Showing posts with label Liberals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liberals. Show all posts
Friday, 22 March 2013
Lying with the truth: the state of Australian Labor
What on earth is Labor doing to itself? I thought the idea of a long lead time to the next federal election was to give Tony Abbott, whose approval ratings and preferred prime minister score remain a real obstacle to electoral success, lots of rope. And here they are tearing themselves apart with this bizarre attempt by former leader Simon Crean to unseat the prime minister in favour of former unseated prime minister Kevin Rudd.
Then again, is it purely Labor pushing in this direction?
Don’t you love the Murdoch media spin on this where they routinely do not report the bit where Rudd says he would not contest the leadership unless it’s vacant and focus on the bit where he says he will only contest it with overwhelming support, making him look cowardly rather than principled? Of course it’s not terribly hard when their competition supports their spin.
And there’s the routine Newspoll (also a Murdoch company) strategy of asking Labor supporters for preferred prime minister options including Rudd, whereas for the Liberals, they only ask about Abbott, no matter how low his positives.
Lying with the truth. Why didn’t us academics think of this? Imagine how many more papers we could write.
I don’t much like the Labor Party. What they stand for is not too bad, but they have become a party of expediency rather than principle. The opposing Coalition has this in a big way too: both will do whatever it takes to win, which is why I generally support the Greens when I get involved in Australian politics. But what I really dislike is dishonest news media that play the game rather than report it and deliberately misinform the public.
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Not The Greens Ad
This Australian federal election has been characterised by an even higher than usual amount of mudslinging. Let’s look at three examples: Liberal attacks on the government’s broadband plan, Labor attacks on Tony Abbott’s attitude to labour relations, and the attack by both sides on asylum seekers who, when I last checked, were not one of the parties running for office.
Opposition leader Tony Abbott appears to think it sufficient to attack the government’s broadband plan on the basis of not trusting Labor to get it right, rather than any attack on the specifics. Much of the Liberal opposition attack on Labor is on the theme of alleged bungles in office, especially around spending their stimulus package. There were serious errors, but there is a big difference between a considered multi-year plan and emergency stimulus spending to stave off a major recession.
On the other side, Labor harps on Tony Abbott’s history of supporting the Howard government’s unpopular “Work Choices” labour relations package. While there is good reason to suspect that Abbott would bring those measures back if he could, it’s not an unreasonable line from him that he would not do so without going to another election.
On the issue of asylum seekers, both sides of politics have gone to the gutter, labelling asylum seekers as a “border protection” problem. Excuse me. These miserable people are not an invading army. In fact many are heading here because we invaded their country. Fully a third of refugees on the UN’s books are from two countries: Iraq and Afghanistan. We invaded Afghanistan for the reasonably justified cause of stopping further atrocities like 9/11. But we didn’t finish the job. We left Afghanistan with an unpopular, incompetent government that could only survive with foreign military support, and launched a war on Iraq, a country that has never been shown to have any kind of link to Al Qaeda or 9/11. We bungled that one too, resulting in a civil war and ongoing violence. These two conflicts alone have resulted in about 5-million refugees.
In any case, whatever the source, asylum seekers – anyone who asks for recognition as a refugee, and who is at risk if they return home – are entitled to seek refuge in Australia. We have signed international conventions that oblige us to take them. Here’s a surprising fact: the vast majority of boat arrivals (up to 97%, depending when you count) have their refugee status approved and end up staying in Australia. But they are a tiny fraction of total asylum seekers. Far more arrive by plane, with legitimate passports and visas. But most of those who arrive “legally” end up having their applications for asylum denied. Let’s summarise this:
When Tony Abbott and Julie Gillard talk about stopping the boats, and Tony Abbott talks about sending back people without proper passports, they are talking drivel. Luckily for them, the people most affected are a tiny constituency who can’t swing an election.
So going back to the examples, we have once each of an attack from either side that lacks substance, and an attack by both sides on an innocent third party (not in the sense of a political “party”).
By this stage in an election, with so much heavy-weight advertising by the major parties with so much investment put into focus groups and polling, the Greens poll numbers start to sag. Not this time. Instead, the Greens numbers are holding up remarkably well. The latest (at time of writing) Roy Morgan poll on senate voting intentions shows the Greens vote holding up well enough to double their senate representation from 5 to 10 senators. Yet the Greens have had little or no TV advertising, certainly none I’ve seen.
Could it be that the major parties have reduced TV advertising to an echo chamber of negativity, that has voters so turned off that they don’t pay attention any more?
Meanwhile on the ABC’s Gruen Nation on Wednesday night 11 August 2010, one of the ad agencies asked to pitch for alternative messages came up with this:
That’s certainly a positive message, even if the ABC won’t allow the agency to sell it to the Greens. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. This way, anyone who likes it can embed it in their own web page, because it’s not a political ad, it’s just an example of the TV advertiser’s craft.
Further reading
There are many sources of information on asylum seekers and refugees, including the UNHCR. For a quick summary, try GetUp’s fact sheet – but I urge you to research the issue yourself.
Opposition leader Tony Abbott appears to think it sufficient to attack the government’s broadband plan on the basis of not trusting Labor to get it right, rather than any attack on the specifics. Much of the Liberal opposition attack on Labor is on the theme of alleged bungles in office, especially around spending their stimulus package. There were serious errors, but there is a big difference between a considered multi-year plan and emergency stimulus spending to stave off a major recession.
On the other side, Labor harps on Tony Abbott’s history of supporting the Howard government’s unpopular “Work Choices” labour relations package. While there is good reason to suspect that Abbott would bring those measures back if he could, it’s not an unreasonable line from him that he would not do so without going to another election.
On the issue of asylum seekers, both sides of politics have gone to the gutter, labelling asylum seekers as a “border protection” problem. Excuse me. These miserable people are not an invading army. In fact many are heading here because we invaded their country. Fully a third of refugees on the UN’s books are from two countries: Iraq and Afghanistan. We invaded Afghanistan for the reasonably justified cause of stopping further atrocities like 9/11. But we didn’t finish the job. We left Afghanistan with an unpopular, incompetent government that could only survive with foreign military support, and launched a war on Iraq, a country that has never been shown to have any kind of link to Al Qaeda or 9/11. We bungled that one too, resulting in a civil war and ongoing violence. These two conflicts alone have resulted in about 5-million refugees.
In any case, whatever the source, asylum seekers – anyone who asks for recognition as a refugee, and who is at risk if they return home – are entitled to seek refuge in Australia. We have signed international conventions that oblige us to take them. Here’s a surprising fact: the vast majority of boat arrivals (up to 97%, depending when you count) have their refugee status approved and end up staying in Australia. But they are a tiny fraction of total asylum seekers. Far more arrive by plane, with legitimate passports and visas. But most of those who arrive “legally” end up having their applications for asylum denied. Let’s summarise this:
- boat people – tiny fraction of all asylum seekers, almost all legitimate: demonised
- plane arrivals – most asylum seekers, very few legitimate: not a political issue
When Tony Abbott and Julie Gillard talk about stopping the boats, and Tony Abbott talks about sending back people without proper passports, they are talking drivel. Luckily for them, the people most affected are a tiny constituency who can’t swing an election.
So going back to the examples, we have once each of an attack from either side that lacks substance, and an attack by both sides on an innocent third party (not in the sense of a political “party”).
By this stage in an election, with so much heavy-weight advertising by the major parties with so much investment put into focus groups and polling, the Greens poll numbers start to sag. Not this time. Instead, the Greens numbers are holding up remarkably well. The latest (at time of writing) Roy Morgan poll on senate voting intentions shows the Greens vote holding up well enough to double their senate representation from 5 to 10 senators. Yet the Greens have had little or no TV advertising, certainly none I’ve seen.
Could it be that the major parties have reduced TV advertising to an echo chamber of negativity, that has voters so turned off that they don’t pay attention any more?
Meanwhile on the ABC’s Gruen Nation on Wednesday night 11 August 2010, one of the ad agencies asked to pitch for alternative messages came up with this:
That’s certainly a positive message, even if the ABC won’t allow the agency to sell it to the Greens. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. This way, anyone who likes it can embed it in their own web page, because it’s not a political ad, it’s just an example of the TV advertiser’s craft.
Further reading
There are many sources of information on asylum seekers and refugees, including the UNHCR. For a quick summary, try GetUp’s fact sheet – but I urge you to research the issue yourself.
Friday, 23 July 2010
The Heart and Soul Election
If this Australian federal election is the election where the Liberals lost their mind, it’s also the election where the Labor Party lost its soul.
The ALP last election stood for an evidence-based approach on climate change. Ross Garnaut was tasked with summarising the best science, and producing an economic response. The plan was that the government would go with what he recommended. If anyone spotted the flaw in the plan – the then opposition was committing to a course of action where they had not sold the detail politically – this was lost in the “it’s time” mood that swept John Howard into the dustbin of history.
Now that we know the best science, and have an economic basis on which to proceed, what’s Labor’s position? The logical progression from the Rudd campaign would be to win political support in the form of a renewed mandate to implement the Garnaut recommendations. Instead, Julia Gillard plans to set up something that is an odd mixture of focus group and jury, a Citizen’s Assembly to decide where to go next. This is rank cowardice. It only puts off the hard decisions, and leave us exactly where we were before the Garnaut Report, except this time we are allowing public opinion to shape policy, instead of expert advice.
In a situation where expert advice points in a direction that will require some hard adjustments, you do not need some sort of populist leading from behind strategy that procrastinates decision-making. Political leaders need to do the hard yards of selling the tough steps that we have to take. They also need to cut through the dishonest propaganda of lobbyists who see their agenda as more important than the overall welfare of humanity.
Add to this Labor’s abject surrender on defending refugees against unfair attack (including straight-out lies), and Labor’s craven cave-in to the big mining houses over the mining tax, and you have to wonder what Labor stands for.
And the Liberals? They elected Tony Abbott as their leader. If you don’t get why this is crazy, read this. No wonder all the polls are showing a big swing to the Greens.
The ALP last election stood for an evidence-based approach on climate change. Ross Garnaut was tasked with summarising the best science, and producing an economic response. The plan was that the government would go with what he recommended. If anyone spotted the flaw in the plan – the then opposition was committing to a course of action where they had not sold the detail politically – this was lost in the “it’s time” mood that swept John Howard into the dustbin of history.
Now that we know the best science, and have an economic basis on which to proceed, what’s Labor’s position? The logical progression from the Rudd campaign would be to win political support in the form of a renewed mandate to implement the Garnaut recommendations. Instead, Julia Gillard plans to set up something that is an odd mixture of focus group and jury, a Citizen’s Assembly to decide where to go next. This is rank cowardice. It only puts off the hard decisions, and leave us exactly where we were before the Garnaut Report, except this time we are allowing public opinion to shape policy, instead of expert advice.
In a situation where expert advice points in a direction that will require some hard adjustments, you do not need some sort of populist leading from behind strategy that procrastinates decision-making. Political leaders need to do the hard yards of selling the tough steps that we have to take. They also need to cut through the dishonest propaganda of lobbyists who see their agenda as more important than the overall welfare of humanity.
Add to this Labor’s abject surrender on defending refugees against unfair attack (including straight-out lies), and Labor’s craven cave-in to the big mining houses over the mining tax, and you have to wonder what Labor stands for.
And the Liberals? They elected Tony Abbott as their leader. If you don’t get why this is crazy, read this. No wonder all the polls are showing a big swing to the Greens.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Running for Greens in Brisbane March 2008
I've placed my first election ad for my campaign in the MacGregor ward of the Brisbane City Council on YouTube:
So what do I stand for?
In short, a liveable city.
What does that mean? A city that puts people first.
In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the main characters is called Ford Prefect. He was a space alien and in an error in his research prior to landing on Earth, he thought cars were the dominant life form. If you look at the priorities in development in Brisbane, you'd be excused for making the same mistake. Billions of dollars are being committed to building a car tunnel that no one will want when it's built, because petrol will be so expensive, we'll all want to use our cars as little as possible. After totally neglecting the issue for 4 years, Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has announced $100-million in future spending on bike paths. He and his Labor opposite number are in a bidding war on the number of new buses they will lay on.
All of this is pathetic and inadequate, a reaction to demand for better public transport and alternatives to cars, rather than a coherent plan.
For example: why do Brisbane buses not run anywhere close to on time? Because the system is designed that way. For buses to run to a timetable you need:
What do we actually have? A limited network of busways, in which most of the routes spill out onto regular streets. Many routes do not go on busways at all, and don't make much use of dedicated bus lanes. Ticketing is mostly by buying tickets on the bus. While there are other options, you can't buy tickets at most stops. Ticketing alone is a significant factor in the difficulty in having buses run to time. Add to it that getting off buses at a popular stop can take considerable time, and there is too much variance in stop times to make accurate timetabling possible. Add in the other issues, and you can see that any attempt at maintaining an accurate timetable is a joke.
Brisbane buses, in other words, don't run to time by design.
The Labor and Liberal side of politics (pretty much the same side on this issue) can make all the election promises they like, but both have had ample opportunity to address this issue. The Libs have held the mayoral office for the last term, and Campbell Newman, as a Civil Engineer, ought to be capable of understanding the problem. Instead, he has ignored it in favour of building tunnels. The Labs ran the city before him, and they set things up the way they are today.
That's it for now. Watch this space for thoughts on bike paths and other failures of the existing city government. And how things could be done better, with examples from other parts of the world.
So what do I stand for?
In short, a liveable city.
What does that mean? A city that puts people first.
In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the main characters is called Ford Prefect. He was a space alien and in an error in his research prior to landing on Earth, he thought cars were the dominant life form. If you look at the priorities in development in Brisbane, you'd be excused for making the same mistake. Billions of dollars are being committed to building a car tunnel that no one will want when it's built, because petrol will be so expensive, we'll all want to use our cars as little as possible. After totally neglecting the issue for 4 years, Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has announced $100-million in future spending on bike paths. He and his Labor opposite number are in a bidding war on the number of new buses they will lay on.
All of this is pathetic and inadequate, a reaction to demand for better public transport and alternatives to cars, rather than a coherent plan.
For example: why do Brisbane buses not run anywhere close to on time? Because the system is designed that way. For buses to run to a timetable you need:
- busways and bus lanes that isolate buses from regular traffic
- minimal or better still no ticket sales on buses
- rapid entry (related to avoiding selling tickets on the bus) and exit
What do we actually have? A limited network of busways, in which most of the routes spill out onto regular streets. Many routes do not go on busways at all, and don't make much use of dedicated bus lanes. Ticketing is mostly by buying tickets on the bus. While there are other options, you can't buy tickets at most stops. Ticketing alone is a significant factor in the difficulty in having buses run to time. Add to it that getting off buses at a popular stop can take considerable time, and there is too much variance in stop times to make accurate timetabling possible. Add in the other issues, and you can see that any attempt at maintaining an accurate timetable is a joke.
Brisbane buses, in other words, don't run to time by design.
The Labor and Liberal side of politics (pretty much the same side on this issue) can make all the election promises they like, but both have had ample opportunity to address this issue. The Libs have held the mayoral office for the last term, and Campbell Newman, as a Civil Engineer, ought to be capable of understanding the problem. Instead, he has ignored it in favour of building tunnels. The Labs ran the city before him, and they set things up the way they are today.
That's it for now. Watch this space for thoughts on bike paths and other failures of the existing city government. And how things could be done better, with examples from other parts of the world.
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