Senator Andrew Bartlett
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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Ankara
The Ankara leg of our visit was a little bit afflicted for me by jet lag. Four flights and 28 hours after I checked in at Brisbane airport, I arrived at the hotel in Ankara, along with the rest of the delegation, about 11am.

Ankara is a large sprawling city of several million people. Attractive is not a word which comes to mind when thinking of ways to describe it. However, the history of the region is quite extraordinary. We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon at the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations. History has never been my strong point, although I do find it interesting and this visit was full of references to eras, civilisations, people and rulers I had vaguely heard of but knew little about, all of whom had lived in the lands now covered by the modern state of Turkey. There are numerous historical sites going back thousands of years throughout the area and the museum provided a wide representation of them.

The Sunday night involved dinner at the Ambassador’s residence, getting briefings from Embassy officials on a range of current issues for the region and (where relevant) Australia’s role or perspective on them. It was also spent trying not to fall asleep at the dinner table, and we managed to get back to the hotel reasonably early at 9pm.

Monday was to be full of meetings, preceded by an official wreath laying ceremony on the mausoleum of Ataturk – the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. This is a huge, imposing and very impressive structure on a hilltop in Ankara. As an official visiting delegation from the Australian Parliament, we walked down the very long ceremonial avenue, preceded by Turkish military carrying the wreath. Our delegation leader, Senator Alan Ferguson, laid the wreath before the massive tomb, and we then got a brief tour of the Ataturk museum at the site. This included a detailed representation of the Gallipoli battle, where Ataturk was one of the key commanders.

The meetings followed – with members of the Parliament’s External Relations Committee; the Industry, Trade and Energy Committee; the Turkish-Australian Parliamentary Friendship Group and the Ankara Chamber of Commerce.

In the evening there was another function at the Ambassador’s residence. This was an informal reception with a wide range of local people from politics, media, industry and NGOs. I found this most useful, as we could talk to people who most suited our interests. Given my fascination for migration issues, I was pleasantly surprised when I met someone working with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on people trafficking and other issues to do with irregular migration. I could have spent the whole night listening to her explanation of various migration issues for the region – although I doubt that would have been her idea of a productive evening – but there were some other interesting people there as well. The person who is taking up the position of Ambassador to Australia at the end of the year was there, and the editor of one of the major local dailies also had some interesting views on regional issues, including what was happening in Iraq.

We had two more meetings on Tuesday morning, one with the Minister for Environment and Forestry, and one with the Deputy UnderSecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (who had just been announced as Turkey’s new Ambassador to the USA). It was pretty clear after listening to him just how many things Turkey is at the epicentre of and just how pivotal acceptance into the EU will be. It will be an immensely positive thing if it happens, and potentially quite a negative one for the wider region if it doesn’t.

After that, it was off to the airport for a flight to Istanbul and straight from the airport to another meeting, this time with the Deputy Governor of the city. Istanbul is huge – between 12 and 15 million people (depending on what area you start counting from) – and its traffic problems are noticeable. We had a police escort around town, which does help in pushing through the traffic, but gridlock is gridlock and a few flashing sirens doesn’t change that. The history, heritage and culture of Istanbul would take a book to describe. We get a day to look at that on Friday, but at this stage, we just had time for another meeting over dinner with some local people involved in arts, culture and history. In the morning we hit the road again to drive to Gallipoli.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, October 20, 2005 Permalink
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Visiting Turkey
By virtue of its geography, Turkey tends to often be involved in a range of issues of wider international significance. However, at the moment, it seems to be pivotal in an even greater number of issues than usual, which makes it a particularly interesting time to visit.

It is only a couple of weeks since the decision was made by the EU to formally commence negotiations to enable Turkey to join. This has the potential to significantly affect the flavour and direction of global politics for decades to come. Whilst it is a gross oversimplification to lump Turkey in with other countries with a majority of Muslims, the perception of it as a Muslim nation is heavily influencing how many people and countries feel about this development.

Turkey also shares a border with Syria, which is on the edge of moving into crisis itself, Iran, which is at the centre of a long running international arm-wrestle regarding its nuclear ambitions, and Iraq, which held a referendum to adopt a new constitution just days before our arrival. In addition, the recent discovery of bird flu in the eastern part of the country was dominating media coverage throughout Europe.

It is all a reminder that Australia is a long way away politically as well as geographically. Despite its wide diversity of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, Australia is still very much white, western and English speaking in its outlook. Anything outside this boundary is still very much ‘foreign’. However, the special role the Gallipoli Peninsula now has in our national mythology means that there is a positive foundation to the attitude of the average Australian towards Turkey that does not exist for most other ‘foreign’ countries.

Gallipoli is important to the Turks as well, albeit not in such a unique way as it is to Australia (and New Zealand). It is a specific link we have with Turkey which no other nation has, and I think it would immensely beneficial to our nation if we sought to build on it in a big way. It is a bridge between Europe, central Asia and the Middle East, between Muslim and Christian, between East and West, between secular and religious. Turkey is also a developing democratic country with a sizable population of around 70 million, which means plenty of trade and economic opportunities for Australia if we can find the right ways in.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, October 20, 2005 Permalink
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Saturday, October 15, 2005
 
terror-fying
The week in the Senate ended badly, with the government trying late on Thursday afternoon to sneak through a truncated, one week Senate Inquiry into their 'anti-terrorism' legislation. A day earlier they were successful in restricting a Senate inquiry into the workplace relations laws to just a few weeks, even though it is overturning key aspects of a system that's been in place for a century. There was very little media concern expressed about the ridiculously short workplace inquiry, although there seems to be some recognition that their plan with the 'anti-terror' laws is absurd. Even if you support the general thrust of their proposals, to push such major changes through without proper public scrutiny to make sure the laws work as they are intended is just plain crazy.

It is good to see the ACT Chief Minister put the draft 'anti-terror' laws up on a website so the public can view them for themselves. The fact that the federal government is upset at this just confirms to me how keen they are to push the laws through without people being able to calmly examine what the contents and consequences are.

On Friday I was in Sydney chairing a Senate Committee inquiry into salinity. As this is not such a politically charged issue, I hope we can get some constructive, cooperative recommendations out of it.

I am flying out today on a two week parliamentary delegation. This may mean I will only be able to make intermittent postings, depending on how readily I can get online. However, I will be spending many hours on airplanes, so I might get plenty of time to write things (or to sleep). It is a six member delegation to Turkey and Ireland. I haven't been on a full length delegation before in the 8 years I've been in the Senate. I've been a bit sceptical about how much value for money some of them are, but I know from the individual overseas travel that I've done, as well as the brief trip to Jakarta and Aceh I did earlier in the year, that it can also be very useful. I'll give my verdict on the overall value of this one at the end.

We will be going to Gallipoli while we are in Turkey, which I am looking forward to. By coincidence, I was part of a Senate Committee that has just tabled a report into the saga surrounding damage caused by roadworks at Gallipoli earlier this year. It was a rather politicised inquiry, although it was pretty obvious the Australian government was economical with the truth in their comments about what was happening there.

The thing that amazed me most out of the whole inquiry wasn't the dishonesty of the Australian Government (hardly a surprise on anything these days). It was the fact that, despite this area having such national and historical significance to both Australia and Turkey, there didn’t seem to be a comprehensive heritage assessment of the whole site, and particularly not of the marine areas. According to evidence given to the inquiry, the first marine archaeological survey is only being conducted now (see para 4.24 of the report). Given how much Australia's political leaders like to wrap themselves in the flag for Gallipoli commemorations, I find it hard to comprehend that this sort of information hasn’t been compiled long ago and doesn’t seem to be widely available. It's a bit hard to complain about damaging the heritage of something if you don't fully know what it is. Having said that, I noted an article in the Sydney Morning Herald which states that a detailed study already exists, as part of work that was done in the 1990s attempting to establish a Gallipoli Peninsula Peace Park. For various reasons, this work didn’t bear fruit. Anyway, I may write more on that after I've visited the site myself and got more detail of the Turkish perspective.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, October 15, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
 
Barnaby Crosses the Floor
The first significant crossing of the floor by a Government Senator occurred tonight when Barnaby Joyce voted with all the other non-Government Senators in opposing part of a Trade Practices Bill.

This is a fairly complex Bill with a range of different measures, but the specific issue at stake was Schedule 1 of the Trade Practices Amendment Bill (No 1) 2005 . This part of the Bill seeks to make corporate take-overs even easier by sidelining the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which currently has the power to stop a merger or acquisition that it considers may substantially reduce competition in the marketplace. Given that close to 98 per cent of mergers currently get the go ahead, it's hard to argue that the ACCC has been getting in the way too much, but this change would empower big business and weaken competition even further.

Barnaby's decision to cross the floor meant that a motion that Schedule 1 remain in the Bill was tied, and a tied vote is lost. This removed the offending Schedule from the Bill. There were many good aspects for small business in other parts of the Bill, although it still had a few other dodgy aspects. One particularly obnoxious Clause was Subsection 93AB(9). This is a blatant and totally uncalled for anti-union measure which will mean that "a collective bargaining notice is not a valid notice if it is given, on behalf of the corporation, by a trade union, an officer of a trade union or a person acting on the direction of a trade union." It is anti-choice and against freedom of association to prohibit people from being able to have a Union negotiate on their behalf, even if they clearly wish to be. Everyone from the 'Liberal' Party voted to keep that clause in. Disappointingly, so did the Family First Senator, Steve Fielding.

Barnaby was sitting behind me while the vote on Schedule 1 was being counted, with all his Coalition colleagues sat on the other side of the Chamber. I won't repeat specific comments made in that environment, but suffice to say that anyone who thinks it is gutless to cross the floor is kidding themselves. He had certainly been put under a lot of pressure from his 'colleagues' and copped some more after the vote.

The Government now has to decide whether it will proceed with the legislation without Schedule 1 in it, but still containing some measures small business are waiting on. Or will they sacrifice the whole lot just because the most blatantly pro-big business measure isn't it? I expect they will be telling Barnaby that it's all or nothing and he is throwing away all the 'good' measures because of one piece he doesn't like. If the Government is willing to junk the whole thing because they can't get their way, it will be their decision, not Barnaby's, but I'm sure the pressure they put on him will be very strong.

PS: Readers may be interested in a research paper just released by the Parliamentary Library on major party MPs crossing the floor in the federal parliament over the last 50 years. It’s a pdf file (135 KB) and can be accessed here.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, October 11, 2005 Permalink
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Why Aussie Muslims are anxious (and why the rest of us should be too)
A range of laws were passed a couple of years ago giving extra powers to ASIO. A little while after that, I starting getting representations from a range of Muslim groups and individuals expressing concern that they were being targeted by these laws, and it was causing a rising degree of unease amongst many people in Muslim communities in Australia. I made mention of it as part of a speech I gave to the Senate last year.

Not surprisingly, the latest plans for even stronger laws are causing greater concern. Naturally, the Government says that the laws don’t mention Muslims and will be applied without discrimination. However, as the Immigration Department in Australia has graphically displayed over the last few years, how you administer laws and the political context in which government officers implement them makes a huge impact.

If you want to know why Muslims are fearful of how they might be targeted in Australia, read this compelling piece taken from the Times (on Barista's site). . It is the story of James Yee. He is a third generation American from New Jersey, an army captain graduate of West Point, the elite US military academy, who was posted to Guantanamo Bay. He is also a Muslim. He ended up in shackles, branded a spy.

As well as showing what can happen when rampant suspicion and overblown fear becomes official Government policy, it also gives an insight into what conditions are really like at Guantanamo Bay. Of course, any number of studies of history and human nature tell us that it is inevitable that people there would be treated like this. It is what inevitably happens in any other environment where government officers gain absolute and unaccountable power over other people, and it is what will happen to Australians if further, unaccountable powers are given to Government officials and Ministers.

The plan to bring in draconian new laws under the guise of fighting terrorism has the support of the political leader of every state and territory in Australia, all of whom are from the Labor Party, as well as the federal government headed by the ‘Liberal’ Party, so it is going to be very difficult to stop them. But I feel I have to try, regardless of how slim the chances. You don’t defend democracy by sacrificing it. Trying to strengthen democracy is the key reason above all else why I’m in the job I’m in (and why I’ve stayed in the Democrat party for that matter).

UPDATE: Alistair Nicholson QC explores some of these issues in an article in The Age. "Let there be no mistake: the Islamic community do feel targeted by this legislation and do so with justification."

PS: And as a reminder of where authoritarianism can lead to, read this story from The Guardian (also found at Barista) about a democracy activist in China, beaten to death in the middle of the street.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, October 11, 2005 Permalink
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Monday, October 10, 2005
 
Sausage Factory gears up
The Senate sits in Canberra again this week. We now have just four sitting weeks left before the end of the year. If statements made by various government Ministers are to be believed, it is planned that major changes to laws relating to workplace relations, aboriginal land rights, security/anti-terrorism powers and welfare payments will all be passed in that time. The fact that draft legislation has not appeared for any of these areas apparently is not seen as a problem.

This article by David Marr in last week’s SMH summarises the apparent government strategy to avoid scrutiny very well. I don’t mind the rough guide he suggests, where if it takes five months for a team of lawyers to draft legislation, the public and Senate Committees should get five months to properly examine it to identify what its effect will be.

In amongst all the manufactured drama, spin and rhetoric, it often seems to be forgotten that the Senate is not just a fancy oversized soapbox for people to posture and pointscore, it is the primary place for making the laws that affect every Australian (and many others). Even when there’s agreement with the stated policy aim of the Government, it is a still essential to properly look at the legislation to see how it is likely to work in reality.

Some of the current mess with family payments is due to the original legislation being pushed through amongst a huge pile of other Bills, with a lot of rhetoric about how fabulous and generous the payments were, but little recognition of how it would work in practice.

Stealing the public’s money to pay for television advertisements for the Liberal Party’s workplace relations policy might generate a big enough mountain of PR garbage to fool a few people into thinking it’s just a happy, smiley new law we should embrace with gladness and praise, but it is not an adequate substitute for proper scrutiny of the legislation.

Don’t forget we also still have to deal with the student unionism legislation that will reduce student services on university campuses too. This has been sitting on the Senate’s Notice Paper (a fancy term for Agenda) since June, but has not been brought on for debate because the government wants to make sure it will pass before it brings it on. However, it is now starting to cause a big problem, whatever the eventual outcome, because even though it is now October, universities and the various Student Associations cannot plan for next year, because they have no idea what the size and nature of their income to cover the multitude of student services is going to be.

Incompetent/uncaring management of process on top of ideological zealotry is a pretty bad combination to have running the Senate.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, October 10, 2005 Permalink
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Wednesday, October 05, 2005
 
Bali - nothing to justify terror
As mentioned below, the Senate devoted most of Tuesday to a condolence debate on the Bali bombings.

It isn't a good idea to get stridently political too close to such a traumatic event. However, I do find it a bit irritating when I hear gratuitous demands of the Indonesian government that they ban Jemaah Islamiah. Indeed, in yet another example of why I find the current political environment soooo depressing, the Labor Party seems far more gung-ho than the Coalition about demanding of the Indonesians that this be done forthwith.

Personally, I find it hard to see how this will really help very much and am concerned that it will potentially have a counter-productive effect. However, I understand the alternative view and if it can be done with the necessary precision, it may help a bit. But what really bugs me is the inherent assumption that the Indonesian Government needs to be pressured about this, as if somehow they either don't understand, don't care or aren’t capable of assessing for themselves what needs to be done to tackle terrorism in their own country.

For all the talk amongst the political class about our close relationship with Indonesia, we still seem to be pretty good at being wildly patronising and incapable of recognising that just maybe the Indonesian Government also isn't very keen about murderous psychopaths killing their own citizens and buggering up their economy, making it a hundred times harder to alleviate the poverty of millions.

I think it's fairly safe to assume that the Indonesian Government already believes that the terrorist aspect of Jemaah Islamiah is a bad thing. Just maybe we should also recognise that Indonesians might also have a bit of an idea of what actions might and might not help address this. Perhaps I'm wrong and banning JI is the way to go, but let's also give the Indonesians a bit of credit for having valid views of their own.

The biggest weapon against extremism is communication. That means improved and shared intelligence, but it also means improved and shared public understanding. For two countries that are so close geographically and share more of a past (and a future) than we usually recognise, it is amazing how little understanding and awareness there is between Australians and Indonesians at grassroots level. Just shouting our views through the letters pages of the mainstream media is not likely to improve that situation.

As one small way to address that problem, here's a couple of Indonesian blogs I discovered today which seem like they might be valuable. One is called "Paras Indonesia - where democratic minds meet" , which aims to be a web log for comments, debate and discussion on the dynamics and intricacies of Indonesia. I found that site through this entry on a blog by another Indonesian blogger (discovered through Crikey), which also gives an individual insight into how one Indonesian feels about how the latest bombing affects their democratic dreams. Both sites seem to be making a specific effort to blog in English to increase the number and breadth of people that might be reached.

For a thorough and fairly dispassionate assessment of terrorism in Indonesia, check out the latest publication by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute - released just before the latest bombings. They disagree with my view on proscribing JI, although I feel they might be mixing up political and social motivations on the part of the Indonesian government.

The Senate debate on the Bali bombings brought back memories of the first bomb attacks in 2002. My speech to the condolence debate on that occasion was my very first to the Senate as the Leader of the Democrats. I just read over that speech from nearly three years ago. Funnily enough, I think Indonesia has made some progress on tackling the issues since then, but I'm not so sure that Australia has moved much down the right paths since that time.

UPDATE: This piece in The Age by Dr Damian Kingsbury explains well some of the concerns I was trying to express.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Wednesday, October 05, 2005 Permalink
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Tuesday, October 04, 2005
 
The Senate is still here - apparently
The Senate is sitting again this week, despite John Howard's decision to cancel the sitting of the House of Representatives. When the Senate is the only house of parliament sitting, it usually means the press gallery pays a tiny bit of extra attention to happenings in the Senate, as they don't have the vaudeville show in the other place to look at. However, given the level of media interest in the general proceedings of Parliament is fairly minimal anyway, doubling the amount of attention paid still adds up to not very much.

Not surprisingly, the Government continues to encourage this habit of assuming the Parliament doesn't matter by using any other mechanism they can to announce anything they think is important.

Even though Eric Abetz, the Minister responsible for the electoral system, is in the Senate, he still chose to use a speech in Sydney rather than the Senate to put forward a range of proposals to further weaken our democratic system. Clearly the Minister believes we shouldn't make it too easy for people to be able to vote, or let them do it too often, and he's also happier to tell the electorate this through the media than the Parliament – which suits the media fine I guess because they get first grab at it.

In another example, Government plans to fundamentally overhaul the nature of Aboriginal land rights have been floated by selective leaks to what now seems to be the government's preferred means of communication, The Australian newspaper. Once again the relevant Minister, Amanda Vanstone, is in the Senate. Still, this report in The Australian pre-empts the 'official' announcement, so it's just possible that the Minster will actually show the Parliament the courtesy of announcing these changes to the Senate. Perhaps the Australian is just speculating – although their report seems strangely certain about what the content of the Government's policy will be.

Even better would be the Minister for Indigenous Affairs actually consulting properly with indigenous people before announcing such a radical shift in an area of such profound significance to them. Call me cynical, but I'd say the chances of that are even less than Eric Abetz announcing he favours reducing the amount of money people are allowed to anonymously donate to the Liberal Party.

The Senate is only sitting for three days this week, and the Government decided to have almost all of today's proceedings, including Question Time, cancelled and devoted predominantly to a condolence motion on the weekend bombings in Bali.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, October 04, 2005 Permalink
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