“Two kinds of reality concerning the Howard government’s counter-terrorism bills: the Sunday Telegraph as compared with Geoffrey Barker ”

– political commentary by Tony Kevin, 7 November 2005

One of Australia’s very best political journalists, Geoff Barker, presented fortunate Australian Financial Review readers a few weeks ago with the crispest and most incisive analysis of where Australia is going now on the suppression of civil liberties that I have yet seen anywhere - “PM marginalises dissenters”, AFR 17 October 2005 (unlinked).

Yesterday’s Sydney Sunday Telegraph, 6 November 2005 - this newspaper and its Melbourne counterpart always being most reliable barometers by which to measure what the Howard elites would like the mass electorate to think about major political and social issues facing Australia – presented another kind of reality about the situation in relation to terrorism and the terror laws that were tabled in Parliament last week, with clear indications that Labor leader Kim Beazley would in the end support whatever slightly modified version of them may emerge from the Senate Committee process now reluctantly agreed to by Howard. Beazley expects his party to support him in this and theyprobsnlyt will. The Greens and the Democrats have in effect become the Opposition.

The city has thus been surrendered already: now it is only to negotiate the final terms of surrender. See www.tonykevin.com or

http://www.tonykevin.com/RallySpeech.html

Speech at Stop the War Coalition rally, Canberra, Sunday 6 November 2005 – Tony Kevin

This commentary compares two diagnoses of our present reality, by Barker and by the Sunday Telegraph, and the audiences they may be expected to influence.

First, the Sunday Telegraph. Here first is the main argument of its editorial yesterday on the terror laws:

http://www.sundaytelegraph.news.com.au/editorial [6 November 2005]

“…The 85th and final draft of the new anti-terrorism laws that were unveiled last week and rushed through the Federal Parliament have gone a significant way to rectify the situation [of dangers to the public from international terrorism] and afford a greater protection to the security of our nation.

It should be noted, too, that the amendments have bipartisan federal and state political support, but only after much debate and compromise in which some aspects of the law were softened and others revised before they were supported. This is democracy at work.

That we live in dangerous and uncertain times with the threat of terrorism hanging over us like the sword of Damocles is incontrovertible.

The barbarous acts of terrorism in idyllic tourist places such as Bali – in which hundreds of people, including 92 Australians, have been murdered in two attacks in three years – show us that. As does the venomous talk from the mouths of a small number of evil and determined people who have declared a jihad against Western society and its cherished values of democracy and freedom.

There is no denying they exist – within our borders and in our cities. Under the new legislation, police will be allowed to control terror suspects for up to one year by placing them under house arrest or forcing them to wear a tracking device and to hold a suspect for up to 48 hours without charge.

The archaic sedition laws will be broadened to cover acts of treason against Australia in foreign countries and inciting violence to overthrow the government, or between racial and religious groups.

While the changes may seem harsh, these laws are not without their checks. Judges will be able to review the reasons and examine the orders and, most importantly, rule on the merits of the case. And the sedition laws will be reviewed.

The usual conga line of critics – academics, lawyers and civil libertarians who champion the rights of the individual – poured scorn on the Government, saying the legislation presents a real danger of marginalising some sections of the community, threatens our constitutional way of life and endangers freedom of expression.

But, whenever there is a threat to the safety of a nation – which includes all its civilians, regardless of race, religion and ethnicity – the individual civil liberties of a few who wish us harm must be compromised to protect the "greater good". To do anything else would be to deny the most basic rights of protection to all Australians.”

**

Complementing this editorial message, political commentator Glenn Milne congratulated Kim Beazley for standing firm in support of the government’s terror laws, despite coming under a lot of pressure from a minority of MPs within his party to oppose them:

“Rolling with the punches” , by Glenn Milne

http://www.sundaytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,9353,17149662-28783,00.html

Here are Milne’s key paragraphs:

“In difficult circumstances, Beazley not only stood his ground, but made some ….

“The truth is these {terror] laws will not affect 99.9 per cent of the population. Therefore, most people want them in place. Faced with this fact, Beazley moved swiftly to lock in his fractious caucus on the package before they had a chance to consider the legislation. In reality, he had no choice.

On some estimates, up to a third of the ALP party room have some reservations about the terrorism legislation. The problem is these reservations only play to the so-called "doctors' wives" constituency – the same group who abhor Howard over his policy on refugees.

The majority of Labor's blue-collar base simply doesn't share these concerns. That's why they voted for Howard over Tampa and it's why they'll vote for him again, if Beazley gives them any cause to think he's soft on terrorism.

It's all very well for Beazley's media critics to condemn him for not standing up for civil liberties. They don't have to win an election. And Beazley won't be getting another chance ….”

**

Finally, the notorious Piers Akerman today warns us all in his unique doomsayer style of the terrors Australia may soon face, if France is any example:

“Paris inferno is ominous”, by Piers Akerman

http://www.sundaytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,9353,17149821-28783,00.html

“Paris is burning - burning furiously with a blind rage that Australian authorities must heed if suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne are not to suffer the same fate.

For more than a week, Muslim youths in more than 20 Paris-region towns have created a wave of violence in which more than 300 cars have been have burnt and hundreds of millions of francs worth of property destroyed.

The suburbs, many of them among France's poorest, have been declared off-limits to police by militant Muslims, who have turned them into religious ghettos where Islamist extremists and criminals have free rein …”

Akerman does not offer any solutions to his dark scenario of Australia’s threatened urban future under rampaging hordes of Muslim youths, except (I think) to warn that multiculturalism policies got France into this mess .

**

The Sunday Telegraph version as presented above would be laughable, except for the huge numbers of Australians who would have read the above material and similar material put out in a range of News Limited media organs around the country – remembering that News Limited owns 70% of Australia’s print media. Over the next few weeks, a very large number of Australian newspaper readers – and I include readers of The Australian here, because it basically will carry similar messages, if presented less bluntly than in the Telegraph – will be subjected to these kinds of arguments, in order to reverse by relentless repetition the inroads that liberals were beginning to make over the past few weeks in condemning Howard’s proposed counter-terrorism legislation.

The intention of this counter-offensive campaign – for that is what it is - will be to strengthen the Howard-Beazley axis in support of the terror laws, and to contain the growing public support for the statements by liberal-minded dissidents in our community – people like Jon Stanhope, Malcolm Fraser, Petro Georgiou, Terry O’Gorman, Alastair Nicholson, Gavan Griffiths, Bob Brown and Lyn Allison and their parties,. Peter Andren, Carmen Lawrence, Barry Jones and many more - in opposing them.

**

It’s a breath of fresh air, after this Agitprop, to turn back to the cool sanity of Geoff Barker. But also depressing, because hardly anyone in the mass public will have any knowledge of his clear-headed analysis of how things stand in Australia now. This is because the Australian Financial Review does not have an open-access or pay-per-view website, unlike its counterparts the UK Financial Times http://news.ft.com/comment , and the Wall Street Journal, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and every major quality US metropolitan newspaper.

To read Geoff Barker in the AFR, you either have to browse newsagency shop outlets to check when his pieces appear, or shell out around $700 p.a. for a weekly annual subscription which allows you to access a subscriber-only website, or go to a public library and hope that their reading room copy of AFR is still intact. Surely it is not a good thing for our democracy that only privileged or wealthy corporate readers can access the sort of quality political journalism that writers like Barker and Laura Tingle and Tony Walker offer to well-heeled or corporate AFR readers?. I think it is in the public interest that many more people should be able readily to access this kind of quality material as a corrective to the Sunday Telegraph view of the world which is pumped out, week in week out.

Is there not a kind of public service information-access obligation here, to do with Australia still being a democracy, though now under increasing threat from within? I think so. I am not suggesting the AFR should offer its expensive and sophisticated financial news and analysis free - of course that all costs a lot of money to compile and keep up to date - but surely the AFR’s broadbrush national political news and commentary, its editorials and major opinion pieces and its superb political cartoons, should not be so narrowly available to the select few ? Otherwise, it is a case of “you only get the news you pay for”.

Here is my transcription of the beautifully written essay Barker penned three weeks ago, with my thanks to AFR for supporting such quality journalism in Australia.. AFR readers, I suggest, are here getting the facts of what Howard is doing to erode Australian civil liberties, and how urgent the situation has now become. I could not find Barker’s piece on Google.

**

“PM marginalizes dissenters” , Geoffrey Barker, Australian Financial Review, 17 October 2005:

Federal counter-terrorism and IR legislation could transform Australia into an authoritarian country, argues Geoffrey Barker

“A bleak and alien political, economic and social landscape is emerging for 21st century Australia as the Howard government moves to pass its latest counter-terrorism, industrial relations, welfare and other legislation.

Viewed as a unified agenda, the measures suggest the coalition wants to substantially alter the relationship between citizens and the state, to create a more controlled and compliant population, and to marginalize political, economic and social dissent.

It is possible, perhaps likely, that most Australians will care little about a national evolution towards more authoritarian rule, particularly if the government creates the illusion of security and the reality of affluence. Consumption and “reality” TV can be powerful opiates as political and economic rights are eroded.

But other citizens will feel stifled by draconian police powers to detain and to stop, search and question citizens, and by new laws to restrict free speech. Those with limited economic and social power will become increasingly alienated as the gradual redistribution of wealth to more favoured Australians starts to threaten them with underclass status.

With Labor struggling to attract support, the prospect of one-party dominant government under John Howard and his successors seems increasingly likely. Consciously or otherwise, Australia seems to be emulating aspects of countries like China, Singapore and Malaysia. These are countries where dictatorial or dominant governments have a security of tenure that allows them to implement long-term social, political and economic plans without the fear of being turned out of office.

All are enjoying strong economic growth: they are wealthy or becoming wealthy. And they are relaxed and comfortable places for citizens who conform, avoid dissent and indiscipline, and who pursue wealth and pleasure while maintaining the favour of the state by not insisting on political rights.

The final provisions of the Howard government’s security and industrial relations packages are yet to be seen, but the Prime Minister, who has moved Australia towards unprecedented intimacy with the United States, now seems to be subjecting Australia increasingly towards (certain) Asian forms of governance.

This is a remarkable transformation in Howard, whose past attitudes to Asia were, at best, ambiguous. It is, however, consistent with the government’s record, apparently supported by many Australians, of riding roughshod over asylum-seekers and vulnerable Australian citizens like Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon.

It also reflects a remarkable change in the Liberal Party with its traditional emphasis on individuals and their rights, and limited government. At least the Liberals are demonstrating their traditional belief in private enterprise in their determination to rebalance industrial relations in favour of small business, to cut business regulations, and to privatise Telstra.

The immediate catalysts for Howard’s latest moves on political freedoms were partly the emergence of global terrorism, partly the craven willingness of state Labor premiers to acquiesce, and partly the government’s electoral success in winning control of the Senate.

His commitment to industrial relations change is lifelong and springs from his hostility to union activity and his faith that largely unrestricted market forces create economic strength. Control of the Senate has given the Prime Minister the ability to achieve changes he desires and to place economic efficiency ahead of political rights and social equity.

For all its condemnation of the government’s proposals, especially on industrial relations, the Labor Party is partly responsible for what is now emerging. If Labor had been more competitive in the last election, the coalition would not have won the Senate control that has cleared the way for Howard’s plans.

What can be done to ameliorate this state of affairs? Perhaps the best short-term hope, as Judith Brett, the pre-eminent Liberal Party analyst, suggests in the current affairs journal Quarterly Essay 19, is that Howard might bend before sustained political pressure over industrial relations (and security) and keep his government to the moderate middle of national experience. That is still possible. As Brett says, Howard’s career has been marked by quick-footedness.

If not, we have to hope that increasingly sour consequences will eventually prompt Australians to revisit civilising liberal notions like society, diversity, and debate without the abuse and malice that currently characterizes national politics. They might even come to appreciate free speech and protection from arbitrary stop and search powers, and realise that economic efficiency is not compromised by fairness, but enlarged and driven by it. Old -fashioned values perhaps, but they will be missed if they vanish”. ENDS.

Comment

I think Barker’s article was probably influential in convincing liberal-minded people of influence to come forward over the past few weeks in bold opposition to the Howard legislation As a result that legislation has been , to some extent, ameliolated - though not enough to satisfy the most trenchant critics eg Terry O’Gorman, Jon Stanhope, Alastair Nicholson, Malcolm Fraser.

For that degree of improvement, we owe Geoff Barker and the AFR much thanks. I do not know if Geoff Barker thinks the present degree of amelioration makes the proposed laws now acceptable. I hope he will give us his view in the weeks ahead.

In reading back over these two sets of articles, I see that there are at least two levels of conversation going on in Australia at the moment about the changes Howard is introducing to our society: the sophisticated, liberal conversation taking place among “the elites” of whatever political persuasion, as demonstrated in the Barker piece (I think it is in fact a strongly radical as anything I have written on these subjects, all the stronger for its restrained and measured style), and one can also offer as an example Judith Brett’s dispassionate QE piece on Howard - and the false realities being ceaselessly offered by News Limited-controlled print media..

In this way, the Australian masses are being indoctrinated what to think about politics, and being reassured that what the elite thinks is irrelevant and wrong – that it is only, as Milne claims, 0.1% of the population, just a few rich “doctors’ wives”, who might be affected by or worried by such things. Milne knows this is demonstrably untrue but he still writes it.

Of course Geoff Barker, Judith Brett and most AFR readers know this claim is nonsense – they know that present disquiet about what Howard is doing to Australia goes a lot wider and deeper that a tiny “doctors’ wives” group of voters. . But they are content to let News Limited continue its unending work of subverting Australian democracy because in many other ways (economic growth, taxation laws, IR laws), Howard government suits them.

I am reminded here of Germany in the 1920s. The German industrial, financial and military elites knew very well the nastiness brewing in the Nazi Party, but these elites were confident that they had the political and financial power to exploit and if necessary contain the latter. Too late, they realised that Nazi ideas had gained such a lodgement in German society that the elites were swept away willy-nilly – and were faced in 1933 with the stark choice to emigrate or to accommodate to Nazi rule (unless they were Jews, in which case the latter soon proved to be not a safe option).

It is not inconceivable that something analogous (not of course identical – history never repeats itself exactly ) could happen here over the next 10 years or so. We are now on a similar road of subversion of our democracy from within, and we do not know where it will take us.

Milne offers reassurance to the weak man who leads the opposition, Kim Beazley – Milne’s siren call to Beazley is - face down your minority of party dissidents , they have no votes out there in the heartland of Australia, your political instincts are right.

Akerman tries to stoke in the masses of Sydney and Melbourne the flames of racial hatred and fear of the outsider.

And the magisterial editorial reassures millions of readers: “…the individual civil liberties of a few who wish us harm must be compromised to protect the "greater good” ….

In other words, trust John Howard to do the right thing.

Note: I will be giving a talk on the theme “ Subverting Democracy” in Sydney CBD area on Thursday night 17 November from 6.30 to 8.30 pm. I will be developing these ideas and related ideas further there.

Venue and organisation details will follow, on this website.

Tony Kevin, Canberra, 7 November 2005.