Senator Andrew Bartlett
Monday, November 14, 2005
 
The time has come ...
I mentioned a few months ago that I'd be moving this blog to a new site. I decided to try WordPress, a program which gives a better idea of what readers are commenting on. I'm hoping this will encourage more comments and provide a smoother discussion flow. The new blog also has the added advantage of being hosted at my own website.

Having realised that most people have no idea what I’m talking about when I say 'blog', I've decided on a new title as well, which should give more of a clue to the average reader as to what the site actually is. In the next week or so the postings in the blogger archive from this site will also move across to the new site, with the added advantage of having the postings categorised. This old site will stay up for a while to give everyone a chance to change their bookmarks.

There are bound to be a few glitches as I get used to the new format so please bear with me.

For those of you who have kindly linked to my blog or bookmarked it, the new address is http://www.andrewbartlett.com/blog.

Thanks to those who have seen fit to link to this site and I hope you are happy to do the same with the new site. I will include a link to my own blogroll on the new site in the near future, so I should even be able to reciprocate for some of you.

I should also acknowledge the value that’s been provided by the very user-friendly blogger/blogspot service, as well as Haloscan’s comment service, which gave a simple way to directly communicate my views and activities.

So now, without further ado … ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls …. please, follow me!.



posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, November 14, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, November 11, 2005
 
Remembrance Day
The topics of November 11th are the same as they were last year (and many years prior to that) – the sacrifices of our war veterans, and the dismissal of the Whitlam government. In my own mind, I always add the execution of Ned Kelly and the personal anniversary of my first speech to the Senate in 1997.

To save repetition, I’ll just link to my posts from this time last year – my views are basically the same on all these matters. (for some reason the sites all show zero comments, but each of the posts have some comments from the time)

Remembrance Day :– this has some extra resonance for me following my visit to Gallipoli last month.

The Whitlam Dismissal :- Over at Larvatus Prodeo, they are having a ‘Dismissal Fest’, with heaps of posts from different writers giving their views and reflections (or what Daily Flute, who has a post of his own, calls “Larvatus Prodeo’s bleeding hearts club band”). Mike Steketee from The Australian wrote a good piece a couple of days ago pointing out the fact that a Labor victory at the next election would still very likely leave the Liberals in control of the Senate, recreating the Parliamentary dynamic of 1975 for the first time.

Killing of Ned Kelly :– it is unfortunate that, 125 years later, many countries still carry out executions, as we’ve been debating very recently.

My First Speech :– I recently got tagged for a meme asking me to list my regrets. After having thought about it, I decided I would just be asking for a rubbishing by the mainstream media if I was to honestly answer that one. However, even though I still really like this speech, I do regret starting with such a naff line. There’s also the far bigger regret about not doing more to stop the GST, which I touched on in this post. There’s plenty more of course, but I’ll stop the list there.

Ambit Gambit also has a Nov 11 post today covering the remembrance day and Whitlam issues, which has a couple of worthwhile comments. Some others are on Sam's Study, Bella, Institutional Economics and piss n vinegar.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, November 11, 2005 Permalink
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Thursday, November 10, 2005
 
Light some candles in the darkness
The Senate rises again today. Over the following two weeks, Senate Committees will be required to conduct full inquiries into the workplace relations laws, the terror laws and the welfare laws – not to mention legislation enabling a nuclear waste repository to be set up in the Northern Territory. Then the Senate sits again and the government guillotines through every one of those Bills. My guess is that there will be some small improvements made to the welfare laws and the workplace laws before they are forced through.

In the meantime, plenty of other issues go on. I leave the Senate a little bit early today to fly to Brisbane to speak at this year’s ACOSS congress, which has the theme of re-imagining Australian society – visions and solutions. I will be speaking on the possible impact of the new workplace laws on the community sector.

This evening, I will be attending a "Candles of Hope" gathering for Van Tuong Nguyen, from 6pm-6:40pm in Brisbane’s King George Square. People will be gathering there for a few short speeches, and then marching up to the Tower Park, the site of the last hanging in Qld.

I understand there will be candlelit gatherings in various other locations around Australia this Thursday, as the Singaporean Government executes prisoners on Friday mornings. Unless the campaign to convince the government to grant clemency is successful, Van Tuong Nguyen will be executed on one of these Friday mornings in the next few weeks.

I saw in Crikey the other day some statistics that show the Singapore government to be the biggest per-capita executioner in the world (which is easier to ‘achieve’ if you have a smaller population of course). The stats are:
USA: 300 million people/60 executions per year = 20 per 100 million;
Vietnam: 80 million people/60 executions per year = 75 per 100 million people;
Iran: 70 million people/160 executions per year = 230 per 100 million people;
China: 1.3 billion people - 3,500 executions per year = 270 per 100 million;
Saudi Arabia: 25 million people/80 executions per year = 320 per 100 million;
Singapore: 4 million people/30 executions per year = 750 per 100 million people.

Writing in Crikey, Stephen Mayne, suggested boycotting the Singapore Government's huge commercial interests in Australia. According to him, this includes companies like Optus, hotels (the ANA in Sydney and the Park Hyatt in Melbourne), apartments (Australand), flights (Singapore Airlines), shopping (the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney).Among his other comments, he also said “If state governments really wanted to flex their muscles, they simply need to declare that the execution of Van Tuong Nguyen would see Australand banned from winning any more state government contracts. After all, the Singapore Government is currently building the Commonwealth Games village for the Bracks Government. But don't hold your breath for the commercial media to get behind such a campaign given the huge advertising budget of Optus and the fact that it's not an attractive white female such as Schapelle Corby facing the gallows in Singapore.”

I must admit I did give some thought myself as to whether I should advocate economic boycotts – a thought which occurred to me as I was flying back from Ireland a couple of weeks ago on Singapore Airlines (I don’t know if that airline is owned by the Singapore government or not). The main thing that made me conclude against advocating a full-blown economic boycott was that such a campaign would inevitably be focused on saving the life of an Australian. This is totally understandable, but as I’ve argued before we should be strongly opposing the death penalty for everyone, not just when it involves Australians. Whilst it is right to focus at the moment on saving Van Tuong Nguyen’s life, what we really need to do is have a strong continuing campaign in Australia pushing against the use of the death penalty everywhere, including even more significant trading partners such China and the USA.

Update: This post on Ambit Gambit draws attention to continuing pressure in neighbouring nation, Papua New Guinea, to start carrying out state sanctioned executions.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, November 10, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, November 08, 2005
 
A Day in the Life of the House of “Review”
The Senate started today with a motion by the Government requiring the Senate to sit through until 11pm tonight and for the Tuesdays on the two other sitting weeks left for the year so that the government “can have the time that we need for government business.”

For a government that says it is keen to ensure time for debating government business, it is worth looking at the number of days it is planning to have the Senate sit next year. In the 4 months up until May 9th when the Budget is brought down, out of a total of around 84 work days, it is proposed that the Senate sit for a total of 11 days.

Some relatively uncontroversial higher education legislation was passed. We also had Question Time, which is full of questions but fairly light on in regards to answers. I asked a question of the Environment Minister about the Japanese whaling fleet that had just left on its mission to carry out wholesale slaughter in the Southern Ocean and whether he would use the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea to try to stop it. He gave quite a good description of how “the whales will in many circumstances take up to 15 to 20 minutes to die in what we can only imagine will be an agonising, excruciating, painful death associated with drowning in their own blood.” However, his answer to my question was, in essence, “no”.

I also managed to get an hour debate on what is technically known as a ‘Matter of Public Importance” on the need for the Federal Government to establish a national Royal Commission into the sexual assault of children in Australia. This matter is the subject of a motion at this week’s Australian Local Government Association conference, and I was hoping to help build some wider recognition about the continuing seriousness of this issue. This debate drew some good contributions from Senators from all parties, although there was still more than a hint of the blame-shifting in suggesting that child protection is the day to day responsibility of the states.

The Labor Party also moved to allow the Senate Committee examining the Workplace Relations changes an extra six days to do their job. Even though the Senate does not resume until November 28th, the government had previously forced through a requirement that the Committee finish its report on the legislation by November 22nd. An extra six days could not have delayed debate or a vote on the Bill at all, but would have allowed more time for reading of submissions into the legislation and holding of public hearings. Not only did the government oppose this, rather than outline any justification for it, they simply gagged debate and voted down the brief extension. This sort of contemptuous approach of not even bothering to justify an action and just gagging debate has been standard practice in the House of Representatives for decades, but for the Senate, which has always tried to maintain a recognition of its role as a house of review and a check on the actions of government, it was as grotesque as someone shitting on the carpet.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, November 08, 2005 Permalink
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Monday, November 07, 2005
 
Save me from the Daylight
When you live in Queensland, if there’s one thing worse than the annual onset of daylight saving elsewhere in the nation, it’s the annual debate about whether Queensland should have daylight saving.

The general assumption is that people in the south east corner of Queensland like daylight saving, and people in the north or west of the state don’t. However, even though I’ve lived in Brisbane all my life, last time Queensland had a referendum on the topic I voted against. I’m the sort of person that dislikes hot weather and doesn’t particularly like being out in direct sunlight, so the idea of having the heat and accompanying cancer-inducing solar rays last longer into the day has never been one that appeals to me.

For diametrically opposed views from two Brisbane based bloggers, have a look at John Quiggin arguing in favour, and Mark Bahnisch arguing against.

However, I have to say that being one hour behind the southern states can get a bit irritating if you travel interstate a lot. I’ve had a couple of reminders already flying to Canberra for Senate sittings. In recent times, I’ve been trying to travel down first thing on the mornings, rather than the night before, so I can get an extra night at home. Unfortunately, as well as disliking heat and sunlight, I also hate getting out of bed early. When daylight saving starts down south, it means the first flight out from Brisbane leaves an hour earlier – in this case 5.15am.

I guess I should be grateful I live reasonably close to the airport, so I only need to leave home at 4.15am, but it’s still not the best way to start the day – especially when the end destination involves sitting in the Senate and having one’s intelligence insulted by Government Ministers blithely insisting that black equals white, deception equals honesty, obfuscation equals transparency and removing freedoms equals protecting freedoms. For some reason, now that the Government controls the Senate, their Ministers don’t seem to see any need to even pretend to make credible arguments. At least in the past there was some sort of token effort, but now – presumably because it doesn’t matter - they just spout the propaganda line in a very blasé way. This is bad enough at the best of times, but when it follows on from getting out of bed before 4.00am, it’s enough to put anyone in a bad mood.

UPDATE: In a perfect example of how daylight saving dissonance delivers bizarre stories in Queensland, the state Premier Peter Beattie and a Liberal Party MP have complained that daylight saving is to blame for Dan England, Queensland’s competitor on Australian Idol, being voted off the show.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, November 07, 2005 Permalink
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Saturday, November 05, 2005
 
Politically and morally corrupt government
At the risk of further opening myself up to charges of sedition, I should mention the new workplace relations laws which were finally made public last Wednesday, November 2nd. There is a Senate Committee Inquiry into the proposed law, but the full process of allowing public submissions, public hearings and consideration of the law is required to be finished by 22nd November (yes that’s less than three weeks).

If you have any views about the new law, it is a good idea to send a submission in to the Senate Inquiry - if only to show that you wish to have your views heard by the Parliament. Unfortunately, submissions close on on 9th November, so you better be quick. The absurdly short amount of time for the Committee to examine legislation that makes the biggest changes to workplace law in 100 years is a scandal – a corrupt process which befits a government which has already seen fit to steal millions dollars of taxpayers’ money (over 50 million at last count) to pay for advertising propaganda aimed at covering up the real content and impact of this law.

However, if this were not bad enough, one key aspect of the inquiry which seems to have occured without any comment is the severe curtailing of the Inquiry’s ability to examine a whole range of pivotal issues. In the process of forcing the Senate to accept this truncated inquiry, the Government also added the following requirement:

“The inquiry not consider those elements of the bill …… which relate to secret ballots, suspension/termination of a bargaining period; pattern bargaining; cooling off periods; remedies for unprotected industrial action; removal of section 166A of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (the WR Act); strike pay; reform of unfair dismissal arrangements; right of entry; award simplification; freedom of association; amendments to section 299 of the WR Act; and civil penalties for officers of organisations regarding breaches.”

So not only is there less than three weeks for the Committee to do its full inquiry, but central compentents of the law are supposedly not to be considered by the inquiry, on the spurious grounds that these matters have been looked at before by previous inquiries. (which is true, but they were not looked at in the context of other changes also being made which would (a) completely alter and overturn the whole nature of the law and (b) bring vastly increased numbers of people under its reach).

The intellectually bankruptcy of this notion is so comprehensive it would be hilarious, were the process not so morally and politically corrupt, and the personal consequences for millions of people not so damaging.


posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, November 05, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, November 04, 2005
 
Displaying my seditious intent - Urging disaffection against the Commonwealth Government
Having recalled the Senate yesterday, at one day’s notice, to pass an ‘urgent’ amendment to the Criminal Code, the Government also finally tabled the formal version of their terror legislation.

The government also finally recognised that a Senate Committee Inquiry of less than five days duration into major legislation impacting on the freedom of every Australian was grossly inadequate, and agreed to my amendment that provided an extra three weeks time for examination. This was a welcome change from when I first moved this amendment two weeks earlier, when I was accused by a government Senator of putting “the public interest at risk for the sake of an extension of the Senate going through its committee procedure”.

Details of the Senate Inquiry can be found here. Submissions are due in by the end of next week. This is still far too short a time frame, but at least some degree of public examination and analysis will now be possible. I’ll wait for that process to occur before commenting in detail on the legislation, but there is one component which I’ll draw attention to, because I want to comment on it while it’s still lawful to do so.

Even though the government is now saying that some time down the track they might review the definition of sedition or the need for such an offence, that hasn’t stopped them from taking this opportunity to add a new definition of “seditious intention” to the Crimes Act – as detailed here:

seditious intention means an intention to effect any of the following purposes:
(a) to bring the Sovereign into hatred or contempt;
(b) to urge disaffection against the following:
(i) the Constitution;
(ii) the Government of the Commonwealth;
(iii) either House of the Parliament;
(c) to urge another person to attempt to procure a change, otherwise than by lawful means, to any matter established by law of the Commonwealth;
(d) to promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different groups so as to threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.
I think these new laws seriously weaken the foundation of democracy, unreasonably curtail freedom of speech and play into the hands of terrorists. Any government that proposes laws such as these should be condemned as being more concerned about their own power then they are about the safety and freedom of the community. I therefore strongly “urge disaffection against the Government of the Commonwealth”.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, November 04, 2005 Permalink
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Wednesday, November 02, 2005
 
Democratic terrorism
Last night I attended a Ramadan Iftar dinner, held in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra. The dinner was hosted by the Australian Intercultural Society as part of bringing people together to mark the Islamic holy month of Ramadan via participating in a traditional "Iftar" breaking of the fast dinner. This was one of a number of similar events aimed at building understanding and links within the Australian community.

It made a sad and unfortunate contrast to wake up the next morning to newspaper coverage of ASIO's newly released annual report. Very conveniently for the government, ASIO has for the first time "publicly warned of the existence of a home-grown terror threat - Australian-born Islamic extremists." Normally when ASIO is asked for details of security matters – even by Senate Committees – they refuse to answer on security grounds. Yet here's the front page of the national Murdoch daily saying "ASIO is believed to hold genuine security concerns about an estimated 700-800 Muslims in Australia who have expressed support for politically motivated violence."

I don't dispute that this may be true. I've received emails and seen public statements over the years by extremist white supremacists, 'fathers-rights' activists, gay-haters and anti-Muslim bigots all of which could be seen as 'expressing support for politically motivated violence'.

This report confirms that the planned anti-terrorism laws are targeted fairly and squarely at Muslims, even though there has yet to be any explanation as to why the existing laws are inadequate. Inciting or planing violence is already an offence under the existing Criminal Code.

I know of some people who are currently hell bent on causing serious damage to Australia's democracy and undermining the fabric of our Constitution. Unfortunately they are very well placed to succeed, as they already have control of the Parliament. Not all attacks on democracy involve violence, but they can still cause enormous damage and can be very hard to repair. Once freedoms are taken away, they are very hard to regain.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Wednesday, November 02, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, November 01, 2005
 
Death Penalty
Good to see the major parties voting together in the House of Representatives yesterday calling on the Singapore government not to execute Australian man Van Nguyen.

I wrote a piece - Death to the Death Penalty - earlier this year. Read that if you want to know my views, but in short, opposing the death penalty for Australians whilst being equivocal about it being carried out on others weakens the strength of any call on a foreign government to exercise clemency. I also raised this in the Senate a couple of weeks ago.

As Neil Mitchell wrote in this article, "opposing capital punishment is not optional. You either support it or not."

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, November 01, 2005 Permalink
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Saturday, October 29, 2005
 
Catholic church and child assault
If you wanted to predict a headline for a mainstream newspaper article in Ireland, you wouldn’t expect something like “Church Role in Schools Must End”, but that was an article in Thursday’s edition of the Irish Times. While removing the church from schools won’t happen, the fact that it can be seriously proposed gives an indication of the sort of impact that has occurred as a result of a report which has been produced into sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Diocese of Ferns, which is a bit south of Dublin. (more reports here with plenty of links to related stories).

This isn’t the first time there’s been allegations of sexual assault of children in Ireland, but it appears to be the most comprehensive investigation so far, dealing with over 100 allegations over a forty year period against 21 different priests, as well as the failures in the responses to these allegations from the Bishops in the Diocese, and in some cases failures from other officials such as police.

I managed to get a copy of the report, which due to legal advice has not been made available on-line. (correction: found a copy online at here at bishopaccountability.org ) It tells a story which is sadly familiar in Australia, the USA and many other places, and of course with many more institutions than just the Catholic Church. The corruption and cover-ups involved clearly went wider than church officials, and the general lack of seriousness given to many complaints is again not unique to Ireland.

Some of the media coverage I saw of it was reasonably impressive, with some mature debates wrestling with the fact that this is a societal problem rather than just a church problem. The Bishop of Dublin’s comments on the issue also seemed to be quite good to me, although how genuinely that translates through the church hierarchy remains to be seen.

It reminded me that we still have not properly tackled the issue of child protection in Australia, despite all the evidence about the scale of the problem caused by our lack of action and sense of priority. There has been some good action here and there, but not enough of a consistent, comprehensive and ongoing national approach. I believe there still needs to be a national Royal Commission into this to really make the sort of major leap forward and break with the attitudes of the past that are needed.

Given the pivotal role the Catholic Church has played in Irish society, history and politics for so long, this report is having a big impact. Hopefully it will lead to sustainable, positive change and the church shifting from seeing itself as somehow above society to just concerning itself with issues relevant to their religion.

The Irish government has announced some new measures as a result of the report aimed at better protecting children from abuse. There is a relatively dispassionate analysis of some of the issues flowing out the report in the Irish Examiner, and further information is now coming to light of abuse allegations in other Irish dioceses. I had read some talk of a possible comprehensive national inquiry, but haven’t seen any confirmation of it. I think that would be a good thing for Ireland to do, and the same should occur in Australia. There have been many inquiries in Australia, but they have been too piecemeal and confined to specific situations, localities or organisations. That makes it too easy for the cover-ups and criminality to continue.

Whilst this isn’t just a Catholic Church problem, it is a big problem for the Catholic Church and one they still have not properly come to terms with throughout their organisation. Check out this Editorial from the National Catholic Reporter for another example of this:
“with the release on Oct. 12 of a 155-page report describing decades of sexual abuse by clergy in the Los Angeles archdiocese, there now exists compelling and preponderant evidence that at least three living cardinals of the Catholic church in the United States have been complicit in what any reasonable observer would term criminal activity.”

This matter is also commented on by Catholic writer and blogger Amy Welborn – it is worth reading the many comments to her post too.

UPDATE: It looks like the same sorts of problems are now coming to light in Brazil, according to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald.


posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, October 29, 2005 Permalink
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Delegation Ends – the good, the bad and the verdict.
It feels a little bit like I’ve been transported to an alternative universe for the last couple of weeks, where the very immediate and important arguments in Australia are distant and faint and the political disagreements between us are put on hold (mostly) and I got immersed in a continual stream of new and different things (some of which remind me that what’s happening in Australia is a bit minor in the wider scheme of things). Now I’m being transported back to my normal universe, where I expect things will pick up as though I had never been away.

I’m loathe to sound off like I’m an expert on the basis of a few days’ experience, but here are a few impressions and judgements anyway, for what they are worth:

- It’s very important that Turkey is supported in its efforts to become a full member of the EU. Whilst this needs to take a bit of time so it is done properly and so people on all sides can become more accommodated to some of the ramifications, it will be very damaging if this process is made unnecessarily hard for Turkey. Turkey undoubtedly still has some problems with human rights and freedom of speech, and like many countries could probably do with loosening itself a little bit from the binds of its history (unlike Australia which first needs to acknowledge more of its history before it can move on from it), but preparing for EU entry will assist them a lot in doing this. I believe EU membership for Turkey will also be a big help to the rest of Europe (and the rest of the democratic world). It can only be good for us and them to have such a major political linkage with a populous, developing, democratic secular country, which also serves as a big bridge into much of the Islamic world.

- Australia should provide more direct financial assistance to help with the infrastructure and overall management of the peace park on the Gallipoli Peninsula (and perhaps even some of the surrounding towns). This will always be Turkish soil and thus in the end always a matter for them to determine what happens there, but in many ways the area is as important to the Turks as it is to Australia, and they certainly have just as much desire to protect, preserve and properly present the area. Extra finances would help make this happen and obviously give us more scope to provide opinions. Our country does have some expertise at managing large numbers of tourists through sensitive areas, which may also prove to be helpful. This is very different to just the traditional activity of managing war graves, which is perhaps why Australia’s Veterans Affairs department made something of a hash of our role in the way we pushed for the road widening at Anzac Cove.

- While the economy of Ireland has performed amazingly well- ‘Celtic tiger’ is the widely used cliché – I still have this feeling they are at risk of being hit with some increasing socio-economic divisions in a decade or so. Having been driven through a few different parts of rural Ireland, it is wonderful that so many of their towns still have such a distinct local, country town feel, with narrow laneways and quaint shops along the main street. However, I can’t help feeling as the economy (and suburban Dublin) continues to grow that those that get on the bandwagon of ‘new’ industries will leave ‘old’ Ireland behind. The infrastructure challenges of the country are formidable (in some ways symbolised by those quaint but seriously narrow country lanes that now have to serve as arterial roads), and addressing that in an equitable way across the whole population will be difficult. Still, there does at least seem to be some recognition about the need to invest decent amounts of public money in education and innovation, which is more than can be said for Australia.

- The decommissioning of arms by the IRA and the Northern Ireland peace process in general will affect Irish politics in far reaching ways. Whilst the peace process must move at its own pace, the north of Ireland is now starting to fall behind the rest of the island economically, which is the reverse of how it used to be. Apart from the various other tensions that will occur when partition finally ends in Ireland, it’s possible the situation will have a lot of parallels (on a smaller scale) with what has happened with German reunification. The economic differences will be one aspect, but the different political culture may have an even bigger impact. The Sinn Fein party now has five members in the Irish Parliament and is currently expected to add to that at the next election. I found it interesting that virtually everyone I spoke to (apart from Sinn Fein people) from across the political spectrum – including informal conversations and chats with many people who weren’t politicians - were fairly scathing about Sinn Fein. It wasn’t just that they are a political threat (although there was undoubtedly a bit of that with some of the MPs), but that they were seen as crooks at worst, or at best unfairly helped by access to loads of money from abroad. I can’t pass judgement on that aspect of Sinn Fein, and it may be that their underlying policy thrust may turn out to be too left wing for the general population, but I can’t help wondering if they will bring a new degree of party and political discipline which is much stronger than the what has been the norm in Irish politics. There is a definitely a growing degree of concerted on the ground activity and activism by Sinn Fein members in some parts of the country, and if they do manage to get a good combination going of organisational professionalism, committed active membership and stacks of dough, they might rock the system a bit. I think they probably will be too doctrinaire-left wing to move into major party status, but the other parties may be forced to change the way they operate and portray themselves to counter them. There is a startling lack of philosophical delineation between the major Irish political parties. As far as I can tell, this is because they are defined by history stemming out of the Irish civil war rather than any clear philosophical dividing lines. Whilst I dislike doctrinaire adherence to a single ideology or any form of political fundamentalism, I believe if there’s a lack of clear philosophical guiding principles, you end up over time with not much more than managerialism at best, inevitably leading over time to corporatist soft-corruption and worse if any one group is in power too long. The advent of functional self-rule in the north of Ireland will free the two major parties from some of the binds of history, which would be a good thing, but I think may also have to mean they will have to identify themselves more clearly with specific philosophies. It may even create enough of a sea-change that some of the smaller parties (such as the Labour Party and maybe also the Progressive Democrats or Greens) which have clearer philosophies but don’t have the same benefits of incumbency and history might make a break through. I doubt anyone knows how it will pan out, but I think it might generate a sizable shake-up one way or another (which would probably be a good thing).

- Sometimes I was surprised that our delegation group with 3 Liberal, 2 Labor (one left faction and one right) and a Democrat travelled together for two weeks, almost constantly in each others company and discussing politically related issues a lot of the time, yet we didn’t get into any unpleasant fights or disagreements. The people I was with were all nice enough folks, but it’s a bit strange having pleasant and occasionally even productive conversations with people and then remembering that in a few weeks time the same people are going to willingly vote in favour of legislation that’s going to shoot a big hole right through the guts of democracy. While one shouldn’t personalise things, some of the legislation these people have and will support, and the processes they are allowing along the way, are truly terrible and will hurt some people badly – there’s no point snarling at people about it while you’re travelling together, but it’s still a bit weird.

- This trip made me feel quite strongly that Australia should change our flag. This debate has slipped off the agenda in Australia because people have focused on whether (and how) we should become a Republic. However, it is a country's flag that people from other countries usually see, not whether or not they are a constitutional Monarchy. When you know very little about another country (which applies to most people from other partys of the world in regards to Australia), the impression given by a flag has a lot more impact. We should change ours, in the same way Canada did some time ago.

Best moments:
- Undoubtedly the visit to Gallipoli. Even if the road widening is less than ideal, it is a small blemish in an enormous area – both geographically and historically. The experience has grown on me more since my visit and I wish we could have spent more time there.

- The 5200 year old grave at Newgrange was cool, as was the stone round tower near Kilkenny dating from around 800AD.

- After lots of useful but sometimes surface-skimming meetings and discussions about politics, it was very refreshing at the meeting with the Irish Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committeeto hear the Irish Labour MP querying Australia’s lack of acknowledgement of our indigenous people (and our sensitivity about the issue), and indeed the human rights focus of many of the other members of that Committee from other parties at that meeting too.

- The Irish people really are extremely welcoming and their fixation with what town and County everyone is from is very endearing (although I expect the inherent parochialism attached to this could get very frustrating). The steady flow of people around all parts of the world is on balance a great thing, but the loss of a sense of place that can accompany this is a problem. The Irish are still hanging on that very well (so far). They also showed a seemingly genuine extra delight that we had Ursula Stephens in our delegation as an Irish born person, elected to the Australian Parliament and now returning ‘home’. Mind you, while Ursula’s politics may or may not be my cup of tea, she has the sort of Irish smiling eyes they probably based the song on, and she gave a thank you speech at our final dinner in Gaelic, which was pretty impressive (it’s a nice sounding language too, even if it’s pronunciation seems even more incomprehensible than most)

Not so good moments:
- Heathrow airport. Even worse on the way back than on the way in. If I ever travel to England in the future, I must try to fly into the country through Manchester or somewhere else. What a shambolic joke.

- I have to say the poverty and ugliness of the housing in much of Ankara was a bit hard to ignore, although I did see more beggars on the streets of Dublin.

- A bit more scope to meet with non-government organisations and smaller parties would have been good. We were there as guests of foreign governments, so one can’t be too fussy, but I think a bit more breadth would be helpful.

- I’m happy we flogged the Irish in the International Rules football match (the return game of which will be played while I am in an aeroplane, as was the first one), but if I heard one more Irish person in our meetings mention that they “didn’t want to mention the football” I was going to scream. I mean, I love me footy mate, you know, and I kinda like the way sport can be an international language, but couldn’t at least one of them tease us about our less democratic electoral system, or our higher rates of unemployment or skin cancer or something, rather than always use the bloody footy as a point of reference!


Whilst there were aspects to the trip which I’m sure could be selectively grabbed by the media to make the whole think look like an outrageous junket (which is why I’ve left a few bits out of my various postings which would have helped create a fuller picture for readers of what happens on a parliamentary delegation), overall it was certainly valuable – which isn’t to say that the value of it couldn’t have been higher. Whilst we got given plenty of background information about the countries we were travelling to, it would be useful to have a induction session of a few solid hours not long after arriving in a place (after the jetlag had faded). It would be good to get a chance to ask all the stupid questions you want to ask about the country’s history, society, political system, etc but you don’t because you don’t want to offend or look stupid. We got some of this type of ‘immersion’ before we left and also got a good but brief briefing in Turkey, but not much in Ireland. Maybe it’s assumed Australians know all about Irish history and politics, but despite my strong Irish background and having read a few things about it, I was embarrassed to discover how little I really knew. History shapes politics in a big way (something we don’t really acknowledge enough in Australia), so a fuller background would add a lot of value.

I’ve been very privileged to have this opportunity – not just to travel, but to meet some people one wouldn’t normally get to meet. So while the 27 hours worth of plane travel and airport terminals to finish it all off is not much fun, I can’t complain. It will be great to be home though, even if it’s only for a day before I have to head down to Parliament House in Canberra again. I haven’t been homesick per se, but I’ve missed seeing my little girl a lot. There are some big chunks of time I’ve been away from her lately, and a few more to come before the end of the year, which is chewing away at me a bit.

As I wrote before I left, I’ve not been on a full length overseas delegation before. I know overseas travel can be immensely valuable, but I also know some of these trips are not much better than junkets. So, my verdict? Definitely worthwhile, although certainly room for improvement.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, October 29, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, October 28, 2005
 
A Dead Parrot and Conservative Party leadership
No matter where I’ve been in Turkey or Ireland over the last couple of weeks, my hotel has had CNN, Sky News and BBC World news. A frenzy of apprehension about Bird flu has been a constant theme on all of them throughout that period. The day we arrived in Ireland, there was a headline story on the BBC about a dead parrot. The newsworthy aspect was that the parrot was suspected of dying from the nasty strain of bird flu and it had recently been imported. It had died in quarantine, so there was no risk to the general public, but it gave media outlets the chance to enjoy making various Monty Python references. I don’t recall seeing as much follow-up coverage – probably because that had become old news by then and the media were on to the next report of dead birds somewhere else.

Another very noticeable story in the British media has been about the contest to elect the new leader of the British Conservative Party. I was more interested in the process than the people, as the Tories allow all their Members of Parliament to vote in a series of elimination ballots, over a period of days, until there are only two contestants left, and then that choice goes to a ballot of the whole party membership over a period of six weeks or so.

I was especially interested in this because the Australian Democrats have always elected our Parliamentary leaders by direct vote of all our party members, and we are regularly derided by the mainstream media in Australia for doing so. It has often been pointed to as an example of political naivety and the length of time it takes to resolve a leadership contest has also been seen as somewhat absurd. To see the main opposition party in the UK doing something rather similar is encouraging.

The frontrunner and media darling for the position is a guy called David Cameron. I have to say I’d never heard of him before, and he is being presented very much as the young, fresh, exciting face of a new generation for the Tories. He has not been in parliament very long, but it seems very likely he will win, as the Tories have been in opposition for a long time and they are keen to have anyone who might be a vote winner, especially with Tony Blair due to retire soon. I must say I really got a feeling that the media just want David Cameron because they figure he will give them more interesting stories to write. I may be wrong, but to me the coverage seems to have ‘shooting star’ written all over it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if his star soars and then burns out very quickly as the media build him up and then torch him. I’d be very surprised if he isn’t elected leader, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s out of the Conservative leadership again before the next British election is even held.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, October 28, 2005 Permalink
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Thursday, October 27, 2005
 
Wicklow Gaol, Australia and the Irish Parliament
Our second day in Dublin started with a breakfast meeting that Ursula Stephens had organised. She is involved in the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Schizophrenia, and was keen to meet up with community organisations and local members of the Irish parliament with an interest in mental health issues. We only had an hour, but it was a good chance to flag some issues and to reinforce the importance of increasing priority and awareness of mental health matters.

We then went down for a brief tour of the historic gaol in Wicklow, which is Senator Stephen’s birthplace (Wicklow, not the gaol). Like many places in Ireland, the gaol has a link to Australia, as many prisoners from there ended up being transported to Australia, and a section of the display there is specifically about the transportation of convicts, most of whom were petty criminals or Irish nationalists (which was the same thing as a criminal in those days of course).

After that, we had meetings back in Dublin, including a meeting with the Minister of State, Noel Treacy, a meeting with the Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin and a discussion with the Parliament’s Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs. This was an interesting meeting, where the various members of the Committee, from a wide range of parties, asked us our views on a huge range of issues. There was one member in particular I liked, a Labour Party member named Michael Higgins, who managed to very politely ask a question touching on what seemed to be about 10 different matters – most of them highly controversial – including the Australian government’s decision to commit more troops to Iraq after the last election, the proposal to introduce laws allowing ‘preventative detention’ and government attitudes towards indigenous people in Australia. There was also a lot of interest expressed in Timor Leste, including the Timor Sea boundary controversy, and the poor human rights record of Burma.

We got to sit in their version of Question Time in their Lower House, which is called the Dáil Éireann. It was almost unrecognisable from the Australian version. Questions were asked and answers were given in almost total silence, and whilst there was political rhetoric in amongst it all, there actually seemed to be some degree of answer given. The day we were there was the day a major report was presented into allegations of sexual abuse against children in a local Diocese of the Catholic Church, which may have contributed to the sombre atmosphere of the few questions we witnessed.

After that, there was a function at the Ambassador’s residence with a range of people present who had an interest in or connection with Australia – an Irish version of the function we had in Ankara last week.

Next day we visited University College Dublin. We saw a few examples from a very interesting archive and also met with Professor Hilary Carey, the Professor of the Australian Studies Centre. Obviously, the existence of this centre is very valuable for Australia, but it is not resourced in any regular ongoing way from Australia, so it doesn’t produce as much benefit for Australia as it otherwise could. One of my fellow delegation members suggested I should hurry to finish my copy of the Latham Diaries that I’m reading so I could leave the copy behind to help update their resource library. Extra help for this Centre would certainly be welcomed and of obvious value.

After lunch with various people from the University (I sat next to their Professor of Canadian Studies, so among other things I talked about the global benefit of a country changing its flag), it was back to the Parliament, where we had meetings with Enda Kenny, leader of the main opposition party, Fine Gael, and Pat Rabbitte, the leader of the Labour Party, who will be running alongside Fine Gael at the next election as part of an alternative coalition government. We also met with Mary Harney, who is Deputy Prime Minister (Tánaiste), Minister for Health and Children and Leader of a smaller party called the Progressive Democrats.

We then sat in on part of the sittings of the Irish Senate (known as the Seanad), and attended a dinner hosted by the Speaker (known as the Ceann Comhairle). The evening was rounded off with a chance to talk with other members of parliament in the adjoining bar. Apart from being inside the parliamentary precincts, this seemed to be rather similar to bars in the suburbs surrounding Parliament House in Canberra as it seemed to be full of MPs and advisors, although there probably weren’t journos there, now I think of it. I wonder if you had a group of average Australians and average Irish people drinking together in a bar, who would go home earliest? The attitudes, conversational and social dynamics surrounding drinking seem to be quite similar.

Tomorrow there is a break from the political and parliamentary meetings, and a chance to see a few historical and cultural aspects of the surrounding counties, including a visit to Kilkenny Castle.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, October 27, 2005 Permalink
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Wednesday, October 26, 2005
 
Dublin
On Sunday evening we arrived in Dublin. I’d managed to track down an old friend I went to school with, who I hadn’t seen for around 20 years. He was part of my ‘gang’ from High School – and the only one who lives away from South-East Queensland. He’s lived in Dublin for well over a decade and I was curious to meet up with him. I met up with him at the hotel we are staying at (although I actually didn’t recognise him when I first met him, even when he’d called out my name). He runs a pub out near the bay in a place called Dún Laoghaire.

We went out to a local pub in his part of town which was a great chance to meet up with and chat to a few people and just hear their unvarnished views about local issues and politics. My school friend’s partner turned out to be active with the Labour Party, (a minor party in Ireland, unlike Australia). Between them and one or two other people holding court at the bar, I got to hear views about just about every issue imaginable over hours and hours. Before I knew it, it was 2am and we walked out into the cold and rain so I could catch a taxi home. Listening to people in a pub hold forth on random issues for a few hours can sometimes be just as useful as a formal briefing.

Having said that, the formal briefing we got on Monday from the Science Foundation Ireland was very enlightening. This is a body set up and heavily funded by Government to encourage and enhance cutting edge research in biotechnology and Info & Communication Technologies. The Irish economy is widely acknowledged to have performed exceptionally well in recent years – some of it due to European Union money and some of it due to foreign investment – but they are certainly keen to keep building on that, which includes putting decent amounts of public money into education and research.

We had lunch at the Australian Embassy and heard the views of the Australian Ambassador, John Herron, who I know a bit from his previous occupation as a Government Senator for Queensland and Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

We then had the honour of meeting the Irish President, Mary McAleese, at her official residence. She is from Belfast and is someone who has a triple dose of the charm gene (might be where mine went to). Many of the Irish we are meeting are exceptionally warm and welcoming, but none more so than her. She also had some interesting things to say about the Irish economy and society – how it had developed and where it might be going to - and the prospects for full peace in the north of the country.

The President of Ireland is elected by direct popular vote for a seven year term – a good example for Australian republicans that direct election can work well. Mary McAleese must be doing a very good job, because when she ran for re-election she was unopposed.

We went off to another pub for dinner; a place called Johnnie Fox’s, which bills itself as the ‘highest pub in Ireland’, up on the hills outside Dublin. It was hard to judge how high it was in the dark, but it was a fascinating place. It was opened in 1798 – not coincidentally at the time of one of the Irish rebellions – and it has an amazing array of historic items all over its walls and roofs. Many of them are just everyday items from the time, plus historic posters, signs and newspapers clippings. Not much scope to talk Irish politics here, as most of the clientele seemed to be from other countries like ourselves, but there was a good traditional Irish band (who performed 'the Band Played Waltzing Matilda', possibly for our benefit) and a relaxing atmosphere.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Wednesday, October 26, 2005 Permalink
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Carrickmacross, Inniskeen and Oldness
Over the weekend we got a good chance to get a sense of life in country Ireland, visiting a few different places in the vicinity of Carrickmacross. Mind you, it’s only an hour or so drive out of Dublin, so by Australian standards it’s hard to think of it as the country, but it certainly retains a rural, small town feel which is truly lovely.

I’m told the whole country is only about the size of Tasmania, with a population of 4-5 million, so it’s only natural that is has a different sense of space and place to Australia (which despite its large size is also far more urbanised that most other countries, including Ireland).

We visited a restored Workhouse, originally built in the 1840s. The Workhouses were where people and families went when they were completely destitute. They have an integral link with Australia, as many people went (or were sent) to Australia from around that period, which also coincided with an enormous famine. I am told that until the great famine, Ireland had a population of around 8 million and even today it has never recovered to anything like that level. Indeed, it’s only in very recent times that Ireland has had net positive migration.

As well as looking around the Workhouse, we got a good presentation from local historians. Of course, the local history involves some terrible oppression and atrocities on the part of the English, but I found it interesting to hear the people clearly have some obvious sensitivities about this, all this time later – wanting to be clear about the scale and nature of what happened, but not wanting to sound insulting towards the English. I’m told political relations between the UK and the Irish are as good as they have ever been, and everybody is hoping that the peace process in the north works out.

This County is one of the three that are in Ulster but not under London rule, and one of the local members was the sole Sinn Fein member in the Irish Parliament prior to the latest election, when an extra four were elected. We got to meet him, and three of the other local members at a dinner that night. Ireland has multi-member electorates, elected by direct proportional representation, which is a far more democratic system than Australia’s. However, it has been interesting to hear almost every political person I’ve met say that the biggest difficulty this presents is the competition this creates between members from the same party running and campaigning directly against each other. Politics seems to be very local here, and every day an elected member is in Dublin representing their seat in the Parliament is a day others are free to be on the ground working the electorate.

We also visited a tiny village called Inniskeen, birth place of the Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh, and heard something about his life and description of local life. On the way back to Dublin, we stopped at Newgrange, a world heritage site in the Boyne Valley. This is the site of a type of burial site called a passage grave, which is around 5 200 years old – one of the oldest built structures in the world.

Both Ireland and Turkey are full of old places and structures going back many hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. It is impressive to think of people and communities on the same land all that time ago, but it always make me wonder why we are so impervious to our own indigenous history in Australia. Because Aboriginal peoples were mainly hunter-gatherer communities who didn’t build stone towers and cities and walls (perhaps they weren’t being invaded from afar all the time), we can’t gaze on those sorts of structures. But examples of Aboriginal people inhabiting parts of Australia go back way longer than anything we’ve seen in Turkey or Ireland, and some of the people and cultures that are direct descendants still live amongst us in Australia today, yet we really don’t seem to have anything like the same ‘gee whiz’ attitude and wonderment about that as we do about old buildings and civilisations in Europe. Curious.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Wednesday, October 26, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
 
Ireland

The joys of plane travel impressed itself on me again, with delays getting a landing spot at Heathrow in London making us have to run to catch our connecting flight to Dublin. For some bizarre reason we had to walk for what seemed like a mile, then go through immigration again and walk for another mile to get the flight, being told all the time we had to run or we’d miss it. Of course, when we finally arrived at the right departure gate there was still a queue.

We arrived in Dublin about 10.30 at night (after midnight Turkey time) and then had a bus trip for an hour or so up to our first destination at Carrickmacross in County Monaghan, which pushes up into the six northern counties that are still governed by Britain.

The majority of my ancestors came from Ireland, and the heritage and experience of the Irish Catholic in Australian society from the start of the twentieth century shaped the upbringing of my parents and grandparents more than any other. One day it would be nice to have the time to wander through the country at a bit more of a leisurely pace, but there’s not much scope for that on this visit. When I add up all the different strands, I think I am eleven-sixteenths Irish, with the rest made up of bits of Greek, Swiss and English. All the various Irish strands came to Australia at various times during the nineteenth century, the biggest strand coming from County Tipperary, plus some from Kerry and Kildare.

One of the members of this delegation, Ursula Stephens, was born in County Wicklow in Ireland and migrated to Australia when she was a child, so her homecoming is being acknowledged everywhere we go. She is one of only two Irish born members of the federal Parliament in Australia (the other being Senator George Campbell who was born in Belfast).

We have also been regularly told that Australia has the highest proportion of people of Irish origin of any country in the world (outside of Ireland itself of course), and Australia’s thumping defeat of the Irish team in the first match of the current hybrid AFL/Gaelic football series is also referred to by most people we meet (which is a bit ironic, because I don’t think any of our delegation had even been aware that the game was being held, as we’d been in Turkey for the week leading up to it.)

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, October 25, 2005 Permalink
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Sunday, October 23, 2005
 
Dana Vale makes the Turkish media
I heard about Dana Vale’s suggestion that a part of Mornington Peninsula in Victoria be used to recreate the Anzac landing site on the day we left to drive to Gallipoli. I had got a fairly scathing email from some war veterans about it, and it was the subject of a bit of comment amongst members of the delegation while we were on the bus on the way there.

During our visit to the Governor of Çanakkale we had quite a lot of media present and they were very keen to know our delegation’s views about the proposal and whether it might happen. They asked the delegation leader, Liberal Senator Alan Ferguson, what he thought about it. They knew that some of us were from other political parties, so they also asked Labor Senator Ursula Stephens and me what we thought. The local media seemed to think it might mean that the main Anzac Day ceremony might be held in Australia in future. We all reassured them that was never going to happen and tried to say in as polite a way as possible that the proposal was just one person’s idea which did not have wider government or public support.

Ironically, whilst the way Dana Vale reportedly expressed the idea did make it sound pretty daft, I think the notion of having another symbolic place where the story of the Anzac landings could be shown and commemorated is not totally without merit, for those who can’t make it all the way to Gallipoli.

There was also a question from the local media about the recent road widening at Gallipoli and whether we were concerned about it. As I wrote previously, my view is that while the roadwork is less than ideal, my major problem was the Australian government’s public dishonesty in how they dealt with the issue. The government members of the delegation didn’t seem to feel the roadworks were much of a problem and in any case at the end of the day it is Turkish land (not that anyone disputes that). Senator Ferguson kindly offered me the chance to express a view to the media as well, as my views differ a bit from his and I had been part of a Senate Committee inquiry into this. However, I felt it was not the place or the time for such comments. My concerns are a matter for internal political debate in Australia and I don’t want to risk them being misinterpreted as criticism of the Turkish authorities. Overall, the Gallipoli Park is still a marvellous area that is well presented, and we should be focusing on helping the Turks as much as we can in getting it even better for the future.

There has been a huge increase in recent years in visitors to the area. Indeed the numbers of Australians are dwarfed by the number of Turks and others who now visit the site. The number of Turks killed there also dwarfs that of all the other nations combined, spread over a much larger area than the area the Anzacs were in. Enabling so many visitors to travel into, around and out of a place with so many different burial sites and memorials spread over such a distance presents major logistical challenges, particularly given the desirability of also maintaining the hills, gullies and ridgelines that help tell the story of the battle. Overall, it is a matter for the Turks but if we can help them with resources and expertise we should, as I expect the numbers visiting will continue to grow for some time yet, and there is no doubt the surrounding facilities will need to be improved.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, October 23, 2005 Permalink
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Saturday, October 22, 2005
 
Back to Istanbul
After leaving Çanakkale and Troy, we caught the ferry back across the Dardanelles and drove back to Istanbul. Our drivers had been going all day and as it’s Ramadan at the moment, they had been fasting since dawn, so at sunset they pulled into the equivalent of a roadhouse to have a meal. Not surprisingly, it was full of many people also ending their day’s fast. Although Turkey has a large percentage of people who are Muslim and mosques dot the landscape, religiousness is still fairly unobtrusive.

The secular nature of the Turkish state is something that has been driven very deeply into the body politic. It was a key factor insisted on by Atatürk when the modern Turkish nation was founded. It is hard to know how representative the English language newspapers here are, as they obviously are not read by the majority of the locals, but the two papers I have been reading since I got here have stories every day that touch in some way or other on this tension between the insistence on secularism and the practice of religion. The fact that the Prime Minister’s wife wears a headscarf is a matter of regular comment, as headscarfs cannot be worn inside Government buildings.

I can understand the rationale behind this approach. I understand the aim was to ensure that Turkey did not become hostage to religious views dominating the machinery of government and the law – something I am hugely supportive of. Every time I get correspondence from a constituent insisting on some policy on the basis that ‘Australia is a Christian nation’ I feel like responding by saying that Australia is actually a secular nation, regardless of whether or not the majority of people who live in it are Christian. However, I find the focus on preventing the wearing of headscarves in government buildings a contradiction with the right to express personal religious beliefs. Given the history and politics of the region, it is a difficult dilemma.

Apart from various tension points over the issue of state secularism, the other thing the papers are full of without fail (the English language ones anyway) are (a) the dispute over ‘Turkish’ Cyprus, (b) concern over violence by the Kurdish PKK (although I haven’t seen anything about the concerns the Kurdish minority have), and (c) the moves to become part of the EU. Things such as bird flu and the current situation in Iraq and Syria have also made regular appearances, but my impression is that the other issues are much more continuous and entrenched in the local political debate. ‘Turkish’ Cyprus and issues to do with human rights are a couple of the shortcomings of modern Turkey which are very likely to improve as part of moving towards obtaining EU membership.

We arrived back in Istanbul about 8pm. The others went out to have dinner at a local restaurant. One downside about Turkey for me is that it is not a terribly vegetarian-friendly place, so I decided to stay in the hotel to catch up on my emails

In the morning we got a whirlwind tour around a few of Istanbul’s historic locations. There was the impressive Blue Mosque, the old central marketplace, an underground cistern dating back to the sixth century AD and the main old palace of the Sultans from the Ottoman Empire (which had lots of jewels, thrones and acres of garish tiling on the internal walls). It was reasonably interesting, but I often think I should be feeling a greater sense of awe at these sorts of places than I find myself experiencing.

However, I must say I did feel a fair degree of wonderment at the Hagia Sophia. This is the domed basilica cathedral built in the sixth century AD and converted into a Mosque when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in the 1600s. In another wise decision, after the Republic of Turkey was established, Atatürk decided to declare it a historical museum for people of all faiths and cultures to visit. I loved the marbled floors, worn by millions of footsteps over many centuries, including the steps of countless emperors, sultans and various historical figures who have visited. The combination of Christian and Islamic features throughout the building is particularly symbolic in today’s world, as indeed is the fact that none of the Islamic Sultans who ruled the city chose to obliterate all sign of Christianity. We were also lucky to have a good guide who gave a good rundown on some of the detailed history of the place. It was a truly marvellous place and a good way to finish a visit to Turkey. The Ambassador met us again for a final chat at the airport and then we boarded the plane for the second part of our delegation’s visit – off to Ireland, land of the majority of my ancestors.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, October 22, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, October 21, 2005
 
Çanakkale
Çanakkale is a smallish town of around 75 000 people, which is also the administrative centre of the province of the same name. The province includes the Gallipoli Peninsula on the other side of the Dardanelles (and also on another continent). We stayed in a hotel on the banks of the Strait, close to its narrowest point. It is only about a mile wide here, and some of the Gallipoli memorials are clearly visible across the water.

This locally produced Çanakkale tourism site gives a good idea of some of the flavour of the area (at time of writing it also has a brief story and picture on our visit).

The area is a historical treasure trove, which is perhaps not surprising given its strategic geographic location. There are ancient towns, cities, artefacts and museums of various sorts scattered throughout the region. Less than 100 kilometres away is Assos, where Aristotle lived for a time and where they are restoring a Temple of Athena on the hilltop.

We didn’t have time to go that far, but we did go to look at the ruins of Troy, which is only 20-30 minutes drive out of Çanakkale. Before this trip I was only half sure Troy was a real city rather than just a legend, let alone that it was in Turkey. Archaeological digs are still continuing there, but there are enough walls and other structures around to get a sense of the city at its various stages.

The horse used in the recent version of the movie Troy, starring Brad Pitt, is on the main waterfront in Çanakkale. Damn ugly if you ask me, but somewhat noteworthy I guess.

We also had a meeting with the Governor of Çanakkale, which not surprisingly focused on Gallipoli, but also on some of the many other things which should draw people to the area. The awareness of Australians is certainly very high in this region, and references to Anzacs and other Australian themes (such as the Boomerang Café, etc) are fairly widespread. While Anzac Day services will always have primacy, encouraging people to visit throughout the year would be beneficial. There’s not much doubt tourism will be a major part of the area’s future, but as always this needs to be managed intelligently.

Whilst the outskirts of Çanakkale looked much like the everyday urban style of all the other cities and towns we’d been through, the middle of the town looked older and more attractive. After finishing all the activities for the day, some of us thought we’d go have a look around the town, with one of our Turkish liaison people with us for guidance.

Somehow or other people ended up in nightclub called TNT. There was a band playing, who I think were called Sarpedon, in a smallish room which was fairly crowded. (My instant research tells me that Sarpedon was the son of Zeus who fought at the siege of Troy, so I’ve learnt something I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t gone out on the town.) The town has a University and most of the people there (apart from us) seemed like they would fit the category of Uni students.

There was a huge TV screen showing a soccer match on one wall, and whenever a goal looked like being scored it brought a big roar or cheer from the crowd, even if they were in the middle of singing along to the band. Even the band seemed to spend half their time watching the screen. Apart from that (and the fact that there was a bunch of grey haired Australian MPs standing out amongst the twenty-somethings), it seemed rather like any inner city pub venue in Australia, including the obligatory pool table used by people to sit or put things on.

Many of the people there were friendly enough to us and quickly picked us for Australians. The band was quite good too, even though many of the songs were (not surprisingly) sung in Turkish. They also did a good version of Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer, which rounded out the evening well – it did make me feel even older, but also not quite so out of place. Qu'est-ce que c'est?

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, October 21, 2005 Permalink
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Thursday, October 20, 2005
 
Gallipoli
On Wednesday, we drove to Gallipoli, which is about 330 kilometres from Istanbul - about a five hour drive. The highway is fine in parts and not so good in others. If you’re feeling the pinch from the increased price of petrol in Australia, it is over $2.70 a litre in Turkey – although many other things, such as food, are comparatively cheap.

So much has been written and said about Gallipoli over the years that it’s hard to provide a fresh description. The Gallipoli Peninsula is at the south-eastern most point of Europe, on the western shore of the Dardanelles, the narrow waterway which leads up to Istanbul and into the Black Sea. The bottom part of the Peninsula has been declared a Peace Park and it contains a bewildering array of monuments and cemeteries for Turks, Australians, New Zealanders and British. The section where the ANZACS fought is only a small part of a large area which the Turks managed to defend – at massive human cost.

Anzac Cove itself is unexpectedly small – a narrow, unremarkable beach at the foot of an array of steep hills and gullies, covered with a mottled collection of low shrubs. In Australia recently there was a lot of controversy about roadworks leading to Anzac Cove and whether this damaged the heritage values of the site. I was part of a Senate Committee Inquiry that looked into this issue which tabled its report just a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately it was a very partisan inquiry, with the Liberal Party members seemingly just interested in defending the Government’s position and Labor mainly interested in beating up the Government. I tried to assess the issue on the evidence and it seems to me what happened was less than ideal, but we need to learn from it for the future rather than just assign blame.

There’s no doubt the widened road has a stark visual impact, as it carves straight into the hillside the ANZACS ran up when they first landed. However, for better or worse the road was already there, so there was already some impact. There seems little doubt it needed to be widened for safety reasons, but whether it had to be done quite so starkly is debateable. It is only one small part of a very large area, but it happens to be right across the front of the first ANZAC landing spot – which is why it draws such heavy traffic of Australians of course.

Naturally, at the end of the day it is Turkish land and we cannot direct them what to do, but it is clear that the Turks work hand in hand with Australia on these sites and our Government was heavily involved in planning and pushing for these roadworks. If they had just admitted the facts and their mistakes, instead of responding with their usual combination of obfuscation and buck-passing when the criticisms were raised, it would make it easier to feel confident that we will get it right in the future.

The real problem is that the numbers of people wanting to visit the Gallipoli peace park continues to grow, and at peak times there is not the infrastructure to cope with them. It is a place for peace and reflection – which is more difficult when there are streams of buses snaking around the place, disgorging packs of people at various times. However, without substantial infrastructure at the edge of the Park and the provision of more managed ways of moving people around the area, I don’t think there is much of an alternative to this. This article details such an approach which looked like being adopted a few years ago, but things seemed to have since moved down other paths for a variety of reasons.

The monuments and cemeteries have of course involved alterations to some of the area, and the geography which was so pivotal to many of the battles and hardships can’t be kept unchanging. But there is no doubt that it is still a haunting place to visit. In a simple display of just how different things are 90 years later, from the same place where so much blood was shed and so many people were never to return home or talk with their loved ones again, I was able to phone home on my mobile phone. I was standing on the beachfront at the main ANZAC commemoration site (which is actually just a few hundred metres around the bend from Anzac Cove) talking with my little girl. I was missing her a bit more than usual, as that day was her fourth birthday (another reason I was a bit reluctant to go on this trip, but opportunities like this don’t come up very often).

The bigger memorials up on the ridge line, where some of the most fearsome battles were fought, give a fuller sense of the scale of the tragedy and bravery, as well as the immense difficulties involved. We were lucky to have a local guide who was well versed in the history of the battles across the whole peninsula, who gave us good insights into the thoughts and actions of the Turks, as well as the Allies.

Australia’s Lone Pine memorial up on the ridge is very moving, but I found the monument to the Turkish 57th Regiment perhaps the most compelling – an entire Regiment wiped out, knowingly going to their deaths to provide the time for reinforcements to arrive to take their place. The respect which the ANZACS developed for the Turks stemmed from that time, and it is part of the positive folklore that grew from the battle. Stories and feelings from this battle were mentioned warmly by many of the Turkish people we met with in Ankara, which is such a contrast from many wars which produce decades of enmity.

We left Gallipoli and caught a ferry across the Dardanelles to Çanakkale. The strait is only a mile wide at its narrowest and some of the huge monuments at Gallipoli were clearly visible from the other side. Hundreds of thousands of Turks lie buried there – some in marked graves, some in unmarked or mass graves and some still undiscovered from where they fell. It is always worth Australians reminding ourselves that Gallipoli is a very sacred area for the Turks too. It is a little bit different to the uniqueness that the ANZAC landings have developed for Australia. Wars and battles are so much more a part of Turkish history than Australia’s. But the loss of Turkish life was enormous and the Turkish victory at Gallipoli was a key part in building the legend and mystique of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) – the main commander by the end of the campaign who went on to lead a war of independence and be the first President of modern Turkey in 1923. (as I mentioned in the previous post, we laid a wreath at his mausoleum on Monday).

Atatürk’s words from 1934 are on a memorial near the first ANZAC landing spot. These words have been mentioned in some way in almost every meeting we have had since we’ve been in Turkey:

you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.

It is a reminder that, while in politics there are millions of words that disappear into the ether or fall immediately on barren soil, sometimes a politician's words can be immensely powerful and beneficial - even for decades to come.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, October 20, 2005 Permalink
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