federal politics
30 Oct 2009
Where Are We Going, Kevin?
Kevin Rudd has squandered the hopes of people who elected him. Now, writes Geoff Davies, he could learn a thing or two from John Howard about strong leadership
As Kevin Rudd twists slowly in the asylum-seeker noose of his own making, it is not only the flimsy basis of his "Indonesian solution" that is exposed to the world. Also exposed is a consistent failure to assume leadership, a failure that has defined the Labor Party for a generation, and that comes at a critical time in our history.
Rudd should have foreseen the likelihood of a resurgence in boatloads of asylum seekers reaching our shores, and could easily have prepared for it. He could have pointed out that the people on board represent a small minority of unscheduled or illegal arrivals annually — and an even tinier proportion of his currently bloated annual immigrant intake. Most asylum seekers have been found to be legitimate and it would be a pretty stupid terrorist who would choose this form of entry into Australia. True, Rudd might have lost a few suburban redneck votes had he done this, but when a prime minister speaks with conviction and authority, people listen.
Even though one might disagree with pretty much everything he did in office, John Howard exercised this kind of leadership. By contrast, Kevin Rudd has consistently failed to exercise leadership. He is a micromanager and a timid poll-follower. He focusses on wedging an Opposition already in disarray, and on maintaining his already-high poll ratings. He dances to the tunes of the big lobbyists, most notably on global warming. He refuses to engage with any big challenges, preferring to skip around the edges, looking for small, easy targets. He plays the puppet, a Clayton's leader, the one you have when you don't really have a leader.
Rudd's lack of strategic thinking extends to the arena in which John Howard waged his culture wars. Howard's goal was to change Australia's public culture and to redefine our history, and he was disturbingly successful. He planted his people throughout the bureaucracies and public bodies, and his cronies reciprocated in the private sector. Rudd has done nothing to counter or reverse Howard's aggressive moves.
Look no further than the ABC Board, which is still stacked with people who hate its public funding, hate its (formerly) independent voice, and who are still at work privatising it by stealth. One day Labor will fall from favour, and the cultural throwbacks and denialists will all still be in their influential positions, ready to reinforce Labor's well-deserved flirtation with oblivion.
Rudd has presented himself as a Christian of high principle, one who defines his morality through his care for the underdog. He proclaimed his hero to be no one less than Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer put his life on the line with his publicly opposition to the Nazis, and paid the ultimate price. Rudd, in stark and self-inflicted contrast, is unwilling to risk a few points in the opinion polls, preferring to sacrifice dispossessed and desperate people, and to revert to the fear-driven expedience and heartlessness of his predecessor. In his treatment of asylum seekers, Rudd exposes himself as just another conniving politician, willing to say what he thinks people want to hear. And in doing so, he provides one more example to explain why politicians are among the most despised members in our society.
When Rudd gained the leadership of the parliamentary Labor Party, he raised some prospect of giving Labor some direction, and of reminding it why it exists. The Labor Party's purpose was to help the underdog, to rebalance the power relationship between the wealthy and the rest: to give everyone a fair go. That purpose had been jettisoned in 1983 when the Hawke-Keating pragmatists took over.
Spooked by the fate of the Whitlam government, unable to see the extraneous forces that helped to undermine Whitlam, and unwilling to challenge and lead, Keating especially proceeded to suck up to the rich and powerful and to implement the neoliberal agenda. That agenda systematically undermined everything the Labor Party was supposed to have represented. Though Rudd argues, correctly, that neoliberalism is discredited, his challenge to it is confined to running a Government deficit. Otherwise market fundamentalism still rules Australia.
The Hawke-Keating pragmatism worked for as long as Labor was in power, but when they lost to Howard, there were few reasons to argue that they should regain power. Why vote for Howard-lite when you could have the real thing? The party survived thanks to the wishful thinking of its rusted-on supporters that it would still be on their side. The rules of our voting system, which require all boxes to be numbered, also helped it survive. This forced Democrat and Greens preferences back to Labor as the marginally lesser of two evils. If Labor had lost 10-15 per cent of preference votes during the Howard years, it might have been jolted into reclaiming its purpose and reasserting some leadership.
People only turned back to Labor when Rudd was able to raise the sentimental hope that the party itself would resurrect its reason for existence. Rudd has by now thoroughly betrayed that hope.
Australia is left with a profound crisis of governance at this most critical time in our brief history. Neither major political power bloc is now interested in governing for ordinary people. They govern for the big lobbyists, the ones who pay their campaign bills, and they dance to the tunes of the media magnates. Our alleged democracy is systemically corrupt.
It is not only dispossessed and desperate asylum seekers who will pay the price of this corruption. As global warming asserts itself earnestly and relentlessly, year after year, the fragile global industrial system will totter and fall. We will see the fragile lucky country progressively laid to waste. It will be our children and their children who become increasingly more dispossessed and desperate.
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Excellent article by Geoff Davies.
In Murdochracy Australia decent anti-war, anti-racism, pro-human rights, pro-environment, pro-Planet people have to ask themselves repeatedly “Am I mad or is the world mad?”. Geoff Davies cogently assures us that we are not mad.
Kevin Rudd is an immense disappointment and has betrayed decent Labor voters, our children, the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, Humanity and the biosphere of the Planet.
Labor was anti-war, anti-racism, pro-human rights and pro-environment – but the Apartheid Labor Party under Kevin Rudd is:
1. pro-war (party to the Iraqi War and Afghan War, the Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide - post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 2.3 million and 3-7 million, respectively);
2. pro-Zionist (supported Apartheid Israel when it was bombing 25,000 Australian citizens in Lebanon in 2006; supports Apartheid Israel in its horrible abuse of the Palestinians in the West Bank and what the Catholic Church describes as the Gaza Concentration Camp);
3. pro-racism at home (excluding Northern Territory Indigenous Australians from the protection of Whitlam’s 1975 Racial Discrimination Act);
4. pro-coal and anti-environment (the renewable energy industry has been crippled; the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme subsidizes big polluters and will INCREASE carbon pollution);
5. anti-science.(science demands that we reduce CO2 to 300-350 ppm; Labor policy means an increase in Australia’s Domestic and Exported GHG pollution to 119% of the 2000 level by 2020 and to 173% of the 2000 level by 2050 (see “24 October UN Day & 350 Day – Science says reduce CO2 to ~300 ppm “: http://www.safeclimate.org.au/node/188 ).
Kevin Rudd has done at least ONE useful thing in his nearly 2 years as PM – he has introduced the term “scum” into the lexicon of public debate.
According to the Jakarta Post (see: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/04/17/australian-pm-condemns-039… ), in describing the people smugglers Rudd declared: "We are dedicating more resources to combat people smuggling than any other government in Australian history…[people smugglers are] the scum of the earth…People smugglers are the vilest form of human life because they trade on the tragedy of others. We’ve seen this lowest form of human life at work in what we saw on the high seas yesterday."
If those helping several thousand desperate refugees find haven in Australia are “scum”, how then do you describe the genocidal racist Zionists (RZs), pro-Zionists, warmongers, war criminals and war-makers of the US Alliance (including Australia) who created the estimated 18-20 million Muslim refugees in the first place?
There are 7 million Palestinian refugees (Australia supports Apartheid Israel and makes financial support for Palestinian Genocide tax deductible), 5-6 million Iraqi refugees (there are still Australian troops in Occupied Iraq) , and 3-4 million Afghan refugees plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees from NW Pakistan (Labor increased our troops in Occupied Afghanistan).
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Geoff Davies obviously speaks from the heart. I agree with him 100%. Last night I watched the 7:30 report, when Paul Howes (union official and by definition - left wing) debated the refugee issue with John Roskam (IPA - therefore right wing). If you didn’t view this discussion, these two men, poles apart politically, were largely in agreement on the refugee issue. They said these people were almost certainly genuine refugees, they should be brought to Australia and ‘processed’… those not genuine should be repatriated and the rest settled here or elsewhere in accordance with the UNHCR guidlines. I think Rudd should cut his losses, bring the ship to Australia and let the Indonesians stew in their own juice. I suspect that Indonesia is a sink of corruption and probably many of the smugglers are involved with, or actually are, officials. To try to do business with such people is risky and usually self defeating. As far as this government is concerned, they have handled the GFC well, but as for the rest it is mostly talk and no action. Eventually the Opposition will sort itself out, get more acceptable policies and get behind their leader. When they do this, I suspect Kevin’s popularity will evapourate like the morning dew.
Harry Morton You miss the point 3 out of 4 of these so called refugees already here are still on the dole. Open the doors as you advocate and thousands will arrive and keep arriving, Will they want to be trained to work at useful jobs in our community? The record shows they won’t. If you people were old enough to remember the post WW2 real refugees like the Balts and Poles. you would know the difference. Those people made a real and lasting contribution to us. Get real.
Forcing electorates to have the executives’ hand picked, high profile candidates has resulted in few people being elected that are just ordinary workers with a dream for a better country. They have ignored their grass roots members and have instead gone for ‘elites’ who are already happy mixing with the big end of town. Look at the damage done to NSW by the proudly right wing of Labor. There are people who have been given positions on the basis that they were sucsessful at purging the left from the party. This is not secret information, they are so sure of their power that they trumpeted loudly. Like the push for the metro train system. It was proudly announced that this was the best way to go because it was automated and they could bypass the unions. That was announced at a press conference, not muttered in a corner at a meeting and leaked.
Harry - the myth that refugees are mostly on the dole has been completely debunked by statements from Centrelink as discussed on the ABC’s Media Watch recently. You might like to view the program online. Many of the shock-jocks around the country were only too ready to peddle the lie, as you have done here. It’s important to check your facts to avoid engagement in a racist smear campaign. Any student of Australian History would know that the vast majority of refugees of all nationalities accepted by this country settle in well and contribute greatly to our society.
Thank you Geoff Davies for telling it so clearly- squandered is just the right word. Like martyns I was encouraged by the discussion on the 7.30 Report last night. The Government must stop its hollow grandstanding, demonstrate moral fibre and act in accordance with our UN charter obligations and common decency towards all asylum seekers. The Sri Lankans should be brought to Australia immediately - we cannot trust the Indonesian justice system. Then we must put pressure on the Rudd government to end all off shore solutions for refugees. The necessary screening of new arrivals can and should be done on the mainland. We are being lied to about the facilities on Christmas Island; children are housed in the Construction Camp and there is no freedom of movement
Just under two years ago I felt such hope that we could overcome the shame of the Howard years but now I am more pessimistic than ever about the country and the direction of its policies
hlwers, I saw that episode and it was clear that this manufactured hysteria is worse that the usual political spin and has strayed far into the twilight zone of outright lies. Any political or moral philosophy that justifies artificially creating fear of the other has a heart of gold. Cold, hard and yellow.
What is really gained by fabricating an evil wicker men other than being sit back and enjoy the fire when it is lit. Perhaps we can house the refugees in lightly padded gibbets and stream images back to big scream TV’s in the refugee camps. That will tell them that we are too big and bad to mess with.
CSIRO SPRS (retired)
As a long time admirer of Dietrich Bonhoffer, I believed that use of his name and actions meant something about Rudd’s likely leadership if elected. As an ex Democrat voter, I value honesty in public statements above all else.
I am convinced that I was conned and will never vote Labour again, unless they return to their roots and get rid of the professional pragmatists presently holding sway (never in a million years?).
I endorse Geoff Davies’ thesis, it covers the reasons for my disallusionment very well.
The truth or otherwise of a belief is shown by its practical consequences. That in a nutshell is what pragmatism’s originators, CS Pierce and William James meant by the term.
The Whatever-it-takes and power-for-its-own-sake schools of thought (in the ALP especially) have lost sight of that. Market fundamentalists assume that markets always know best, and that there is no role at all for central planning. So ‘economic rationalism’ led Bill Clinton to remove the Federal financial controls FDR put in place as a result of the 1929 crash, and the recent meltdown was the result.
‘Economic rationalism’ only gained traction in the ALP because Hawke and Keating got away with a hijack. They did not provoke a grassroots union and membership backlash when they persistently ignored what little internal democracy the ALP had left, and its decisions, and arrogated policy determination unto themselves. Rudd has merely carried this on.
The ALP, God help us, was the cornerstone of Australian democracy and its finest creation. It is now a hollow log.
Perhaps the politicians will realise that the old values on which the ALP was built were the most pragmatic; of all, and after all.
The Liberal Party on the other hand was never internally democratic. From Menzies to Howard, final decisions on policy were left to the leader or his inner circle in Cabinet. The current Liberal brawling over emissions trading is best understood in this light. Both in coming to terms with the science and in framing a policy befitting it, the Liberal politicians are on unfamiliar ground.
Any political party, be it ALP, Liberal, Green, neo-Nazi or whatever, is a microcosm of the society it seeks to create. Modern democracy’s most important feature is the reserve power retained by the people: to get rid of their latest bunch of elected oligarchs without having to resort to violence or civil war.
douglas jones
Mr Rudd is indeed a disappointment, but in fairness one must admit that excepting Obama, yet to be proven, none of our elected folk world wide show many inklings of firm leadership though many have the warm words of intent and sup ingrand places.
Agree the business lobby holds too much sway egged on and supported by a toady media, do our troubles come from this?
We have yet to take meaningful action,appointing committees is problem denial unless firmly chartered; perhaps we arenot yet sure that neo liberalism is dead and this pardigm should no longer rule. Exuberance expressed as using incentive if available to enrich oneself may be the corner stomne of business profit for the shareholders and coy but enabled denial of social purpose leads to the mess we have.
Profit is still to be the driver and be all of the economy itself enough to fill our desires?
Is custom so strong that menial politics can be played the prize office when so many matters need leadership and action uch as were promised.
Do we wait upon surety that somewhere somehow somone is receiving a bit more than us, as problems intensify. Have we become menial accountants our every doing governed by profit and avoided loss?
We are indeed little men!
It disappoints me when people who write articles in important publications such as newmatilda trot out the hackneyed expectation that any particular politician should be a moral (or any other kind of) exemplar. Surely 11 decades of practical experience would have brought public discourse a little further along the reality superhighway that that.
Once I wrote a letter to a State Minister for the environment, suggesting that govt adopt a policy of paving front lawns to make nice Mediterranean-style entertainment areas, you know, with fountains and little statues, pebble gardens, shade cloths, and so on. This would reduce the amount of water basically wasted keeping front lawns green and help to foster more neighbourhoodliness. The Minister replied with a nice letter outlining the industries that she’d be disrupting if such a plan were adopted, and the dollar amounts that each industry was worth.
So where is the scope for leadership in such a large, complex, interconnected and commercially oriented society as ours? The days of leaders with balls (metaphorical or not) are long gone. Get real please.
To clarify, I think that any political commentary should start from the premise that the particular politician under examination is, with all due respect, a ratbag.
Harry Morton Blewers who said boat people are employed but doesn’t give detairs please inform me how many work on farms? I employed many post WW2 migrants but these late comers will not hack farm work. Then again how many refugees have you ever employed? Tell us more. Sort of put your money where your mouth is.
As reinforcement of Geoff’s excellent analysis, here is a little quiz. Without looking down at the second half of this letter, read the following wise words very carefully and thoughtfully. Who said this and when did he say it?
‘Climate change is nothing less than a threat to our people, our nation and our planet. It is a threat that, if left unaddressed, has the capacity to permanently to affect our way of life. The incontestable truth of climate change is that a decision not to act is in fact an active decision — an active decision to place the next generation at grave risk. Today, this generation — our generation — stands at the crossroads of history. We are the first generation empowered with the fullest understanding of climate change. And we are the first generation to experience the tangible effects of climate-change on our planet. So the question for our generation is simple. Do we act on the knowledge that we have in our possession? Or do we wait — leaving the effects of climate change to our children and our grandchildren by which time it may well be too late?”
Answer - our PM at the National Press Club on 15 December 2008, five minutes before he announced to a group of bored and jaded journalists, coal lobbyists and political hacks his government’s pathetic 5 per cent carbon pollution reduction scheme target for 2020.
The first step to effective political action is to recognise and denounce climate change spin and lies when we see them. The second step is to form strong new public coalitions of concerned people. As long as we sit in our cosy little separate silos of like-minded opinion groups, this government will go on talking the talk of climate change while doing nothing real about it. After what will be more deluges of empty Australian Government words at Copenhagen, it will be time for Australian climate activists to get real.
The question is, if there is so little difference between Labor and Liberal, who on earth are we supposed to vote for? Is there anyone else out there who wishes that Mark Latham had found his way to the Lodge? He may have been a loose cannon (to say the least), but he had principles. And some sort of guiding philosophy other than poll-driven pragmatism. Plus his colourful insults in Parliament promised that we just might have another Keating on our hands in the domain of linguistic brawling. Oh well. Given that Kev’s poll ratings look safely attached to the stratosphere, perhaps in a way we have actually found our perfect leader. Or at least the one we deserve.
Given a choice between the poll-watching, do-as-little-as-possible political pragmatists of the Labour party, and the right wing reactionaries, intent in cynically redistributing our nations wealth from those who actually create it (i.e. workers) to a small group of wealthy superanuated idlers, of the Liberal party, I know which I’d pick. I’m long past expecting moral leadership from either side. Fear is a tool of statecraft, and the fear of the ‘yellow hordes’ is ever just beneath the surface of Australia culture (nice to see it alive and well in the comments of "Harry" above, who doesn’t mind hard-working white refugees). To expect a government of any persuasion not to exploit this is hopelessly idealistic.
‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves’. In Australia’s democracy, we get the politicians we deserve. Our mistake then is that we fail to hold them to account. Rudd and Turnbull are basically decent men, and no worse as politicians than their counterparts in most European and North American countries. Both are a great deal better as moral human beings than Howard, Ruddock, etc. Why then are they serving up to us such ineffectual and dishonest, species-suicidal, climate change policies?
Both men are redeemable on c;imate change, if confronted with a resolute united public understanding from the centre ground of voters of what needs to be done. It’s really down to us, to stop sitting in our preferred silos of like-minded people, to set aside extraneous agendas, and to come together strongly for what is vital if we are to have any hope of slowing disruptive global warming: i.e., urgent decarbonisation of our energy generation and trasport. As long as Rudd is allowed to go on lying about clean coal, as long as he is allowed to continue to pay insincere lip service to energy alternatives without ever doing anything serious about it, we will continue the downwards slide to a 4 degrees warmer planet, on which millions of the next generation of our species homo sapiens will certainly die. The knowledge is already there - the bookshelves are groaning with good books on climate change and what we need to do about it. When enough of us have cleared our minds of the fog put there by denialists and lobbyists for the comfortable coal-based industrial status quo, we will tell our mainstream politicians what we expect of them; and they will finally respond. Copenhagen is a sideshow: at best, it will educate politicians a little more. But the real action is down to us.
Harry Morton pan-sapiens White refugees ? You have missed the point in your take on me, and none of my critics in NM have responded to my challenge of how many of these boat people will work on farms instead of living in cities with like groups
Take the Vietnam non white families who went to Lakeland Downs in far north Queensland. They were made share farmers to grow peanuts on the rich land there, using supplied irrigation. They were given long term leases and would have made high bracket income and an independent life style. Instead they lasted a few months and went south to a city to join similar groups.It is pointless for me to respond any further to you theorists who have had no practical experience in the real world.
Tonykevin and blade of grass have got to the nub of the problem: decent folk have no choice but to vote for the pro-Planet Greens but who do we give our second preference to?
When Southern Australian summer temperatures get over 50 degrees C and South Eastern and Southern Australia are ablaze (this summer, the next summer?) , one supposes that Australians might wake up and collectively ditch the traitorous, climate criminal Lib-Labs who put the profits of foreign-owned polluters above the safety of Australia and Australians - however Mainstream media (and ABC) lying by omission and commission will ensure that informed democracy doesn’t break out in Australia.
There is a strong argument for ditching the racist, pro-war, pro-coal Labs who have KNOWINGLY betrayed Labor voters, Australia and the Planet in favor of the racist, pro-war, pro-coal Libs who don’t know any better and have merely betrayed Australia and the Planet.
On the other hand, decent pragmatists might argue that the awful Labs are at least a little better than the awful Libs.
However an intermediate position might be to selectively punish the awful Labor Party by concentrating resources to ensure the voting out of PARTICULAR Labor MPs, notably Garrett, Tanner (he may well lose to the Greens anyway) , Macklin, Rudd, Ferguson, Crean, Gillard, Swan, Smith, Conroy, Danby, Wong etc.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
people always despise traitors more than the enemy
bruce haigh
Harry get both hands above the table. Your ignorance is cruel. I employ recent refugees on my farm, because they are good people and good workers. I employ 6th generation Australians on my farm because they are good people and good workers. What intolerant rubish you profer, you old fraud.
Ah, Tony Kevin, good man, but you are wrong, neither Rudd nor Turnbull are good people. Both lack moral mcourage, both have sold their tiny souls to mammon and personal ambition. Polya, I thought the thrust of this excellent article had, at its core, the spurning of refugees, so why no mention of the intellectually limited and morally spongey Evans. If he had a set, he could, of his own volition, solve this ‘crisis’. He does not have to wait for litle Kev., he has the authority as MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION to make decisions relating to refugees and to tell the mobile hair dryer to blow hot and cold elsewhere, perhaps with respect to Veterans Affairs,where he could emulate his hero John Howard.
Bruce Haigh
Bruce Haigh, I am more than happy to add Immigration Minister Evans to the list of PARTICULAR Labor MPs who should be targetted electorally in any strategy for selective punishment of the awful Labor Party.
I am happy to add others too e.g. Health Minister Roxon for presiding over a continuing Aboriginal Genocide in which the "annual death rate" is 2.4% for NT Indigenous Australians as compared to 2.5% for SHEEP in Australian paddocks (for data and documentation see "Aboriginal Genocide. Racist White Australian Child Abuse & Passive Mass Murder ": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15140/42/) - and for her contemptuous treatment of ophthalmology specialists and other doctors attempting to deal with the horrendous Indigenous health problems associated with the ongoing passive Indigenous Genocide by White Australia.
I must admit to a strong humane bias towards long-suffering and abused Indigenous Peoples (such as Occupied Palestinians, Iraqis, Haitians, Somalis, Diego Garcians, Syrians, Afghans and Aboriginal Australians) and refugees and an implacable opposition to the "scum" (to descend to Religious Right Rudd’s standard of public discourse) who generate refugees in the first place (e.g. the racist Zionist, pro-Zionist and US Alliance warmongers, war-makers, war criminals, invaders, occupiers, genocidists, ethnic cleansers and mass murderers).
My father was a rare and accordingly very lucky refugee by boat to Australia from Nazi-occupied Europe in 1939. My family was driven by the Nazis from its homes and lands, the lucky surviving with their lives. As with most Palestinians, our homes and lands are still Occupied, others eat, drink and are intimate below paintings of my family.
Traitorous racist Zionists (RZs) were complicit in the Nazi mass murder of Jews by opposing refugee placement to places other than Palestine and opposing and getting Churchill to oppose the Joel Brand Plan to save 0.7 million Hungarian Jews (see "BRAND, Joel. Exposing Zionist complicity in Nazi mass murder of Hungarian Jews": http://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/brand-joel-exposin…).
Yet the disgusting Lib-Labs are beholden to the traitorous, genocidal racist Zionists, eschewing the informed, decent advice from anti-racist Jews - just as they are beholden to the climate criminal major greenhouse gas polluters, eschewing the informed, despairing advice from top climate scientists over the worsening climate emergency (e.g. see "CLIMATE EMERGENCY: What Outstanding Australian Scientists Say ": http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emerg…).
However my other forebears were also refugees - to Austria-Hungary from German-ravaged Poland in circa 1800 (Poles were forbidden to speak Polish, Jews were robbed and exiled, Gypsies were hung, )and to Australia by boat from the Scottish Highland Clearances of the English (circa 1830) . Many of my relatives by marriage (overwhelmingly MOST of my relatives because of the Nazis) are refugees from a US- complicit (and very likely Australia-complicit) race-based military coup.
The anti-racist Jews Against Racist Zionism (JARZ: http://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/) says: "For anti-racist Jews and indeed all anti-racist humanitarians the core moral messages from the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) and from the more general WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slav, Jewish and Gypsy dead) are “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone”, “bear witness” and “zero tolerance for lying”. "
However the utterly disgusting Lib-Labs violate ALL of these sacred injunctions. Decent anti-racist Australians cannot willingly vote for the war criminal, war zone refugee-generating, climate criminal and climate refugee-generating Lib-Labs - but under Australian Law, we are effectively compelled by compulsory preference voting to vote for them as long as the Greens have less than 50% electoral support.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Peter Hartcher sums it up well in this article in the SMH.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/captain-rudds-preferred-course—a…
Basically Labor and Liberal both have a solid base of 40% and they fight for the swinging 20%. So Kevin feels he doesn’t have to keep his core voters happy but needs to appeal to those swinging towards the hard right but not quite all the way there. Like the people who leapt back to Howard’s fold during the Tampa election.
Who do we vote for?
Before Kevin 07 I firmly intended to stop my preference flow (for House of Reps) before reaching either Lib or Lab. (Kevin fooled me, but I may go back to that option.)
Of course my vote would be ruled informal and not counted officially. However if 5 or 10 percent of voters voted that way the scrutineers would certainly take note. If Labor lost 10% or more of the preference flow they would jump very smartly. Look what happened when Pauline started siphoning that many votes away - both Libs and Labs scrambled desperately, and Howard ended up adopting her policies.
In the short run that voting strategy might be bad for the Greens, though the Greens have yet to get a HR candidate up anyway. In the longer run, we have to do something to break the stranglehold of the present power cliques of the major parties.
I believe it may be an offense under the electoral act to advocate voting informally (there’s a fascist rule if ever I saw one), so of course I wouldn’t advocate it, would I? On the other hand, there may be a useful example of the civil disobedience that seems increasingly to be required in order to break the hold of the media moguls, fat cats and corrupt parties, and to reclaim our democracy.
GeoffDavies - I understand your position re voting, and have thought along similar lines. I am now convinced a vote for the Greens is essential (rather than go informal). I don’t think LibLab will care if 90% are informal, as long as they get in. I think they will care more if they see lots of Greens first followed by everyone else until they come last.
Harry Mortonbrucehaigh I asked my Aboriginals mates if I am ignorant and cruel. They laughed and then they made comments about you which I cannot repeat on a site like this. You just haven’t a clue about me
Why NM decided to publish this carelessly written, ridiculous rant is beyond me. Let’s be clear about what Geoff Davies has said:
1. There is no discernible or worthwhile difference between federal labor and liberal parties in Australia.
2. At least John Howard was a ‘strong leader’.
3: And my favorite quote: "Australia is left with a profound crisis of governance at this most critical time in our brief history. Neither major political power bloc is now interested in governing for ordinary people. They govern for the big lobbyists, the ones who pay their campaign bills, and they dance to the tunes of the media magnates. Our alleged democracy is systemically corrupt."
4. In the comments (above) Geoff then proceeds to advocate voting informally.
While I share Geoff’s profound disappointment with the quality of public debate in this country, and of course with Kevin Rudd’s leadership, I cannot stand to read bitter, ill informed diatribe such as this. Allegations of systemic corruption and influence of lobbying are all too easy for those on the far left to make when they are disappointed with the action of mainstream governments. Throwing them around without backing them up is particularly unhelpful.
Geoff - Do you deny, that if Kevin Rudd chose to take radical action on climate change that you seem to demand (such as closing down the coal industry) the ALP would stay in Government? The Federal Liberal Party would be back in Government and the changes would be reversed (as happened with medicare initially).
As for your disdain for electoral politics in this country, the ALP had the highest primary vote of any party in this country in the 2007 federal election receiving 43.38% of the first preference vote. Even if preferences were not distributed, the ALP would still have been the party of government.
The Greens have been unable to significantly increase their margins at the last 2 federal elections, even though climate change has become a mainstream political issue. This is largely because of their failure to preselect electable candidates (case in point is the preselection of Clive Hamilton in the Higgins byelection - a move which shows nothing but contempt for the local electorate), as well as their inability to break out of the strictures of green-left thinking to appeal to a broader group of voters.
Maybe you should start trying to convince voters of your views instead of wishing for a leader of a mainstream government to ignore the wishes of the majority of voters (in what is an historically conservative nation) by implementing radical reform contrary to the wishes of the people (as John Howard did wish WorkChoices).
Or perhaps you would prefer a suspension of democracy in this country, since you seem to dislike it so? You would not be alone in wishing it - the Greens candidate for Higgins Clive Hamilton has made similar statements in the past. This is what your comments about voting informally seem to suggest.
Your views are foolish and dangerous and do more damage to your cause
than you know.
PeteB,
See Guy Pearse’s High and Dry (http://www.penguin.com.au/lookinside/spotlight.cfm?SBN=9780670070633) for ample evidence of the kind of corruption of which I speak. Greenhouse policy does not reflect what voters want, nor what the science requires. Then think also of current policies on, say, the Murray-Darling Basin, and genetically-modified crops. Ditto, ditto. That’ll do for a start. Perhaps others in this thread have their favourite examples.
Regarding “radical” action on climate change, well “shutting down the coal industry” would certainly be a crude, unpopular and “radical” approach. For a sensible approach see my new post at http://betternature.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/cut-emissions-and-boost-eco…. Thanks to Big Coal and the media, such well-documented, quick and effective approaches are almost unkown in what passes for political discussion in this country.
Yes, Rudd got a good vote in 2007, but he misled the electorate.
I share some disappointment in the Greens, but think it has more to do with not having well-rounded economic policies, though Christine Milne’s take on global warming is very good and can be taken more broadly – sensible green policies can generate JOBS and well-being. I also think the Greens have to contend with a great deal of knee-jerk reaction (“tree-huggers”, “loopy left”, etc) that has little to do with what they say, and everything to do with their detractors’ insecurity and prejudice.
Ah yes, the old stand-by, I must want to suspend democracy. See my previous comment – about reclaiming democracy. Btw the claim Australians are conservative has to take account of our highly concentrated media and a gross bias in media coverage, now being imposed on the ABC as well. Actually I rather thought my article was “trying to convince voters of [my] views”, just as you suggest. Take some deep breaths, notice how many emotive adjectives you used, many of them ad-hominem, and think about who’s ranting.
Also btw, I’m not of the “left”, “far” or otherwise. I advocate markets that are managed to do what free markets conspicously fail to do, namely efficiently deliver us the society we (collectively, democratically, fairly) choose to live in. No genuine socialist would advocate such things. In fact left-right dichotomy is false and stale and we can do much better. See my web site and, for example, http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8644. Better yet, buy my book, Economia (ABC Books, 2004) – a bit hard to find now though.
I will read up Geoff. Your comments about my overuse of certain adjectives are fair enough.
Nontheless your insinuation that Rudd (and the Federal ALP) is no better than Howard is offensive on many levels - particularly for those within the labour movement who fought tirelessly to elect a government that would overturn Workchoices - which the ALP has done (though I will be the first to admit that Fairwork is far from perfect). The federal ALP have also made significant reform to Higher Ed in this country - more is needed but there has been a real and not insubstantial change of direction (including a focus on increasing low-SES participation in our universities, which has been long overdue). There are many more examples of progressive changes which have been implemented by this Government and championed by responsible, progressive members of the federal labor caucus which would NOT have occurred under a liberal government (same-sex rights under federal law, for another example.) Climate change is not the only issue for progressives in this country.
The Government’s action on climate change thus far has been very, very disappointing. Here I can agree. However, I remain highly skeptical of claims of outright corruption and your encouragement of informal voting is irresponsible (and your claim that scrutineers would take notice, and that this would somehow have a political impact, is absurd!).
They spin it right here, they spin it over there, they’re damn well spinning it everywhere!
SCIENCE AGENCY IN BID TO GAG SENIOR ADVISER
The Australian, 2 November 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26291548-601,00.html
Nicola Berkovic
THE nation’s peak science agency has tried to gag the publication of a paper by one of its senior environmental economists attacking the Rudd government’s climate change policies.
The paper, by the CSIRO’s Clive Spash, argues the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is an ineffective way to cut emissions, and instead direct legislation or a tax on carbon is needed.
The paper was accepted for publication by the journal New Political Economy after being internationally peer-reviewed.
But Dr Spash told the Australia New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics conference that the CSIRO had since June tried to block its publication.
In the paper, Dr Spash argues the economic theory underpinning emissions trading schemes is "far removed" from the reality of permit markets. "While carbon trading and offset schemes seem set to spread, they so far appear ineffective in terms of actually reducing GHGs (greenhouse gases)," he says.
"Despite this apparent failure, ETS remain politically popular amongst the industrialised polluters.
"The public appearance is that action is being undertaken. The reality is that GHGs are increasing and society is avoiding the need for substantive proposals to address the problem of behavioural and structural change."
Dr Spash said trading schemes did not efficiently allocate emission cuts because their design was manipulated by vested interests. For example, in Australia, large polluters would be compensated with free permits while smaller, more competitive firms would have to buy theirs at auction. The schemes were also flawed because: global warming was caused by gases other than carbon; emissions were difficult to measure; carbon offsets bought from other countries were of dubious value; and the schemes "crowded out" voluntary action by individuals.
He concludes that more direct measures, such as a carbon tax, regulations or new infrastructure would be simpler, more effective and less open to manipulation.
The most pervasive and damaging of Labor Government failures is its spin, lying and censorship in relation to the worsening climate emergency.
I have personally responded to the Government CSIRO censorship of top ecological economist Dr Clive Spash by sending the following thoroughly referenced letter about Australian Government lies and censorship in the face of the worsening climate emergency to Australian Mainstream media, MPs and climate activists.
LETTER
Dear Sir/Madam/Dr/Senator/Ms/Mrs/Mr etc,
Public debate over the Australian Labor Government’s carbon pollution-increasing, oxymoronic, Orwellian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is largely confined to whether this fraudulent, pro-coal, pro-pollution, pro-polluter Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) should be further weakened in favour of the major greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters, namely the fossil fuel-based industries and agriculture (livestock is responsible for over 50% of GHG pollution). [1].
Just as the Lib-Lab politicians ignore the top scientists calling for urgent reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration from the current 390 parts per million (ppm) to 300-350 ppm, so they ignore top climate scientists and top climate economists who call for a revenue-neutral Carbon Tax and slam the demonstrated ineffectiveness, dishonesties and dangers of a carbon trading-based ETS approach. [2, 3].
This societal failure is compounded by Government untruth and censorship. Thus the Government repeatedly and falsely claims that Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) is “clean energy” and the Government CSIRO has blocked publication in a UK economics journal of a peer-reviewed anti-ETS paper by a top Australian ecological economist, Dr Clive Spash. [4, 5].
When summer temperatures exceed 50 degrees Centigrade the polluters, Lib-Labs and Lib-Lab lackeys will be held legally responsible for sociopathic, anti-science perversion of rational risk management. [6].
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya, Macleod, Victoria 3085, Australia
[1]. Robert Goodland & Jeff Anhang (World Bank), Livestock and climate change, World Watch Institute, November/December 2009: http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.p… .
[2]. 300.org, “300.org - return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org–return-atmosphere-co2-… .
[3]. Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (YVCAG), “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)”: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/carbon-tax-ne… .
[4]. SBS World News, “Energy top of agenda after landmark deal”, 19 August 2009: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1074472/Energy-top-of-agenda-after-la… .
[5]. Nicola Berkovic, “CSIRO bid to gag emissions trading scheme policy attack“, The Australian, 2 November 2009: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26291548-601,00.html
[6]. Julio Godoy, “Climate change: 350 ppm too ambitious, say [118/120 global] lawmakers”, IPS, 26 October 2009: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49010 .
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Harry MortonI find it strange that so many NM writers are concerned about asylum seekers and none are worrying about the very real problems faced by thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders here. I realise that it is not fashionable to consider local problems when you can beat the drum, mount the bandwagon and proclaim your concerns about boat people. Here I am for 25 years advocating for better health, work chances, better accommodation for black people, and condemning bringing Pacific Islanders in to this country with work permits while our own blacks are in desperate circumstances needing employment. Do I hear the pennies drop? Or just the same vicious criticism of me?
Today’s Newspoll comes as a salutary lesson to our leader on the price of moral cowardice. Asylum seeker and refugee issues are complex and profoundly difficult. The mainstream news media cannot cope with anything beyond black and white. The media have conducted an onslaught against Mr. Rudd in recent weeks, oversimplifying and, rather than informing the nation of the facts, largely playing on persistent, irrational and ill based fears. They have also made known the disquiet from Mr. Rudd’s own political allies, seeking a more humane approach and an end to the crude political battles that surface on these issues.
It is a hard road to tread but I believe Kevin Rudd has failed to seize a unique opportunity to exercise leadership on Australia’s attitude to asylum seekers. It simply isn’t possible to steer along the fence on these issues. Not possible to be "tough" and "humane" at the same time. A better approach would be to lead the nation into well informed, fair and honourable policies and actions.
At a time when a future population of 55 million is being predicted and when migration is at an all time high, as it was under the previous government, it seems ludicrous to apply large sums of money and resources to repel or resist a very small number of boat people, to placate old, neurotic fears and guilts this nation has clung to since it first appropriated and occupied aboriginal lands after arriving in boats.
The time is ripe to make a stand against those fears and hysterics, not to feed them. If the ACTU and union movement as a whole can protect the nation from "Work Choices" by removing a government, its attitude to asylum seekers could also be a powerful political instrument in such an effort to end the myths once and for all.
If Australia has the capacity to take in 330,000 migrants, or thereabouts, a year, why can’t that number be reduced to say 300,000 and the number of humanitarian visas and asylum seeker places be increased by 30,000? Clearly the country is not "full" and those of that view should be told so. 13,500 humanitarian visas is hardly a world shattering figure, although it is always trotted out, most often by Ruddock supporters, as being "generous". The quota has rarely even been filled!
If others are knocking on our fortress door for sanctuary why can’t more "places" be created for them, to end the nonsense of spurious queue jumping? Is it really a sustainable moral argument that some refugees are more deserving than others, when people are dying in our waters, desperately attempting to seek haven, although others languish far away in refugee camps? Should we deny food to a starving person at our front door, because we are helping others queuing elsewhere?
By expanding Christmas Island aren’t we in danger of creating new places in which refugees can languish? By attempting to have refugees (not simply "asylum seekers" but registered refugees) blocked in Indonesia aren’t we doing just that? That is the policy that the Australians rejected at the last election. and Australians now know how these people are treated in Indonesia, which is not bound by international refugee agreements.
Who would remain in a queue if the box office never opened? There are at present 2,107 people registered as refugees in Indonesia with the UNHCR. From 2001 - 2009 Australia has accepted an average of 50 a year, 460 overall. Is it any wonder then that they seek to "jump" some non existent queue. Aren’t we then culpable when these people, out of desperation, seek to come here by boat and face the risk of drowning? We know they are there. We know they are not "economic migrants" but genuine refugees. We know they have been languishing there for years. We know life in Indonesia means they are denied work and their children are denied schooling, even at primary school. People are fed and watered and sheltered by the IOM but our policies condemn them to an abject existance. How can we turn a blind eye and pretend others have a better case for asylum? How can we seek to make things harder for them? Who can they turn to other than "people smugglers"?
Australians know these things now. The slump in support for Labor and Mr. Rudd is a direct consequence of his failure to address these issues.
The United States recently elected an African-American president. Only twenty years ago such a thing was utterly inconceivable. National prejudices can be shifted if there is enough political will, integrity and courage to attempt to do so. At the height of enormous and widespread popularity Prime Minister Rudd has failed to show leadership. He has failed to attack the hysteria, the lies and distortions around the issue of boat people and failed to seek to inform and alter national mythologies. He has simply slipped into tired old slogans. He could have established a new well founded factual basis that could serve as a foundation for any serious and honourable debate on immigration that may follow, but has chosen not to do so.
Paul Keating may not be Mr. Rudd’s favourite Labor comrade at the moment, but his Redfern Speech is the kind of statement Kevin Rudd needs as a fundamental starting point on asylum seekers. He has the capacity to do it. He has written such statements on other principles, for example in "The Monthly". But on this issue he has pandered to the xenophobia and fear which can so easily be resurrected by the Opposition, whenever they face disunity or a policy vacuum. Had Mr. Rudd made a strong, principled and forthright stand on these issues he could have gained public support, rather than having squandered it.
The national consciousness has already shifted somewhat after the inhumane and shameful Howard immigration and "border protection" regime (although the term is largely an irrelevance when it comes to boat people and is one I intensely dislike, as it can be used so duplicitously). They only "worked" at the expense of untold human suffering and pain. But the strongest criticism of Kevin Rudd is coming from his own side of politics, not the xenophobic and fearful. It is urging greater humanity. Australians know how vague the term "people smuggler" is (they know about Oscar Schindler) and how cowardly but easy it is to attack asylum seekers while pretending to be attacking the smugglers. Those being attacked are unable to fly in as foreign students, to study hair-dressing. They are condemned to risk their lives at sea to run an utterly unnecessary gauntlet of death to seek a safe haven by our exclusion policies.
It is this gauntlet that must be dismantled. The latest deaths near the Cocos Islands make this tragically clear.
Unless Mr. Rudd takes up the challenge and addresses current attitudes to these desperate and destitute people and his government’s policies, his political life may be short lived. That would be most unfortunate most of all for asylum seekers for we have clear evidence of what would happen should the Opposition return to government.
PeteB,
Just some follow-up thoughts.
I have every respect for people who work for the betterment of working people. Many of them are in the labour movement. However I think the Labor Party betrays them at every turn. It does the minimum, so as not to offend the big end of town, rather than getting in and doing the job properly. For example, we should restore the kind of job security we had a few decades ago and return to reasonable working hours. People are not commodities. If you find my perception, or the reality, that Labor betrays people offensive, that’s your choice. You could, instead, just look to see if it’s true.
The major parties pay very close attention to the flow of preferences. Scrutineers are instructed to gather as much information as they can during the vote count. Try being a scrutineer some time and you’ll confirm this. The big parties certainly would pay attention to a big shift in the preference flow.
Regarding my inclination not to complete my preference allocation, the present electoral law won’t allow me to vote the way I want and remain "formal". Nevertheless, votes like mine could be noticed and have an effect. Used in electorates where the Greens weren’t likely to get close to winning (almost all HR electorates), it would have minimal effect on the Greens. Their scrutineers could also be tracking the number of relevant votes, so their electoral presence would still be registered in the public mind. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a rational way to get serious change.
We won’t get serious change until we stop voting for the major parties. That means, until another party gains major support in the House or Reps, stopping the flow of preferences to them. The cabal that currently runs Labor has been surviving on that preference flow for decades now, despite a lot of deep disillusionment, manifest in other comments here.
Oh and PeteB, I don’t think Rudd is "no better" than Howard. I think he’s only marginally better. I have no wish to return to the viciousness and vindictiveness of the nasty, small-minded, fearful Howardites. However I fear that Rudd’s and Labor’s ineptitude will deliver them back to us.
Harry, I see no reason to think anyone on this thread has any less concern for Native Australians than for asylum seekers. These are brief comments, not personal manifestos. Try being a little less aggro and you might be received better, and find some good company. If you have a special concern and passion for Native Australians, or any other topic, write an article and try it on NM.
In respect of ‘climate change’ of course Kevin Rudd is not the only leader who is bound to disappoint:
www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,658261,00.html
asks not if global warming is real but if global warmism is real. That is, does anyone actually believe all the alarmist talk we’ve been hearing from all media for upward of two decades now?
Der Spiegel suggests that next month’s Copenhagen conference on "climate change" is likely to be a bust because:
Angela Merkel is blocking aid commitments for climate protection and risking the failure of a global deal in Copenhagen. The chancellor is squandering an opportunity to demonstrate European leadership and show Barack Obama what it really means to be a "citizen of the world."
She was once celebrated as the "Climate Chancellor" and seen as an important campaigner for the environment on the international political stage. Now it is Angela Merkel, of all people, who is dealing a death blow to international climate deals—by navigating a shortsighted course within the European Union.
Merkel, it seems has "enraged environmentalists" by opposing massive transfer payments from European Union nations to Third World countries for "environmental projects":
Such funds should help to cover the additional costs of setting up renewable energy forms, more efficient technologies and green infrastructures in developing countries. Only in that way can it be guaranteed that the most environmentally nondestructive technologies are implemented globally, to put a halt on catastrophic climate change, its advocates say. The talk is of €20 billion ($30 billion) starting immediately, then €50 billion from 2016 and €100 billion annually from 2020. This extra burden should be covered by the US, the EU and Japan.
Merkel’s decision to block a concrete financial pledge will not exactly boost enthusiasm in other parts of the world—rather it will dampen it. When delays are created by the Europeans, who always pride themselves on being frontrunners in climate protection, then the US and China can get away with not making any progress.
Everyone always talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it! Politicians consistently act as if they don’t take seriously the warnings about impending climate "catastrophe" seriously. It’s possible that they do believe the warnings but are politically constrained from doing what it would supposedly take to avert it. But if they are so constrained, it is also because most voters act as if they don’t take the warnings seriously.
When Australia is also asked at Copenhagen to commit to transfer payments to Third World countries for "environmental projects" then, I suggest, you will be able to scratch out the words ‘Angela Merkel’ and automatically insert the words ‘Kevin Rudd’ and re-run the very same piece in the SMH, The Age or The Australian.
Maybe it’s all just a massive political failure, as a result of which we’ll all roast to death in a few years. Stranger things have happened. Then again, maybe this is an emperor’s-new-clothes situation in which people who aren’t actually fooled by the underlying claim are convinced nonetheless that it’s not respectable to let anyone know.
Seems to me our politicians (and us) have all become caught in a contradiction which even Marshall McLuhan did not foresee. When the ‘catastrophic climate change’ message fully became the medium, the message itself may well then have been doomed to fail.
Ecoeng,
If I understand your obliquity, you think the global warming threat is imaginary.
Well, the science hasn’t changed over the past year or two, except to keep coming up with examples of things changing for the worse much faster than earlier predicted. Nor has the collective judgement of the great majority of climate scientists, despite the plethora of claims by instant blogger experts, suckers for the well-organised campaign of fossil fuel industries.
You and your ilk may have proliferated, but you seem to think the science can be negated just by shouting louder. It may work in US politics, and increasingly here, but it won’t convince the Earth.
That is what I call denialism.
"If I understand your obliquity, you think the global warming threat is imaginary."
Assumption + Hyperbole
I take the moderate view that, yes, anthopopgenic CO2 emissions may contribute some global warming. I also take the view that a balanced, sober assessment of all data sources suggests that the sensitivity to (a doubling) of pCO2 is most likely in the range 0.5 - 1.5 C i.e. not a level deserving of extreme alarm or likely to wreak global catastrophe. I also take the view (with Bjorn Lomborg) that mankind’s civilization should make structural adjustments on this basis.
"Well, the science hasn’t changed over the past year or two, except to keep coming up with examples of things changing for the worse much faster than earlier predicted."
Untrue. For example, even Arctic ice cover this year has returned to long term previous levels. There is no evidence of decrease snow/ice cover in Antarctica. There has also been no atmospheric warming for over over 10 years. World surface temperatures have particularly fallen over the last two years, during which time the Sun has exhibited 798 spotless days!
"Nor has the collective judgement of the great majority of climate scientists, despite the plethora of claims by instant blogger experts, suckers for the well-organised campaign of fossil fuel industries."
Untrue + More Crass Ad Hominems + More Insults.
There is good evidence that even respected ANU scientists are moderating their view based on, for example, the long term downward trends in pan evaporation on all continents over the last 30 - 50 years (Farquhar et al.)
"You and your ilk may have proliferated, but you seem to think the science can be negated just by shouting louder. It may work in US politics, and increasingly here, but it won’t convince the Earth.
That is what I call denialism."
Again simply a plethora of Crude Ad Hominems and Insults.
Shocking as it may seem to you, Geoff, as a person of easily equal scientific credentials to yourself, I take the view that your intelligence and judgement is not demonstrably superior to, for example, Garth Paltridge, Ian Castles, Ian Plimer, Bob Carter, David Evans, David Stockwell etc., all well known Australian sceptics - to various technical degrees - a concept clearly quite lost on you.
Your ever ready resort to hyperbole, ad hominems and insults reveals the fundamental weakness of your position.
Most of all, I wish to make the key point, again, that after at least 20 years of a blatantly overwhelming saturation and forced bias of the world’s media with alarmist, catastrophist climate disaster views equivalent to your own, the evidence is now very clear - majority world opinion is that:
YOU ARE NOT BELIEVED.
Amongst the learned madmen may be numbered (I think) also those that determine of the time of the world’s end, and other such points of prophecy.
—Thomas Hobbes, The Elements of Law, 1640
Ecoeng,
On Arctic sea ice, what’s your source? Check this site, which shows the 2009 extent much below the 1979-2000 average, though not as low as 2007. However there are also reports the ice is thinner, so its volume is low and it is vulnerable.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
On Antarctica (and Greenland), a recent paper in Nature states
"We infer that grounded glaciers and ice streams are responding sensitively not only to ice-shelf collapse but to shelf thinning owing to ocean-driven melting. This is an apparently widespread phenomenon that does not require climate warming sufficient to initiate ice-shelf surface melt. Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet ocean margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized."
For reputable estimates of recent temperature trends, see my post
http://betternature.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/global-cooling-since-1998/
Global cooling since 1998 is clearly contradicted - according to NASA and the British Met Office.
Perhaps Andrew will comment on the sensitivity - he has collated much geological evidence that the long-term sensitivity is about double the IPCC value. Given that symptoms are developing much faster than expected, there is a concern the long-term value is now more relevant. It’s an important part of what motivates James Hanson to propose 350 ppm as the upper CO2 limit.
Your evidence of a major change in scientific opinion - one ANU paper, given no context.
"… after at least 20 years of a blatantly overwhelming saturation and forced bias of the world’s media with alarmist, catastrophist climate disaster views …" This is an absurd characterisation of media coverage of global warming. Many "sceptical" views regularly appear, and The Oz offers little else. And speaking of hyperbole, look at your own adjectives.
It’s true I did this once offer my opinion of what I consider to be denialists and their role. In return you’ve made multiple and sweeping accusations - "plethora", "ever ready resort to hyperbole", etc. My opening statement was an honest acknowledgement that I may have misunderstood you, and there is no hyperbole. Glass houses and stones?
Your preferred authorities are a tiny minority. Lomborg I can vouch had no idea what he was talking about regarding extinction rates in his earlier book claiming no crises on planet Earth. The others may be intelligent etc, but they are not asking the right questions nor credibly challenging majority views. See my post
http://betternature.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/for-global-warming-sceptics…
What is important for policy makers is not whether global warming is "proven" (no science ever is), but what is the collective professional judgement of climate scientists - given that we’ve known all along that we would have to act with incomplete knowledge because of time delays in the system.
Your factual claims don’t stack up, and your limited sources and your own hyperbole don’t encourage the view that you have reached a "balanced, sober assessment".
"The question is, if there is so little difference between Labor and Liberal, who on earth are we supposed to vote for?"
Why don’t we get rid of the who in the 21st Century and replace it with "what"
Get rid of politicians and establish a direct democracy where citizens can directly influence what affects and inspires them.
Belevers and deniers should join hands to ensure every voice is heard and respected. It is called "democracy"
Well said, Dr Geoff Davies.
Scientists are properly sceptical and particularly about their own shortcomings.
Scientists cannot be Jacks of all trades and necessarily have a sensible respect for the top scientific collectives (e.g. the Royal Society) and for top performers at the cutting edge of their own disciplines and of other disciplines.
Accordingly, sensible scientists take it very seriously when a who’s who of top climate scientists in a peer-reviewed paper published recently in the top journal Nature declared that we have passed 3 critical tipping points for the safety of Humanity, of which one is the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Thus this quote from a Statement by World’s top climate scientists including Professors James Hansen (US), Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (Germany) , Paul Crutzen (Netherlands Nobel Laureate), in the top scientific journal Nature that atmospheric CO2 must NOT exceed 350 ppm (September 2009): "Our proposed climate boundary is based on two critical thresholds that separate qualitatively different climate-system states. It has two parameters: atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and radiative forcing (the rate of energy change per unit area of the globe as measured at the top of the atmosphere). We propose that human changes to atmospheric CO2 concentrations should not exceed 350 parts per million by volume, and that radiative forcing should not exceed 1 watt per square metre above pre-industrial levels. Transgressing these boundaries will increase the risk of irreversible climate change, such as the loss of major ice sheets, accelerated sea-level rise and abrupt shifts in forest and agricultural systems. Current CO2 concentration stands at 387 p.p.m.v. and the change in radiative forcing is 1.5 W m-2 (see: Johan Rockström, Will Steffen et al.“A safe operating space for humanity”, Nature, 461, 472-475, 2009: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html . ) .
Ditto when the Coral Working Party of the umpteen-Nobel-Laureate Royal Society say we should not exceed 320 ppm (see Output of the technical working group meeting, The Royal Society, London, 6th July, 2009, “The Coral Reef Crisis: scientific justification for critical CO2 threshold levels of less than 350ppm”: http://www.carbonequity.info/PDFs/The-Coral-Reef-Crisis.pdf ).
For a carefully referenced compendium of key statements of concern by top scientists about the need to return the atmospheric CO2 concentration to 300-350 ppm see "300.org - return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm": http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org–return-atmosphere-co2-… .
Those obfuscating such important and expert messages of urgent concern about the worsening climate emergency are in the same moral ball park as those irresponsibly disputing the overwhelming scientific consensus against cigarette smoking - except that whereas cigarette smoking will kill 5 million per year x 100 years = 500 million this century, unaddressed man-made climate change is expertly predicted to kill about 10 billion people this century and devastate the biosphere.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Non-scientist readers of this thread should be made aware of the deep pessimism of sensible scientists about the worsening climate emergency.
Several days ago I attended the launch of a fantastic new 100 million dollar research institute that was attended by Government Ministers and many eminent scientists. The top scientists I conversed with during the day were extremely pessimistic about the future of Humanity due to the huge gulf between expert scientific opinion about climatic disruption and greed-driven societal politics that refuses to tackle the problem.
Irresponsible and ignorant climate change denialism dangerously obfuscates the acute seriousness of the situation and inhibits requisite societal action.
I have personally written recently to EVERY Federal MP setting out the acute seriousness of the climate emergency (with key documentation) so that , unlike many Germans in 1945, none of them can say "we didn’t know".
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
The extreme right wing Rudd Labor Government has reached the utter pits by the disgraceful decision to award Australia’s highest award (the Order of Australia) to a US general involved in the Iraqi Genocide that has so far involved 1.0 million post-invasion non-violent excess deaths, 1.3 million violent post-invasion excess deaths, 0.6 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths and 5-6 million refugees PLUS a further 1.2 million under-5 infant deaths and a total of about 1.9 million violent and non-violent excess deaths in the Sanctions period of 1990-2003 (see "The Forgotten Iraqi Genocide. Iraqi cardiologist’s Speech to European Parliament ": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29682/42/ ).
Consult UNICEF and you will find that over 40,000 under-5 year old Occupied Iraqi infants die each year.
WHO provides the major reason for this carnage: the total annual per capita health expenditure permitted by the US and US Alliance occupiers in Occupied Iraq is $124 as compared to $6,714 in Homeland US.
The Iraqi Holocaust and is an Iraqi Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention.
The racist Zionist-promoted Iraqi Genocide - called thus by outstanding writers such as Dr Paul Craig Roberts (US), Dr Mark Weissbrot (Just Foreign Policy, US), John Pilger (UK, Australia), and Tariq Ali (UK, Pakistan) - is a war crime under the Geneva Convention.
Sanctions were applied to Apartheid South Africa for merely denying Indians and Africans equal rights - how then then should the civilized world respond to war criminal, Iraqi Genocide-complicit Apartheid Australia under the Apartheid Labor Party?
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
GeoffDavies
I disagree. Many of your own factual claims don’t stack up. Your own hyperbole and frequent personal attacks e.g. Lomborg, reflect the sad situation where a modern bandwagon of group think using blatant manipulation of the publishing and peer review process has gripped much of the scientific community and possibly compromised the practice of science so badly that it may never recover.
This situation I can easily demonstrate even using references which are largely the product of mainstream scientists whom you would have to be nuts to slag off as ‘denialists’.
For example, just on Antarctica:
A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008–2009 according to spaceborne microwave observations for 1980–2009. Strong positive phases of both the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) were recorded during the months leading up to and including the 2008–2009 melt season.
Tedesco M., and A. J. Monaghan, 2009. An updated Antarctic melt record through 2009 and its linkages to high-latitude and tropical climate variability. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L18502, doi:10.1029/2009GL039186.
On the critical issue of CO2 sensitivity i.e. the key issue where the catastrophist fanatics like you and Glikson and the mild warmers like me (and Lindzen, Christy, Paltridge etc) diverge:
If one assumes no feedback mechanisms and you just compute how much additional energy in the form of IR emitted by (or reflected from) the surface will be absorbed by the CO2, you obtain the value of ~1 C or so for the climate sensitivity. he additional greenhouse effect becomes increasingly unimportant as the concentration increases: the expected temperature increase for a single frequency is something like
* 1.5 ( 1 - exp[-(concentration-280)/200 ppm] ) Celsius
The decreasing exponential tells you how much radiation at the critical frequencies is able to penetrate through the CO2and leave the planet. The numbers in the formula above are not completely accurate and the precise exponential form is not quite robust either but the qualitative message is reliable. When the concentration increases, additional CO2 becomes less and less important.
In particular, there exists nothing such as a "runaway effect" or a "point of no return" or a "tipping point" or any of the similar frightening fairy-tales promoted by Al Gore, James Hansen and their numerous soulmates. The formula above simply does not allow you more than 1.5 C of warming from the CO2 greenhouse effect. Similar formulae based on the Arrhenius’ law predict a decrease of the derivative "d Temperature / d Concentration" to be just a power law - not exponential decrease - but it is still a decrease.
One can also want to obtain a better formula by integrating the formula above over frequencies. In all cases, such a possible warming distributed over centuries is certainly nothing that a person with IQ above 80 should be producing movies about and nothing that should convince him to stop the world economy.
The increase of the temperature since the pre-industrial era was something like 0.6 C. It is consistent to assume that the no-feedback "college physics" calculation of the CO2 greenhouse effect is approximately right, and if it is not quite right, it is more likely to be an overestimate rather than an underestimate, given the observed data.
When you substitute the concentration of 560 ppmv, you obtain something like a 1 C increase relative to the pre-industrial era. But even if you plug in the current concentration of 380 ppmv, you obtain about 0.76 C degrees of "global warming".
Although we have only completed about 40% of the proverbial CO2 doubling, we have already achieved about 75% of the warming effect that is expected from such a doubling: the difference is a result of the exponentially suppressed influence of the growing carbon dioxide concentration.
The numbers and calculations above are not controversial. Gavin Schmidt, a well-known alarmist from RealClimate, more or less agrees with the calculated figures, even though he adds a certain amount of fog - he selectively constructs various minor arguments that have the capacity to "tilt" the calculation above in the alarmist direction. on the other side Lindzen would tell you a lot about likely negative (regulating) feedback mechanisms (the iris effect?). All these mechanisms - positive or negative - are plausible but none of them can really be justified by the available, rather inaccurate data.
But the figure of ~1.0 C - understood as a rough estimate - seems to be consistent with everything we see and Schmidt himself claims that only intellectually challenged climate scientists estimate the sensitivity to be around 5 Celsius degrees (I forget Schmidt’s exact wording). It is also near the result of 1.1 C obtained by Schwartz in 2007 (but of course you’d like to slag him as well).
Conversely, Hegerl et al. published a text in Nature that claimed that the 95 percent confidence interval for the climate sensitivity is between 1.5 and 6.2 Celsius degrees. James Annan decided to publish a reply (with J.C. Hargreaves). As you know, James Annan - who likes to gamble and to make bets about the global warming - is:
* an alarmist who believes all kinds of unreasonable things about the dangerous global warming;
* a staunch advocate of Bayesian probabilistic reasoning.
However, Annan decided to publish a reply that showed:
* the actual sensitivity is about 5 times smaller than the Hegerl et al. upper bound (which means that the warming from the carbon dioxide won’t be too interesting);
* Hegerl et al. had made errors in statistical reasoning; the error may be summarized as an application of rationally unjustified Bayesian priors which is an unscientific step.
The second point of Annan was based on the observation that Hegerl et al. simply use a "prior" (a random religious preconception that defines our "primordial state of ignorance" before the sin involving the apple, so to say) that is a crucial part of the Bayesian statistical reasoning. In this particular case, the Hegerl prior simply allows the sensitivity to be huge a priori - and such a dogma to start with is simply too strong and is not removed by the subsequent procedure of "Bayesian inference".
Such an outcome is a typical result of Bayesian methods in many cases: garbage in, garbage out. If your assumptions at the beginning are too bad, you won’t obtain accurate results after any finite time spent by thinking.
However, Annan’s reply was rejected by Nicki Stevens of Nature without review with the following ‘justification’:
" We have regretfully decided that publication of this comment as a Brief Communication Arising is not justified, as the concerns you have raised apply more generally to a widespread methodological approach, and not solely to the Hegerl et al. paper."
In other words, Annan’s reply could have the ability to catch errors that influence more than one paper, and such replies are not welcome!
Imagine that Nicki Stevens is the editor of "Annals der Physik" instead of Max Planck who received Albert Einstein’s paper on special relativity. Even better, you can also imagine that Nicki Stevens is the editor who receives the paper on General Relativity whose insights apply more generally.Or any other paper that has any scientific meaning, for that matter, because meaningful science simply must be general, at least a little bit.
We could also wonder whether the person named Nicki Stevens realized that one half of the Internet was going to discuss how unusually profound her misunderstanding of the scientific method was. She seems to believe that scientists should be just little ants who are adding small pieces of dust to a pyramid whose shape has already been determined by someone else, outside science, e.g. by Al Gore (or you)!
Even the former, highly respected editor of Nature of many years standing (certainly through most of my career), John Maddox, was equally scathing about the scientific understanding and ethical standards of Nicki Steven on the AGW issue in the period before he recently sadly died.
This is how it now is in this World of the AGW Bandwagon.
Non-scientist readers of this thread should be made aware of the deep pessimism of a minority of sensible, reputable scientists around the world about the worsening corruption of the scientific process for which people like yourself, Glikson etc., will, hopefully, ultimately be held responsible. I just hope I’m still alive to see it - and put the match to your pyre.
Oh, - I almost forgot. That ANU paper, and it’s context:
Geography Compass 3/2 (2009): 746–760
Pan Evaporation Trends and the Terrestrial Water Balance. I. Principles and Observations
Michael L. Roderick1,2*, Michael T. Hobbins1 and Graham D. Farquhar1 1Research School of Biological Sciences and 2Research School of Earth Sciences The Australian National University
Abstract
Pan evaporation is just that – it is the evaporation rate of water from a small dish located at the ground-surface. Pan evaporation is a measure of the evaporative demand over terrestrial surfaces. Declines in pan evaporation have now been reported in many regions of the world. The trends vary from one pan to the next, but when averaged over many pans, they are typically in the range of −1 to −4 mm a−2 (mm per annum per annum). In energetic terms, a trend of −2 mm a−2 is equivalent to −0.16 W m−2 a−1 and over 30 years this is a change of −4.8 W m−2. For comparison, the top-of-atmosphere forcing due to doubled CO2 is estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be ~3.7 W m−2. Hence, the magnitude of the pan evaporation trend is large. What is of even greater interest is the direction – a decline – given the well-established warming of the last 30–50 years. In this article, the first in a two part series, we describe the underlying principles in using and interpreting pan evaporation data and then summarise the reported observations from different countries. In the second article, we describe the interpretation of the trends in terms of changes in the terrestrial water balance.
Summary
Evaporimeters have long been used to provide estimates of evaporative demand, but there is an alternative approach available – one that calculates evaporative demand from measurements of radiation, temperature, humidity and wind speed. The problem is, of course, that those data are available at very few sites anywhere in the world. Instead, perhaps because of their simplicity, many countries have chosen to maintain networks of evaporation pans. Indeed, these pans are, by and large, the only practical measure of evaporative demand we have available.
Analyses of the pan evaporation data averaged over many pans from many different countries has revealed declines that are typically in the range of −1 to −4 mm a−2 (Table 1). In energetic terms, a trend of say −2 mm a−2 is equivalent to −0.16 W m−2 a−1. For comparison, estimates of the top of the atmosphere radiative forcing over the last 40 years are an order of magnitude lower at about 0.02 W m−2 a−1 (Hansen et al. 2005). Clearly, the pan evaporation trend is large, and combined with the fact that it has, on average, declined, warrants further and detailed investigation.
What does a decline in pan evaporation mean? In short, it means a decline in evaporative demand. However, there is no simple universal translation of the observed pan evaporation trend into a trend in the actual evapotranspiration, that is, the evaporation and transpiration from plants and soil. The reason for that should be clear from the article – pan evaporation measures the evaporative demand – but the actual evapotranspiration also depends on the supply as well as the demand. Interpreting the trends in terms of a supply-demand framework is the primary focus of the second article in this series.
End of Summary
Comment on Context
This paper has severe implications for the global trend expected of Specific Humidity (SH), and supposedly already detected-for, global warming. Such a change is generally modeled in accord with the Clausius-Clapeyron (C-C) equation, which describes the rate of increase of a hydrological quantity per temperature increase. SH is expected to increase at a rate close to the C-C rate, if Relative Humidity (RH) remains nearly constant.
ecoeng,
On Antarctica, you may notice the paper I quoted says ice loss is accelerating from flow (dynamic loss), regardless of whether there is yet significant surface melting.
On radiative forcing, you are challenging the most basic point of climate science, which has been around for over a century. Good luck. Have you tried to publish your thesis in a mainstream journal? Or do you just appeal to the conspiracy theory "where a modern bandwagon of group think using blatant manipulation of the publishing and peer review process has gripped much of the scientific community"? I’ve had novel ideas rejected at first, including just recently. I kept trying until I got through. If you want to be taken seriously, do it.
Did Annan resubmit his point as a stand-alone paper? Perhaps the Editor’s point was simply that he had chosen an inappropriate format. Nature rejects the great majority of papers it receives, it simply can’t publish them all. Most of them don’t even get to the stage of being reviewed. Anyway editors are not gods, sometimes they get things wrong. Did he try a different journal? Or just rush about crying conspiracy? Stop whinging.
Regarding the ANU pan evaporation paper, there are potentially complex processes at work. Perhaps you should wait for part 2, the interpretation, before you issue your proclamations that the result is inconsistent with global warming.
Ecoeng, there are many continuing debates, that’s no secret. The IPCC process, especially, exists precisely to establish the collective professional judgment of most climate scientists as to what they can agree on, despite the continuing uncertainties and debates. It is easy for "sceptics" to come up with facile dismissals on the basis of points that are still being debated, but in most scientists’ judgement are unlikely to bring the whole edifice down. Creationists have been playing that game for a long time regarding evolution.
The issue, as I have said, is not whether global warming is established beyond all doubt, or to the satisfaction of all sceptics (there will always be a few - when do we stop?). The issue is that in the collective professional judgement of most climate scientists we have created a major problem that threatens our civilisation. Because of time-delays in the system between emission and maximum heating effect, if we don’t act very soon, very likely it will simply be too late. See
http://betternature.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/for-global-warming-sceptics…
You keep accusing me of hyperbole and "personal attacks" (because I claim what Lomborg says is wrong, which is not a personal attack), yet you continue to use the most intemperate and personal language yourself, e.g. "catastrophist fanatics like you and Glikson".
nice post geoffdavies - wonderful forbearance. Part2 of Roderick et al is available - looks a good paper.
No, the issue, as I have said, is not whether global warming is established beyond all doubt, or to the satisfaction of all, but of the DEGREE to which it is occurring.
In your haste to ram your own extreme position down everyone’s throats you keep on (and keep keeping on) fudging the fact that there are still many people, including scientists, who do not deny the existence of some AGW yet still disagree strongly with you on the question of degree. Many I know have been driven into silence.
Where we differ is that you claim the projected degree of AGW is extremely dangerous and threatens global catastrophe ‘real soon now’. I and many others on the other hand do not concede that there is a sufficiently powerful technical evidence that it’s present or projected degree threatens global catastrophe.
I gave clear examples of that carefully using sources who could not possibly be labelled as deniers etc. Yet for someone who purports to be a geophysicist you can only respond by running for cover - so inordinately frightened of a little quantitative argument that the best you can do is some vague reference to ‘inappropriate formats’ and crude analogies with creationism etc.
Once again your position is clearly that:
*anyone who disagrees with you even just about the degree and seriousness of AGW is to routinely be dealt with by labels, dodgy analogies and vague smears (yet ever ready to get in a huff when a bit of your own mud is tossed back at you); and
* there is essentially no debate possible on the degree of AGW because you have a monopoly on the science and ‘the science is settled’.
This is simply a fascist position. It is an ideology which basically pisses daily on everything that is (was?) fine about the philosophy of the Enlightenment
It does not deserve to be so relentlessly pushed and promoted in the pages of a supposedly left liberal journal.
The editors of New Matilda are shamed by their abject and cowardly failure to allow publication of a broad range of articles that takes into account a range of views on the degree of AGW and hence encourages a broad exchange of views on that critical core issue.
This has turned New Matilda into a mere rag which closely resembles, more than anything else those broadsheets of the pre-WWII Italian fascist movement (if you read a little Italian).
And all the while Fat Al pompously waffles his way to his first billion on your backs. Pathetic.
Yeah, Part2 of Roderick et al is indeed available - and full of gems for the keen eyed:
"The importance of declining solar irradiance, that is, dimming (Liepert
2002; Stanhill and Cohen 2001) associated with increasing aerosols and/or
clouds as an explanatory factor for declining pan evaporation, was realised
some time ago (Linacre 2004; Roderick and Farquhar 2002). Whether that
trend continues is unclear: recent observations from some regions, especially
in Europe, show a reversal of the previous trend with increases in global
solar irradiance (Wild et al. 2005), while some regions, such as Canada
(Cutforth and Judiesch 2007) and Norway (Grimenes and Thue-Hansen
2006), have shown continuing declines in global solar irradiance. In addition,
calculations based on satellite observations show a small but continuing
dimming over the global terrestrial surface but increases in global solar
irradiance over the oceans (Pinker et al. 2005). It is difficult to determine
exactly what has happened to the radiation regime because of the chronic
lack of radiometers world-wide (Stanhill 1997).
The identification of stilling, that is, declining wind speed, is more
recent, but the phenomenon appears widespread over terrestrial surfaces
(Roderick et al. 2007). The question as to why wind speed as recorded by
anemometers (and evaporimeters) has reduced over many terrestrial surfaces, while satellite-based microwave measurements suggest increases in wind speed over oceans (Wentz et al. 2007), has yet to be resolved. "
In a nutshell…. feedbacks.
The dilemma of Geoff Davies and of other decent, pro-Planet, pro-Humanity, informed Australians is what to do at the next election after giving the Greens #1 preference in Australia’s compulsory preferential voting system.
The Labs and the Libs are essentially as bad as each other when it comes to their support for war (mass murder, genocide, Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, genocidal occupations, generation of 20 million Muslim refugees) and for fossil fuel burning (destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, ecocide, terracide, worsening Climate Genocide that is predicted kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century).
However incumbent Labor needs to be punished not just for its crimes against Humanity but ALSO for lying and deceiving the public (a dangerous and utterly unacceptable perversion of rational risk management) and for betraying Labor voters (who have traditionally been anti-war, anti-racism and pro-environment).
Logical conclusion from a person who has NEVER voted for the pro-war Libs: PUT LABOR LAST - and keep putting them last until the Apartheid Labor Party returns to the decent, pro-Humanity Labor values of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Harry Morton Hope you people get over the flu soon so we can be spared the polemics