policyand current affairs discussion.Members in other states and territoriesare encouraged to contact their localbranch convenors with offers of helpout with the introduction of eventprograms at an early date.Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005• Members may wish to make a diarynote that the AFS will hold a nationalconference on the theme ‘A Fools’Paradise? Economics, Equity and Trustin the 21st Century’, in Storey Hall atthe RMIT University in Melbourne on29 and 30 September.• The AFS Distinguished OverseasVisitors Program and the ALP(Victorian Branch) Agenda Committeejointly auspiced a very special briefingon ‘Getting It Together: PolicyDevelopment, Policies and Outcomes’for society members and members ofstate ALP policy committee members,which was delivered by UK institutefor Community Studies Director andformer Prime Minister’s Policy andStrategy Units Director and founderDirector of the high-profile Demosthink tank, Geoff Mulgan in theTrades Hall Council Chamber on15 February. Geoff’s presentationfollows highly successful earlierProgram briefings, on 29 October byUK Prime Minister’s Policy UnitDeputy Director John McTernan andon 9 December by former ClintonAdministration Secretary for LabourRobert Reich, and the society isseeking further overseas guests.• Former ALP federal MP JohnLangmore has accepted co-option toPhoto: Barbara NormanFormer ALP Leader Mark Latham in happier times, as seen here with AFS Chairman Faith Fitzgerald at the society's 2004 RemembranceDay Dinner.www.fabian.org.au

Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005the AFS Research Committee, wherehe will work closely with ResearchDirector Evan Thornley and teammembers Josh Funder, TonyKitchener, Jane Mathews, Paul Smythand John Wiseman. The ResearchCommittee has finalised thedevelopment of its open source policydevelopment software, and iscurrently managing a pilot economicpolicy development project.• The AFS web site at www.fabian.org.auis now being updated on a monthlybasis, with event notices, eventaddress texts and other society news.The web site also invites notices of‘Other Events of Interest’ from likemindedbodies, on the basis thatreciprocity is appreciated by notrequired.• An organising committee headed byformer RMIT Deputy Vice-ChancellorHelen Praetz is setting out to make atruly memorable occasion of thesociety’s annual ‘Reformist, Rebel andRevolutionary Songs’ concert andsingalong, which will be held onconjunction with the ‘Songin theSing’ and Trade Union Choirs, in thesecond half of the year.Race Mathews National SecretarySOCIETY NEWSRecent Overseas GuestsFormer Clinton Administration Secretary forLabour Robert Reich, who spoke on‘Working Communities in a GlobalCommunity’ at a briefing on 9 December,2004, auspiced by the AFS in conjunction withthe NSW Trades and Labour Council, the USEmbassy and the Melbourne UniversityCentre for Public Policy.PAGE 3Geoff Mulgan – Director of the UK Institutefor Community Studies, former Director of thePrime Minister's Policy and Stragegy Units andfounder of the Demos think-tank – who spokeon ‘Getting It Together: Policy Development,Policies and Outcomes’at a special briefing forAFS and Victorian ALP Policy Committeemembers, auspiced by the AFS and the stateALP Agenda Committee on 15 February, 2005.Queensland AFS BranchHighlights ‘Where Arethe Women?’From Queensland AFS Branch SecretaryMarya McDonaldThe Queensland Branch of the FabianSociety has held a highly successfulWomen’s Forum at the PaddingtonWorkers Club on question “Where arethe Women?”Three speakers gave variousexplanations for the perception thatsomehow women were there, but also“missing in actiion” as it were. The firstspeaker, Sue Yarrow, presented a paper on40,000 years of women’s involvement insocial and political issues from theindigenous women of pre-history,through the period of early settlementand the growing recognition that politicalactivism and human rights invariablymeant the additional struggle forwomen’s rights and representation. Suealso provided a most joyous trip downmemory lane for those audiencemembers who both worked with orremembered senior Queensland womenactivists of the 1960’s to the 1990’s.The second speaker, Senator ClaireMoore, gave an outstanding extemporaneousand contemporaneous analysisof the current Parliamentary situation ofLabor membership among womenpoliticians, particularly in Queensland,and highlighted several cross sectoraland cross factional debates wherewomen’s policy issues could well befocused with more effectiveness thanat present.The finale speaker, Siobhan Keatingfrom the young Labor Women’sMovement and the Federated LocomotiveEnginemen’s and Firemen’s Union (shewas at the start of her career one of only2 women members!), gave the moststirring and heartening of addresses,challenging the notion that evening upthe numbers of female parliamentary andother Party representatives willnecessarily always address thefundamental structural power issues atplay in the Labor Party.As a follow up to this most stimulatingconversation, which went on long intothe evening with an extended discussionperiod, the Queensland Fabians wouldlike to think about another activity nextyear where the branch conducts anexamination of the whole issue ofstructural change, from the startingpoint of feminist issues, but ultimatelystretching beyond into all kinds ofentrenched and impenetrable structuralwww.fabian.org.au

PAGE 4Continued from page 1late night gig doing media clipping andanalysis. Now obviously political partiesdon’t want unskilled volunteers workingin media, but Young is probably Australia’sforemost academic expert on politicaladvertising and – from her book –practical, insightful and talented. My ownexperience as a communications academicand practitioner is the same. Since leavingpolitics I’ve only been asked twice to helpon the communication side of politicalcampaigns. In both cases the State politicalparties where in such straits that someonesuggested, in desperation, that they mightusefully get some new ideas from outsidethe ranks of the usual suspects. In bothcases the advice was followed becauseit was regarded as innovative and different.In both cases it also worked. The ironywas that one set of advice about packagingwas a re-working of a concept that PhillipAdams had lifted from a Robert Redfordfilm and used as a campaign slogan forClyde Holding; and, the other was anadaptation of a concept pioneered in aUS congressional campaign.But the normal reality is that politicalcampaigning is a closed shop in which“amateurs” have been replaced by paidprofessionals who have commercialisedand commoditised the process. As Youngsays this process manages to centralisepolitical control, exclude ordinaryparticipants and stifle dissent.What’s worse is that the process hasinvolved the subversion of any belief ingenuine political participation. The coreof modern political marketing is thesegmentation of potential swinging votersin marginal electorates. As is now wellknownfrom various studies these targetsare probably the least well-informed, mostselfish and most alienated people in theFREE THINKERSnation. The approach actively discouragesengagement and participation and seeksto focus on what one insider has called theattitudes of the “scum and dregs” ofpolitical life. Moreover, the increasingemphasis on localised campaigning is nota new direction encouraging participationbut simply a more sophisticated form ofthis segmentation and targeting.One of the side-effects of thisapproach is the continued propagationof racist and stereotypical views of oursociety. Young says: “In over 1000newspaper ads published between 1949and 2001, not one, showed a SouthernEuropean, Middle Eastern or AsianAustralian, and not one showed anAboriginal person or a Torres StraitIslander.” Turning to ads generally shesays that they “never show Aboriginalpeople, Torres Strait Islanders,homosexual couples, the sick ordisabled, anyone in poverty of anyonewho is homeless.” At the same timenegative advertising and wedge politicsfocus relentlessly on creating fear,division and irrationality. John Howard,before returning to the leadership,openly discussed with other Liberalshow he could replicate Reagan’s successwith blue collar voters. The CanberraPress Gallery and the ALP just took untilTampa to find out the Howardintentions others already knew about.The tragedy is that all theseaccusations are not directed solely atpolitical conservatives – Young alsodescribes in detail how the ALP iscomplicit in this debauching ofdemocracy, despite a couple of wellmeantbut flawed attempts to reform thesystem, particularly through the 1991Political Broadcasting and PoliticalDisclosure Act. Conservatives inAustralia and the US have probablytaken the process further by giving a newwww.fabian.org.auAustralian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005Reviewer Noel Turnbull is an AFS NationalExecutive Member and former journalist,press secretary, public relations firmowner/manager and Board Chairman of theMelbourne International Festival of the Arts.and more vicious dimension to Richo’s“whatever it takes philosophy”, butsocial democratic parties are still anintegral part of the problem. Indeed,Young dates the beginning of modernAustralian political perceptions aboutthe role of advertising to the It’s Timecampaign – itself an adaptation of the1949 Menzies’ campaign slogan.What’s worse is that taxpayers areactually funding the debauchingthemselves. The introduction of publicfunding and steady increases in the levelare but one part of it. Whatever themerits or otherwise of public funding it isa classic example, in execution, of badpolicy. Without adequate disclosure orregulation it merely escalates the amountspent on television advertising andencourages waste and inefficiency. Ruralsubsidy schemes, as Peter Walsh and BertKelly always reminded us, simplytranslated into higher rural propertyprices with no increases in efficiency.Similarly the Private Health Insurancesubsidy doesn’t make private healthmore affordable, it simply entrenchesthe inefficiencies in the private sectorhealth funds. So with public funding –it doesn’t enhance democracy so muchas increase the rates the media ownerscan charge for the advertising.Public funding is only one part of thehuge cost to taxpayers. All incumbentMPs now get more than $200,000 a yearin what is, effectively, a campaign fund.Government advertising is pervasivewith the total for Federal and State

Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005Governments now the largest singleadvertising spend in Australia. In sayingthis it should be conceded that there canbe some point (and value) in governmentinformation programs but the currentFederal Government so completely blursthe line between party political andgovernment information that it evenspends money advertising proposedprograms which have not receivedParliamentary approval. And then theadvertising agencies and PR consultancywho work on the political campaigns getlucrative contracts to do the governmentwork! The post-Port Arthur gun buybackcampaign contract was merely thecrudest of such rorts. Other governmentsrorted as well, just more elegantly.Indeed, in many years observing variousMinisterial committees on communicationonly Bob McMullan tried torun it in a transparent, effective waywhich actually delivered valuableinformation to the public. On the otherside David Jull tried something similarbut was swamped by the Tony Nutts ofthe world.FREE THINKERSYoung puts forward a well argued casefor change – a set of policies which socialdemocrats ought to be considering. Theyinclude greater accountability anddisclosure for public funding; basingpolitical party public funding onmembership rather than votes; makingresearch funded by taxpayers publiclyavailable; restrictions on politicaladvertising; clearer guidelines for – andindependent scrutiny of – governmentadvertising; truth in political advertisinglegislation; imposing an obligation oncommercial TV to provide free time forpolitical broadcasts as part of licenceagreements; and, bans on paid politicaladvertising in conjunction with reformsto encourage media diversity.None of these reforms are radical orunusual in the rest of the world. AsYoung shows, Australia has one of themleast regulated political advertisingregimes in the world. New Zealand, theUK and Canada all have regulatorysystems which deserve study.Sally Young’s book is important fora number of reasons. First, it is a wellwritten,up-to-date, accessible, comprehensive,and insightful mixture ofPAGE 5description and analysis of an immenselysignificant part of the political process.It ought to be used in every civics classin Australia. Second, it dramatizes theends and means dilemmas which oftenconfront social democrats andprogressives. In pursuing practices whichmake exclusion from participation, andsuppression of dissent, systemic theybecome part of the problem. Third, itforces us to confront the fact that we veryprobably can’t simultaneously embracethe processes and approaches shedescribes while genuinely encouraginggrass-roots participation and progressivepolicy development within both the ALPand the community. Arguably many ofthe Federal Parliamentary Party’s recentfailures relate directly to these dilemmas.The dilemmas were also examined inJeffrey Scheuer’s book, The Sound-biteSociety. He analysed how sound-bitesnot only trivialise politics but alsocontribute to reinforcing conservativeworld-views. Perhaps, in that context,Young’s book has another lesson … thistime for the AFS … on the importance ofits role as an antidote to sound-bites. ◆After the Deluge: Reflections and Responses 2Has Labor credible answersto the really big Issues?Ben SchiemerI recently joined the Fabians becausethey seem to offer some hope ofreturning long-term thinking to Labor,the health of which is vital to anenlightened Australia. Currently, theLabor party comes across as a machineset up to get machined candidates intooffice. In the event, Labor’s warriorsproved they couldn’t seize the greasy pigand it’s clear that the Labor Party has tostand for more than ‘more of the same’if it’s to win office. For too many laymenthe Labor Party is as cynical as theconservatives, so they grit their teethand stick to the devil they know. Ofcourse the party should try to rid itself ofsin, but it also needs another facet, andthat’s the vision thing.The voters were offered little ‘vision’by either side during the 2004 election.I believe the Fabians could help developa long-term policy platform for the LaborParty – a ‘vision’ – thus reassuring thenation that there is someone consideringthe problems we all wish would go away,but which are here now or coming soonto a place like ours. How can voters havefaith in a people selling themselves asmanagers of the nation if they don’t daremention issues that are hot topics in thepub and the coffee shop?Some issues most electors are acutelyaware of but hear nothing much aboutfrom our political machines are:1. Long-term fuel shortages. Most of usare aware of the fact that somewherein the next 5 to 20 years (at the mostthat’s when today’s infant graduatesfrom high school) there will have tobe dramatic changes in the way wemanage our transport systems andpersonal mobility. Notwithstandingenthusiasm for hydrogen fuels, it mayyet prove an illusory answer to fuelwww.fabian.org.auBen Schiemer is a retired pilot/aviation safetyinspector, now living in the Huon area, southof Hobart.shortages, and in any case will bringon its own problems – there is littleprospect of it taking over the role ofpetroleum. How would thedemocratic left deal with scarcity oftransportation fuel? What is likely tohappen to our air transport systemand what would the nation’s managersContinued on page 6

PAGE 6Continued from page 5do about it? How are we going todevelop a rail system to take over fromroad transport as fuel goes intoscarcity? What will be our attitude andresponse if nuclear-powered shippingcomes to be the answer to liquid fuelshortage for oceanic freight?2. Global warming, energy needs andCO2 emissions. A political party thatcan’t provide electricity will be sweptfrom power regardless of anyargument. There is no likelihood ofa reduced usage of energy and windand solar will not cover future needs.Do we wait dreamily for the inventionof fusion power? The people knowthat we can’t simply wait for abreakthrough in technology andthey are worried. The US and Chinaare likely to demand the lion’s shareof our gas reserves and our responsewill be limited. In 2004 Howard’sruthless “push on” approach to coalusage, with lip-service to CO2sequestration, was a winner: Therewas no answer to the problem inLabor’s simple intention to sign alargely irrelevant treaty.There is emerging consensus thatglobal warming is on its way, that noonereally knows why (despite claimsFREE THINKERSabout CO2 levels being the culprit),and that curbing human activitywithin politically feasible limits willdo little to change the outcome.Ironically, one of the outcomes will beincreased demand for power. Anotheroutcome may be rising sea levels,causing displacement of people –conflict may ensue, and some,notably those from areas of the SouthPacific and Bangladesh, will emigrateor die. Can the Fabians come up withsome sensible policy assistance?3. Burial of nuclear waste. How longwill the Green movement (I’m amember of TWS and a 36-yearmember of ACF) go on punishinghumanity for letting the nuclear genieout of the bottle? Central Australiahas to be one of the safest places onthe planet to store nuclear waste.Why don’t we set about doing it sowell that the whole world wouldbreathe a sigh of relief and paysquillions for a share of therepository? That would take nuclearwaste out of the poor storages itpresently graces, away from themadmen, away from all of itspotential to poison waterways, cities,and seas. We would have to developsystems safe from accidents andplunder, but it could be done. Not InMy Backyard means storing verywww.fabian.org.auAustralian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005dangerous stuff in suburbs, in derelictships, in shallow ponds and inwarehouses. There’s no vision inNIMB and Labor has to do better.4. Security. The country would be wellservedif the Fabians helped sift factfrom fiction, bringing on publicdiscussion of issues like balancingprivacy rights against freedom fromcommunal threat. What sort ofsecurity services should we have, whatcan we set up to protect the interestsof innocent accused and how can weensure measured justice for the guilty(the failure of Guantanamo Bay)? Canwe meet some of the need with a Billof Rights? Should we develop a formalnational identification system orallow informal, undisclosed dossiersto be developed at the whims ofsecurity services (and commercial andinternational interests)? People feelthreatened, and we can’t wish it awaybecause solutions threaten traditionalbalances between liberty and socialdiscipline.5. World population levels. Am I alonein feeling that soaring populationlevels have potential to causecatastrophe in the lifetime of ourchildren? Land wars, environmentaldestruction, sectarian and racialviolence and water scarcity are beingdiscussed over beer and coffee. Is nota fear of a trickle leading to a floodbehind the general support for aninhumane refugee system? We need todiscuss what we’d do if (say) a popularleader arose in Bangladesh andcommandeered a hundred freightersand brought a hundred thousandpeople to our shores. People know itcould happen, just as they know anuclear bomb could be shipped intothe country in a container, but theyhear nothing of what our nationalleaders would do. They are notreassured when aspirant nationalmanagers seem to pretend that suchthings aren’t likely.6. Water, environment. The people arenow aware that the environment is avital part of governance, but there wasonly piece-meal attention to it duringthe last election. A forest policy forone state here, a river policy there.Howard must have been pleased,because his team has done very littleto address long-term issues and ofcourse the late delivery of theTasmanian forests policy was timedfor the perfect wedge.

Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005Nothing much about what willhappen if our biggest cities don’tget sufficient rain – we blandlycontemplate 50 million people by theend of the century and seem to behoping something will simply comeup. Laudable as it is, moreenvironmental flow down the Murrayis not an answer to the problemsbeing discussed in the community. IfLabor is to win hearts and minds inthe country without losing as manyin the cities it has to develop visionsand explain to the people how it willaddress water needs, environmentalflows, land-clearing, climate change,forestry, salinity and the like.Many of the problems are related – forinstance, desalination will have to beaddressed and it will need eithernuclear power or greater CO2emissions, the former calling for achange in national mind-set, and thelatter sure to draw fire from the rest ofthe world. The people know thatregardless of the blame game societywill have to adjust – the implicationsseem to be water shortages, riverhealth, water recycling, desalination,shortage of irrigation water, farmlanddegradation, loss of forests, changedforestry practices, aridity and so on.I have a brother living in centralwesternNSW, where the conventionalwisdom is that they should take theMurray’s water and let South Australiapray for rain. There has to be betterleadership. We need ideas and weneed them to acknowledge thatcoming fuel and energy shortages willaffect the equations.7. Globalisation. ‘Globalisation is goodfor you’ sounds to most Australianssuspiciously like the mantras callingfor blind faith once endlessly laid onus by the clergy. Labor and theconservatives are equally addicted tothe mantras. The rest of us are seducedinto sullen silence with more andbetter goodies but all of us can see thatAustralia is fast becoming a quarrythat relies almost totally on exportingraw materials. We know that we arenot in a strong position to withstandglobal recession, and we also knowthat recession could be upon us swiftlyfor any number of reasons.With about 1% of the world’spopulation we know we can’tharmonise our standard of living withthe rest of the world except byaccepting a standard much lower thanFREE THINKERSwe at present enjoy – the level playingfield is way below where we are, andwhen push comes to shove Australianswill not tolerate any political party thatsays they just have to grin and bear itin deference to ‘globalisation’. We seeno evidence anywhere of the world’swealthy giving away their privileges,so the drop will be suffered by thoseamong us least able to resist. Canthe Fabians sift the facts from thehumbug, can we suggest policies thatactually have some ring of truth aboutthem? Can the Fabians help Laborovercome its love of the globalisationmantras and offer the people a soundexplanation of where we are going andsome well-grounded policies on howto deal with our lack of manufacturingcapacity, our reliance on raw materialexports, our dependence on foreigngoods and services?8. Aborigines. One would be forgivenfor thinking that a very large numberof well-meaning people subliminallythink those who claim aboriginalityreally are different creatures. Whoamong the educated classes wouldexpect their children to amicably idleaway their lives at Wilcannia, TennantCreek, Palm Island, Bourke or Moreeon the basis of a rudimentary primaryschool education? We’d expect themto be very fractious! Why cannotwe acknowledge that all lives weremade miserable by the circumstancesand mores of the 19th and early20th centuries and give up on thehand-wringing?We should remind ourselves that, likeit or not, we are all citizens of thesame country in what may be anunfortunate century, and that none ofus have much control over events.Since we all only muddle on as bestwe can, ‘whites’ cannot solve the‘aborigine problem’. Perhaps ourquest for multiculturalism (any ‘ism’must be regarded with suspicion) hascast assimilation in such a bad lightthat we are inadvertently revisitingapartheid. Thankless it may be, butthere is a job for the Fabians to thinkit out.FinallyOf course I know that the Labor Party haspolicies on most of the subjects mentionedabove and dozens of thorny issues beside.Yet throughout the last election all weheard was mantras and repetitiousnonsense. Dumb and unreceptive mostvoters may be, but many must ranklewww.fabian.org.auPAGE 7with me when politicians make it soobvious that they think we are alldullards. That bloody ladder!Can we have some for forward-thinkingpolicies that dare to address the difficultissues, policies published as a Labor Partymanifesto on an ongoing basis andavailable in book form that can lie athand and be checked on a whim.? Ofcourse such a publication would beloose-leafed for changes, updates,additions and deletions via politicaloffice handouts and electronicdownloads.We all know that the underpinningsand the rationale for “the people’s party”have changed. No longer do we have theworkers and the bosses, the Tories andthe common man. Social stratificationshave collapsed – there are now as manyconservative voters and monarchists inthe working suburbs as in Vaucluse orToorak. Even if there were moreunionists we have seen the CFMEU jointhe neo-conservatives and know manyothers vote conservative in the privacyof the booth. If it is to win other than asa result of a national calamity Labormust gain the respect and trust of abroad spectrum of people, and to do thatit must have some vision of the futureother than just getting its hands on thetill (sorry, I think I meant ‘tiller’).The Labor Party has to change tosurvive, but the professional arm seems tobe too busy surviving the faction fightsand media scrums to see the big picture.Major conferences and party gurus comeup with ideas that are ignored, and it islikely that the work of Fabians will sufferthe same fate. But the Party is hurting,and it may be ready to listen. ◆

PAGE 8FREE THINKERSAfter the Deluge: Reflections and Responses 3Blue Book on ALP blues:reflections and responses.Ken CoghillAustralian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005The Blue Book’s analyses of the 2004defeat and the ALP’s future directionsoffer some useful evidence andarguments. John Button discusses thelack of critical analysis and attack on theCoalition’s economic performancewhilst Christopher Scanlon argues for anALP economic strategy. Nick Economouargues for a reconciliation of appeals toblue collar and white collar/postmaterialistvoters. Judith Brettcomments on the failure of any strategyto build coalitions of support. BillShorten points to several areas in whichthe Coalition is vulnerable and seesstrength in unions’ roles in the Party.Guy Rundle sees seven major pointsincluding underlying social changesaffecting politics in Australia & USA.These perspectives require furtheranalysis, leading to recognition thatsound management is a pre-conditionfor providing economic security, forredressing the loss of secure andsupportive social conditions and forarticulating an appealing, responsibleand achievable vision for the future.A good starting point is EvanThornley’s thoughtful piece on theimportance of economic management.It is indisputable that economicmanagement and the ALP’s credibilityas an alternative manager of theAustralian government and economyare significant; the voters can regardthem as threshold questions. However,in many ways they are just a necessaryfoundation on which to build policiesthat differentiate the ALP from theCoalition.Analogous to Maslow’s Hierarchy ofNeeds according to which we addresssurvival issues before more intellectualconcerns, sound economic managementis seen as a pre-requisite for a politicalparty aspiring to address issues suchas health and education and theenvironment.The hierarchy of needs has beendemonstrated most starkly by the 26December tsunami: affected communitiescannot think about the pattern ofreconstruction until the need for food,water and shelter is met. Once those basicsurvival needs are addressed, they mustthen rebuild means of sustaining thecontinuing supply of those necessities– their economy. Only then can theybegin thinking about the design oftheir education, health and otherpublic services, protection of theenvironment, etc.However, there is another aspect of thepolitics of economic managementoverlooked in much of the analysis. Theold maxim “oppositions do not winelections, governments lose them”remains true, especially in themanagement of economic resources. Inpushing its case as an economicmanager, the ALP must concurrentlymaintain an all-out assault on the smirkhiding Government managementfailures. This cannot be occasional shotsacross the bows of the ship of state; itmust be incessant, inventive andcorrosive attacks from all angles,catching the Government off-guardwhenever possible.The government’s weaknesses are easilyidentified. They include Australianspaying two to three times the interestrates of their overseas counterparts(despite similar inflation rates), theunsustainable foreign debt (driving upinterest rates), the massive failure tomatch exports and imports (fuelling thedebt crisis), Costello’s foreign exchangelosses … the list goes on.The deafening silence on thesevulnerable economic managementissues during the campaign invites thequestion: Did the ALP avoid them forfear of being asked “what would youdo?” Addressing these issues does notbind Labor to slavishly follow the neoliberalideology.After launching a strategic campaignto simultaneously re-establish its owncredibility and destroy the Coalition’sfalse claim to superior economicmanagement, the ALP can and mustthen address higher order questions.High on the list must be rejuvenatingLabor’s values of strong support forequity and fairness. These are persistentunderlying values amongst a majority(but not all), notwithstanding thewww.fabian.org.auKen Coghill is Director of Monash University’sGovernance Research Unit and a formerSpeaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly.assaults of the Right which haveproduced employment conditions as badas any within comparable countries.Labor must re-articulate those values inways reflecting modern social andemployment conditionsAn ideal starting point to contrast ALPand labour movement values with thoseof the conservatives is unfair dismissallegislation applying to small business.Few understand the positive potentialof this issue for the ALP but ratherargue defensively.Every day, unscrupulous smallbusiness operators demand that workersoperate in unsafe conditions, put upwith bullying, accept sexual harassmentor tolerate unethical business practices.The workers are often young,inexperienced and vulnerable people.If they do stand up to the boss, theyare more likely to be dismissed unfairlythan to have their concerns addressedby any such boss.Unfair dismissal laws at least givevulnerable workers some confidence thattheir concerns will be taken seriouslyand that they will have some recourse ifdismissed because of a refusal to toleraterisks to life and limb, bullying,harassment or unethical business.The labour movement could quicklyfind case after case of unfair dismissals toparade as examples that would flourishunchallenged under the Coalition’s

Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005values but which would enjoy publicprotection under Labor values.However, there is another argument tospread the appeal of the case. Well-runbusinesses do not run foul of unfairdismissal laws! Well-run business is alsomore efficient and competitive. Howcan it be in Australia’s interests to sendthe message that unfair dismissal isOK? Well managed small business is thereal solution.How is the risk of unfair dismissalgoing to affect prospective workers? Weknow that young people are increasinglylooking for employers who will treatthem with dignity and respect. What isthe message to them about working insmall business if the law says unfairdismissal is acceptable in that sector, butnot big business.The real issue is the cost of defendingvexatious claims of unfair dismissal.Reith claimed a log-jam of 50,000 jobsdue fear of false claims. The claim isabsurd but remains a crude politicaltactic to exploit a fearful reaction withinsmall business. Such cases are rare, butsimple reform of the procedures couldaddress any genuine problems.FREE THINKERSA sophisticated campaign in supportof protection from unfair dismissal andimproved business management couldboost the ALP’s credibility in itstraditional base and amongst peoplewanting efficient, competitive businessand those concerned with rights moregenerally.Finally, a vision for the future mustseriously address the frighteningly bigquestions confronting us as individuals,as a nation and indeed as a globalcommunity.Amongst these, climate change andenvironmental protection is an areatoo easily dismissed as workers versusintelligentsia.It is all well and good to argue that, forexample, the Tasmanian forest issues isjobs versus nature’s splendour, but whowill employ timber workers when all thetrees are gone? That basic question isutterly ignored, but is one with whichthe ALP should be inescapablyconcerned. It is a microcosm of majorlong term issues of fundamentalsignificance to potential ALP voters.The tsunami came with so littlewarning that no-one could prepare for it.Climate change should not be like that,PAGE 9but current policies seem to offer too littletoo late. A major cause is environmentalmanagement that has little regard to thefuture. The Australian community issophisticated enough to recognise theneed to act and to respond to politicalleadership on the direction of the changeswe need to take locally, nationally andglobally, as has Blair’s Britain.The ALP has a greater tradition of actingin the long term interests of Australiaand the international community thanwe see now from it or the Coalition. Thearguments advanced in the Blue Bookshould be taken a step further.Policies, strategies and campaigningtactics must reflect Labor values that leadand resonate with key widespreadcommunity values. However, a prerequisitefor credibility is sound policyfor management of government and theeconomy. That foundation can then beused to argue for reformed socialprotection of workers and others.Equally, it is a basis for projecting avision that attracts support to long termpolicies on issues like climate change,the environment and ecologicallysustainable employment affectingAustralians and the global community. ◆After the Deluge: Reflections and Responses 4Never mind the Spaghetti Diagram – takeanother look at “Knowledge Nation”Sid SpindlerMost commentators agree that economicmanagement capabilities, as perceived byvoters have influenced the 2004 electionresult and John Howard appears to havegot away with it. But perceptions areoften wrong and the November Balanceof Trade figure are a salutary reminder ofthat: Australia’s manufacturing industriesare languishing and there is noindication that Australia is making anyheadway towards a knowledge economywith thousands of young Australiansmissing out on university places, hardlythe hallmark of competent long termeconomic management.In 2001 “Agenda for a KnowledgeNation” was belittled by the mediaand by the Government and poorlypromoted by Labor.It is not too late: Labor and the minorparties of the progressive left will becontrolling the Senate until the end ofJune 2005 and could run a searchingpublic Inquiry on the extent to which‘Knowledge Nation’ has (not) beenimplemented. Secondly State Laborgovernments could come together andimplement most of ‘Knowledge Nation’– it would give Australians a more securefuture and, incidentally, changeperceptions of the nature of responsibleeconomic management.Post election 2004 there is a lot ofcomment about the extent to which‘issues of principle’ – asylum seekers,Iraq, children overboard, justice forIndigenous Australians – should havebeen made leading campaign issues.Perhaps more to the point, given thelevel of acquisitive insecurity in thecommunity, there is almost generalagreement that the election was decidedwww.fabian.org.auSid Spindler is a former Australian DemocratsSenator and Spokesman on IndustryDevelopment.Continued on page 10

PAGE 10Continued from page 9by the expectation that the Coalitionwould be better economic managers.Clearly that perception was reinforcedby the largely fraudulent interest ratescare campaign and the disrespectfulsilence observed by everyone over theHawke/Keating economic reforms andrecord.Perceptions tend to undergo somerevision when the hype is over and theNovember Balance of Trade figuresprovide a sobering thought or two.It is the second highest deficit onrecord. Manufactured exports arelanguishing, dramatically so in someareas with exports of transportequipment down by 22%.It is not going to get any better, asTreasurer Peter Costello said only a fewweeks ago: large scale manufacturing isnot going to return to Australia – andwhy should it, when China is gearing upits industries with an army of processworkers paid a fraction of our wages. TheTreasurer knows full well that noamount of “work place reform” is goingto get our labour costs down toanywhere near that level, nor should it.The balance of trade would be worse ifwe had not been able to go back to beinga quarry. Asia and particularly China, ispaying high prices for our coal and forour iron ore but we need to be clear aboutthe reasons: we are supplying rawmaterials for products which only a fewyears ago would have been manufacturedin Australian factories and if China’s 8%plus annual growth rate stalls there couldbe a lot of gnashing of teeth.FREE THINKERSThe answer has been on the table forsome time: brains not brawn – moreresearch, more education, moreinnovation, high level skills and expertisein a range of ‘industries of the future’ –on line education for export, informationand communications technology,medical science, biotechnology,environmental management.It is one of the frustrations of thiselection campaign that inaction anddownright neglect in this area did notbecome a central ‘economic management’issue. I know that the Democrats triedhard to do just that, but couldn’t makethemselves heard over the media chorusbidding them farewell.The need to make Australia aKnowledge Nation had been urged longbefore Barry Jones convened the highlevel task force with representatives frombusiness, academe and politics whichproduced Agenda for the KnowledgeNation in July 2001.Barry Jones’ own ground breaking andvisionary Sleepers Wake was published in1982, the Chief Scientist’s Report TheChance to Change in August 2000 andmany other reports, papers and surveysin between and since.Knowledge Nation sets out acomprehensive, cogently argued, welldocumented strategy to enable Australiato catch up with the rest of the world.It should have been a clarion call – sowhat happened?It was published in the run up to anelection, so party political criticismfrom the conservatives was to beexpected and since there was not muchof substance that could be criticised, theHumanist Societyof Victoria EventThursday 24 February, 8pmBalwyn Library Meeting Room336 Whitehorse Road, BalwynMax Wallace, Canberra PhD student and Author of The Purple Economyon“Is there Separation of Church and State in Australia and New Zealand?”Enquiries to the Humanist Society of Victoria,GPO Box 1555, Melbourne, 3001, or phone 03 9857 9717Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005fall back argument was “show us thecostings”. The Fourth Estate shouldhave known that they were part of thenext stage and that a substantial part ofthe additional investment would berecouped on an ongoing basis and thateven the international rating agencieswould have been happy to see some ofthe surplus used as an investment incapacity building.In the event, with a few honourableexceptions, the costing became themedia mantra , aided, it must be said, byBarry Jones’ own intellectual boobytraps– the ‘spaghetti and meat balls’ diagramand ‘cadastre’ when ‘sum total’ for thestock of national knowledge resourceswould have done. Even so, it takessmall minds to stumble over such‘externalities’. In the end the jeeringmob frightened Kim Beazley into lacklustre marketing of a side show when itshould have been the centrepiece.There was some enlightened support –my cuttings file disgorged several strongand perceptive statements includingsome from cultural and spiritualperspectives from Hannie Rayson andTim Costello, and the Democrats and theGreens were supportive, but it was not tobe. Could it be that as a society we werenot mature enough to receive the visionwe were offered with such intellectualhonesty and such generosity of spirit.The Coalition produced its owndocument Knowledge Society, morenarrowly focussed on the educationsystem, which might repay someinvestigation into the extent of theimplementation of the recommendationsmade. Given that capacitybuilding for their very own agenda ofglobal competition should have beenvery much at the forefront of Coalitionpolicy their opposition to KnowledgeNation remains an illustration of theextent to which party political conflictdetracts from the quality of public policydebate in Australia.Knowledge Nation documents theurgency of taking action:Between 1985 and 1998 Australia’sinvestment in knowledge – R&D,software, education, training – had fallenby 5% as a proportion of GDP. Duringthe same period the US recorded anincrease of 15%. Tracking these OECD‘Investment in Knowledge’ statisticsduring a longer period – 1992 to 2000 –we find an average annual increase forAustralia of 4.5%, equal to the OECDaverage for that period, but falling backto 4.0% in 2000, when other OECDwww.fabian.org.au

Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005FREE THINKERSPAGE 11countries achieved a growth rate of 4.8%OECD figures showed a decline inpreschool participation rates from 24.1%in 1996 to 22.4. in 1998, compared withan OECD average of 39.6%.Year 12 completion rates reached77.1% in 1992 but had declined to72.3% in 2000.Participation rates in tertiaryeducation rose by 19.2% between 1990and 1995 but in the next four yearsto 1999 the rate of increase fell to10.2% and in the year 2000 the numberof tertiary students actually declinedby 0.5%.As the 2005 academic year commences10,000 Victorian students have missedout on a university place in the firstround of offers – a tragic waste of younglives and another step backwards inbuilding the economy of the future.In 2004 the Productivity Commissionpublished a Discussion Draft reviewingNational Competition Policy Reforms.It shows Australia 7th from the bottomin a list of 23 OECD countries in thelevel of productivity achieved in 2003, asmeasured by GDP per hour worked.Some will call for greater “labourflexibility”, but as Brian Toohey haspointed out (Financial Review 31.10.04),many of the 16 countries with higherproductivity than Australia also havemore centralised labour markets andhigher taxes and, it should be notedmost of them rank above us in theirlevels of knowledge investment.The economic imperatives for takingaction are clear enough but a KnowledgeNation approach also has the potentialto transform the social and politicalclimate in which we live.The interest rate scare campaign couldnot have been as effective if JohnHoward had not been so successful inrefashioning Australia into a moreacquisitive, ‘compete with thyneighbour’ society, borrowing to acquireassets to a point where the ever presentthreat of losing one’s job produces thevery insecurity the assets were meantto prevent.Instead let us imagine a society wherethe loss of a job is not a catastrophe butan opportunity to retrain or to acquirenew qualifications with subsidies tocover living costs or where one mightalready have a second trade or professionbecause education and training is seen aspriority, where teachers are respected asthe most important profession and paidaccordingly, where there are scholarshipsfor students with capacity but fromLeave the Tortoisea Legacy – Remember theAustralian Fabian Societyin your Will!!Your Fabian commitment can live after you, advancing the society’score values of political, economic and cultural democracy, equalityof opportunity, elimination of poverty, international accord andenvironmental sustainability long after your own life is over.A legacy for the society can be inserted in an existing Will by thesimple addition of an extra clause known as a ‘codicil’. Your solicitorcan help you with the wording and ensure that the codicil does notcontradict any of your other instructions.financially modest backgrounds, wherefunding according to need of all schoolsis seen as simple justice rather than asevidence of class war mentality.Personal and national security basedon knowledge, capacity andunderstanding might just produce asociety where cooperation is valued andwhere we are prepared to invest thebudget surplus in the creation of aknowledge nation rather than on taxcuts for the well off.Can’t be done? Have we tried?There are numerous surveys indicatingthat between 60% and 80% ofAustralians at all income levels areprepared to forgo tax cuts for greaterinvestment in health and education.Even allowing for the halo effect that isstill likely to be a majority.The Victorian Government hasintroduced a Career Change Program atVictoria University encouragingtradespeople, mechanics, engineers toundertake retraining as teachers toalleviate shortages in the profession.Is there any reason why such programscould not become a permanent featureof our education programs?The position of inaction adopted bythe Howard Government is incontradiction of its own policy to makeAustralia a player in the competitiveglobal economy. No doubt this strangereluctance to improve Australia’scompetitive edge must be a mystery alsoto the Australian business community.Could it be that a more highly educatedcommunity would be harder tomanipulate than one where people arescared to lose their jobs because theyhave not been equipped to managechange, in their work places and in theirlives?There is still time: Labor and the minorparties on the progressive left will havecontrol of the Senate until the end ofJune 2005, time enough to establish andrun a searching (and public) SenateInquiry into Knowledge Nation, updatingthe evidence, reviewing and expandingthe recommendations and placing thembefore the Australian community.Of course, come July 1 and TotalPower, the Coalition Government willagain try to bury the Report. If thathappens, is there any reason why LaborGovernments across the countrycouldn’t get together, shape the strategyand implement it in each state? Come tothink of it, the Commonwealthsuggestion for the States to take over thetertiary sector might not be such abad idea. ◆www.fabian.org.au

PAGE 12BOOK REVIEW‘A Wonderful, Courageous, Dangerous butThrilling Way to Travel Through Life …’Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005Iola Mathews reviews fellow AFS member Rhonda Galbally's Just Passions:The Personal is Political (Pluto Press, 2004).A few years ago, Rhonda Galbally wassitting in a restaurant in Bourke Streetwith an old friend, Bill Russell, when ayoung woman passed by in a motorizedwheelchair. Rhonda waved at her, andbegan talking to Bill about the gains thathad been made in recent decades –disability rights, women’s rights,multiculturalism, tobacco free sports,health promotion and the Internet. Ineach of these areas, Rhonda had beeninvolved and active, and Bill urged herto write a book about these socialchanges and the organizations that hadsupported them. Just Passions is theresult and the sub-title The Personal isPolitical (a phrase from the 1970sWomen’s Movement) refers to the ideathat our political views and actions arebased in our personal history and whatshaped us. As Rhonda explains in theintroduction, the book is “the stories ofmy life... the social issues, the politics,the movements, the workplaces and thepeople I’ve engaged with over the years.”It also includes poems she has written atvarious stages of her career.Rhonda is a consummate mover andshaker and has had a lifetimecommitment to human right and socialjustice. Her career highlights are wellknown – teacher, policy analyst at theVictorian Council for Social Service(VCOSS), Executive Director of the MyerFoundation, Head of the Commissionfor the Future, CEO of VicHealth,Director of the Australia InternationalHealth Institute at Melbourne Universityand now joint founder of the company“Our Community.” Rhonda has been apowerful force for good, and while shemixes with (and challenges) those inpower, she still prefers to think of herselfas an “ageing hippy.”The driving force behind Rhonda’scareer is her belief in the empoweringnature of community groups. In each ofher jobs she has encouraged, establishedand funded a range of communitysupport groups, advocacy groups andresearch groups. She has fought tirelesslyagainst the “top down” charity andbureaucratic model in favour of thebottom-up model of communitydevelopment where the clients decidewhat they want, not some remotefunding body. She has managed to dothis while working within thephilanthropic and government sector.She worked closely with luminaries suchas Nugget Coombs, Professor “Pansy”Wright, Barry Jones and Philip Adams,many of whom became her friendsand mentors.Just Passions is not told in achronological way but is written arounda different theme for each chapter, e.g.disability, charity, women, families,futures and organizations. While thislack of chronology is at times slightlyconfusing, the book is nevertheless veryinformative and thought-provoking. Itis written in the way Rhonda speaks –down to earth, intelligent, talkative,passionate, fair, and with gentlehumour. She writes with honesty and isnot afraid to admit mistakes and showher vulnerabilities.Rhonda says Just Passions is not anautobiography, and although it focusesmostly on her public life, it also dipsintermittently into her private life. Shewas born in to a working class Jewishfamily in Melbourne and at thirteenmonths contracted polio. The medicaltreatment at the time was horrific – shewas hospitalized for nearly two years,mostly strapped into a splint which wassupposed to correct the wasted muscles –and thought her family had abandonedher. An operation at age eight and othercruel “treatments” for polio reinforcedthese fears. Her parents insisted on hergoing to a “normal” school instead of aninstitution (for which she is forevergrateful) but she found that as a“cripple” she was sometimes treateddifferently and excluded from activitiesin which other children took part. Shedeveloped a hatred for remoteauthorities which did not take theirclients’ needs into account, and a love ofcommunity groups which would caterfor disadvantaged and marginalizedwww.fabian.org.auRhonda Galbally is a joint founder of the'Our Community' company and also has heldpositions as – among other things – Head ofthe Commission for the Future, CEO of VicHealth, Executive Director of the MyerFoundation and Director of MelbourneUniversity Australia International HealthInstitute.people. Other parts of her private life –marriage, motherhood, parents andpartners – are skimmed over fairlylightly. The book is mainly about thesocial policy changes Rhonda has beeninvolved in, and as such is a valuablepiece of social history.If Rhonda Galbally is not already a“national treasure,” she should be. But Isuspect that her real rewards have comenot from accolades, but from thejourney along the way. As she writes inher book, Just Passions is simply that –the passions of mine – that revolvearound what I consider to be just – awonderful, courageous, dangerous butthrilling way to travel through life.” ◆

Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005BOOK REVIEWS‘A Latest Manifestation of the HubrisIt Excoriates …’John Power reviews Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror(Washington, Brassey's Inc, 2004).PAGE 13In the decade or so since the UnitedStates attained the position ofundisputed global hegemonic power, ithas been searching around for its properrole. Future historians will no doubt findit surprising that the first policy stanceadopted by a Republican administrationin this new era was that of the neo-cons– with their simplistic objectives of usingUS force to replace selected Muslimdictatorships with democracies. Thepredictable outcome of suchadventurism is that it has speedilyproduced an Islamic challenge to theshort-lived US hegemony. Thisdevelopment has in turn stimulated anauthentic conservative response –Imperial Hubris, written by ‘a seniorintelligence official’.The central proposition of this powerfulwork is that the threat posed to theUnited States by Al Qaeda is much moreformidable than the leaders of thatnation have acknowledged, or – in allprobability – understood. Accordingly,the strategy adopted by President Bushhas been disastrously flawed, and indeedsteadily strengthens the Al Qaeda cause.In virtually every dispute of recentyears – Palestine, Chechnya, Aceh,Afghanistan and Iraq – the United Stateshas been seen by the Muslim world to beacting against Islamic independence. Inaddition, the United States has been seenas supporting reactionary rulers in suchMuslim nations as Saudi Arabia andKuwait. The outcome, according toImperial Hubris, has been that Al Qaedanow enjoys overwhelming publicsupport throughout the Muslim world,and Osama Bin Laden has skilfullychanneled this support into antagonismtowards the United States.Why, then, have the policymakers inWashington not altered the disastrouscourse upon which they have beenembarked? The answer that the booksupplies may be summed up in threewords – politics and moral cowardice.For the support of Al Qaeda to belessened, the United States would haveto abandon such policies asunquestioning support for nations likeIsrael and Saudi Arabia, and would haveto be much more ruthless in theirmilitary pursuit of their enemies, even atthe initial cost of high US casualties. Itis seriously an underestimation of thesignificance of Osama Bin Laden toportray him, as Washington invariablydoes, as an irrational terrorist, opposedto ‘the American way of life’. Instead, heshould be recognised as a majorstrategist of global insurgency, and dealtwith accordingly.So, what does Imperial Hubrisrecommend? The most important policyproposal is that the United States shouldseek to disengage from the Middle East.It should strive to attain self-sufficiencyin oil, even at the expense ofenvironmental values in Alaska. Itshould pressure Israel into acceptance ofa genuine Palestinian state, and thenwithdraw. It should abandon fruitlessattempts to impose Western-styledemocracies on Muslim nations. Whenthe opportunity to attack Al Qaedacomes again, the United States shouldlearn from the Afghanistan fiasco of2001, when a splendid opportunity waslost through indecision and a reluctanceto accept substantial US casualties.What can the rest of the world make ofall this? First, and most obviously, thesub-title of the book is seriouslymisleading. There is precious little of ‘theWest’ in the book, unless one assumes,with the likes of the Howardgovernment, that the interests of theWest and the United States are identicalwhen it comes to the ‘War on Terror’.Secondly, as Imperial Hubris places littlevalue on time consuming attempts toconstruct international coalitions, mostof the rest of the West would be let offthe hooks of Afghanistan and Iraq.Ultimately, what Imperial Hubris isproposing is all out war by the UnitedStates on Al Qaeda. In times of such allout war, the niceties of diplomacy andenvironmental protection have to besacrificed, at least until victory is won. Asin the Second World War, all publicwww.fabian.org.auJohn Power is a former Professor of PoliticalScience at Melbourne University.policies have to be reviewed in thecontext of the overarching objective ofwinning. The strategic outcome, asAnonymous himself admits, comesuncomfortably close to isolationism. Is itreally feasible for the United States toseek such radical goals as self-sufficiencyin oil?Therefore, the biggest question withwhich the reader is left is this: Is AlQaeda such a massive threat that allout war is the only feasible response?Raising this question produces anotherone – is Muslim opinion as stronglyfavourable to Osama Bin Laden asImperial Hubris suggests? (My Muslimfriends assert that it is not). Whateverthe state of Muslim opinion, ImperialHubris – with its call for all out war –may represent the latest manifestationof the hubris it excoriates. ◆

PAGE 14BOOK REVIEWThe Australia-US Killer Agreement.Graham Dunkley reviews How to Kill a Country by Linda Weiss, ElizabethThurbon and John Mathews (Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2004).Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005In arguing that the recent Australia/USFree Trade Agreement (FTA) could ‘kill’our country, at least as a progressivesociety, this book makes one of the moststarkly audacious claims in Australianscholastic history. I have equallyaudaciously insisted that globalization isnot inevitable: compliant governmentsare committing ‘sovereignty suicide’.How to Kill a Country is not theinflammatory tract it sounds but adetailed analysis based on a wide rangeof research, the Senate inquiry into theFTA and the authors’ own previous work.In the area of quarantine, for instance,they use current policy documents,along with industry and NGO critiques,to show that the government, throughBiosecurity, its new quarantineauthority, has been reducing regulatorystandards of our hitherto powerfulquarantine systems, supposedly in linewith liberalisation principles. This, theyshow, is foolishly risky, going againstmuch industry and CSIRO advice insome cases.The FTA establishes two joint bodieson Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS)matters (i.e. quarantine and related), butit remains unclear how these willoperate, how they will relate to ourexisting institutions and what line USmembers will push. But their main jobswill be to scrutinise our existingstandards for trade-disruptive featuresand to promote increased trade. This canreally only be achieved, ultimately, byadmitting products which previouslywere excluded through quarantinestandards.However, I take issue with the authors’claim that the WTO supports ourquarantine standards and that theCanadian Salmon case only went againstus on a technicality. The WTO doesallow genuine quarantine (thankgoodness for that!) but requires‘scientific’ risk assessment. Free Traderstake the view that most countriesmaintain more stringent quarantineregulations than are necessary foradequate protection and this reducestrade (oh, horror!). But in my book, FreeTrade I show that in most WTO SPScases, including the Salmon case whichforced us to import hitherto banned livefish, both sides presented strongscientific reports. The WTO Panel ineach case favoured the side wantingreduced quarantine regulations.Yet as Weiss et al rightly point out,under FTA the Yanks have clearlyindicated that they wish to ‘do better’than under the WTO, and indeed, as Ihave shown, bilateral agreements tendto be much more ‘liberalising’ thanmultilateral ones like GATT and APEC.So, under the FTA’s SPS arrangements USdelegates are likely to challenge manymore of our quarantine standards, whichare already under attack world-wide andvia the WTO.The story is similar in the other threeareas studied. In the case ofpharmaceuticals the authors show thatUS drug trans-national companies(TNCs) are keen to bash up anyarrangements anywhere in the worldwhich threaten their monopoly andreduce drug prices. This is done bytrying to undermine schemes like ourPBS and to strangle competition from‘generic’ rivals. Although FTA leaves thePBS in place (it does not actually namethe PBS), it proposes a newadministrative structure with USinterests represented. The authors alsoconvincingly debunk the TNC claimthat high medicine prices are to coverresearch costs, on the grounds thatindustry profits are huge and mostcorporate expenditure is on marketing.Under FTA administrativearrangements the new joint body, theMedicines Working Group, is likely tobe a platform for US challenges to PBSpolicies, and the goal of ‘innovation’has been substituted for current socialobjectives. Weiss et al feasibly concludethat the result will probably be a shiftfrom our socially-based system to a USstyleprivate monopoly basis, yet,ironically, some American authoritiesare now favourably studying schemeslike ours!In the area of governmentprocurement, we have signed on to thistype of agreement for the first time,having long resisted the WTO version(which is voluntary) on grounds that thecosts would be greater than the benefits.This agreement means that althoughtheoretically Australian firms will nowwww.fabian.org.auGraham Dunkley is a Research Associate atthe Victoria University of Technology andauthor of The Greening of the Red (PlutoPress/AFS, 1992)and Free Trade: Myth, Realityand Alternatives (Zed, 2004).be able to tender for US governmentprojects, in practice home preference stillapplies in the US, formally in some areas,informally in others, and Australiansuppliers will mostly be of similar size toUS ‘small’ enterprise which areparticularly preferenced. Yet we have toopen our public tenders to giant USsuppliers. Weiss et al have probablysomewhat over-stated their case as wehave reserved our right to maintainsome schemes such as the AustralianIndustry Involvement programme fordefence procurement.And so the story goes on. In the area ofintellectual property the FTA moves ustowards the US system, which will costus a fortune in extra royalties. Alreadyevidence is mounting in favour of Weisset als’ case. On 3 August 2004 an experttold the ABC (‘Australia Talks Back’) thatif the FTA caused our medicine prices torise to even half the US levels, which islikely, this would nullify all other(assumed) benefits of the deal. Somemonths later the US head of Pfizerthreatened to withhold some drugs fromAustralia if we did not begin payinghigher prices (Age, 18 Nov 2004:4). Once

Australian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005the FTA is under way we can expectmuch more pressure of this sort.Yet the frightening thing is that thisbook only tells half the story, albeit verywell. It does not tell the story ofmanufacturing, agriculture, services,investment or audio-visuals, except forthe odd note on some of these. It isbriefly mentioned that we have openedour entire farm sector to the Yanks butthey have kept some of theirs wholly orpartly closed, notably with the exclusionof sugar and the retention of safeguardmechanisms. Few commentators,including this group, have analysed howour car parts industry could be hit, orhow the car market may be inundatedwith Yank tanks and ‘pick-ups’ (a termwe don’t use – as yet!).The book does not explain how wehave opened most, though not all, of ourservices sector to giant US servicecompanies which dominate many worldLettersDear Editor,BOOK REVIEWmarkets, the US being the world’s largestsingle service exporter (although the EUcombined is larger). It is not mentionedthat we have agreed never to increaselocal TV quotas, whose levels are alreadyvery low in pay-TV, and never to use filmquotas. Indeed, one obscure clauseallows dilution of local quotas where abroadcaster introduces the newtechnique of ‘multi-channeling’.Nor does the book discuss in muchdetail overall assessments of the FTA.The incredible story is that of the halfdozen major mainstream modelingassessments of FTA benefits, only onestudy, that by CIE in Canberra, findsstrongly favourable results – and this isthe one the government uses of course,a situation straight out of Yes Minister.All the other studies show minimalbenefits or actual losses to Australiafrom the FTA. The most critical study,that by National Economics (NE) inDear Editor,PAGE 15Melbourne, shows polar oppositeresults to CIE. Whereas CIE finds 0.7 percent GDP gains per annum (arguablymodest anyway), NE finds a 0.39 percent loss; where CIE claims 30,000 newjobs, which the government is nowtrumpeting, NE claims a loss of 50,000jobs per annum for some years to come.Time will tell whether the optimists orpessimists are right, and most of Weiss etals’ concerns are measurable. If theauthors of this book are right, and I thinkthey are, we should see some adverseresults relatively soon. In the meantime,read the book and watch-out! ◆With the furore over Mark Latham’s leadership still runningrampant, the deluge is far from over for the ALP. Whatremains unanswered after reading the post-election FabianSociety/Arena Publications Blue Book After the Deluge is thequestion of what economic policies Labor is to offer. Talk ofpast economic achievements is not the way forward. Whocan be seen to be the Labor party’s core constituency? Whathas happened to the traditional Labor values of social justiceand social equity?Visiting UK Fabians have suggested at AFS meetings thatthe answer to these questions may lie in the example of NewLabour’s renewal and rejuvenation of its parliamentaryrepresentatives. Will the Australian Labor party have thecourage of its convictions and refuse to re-endorse memberswho have passed their used by date – something the muchtouted party reform was said to make happen?The leadership vacuum remains and unlike the 1970’s,when Bob Hawke was the Messiah in waiting, there is nonew Messiah even remotely on the horizon. For this AFSmember and lifelong Labor supporter, there is no light at theend of the tunnel, let alone a ‘light on the hill’.Michael FreemanI am angry, disappointed and frustrated with the lack ofthought leadership on what is wrong with the Australianeconomy and how to fix it. I am angry with the ALP for notproviding swinging voters with a choice.I want political leaders that can demonstrate commitmentand enthusiasm for engaging with their constituencies totake up the challenge and adventure of working together tomake the world a better place.I am looking for leaders who can exude passion andexcitement in the challenge of reforming the sevenfundamental flaws in the economy that make it inefficient,inequitable, exploitive, covert, alienating, insensitive andundemocratic. I am looking for leaders who can teach theignorant, inspire the complacent and lead the ambitious onhow these fundamental flaws can be overcome to improvethe well being of all.I invite Fabians to share my anger on how Australia’stalents, knowledge and abilities are being squandered toserve alien interests, exploited by the powerful and thenderided by the influential. Correcting structural flaws in theeconomy would ameliorate many populist politicalconcerns, including funding for health, education, pensionsand housing, buying back the farm, reducing the currentaccount deficit, and renewing the nation’s infrastructure tomake the Australia efficient, competitive and not just a luckycountry but the best place in the world to live. Where are ourleaders to take us there?Shann Turnbullwww.fabian.org.au

PAGE 16FREE THINKERSAustralian Fabian NewsJanuary–March 2005Published quarterly by the AustralianFabian Society, www.fabian.org.auGPO Box 2707X, Melbourne, Vic, 3001Editor: Race MathewsEditorial/media enquiries: 0409 025 289Contributions are welcomed and may besent to: ausfabians@hotmail.comNational Secretary: Race MathewsTelephone/Fax: (03) 9826 0104email: race@netspace.net.auViews expressed by individual contributorsto Australian Fabian News are not necessarilyendorsed by the Australian Fabian Society.Australian Fabian Society 2003President: Gough WhitlamChairman: Faith FitzgeraldSecretary: Race MathewsTreasurer: Bob SmithAssistant secretary: Justin RandleMinutes secretary: Jill AnwylExecutive Committee MembersBen BarnettRyk BliszczykGary JungwirthPamela McLureTony MooreBarbara NormanBrendan O’DwyerFiona PerryDavid TaftEvan ThornleyNoel TurnbullSally YoungBranch Committee ContactsVictoria: Justin Randle,3 Timberglades Drive, Bundoora, Vic, 3083.Phone: (03) 9467 6702,Mobile: 0411 720 047Email: justinrandle@hotmail.comTasmania: Eloise Haddad,c/o GPO Box 32, Hobart, Tas., 7001.Phone: (03) 6223 5255Fax: (03) 6223 8560Mobile: 0400 356 473Email: eloise.haddad@aph.gov.auACT: Antony Lamb,114 Kitchener Street, Garran, ACT, 2605.Phone: (02) 6281 2581Email: antony@netspeed.com.auQueensland: Cr Terry Hampson,Marchant Ward Office, 960 Gympie Road,Chermside, Qld, 4032.Phone: (07) 3407 0707Email: marchant.ward@ecn.net.auSouth Australia: Senator Linda Kirk,3/69 Fullerton Road, Kent Town, SA, 5067.Phone: (08) 8431 1622.Email: senator.kirk@aph.gov.auWestern Australia: John Carey,13 Stoddard Way, Bateman, WA, 6150.Phone: (08) 9332 7050.Email: wafabiansociety@yahoo.com.auNSW: Michael Samaras,PO Box 760, Wollongong, NSW, 2500.Phone: (02) 8882 1611 (W)Fax: (02) 8882 1618Email: moredemocracy@hotmail.com“The Fabian approach is a stubborn faith in human ability to solve the problemsof human life through the application of human reason. It insists on theimportance of ideas in politics”.– Gough WhitlamMembership Application FormPlease sign me up immediately for Australian Fabian Society membership, and send me my Mystery WelcomePack of three AFS pamphlets.My Name:My Address:Telephone:Fax:E-mail:I enclose my cheque/money order payable to the Australian Fabian Society or authorise debit of myBankcard/Mastercard/VisacardNo.:Expiry Date:for the total of (please circle for applicable rate):Full Membership $50.00Household Membership (two members at the same address) $60.00Concession Rate (Unwaged or low income) $25.00Institution $100.00Signed:Please complete and return to The Secretary, Australian Fabian Society, Box 2707X, Melbourne, 3001.www.fabian.org.au