James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree

Pass the Baton

October 13, 2019 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

Children are striking in the streets and demanding an effective response to climate change, while many adults sit on their hands. It is a sharp illustration of intergenerational conflict, and Greta Thunberg has become a lightning rod for that conflict.

Social media is awash with objections by conservative commentators. The abrupt and defiant language of children protesting at Climate Strike events confronts them. The disparagement of Greta Thunberg in the media has reached fever pitch in some conservative circles. The conservatives appear to have abandoned their allegiance to “free speech” principles, again.

Greta Grief

Now it is everything from “crisis actor”, to whom she associates with, to she’s a “spoilt brat“. The later expressed by Jeremy Clarkson, who in turn was swiftly rebuked by his daughter. Other women such as Miranda Divine accused unknown agents, or even Greta’s parents of child abuse and a school headmaster described her as a ‘little girl’ with ‘mental problems‘. This from people who are responsible for our children’s education! You would hope that an educator would minimally understand how Autism works. In fact, despite the stereotyping by the less well educated (which appears to include old white school headmasters), being on the Autism spectrum can provide one with a superior capacity to focus. As the health site “Betterhelp” reports, “For example, people with Asperger’s don’t have trouble with verbal communication. In fact, many have been gifted with extraordinary verbal skills, some do well in school, and many have above-average IQs.”

Mind you, Greta had demonstrated quite the capacity to defend herself, protesting that, “They come up with every thinkable lie and conspiracy theory.” It’s not like the generational divide hasn’t been a feature of every previous protest and societal struggle, but with the advent of social media, the conservative minority voice has been amplified out of all proportion to their numbers.

The millions of dollars dedicated to Climate Denial funding

Interestingly on that subject, rarely does the subject of the “science” emerge in the conservatives criticism. When it does, it goes beyond parroting debunked right-wing dogma, as it has revealed the enmeshed relationship between the conservative press, mining barons and political parties. These self-interested groups will stop at nothing to protect their vested interests and are quite literally prepared to sacrifice children and their future.

Yet Greta is triggering the troglodytes and eliciting bullying from a notably dominantly loud demographic in our society – Conservative and Privileged Old White Misogynists.

CAPOWM

The rage of Conservative and Privileged Old White Misogynist (CAPOWM) men is leading the charge. Miranda Divine and Daisy Cousens would demonstrate that it is not an exclusively male opposition. #notall[are]men! 😎 Irrespective, the role of women in outrage over Greta, is dwarfed by the sheer numbers of male counterparts.

CAPOWM men feel very affected and threatened by a 16-year-old girl in plaits in a way they do not feel affected by about thousands of scientists and adult climate activists. Despite adults protesting, the idea of children conducting a school strike is seen as an existential threat that invokes a moral panic previously unseen. This “existential threat” is breaching some fundamental principle these CAPOWM men hold to be sacrosanct.

These men hold that Elder men are authoritative and demand respect for their “masculine role” and Greta is challenging the status quo and daring to raise her voice to confront her elders on their failures to attend to these climate issues.
These men hold that woman and children should be subordinate, and Greta is challenging their authority and refuses to back down to them.
These men maintain that they have the right to power and authority, and Greta is building a groundswell of popular power to rise and challenge their “throne of swords”.
These men have always been able to blackmail, bully and bribe, but she is so bold and so young that they can find no means of leverage and find themselves in foreign territory. Perhaps not dissimilar to the British response when they faced off Joan of Arc.
The attitudes of your children’s coaches?

These men realise they cannot reduce this young woman to being a sexualised compliant tool whom they can manipulate to disparage or compromise. Although Tommaso Casalin, an Italian youth football coach, thought otherwise and was justly sanctioned.
These men fear the loss of their wealth, power or privilege or that they will be asked to share any part of it!
These men realise it is inherently wrong to attack a child and are confronted by the power of her honesty. They know they lack the moral high ground and hate being out manoeuvered.

Finally, my eighth reason and one – which when I read online – I initially thought was satire. I searched in vain through the article page for the satire disclaimer. It wasn’t satire! I have seen it replicated a few times now. I baulked at adding this because – while acknowledging toxic masculinity – I inaccurately assumed, this was a minority of chest-thumping men who felt afflicted by this issue.

The critical evaluation of Misogyny

These men’s toxic masculinity has such a firm grip on their psyche; they feel that if they engage in eco-friendly behaviour, they’re worried it might undermine their masculinity. In short, being seen as “green”, is perceived as “too girly”. WTF!

As a personal interjection, I find it quite hard to wrap my head around the last one. Since I thought it was satire initially, I can only reference Mark Humphries or The Chaser’s real satire by way of providing these men with clarity.

Decent Men!

Decent older men, don’t behave like this! And I want to finish this article with an inspiration I took from the Student Climate Strike in Kyoto, Japan which our family attended on the 20^th of September 2019. My son has not missed any of the School Climate strikes in Australia, but we were in Japan when this one occurred. My son is no “Greta”, even if he understands the crisis of anthropogenic climate change. He is a self-effacing lad not prone to outbursts of radical self-expression or shouting slogans in people’s faces, although I have heard him joining in the chants at protests of his own volition. Although, only when he didn’t notice his proud father looking on. I spoke of his attendance at the first strike in this embedded article.

Last efforts to carry the torch for a generation

Casual police presence and peaceful protest

It was witnessing the “passing of the baton” from one generation to the next, in the Japanese march that caught my attention, amidst all the photographs and recordings I made. The protest started with some speeches at Maruyama Park (an urban park known for its cherry blossoms). Protestors formed an orderly procession under the constructive direction of police officers who at intervals reminded people to drink water to fend off any dehydration. Compared to the harsher attitudes of Australian police over climate protests invoked by Government lies, the courtesy and concern of the escorting police existed as a sharp contrast. The chants expressed by the protestors alternated between English and Japanese.

Carrying on the baton where the old cannot go.

Amongst the protestors was an old man in a wheelchair, holding a sign in his lap that read, “No peace without Global Justice”. As the parade progressed down the street, I noted he was missing. The young lady (and accompanying gentleman) who had been pushing his wheelchair was holding the sign. After not finding him in the crowd, I approached them and interviewed them, as to where he had gone. As an older man, he wanted to participate for as long as he could in the student’s strike but had a medical appointment pending. He passed his sign back to the younger lady and left, in effect passing the baton back to youth to carry the cause on. She carried his sign until the end of the march.

Could we perhaps refrain from being foolish misogynist old white men who keep disparaging our youth? Could we be less threatened, by a forthright young girl demanding we pull our proverbial socks up, and take a lesson from a wiser old Japanese man? There comes a time in an older man’s life when whatever effort we have made to better our world for our children, is beyond us. We pass on the baton to them in the hope they will build a better world from the mistakes we have made. For that task, the only thing worthy of an honourable man, is to pass on whatever encouragement, guidance and blessings he can.

Social propaganda or cognitively dissonant

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Voting Values

May 8, 2019 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

Voting is the expression of the rights of an individual to participate in their government, but like any expression, it can be misdirected, coerced, bought and sold. Political Parties understand the role and importance of marketing, propaganda and salesmanship in seeking your vote, irrespective of whether it is in your or your community’s best interest, or aligns with your values.

Value development.

Voting the voice of the people or the perceptually manipulated by the MSM?

For the rest of us, our political attitudes are not always based on careful consideration of policy. Instead, a range of factors including gender, family, religion, race and ethnicity, and early childhood environments are strong predictors of political beliefs.

However, we arrive at our political beliefs; the next question we need to ask is, who in the political spectrum best represents those beliefs. This may be discovered by:

an analysis of the policies and their consequences
an evaluation of the perceived integrity of the political party

There is a range of political analysis strategies to make a systematic evaluation. Though this does presume that:

Any of us spend any time to analyse the policies of political parties.
Politicians can be trusted to follow through on their promises and ideological pronouncements.
Politicians represent their constituents and not the interests of well-financed lobbyists and donors.

Instead of a rationally researched choice, research demonstrates that we engage in:

Bandwagon voting [1] in which people’s voting preferences are reflecting a desire to follow trends and “hop on the bandwagon” regardless of the underlying evidence. [2]
Reluctance to change voting patterns as other research from Europe demonstrates that voters do not adjust their perceptions according to what parties advocate in their campaigns. [3]
A lack of comprehension of essential differences between the major parties motivated by the desire to decrease the potential costs of post-decision regrets. [4]

Why discouraging small party votes disempowers voter's message. — Why discouraging small party votes disempowers voter’s message.

Major political parties actively encourage bandwagon voting. A prime example is an argument that you should vote for a major party on the pretext that that is more likely to win, instead of voting for the minor party which holds policies with which you agree. This argument ensures you throw away your real choices, for a compromise with values you don’t own, for people you would rather not have in power and relinquish your one element of control to power brokers. I can only assume this must be very empowering for someone, just not the voter.

The reluctance to change your voting patterns despite disagreeing with what parties advocate is a common problem in every democracy. Pensioners expressing anger at being shafted by the government, then declaring their continuance to vote for the same party, may seem odd to an outsider, but we know it happens.

Turnout % failure increasing in real numbers in recent decades.Turnout % failure increasing in real numbers in recent decades. — Turnout % failure increasing in real numbers in recent decades.

Failure to comprehend essential policy differences underpins the high incidence of informal voting in Australia of around 6%. The percentages of voter turnout failures and eligible voters not registering has also increased over time, although offset recently by the Marriage Equality plebiscite voter enrolments. Informal vote margins could have changed outcomes in electorates and possibly even the election of 2016. Many are content to throw away their only leverage in politics; protesting that we don’t like our options when we don’t know what our options are. These folk are highly disengaged with the ability to change politics but are very deliberate in expressing their political disappointment.

Left or Right

Other issues are the misperception of where your values lie on the spectrum between left and right wing, or “progressive” versus “tyrannical”. Some other people are sufficiently misled in concepts of political theory to associate socialism with the Nazis or can’t distinguish between communism, socialism, capitalism and democratic socialism.

ABC's insular perception of political positioning — ABC’s insular perception of political positioning

To aid objective rationality researchers examine party policies, attempting to map a parties position on the political spectrum. The ABC’s vote compass tries to help voters understand their position relative to each of the main political parties. The ABC describes its online survey as a civic engagement application, where one can:

“Based on a user’s responses to a series of propositions that reflect salient aspects of the campaign discourse, Vote Compass calculates the alignment between the user’s personal views and the positions of the political parties.”

Its critics suggest it’s an insular Australia-centric representation of political ideology, treating the Labor Party as Left-wing party and the Liberals as Right-wing party. The Greens and One Nations are treated as political extremists. The basis of the perception is that it reflects community attitudes. There is an apparent political reluctance for the ABC – and the “political scientists” who designed the “compass”, – to challenge the status quo or adopt an international perspective.

Democratic Socialism or Nationalist conservatism.

The Liberal Party in Australia sees themselves as conservative which former prime minister John Howard described as a “broad church”. The Labor party still see themselves as a left-wing “democratic socialist party”. Oddly both Labor and Liberal suffer from the delusion that they are progressive parties who are at odds with each other when they are really merely in heated agreement. Some pundits legitimately note there are left and right factions within both Parties, but the party as a whole, cannot be both. Both Labor and Liberal party candidates vote as a whole and discourage “crossing the floor“.

The party as defined by what its policies support, must by logical necessity, establish itself as either one or the other, independent of its internal divisions. As such, I am not interested in the individuals but the gestalt organisation. Also, I want to introduce a more global view of politics rather than the insular ABC Vote compass. A broader international perspective lifts us away from the tedious bias criticisms levelled at the ABC from both “sides” of the political spectrum.

The shifting polarisations of localised political perspective over time.

How the world sees the political spectrum has changed since it was simplistically regarded as American capitalism versus the communist Soviet Union. This died with the Soviet Union’s restructure via Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika. In the latter part of the 1980s, as the walls came down in Berlin, perspectives changed. The attitudes of Menzies’ worship in the 1980s that framed perspectives for political engagement, for men like Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, and Christopher Pine at college, have shifted significantly.

The Global Compass.

Political Compass positioning of Parties in 2016

The internet phenomenon of the political compass did not originate from the ABC but from further afield from an older body of political analysts, who review politics from an international perspective as opposed to our myopic national perception. “The Political Compass” has been analysing OECD democracies since 2001. Their perspective on the political positioning of Australian politics is very different and revealing. The political compass provides a much more accurate assessment of the exact nature of the political positioning of parties in the Australian democracy (and for that matter several other democracies such as the UK, Canada, America, Germany, New Zealand, Irish, and European Governments).

Previous Labor Party progression and direction change since 2016.

What is of particular interest to myself was to review their separately graphed analysis of each year to gain a perspective on how we have changed over time. To this end, I have overlaid the graphs from the last four elections as depicted by the analysis from https://www.politicalcompass.org/aus2007 to https://www.politicalcompass.org/aus2016. This show’s Labor as a right-wing authoritarian party that had been steadily marching further rightwards and more authoritarian until 2016 when it seems they took a back step.

Liberal policy blip leftwards corrected under Morrison and back on course.

It has primarily followed behind the Liberal party, which, although always further right in political ideology at any instance in time, shifted towards the centre in 2016. While this shift helped the Liberals under Turnbull win the 2016 election, the Right-wing factions of the Liberal Party subsequently reasserted themselves. After a challenge by former immigration ministers Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison, the conservative Morrison claimed the Leadership of the party. The direction of the party reassumed the previous course to the Right.

National Party being utterly consistent and never swerving from the path.

Interestingly, the only party that has made no backstep at all was the National Party. They have stopped for nobody including their partners in the Liberal Party. If you are a right-wing voter who expresses some concern that the Liberal party has softened, then the Nationals have compromised for nobody. Neither, for that matter, has Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party.

Menzies & Whitlam

White Australia Policy - Racist & misogynist — White Australia Policy – Racist & misogynist

From 1949 to 1966 Sir Robert Menzies dominated conservative politics as the Prime Minister. While described by contemporaries as the Father of the modern conservative movement he was far more pro-refugee, pro-family, pro-freedom, pro-middle-class as the “The Forgotten People” broadcasts showed, then the current manifestation of the Liberal Party. Despite his support for the racist White Australia policy (which is an attitude that has run consistently through his party for generations) his later dismantling the policy and ratification of the UN Refugee Convention was far more progressive than what is exhibited by his party today with their indefinite detention programs. The conservatives held power until 1972 when Australia reacted to a long run of conservative political leadership and voted Whitlam and his agenda into power. By 1973 Whitlam’s Government changed immigration laws to repudiate race as an issue. Gough Whitlam from 1972 to 1975 shifted the political face of the country sharply to the left-wing. From the perspective of where Australia had been, his policies seemed radical. Some suggest that in comparison with the world stage, Gough was predominately only playing catch-up with many more progressive countries that had already gone down the path Gough was following. He admitted this in his 1969 election policy speech in Sydney Town Hall about education. Though to many Australians, especially the Right-wing, it was radical politics. While “The Political Compass” has taken no stock or measure of what the Labor Party looked like then, I suspect given the history of the movement of the Labor party in the socioeconomic, political spectrum, and it would be fair to suggest it was legitimately a Left-wing party at that time. It has marched steadily rightwards in the decades that followed.

Strange bedfellows

The only significant left-wing parties in existence anymore according to “The Political Compass”, were the Democrats, Bob Katter’s party and the Greens. Sadly, Don Chip’s political ambitions to “keep the bastards honest”, has been mostly lost to history. Bob Katter – while initially a member of the National Party – formed his party in 2011 and remained as a member of Parliament – neither gaining or losing ground. The Greens party, on the other hand, shifted towards the centre where the Democrats once trod, even taking on board as members, former state party politicians from the Democrats.

So regarding the left/right divides of the political spectrum, it is incorrect to think of it as between the ALP and the LNP. The real gap between left and right policies, ideologies, and social causes are primarily between the Greens on the left and the Labor/National/Liberal “coalition” on the right. Not of course, that the Liberals or Labor party would consider themselves in such an alliance, given their antipathy. In 2013 the political compass placed the Labor Party’s positioning under Kevin Rudd, to the right of the National party’s position in 2007 under Mark Vaile. Perhaps discovering the Labor party held a political policy position further to the right and closer toward authoritarian than the Liberal party’s partners (The Nationals) during the Howard years is undoubtedly challenging to some. While the conception of a Liberal/Labor coalition is unpalatable to both parties, keep in mind the Nationals under the Leadership of Barnaby Joyce had marched onwards unrelentingly rightwards and authoritarian and are no longer trailing behind the Liberal party the way Labor has done.

How far Right?

We should evaluate parties regarding their real and current political persuasions in the 21^st-century rather than what they were in the 20^th century under Menzies or Whitlam. The Labor “left” is no longer close to left-wing! If the rise of far-right nationalist movements from National Action in the 1980s, to Australia First, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Rise Up Australia (RUA), and the Australian Protectionist Party (APP), are any indicators, the two major parties are far more closely aligned. The political compass only charted One Nation in 2007 and 2013, but it is evident where on the spectrum it sits. In the absence of a re-evaluation for 2019, we must look to policy changes in parties to determine how far to the right-wing sit Liberal, Nationals, One Nation and Labor. Given the bipartisan agreement around legislation and policies over initial Adani Coal mining support (although there are signs of change recently), refugee detention, Foreign interference, Encryption laws, journalists and whistle-blower repression, Social media laws restraints, Low targets for NEG energy , website blocking, the PM’s war powers, cutting migrant welfare, Aged care funding cuts, costly education, private healthcare, Metadata retention, globalisation of trade, mandatory sentencing agendas, static Newstart allowances, criminalisation of abuse reporting and privatisation of public assets, it is not hard to deduce the policy direction. While they have differences on minimum wage (only recently), marriage equality, climate change, Medicare, tax cuts, Federal ICAC, negative gearing and infrastructure & economy, remember that the Labor party has voted with the Liberals for at least 40% of all Liberal legislative agendas since 2013.

How Far Left?

Greens and Liberals - just who are the "Neo-liberals on bikes"? — Greens and Liberals – just who are the “Neo-liberals on bikes”?

The only representative left-wing parties noted by the “The Political Compass”, were the Democrats, Bob Katter’s party and the Greens. The Democrats being the only real centrists to speak of had largely exited the realm of political influence but have returned to contest 2019’s election. The Green’s have floated around on the left side of the political spectrum becoming more Libertarian/Progressive over time but lately shifting rightwards. The Greens have been disparagingly referred to as “neoliberals on bikes”, but while it is true, they have as a party moved rightwards they are by the Political Compass’s assessment a long way from the Labor/Liberal/National neoliberal agendas. The Democrats and Greens are the closest to centrist parties Australia has.

Beyond these parties, the “Political Compass” has not assessed other left-wing or progressive smaller parties. These would include the Pirate Party, the Arts Party, Science Party, Socialist Alliance, and Reason Party, amongst others. The rise of small parties has been marked, and while the Political Compass does not evaluate them, recent emergents have been summarised in the embedded link here.

Choices.

As 2019 election draws close, whatever values you seek in a party, left or right, socially conservative or progressive, it behoves you to consider which party aligns to your values. So perhaps it is time to reassess both your perception of where your party of choice stands in relation to what you believe. As such “The Political Compass” test, may be revelatory.

The right-wing power Block and what we can expect for 2019.

In doing so, perhaps you might adapt the fixed impression you’ve held over the past, for where the party you’ve always voted for, has moved to in the dynamic and ever-shifting landscape of Australian politics.

If you are a member of any number of right-wing nationalist parties such as “Rise Up”, “Australia First”, “Love Australia or Leave”, then your mainstream preferences would likely be extended to One Nation, the Nationals and the Liberal party in that order. If that is too far right-wing for your liking, but you are still conservative, then the Liberal Party followed by Labor makes a good choice. If you are what many refer to as a conservative “small l” liberal or a mild to a moderate right-wing constituent, then the Labor Party is the only option left to the right. Should in that process, you discover your leanings are significant enough to the left of the Labor/National/Liberal/One Nation right-wing power block, then you have three main options in Bob Katter, the Democrats and the Greens and numerous small progressive party options to choose from, depending on if they have representatives in your electorate.

To many realising that “Labor” is a right-wing party and “The Greens” are the only progressive centrist mainstream party is disturbing enough to one’s decision process, without having to evaluate the real position of smaller parties. The public’s expectations of democracy in Australia are damaged enough already.

What’s in it for ……?

While there is inevitably, the hedonistic approach to politics, on which so many politicians count. All to garner your vote, with “What’s in it for me?”, as opposed to “What’s in it for my country?”! Might I remind you of the words of Gough Whitlam when writing in the London Daily Telegraph in October of 1989?

“The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.”

—–//—–

Postscript.

It is early Jun 2019, and the dust has settled on the election results, and the political compass has scored the positions of the parties, and I have an opportunity to assess the predictions made in the article above. The only significant miscalculation was with the Greens that appear to have moved leftwards but less progressive where – because of the rise of bipartisan agreements between the Greens and the Liberals changing from 8% under Abbott to 28% under Turnbull – that they appeared to be shifting rightwards. I conjecture that the constant references to the Greens being “neo-liberals on bikes” was responsible for a predisposition on my part to make inaccurate forecasts.

One Nation’s assessment was based on only two statistical variations (2007 & 2013), and it appears they haven’t shifted from their position from 2013.

In regards to all other parties, Labor, Liberal and Nationals, they have moved in accordance with expectations although the shift was more vertical along the Authoritarian/Libertarian axis. The Liberals moved approximately into the position the National held in 2016.

Except for the Greens, the political landscape was reasonably predictable, and it is still true to say the closest main party to centrist in the Australian political Landscape from a global political perspective are the Greens.

Footnotes:

[1] Rebecca B. Morton, Daniel Muller, Lionel Page, Benno Torgler (2015) “Exit polls, turnout, and bandwagon voting: Evidence from a natural experiment”, European Economic Review, Volume 77, July 2015, Pages 65-81, Elsevier [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292115000483]

[2] David J. Lanoue and Shaun Bowler (1988), “Picking the Winners: Perceptions of Party Viability and Their Impact on Voting Behavior”, Social Science Quarterly Vol. 79, No. 2 (June 1998), pp. 361-377, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42863794]

[3] Fernandez-Vazquez, P., & Somer-Topcu, Z. (2017). The Informational Role of Party Leader Changes on Voter Perceptions of Party Positions. British Journal of Political Science, 1-20. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123417000047]

[4] Craig Goodman, Gregg R. Murray (2007), “Do You See What I See? Perceptions of Party Differences and Voting Behavior”, American Politics Research, Volume: 35 issue: 6, page(s): 905-931 [https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X07303755]

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Anti-corruption models

March 29, 2019 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

Transparency international’s official assessment released in January 2019, indicated that corruption grew in Australia.

Australia corruption Index at it's lowest point in 2019 — Australia corruption Index at it’s the lowest point in 2019

During the current term of the Federal Coalition Government, Australia fell from 7th place to 13^th place in 2015 and has not shifted since on Transparency International’s index. This relative stability is illusory. The indexed gap United Kingdom (80) and Austria (76) is the widest available for the top 20 least corrupt countries. The width of this gap has obscured Australia’s actual fall from 79 to 77. The latest review by TI was completed by September 2018, after which time new Federal Government scandals emerged:

Paladin corruption allegations,
Royal Commission findings on Banks,
No charges laid over questionable tip-offs on AFP’s union raid from Michaelia Cash’s office.
Northern Territory’s public service corruption charges

Federal ICAC proposals

This prompting renewed calls from the media and public for a federal ICAC to be established. Previously submitted by Sen Bob Brown in 2010, Adam Brant in 2012 & 2017, Christine Milne in 2013 and lately Cathy McGowan in 2018. None of which have come to fruition.

In early 2018, the Australia Institute convened a panel of experts on the subject of the different forms of anti-corruption commissions, generating diverse political and legal reactions. The report’s recommendations remain unenacted despite growing corruption in our governance.

Apart from Tony Abbot begging the government not to create an integrity commission, both major political parties were at least considering such a commission. The Federal Labour party has promised to implement an anti-corruption agency based on the Australia Institute research. In the meantime, Cathy McGowen delivered her National Integrity Commission (NIC) legislation in the last week of November and the second bill for National Integrity Bill in early December. Despite a motion in support in Parliament, it was referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for a report due April 5th. Morrison was initially dismissing it as a “fringe issue”, rejected the McGowen model, offering the coalition’s version, which was neither retrospective, public nor able to make findings of corruption.

The debate has since become what model of Anti-corruption enforcement might actually be useful and agreed upon federally.

Corruption fight as a threat to democracy

How we structure and manage anticorruption commissions, matters.

Transparency International’s anti-corruption conference in Denmark in 2018 made a predictive and correct analysis of Brazil’s presidential elections based on what many saw as the failure of anti-corruption measures. I attended a workshop in Copenhagen titled “The fight against corruption as a threat to democracy” predominately concerned with achieving increased transparency without political radicalisation. Jair Bolsonaro’s rise to power was a cautionary example.

The workshop concluded that an improperly managed anti-corruption body could be both ineffective and harmful to civil society, engendering populist movements and anti-establishment radicalism as manifested in Brazil. Corruption prevention by itself would not strengthen democracy and scandals could lead to:

A power vacuum to be filled by even worse governance,
Fuel cynicism towards politics,
Entrench the idea that corruption is inevitable.

So we need to ask of any commission:

What should the characteristics of it be?
Is it a court or an investigative body
Does it secure prosecutions?
Should it raise community expectations of a transparent clean society?
To whom does it report?
Who is covered by this legislation?

In Singapore, the CPIB reports directly to the Prime Minister’s office, but in the era of Donald Trump, is a direct line to the top a good idea? Does it cover civilian public servants, the private sector, the police? Should elected officials, including our Prime Minister, to be classed as public servants and answerable to this commission?

At this point, we come to the conflict that occurs between lawyers versus political/civil objectives. Legal experts have argued that public hearings risk reputational damage, but interestingly, even the Australian’s Mark Coultan noted that “ICAC routinely conducts private hearings before proceeding to a public inquiry.” He went on to remind us that:

“Mr Sturgess, head of the cabinet office in the Greiner government when ICAC was established, warned that making all hearings private would radically alter the nature of the organisation.”

When you consider that it was Ian Macdonald, found guilty of corruption, who said making hearings private was long overdue, it may be mindful to ask who seeks to gain the most from secret hearings? A lack of transparency will always hide corruption.

Lawyers also express concerns around the lack of the usual rules of evidence that exist around admissibility of evidence to these commissions. For example, lack of available admissible evidence was why in the case of Bankstown and Strathfield councils in November of 2007 resulted in findings of corrupt conduct, but did not result in a referral to the Director of Public Prosecutions. This case essentially represented a tussle between criminal standards of evidence versus a civil good.

Conversely, it has been argued that public hearings play an essential role in engaging the public in democratic processes, and this is clear through regular community surveys. Transparency builds confidence in public institutions and giving whistleblowers a line of sight between their actions and consequences. Whistleblower Rebecca Connor’s mining corruption allegations could have been buried with parliamentary debate and committees. Although, parliamentary committees have upheld the principle of public hearings on several occasions. Assertions of unfair reputational damage overlook the detailed pre-investigative processes that preceded public hearings.

Positive perceptions of ICAC for the people of NSW over time.

NSW ICAC regularly receives approval levels above 85% in community surveys. In states where hearings are conducted in secrecy such as Victoria’s IBAC or South Australia’s ICAC, there is little community awareness, and consequently has no role in building community confidence. The vast majority of the public perceives most, if not all, politicians are corrupt.

The next important consideration is that operational legislation specifies the right to investigate, recommend charges, present reports to parliament, and pursue parliamentarians. The early successes of NSW ICAC from 1989 to 1993, and then later from 2011 to 2015 were facilitated by strong political will and commitment to transparency. A commission thrives or withers depending on the level of political favour. The first few years of an agency being established are marked by many legal challenges to its jurisdiction. Therefore, a dynamically supportive legislature is a must in addressing weaknesses exposed by legal challenges.

Does the commission have funding for a dedicated unit to provide advice around legislative reforms? One of the reasons for NSW ICAC’s success under Ian Temby QC was the existence of such a department which was able to provide advice on matters of legislative reform. [NSW ICAC Annual report 1991 pg 66] There also needs to be a mechanism for independent evaluation of the ICAC’s budgetary needs, as investigations and public hearings are costly.

McGowan or Morrison’s model?

So how do the respective models offered by McGowan versus Morrison stack up? On 13^th December 2018, Morrison announced a Commonwealth Integrity Commissioner (CIC), who would have oversight over a Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner and a Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. The new commission will have the power to investigate politicians and their staff but is not allowed to act on complaints raised by the public or reported in the media. It will not have public hearings and is designed to respond to allegations of criminal conduct. Criminal conduct represents a much narrower standard than what has been applicable for other state-level anti-corruption agencies, which had a broad mandate of investigating misconduct. Grey instances such as Susan Ley’s use of tax-payer funded travel to coincidentally inspect an investment property; Barnaby Joyce created a position for his partner or Peter Dutton’s profiting from Childcare facilities, or the lack of tendering for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority funding scandal would not be referred. Can the status quo be challenged as we sanction misconduct by directing it to internal review?

The CIC cannot make findings of corruption, misconduct or criminal matters. This stands in contrast to NSW ICAC which is allowed to make findings of contempt, corrupt conduct and report on recommendations for criminal charges.

Funding is estimated to be between $100 to $125 million and is considered inadequate. There is a proposal around mandatory reporting of corrupt conduct by public servants, but this does not include mandatory reporting by parliamentarians. It is not clear whom this commission will report to, or whether it would present publicly available reports to parliament. Not surprisingly, former NSW ICAC Commissioner David Ipp described the CIC as the “kind of integrity commission that you would have when you don’t want to have an integrity commission“.

….

P.S. This article is based on the research by Dr Martha Knox-Haly in researchgate.

PaTH to misery

January 4, 2019 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

Internships ideally are supposed to equip young people with valuable skills for the development of modern work in the economy of the future. Yet our Australian Government believes entry-level jobs are logical points for internship training. Why else would Hungry Jacks be the skills development centre for young people seeking internships to launch them into their employment future?

Fast food restaurant employment requirements are low enough in status to be considered, entry-level, part-time or second jobs. It is a labour market with large turn-over, low pay and requires a skill set an unskilled teenager can quickly learn. The businesses themselves are often franchises with a formulaic capacity to direct food production, staff training and profit margins.

Hungry Jacks is such an environment. While it can be argued that more significant skill sets are available, they would usually only be available to regular employees over time. Exemplified by moving into administrative roles – such as managing inventory, training and supervising other employees. This is not the training that would be provided to unemployed interns doing 25 hours a week to cover Christmas demand under the Liberal’s PaTH program.

Social media has been reacting badly to the inclusion of Hungry Jacks in the Liberal’s PaTH program as depicted by this Meme. Having seen a significant reaction to it in my corner of social media, I thought of expanding on the response it generated, as well as correcting some impressions.

Misperceptions.

First. The initial statement is technically correct, but it does imply – incorrectly – that the $200 a fortnight is all the intern receives by way of compensation. That is not so! The $200 is on top of their dole payment. Newstart Allowance maximum is $550.00 per fortnight for a single person. This still leaves the intern with an income less than the minimum wage ($18.93 per hour or $946.50 for an equivalent 50 hour fortnight) and under the poverty line ($433 a week for a single adult living alone or $866 a fortnight).

Second. Because some people don’t even read the meme properly, I have repeatedly read comments that suggest Hungry Jacks is somehow responsible for the underpayment. Morally perhaps, but in real terms, not at all. The truth is more venal, as they pay nothing for these interns and get a $10,000 bonus if they take them on as staff after the internship. These interns are paid out of the public common wealth of our government.

Third. Young job seekers don’t have a lot of choice about taking the internship because their job network provider threatens penalties if they don’t take the “job”. As Employment Minister Michaelia Cash confirmed, “It will be compulsory for all young job seekers within the first five months of being in receipt of welfare.” Like “Work for the dole”, which it is replacing, it is difficult to opt out. PaTH work also impedes one’s ability to spend time in search of serious work opportunities. This is aside from the question of whether serious work opportunities exist at all.

Fourth. Despite some passionate debate on social media, PaTH has little crossover with issues surrounding 457 visas (now called TSS visas) for foreign workers. The PaTH program is aimed at Australian workers on the dole, and foreign workers have no access to this. TSS workers already have paid work, and their numbers are small relative to the unemployed and job vacancies. Their impact on unemployment issues is highly exaggerated. The previous and current existence of TSS/457 workers were primarily a product of failures in education provision for Australians. Although both groups do have a common enemy, in employers rorting of the system for the exploitation of TSS and PaTH workers.

Fifth. Hungry Jack’s misuse of the PaTH program was absolutely predictable, especially in their case – if you look back to 2011 – when they were fined $100,500 after underpaying almost 700 of its Tasmanian employees. The underpayment was over six times the amount of the fine – $665,695 between March 2006 and August 2008. They were a company whose track record demonstrated a predilection for seeking a way to abuse the system. There are no surprises here and very typical of corporate greed expectations.

PaTH’s reality

Those explanations made, let’s look into what PaTH is designed to achieve.

What I am concerned about is that we are missing the longer term strategy about making the coalition look successful. The coalition’s PaTH strategy was never designed to work as a method of employing people. You’ve missed the point if you believe that’s what they sought. Some early statistics showed the initial “success” rate of the program ending in paid employment, was less than 7% of the advertised unique internship vacancies. While legitimate complaints have said that is an unfortunate result – it was a bonus for the coalition if they achieved that. A success rate of 7% just gave Michaelia Cash extra ammunition she could and did use.

Variance between ABS and Roy Morgan's unemployment stats — Variance between ABS and Roy Morgan’s unemployment stats

We need to communicate that the combination of ABS methodology for measuring unemployment relies on certain assumptions. For example, if a Newstart recipient works for more than an hour (paid or unpaid) in four weeks, they are no longer registered as unemployed by the ABS. Unemployed people who cannot declare they are ready to work immediately, whether because of other commitments (i.e. children in the case of single parents) or because they are in a state of dysfunction (i.e. disability) that they cannot respond, are also eliminated. Unlike the more reliable Roy Morgan unemployment measures, the ABS’s methodology hides unemployed people. Being on the PaTH program also excludes you from the count. By assuming they were genuinely seeking to have it work to reduce real unemployment, means Australians have missed the more cleverly nuanced purpose of the PaTH program. The real political objective is to create an illusion of “jobs and growth“.

While not counting the unemployed, you can guarantee the coalition is counting any jobs “generated” by businesses that can acquire workers at no cost to themselves. The business makes $1000 per head and – if they turn out to be exceptional workers – can employ them with a $10,000 bonus for doing so. Free Labor and income is a significant boost for any business. Retail and service business are disincentivised from taking on casual staff they have to pay to manage increased demand over the Christmas/New Year period, in preference for the PaTH interns.

Job vacancies are minuscule besides unemployment numbers — Job vacancies are minuscule beside unemployment numbers

In short, ABS combined with the PaTH interns program is a masterful mirage that as implemented will create the “Jobs and Growth” in all the areas they want it to occur, but none of them the Australian unemployed really need! It is not about jobs but the “illusion of them” because the Liberals have no plan to generate significant numbers of real paid jobs. Instead, this rather ingeniously manufactured neoconservative illusion that is designed to pass back our common public wealth to the private sector. All the while conning the public that they are creating jobs and growth. Entirely predictable as I outlined back in mid-2016.

Coalition employment results?

Poor Job Vacancy opportunities for the Under and Unemployed

Have our unemployment stats dropped significantly after my last PaTH article in 2016, according to ABS? Yes, June 2016 unemployment was at 5.8% and is now down to 5% in November! Have they dropped significantly for the same dates according to more robust unemployment measures such as those utilised by Roy Morgan? Very slightly it appeared, as unemployment measured at 9.6%, and it is now 9.5%! Keep in mind, although, that the size of the workforce in June of 2016 was 12,990,000 and it grew to 13,585,000 by last November. That means 9.5% in 2018 is way larger than 9.6% in 2016. In 2016, 9.6% represented only 1,247,000 unemployed people whereas in November of 2018 9.5% grew to 1,291,000 unemployed citizens. Draw your own conclusions.

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The Banality of Evil

December 19, 2018 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

When we contemplate great evil, who comes to mind? Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Idi Amin, Kim Il Sung, Josef Mengele, Saddam Hussein, Emperor Nero and so on? Too easy. The reasons are apparent, the history unrefuted and the weight of affirming opinions near universal.

We all like to think of evil as insidious, intentional, cruel, focused and malodorous even. Isn’t “evil” patently recognisable by its social maladjustment? That is the comfortable illusion of how “good folk” describe evil to distinguish ourselves from it. So it may be surprising to hear that according to psychologists nobody thinks of themselves as evil. We self-justify actions and beliefs. Folks may hold their irrationality within their mindset, as they persist with the delusion of being the good guys.

Hitler, for example, grew up in a time where he experienced the open expression of anti-Semitism. He didn’t create anti-semitism, it was his honest belief, that the Jews were responsible for the economic hard times of other Germans in the post-war years. Seems almost banal, doesn’t it?

Chase Replogle writes “Arendt coined the phrase, the ‘banality of evil.’ You can define banal as, ‘so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.’ What Arendt observed was that evil feeds not just on extremism, but just as frequently on our banality. Sin works its way deepest into the most boring and apathetic lives.”

We often don’t recognise evil amidst banality as it is human nature to separate “evil” from our apathy, ignorance, “benign neglect”, “thoughtless bureaucracy”, or our an innate desire to please our perceived “superiors”. Aren’t we all just inclined to follow orders? Resistance is hard, besides “who has the time to protest”? Perhaps you vote for the good guys (however or whomever you decide are the “good guys“), and in that single choice, you make once every three years, some may consider their duty complete. “That’s a democracy“, you cry. As though to comfort ourselves we say, “I’ve done the right thing; I’m not evil or fascist!”

Last century’s Version of Fascism

But then who is fascist? Is it what it was or what it will be? How often do we accuse the comparative justification of calling the alt-right “fascist” as being too radical? “Nobody is exterminating minorities in gas chambers” one may say defensively. But recall that Hitler took seven years to bring Germany to war. When was it a step too far?

When he was promoted to Chancellor on a minority vote in a democracy?
When he consolidated the Nazi Party’s control of Germany and secretly rebuilt its army from 1933 to 1935?
When he only talked for years about the possibility of expelling Jews and removing their civil rights?
When he was objectifying women as subservient for reproductive purposes with no place in key influence roles?
When he disengaged from the Treaty of Versailles in 1936 and war-tested his military in the Spanish Civil War?
When he shifted non-german foreigners and Jews into gulags or race specific ghettos?

A thousand banal little steps were undertaken in the decade after the Nazi Party grew from 12 seats in the Reichstag to 107 seats in 1930. By the 1940s his troops were frog-marching across Europe and throwing people into gas chambers. When would you have stopped him or protested or objected in that decade? Neither current parties of the Australian nor American government have been in power as long as Hitler before the war (Jan 1933 to Sep 1939).

When I raised a draft version of the above paragraphs in social media, I was warned, “I think comparison with the holocaust needs to used carefully. The Germans did not just “go along” with the Nazi’s they fought against them until a police state was imposed upon them – while most of the political class stood by till it was too late.” This statement, although, was not entirely valid, as the elite of German society did embrace Hitler enthusiastically. While it is true that some “good” people resisted fascism, as they do today, many others, including Jews didn’t realise the consequences. Irrespective of resistance or because of obliviousness the Nazis still marched across Europe, so perhaps it is a moot point. Contemporaneously the problem is, as always, identifying how fascism has evolved. This awareness is painful for many, as they only want to recognise it in the form it took 80 years ago.

This Century’s version?

Despite refutations of such positions, Perhaps because that was before your lifetime and people are so more “woke” now, it is all very different. So let’s explore into what it may have evolved. Have your responses evolved?

Did you react when Donald Trump seized power via the electoral college on the votes of a minority?
Did you respond when Trump began to refocus on the military?
How about when he spoke of expelling Mexicans and Muslims?
Did his objectifying of women whom he grabbed by the pussy upset you?
Did launching air strikes in Syria or breaking established treaties caused you concern? Paris climate accord, Iran Deal, TPP, or NAFTA?
Did locking children in Gulags and separating many permanently from their parents, upset you?

Australian wannabe

OK, so perhaps America has dysfunctional parallels, but we in Australia are markedly different some may claim.

Our politicians are more subtle and more sophisticatedly communicators than Trump. Still, what were your responses in these circumstances?

When 41.8% of all voters voted for the coalition in 2016, did you defend and justify the preferences system for its selection of what the majority wanted?
When Abbott started spending billions on faulty American aircraft, late running Submarines and involved us in America’s pointless Syrian war, did our propensity for violence concern you?
When the social dialogue about banning Muslims entered the political fear mongering, did you speak in defence of the vast majority of adherents to a peaceful religious code?
When misogyny became a familiar and recognisable feature of legislation and leadership, did you say this went too far and defended women?
When Indigenous treaties were scrapped, and political impetus arose that sought to have us withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement were we at all surprised? Did Morrison’s undermining of Refugee Convention obligations, all while adding to our refugee push-factor in bombing raids in Syria, cause alarm?
When we against any decent moral code not only locked innocent adults and children in gulags for the “crime” of being foreign and desperate but then began actively resisting efforts to provide medical assistance to children, did any sparrows die?

Policies for the people?

Equality in Australia: How we treat anyone without wealth.

On such subjects, the coalition argues that we need secure border protection for an Island like Australia with minimal 150 km of sea between us at the tip of Queensland and Papua New Guinea to fight off refugees. Even though the majority of refugees fly in and by-pass our secretive “on water matters” border protection. There are many absurdly opposing arguments, such as desperately trying to entwine refugee policy with the war on terror. Money, alternatively, is unavailable for the likes of education, health, social and legal justice, wage equality, mediocre wage growth and affordable housing, utilities food or justice. This absurdity of fearmongering about refugee crime suggests we need be strong and prepared for an invasion of terrorism in our population but simultaneously drives policy to make our community uneducated, poor, unhealthy, un-housed, oppressed and socially divided.

So just because we can see the correlation between what we thought was the progress towards evil and contemporary examples of the same, does it mean we should rethink real “evil”? I mean, we all accept that these things happen in society. Unfortunate, perhaps, but “evil”. Let’s try to compromise surely. “We are doing this for your security and to save you from the threat of terrorism,” says our politicians. “You will hardly notice it”, they say. Moreover, that last part is right. Like the gradually heated frog in the pot you don’t mainly notice it, and by the time the pot boils, it is way too late.

What we don’t discuss over dinner

“Isn’t that politics”? “I’m not political”. “I disengage from that stuff”. What was it Martin Luthor King said? “All that needs to happen for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.” Do we by our silence, allow all of that to happen? Perhaps we are too busy to notice the correlations, too compromised by our selfish preoccupations, perhaps we don’t care. However, surely that isn’t bad. Surely that isn’t “evil”.

Amidst the same social media post commentary I previously referenced one gentleman wrote “most people aren’t evil just caught up in their own lives… “ and in this contemporary society this is, unfortunately, both accurate and a misconception.

Distractive Accuracy

“Accurate” because of our history of

deregulation of industrial relations has meant more extended unofficial work hours and strangled wage growth,
financial deregulation, negative gearing, foreign investment and Capital Gains Concessions has blown out mortgage costs
Privatisation and deregulation of Education has made higher education expenses and debt-ridden
the privatisation of energy provision, scheduled generation markets and resistance to renewables have resulted in larger utility bills increasing household debt.

It's not like there isn't plenty of issues to raise, provided we can raise ourselves — It’s not like there isn’t plenty of issues to raise, provided we can raise ourselves

Being “caught up in our own lives” is true because of more extended hours with reduced skill sets for less pay and bigger bills. These are the results of deliberate bi-partisan political policy choices. We should never forget that policies designed to redistribute wealth upwards, increase inequality, engage in a civil war on society using the tools of racism and attacks on a range of marginalised groups, have a deliberate purpose.

Misperceived evils

A “misperception” because as an act of self-protection of ego, we protest that we are not evil, just a little compromised, more compliant, obedient or scared of being socially ostracised, perhaps?” As I said before, evil is integral to life’s banality; it is everyday ordinary barely conscious choices we make. It exists in the tiny, tired, “I don’t have the time“, “it’s not that bad“, “there are worse situations” excuses we tell ourselves to support the choices we make. Evil is not in the individual decision but the cumulative. It takes thousands of bad collective small choices made over years, that lead to the exclamation of “how the Fu€ did we get here?” as we watch border patrol march down our streets, while our “authorities” detain and abuse our children and bash our disabled neighbours.

Worry not, you’re safe!

But fret not, if you never raised a voice in protest, then they are unlikely to arrest or hamper you because you played it safe with your daily banality. You remained silenced by indecision and compromise; you respected authority and the status quo; you defended the need for thoughtless bureaucracy and realised it was too much work to improve your knowledge of history and politics. Besides, our administration is acutely aware from their study of your metadata, your phone messages, your facebook posts, and even your TV set-top box that you’re still compliant, malleable, cooperative, collaborators but never, really, truly, magnanimously, unambiguously … “evil”?

A Climate of Opinion.

December 6, 2018 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree 1 Comment

The battle for climate change mitigation is euphemistically referred to as a “debate” amidst ideologically restrained political advocates that still think there are legitimate oppositional interpretations about it, to respect.

Even the youngest of students could understand the implications.

When opinions replace facts in a “post-truth” world, the result may be that confusion and ideology reign inappropriately in society. The increasing occurrence amidst western nations of the populist right, fascism and the rejection of science have manifest to generate a new dark age. Climate change denialists champions include Donald Trump (USA), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Recep Erdoğan (Turkey), – and further down the list – Scott Morrison (Australia).

The Sea of Opinions

Like fish swimming in the water, human social exchange swims in a sea of opinions. Facebook, Twitter and online commentary in the news media are awash with a flood of emotionally charged views fought with passionate debates, justifying links, populist rhetoric and ad hominems. The truth may emerge but catching glimmers of it, is as elusive as panning for gold.

The other day after some back and forwards over the subject of immigration my temporary antagonist finally resorted to “I think we have to agree to disagree on this one.” At which point I replied, “We do indeed” and more or less left the conversation with him. (Aside from an amusing sideline with a close friend of my antagonist who made some wry observations of him.) It fell into a case of a civil agreement, to disagree. Isn’t it all just a matter of opinion?

The Olive Curse

Well no. For example, my wife loves olives, and I hate them. It’s my opinion that olives are a curse rendered on humanity by unkind gods sent to torture one’s palate. My belief about olives is a matter of opinion. The only consequence is when I get a salad with olives, I pass them to my wife’s plate. She thinks they are a blessing that I am prepared to fork over, whenever I encounter them. Apart from our culinary differences, there are many other times opinions matter and have more serious consequences.

Schools Strike

The sheer crowds of children at the climate protest that my son was delighted to discover.

I spent the afternoon of Friday the 30^th of November with my son at the #StrikeForClimate protest in the city. My son – after canvassing his schoolmates who were unaware of the rally – was worried that hardly anyone would turn up. When we turned the corner from George St into Martin place, I pointed up at the massive crowds of thousands of kids and said, “Have a look, you think no one is turning up now?”. He muttered something incomprehensible, but I noted the smile emerging on his face.

Sequence of events

There are opinions that climate change is a natural cycle of events for which humans bears no responsibility. Other opinions blame humankind’s waste and dirty extractive industries. Unfortunately, the opinions have vastly significant consequences, not the least of which may be the end of civilisation as we know it. Dramatic, yes, but the sequences of the events have already begun.

The prospect of a dire and hot future motivates science educated children

As temperatures rocket and “hottest on record” becomes a catchphrase,

coastal regions are swamped,
agricultural crops fail,
food shortages escalate,
numbers of climate refugees swell,
plant, insect and animal life permanently migrate,
consequential diseases emerge in areas never encountered before,
and the health and welfare of the planet’s human inhabitants are endangered.

Role reversal is hard when one has to ask children to step up into the role adults should occupy.

Another opinion such as Scott Morrison’s idea that climate change is “nonsense” fly in the face of concerns by other nations. If Morrison’s scepticism were true, would mean there is nothing we can do about stopping climate change. If Morrison’s opinions are false, then there is everything that we can do to stop it.

Some signs simply had attitudes of discontent with the status quo.

So these sorts of opinions matter enormously. In these cases, you don’t have a right to your personal opinion divorced from truth, if the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance. Especially if your erroneous view affects what actions we take. As indeed it does in the case of the conservative government who are beholden to wealthy extractive industry leaders who financially support their opinions to profit in the short-term. When my late (small-l liberal) father argued against anthropomorphic climate change with me, I asked him, “On what planet is it a good thing to pollute your environment?” While he conceded the point, there is always the sense of condescension that the older folk have to the previous generation. None so apparent as the criticism of young people skipping school. They were castigated by politicians before their protest over the lack of climate change mitigation had even begun.

Follow the History & Money

Despite this, our children took to the streets around the nation in protest of the destruction of their future. They have no ties to corporate ideology nor are they being paid off by extractive industry donations.

Exxon's own scientific research from 40 years ago has only confirmed what we still know today. — Exxon’s own scientific research from 40 years ago has only confirmed what we still know today.

It is a truth that the extractive industries knew about the problems with CO2 and overheating the planet for decades. The extractive industries were predicting the effects of industrial pollutions effects on heating our climate in the 1980s. Despite years of research and technology advances and scrutiny over 40 years, our scientific research has done nothing else but confirm what Shell and Exxon knew and then actively falsely denied.

So it is way past time we had our kids still shouting about it in the streets. There is nothing temporary or theoretical about the findings: these have been confirmed! We should have legislated against polluting industries decades ago. Our failure to commit to climate change mitigation should be a criminal offence!

Remember Tobacco?

Who is smarter than whom and who are the "adults" in this battle. — Who is smarter than whom and who are the “adults” in this battle.

This resistance is hardly the first or last battle the scientific community will have with uneducated or compromised opinions. Who recalls a very similar “debate” over whether or not, smoking causes cancer? US tobacco companies were well aware of tobacco’s effects on health, in the same manner, Exxon was about climate change but denied it publically for years. These companies fought every attempt to speak the truth. It is only in the last few years that these companies have been dragged kicking and screaming into public self-confession. As the truth has diminished their market, Tobacco companies are moving into new smoking markets as Altria is in talks to buy the Cronos group. Therein lies new issues for another discussion.

Vaccinations have saved lives and eradicated entire diseases from the spectrum of deadly and disabling ailments on this planet. Yet, the anti-science brigade of anti-vaxxes that have a long history of obstinate rejection is expressing opinions which threaten the safety of the greater community and again, our children.

Your right to an opinion

Intelligence is often not a product of age and neither is the getting of wisdom.

If your opinion doesn’t align with the reality, then you need to get the hell out of the way. I would argue that you don’t have a right to hold that opinion and prevent necessary risk mitigation that is going to save lives. Unfortunately, this is what our errant government is doing, and which our kids stood up to be counted, in opposition on Friday. When it is the children (not the adults) in the US, who are the ones standing up to archaic gun laws because they are averse to being killed, what does this say of the older generation? Similarly, it is children in Australia, that dare to stand up and protest because they too want a future beyond the lifetime of greedy, corrupt old men who want to die rich. Who are the Adults now?

And my son was afraid noone might turn up at the protest. — And my son was afraid no one might turn up at the protest.

So no, there are times when you don’t have a right to your opinion and the current race to save humanity from climate change is one of those times. It is – on the other hand – way past time, to stand up and be counted.

Comparative corruption and transparency

November 30, 2018 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

The media and public’s desire for a Federal anti-corruption body and the search for revealing transparency has met with a lagging response by the government. From the mantra of “on water matters” when resisting transparency around refugee issues to the failure to submit Peter Dutton to the High C ourt over his extraordinary profiting from the public purse, the lack of transparency is wearing thin with the public. As the media scrutiny digs deep into the hidden recesses of the largess to ministers provided by government coffers, the public is finding their protests about the “double dipping” of mothers or the “lifters and leaners” or justification of “Robo debt” claims, a tad hypocritical.

The years of shielding the banks from the scrutiny of what the royal commission has revealed, while these same banks donated millions over time to their political coffers, has upset the public. Especialy as they have often been the victims of these banking scams. That successive prime ministers wanted to offer millions in tax welfare as a gratuitous icing on the cake above and beyond protecting them from their crimes, was seen as very “rich”.

That Morrison could claim that he was unaware of the long history of banking fraud and money laundering or saw it as nothing more than a “populist whinge“, flies in the face of what banks have been seen to do here and across the globe. Repeated inquiries into the banks from the Wallis inquiry in 1997 to the Murray inquiry in 2015 and the equally numerous scandals from merely this century, from NAB concealing losses in 2004 to CommInsure payments scandal in 2016, have demonstrated clearly that unregulated banks will always misbehave. There was never any legitimate grounds for not having a Royal Commission, but the government resistance was palpable. As with most cases of corruption and graft to be found in Banks, isn’t it always recommended that one “follow the money”?

Meanwhile in Denmark

Opening of IACC conference in Bella Centre's Congress — The opening of IACC conference in Bella Centre’s Congress Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark

On the international scale, one has only to look at the Danish Banks in a country routinely near the top of the Transparency International index. As the Danish government hosted the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) in Copenhagen on the 22nd of October 2018, the scandal of the Danske Bank was prevalent in the media. The national Danish Chair of Transparency International, Natascha Felix, welcomed the collective audience to three days of workshops and discussion groups. She spoke specifically of the failure of control systems that “allows individuals to steal from the most vulnerable populations in Denmark” and how a Danish bank laundered millions of dollars. The rather ironic timing of Denmark holding this conference and their banking scandal was a subject that came up many times in the course of discussions that followed. The illusion that Denmark was immune to the sin of corruption because of its view that it was an isolated island of progressive values, had been dealt a significant blow. Natascha Felix noted that while Denmark had often been at the top of the Transparency International index, “it doesn’t mean that power and access doesn’t corrupt the Danes.”

Natascha Linn Felix presenting at the opening of the 18th IACC

One of Natascha’s important opening points was that “when it comes to corruption there is so much more at play than rules and regulations and procedures”. For example, locking people in German gulags in the mid-1940s was legal whereas smuggling Jewish people out of Germany was illegal. In a contemporary example, locking up asylum seekers – who have no criminal charges laid against them – in gulags has been legal for years in Australia. Current illegalities have echoes of the German past. When even so much as reporting crimes committed against “legally innocent people” while working in these gulags, is illegal, the roles of values and ethics that transcend laws of convenience are significant. Corruption and oppression championed by poorly drafted laws and regulations, does not make the actions of governments less corrupt.

Australia’s Fall.

Abdullah Al Dardari answering questions in the Conflict and Development workshop,

Australia held the enviable position of being 7th in the world in the Transparency index in 2013, but since the coalition government has been in power, we have dropped to 13th. This is still an enviable position, especially after I was confronted by a response about that fall, by the former Syrian Minister, Abdullah Al Dardari. While on a panel in a workshop at the IACC conference, he gave an amused response to my query about how Australia should proceed. “I will take Australia at any time now … this is a different planet, what you are talking about … 13th, [we’ve] never been 150th”. While many in the audience laughed, context on the international scale can be quite sobering. (Just in case you were curious, Syria comes at 178th, so you can see why the ex-minister suggested my concerns were “from another planet”.) Still, we are not without our battles to seek better from our governments regarding transparency and the absence of corruption.

As Denmark and our own experience demonstrate, being amidst the top end of the transparency index doesn’t mean our governments and banks and institutions will not make every effort to “rob you blind” and quite literally, “rob the dead”.

What we may never of heard.

Corruption still holds sway in robust democracies with independent judicial and media oversight. Were we in Syria, it is unlikely we would even hear of banking scandals, much less have any official inquiries. Nor might we have heard that Peter Dutton made $5.63 million from direct subsidisation of his childcare facilities for which he voted. Perhaps it didn’t occur to him there was a conflict of interest? Nor might we have heard of his submission to build a third childcare unit, which is a remarkable interest in children despite his ongoing and robust resistance to other children in his care receiving medical care. Perhaps his interest is not the children, one might speculate?

Helicopter scandals, perks & privileges should face ICAC

Nor might we hear about:

Bronwyn Bishop’s questionable use of helicopters;
The $443 million been given to six people in a laughably named group called the “Barrier Reef Foundation” to get rid of money that might jeopardise an “on paper” budget surplus proposal;
Tony Abbott’s enormous expenses claims, or just about any politician’s expenses nowadays;
Susan Ley’s coincidental and very rapid decisions on the purchase of Goldcoast property while funded by parliamentary travel entitlements;
Assistant treasurer, Stuart Robert’s family company, in receipts of 356 government contracts worth more than $37 million;
Or again, Stuart Robert’s elephantine internet bills;
David Gillespie’s postal office profits which were the subject of an unsuccessful reference by Labor to the High Court.

I am stopping here although I am sure dear reader you can find many more.

Whereas attempts to pork barrel electorates whether it be Barnaby Joyce or a Wentworth by-election will always receive high publicity under any regime as long as it was positive and complimentary. Negative stories like Joyce’s condemnation of women to cervical cancer deaths would, of course, be wholly suppressed where less robust protections for journalists exist.

We are not Sryia, but…

Corruption is multifaceted and has high-level impacts of any country, and even if we are not the worst, we are infected by its influence.

So we are not Syria. We do hear of, or have a public reaction to, and legal stoushes over, the apparent corrupt conduct of our political leaders, banks and institutions. And with respect to Abdullah Al Dardari’s entirely appropriate observation that we in Australia are “on a different planet”, compared to what he has had to battle in his roles in Syria and later the United Nations, it is a fight none of us should relinquish because there are darker shades of grey. To have fallen to 7th to 13th on the international transparency index – although to over a hundred other nations that is still enviable – it is indicative of a systematic weakening of our democracy. We are on a downward track which our government is responsible for, as are we who do not hold them accountable. We are a lucky country compared to so many, and ours is an elevated state we have taken for granted. For a long time, we’ve remained politically disengaged, proud of apolitical inclinations, unwilling to take stand over the dinner table on behalf of the struggle of others, lest we offend our privileged white neighbours. We have paid scant attention to the slippage that once it gains momentum, will career downwards unless we put our backs against our pedestal and push hard.

Climate Recalcitrance

October 11, 2018 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

“Recalcitrant” is what Prime minister Keating once described Malaysian prime minister Dr Mahathir over economic considerations with APEC. In this century, “recalcitrance” has become a term more readily applied to the current persistently pro-coal conservative Government over issues of ecology.

Global NDA conference @ Hyatt, Incheon, South Korea

On the 8th of October 2018, as I was leaving Korea, I noted the first Green Climate Fund’s Global NDA Conference at the Hyatt Conference Halls had commenced next door to where I had been staying.

Having addressed climate and economic policy failures by the Australian Government recently, I became interested in how these representatives of the global community were discussing climate investment opportunities to facilitate the reduction efforts against greenhouse gas emissions.

https://twitter.com/climatechangec1/status/1049466838684495872

Later the next day, I learned that during the opening sessions it was reported that Thelma Krug, the Vice Chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said “The IPCC report is a bridge between the science and policymakers – limiting the temperature increase to 1.5℃ is not impossible,”

At the same conference, Jim Skea, Co-Chair of the IPCC Working Group noted, “Limiting warming to 1.5ºC is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes.”
There was an evident emergence of urgency arising within this conference that repeatedly referenced the IPCC Special Report of Global Warming. It is only with immediate and focused effort can we prevent global temperatures rising above 1.5°C. (The report is available at http://ipcc.ch/report/sr15/ which includes its summary for policymakers.)

The question on everyone’s mind is, of course, are we up to that challenge and can we do it in time? It is well observed in literature and public commentary that the greatest obstacle to adoption of climate change mitigation is not the science, but the political policymakers and their conservative media support. Notable is their reluctance to take scientific advice over significant business lobbying and financial donations. Hence the desire to either shift the climate change discussions away from the political arena or build a “bridge” the economic policymakers of the world have to cross. The later is what the IPCC report attempts to address.

Back in Australia, the IPCC report bridge to our policymakers seems to have suffered the same fate as that of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen in 1945 at the end of World War 2. It similarly, has been captured by allied forces (western political democracies such as Australia and America), and they are hell-bent on no one crossing it. Hopefully destroying that metaphysical bridge will be as difficult as was the physical one. Although that analogy is troublesome because when they eventually destroyed the Ludendorff Bridge, it was never rebuilt.

Regarding climate change mitigation policies, legislation, measures and institutions the CLIM index (for measuring these factors comparatively for 95 countries) places Australian 55th in the world somewhere after Mongolia and Egypt but doing marginally better than Belarus and Uzbekistan both of whom have economies that are heavily based on fossil fuels. Just as a point of comparative interest, the United States is 45th in the world.

Meanwhile back in South Korea (18th on the CLIM index), the participants at the Global NDA Conference know that the South Pacific and Asian regions have the most to lose if climate change is not mitigated. Across the continent from the Korean NDA conference, the South China Morning Post had previously reported.
“Australia’s new prime minister will not revive plans to embed carbon emissions targets in law, a thorny issue that triggered the ousting of his predecessor in a party coup.” It is not merely a matter of “revival” of policy plans but hostility to even considering implementing any. Pressure by the Institute of Public Affairs (the policy lobbying arm of the Liberal conservatives) to exit the Paris Climate agreement is exemplified by their policy propaganda piece, “Why Australia must exit the Paris Climate Agreement”.

In the early history of that “party coup”, it was evident the conservatives held out hope that Dutton’s potential rise to power meant an end to the Paris Climate accords. While the emerging choice of Prime Minister, Scott Morrison has ruled out exiting the Paris Climate accord, he has decided to deny any further funding to the global climate fund. Claiming in an interview; “I’m not going to spend money on global climate conferences and all that nonsense.” So I can assume it is safe to imagine that the Australia government was not contributing to the NDA conference in Korea, despite Australians having contributed to the IPCC report.

Strong opinions held by Malcolm Turnbull

Australia’s recalcitrance in following the leadership of European and British nations in preference for American policy adherence is disheartening and irresponsible. The failure of leadership on climate change by Australian Politics is well recognised even abroad in other countries. Ironically, the delays on mitigating climate change risks instituted by one Australian Prime Minister had previously been considered a luxury we could not afford.

While the political ideology denies the science in preference for economic overtures and lobbying of financially significant fossil fuel interests, the future of the planet and our collective ability to survive climate change is at stake.

Back on October 9th the Deputy prime minister and leader of the National Party, Michael McCormack stated:
“I’m very much supportive of the coal industry. I understand the IPCC report, and I’ll certainly consider what it has to say, but the fact is coal mining does play an important part of our energy mix in Australia and will do so going forward. [The government is not about to change policy] just because somebody might suggest that some sort of report is the way we need to follow and everything that we should do.”
Since the report has emerged, the government has not backed down from this position and confirmed their rejection of the IPCC report to back away from coal power over the next 30 years.

The consequences of heating up the planet — The consequences of heating the planet

For a country replete in land and sunlight for setting up solar power generation, the excuses against transitioning our energy supply are feeble. Options include intermittent power supplies provided by solar panels, to the 24-hour power supply of solar reflectors heating molten salts, Wind and geothermal, although intermittent, backed by the hugely successful battery storage exemplified by the much faster supply response by the South Australian Tesla batteries set up by Elon Musk, is also potentially plentiful. Scotland expects to harvest all its electricity via renewable means by 2020 and California expects to be complete by 2045. While this nation and state had both different starting points, what has made the difference is not technology, but a political imperative to pursue the goal to not continue to heat the planet.

We have untapped employable resources in Australia, with already 2.383 million people under and unemployed and not enough job vacancies to absorb even 8% of that number. We have the educational resources with 42 universities and 59 TAFE institutions dispersed across metropolitan and regional areas of Australia. This is, despite a concerted effort by conservatives, to restrict access to education. Spending money on innovation, employment and educational resources to boost climate change mitigation infrastructure is a clear growth strategy for our economy, according to the Treasury. Other Nations have demonstrated evidence that climate mitigation has been economically prosperous. What we don’t have, is the political will to act to survive anthropomorphic climate change.

Fear mongering about climate change mitigation by the Liberals, the IPA and mining/coal lobbyists is not based on evidence or the examples of nation-states on this planet. Climate change disharmony (evidenced by increasing global heatwaves, and abnormal climate events) on the other hand, are increasingly apparent. Scientists and experts at these conferences have for decades repeatedly warned us, time is running out, and we need to act soon and fervently. If big business lobbying and political ideology are all that stands in the way of averting a climatic breakdown, then we as Australians need to vote out of office anyone who even remotely risks the future of our planet, in preference for greed and power.

The wages of pollution is tax

September 14, 2018 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

How is it that recent parliamentary bloodletting over tax breaks and electricity pricing continues to detract from steady planetary exsanguination? Are we now to accept that farm tours, milk levies and infrastructure spends are to be the ready tourniquets for our Australian economy? The political focus on Tax breaks to increase wage rates while the world’s climate renders economics a mute subject, for a planet less habitable, is a distraction we probably can’t afford long-term. The political rhetoric around these subjects is diversionary, and there is little truth expressed in the alleged relationships between these subjects.

Taxes for wages while climate destroys economies

Coming Out

July 4, 2018 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree 1 Comment

As a fervent lobbyist for the Marriage Equality movement, or in the past a Musical Theatre performer or before that a male dancer in everything from Ballet to Rock n Roll, the tag of “Gay” has followed me for much of the latter half of my life. So is now the time to be coming out? I still do a regular Tap Dance Classes even though at times my feet reflect my years with grumbles of “let me know when your admitting your age and giving this up”.

My very first words in the Guardian - on a veggie planter box — My very first words in the Guardian – on a veggie planter box

An associate on a Facebook page now called “Equality for LGBTIQ Australians” sent a message to me. The renaming of the group is one I am accredited with having suggested when it’s original identification with the marriage equality debate was over because we won that fight in parliament. He asked if I would submit a few words about “coming out” as part of a call for submission for an anthology called “Growing up queer in Australia“. As usual, I was both flattered and took pride (if I may use that word) in earning yet again, the suspicion that I must be “gay”. The truth is, I am not! Not that I haven’t had some misgivings about that in the past, but I will tell that story later herein. I belong to that common garden variety “heterosexual married man with a female wife and a child living in suburbia” class. Well, perhaps not “common garden variety” but “straight” nevertheless. A “coming out” story of sorts, I can, although, provide which carried me from a North Queensland boy in the heartland of rampant proudly anti-gay heterosexuality to the fervent lobbying for marriage equality evident in the history or articles here in my blog and other media publications.

The Deep North

Brought up in the deep North of Queensland and North Western outback schooling where the suggestion that you might be “gay” was an insult, I never thought I would consider the tag of gay as something I might take as a point of pride. One boy in our school amongst the mullock heap of Charters Towers‘ former gold fields, did associate himself with that tag. Alan was a long and skinny lad whom I often suspect made that claim more out of a desire for notoriety and a desire be noticed. Nobody was ever sure if he was, but he certainly got noticed and not in a kind way. Boarding schools in the deep west between Townsville and Mount Isa were not places where comradery and tolerance were features of the schoolboy culture. Teachers still canned students for misbehaviour and these teachers were rated by students by how much blood they could draw in canning. Students, encouraged by an atmosphere of abuse, provided a reflected pattern of pain upon anyone that was classified in any manner as different. In my case, it was a congenital physical disability with my feet, and in Alan’s case, he claimed to be gay. Bullying was just something you lived with, and the only relief was the short few weeks you spent at home between terms. I felt sorry for Alan, and I thought, if it is true, this was not the place to “come out”. After extensive surgery at 17 at least my feet could pass for “normal”, and I would never need orthotic calipers again. The subsequent sporting achievements that I pushed myself through gained me some small respect and a little less of the usual schoolboy oppression. Alan’s claims diminished over time, and he left the school, and I never saw him again. I never returned to Charters Towers and never responded to any of the “old boy reunion” treaties that followed me around for many years after that.

College

College life at University was a sudden immersion into a level of freedom, I’d never experienced before, and on reflections years later would describe my first year as “fun”, going wild with the consequential failures in some course subjects. I settled down thereafter and completed my degree over a longer time than the university normally allocated for it. Part of the settling influences was the local Uniting Church and a fellowship of what would be, lifelong friends. The Uniting Church was gaining a reputation as the “rainbow church” because of their social justice agenda that supported the Gay community. Despite that, I still held a perspective that being tagged as “gay” was something to be avoided. I honestly don’t believe I was ever comfortable with the more ardent evangelical opinion of some college evangelicals, that being gay was a “God-ordained hated sin“, but by the same token, I wasn’t defending the gay community either. Then on a holiday visit to Brisbane, a friend offered me a stay overnight at a home of a lesbian couple. I was pre-warned and told not to “freak out” at witnessing any “affection” as people of a religious persuasion were want to do. I was a typical poor student and free lodgings for the night was never to be refused. They were not weird or unusual and were delightful hosts, and I left wondering, why all the fuss?

Dancing my feet off

After College, I moved to Brisbane and resumed dancing which had more to do with the disability I had been born with, than any emerging gay leanings. Part of my early childhood therapy my mother put me through, was being taught an “adjusted” form of ballet by Anne Roberts. As an adult, I eventually did private training and competed in dance competitions and emersed myself in the world of dance continually challenging myself to see how far a person with my remaining foot disabilities could take it before someone realised I was a fraud. In Sydney, I took up Ballet, Jazz, Ballroom, Tap dance, Rock n Roll and eventually competed in state and countrywide competitions earning merits and in some cases, later winning open level competitions in Pas de Deux and Rock n Roll. I would dance with as many as three dance partners at any time in different dance styles each week. I would later go into the auspices of musical theatre and perform on stage to dance and sing for appreciative audiences. Following that, I would teach & run a “disabled” dance project for seven years. You can probably begin to see why the tag of “gay” began to follow me. In the meantime, I revelled in being able to move on my feet in a manner which doctors long ago had cautioned my mother, was an impossible dream.

Tagging

In the midst of all that, the “gay” tag arose with frequency. One partner with whom I danced for six years, finally asked me after our first three months as partners, whether I was gay. I was both amused she hadn’t figured out I wasn’t but complimented that she thought I must be. She was a Pas de Deux partner with whom intimate physical handling was part and parcel of our choreography. Together we later won the South Pacific Dance championships in Pas de Deux held in Sydney in 1994 to which my entire family were witness. Our choreographer told me she saw my tearful mother crying in the stands. A Jazz ballet choreographer I had was mentored by for nearly two years asked my “jazz” partner whom I’d been dancing with all that time, the same question about my gay status. Kylie burst out laughing while denying the assumption. It had been asked behind my back, and when I later asked what she had been laughing at, she told me. I thought that was cool.

For me, the point at which I shifted from my North Queensland biases with finality was the very first “Stamping Ground” men’s dance festival. It ran as a dominantly men’s dance festival for two weeks in Bellingen, NSW, for ten consecutive years. I attended every one, but the first one was the game changer or the point at which I “came out” from my fear and bigotry. Being the only male in some dance schools where there would be as many as 20 adult female dancers was a lesson in holding one’s tongue when a degree of “sexism” occurred from time to time. Because I was a guy, in what some women, felt was an intrusion on their domain. Others like the Dance Captain held me with a different perspective. One evening during rehearsals and the frequent calls for the “girls” to perform better and stop “marking” the routine, I coughed loudly in an attempt to bring to her attention, I was not a girl. Donna turned to me and said, “You’re just one of the girls, get over it”. Not unlike the status that was given to me by the militant lesbian conclave, with which my girlfriend regularly hung out. Over dinner in an Italian cafe, they decided to tag me with the moniker “honourary lesbian” as an induction concession into their community.

Stamping Ground

So when Peter Stock in Bellingen decided to run a men’s dance festival, I enrolled the moment I heard about it. The initial 100 men in attendance were predominately from Melbourne Dance companies (probably because that is where Peter had a dance history) and the teaching was a smorgasbord of styles and opportunities. I revelled in not being a minority, and the guys were predominately fabulous, intelligent, energetic, talented, encouraging, and … gay as all hell. I found myself conflicted. The turning point for me was late one night lying in the dark in a lower bunk in the local backpackers. I couldn’t sleep as I wrestled with how attracted to these men I felt. Did that mean I was gay? Then something happened I have never forgotten. I was in the mixed bunk room, presumably because the owners probably thought a male dancer had to be gay and therefore a safe occupant to share a room with members of the opposite sex. A young and beautiful Scandinavian girl climbed back down the upper bunk ladder opposite my bunk, clad in only white underpants and bra. Suddenly distracted from my brooding, I watched her descend and head off to the bathroom. I suddenly laughed at myself and whispered, “Nope, I’m just fine as I am“. I just thought these guys I danced with were great and I enjoyed their company as dancers and men. Frankly, they were men of better character than a lot of the heterosexual men I encountered in the dance halls, who often confessed they were not there because they revelled in the joy of dance, but simply to “meet” women. I rolled over and went to sleep, finally at peace. I never saw the young scantily clad Scandinavian girl again. But whoever you were, “thank you!”

The Flatmate

Years later a woman applied to a flatmate matching agency looking for a vetted person with which to share a house. She phoned me upon being matched via the agency’s profile matching program. But we had trouble arranging an appointment because of my musical theatre rehearsal schedule. On the day she did arrive, she met me outside on the footpath just as I was saying farewell to an occasional ballet partner from Bellingen who had stayed the weekend. I shepherded her through the garage which had been converted into a dance studio complete with mirrors, sprung floor, ballet bars, wallpaper displaying ballerinas dancing and a mirror ball twirling from the centre of the studio. My Cat rushed past her legs, and I introduced the multicoloured short-haired tortoiseshell cat to her as “Sarafina“, named after an African dancer. Her first thought was “GAY!”. Absolutely and verifiably! Perfectly safe to move in with this prospective flatmate.

Two years later we were married in the Uniting Church in Bellingen and on that day, two men (a gay couple of several years) stood beside us in our wedding party, to support our vows to one another. We deliberately changed the phrase “man and a woman” to “two people” in our vows, officiated by the Uniting Church minister from my college years. The two men were her best friends, and they have been lifelong friends to both of us before and since. It was for them that my wife wanted to have our vows changed from the “standard”. Over the years even though these friends have moved to Melbourne, we have encouraged each other’s respective relationships, tackling the concerns that the struggles of relationships we mutually often encounter. We stay in one another’s houses when we are in each other’s respective cities and have honoured the bonds that have held each other together. It was for them that I have written and argued and lobbied for marriage equality over the years because I dreamed of the day when we could both stand beside them as they took their vows, and make promises to uphold their marriage, as they had done for us.

Finally the end game.

It was a cool Saturday afternoon in June 2018 when in the halls of Montsalvat in Melbourne, when the celebrant asked myself and my wife, “Who gives these two men to be married?” My wife and I replied simultaneously, “I do!“. Dressed in a white suit, not unlike the one his dad was wearing, I watched with pride as my small son stepped forward as “ring bearer” to hand the rings to our two friends. After two decades of being together, they could finally marry. It was my privilege to be a part of their wedding, and a long-held ambition which if you look through my blog you will find was clearly articulated as the reason I defended Marriage Equality and repudiated the postal survey across all manner of feeble excuses by the political, religious, libertarian and just plain unthinking list of obstructors. As darkness descended on Montsalvat and the joyous sounds of over a hundred guests revelling in the final victory of equality and love, one thought repeated in my mind. “Mission accomplished!”

There will still be battles to fight against the ongoing bigotry of ignorance and small-mindedness but I am now OUT and proud of who I am and whom I seek to defend.

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