Senator Andrew Bartlett
Sunday, February 27, 2005
 
West Australian election

The Western Australian election result continues the curious situation of the Labor Party being very dominant with all 8 State and Territory Governments, yet the Liberals being stronger than ever at the federal level. I think it shows the power of incumbency more than anything else and how the main Opposition party often struggles to define itself in an era when the general philosophy of both the major parties is much more closely aligned than they would like us to believe.

First up, I should note the drop of nearly 10% in the vote for minor parties (or the rise of 10% for the majors if you prefer), basically derived from the collapse of the huge One Nation vote, the sizeable Libs For Forests vote and the moderate Democrat vote from 2001 - but with no net gain in votes for the Greens from all of this either. I am disappointed but not at all surprised at the low Democrat vote in the Upper House seats – I know all of the lead candidates and I know there are some good quality people amongst them, but I learnt long ago that sadly the quality of an individual candidate does not impact greatly compared with the overall support the party attracts.

There appears to be the usual total silence on the Upper House from the mainstream media (and just about everywhere else). Who won Government is obviously most important, but the possible Upper House result contains a couple of things that are definitely worthy of comment.

The Poll Bludger is probably the best place to go get a detailed outline of the Upper House contests. There are still a fair number of outstanding votes, so it’s a bit dangerous to make too many predictions but from my reading of the results so far, combined with the preference allocations, there’s a few interesting points worth noting.

Firstly the 3 people elected under the One Nation banner in 2001 have all lost. In addition, out of the 5 seats won by the Greens in 2001, 2 of those are definitely gone and a 3rd seems in serious doubt. So 5 (and possibly 6) of the 8 minor party seats have gone.

Secondly, it seems that Labor may now have the chance to pass its one vote-one value legislation. WA remains the last serious offender amongst state and territory electoral systems in breaching the fundamental principle of one vote, one value. Votes in ‘regional’ seats are worth more than twice those of metropolitan seats. This is something that was notorious in Queensland for many years, but which has now been pretty much addressed. An effort by the WA state government to fix this in the previous Parliament failed to validly pass the Upper House for reasons which are interesting but too detailed to go into now. Although Labor backed away a little bit from the principle during this campaign, they should now have the numbers to address this injustice. (I’m sure some readers will want to point out the massive malapportionment which currently exists in electing the federal Senate – far worse than WA or Qld have ever been, with votes in some states worth around 12 times that of others. I support changing that, but as it would need a referendum to amend the Constitution, I think change is unlikely).

On my reading of the figures, out of the 34 Upper House seats, it seems Labor may win 16, Liberals 14, Nationals 1 and Greens 2. The last one – in South Metropolitan - seems to me to be going either to Labor or someone from the “Fremantle Hospital Support Group”. This ‘party’ seems like it might do the same as Family First did in Victoria at the federal election and win a seat with less than 2% of the primary vote – even more of an anomaly as the quota required is higher than for the Senate at 16.6%.

Another oddity is that this ability to remove the rural gerrymander may occur because the Greens seem likely to win one of their seats (in the electorate of South-West) as a result of a decision of the National Party to preference the Greens ahead of both Family First and the Christian Democrats! I think the person who made that decision might have some explaining to do if the vote of that Green MP turns out to be the pivotal one that allows ‘one vote-one value’, which will undoubtedly weaken the electoral prospects of the National Party in the future.


2 March UPDATE - The Upper House result in a couple of seats is still unclear, as the preference flow can't be predicted with certainty. It seems either Labor or the Fremantle Hospital Group will win the final seat in South Metro. The final South-West seat still seems highly to go to the Greens, but the final seat in Agricultural may end up going to the Nationals or the Christian Democrats rather than Labor. If that happens, it makes the chances of electoral reform for ‘one vote-one value’ less likely to make it through. (I must say I am assuming the Fremantle Hospital people would support electoral reform as it ensure the votes of Fremantle electors have the same value as voters in the rest of the state. However, this may prove to be mistaken)

Some recent summaries of the likely results can be found by Charles Richardson at Crikey and by Antony Green on the ABC site.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, February 27, 2005 Permalink
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Wednesday, February 23, 2005
 
3 Days, 3 Speeches
One of the reasons I decided not to stay on as Democrats’ Leader was so I could spend more time in my home state of Queensland. February got off to a bad start in this regard, as I was away for 10 nights straight in Canberra for Senate sittings, meetings of the party National Executive and then Estimates Committees. The first National Executive meeting I ever attended was in Canberra not long after the 1990 election, when the greatly missed Janine Haines lost her tilt at a Lower House seat. One or two things have changed since then. However, I'll get to spend most of the next 10 days in and around Brisbane.

Over the last couple of days I’ve met with people interested in a range of issues including alternative fuels, medicines, Pay TV (or subscription TV as the industry likes to call itself these days). I also met with someone about the situation on Nauru, both for the islanders, as well as for the asylum seekers who are still locked up there.

On Monday and Tuesday evenings I gave speeches at two very different events and on two very different topics. The first was a Rotary Club dinner – just a regular suburban club at Stones Corner on Brisbane’s inner southside. My topic was ‘the future of the Democrats’ which is a topic I and many other people have been wrestling with for the last couple of months. The venue was Easts Leagues Club, which I used to go to occasionally in my teenage years when I went to lots of games in the local Brisbane club competition. This actually wasn’t a terribly good omen, as the team I followed back in those days – Valleys – ended up going bust and disappearing, despite being the most successful club over more than 80 years in that competition. I didn’t notice any wailing from Sydney sports journalists about the ‘soul of rugby league dying’ when that happened – however, I think I’m going off topic.

The speech was a good chance to test out some of my thoughts on people. I wouldn’t think Rotary Clubs would form the core of my usual voter base, but that makes it more valuable in some ways. I must have been a bit downbeat, because during questions a few people said I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. There were a few suggestions as to what the Democrats should do from here and what people thought was wrong with politics. People were quite supportive and friendly (without suggesting they’ll suddenly all vote for me). I don’t know if they found it of interest, but I found it helpful in refining a few of my own thoughts.

The next night could hardly have been more different. It was a ‘Politics in the Pub’ event organised by the New Farm neighbourhood centre and held at the Powerhouse – very much inner city and a fairly arty sort of venue (well worth visiting if you get the chance – it is actually in an old powerhouse and. they’ve kept enough of the old structure to make it interesting). The crowd was a rather different demographic to Rotary (to put it mildly) and the topic was the curious one of “the Fate of Friendship in a Frenzied World”. There were a few of the local Social Alliance people doing their usual committed work, plus an eclectic mix of others from the local community. The other speakers helpfully set the tone, which made it easier for me as last speaker. I did it half for laughs and half to make some serious points about the need to have connectedness between people. I think the people there were able to tell which half was which.

I did another speech today (Wednesday) out at the University of Queensland on the topic of mental health and mandatory detention. This comes out of the controversy following the Cornelia Rau incident. It looks almost certain that the Senate will now have a general inquiry into mental health issues in Australia, which will be a good first step in trying to get some positive change as a result of this terrible incident. I gave the speech in a building called the Abel Smith lecture theatre, which many people call the Pizza Hut because of its odd shape and roof. It is also the place where I had my very first lecture as a university student back in 1982. Looking at the calendar, there’s even a prospect that it was 23 years ago to the day. It was a Psychology lecture (PY102 I think) and the building was overcrowded, even though I’d say it fits a few hundred people. Still, numbers dropped off after the first week or two and everyone could get a seat. It wasn't quite so crowded at this forum, but it never hurts to keep people informed and focused on an issue in the period after the media frenzy has died down.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Wednesday, February 23, 2005 Permalink
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Sunday, February 20, 2005
 
You Couldn't Make This Up

If you didn’t read the piece by Alan Ramsey I referred to in my previous post, then you should – so click here now!

Now that you’ve read it, you’ll be aware of the extraordinary bit at the bottom which details the saga of
a phoney journalist, planted by a Republican organisation, used by the White House press secretary to interrupt questioning from the press corps, protected from FBI vetting, disseminating smears about its critics and opponents, some of them gay-baiting, who was unmasked not only as a hireling and fraud but also as a gay prostitute!!

This story seemed so extraordinary, especially in this era of hyper-security (and orchestrated gay bashing by the US Republicans), that I thought it must be some sort of hoax. However, all these details and more seem to be true. Reports from the Guardian article which Ramsey quotes, the Houston Chronicle, the New York Times (politics and arts sections) and The Washington Post, along with statements by the Democrat Whip in the House - all verify it.

In addition to the astonishing nature of this story, an interesting sidelight is that, in much the same way that right-wing bloggers are claiming some scalps of the so-called ‘liberal media’ in the USA, it appears this one has come to light as a result of ‘liberal’ bloggers digging out info on the extremist neo-conservatives.
(I really hate how the Liberal Party in Australia has totally destroyed the true meaning of the word “liberal”. It’s as absurd as having a Green Party that supports clearfelling rainforest)

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, February 20, 2005 Permalink
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Don't tell me, I don't want to know

There was a very telling piece by Alan Ramsey in the Sydney Morning Herald this weekend which is well worth a read. Ramsey is a very long serving, idiosyncratic member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He can be quite cantankerous and single minded, but he is also one of the few that sometimes goes into the substance of what happens in the Parliament, as opposed to the wafer thin depth that tends to characterise most coverage. His knowledge of Parliamentary history (as opposed to artificially manufactured folklore) also means he is often worth reading, despite his foibles.

His column recounts the transcript from a Senate Committee hearing last week which basically showed the federal Government has no interest at all in what the civilian casualties might be from the invasion of Iraq. Among other things, the Government Minister and officials suggested there is no real way of reliably knowing what the figure might be, and use this as an excuse to avoid the topic altogether.

This made me think it was worth highlighting the Iraq Body Count website. I’ve had this linked on my main website for a while, but it’s worth giving it a special mention here. This is a project that has attempted to record every confirmed civilian casualty – possibly the first time in history this has been done in such a methodical and independently reviewable way. Because it only calculates from verifiable reports, it is undoubtedly an underestimate, but it is still a very important body of information. The count (so far) is between 16 036 and 18 305 civilian deaths.

Regardless of whether you supported the invasion of Iraq or not, I think we have a responsibility to inform ourselves of the human cost. It is unacceptable that our Government does not consider this information to be of any importance and absurd for them to suggest that there is no way to make any sort of reasonable estimate of the death toll.

So for the benefit of Minister Robert Hill and the Office of National Assessments, I hereby inform them of the following URL: http://www.iraqbodycount.net. Maybe at the next Committee hearings, they will be able to give some answers.

PS While I’m at it, another site worth looking at that gives daily updates of the human cost is Today in Iraq. And in the interests of balance, Chrenkoff has been regularly posting compilations of "good news from Iraq". Whilst I couldn’t disagree more with his enthusiastic embrace of George Bush and his cartoon like demonisation of the United Nations and other usual targets of unthinking right-wingers, he does compile a lot of material that doesn’t get much coverage in the mainstream media which is worth being informed of.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, February 20, 2005 Permalink
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Saturday, February 19, 2005
 
Burning Down the House: Interest Rates, Tax Reform & the Price of Housing

Yesterday, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Ian MacFarlane, was quoted in the media as saying homeowners could expect interest rate rises "sooner rather than later". Virtually everything he pointed to as a contributory factor were things the Government could have addressed but has chosen not to.

Mr MacFarlane pinpointed exactly where the biggest problem is with the tax and the welfare systems – the effective tax rates paid by low and middle income earners. This is one area of tax and welfare reform where the Government would have received Senate support, but chose to do nothing.

He spoke of the need to remove barriers to workforce participation (which does NOT mean taking away people's income support) and reduce high marginal tax rates and withdrawn benefit rates.

In this story from News Ltd, John Howard makes a pretence of responding to the issues raised by the Reserve Bank Governor, but mostly talks about everything but. Among his comments, Mr Howard says “we have been trying to reform the disability pension scheme,” which is a reference to the Government’s attempts to kick people off the Disability Pension, which were stopped by the Senate.

As I detailed in my previous post, this is actually the opposite of what was proposed as welfare reform and has nothing to do with workforce participation. However, if the Government keeps maintaining this pretence, then there’s a better than even money chance they will get away with this deception, as I have yet to see this façade challenged in the media.

Mr MacFarlane also mentioned the need to address the impact of the taxation regime on housing prices, such as capital gains tax, negative gearing provisions and other measures that are helping to drive the price of home ownership out of the reach of Australians on average incomes.

This has echoes of the recommendations of the Productivity Commission report into the cost of home ownership. As can be seen from the Government's response to this report, they ignored all the recommendations which would require them to do something and supported all the rest which required action from the states.

The federal Government specifically decided to ignore those aspects of the personal income tax regime that have contributed to excessive investment in rental housing (and thus to skyrocketing house prices), ignore the housing needs of low income households and ignore the problems caused by the First Home Owner Scheme. And yet the Prime Minister has the gall to say “the family home ….. should always be something which is kept within the reach of Australians on modest incomes.” Unfortunately, he has already failed as far as many families are concerned, and many of those who have managed to get a toehold on home ownership now have such a huge debt that they live in fear of the smallest rise in interest rates.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, February 19, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, February 18, 2005
 
Working for the Clampdown
Michelle Grattan's column in The Age today started with the following two sentences:

The Federal Government is determined to get more disability pensioners into the workforce.

With its eyes firmly on its coming Senate majority, the Howard cabinet is about to consider toughening eligibility for the disability support pension, which goes to more than 700,000 Australians.

Read quickly, they sound like they are part of the one action. But the fact is they are two totally different things. NOBODY, least of all disabled people themselves, objects to more disabled pensioners being able to get into the workforce. Many would jump at the chance.

This has nothing to do with making it harder for people to get on (or stay on) the disability support pension. Whilst it is unreasonable to suggest there should never be any changes to eligibility criteria, the Government’s agenda is simply to save money by keeping people off the pension. Unemployment payments now pay significantly less than pension payments and the gap between the two will continue to grow. The income test is also much tighter, meaning people lose much more money if they do get some part-time work.

I find it hard not to get angry about this, especially when:

a) blatant attempts to knock disabled people off the pension is disguised as an altruistic effort to ‘get them back into the workforce’;

b) punishing disabled pensioners is re-badged as ‘welfare reform’, when in reality it is a total bastardisation of the McClure Report, which is usually cited as laying out the welfare reform framework which this Government said it would follow. IF all of the other measures contained in this report had been implemented, (especially the need to reduce the gap between payments for pensioners and the unemployed) there might be a case for a more restrictive approach for a Disability Pension. However, as most of those involve the Government helping people in need before the better off, they have never been adopted.

c) it coincides with a push amongst Liberal backbenchers and some business leaders for more tax ‘reform’, which so far is little more than a barely disguised code for big tax cuts for higher income earners. Nothing shows this Government’s real character like cutting assistance for the disabled at the same time as talking up big tax cuts for the top earners;

d) it quite deliberately and calculatedly infers that some of the people currently on the disability pension are ‘bludgers’ who shouldn’t really be entitled to it. It can be difficult enough as it is surviving on a disability pension. It is far worse when you are made to feel guilty about receiving it.

Public debate over the last few weeks should have made clear how much of a stigma mental illness carries and how damaging this can be to sufferers. Try adding a good dollop of public antagonism, tacitly endorsed by the nation’s leaders, and see what that does for your mental health.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, February 18, 2005 Permalink
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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
 
The Über Issue - Climate Change

The Kyoto Protocol comes into force today. This is a significant step forward in global collaborative efforts to prevent rapid climate change. The Protocol is a completely insufficient set of measures for tackling this major threat, but the very act of it being adopted is a very important first step. We must keep moving on the next steps, which need to be as big and as rapid as possible.

If you can't find out information on climate change or the Kyoto Protocol on the Internet, you're not really trying, so I won't put up a whole bunch of links. I will just make two statements to reinforce my belief that climate change is by far the most pressing and important environmental issue.

Firstly, it is an issue which is now widely accepted as real and serious, even amongst organisations, parties and people who would not normally be seen as environmentalist. I believe the new federal Environment Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, is genuine in his concern about the issue, but he is totally hamstrung in the actions he can take because of the stone-age, ideologically driven inflexibility of his Prime Minister. There are still a few greenhouse sceptics, but there are always some people determined to be sceptics – there's even a Flat Earth Society, 400 years after Galileo developed his telescope.

Secondly, if we don't do far better at slowing climate change, then many of the other efforts of so many people to protect the environment will be futile. To quote Peter Garrett's First Speech to Parliament, this is "a supra issue which presents the most profound environmental and political challenge we will face in the coming century." (I prefer über-issue, but maybe I've been watching too much Buffy, which uses that prefix on occasion.) To use an example that is both stark and close to home for me, reports in last weekend's paper suggest that the Great Barrier Reef's coral could disappear in as little as 20 years. In other words, it is possible it is already too late. Just doing a quick database search, I've mentioned the Reef on 48 separate occasions in the Senate in the last 6 years, including as recently as last week, in addition to a range of questioning in various Senate Committees. Leaving aside wisecracks about what effect all the hot air from my speeches has had on climate change, all the efforts by so many people to protect the Reef will go to waste if we fail on climate change.

The big challenge with any huge, global issue is to overcome the feeling that it's too big and hard to do anything about as an individual. My well reasoned response is to say that such a view, while understandable, is totally crap. So get out there, tell people who aren’t sure that this is as serious as it gets and encourage any sort of action that will help reduce the danger.

There will be probably be heaps of different web logs mentioning the Kyoto Protocol over the next couple of days where you can have a say. John Quiggin has got in early, taking 47 words to say what I've said in 540.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Wednesday, February 16, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
 
Immigration Committee Hearings Commence
One of the frustrations of being in a smaller party is trying to cover so many issues (although it also means greater personal freedom to range across issues than the people in the larger parties get). This frustration gets compounded at the time of Estimates Committees, when four different committees sit at the same time.

Today, I've been wanting to gather information about immigration and refugee issues (on the Legal and Constitutional Committee), quarantine, mulesing and live animal exports (on the Rural and Regional Affairs Committee) and some environment issues (on the Environment, Communications, IT and the Arts Committee). Some of my colleagues are covering other areas as well, and some questions can be put on notice (i.e. in writing) but the difficulty of wanting to be in three places at once remains.

Given that immigration and refugee issues have been a key focus of mine for so long, and the widespread interest and debate on the Cornelia Rau case, I'm giving priority to the Legal & Con Committee.

That Committee continued to cover matters from the Attorney-General area through the morning. Immigration matters did not come on until just before 12 noon (just as quarantine comes on in the Rural Committee, so I've had to forgo questions on that).

The Immigration Minister, Senator Vanstone, started out with a long statement about the Rau case and initial questions went straight to that matter. The significant nature of the matter was demonstrated by the presence of Labor's Senate Leader, Chris Evans, along with myself, Liberal Senator and Committee Chair Marise Payne , Labor's Senate person on immigration issues, Joe Ludwig, NT Senator Nigel Scullion and SA Labor Senator Linda Kirk. All of these people, apart from Chris Evans, regularly attend Estimates hearings for refugee matters. Even Green Party Senator Kerry Nettle was present. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time ever that a Green Party Senator has come to an Estimates Committee hearing on refugee matters, so it shows how seriously they are treating this issue.

The hearings and questions are continuing as I write. There's plenty of other immigration issues that will be pursued once questions have finished on the Rau issue. Hansard draft transcripts of the hearings are usually available by the next day. You should be able to access them by going to this part of the Parliament House website.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Permalink
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Love Itself

Being a curmudgeon at heart, I have an innate distaste for Valentine's Day. So I waited until February 15th to get this piece posted on the site, because it's all about love.

I was going through some emails earlier (a day that finishes with fewer emails in your Inbox is a day where you can feel you've made progress – a very flimsy measure of progress I know, but sometimes you grab on to what you can). In answering one email, I had cause to mention what is definitely one of the best things about being a politician, which is that I get to meet a huge number of people who do truly wonderful things as part of just living their life. There are people everywhere doing all sorts of things that make the world a better place for others around them, and if I wasn't in this job I'd barely have seen any of that. I'm not quite sure why we don't get to hear about all these inspirational people, but we don't, and it sure is nice to be able to meet so many of them. Sometimes I feel the most important task of government is to help people do these things (which can sometimes mean just getting out of their way and letting them go for it).

The flip side of this is that you also have contact with so many people and situations and actions which are just awful. Seeing how badly so many people treat their children (and other people's children) is one of the worst examples of this. Of course, my contact with such things is usually fleeting, unlike those who have to work in this field of broken lives day after day (many of who are included amongst the people I mention in the previous paragraph)

Sometimes you have to wonder what it is that makes some people go so badly awry. No doubt there are many things, but love and its absence has to be at the heart of a lot of it. I don't suggest that love is all you need, not least because that would mean quoting a Beatles song, and at present I'm trying to stick to quoting Leonard Cohen. However, an inability to access love, especially for a child, is unequivocally not a good thing – for them and sometimes for the rest of us too.

I was doing some research on the Internet earlier (no, really I was), and I came across a new web journal by Melissa Auf der Maur. She used to be the bass player in Hole, best known for its lead singer Courtney Love, but left and formed her own band. She did this piece in her web journal for Valentine's Day. Maybe it was because I read it just after I'd written the email I mention above, but the first part of the piece struck a chord with me. It was about unconditional love, rather than all that romantic love stuff that marketers distort into monstrosities like Valentine's Day. You can go to the site to read it all if you like, although as it goes on it gets a bit much for a wet blanket like me. However, I've pinched the first part and put it here, so I can easily find it if I want to read it again:


Unconditional -
The love that every baby that is born should be granted.
The love a good mother can't help but provide, it is her instinct, her gut, her truth.
Nurturing and accepting. Love over flowing with forgiveness.
Too often a child is denied that love, and that child grows up longing and looking for it.


I was lucky enough to get it from my mother, and my little girl is lucky enough to get it from hers. I guess I meet a lot of people who haven’t been so lucky and it's made life a lot harder for them than it could have been.

There's no way you can legislate for children to get unconditional love – even just a few years worth – but in case anyone does figure out a way, make sure you let me know. It would reduce the workload of (and maybe the need for) politicians by at least fifty per cent.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Permalink
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Monday, February 14, 2005
 
Diamonds in the Mine – Senate Estimates Committees

The Parliament is sitting again this week, with the Senate holding Estimates Committee hearings. If you want to find out more detail about what Estimates Committees do, this site has a detailed explanation. Basically it's a chance for Senators to ask questions of senior Department officials about any aspect of activities undertaken or overseen by the federal Government. There's usually not a lot of votes to be won or huge media to be got, although often there'll be some good quirky or symbolic stories, such as the cost of the wine used for functions hosted by the Prime Minister at Kirribilli House.

MP Bronwyn Bishop scored some brief fame and public adoration many years ago for being particularly aggressive and abusive towards senior public servants (in particular the Tax Commissioner) in Senate Estimates hearings. However, as much as we'd all love occasionally to let fly at a public servant who isn't really in a position to answer back, it tends to be counter-productive. The real value of these Committees is to gather information, not to score political points. It tends to be a slow and gradual process of digging, sifting and processing, which is why people find it dull to listen to and why it doesn't usually get large amounts of media (unless a real scandal is unearthed).

I'm sure there will be a wide range of questions being asked of Immigration Department officials about the Cornelia Rau incident. I usually also use the hearings with Immigration people to get the latest information about what is happening in the detention camps at Nauru and around Australia, how many refugees are now at risk of deportation, etc. The Immigration area is handled by the Legal & Constitutional Committee, and will be covered in hearings on Tuesday.

If you have a decent web connection, you can listen live to the Committee hearings by going to this site and clicking on the icon for the Legal & Constitutional Committee. Listening to Committee hearings is very much an acquired taste (i.e. most people find it mind-crushingly boring), but many could find the Immigration one interesting because of current issues.

Of course, this Government is now long-skilled in distorting, diffusing, disguising and defending, and its public servants are well trained in these practices, so it is getting harder to mine right down to where the real truth is. However, occasionally a diamond appears in amongst the residual material, and there's always plenty of other less-precious material which is still able to be put to good use.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, February 14, 2005 Permalink
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No Need for the Whip, No Need for the Rein
The first week of Senate sittings has finished. As always, plenty of things happened – some major, some minor. Even though it was just the first week, the Government has only scheduled 18 more sitting days before the end of June when they take control of the Senate. The number of sitting days the Government allows has been getting less and less over the last few years, but this is the lowest number in decades. By amazing coincidence, the number of sittings days after the Government gets control of the Senate is much larger.

From a quick count, I think the Senate passed 25 Bills (in 13 separate packages) during the week. The Senate also demonstrated its usual level of obstructiveness by blocking zero (sometimes also described as nought, nil or none) pieces of legislation.

There were some significant ones in amongst these, not least further extending public subsidies for people over 65 with private health insurance. The Government said this measure was "a reward" for people who hold health insurance. My feeling is that that's all very nice, but it means more taxpayers' money going to people who on average already have more wealth than those who can't afford to take out private health cover. Economically inefficient and patently unfair I would have thought.

However, Labor passed it in the Senate because it was a Government election promise, even though they slagged it off while they passed it. I doubt they’ll use the same rationale and support Bills containing election promises dealing with industrial relations issues.

Other legislation passed included a measure to fix up some transition glitches with the GST (five years on), extra Govt powers to include identifying data in Passports, and bringing in improved water efficient labelling and standards (which were the result of Democrat initiatives).

A lot of questions were asked of Senator Vanstone throughout the week about the Cornelia Rau case and the inadequate, narrow private Inquiry that's been set up. Usually there are about 5 journalists who come to Senate Question Time and sit in the special gallery that's provided for them. The vast bulk of journalists go to witness the vaudeville in the House of Representatives instead. However, on the first sitting day I counted as many as 8 at one stage, which I guess counts as extensive interest.

Given the large number of angles being pursued by people on this matter, I focussed on trying to get a guarantee that the Government's Inquiry would allow evidence to be given by the asylum seekers who witnessed Ms Rau's treatment in the detention centre. As they are the main eye-witnesses of this aspect of the story, I think this is important (should they wish to give evidence of course). As far as I know, there still hasn't been any guarantee given that these detainees will be able to give evidence.

I try not to make this web diary too full of political proselytising, so I put most of the information about speeches I make and questions I ask on my main website.

This was also my first week in the Senate as party Whip. No major dramas there – the Government was changing the order of the business pretty regularly, but that's nothing unusual. Being Whip involves going to meetings each day – usually fairly short – with the Whips from the other parties to go through what is likely to be happening in the Chamber the next day and get a rough indication of how it might pan out.

The Labor Party Whip is a guy called George Campbell, a fairly gruff guy with a British accent (I think it's Northern Irish, but only because his biography says that's where he was born), who came into the Senate on a casual vacancy a month before I did. The Government Whip is Jeannie Ferris, who has been in the Senate since the 1996 election (although technically she too was appointed to fill a casual vacancy).

Because of the allegations Senator Ferris made about me at the end of 2003 and the resulting media furore, there was a bit of tiresome media coverage at the end of last year about whether us both being Whips would cause some problem. Of course it didn’t. Business flowed smoothly and everyone got on with our jobs –no doubt to the disappointment of the media.

Even though the Senate sittings finished on Thursday evening, I had to stay down in Canberra for a whole bunch of planning meetings, which was a bit of a drag. However, it was more productive than most weekend-long meetings I've had, so I guess that's a good thing.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, February 14, 2005 Permalink
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Saturday, February 12, 2005
 
Senate sits to sounds of silence
A rarity occurred in the Senate on Thursday. Having spent all summer blaming the 'obstructionist' Senate as the supposed reason why they had been unable to fix every economic problem imaginable, the Government ran out of legislation for the Senate to debate.

Yes, that's right – at 12.17 pm on Thursday, with the Senate having just passed the Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill (yet another pile of taxpayers money going disproportionately towards the better off) with the support of the Labor Party, the next Bill the Government brought on for debate was ……………… ……….. nothing!!!!

The Senate had been so obstructive, it had passed every Bill the Government had listed and they had no legislation ready to bring on for debate. 28 minutes of Senate silence elapsed until 12.45 ticked over and some more Bills were debated (and passed).

Some unkind folk may say this was the most sensible thing they'd ever heard coming out of the Senate when it's been scheduled to sit, but it is also an indication of how much contempt the Government already has for the Senate and the legislative process and how little effort it puts into trying to ensure the process operates sensibly and effectively. You may have heard various versions of the old joke – "watching how legislation is made is a lot like watching how sausages made – and if you saw how sausages were made, you’d never eat any". I'm a vegetarian so I haven't eaten a sausage for decades, but I won't ever give up on the legislative process, however rank its ingredients might sometimes be.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, February 12, 2005 Permalink
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Friday, February 11, 2005
 
They Came So Far for Beauty
I own every album recorded by Nick Cave and every album recorded by Leonard Cohen, so I was very keen to see Nick and others perform in the unique Cohen tribute show – Came So Far for Beauty. There were three performances of the show. Reviews of the first show on the Friday night were provided in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. I was lucky to be able to see the final show on the Sunday night. Seeing I made a list of all 34 songs played by a moveable feast of 14 different vocalists, I thought I would indulge myself with my own review of the show.

Follow this link to read more….


UPDATE: some reviews and views of the shows by other people can be seen at Flop Eared Mule's site, plus the sites of Chris Spedding (includes a few photos), James McParlane (who got a much better seat than I – and for free too by the look of it), Polywise (some more photos), Suburban Howl, Sister Buckle (also got a better ticket than me despite buying them at the last minute – what's going on here?), one faint deluded smile, and finally, even a brief comment from one of the performers on her own site!

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, February 11, 2005 Permalink
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Monday, February 07, 2005
 
There is a Crack in Everything - What will come from the Cornelia Rau case?
The case of Cornelia Rau may turn out to be one of those terrible incidents that provide a wake-up call and a catalyst for positive change. I hope so. No doubt questions on it will be pursued in Parliament tomorrow. At the moment, I am mainly trying to follow the public debate. I may have more to say on it later.

I doubt the issues will be detailed more poignantly than in the piece by Cornelia's sister in today's Sydney Morning Herald. We can't make public policy solely on emotions, but we shouldn't be blind to them either. This piece brings up sadness, anger, fear – yet also offers understanding, forgiveness and even hope.

Some of the SMH reader's comments give a pretty clear picture.

And in a very stark indication of just why this sort of thing can happen, check out the scathing statement in this report by South Australia's Public Advocate, Jonathan Harley, whose legal duty is in part to be an advocate for the disabled mentally ill. He says the attitude from department officials towards him was appalling --- "Because they are not accountable to anybody I can honestly say ... I was in private practice before I was appointed here - but in 40 years I've never dealt with such arrogant public servants in all my life." It's hard to be much blunter than that.

Lots of commentary on many websites too – it's worth having a glance at some of them.

There's a wide-ranging debate continuing at Troppo Armadillo.

Currency Lad recalls the old-fashioned (maybe even conservative) doctrine of Ministerial Responsibility, recalling the days "when a Labor member of Bob Hawke's government resigned after inadvertently bringing a Paddington Bear into the country."

Barista draws comparisons with Franz Kafka's tales of being trapped in an absurd bureaucratic maze.

More views expressed at Sailing Close to the Wind, Dogfight at Bankstown, Chris Samuel, Anonymous Lefty, Red Interior, Northcote Knob, and Dangerous ideas from a Working Brain

And it's worth having a look back at the article that started it all. If that piece hadn't been written (and published), Cornelia would still be locked up. I am sometimes critical of the mainstream media (and they are sometimes critical of me), but congratulations should go to the journalist, Andra Jackson, who did the work to pull this together and to advocate Pamela Curr who (as far as I am aware) was the one who did most to encourage her to write it – and of course to the asylum seekers who did most to blow the whistle in the first place.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, February 07, 2005 Permalink
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The Senate Resumes
The Senate resumes this week for its first sittings in around 2 months.

In order to squeeze in one more night at home, I catch the early morning direct flight to Canberra. This means catching a 5.20am flight. Even though I thankfully live quite close to the airport, it still means getting out of bed around 4am, which is not my idea of fun. I stepped out my front door and left behind the smell of the hundreds of sun-baked and decaying mangoes currently carpeting my yard.

Most of the Qld MPs would have caught the previous night's flight down, but Kevin Rudd and Senator Ron Boswell share this flight with me. Unexpectedly, so does Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, with the video for their single Breathless appearing on the in-flight TV. I hadn't seen this clip before, which is not surprising as I've watched very little TV in the past few months. I am reminded of one of the iron laws of the universe which I'd forgotten about, which is that soon as I start enjoying something on the in-flight TV or sound system, the crew will interrupt with an announcement, so it was no surprise when Nick's song was interrupted mid-flow by some words from the pilot.

For once, some significant policy issues seem to be dominating the media's political coverage. The Cornelia Rau case is rightly getting lots of coverage (146 references through the Yahoo news link as at 9am) which should help lift the veil on how disgracefully people are being treated in our detention centres, the abortion debate is warming up and now looks like it will be around for a while, and the Liberals are laying the groundwork for some radical changes to industrial relations laws. It remains to be seen how ruthlessly the Liberals make use of their Senate majority from July, but I think the area where they are most likely to be extremist will be Industrial relations.

Even though the Senate doesn't sit until Tuesday, today the Democrat Senators will have a Senate Team meeting to plan for the week (and months) ahead. It will be the first time I've seen a couple of them since December, although I've had cause to communicate with almost all of them for various reasons since then. Natasha Stott Despoja won't be there as she is still on maternity leave following the birth of her son in December.

This also marks the time of my starting formally in the position of party Whip, although I have plenty of past experience in fulfilling the required tasks, so the position doesn't hold any great unknowns or challenges for me. Keeping across what is coming up in the Senate is a key part of the Whip's responsibilities, along with managing the presence of party members in the Chamber to respond on issues as required.

The Government's pending control of the Senate in July has taken a lot of the edge off our responsibilities (and opportunities) in examining all the legislation due for debate, but we will still use our meeting to go through the list of Bills and the issues covered in them. You would be hard pressed finding out much about what is being debated in the Senate through the mainstream media, but you can always find out what Bills are planned for debate in the coming week by going to this site. Of course this is just what is proposed for debate, and it rarely ends up happening in the order or timing that's proposed. Bills can be brought on by the Govt with little notice or dropped off the list, and it is always difficult to predict how long a debate will take or what else may come up in the Senate Chamber. To use a simple example, there is talk that the sittings tomorrow will start with a condolence debate on the tsunami. This would be a fine thing to do, but it is an example of what sort of thing can easily throw the draft legislation program out of whack.

At the start of each day, a semi-official guide is issued outlining the expected order of business. This may be why it is called the Order of Business, although it is colloquially known as the "Red" because the paper copy has a red stripe down the side. This and some other relevant information can be found by going to this site. The Senate Dept is trialling updating it through the day so that it remains as accurate an estimate as possible.

If you see the name of a Bill and want to find out more about it, you can go to this site which contains the Bills Digest which usually has a fairly impartial and reasonably understandable outline of what the Bill is about.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, February 07, 2005 Permalink
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Sunday, February 06, 2005
 
What The??!! The case of Cornelia Rau
The case of Cornelia Rau - a mentally ill Australian woman, listed as a missing person, but kept in an isolation unit in immigration detention for months – has rightly generated a lot of comment. Some commentary on other sites include at Troppo Armadillo and Dogfight at Bankstown.

People such as myself who have long criticised mandatory detention and all its consequences will use this occurence to back our case about the intrinsic inhumanity and absence of basic rights entrenched by this system.

However, even for those who might see this as a tragic one-off with no real implications for detention policy, some other very big questions must be independently examined and answered:

How competent is our missing-person system when the person who is reported as missing comes to be in official hands (Qld Police and then DIMIA) and yet is not matched-up with the report?

What sort of mental health assessment system do we have in prisons and detention centres when someone who appears to have been so clearly mentally ill is found not to be? Is it just because she had already been labelled an 'illegal immigrant'? Given that the main mental health assessment that 'cleared' her appears to have been done before she was put into Baxter, does this show that her treatment and environment in Baxter made her condition worse? Why is it that the minute she was released into the care of the Glenside (SA Govt) Psychiatric Hospital she was described as severely ill, yet according to Vanstone prior to that she was not suffering a mental illness.

There may also be questions German citizens want to ask about how thoroughly their Embassy followed up the reports of the 'mystery' allegedly German woman locked up in detention.

I had hoped to raise this situation with DIMIA officials or Baxter centre management while I was visiting there last week, but for the first time in my many visits to detention centres, my request for a meeting was not accepted. Some of the asylum seekers in detention mentioned her, which was consistent with previous reports they had provided to others.

The asylum seekers in detention must be given the opportunity to publicly detail the treatment they witnessed of this woman, without fear of retribution. Were it not for them, Cornelia Rau would certainly still be in an isolation unit in detention, receiving inadequate (or probably harmful) treatment.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, February 06, 2005 Permalink
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Human rights in Iran - how Australia, Europe and the USA are responding
A little over a week ago I met in my office with an Iranian man who is currently living in Brisbane. He is a widely published writer on science issues, and he has also written about the situation many Iranians currently face at the hands of their Government. He is trying to get protection from having to return to Iran.

When I was in Baxter detention centre a few days ago, I met with Iranian writer Ardeshir Gholipour whose situation has received a bit of media coverage. He seemed a very humble man - maybe even a little embarrassed by the specific attention he had received and repeatedly stressing that all the others locked up in Baxter were just as much in need of help as he. I also met some of the Iranian asylum seekers involved in the hunger strike prior to Christmas to assure them that many people were still working hard in support of them. Whilst some of them were clearly extremely despondent, it is amazing how well many of them are holding up, given what they have been through and the uncertain future they face.

There have been many reports of the Iranian Government cracking down on journalists and internet writers. To quote from this item in the Online Journalism Review, “in Iran, when reformist bloggers and journalists fact-check the government they are put in jail and their publications are shut.”

So what are some recent actions by other nations about human rights in Iran? The European Parliament recently passed a resolution denouncing the continuing human rights abuses in Iran.
The USA Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, gave her views about Iran during her visit to Europe. She is quoted in the New York Times as saying "I don't think anybody thinks that the unelected mullahs who run that regime are a good thing for the Iranian people or for the region. I think our European allies agree that the Iranian regime's human rights behaviour and its behaviour toward its own population is something to be loathed."

In contrast, two years ago, the Australian Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Iranian Government. The two countries agreed their “first priority is to work together to promote the voluntary repatriation of those Iranians currently in detention in Australia.” The MOU also enables non-voluntary deportation of asylum seekers back to Iran, something which occurred in at least one instance as recently as last month.

The MOU also established a Work and Holiday Visa scheme for “young Iranians and Australians to work and holiday in each others' country.” Iranians wishing to make use of this have to gain the approval of the Iranian Government.

Despite a specific order by the Senate, the Australian Government refused to release the contents of the MOU – something I expressed annoyance about at the time.

For once, I wish the Australian Government would share the views of the USA Administration and stop trying to deport asylum seekers back to a country whose Government's human rights behaviour and actions towards its own people is “something to be loathed”.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, February 06, 2005 Permalink
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Saturday, February 05, 2005
 
More Contrasting Reports - One Week On
After a very welcome and fairly long break from travel, I spent most of this week away - visiting Sydney, Adelaide, Baxter detention centre, Canberra and Bundaberg. I quickly realised/remembered how much harder it is to keep up with emails and tasks like posting to this blog while I’m on the road. I’ll put some other items up soon, but on arriving home I noticed something very similar to my last posting from the start of the week.

In the Courier-Mail of Friday 4th Feb, there is a story by Matthew Franklin titled “Labor Sticks to Medicare Gold”, which states:

Labor has renewed its commitment to its controversial Medicare Gold policy…. Julia Gillard said yesterday Labor would stick to a Medicare Gold-style solution to problems besetting the health system.

On the Nine News site of Friday 4th Feb is a story sourced from AAP headed “Gillard says Medicare Gold dropped”. It states

Labor has pulled the plug on Medicare Gold, the centrepiece of its unsuccessful election campaign, but undertaken to retain the key principles.

I don’t know for sure but it appears both these stories derived from the same set of comments made to reporters in Melbourne the day before.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, February 05, 2005 Permalink
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