Category: Political Comment

Communication Breakdown

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The Abbott government has created a hub of 37 communication and social media specialists to monitor social media and offer strategic communications advice costing taxpayers almost $4.3 million a year.

Details released in Senate documents show the ‘‘Strategic Communications Branch’’ was implemented late last year, where the 37 staff are expected to oversee media within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, including Indigenous Affairs and the Office for Women. According to the documents, staff are expected to monitor social media, offer strategic communications advice and create internal newsletters graphic design support, among other duties.

A spokesman for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten slammed the number of communications staff  engaged to spin Tony Abbott’s messages.

Soon after assuming office, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is reported to have created a strategic communications unit comprising 37 staffers. Their exact role is unclear. So, too are many other details, a responsible government would normally be expected to divulge. What is clear, however, is that most of us have been mystified to learn of the unit’s existence. Or evidence that it has been anything but a dead loss. Perhaps its clearest function is what it communicates to the Australian people about Tony’s tin ear and the remoteness of his government. Not only have previous governments done well without such a unit but by definition if you need a tin ear symphony to be in touch with your electorate, you lack the essential communication skills and sense to govern.

Mr Abbott has been less than, well, communicative about his communication unit as befits his chosen style. But no doubt he believes it was a prudent investment made as it was in the midst of his chicken little alarm calls about the economy. Not that he believed he had any real alternative. After all, even Abbott knows it’s an imperative: now that he’s won the election by pretending to have alternative policies and pretending that Labor was incompetent, raddled with leadership challengers and too inclusive of women, he has to pretend that he’s now capable of being Prime Minister. And he had to do something about
his recurring nightmare that one day, after years of fun and games with Alan Jones, Rupert and his other mates who flocked to him in rubbishing the country’s Prime Minister and everything she stood for, he woke up and he was expected to perform as a Prime Minister.

Typically, our little Aussie Bolter, Abbott has thrown caution to the winds. No consultation. He’s been quick with another captain’s call. You can’t waste time listening to others if you want to set up a communications unit. Besides, since when has Abbott given a rat’s bum for anyone else’s views?

Some would see Rat’s Arse Abbott’s Strategic Communications Unit as a bold initiative. It’s certainly one with ample historical precedent. Joseph Goebbels exploited a similarly strategic approach to government to some effect. Goebbel’s Proganda Principle 16 is being followed as we write:

Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.

The rest of Australia may well see it as foolhardy, self-defeating or premature.  Apposite, timely communication, it must be acknowledged, is almost impossible in the absence of any coherent plan, let alone any vision.

Granted its creation was poorly timed. The announcement of the unit was made amidst shock revelations that there was nothing in the budget but a wad of well-thumbed IOUs, Peter Slipper’s Cabcharge dockets and few unused meal vouchers bearing the name M Coulson. Worse than nothing. Those Labor bastards were profligate. Spent money like water. But they didn’t have a strategic communications unit.

Fecklessly staring down those who might accuse him of hypocrisy or inconsistency, Mr Abbott spent up big. He appears gifted at finding funds a plenty when it comes to making him sound good. He found buckets of money to splurge on fabricating an ersatz authenticity, gravity, competence and legitimacy. The unit gives him a chance of looking as if he’s across the detail of issues and events. The unit gives him a faux empathy, a diminished level of ignorance and a coherence he would be hard pressed to muster on his own.

Some would argue the Unit faces a big job. It could take any number of hacks to make Abbott sound half-way credible. Others would say that it’s an impossible task. You can’t polish a turd. Even the attempt will cost you dearly. The PM’s unit is expensive turd polish.

Let’s say, conservatively, each staffer in the TPU (Turd Polishing Unit) is on subsistence wages of $100,000 per annum or more. There would have to be dirt money and danger money in the staffer’s EBA. Factor in legal insurance against malpractice, fraudulence, defamation, perjury and other litigation costs insurance fees. A cheer squad is never cheap to feed.

We can only speculate. In the absence of any clear communication, it may be assumed that conservatively, his ghost-writers cost the nation $4.3 million. That’s the official figure. Do your own add ins. That’s a heck of an investment especially when you add in Joe Hockey’s spin unit. Then, of course, we need to add Scott Morrison’s departments which employ more than 95 communications staff and spin doctors, costing at least $8million a year.

Now we are up to a very conservative $12 million per year. Let’s say the government invested that amount each year for 15 years. Put it by for some frippery such as health or education. Assume an interest rate of 5%. Total funds available would be $283,889,901. Imagine if these funds were directed to help the needy and the underprivileged.

Then of course there is the incredible Credlin, Abbott’s minder, body servant and groom of the King’s close stool who must draw a performance bonus for the extra quota of turd-words as may be necessitated to meet daily contingencies such as our suddenly being at war in Iraq as stipulated in her EBA. Say what you like about Peta. She won’t come cheap.

The spending does not stop there. Other experts include a vocal coach to get Abbott to speak more slowly. Repeat key phrases. Key phrases. Even a spectacle coach, it would seem, has been engaged to get him to wear his glasses on camera to add gravitas. Or do a pale imitation of a policy wonk. On the other hand, perhaps it’s to tone down the anticipated hostility, Abbott’s public appearance unfailingly generates.  You don’t punch the kid wearing glasses.

Whatever the motive, Abbott’s unit are guaranteed to be a pack of very busy minders. And there efforts to date have been entirely unsuccessful. We point to the “slow down, Tony” strategy as one that is clearly working. It’s painful to witness but we must console ourselves that its logical extension must surely be that Tony speaks so slowly he says nothing at all. That is no bridge too far. Doubtless, the revised performance plan for the Chief Turd Polisher would be a bonus for getting Abbott to shut up completely. Government by wooden faced narcoleptic stupor has, after all worked well for such elder statesmen as Ronald Reagan, Vladimir Putin and Warren Truss.

Communication is a two way process. It requires a capacity for listening, a gift for tuning in, for sharing another’s point of view, an ability to feel for others, a non-judgemental approach which enables you try to see the others’ points of view. Above all it requires respect for and acceptance of others regardless of their age, station, beliefs or abilities. By definition, genuine communication does not include government by opinion poll, focus groups or the many other expensive artificial ways of measuring the bath water before you turn on the tap.  The opinion poll led government tends to move in ever decreasing circles until it disappears up its own rat’s rectum.

We have been saddled with an incompetent, remote and completely out of touch government which came to power by destroying the credibility of its opponents. The Prime Minister’s Strategic Communication Unit exists at our expense to remind us of the cost of a party that wins government by default. In due course it will be telling us that we have never had it so good. Or anything else really that its diligent researchers tell it is required to keep it in power. What we should know. And what we should think.

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Joseph Goebbels – Propaganda Principles

GOEBBELS’ PRINCIPLES OF PROPAGANDA

Based upon Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda by Leonard W. Doob, published in Public Opinion and Propaganda; A Book of Readings edited for The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

1. Propagandist must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion.

 2. Propaganda must be planned and executed by only one authority.

a. It must issue all the propaganda directives.

b. It must explain propaganda directives to important officials and maintain their morale.

c. It must oversee other agencies’ activities which have propaganda consequences

3. The propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action. 

4. Propaganda must affect the enemy’s policy and action.

a. By suppressing propagandistically desirable material which can provide the enemy with useful intelligence

b. By openly disseminating propaganda whose content or tone causes the enemy to draw the desired conclusions

c. By goading the enemy into revealing vital information about himself

d. By making no reference to a desired enemy activity when any reference would discredit that activity

5. Declassified, operational information must be available to implement a propaganda campaign

6. To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium.

7. Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.

8. The purpose, content and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; the strength and effects of an expose; and the nature of current propaganda campaigns determine whether enemy propaganda should be ignored or refuted.

9. Credibility, intelligence, and the possible effects of communicating determine whether propaganda materials should be censored.

10. Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy’s prestige or lends support to the propagandist’s own objective.

11. Black rather than white propaganda may be employed when the latter is less credible or produces undesirable effects.

12. Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige.

13. Propaganda must be carefully timed.

a. The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda.

b. A propaganda campaign must begin at the optimum moment

c. A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness

14. Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.

a. They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses

b. They must be capable of being easily learned

c. They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations

d. They must be boomerang-proof

15. Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events.

16. Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.

a. Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat

b. Propaganda must diminish anxiety (other than concerning the consequences of defeat) which is too high and which cannot be reduced by people themselves

17. Propaganda to the home front must diminish the impact of frustration.

a. Inevitable frustrations must be anticipated

b. Inevitable frustrations must be placed in perspective

18. Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.

19. Propaganda cannot immediately affect strong counter-tendencies; instead it must offer some form of action or diversion, or both.

Gun running 101: Australia disposes of obsolete weapons in crafty move.

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Australia, along with France, Germany, Italy, Britain is sending arms to brave Kurds to help them fight ISIS. The accompanying rhetoric uttered by Abbott and other vacuous blowhards and petty nonentities who love to get their heads on camera in even a phony war uses the high-sounding noble cause of humanitarianism rather than the more accurate self interest in securing Western oil supplies. Abbott embarrassingly always adds the completely unnecessary rider that we don’t know what America wants from us but when it does decide, whatever it wants it can have. We are making ourselves useful. Not just standing there scratching our heads because no one has really given us a job to do. Because no-one really knows what to do. OK we’ll be gunrunners in the meantime. Great photo opportunities of Kurdish women in camouflage gear opening parcels of weapons from Australia, the ones that didn’t fall in the next village. Now let’s round up some guns we are not really using.

Given the nature of the weapons we are supplying, Australia’s humanitarian spin is even more difficult to accept. The weapons we are sending according to Australian media reports are AK 47s. Now the AK 47 is still a useful weapon – if you have no weapon at all. Or if you are a museum. But against the sophisticated weapons that ISIS possesses make you wonder whose side Australia is on.

The AK 47 is over 60 years old. In contrast to the M16 – and other weapons used nowadays it is inferior in range, precision, firing speed and it is a good kilogram heavier than modern equivalents. Given that forces constitute both female and male soldiers, the weight is an issue. So, too is the range. An ISIS soldier with even an M16 will have over a hundred metres better range. The AK 47 is slower to load and has the capacity to catch fire if used on protracted automatic fire setting.

In brief, a few plane loads of AK 47s are a curious sort of gift from the Australian government to those whom it clearly expects to take the fight up to well-equipped ISIS forces. Of course, it may be clever thinking by some Australian military types to donate weapons that are unlikely to be of use if captured. Weapons that would have a very low resale value on the black market. But providing inferior outmoded weapons, makes our humanitarian gesture seem less noble and more like a type of sabotage. It’s a bit like giving a Christmas present out of obligation to a distant relative you can’t abide. It is as if some official determined on a bit of tidy-up opened an armoury in some obscure barracks in a remote part of Australia found a cache of AK 47s from 1948 he or she wanted to dispose of. You can’t take them to the tip. Destruction costs money. Brainwave! We’ll airmail them to the Peshmerga and other Kurds.

And it is a gift that will go on giving. Having done so much already to make himself and his nation figures of fun, our self-parodying PM has unerringly acted once again in a manner which is guaranteed to have other nations laughing. Or snorting with derision.

Now the forces we are dumping our junk on are currently opening a lot of gun gift parcels. Other countries are donating more modern weapons. Weapons that don’t give you enemy an instant advantage. Weapons that are not an inherent liability.

Perhaps the thinking is that Australia’s effort will stand out. In a stroke of genius, a bureaucrat has arranged a gift that is so unlike any other relief parcel that the recipients won’t feel spoiled. They will see the museum piece for what it is and feel a warm glow of gratitude knowing that the Aussies did not want to spoil them. No. Australians want to build their moral fibre. As former Prime Minister Malcom Fraser would have said killing your enemy is not to be easily accomplished, something you take for granted. Look at Gallipoli. Death wasn’t meant to be easy.

Slippery Slope

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Christopher Pyne is not one of Australia’s most popular politicians. Opinion polls show he hovers either just above Joe Hockey or just under him at the bottom of the nation’s esteem. Say what you like, it can’t be easy being Christopher. Some of, the Member for Sturt brings on himself with displays of spectacular ineptitude as Education Minister, (he makes State Education Ministers look good) or in his behaviour in the house. Calling Shorten a c**t in parliament and then lamely denying it does not endear you to the electorate. His personal manner and bearing do not help his cause. He’s been called prissy and precious and precocious and other ‘p’ words. And it is true that his style does not help his own cause. His parliamentary and press performances are almost a form of self-parodying performance art, a campy caricature of the consummate politician, now complete with new, enhanced technology: Pyne on line. Or an overcharged Energiser Bunny. It would be amusing if he did not demean himself, his audience and all other interested parties. For even as Pyne performance art, audience members are being short-changed.

Yet we must not be dazzled by the spectacle that is Christopher Pyne. We must look past the performance art. Indeed, his own razzle-dazzle can function as a strategic distraction, just as Liberace’s costume hid more than the occasional bum note. Let’s not be fooled by Abbott’s Fool. Let us put public spectacle to one side. The critical issue is what Christopher achieved when he set out to sink Peter Slipper. For whatever his motives, he has succeeded in diminishing all of us. He may also have further undermined, mired and befouled his own government.

What was he thinking at the time? Doubtless, his stiff the Slipper strategy appealed on many levels. In a sort of Black Ops way, attack dog Pyne could fetch his master’s Slipper, bring down the Gillard government, advance his own career and extend a bit of camaraderie, counselling and beer support to an attractive young staffer who was clearly in need of a mentor. And at first blush, it seemed to go off so very well. Judging by Pyne’s own après schmooze text message to James Ashby, he very much enjoyed their meeting. And Ashby appears to have been gladdened by the prospect of a political job after Slipper’s office and the knowledge his legal fees would be taken care of.

Today, however, Christopher’s plan has unravelled. And as it unravels it threatens to take its conspirators with it. First, the full bench of the Federal Court in February of this year found that in essence Ashby’s case was politically motivated, vexatious, and an abuse of process. It was effectively an attempt to bring down the speaker and damage his reputation. Then Pyne, of course, never kept his promises to James Ashby. There has been no job in politics and no payment of the staffer’s legal fees. Ashby will no longer have the costs of his sexual harassment suit against Peter Slipper paid for by the former speaker because his decision to drop the case robbed Mr Slipper of the opportunity to contest the allegations. In the Federal Court on Thursday, Justice Geoffrey Flick vacated a costs order made in August 2012 that would have required Mr Slipper to pay Mr Ashby’s considerable lawyers’ fees on an indemnity basis. Ashby has had to resort to Sixty Minutes to recoup some of the costs. And to get his revenge.

The circumstantial evidence is damning. Pyne conspires with Ashby to end former Speaker of the House of Representatives Peter Slipper’s political career. He induces the young staffer in Slipper’s office, to bring a sexual harassment case against his boss. Slipper resigns after indelicate misogynistic text messages to Ashby are made public. Pyne disavows any wrong-doing. And of course he claims to be unaware of any involvement by Tony Abbott and Mal Brough who both had their own good reasons to sink the boot into Slipper. And, of course, neither Abbott nor Brough know anything although Mal Brough does concede publicly that if the public thinks that he got rid of Slipper because he was after Slipper’s seat then that must be what happened.

After 60 Minutes goes to air. Pyne goes into damage control. For Pyne this is an especially risky manoeuvre. The more he protests, the more he indicts himself. His denials are evasive, wordy and completely unconvincing. Even for Christopher Pyne. He is in it over his head.

With barefaced audacity, he fronts cameras in a Colourbond fenced suburban backyard somewhere, Chateau Pyne sur Sturt, perhaps, and makes an embarrassingly lame attempt to divert the heat on to the previous Labor government. It is farcical, consummate Pyne performance art. Then he sings the set piece from the libretto to his comic opera. It is typically, tortuous, wordy, hair-splitting and evasive:

‘I had a brief meeting, we discussed the fact the Queensland state election was coming very soon, he indicated he was uncomfortable in Mr Slipper’s office and I indicated to him that if we won the Queensland state election that would be a chance potentially for him to get out of Mr Slipper’s office but the fact is there was no job ever provided for Mr Ashby,’ Mr Pyne said.

‘My intention was never to lead him to believe that a job would be provided to him but obviously if we won the Queensland state election and then subsequently the federal election, when you are in government there are a lot more jobs available than when you are in opposition and that if he felt uncomfortable in Mr Slipper’s office, that would be an opportunity for him to get out of the office.’

Get him out of the office is a key phrase. Freudian, perhaps. Pyne did not counsel the troubled staffer to follow normal procedures in such cases. Canberra public service protocols provide a framework and an expectation that such matters are resolved by other means and that legal action be considered only as a last resort. The “Genuine Steps Rule”, a procedure introduced in 2011 requires parties to try and resolve their disputes before taking court action. In Ashby’s case, the Judge questioned why a relatively minor matter like sexual harassment claims could not have been settled another way. Clearly by his own admission, here, Pyne has at best been a false friend. He has counselled courtroom conflagration and led the young staffer on to play with fire.

It matters not that Ashby did not proceed to take up a position in politics or government. What matters a great deal is that all evidence points to Pyne’s complicity in a plot to remove a member of parliament, a plot that surely Abbott and others in the then opposition knew about. Furthermore, Pyne seems to have been rewarded with a cabinet position. For fifteen long years no Liberal leader would even give him the time of day, let alone a portfolio.

Yet Abbott maintains he was unaware of the machinations surrounding Ashby’s complaint against the speaker, or the support of the Daily Telegraph. Astonishingly, Abbott’s press release calling for Slipper’s resignation was ready to print the moment the Telegraph went to press with the story. It may even have been prepared before the Slipper story broke.

Pyne encouraged Ashby to lay charges against Peter Slipper with two inducements.  He offered to pay Ashby’s legal fees. He promised him a job afterwards. Ashby agreed to help Pyne ‘get’ Slipper. He was to lay a claim of sexual harassment against former Speaker of the House. Pyne says he knew that Ashby had been ‘uncomfortable’ with Slipper’s behaviour. He took the opportunity to exploit the situation.

Peter, “Salty cunts in brine” Slipper is himself an odd fish. And certainly, James Ashby also appears to be an unusual sort of chap. You wonder what was in it for him. What sort of job was he likely to get when it transpired that he had acted illegally? What was it that caused him to overlook his responsibility towards the ‘Genuine Steps’ process of conflict resolution in favour of a high stakes gamble with Pyne as banker? Why has he changed his testimony now? In court documents filed in 2012, Mr Ashby said he was not offered or did not receive any inducements or rewards for making the high-profile sexual harassment claims against Mr Slipper. Or could he simply have given up on his erstwhile Liberal mentor and supporters and elected to tell the truth. Is it coincidental that he was recently accused of having sexual relations with underage boys?

Above all, why, on 17 June did Ashby drop the case against Peter Slipper?

He gave these reasons:

Mr Ashby said he was aware of reports Mr Slipper was mentally unwell and he did not want to continue lengthy proceedings that could cause further harm.

“After deep reflection and consultation with those close to me, I now have decided to seek leave to discontinue my Federal Court action against Peter Slipper,” he said in a statement. “This has been an intense and emotionally draining time for me and my family, taking its toll on us all.”

Or perhaps, the more plausible explanation is that he was paid to shut up. The LNP fearing scandal paid him to drop the case.

Delegated or self-appointed agent provocateur, Pyne, would no doubt have leapt eagerly at the chance to help his master and his own career advancement.  Doubtless there was more than a nod and a wink from his boss. Abbott’s ambition to win power at any price combined with his desire to wreak revenge on Peter Slipper for leaving the party and becoming speaker, allowing Labor government to remain in power.

Others on Team Abbott did their bit. Mal Brough, who would step into Slipper’s electorate at the following election, appears to have leapt at the chance to ask Ashby to download Slipper’s diary, a diary which was later leaked to News Corp. David Marr writes:

“Tony Abbott also has a stake in the appeal. He has stood by Brough despite his friend being caught trying to hide his role in the campaign to destroy Slipper. Abbott has never criticised his part in the operation. Despite Brough’s lies, he praises his candour: “I want to make it clear that Mal has been very upfront about his involvement in this”.

Since the 60 Minutes programme was broadcast there has been an unnatural silence.

Christopher Pyne prides himself on the correspondence he has with his constituents in the Blue Ribbon seat of Sturt. He sends constituents birthday cards on their 21st and significant birthdays. They love him, he says. He tells them he signs every card. By hand. They feel relaxed and comfortable with him. He believes.

Real power in Sturt even more than anywhere else in the country has little to do with politics. You would think you could win this wealthy, leafy Liberal seat just by putting on a blue tie. Over the years, however, Pyne has seen his majority decline to the point where Sturt is regarded as the most marginal seat in the country. Now that’s quite an achievement. No doubt changing demographics, as they say, have contributed to marginalising Sturt. Pyne cannot take all the blame. Ultimately, perhaps, as in parliament, to be an effective MP, you really do have to more than act like a politician. Pyne needs to heed the message his electorate is sending him. He needs to get relevant. Get real. Given the length of his career, however, he is either a slow learner or he just doesn’t have it in him. What is likely to happen is events will conspire to take the decision away from him. In a process of natural selection, he stands to lose his own seat at the next election.

In the meantime, Pyne needs to remember his place and station. He is pre-eminently Sturt’s Louis Vuitton manbag. He is Abbott’s fool in the House. He needs to give up the hanky panky and the covert ops. In his misguided zeal he stepped out of role as agent provocateur for Abbott and other like-minded Liberals and LNP members. Now lap-dog Pyne has ensured that his master, Tony Abbott has further tricky questions to answer. Questions that may well prove to be his undoing. Be that as it may, Abbott can now be assured of a place in history for his agency in the Peter Slipper scandal — a covert political conspiracy by the Coalition to bring down the Parliamentary Speaker, Peter Slipper, and through him the Federal Government of Australia.

Operation Groundhog Day

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Prime Minister, you say you are ‘disgusted’ by the beheadings of journalists recently carried out by IS. If only we could take that for granted. If only you did not feel that you had to tell us. Preferred that it were a safe assumption. Preferred that we were given credit for our intelligence. Treated like adults.

Public decapitations filmed for propaganda purposes are disturbing, shocking reminders of the darkest parts of the human condition, the barbarism and atrocity of war. The taunting and gloating of the young men carrying out the executions confront and disgust us. But let’s not let moral indignation supplant our reasoned understanding of this latest hideous brutality. 

Yes, Mr Abbott, most of us are disgusted. Just as we are disgusted and ashamed to be denying basic human rights in our lethal detention centres and fetid camps where we pen up asylum seekers for indefinite periods before they are processed. Whatever processed means. It seems to include untimely and preventable death through neglect.

But thank you for sharing. We see it now. You do seem to have a blind spot. A disturbing moral blindness in many areas. Perhaps you are wise when you feel you do need to tell us. Duly noted. Just don’t expect us to take it as gospel.

Allow your electorate some intelligence. Credit us with some faculty of reason.

Prime Minister, you appear highly selective in your outrage. Where, for example, is your moral outrage over Saudi beheadings of women? Six women have been decapitated by sword this year. The public floggings of women? Or could it be that you voice moral indignation whenever it’s political expedient? When it helps your cause?

Over the last year, Saudis have executed eighty people. Twelve were women. Most were decapitated in public. Last August a mother and daughter were beheaded before an audience of men in a Dharan market. It was alleged the mother had colluded with her daughter to kill her husband. Saudi beheadings are typically not publicised for fear of Western censure. 

Mr Abbott, tell us straight. You don’t have to soften us up for the coalition of the wilting’s latest military misadventure. We know you. We know you can’t resist. You believe it will boost your popularity. In the short term this may be true. In the long term, however, it is bad for all of us. Groundhog day is upon us. Eleven years on we are going down the same track. What’s that? Another war on terror? Again we have a rallying cry. And an emblem, the grotesque atrocity of public execution of the innocent. One again it is a humanitarian cause. It is moral. It is the right thing to do. Righteous. Let us not be deceived, however, it is another war in Iraq. A war that threatens to repeat all of our earlier disasters.  It will be long and bloody. It will create further chaos and suffering.

The rise of Jihadist terrorism in Iraq cannot be seen in isolation. Nor is it useful to assume the moral high ground, (assuming there is any space left on that overcrowded premium real estate). We need to take a broader and deeper view. A Prime Minister’s expression of disgust is his prerogative as a private citizen. And one which will be widely shared. Keep it private. In public it is a risky gambit because it manufactures a spurious legitimacy and identity of purpose. We are drawn irresistibly to don the mantle of the righteous in pursuit of the damned.

The PM’s expression of disgust privileges a reductive perspective. Demonising the barbaric executioners helps mobilise us against them but it is not conducive to understanding them or to any enduring solution to the problem they represent.  It begs prejudging and trivialising of the horrific acts we are being made to witness. We may even feel comforted in our moral outrage, supported as we are by our nation’s leader. Before too long we are complicit in a lynch mob or posse.

The reality is confronting and disquieting. First, we must identify and accept our own responsibility, repugnant as this may be.  For we helped to create this Jihadist monster. Whilst it may make some of us feel good, at the moment, to point the finger, we must accept some blame. Just as we must be part of the solution.

In joining the United States in the ‘war on terror’, we helped create the painful chaos that made the rise of ISIS and similar groups possible. Western intervention caused massive dislocation, instability and resentment: a perfect breeding ground for unrest. Fanatical jihadist groups thrived.

It is true we deposed a tyrant in Saddam Hussein. But other monsters were fostered by his overthrow and by the collapse of his modern state. Demonising helped distort our perspective. We were unwilling to face even the most fundamental of realities such as the huge death toll occasioned by our intervention.

At an early part in the war with Iraq, an estimated 400,000 to 900,000 civilian deaths occurred. Yet Bush dismissed the figures, claiming it was based on flawed techniques, even though it used estimation techniques his own government agencies taught others to use. Instead we were positioned to expect Iraqis to rush to democracy and nation-building. Our willful self-deception appeared limitless. 

Violent sectarian conflict ensued. It continues today. The Iraqi state is unlikely to survive. Together we have helped destroy it. We supported PM Nouri al-Maliki in his self-destruction, his corrupt, incompetent government and his campaign of Sunni persecution. Little wonder, ISIS found eager recruits among the Iraqi Sunni population.

The Coalition of the Willing was our last outside invasion’s grand title. It was predicated on a lie, the convenient fiction that the Iraqi leader had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Other mythologies included the fiction that Osama Bin Laden was the master mind behind the September 11 attack. In the end the ‘war on terror’ cost the US three to four trillion dollars, helping to send it broke in fiscal terms and also in terms of reputation. If Bin Laden had hoped to bring about the end of the American Century, he succeeded. Gone was the mythic invincibility of US foreign power. In its place was the spectacle of small bands of rag-tag guerrilla soldiers defying or frustrating the greatest power in world history.

Yet we are tooling up to do it all again. By now we would hope we have learned from our earlier lack of regard for the consequences of our immediate actions. We do not need to join any coalition of the willy-nilly however well our impulsivity matches our leader’s personality, or however much our great and powerful friend the United States may expect it of us. 

Let us not again jump on our moral high horses and rush into a complex and lethal struggle we don’t understand to follow a noble cause instead of a battle plan.  Let us do some hard thinking about what it is we want to achieve lest we be fooled once again into indulging in the luxury of moral outrage at the cost of due diligence. We need to be clear-sighted about what we want to achieve and how we should best go about it. Disgust may be a starting point but it must be followed by informed and dispassionate analysis. Otherwise like a latter day Don Quixote we are in danger of being seduced by the ideals of chivalry and ignoring the voice of reason. Not chivalry but practicality should be our watchword. Romantic ideals of vengeance will ultimately destroy us unless they are tempered with the wisdom of strategic thinking based on the best possible evidence and advice.

 

 

 

Abbott takes the (yellow) cake.

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Fresh back from Delhi, globe-trotting, Tony Abbott has achieved another personal milestone. He has now racked up the same number of frequent flyer points as Kevin Rudd. He will no doubt apologise to the former PM for his vacuous, annoyingly mindless criticism of him when as leader of the opposition he wasted everyone’s time and tried everyone’s patience pouring scorn on everything Mr Rudd did including daring to travel overseas and exercising diplomacy.

Unapologetic about his past and his fast track world statesman trajectory, Abbott has been spruiking India’s “impeccable credentials” in nuclear non-proliferation. It’s nonsense but it’s what you say when you are between a rock of yellowcake and a hard political place. 

Fortunately Abbott was able to do something useful while he was in the subcontinent. He repatriated a looted statue of Shiva which some Australian had “lifted” and flogged to a major Australian gallery. “Leaner” Bruce Billson and who until recently was widely believed to be Australia’s Minister for Small Business was despatched in search of some signed cricket bats to oil the wheels of future diplomatic initiatives such as asking India to repatriate asylum seekers from Sri Lanka.

Billson, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a well-filled but undercooked Samosa with eyes was last sighted negotiating a film project with a major Bollywood producer for a suitable product to replace Question Time.

“Of course there will be time for any number of Dorothy Dixers, in the new format but they will danced and sung by professional actors. It is just another way the Coalition demonstrates its relevance”, he said.

Making diplomatic inroads into a Rogan Josh, the North Frankston MP, was attended by a bevy of starlets who were keen to be signed up on 457 working visas as personal research assistants. All present fell silent, however, when Mr Abbott took to his feet, proudly wearing a pair of Jaipur Jodphurs. Very practical, he said, flashing his ankle. No need for bicycle clips.        

Returning Shiva to his country of origin brought a winking man’s smile to Mr Abbott’s lips. If you enter Australia illegally, you can expect to be sent back to where you came from.

Others in his entourage and around the table flashed their gold teeth, ivory cufflinks and blackberries, shook hands with each other and agreed that putting Shiva back in his rightful place was a diplomatic coup and a living testimony to the fact that Australia and India has so much in common beyond the game of cricket.

Now I’ve got a bit of a surprise for you, Mr Abbott whispered in Narenda Modi’s ear as he grasped his host around the shoulders in a rugby embrace. It’s not just a stolen statue I have in my suitcase. I’ve brought a bit of hot yellowcake with me. Well, not exactly stolen, he winked, but negotiated by BHP from its traditional owners for a good price.

My God, man, the Indian PM expostulated, wincing at the force of Abbott’s embrace and a blast of Lynx aftershave. His Cartier watch, a gift from Putin, slipped off his fine wrist into his dahl.

We are having Uranium imports from countries all over the world. Even Kazahkstan can’t wait to get into bed with us on uranium sales. But you can never have too much.  The extra could always be put to good use making bombs to aim at China or Pakistan or sent on down the line to Tamil Nadu to even up the imbalance in their war with Sri Lanka. In the meantime it could be stored on a shelf in a local food supply facility because in India we have very flexible working practises. And very many entrepreneurs. Yes. Mr Abbott, we are open for business. It is true we have had a run of nasty accidents with our reactors but the early Russian ones were not very well made. And no cities have been destroyed. We are thinking very positive on the outcomes, Mr Tony.

Abbott’s spin team high fived each other and the wait staff and emailed all Australian media outlets with a release they had prepared earlier. News Limited ran a front page which had Mr Abbot’s photo in cycling helmet on it and the headline: our radioactive PM out for a spin on his nuclear cycle.

Uranium sales to India an amazing achievement, trumpeted the seventy per cent of Australian press owned by Murdoch. On page three, a photo of a topless Bollywood starlet carried a detailed report of a thirty word speech in which Mr Abbott praised India for being a model citizen in nuclear non-proliferation.

“Utter nonsense” commented another nutter on the ABC (probably an intellectual or a scientist) who went on to explain that India, Abbott’s ‘model citizen’ refuses to sign the non-proliferation treaty. It has moreover gone on to develop nuclear weapons outside the non-proliferation treaty. And it is refining Uranium at a pace which is double that required for its nuclear submarines and other peaceful uses. They have no independent nuclear watchdog. Their nuclear industry is run by the state. And monitored by the state. And their new PM is a hawk.

Bruce Billson who appeared unfit for duty was not available for comment but the Prime Minister’s Office released a statement that the Abbott deal was a bold step towards greater prosperity for Australia by an enterprising and fearless leader. Forget the nabobs of negativity in the communist ABC. They know they’ve got funding savings to look forward to. 

ABC news reported that sales will be one billion dollars. No big win for average Australians.

Profits from uranium sales go to the Big Australian, BHP which despite its slogan is a multinational company. The Australian government stands to gain incidental taxes no greater than 100 million dollars. It’s a tiny return on a risky venture. In essence, Abbott has flown to Dehli at our expense to trade a lethal substance to a dodgy customer for the benefit of a multinational. But that’s Bollywood. And Shiva has been returned. Bruce is still missing.

Tell it like it IS in Iraq, Mr Abbott.

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Truth was always going to be the first casualty of office for the Abbott government. During the election campaign voters were showered with lies, hollow promises, empty slogans and just plain hokum. Lies about no surprises. Lies about balancing the budget without cutting spending. Lies about a fair budget. Lies about education funding. Lies and secrecy about asylum seekers. About superannuation.

The government’s lies reflect an apparent arrogance and superiority which is costing it dearly.  At worst it suggests contempt for the intelligence of the average voter. At best voters feel they are taken for fools. Taken for a ride. Embedded with its advisors in a culture of spin, where a convenient version of events is concocted hourly for public consumption, the government has apparently overlooked a prime prerequisite for democracy: trust. Without trust there can be no true partnership, no social or political compact.

Or else, seduced by a rampant aggressive narcissism, as practised by its top dogs, such as Scott Morrison, it cynically believes it can bulldoze its way through the trust barrier, too.

 Sally McManus itemises the coalition’s 282 broken promises. It may be a record for a government in its first year of office. Little wonder then, that opinion polls show a record low in popularity for Abbott’s adults in charge for their first year. And a mounting anger and frustration with a government that appears to have no clear agenda beyond the maintenance of power.

That low opinion is likely to decline even further given the betrayal of trust involved in Abbott and Bishop’s pronouncements about Iraq. Ironically, the short military adventure which may, to his advisors, have seemed guaranteed to boost Abbott’s flagging personal popularity could ultimately cost him and his government dearly. Sadly, it will also put at risk the lives of innocent men and women. 

Yet Iraq also presents Abbott with an opportunity to stop the rot. Tell it like it is. Build on the bit of himself that has attracted positive attention. Forthright is how they see him overseas, according to some elements of the press. Outspoken. Direct. Not a truth twisting weasel who is economical with the truth and who backs away from commitments. Not an arch manipulator with a pathological desire to tell you what you want to hear. Or what the focus groups have scripted. Abandon pretext and pretence just this once. Step up to the plate. Behave like an adult in charge.

Iraq offers the Prime Minister a chance to begin to rebuild his popularity. It will be a long journey. But it begins with a simple step. All he has to do here is step up and tell the truth. Can the humanitarian mission crap. Crap is a word he’s already broken in with regard to climate change. It’s catchy. But it’s applicable this time.

Do your duty, Mr Abbott. Make the captain’s choice. Tell Team Australia it’s all about oil. IS controls most of Syria’s oil and gas production. Next step will see it in control of Iraq’s. It already controls half the country. Tell voters you have decided we need to follow our leader, the United States. Follow the Great Satan as its many enemies in the region call it, into a complex and dangerous theatre of war. Tell them we are joining a Kurdish counter revolution, a conflict where we don’t belong to interfere in the lives of people who mostly don’t want us there. And who will kill to make the point. Locals will resent our alien presence and will already suspect our pretence of liberation as a cover for our commitment to defending the interests of western capitalism.

Or you can call the whole thing off. Or hold your high horse, Napoleon Cockatoo. Reflect awhile. Consult. You pay for good advice. Man up and listen to it. It will not be flattering. But it will be real. And you need to get real. You are making a big mistake. You don’t need another doomed, inglorious and dangerous intervention in the shifting sands of unwinnable wars abroad at a time when domestic affairs warrant your full and undivided attention. You need to pull things together. Call your ministers into line. Let’s be frank. You don’t even have a coherent budget strategy. And your treasurer is not one you can safely leave alone to get the job done.

Come clean about Iraq, Mr Abbott. Its government has persecuted Sunnis for the past eleven years. It has shown proficiency only in two areas: venality and alienating and radicalising the Sunni majority in the region. It has provided fertile ground for IS recruiting. And another western intervention will be just the drawcard needed to persuade the waverers into joining up. Why give IS what they want?

Stop the spin about saving Iraq. There’s not much to save. The Iraqi government is in a state of delusion or denial. They have just lost half their country to IS. Yet they go about their daily political affairs as if none of this was happening. They are crippled by incompetence and beset by corruption. Their army is nimble in retreat.

Iraq’s defence capability is symbolised by the single helicopter that buzzed ineffectually over its troops as they briefly engaged IS troops in Tikrit on 15 July. There were supposed to be many, many more.

“I wonder what on earth happened to the 140 helicopters the government has bought over the last few years,” asked a former Iraqi minister. It’s highly likely that it was stolen by one of the most corrupt states in the world where the motivation for public office is to secure as many kickbacks as possible. Iraqi soldiers who headed to the Tikrit front rushed home after they discovered that the rations were pitiful, they had to supply their own weapons and buy their ammunition.

Iraqi security forces are an oxymoron, a disturbing contradiction in terms. Beyond help. We are rushing to the aid of a hopelessly corrupt state’s hopelessly dysfunctional armed forces, forces which have not won a single counter attack against IS. Not only is Iraqi security it a liability in combat, it is a gift to its enemy. It’s real function is to supply munitions and materiel to the other side. It acts as a virtual armoury, a cornucopia of easily captured modern weapons for IS to further strengthen its military capacity.  

Now there has been talk of supplying the Kurds with a weapons drop. You tell us that our intervention is to save the Kurds and support the Iraqi government. The two aims are contradictory. Have you overlooked the bitter enmity between Iraq and Kurds? Have you not listened to your advisors who would have told you that the Kurds have been the scapegoat for the failure of Iraqi security forces? 

Isis is not a bunch of Bedouin bovver boys who have galloped out of a David Lean desert set to raid and return to base leaving life to go on much as it did. Nor are they about to be frightened off by the sight of uniformed westerners in uniform. Or by modern weaponry. Quite the reverse. Ruthlessly efficient, ISIS has modern weapons already and it knows how to use them.  It is an organised and capably administered military organisation. It controls an area larger than Great Britain containing around 6 million people. It is the superior force in the Syrian opposition. And it appears to be consolidating power over an expanding area. There is little sign of successful local checks on its rise. Syrian and Iraqi opposition is in disarray. And it would relish the chance to have infidel western adversaries to add legitimacy to its regime of brutal terror.

Trivialising ISIS is no solution. It is no lightweight fly by night insurgency as it is typically constructed in the shortened attention span of our media. It is financed by its control of oil wells and by its control of key roads. It has powerful outside regional backers keen to foster any anti-Shia forces. It has local roots and it has had Saudi and Qatari outside financial backing. Monstrous, yes but a monster others have helped to create.  Saudis have helped many Sunni movements in Iraq and this support has been crucial in boosting ISIS recruiting of Iraqis.

TV grabs of public executions are sickening and are guaranteed to get any viewer to want their government to do everything it can to stop them. But it has to be the right thing. Not some half-baked military intervention masked in moral posturing in a desperate attempt to secure oil supplies. If we simply supply arms in a divided front there is every chance that those arms will be captured and used by ISIS. Or other local terrorists such as PKK. Time for mature and deep consideration, not a knee jerk reaction. Less demonising and more dispassionate, rational analysis.  More thinking and less emotive hyperbole.

The place to start is to tell it like it is. The way to be a statesman begins with acknowledging reality. Iraq’s Shia leaders were boosted by US intervention against Saddam Hussein. Their day is over. Their power has been squandered in corruption and ineptitude and by the events of 2011 in Syria when Sunnis gained the ascendancy and upset the sectarian balance of power in Iraq.

The war on terror failed. The result of western intervention in 2003 and its policy towards Syria has been to pave the way for a Jihadist movement vastly more powerful than Al Qaida which spans Syria and Northern Iraq. In Patrick Cockburn’s words, a new and terrifying state has been born.

 

 

Operation Skywalker

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They are two very different situations, in 2003 there was a campaign in Iraq against the will of the Iraqi government. What’s happening now is a humanitarian involvement, it is at the request of the Americans with the support of the Iraqi government,” the Prime Minister said this morning.

A year out from his great electoral victory, the Abbott government is struggling. Lagging in the polls. Very few runs on the board. Still grappling to translate its fabulous mandate into real support. True, it’s had a few wins but generally at high cost. It’s been forced to water down its plans and promises. Abandon or break them. Even resort to threats of raising revenue by other means.

Abbott’s platoon is looking less than stellar now it has seen a bit of action. Joe Hockey has self-destructed, taking most of the ‘budget savings’ with him. Morrison has just gone overboard. Up river, He’s Kurz in Apocalypse Now. Underperformers have been underwhelming except in leaking to the media. Key Ministers are missing in action. Beset by bullies, boofheads and blowhards in Cabinet ranks and overwhelmed by the opportunities of his office, the PM needs help. His own popularity is lower than a snake’s belly. He’s on the nose and he knows it.

Suddenly Abbott gets an idea. He’ll turn his back on the fickle electorate. Spurn the unwashed and the unworthy. Ignore pressing realities in favour of a romantic fling. A bit on the side. A little war that it is. A fetching little military adventure beckons.

Abbott needs the political mileage he sniffs in this. What a gift!. It’s a heaven sent distraction from the heavy collateral damage he and his troops have suffered on the domestic battlefield. And it has an attractive scent. A whiff of macho aftershave. Along with elevating his testosterone, war will make him more appealing to voters. Or make him less on the nose.

Finally, an overseas war can lift a PM’s popularity at home. At the onset, anyway. 

Abbott knows he needs that boost. He’s mad keen. He is reaching out with both fists. Over-reaching. He’ll do anything to get it. It doesn’t matter that he has no plan. No objective. No strategy.

He can talk it up. He’s all over the media with a flurry of reassurances. No boots on the ground. No one is going to get hurt. He’s always been quick to make promises. Gifted in this area. Promises he has no hope of keeping. No intention. Here he goes again.  

His gift keeps on giving. No. He won’t rule out a future military commitment. A possible military involvement. When the US has had time to give him the word.

No Aussie Blundstones on the tarmac? No risk? Mission Impossible beckons. Australians will fly into the middle of a raging civil war. A shit storm. An environment so hostile that no one has ever really wanted to live there. Be there. Unless they had to. Or wanted the oil. But we have a mission. A sacred duty. Our mission is to get the bad guys killed. Because we are humanitarian. We do this by giving our guns and ammo to the good guys.

Of course we will be able to spot the good guys. They wear white hats, ride big horses and talk real slow. Of course we will be able to get to them safely. Our boys will be issued with the best Chinese made GPS. And each one will be equipped with a transponder, whistle and flare to help us locate them should they go, ahem, missing. 

So here’s our brief. Boots firmly in the sky we drop guns, bombs, signed photographs of Bronwyn Bishop, Christopher Pyne’s address book, an audio of Eric Abetz speaking and other lethal weapons with precision. With fiendish accuracy. We become gunrunners for fighters we don’t know, for causes we don’t understand. For reasons unexplained. For as long as it takes. For God only knows how much cost.

Operation Skywalker allows us to morph into missionary gunrunners. We arm Kurdish Peshmerga. PKK terrorists become our brothers and sisters in arms. Our mission will be a runaway success in winning local hearts and minds. It will soothe those Sunnis who cluster round the IS recruiting tables. Those millions we alienated and radicalised in our last inspired intervention when we joined up with the US WMD crusade. The time when we toppled Saddam’s Evil Empire and installed chaos. A chaos which fostered the rise of IS. But it will be different this time.  

Different? The situation is even more complex and volatile. The PKK, or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party has about 20,000 fighters in Syria. As many as 40,000 are believed to be fighting the IS in Iraq and Turkey. The Iraqi army has collapsed and the Peshmerga have beat a strategic retreat. Far from seeing them as liberators, Iraq has formally complained to the United Nations that the movement of PKK fighters into its territory is a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty and said it would complain to the UN Security Council. Washington which at Turkey’s behest long ago declared the PKK a terror organisation will not officially work with them. Yet Australians are told that we have been invited by the Iraqi Government, the Kurds, read PKK and Peshmerga. How can this be true? We are being sold a fictive version of the battle which has barbarians on one side and the forces of humanity on other. Add to this the fiction that the IS supporters are somehow recent blow-ins who can be stopped by military means. IS is embedded across Iraq, Turkey and Syria. We helped make that possible in our last intervention. True they have attracted some considerable support amongst western psychopaths who have flocked to sign up to commit atrocities but IS is a far wider and deeper movement than recent media coverage suggests.

Abbott reiterates that this is not troops on the ground involvement. Yet. Our parallel import Chinese made imitation Rossi boots will remain firmly planted in the rose-coloured desert sky. At this stage. It is a sky raining death every day on the unwary. Yet we are somehow going to guarantee delivery. We guarantee that our munitions will not end up in the hands of the IS. Or any other local psychopaths. Or shoppers at local Sunday market stalls.

Let’s clarify our intervention. We are not just following the US, Joe Hockey snarled at Fran Kelly on ABC Radio National. We are doing the right thing. Hmm … OK there’s always a first time, Hockey but how will you know? How will any of us know?

We are not going to be allowed to say. No need to involve parliament, of course, Abbott has been quick to cite tradition. Christine Milne and Andrew Wilkie and others have challenged this. Not so, sadly, the ALP.

An intelligent move would have been to have broken with precedent, Mr Abbott. A smart move would have been a democratic approach. Canvass widely all viewpoints. Built you a little political credibility. A little much needed political capital. Listen to others who might know a bit. Listen and learn. Exercise some due diligence. Otherwise we will have learned nothing from the past. Worse, we will have shown that we are incapable of learning from the past.

In the past we were able to stipulate our boys’ location. They were located so far behind the lines in Iraq they were practically in Saudi Arabia. Yes it was a token commitment. But it was a safe placement. Today, there is no safety zone. Yet we dash headlong into the fray. We are rushing to side with the devil we don’t know. Why? Because they seem better than the devil we think we know. Brought to us by FOX and SkyNews and US intelligence.  We are rushing into a dangerous liaison in a notorious hellhole. We may never get out of it. unscathed. Never extricate ourselves. But if it takes the heat off you and your government, then it’s got to be all OK. Who are we to stand in your way?

Adults in charge?

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TONY ABBOTT: I am very, very confident, very, very confident that when the Australian people see the Budget tonight, there’ll be some things that they like, there’ll be other things that they don’t like, but they will know that the adults are back in charge and they will know that they have a Government that is capable of rising to the challenges of these times and, on that note, Madam Speaker I ask that further questions be placed on notice.

Thank heavens the political children who wanted us all to be in their image have been voted out of office. At last some adults are running the show again. Amanda Vanstone

 

adults in charge

A year ago, Tony Abbott infamously crowed that the ‘adults are back in charge.’  Standing, splay-legged, cock a hoop, grinning and fiddling with his bottom button in his parliamentary play pen, he seemed unusually pleased with himself. Even by his own low standards. In his first day in the house as Prime Minister, he dashed any hope that he might rise to the occasion, side-stepped any opportunity for healing, ignored all calls of duty in form of any vision statement and instead stooped to make yet another pot shot at his opponents. The Abbott government introduced itself with another cheap gibe. He couldn’t help himself.

Encouraged by Abbott’s lead, his followers, including Amanda Vanstone and others now put out to pasture have mined the same rich vein. The result has been a government characterised by immaturity and arrested development; more resembling the aftermath of a teenage slumber party where having fallen asleep exhausted after some heavy duty bitching and cat fighting, the kids have woken up to find themselves in charge of tidying up their own mess on their own. And they aren’t up to it.   

Outside parliament, Abbott’s words typically caused consternation in some quarters. Peter Slipper, between court appearances, forced to listen to parliament on his radio in chambers, misheard the word Cabcharge and came over poorly. Had to take a packet of Bex and have a lie down. Tragically the only drink he had handy was a glass of Grange.

Voters felt a familiar twinge of disappointment like a bout of arthritis before bad weather. It was  not that many really ever expected better of Abbott. It was just that having got rid of the other mob meant getting Abbott in the Lodge. And on his first day, he was rubbing their noses in it. His vision statement by default went something like:

 Nyah … Nyah … Nyah … we’re the government and you’re not. Add to this the characteristic denial such as Abbott’s denial that he ever promised to spend the first weeks of government in an indigenous community and the dominant discourse descends into a childlike petty squabble:

“You said (or did or promised.”).

“No I did not.”

“Yes you did.” 

MP attempts to produce evidence. Madam speaker turns off MP’s microphone after a few words.

 Pundits pondered the utterances. Adults in charge? What could Abbott mean? Was this another puerile insult, implying that the Labor government was run by children? Surely not. Far too crude. Uncouth. Juvenile. Unworthy of a Prime Minister. Childish and demeaning. 

Did Abbott mean that his government were adults?  Adults returning to take charge? Events suggest the reality is otherwise. There is very little evidence of adult behaviour in his own ranks. Nor does he empower others in this area. Effective leadership requires trust and it requires modelling leadership yourself. It also requires making wise choices in ministerial appointments. The litmus test is Pyne. Anyone who promotes Christopher Pyne fails an acid test of leadership.   

 Surely not even Abbott is mad enough to believe he’s got any real authority. He’s pretty well spent any personal credibility. Too many flip flops. Too many changes of direction. Too much of a whiff of things bent from ICAC proceedings and similar. He’s even used up his novelty factor. There is only so far you can get in politics simply because you are not the party that used to be in power.

 The Abbott government does not appear in charge of anything much. Yet much seems to be in charge of the government. As each day passes it seems that being an Abbott government is to be overwhelmed by opportunity. Combine a lack of capacity, maturity with an absence of vision. But don’t discount rat cunning and the politics of personal survival. Nowhere is this better reflected than Abbott’s abortive budget whose rotting carcase hangs around Hockey’s neck like a dead albatross.   

Of course, as befits those who are yet to gain maturity, Abbott has been assigned a crew of minders. Peta Credlin, his chief rottweiler is not only married to Liberal party president Brian Loughnane, she has rapidly proved to be top woofer. Boss of the whole lost dogs home that is the parliamentary Liberal Party. All members are free to do as they like. But they must get Credlin’s permission first. In writing. And that’s an order.

 What about parliament? Did Abbott mean that installing Bronwyn Bishop as Speaker of the House of Representatives meant that an adult would be in charge of the parliament? Absurd. Just look at her record since. Be quick or she’ll turn your microphone off. But only if you not a LNP member. Then you can say what you like.  Of course if you have the funds and a cause to push, you can pay to have lunch with her in her office.

For her partisan performance and her work with the switch, for her manifest incapacity to know right from wrong, Bishop presents strong evidence that she has yet to acquire the moral development of an eight year old, according to Kohlberg’s theory. Either that or she has entered a second childhood.

 Solutions to Bronwyn’s dilemma will doubtless soon be found. How long can it be before question time is contracted out to 2GB? Save a lot of bother with switching. You only get a microphone if Alan Jones or any other convicted felon on staff as there may be wants to give you one.  

Sacrifices would of course be necessary. Much of parliament’s rich theatre would be lost. The edifying spectacle of willy wet-pecker Pyne goosing his leader at the despatch box would be lost for all time. So, too with a delay switch would potty-mouth Pyne’s debating style be cramped. Up until now, Bishop has enabled, aided and abetted him.

 When Pyne felt compelled to use unparliamentary language to tell Bill Shorten what he thought of him, Bishop did not send Christopher to the naughty corner. Pyne was able to catcall through Question Time, and allowed to stand at the end and snarl at Shorten: You are such a c**t across the despatch box. 

 Bishop, responded by telling Pyne to “refer to the opposition leader by his correct title”. Adult, perhaps. In charge, no. Not even remotely got a handle on her job.

More recently Abbott’s other attack Rottweiler, Scott Morrison, has pounced on a Labor politician for daring to suggest in her maiden speech that the Abbott government was very keen on being distracted from its domestic incompetence by events overseas.

Slathering adolescent insults: ‘you muppett’ on radio he has dismissed as lunatic her insight that Abbott is keen to boost his popularity and his governments by beating up the terrorist threat. Send the boys and the girls off to the Middle East again, Tony to join the coalition of the wilting. Finesse the fine work we did earlier in liberating Iraq and conferring stability on the region. By all means mention the war. Take the heat off yourself and your dog’s breakfast of your first year in government. Are the adults in charge? Or are events in charge of a mob too immature to even behave like a government, let alone do the job of government ? Even a child could you tell what the evidence is to date.

whatever it takes

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Pumped by his recent rabid attention-seeking overseas, Prime Minister Abbot has wasted no time in getting down to business at home. The big picture is not pretty. Abbott knows we need to rescue ourselves from Howard and Costello’s economic mess.  Experts would have told him.

 The Liberals squandered the mining boom on buying votes. They missed a golden opportunity for structural reform. They helped increase economic disparity and social division in the process. In turn, they helped prepare for Abbott’s unlikely rise. Tear up any social contract. Every man for himself. Do whatever it takes to get and keep power. Enable the rise of the right wing.

 Like a rat up a drain pipe, Abbott has bolted up the track on his party’s inside right. Moderates are marginalised. Ministers are gagged and bound. The Office of Prime Minister runs the show. Forget consensus. Just follow the leader. Team Abbott is defined by coercion and control.

 In public, debate is dumbed down to numbing mindlessness. Threats, scaremongering, spin, petty recrimination and blame are this government’s dominant discourse. That discourse can be hard to follow. Talk up the economic crisis today. Talk it down tomorrow. Reversals of direction reflect its pragmatism and betray its lack of a coherent set of principles or plan.

 This week, we are told to fear terrorists. Secondly we are to be bullied into accepting the mess of inconsistencies, lies and sheer incompetence that characterise his government’s first budget. Team Abbott has quickly fallen in step with their leader’s hectoring, scare-mongering style.

 Warning that we could see beheadings in the streets of Australia, Abbott is happy to frighten us into submission and to distract us from the mess that is his government’s first budget. He shamelessly beats up our fear of terrorists. In the process, he continues his astonishing, redefinition of the office of prime minister.  The tone is increasingly high handed and dictatorial . Do as you are told. Don’t disagree or you will be punished. If we don’t get the  budget through, we will  have to raise taxes. 

How long will he last? It is well to remember Abbott’s rise to power. Who thought this weedy, brash, ex-seminarian would claw his way to such exalted heights? Few in his own party. ‘Not yet,’ was Howard’s understated doubt. ‘God help us all’, were Paul Keating’s words. Long dismissed as another clown from the loony right, Tea Pot Tony’s startling rise took many Liberals by surprise. The surprise has abated only slightly, to be supplanted by mounting anxiety. What will Abbott do next? What won’t he do? He’s a skyrocket without a stick.  

There were warning signs, it is true. Abbott  would do anything, he said, to be PM. Except, as he sensitively and tastefully put it, sell his arse. Yet if Abbott’s naked ambition was on the public record. So, too, was a lot of other embarrassing, underwhelming stuff. He freely confessed to saying whatever came into his head. You needed it in writing if you wanted to hold him to account, he said. His parliamentary antics, plumbed new depths of decorum. His behaviour seemed more symptomatic of oppositional defiance disorder than any rational plan of action. 

 The next two weeks will be critical as the government tries in two weeks what it has failed to do since the budget was brought down. Don’t expect any change of tack, any new spirit of compromise or negotiation. Instead, get ready for a meaner, narrower Team Abbott to fight tooth and claw. To do whatever it takes to stay in the game. To do over whoever gets in the way.

Morrison’s moral burden

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Scott Morrison’s performances on television are disturbing, disgraceful and delusional. Even for a member of the Abbott Cabinet, his performances exceed all reasonable standards of propriety. Granted, he has yet to follow the barking Christopher Pyne in the use of the “grub” word but as a Minister of the Crown, he is an alarming spectacle. Is he mad? Is he a deluded, paranoid megalomaniac? Does he suffer an extreme narcissistic personality disorder? The jury is still out. It could be all of these. And more. This week, however, Morrison revealed a vital clue. He has a great moral burden.

Now a great moral burden in itself would cripple many of our best-adjusted. But tip this into the mix of other the other toxic ingredients in the noxious brew that is Morrison’s peculiar psychopathology and you can expect a monstrous horror show to result.    

A great moral burden. What does Morrison’s latest utterance signify? Let’s unpack the phrase a little. What he’s saying is that stopping the boats is a moral crusade. His moral crusade. By putting the fear of God into would be asylum seekers, he is sparing their lives. If they don’t try to cross the water, they won’t drown. If they know they could be moved to Cambodia, refugees will never darken our shores again. Let one or two be beaten to death in camp. It’s all part of the same humanitarian plan. Morrison’s sword of moral righteousness protects desperate refugees from themselves. Asylum seekers’ feckless desire to flee persecution, starvation and death will no longer lead to their drowning. They will stay at home and safely face torture, rape, genocide and starvation.

Morrison’s oafish intransigence, his obduracy, his sophistry, his captious reasoning all make sense now. He is taking it all upon himself.  Worried that the cruel, wilful inhumanity of turning back the boats has made Australia an international pariah? Worried that we have overstepped the mark of decency? Concerned that our lack of charity is nothing more than a cynical attempt to win votes amongst the talkback electorate? Fussing over the diplomatic ruckus our antics have caused us? Fear no longer. Morrison has capered to our rescue. He is our scapegoat.

In Biblical times, a goat would be sacrificed to atone for the sins of the flock, giving rise to the word scapegoat. Surely this is a clue to the nature and function of Morrison’s moral burden. Little wonder that the man can’t think straight. In his mind, he’s under sentence of excommunication. No wonder he can’t answer a question. He’s saddled with the burden of his party’s moral turpitude.  That look he gets when he is ignoring the question, prevaricating or point blank shunning the responsible exercise of authority is the look of a goat about to have its neck severed by a righteous blade.

Morrison’s discourse can be baffling. He’s talks out the back of his neck. He froths at the mouth. He talks over the top of questioners. He lies. Or he refuses to say anything. But you get that when you take upon yourself the sins of the whole nation. You get that when you spend too long in the company of Abbott’s cabinet. Let Morrison keep his ear turned to talkback and Murdoch’s tabloids. Let him maintain that by making life hell for boat people, he is exercising his duty of care. His moral duty. If they don’t come to Australia, they won’t drown. Expect further rabid nonsense and similar messianic delusion.  Until one day when its purpose is served, Abbott inevitably eases Morrison’s burden. Puts him out of his misery in a flash as he kneels beside a busy road.