On Who Not To Vote For

By the time next week graces us with its presence, the election campaign will be over. It seems to have lasted for years, a perception perhaps a result of three years of minority government, bitter partisanship and a persistently negative and obstructionist opposition. The Rudd/Gillard/Rudd governments have got plenty right, and more than a few things wrong. Regardless of their shortcomings, voting for Tony Abbott's Liberal Party because you don't like Labor is like eating faeces because you don't like spinach. While running the risk of exhausting an already apathetic and largely disinterested electorate with more political clap trap (although certainly without exhausting the laundry list of important issues facing our fair land), I'm confident I can give you a few reasons why sending your vote to anything or anyone would be better than a vote for Mr Abbott.

The economy seems like it is on most people's list of what's most important. Who will be handling the economy in an Abbott government? Joe Hockey. Nicknamed "Sloppy Joe" in some segments of the Canberra press gallery for his reputed lack of comprehensive knowledge of his portfolio, he frequently appears to struggle through much of the complex discussion regarding economic policy, much like a newly caught fish on a dry pier. When asked recently about the proportion of a new tax on business would go towards the Coalition's flawed parental leave scheme, Mr Hockey initially replied that it would be "100 per cent", and when challenged, stated:

 "Well, it’d have to be at least 50, 60 per cent, 60 or 70 per cent, but I’m not going to speculate...". (more details can be found here)

Wonderful. A clear grasp of the figures required by a responsible treasurer. This is but one example of many.

The fact that Australia made it through the GFC in the incredibly strong state it is in is extraordinary, and thanks must certainly go to the last two Labor governments, not that Mr Hockey or Mr Abbott would ever have the nous, humility, or decency to admit it. The Australian economy is the envy of countries the world over, with higher levels of growth, lower levels of unemployment, lower levels of debt-to-GDP, lower interest rates, you-name-the-economic-indicator, than the vast majority of developed nations.

In part, I blame John Howard. As the 24-hour news cycle emerged, the more politicians required an opportunity to score political points at the expense of their opponents, and quickly. The politics of fear and blame was emphasised more than they ever had before. Mr Howard's lengthy reign as Prime Minister can be attributed to one factor more than almost any other: the creation of a theoretical segment of the populace that became known as "Howard's Battlers", a political notion that became useful in convincing the middle class that they were somehow struggling, that they were poor and deserving of more governmental assistance than they would otherwise have received. This caused an unrealistic sense of entitlement that the frankly wealthy use as an excuse to demand more from a Labor government that is more focused on providing for the less wealthy than those who have plenty. Even now, decent people complain about the levels of capital gains tax they have to pay, a conceit that grates on my inner socialist.

Case in point would be the Coalition's criticism of Labor's "wasteful" government spending in the face of their extraordinarily expensive parental leave scheme which seeks to pay huge sums of money to wealthy women to have babies. That's the Liberal's way though, isn't it? Giving to those who need it least? Other victims of the Liberal’s slash-and-burn philosophy is the recipients of the $4.5 billion of foreign aid over the term of the next government. Mr Abbott argues that this money is better spent looking after the poor at home, as if a) he even cares about the disenfranchised, and b) those two things aren’t mutually exclusive anyway.

Shall we also consider the way the Coalition have flatly refused to release adequate costing for their policies until less than two days before the election? Costings that are very light-on in details at that, not even bothering to include some of the Coalition’s big ticket policies. Mr Abbott and his team speak almost exclusively in slogans and sound bytes rather than in the thorough examination of issues of national importance that we ought to demand. I'm staggered that people in the wider community seem to like being treated like idiots by politicians. Instead of treating those politicians with the disdain they so richly deserve, we vote them in if their slogans do enough to appeal to our baser, more selfish natures.

And then there's the misogyny argument. It's perfectly valid to question the attitude of a man like Mr Abbott who seeks the highest office in the land. David Marr investigated and reported many of Mr Abbott's significant character issues in The Monthly's Quarterly Essay Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott (from which an excerpt can be found here). As if the issues of the past were not damning enough, take two recent examples during the campaign: first, while campaigning with a female Liberal candidate Fiona Scott, he chose not to describe her by her abilities, her intellect or her achievements, oh no. He described her first and foremost as having "sex appeal". Add to this the way Mr Abbott describes his OWN DAUGHTERS to the participants of TV's Big Brother program - when he appeared on the show he enthused "If you want to know who to vote for, I'm the guy with the not bad looking daughters . . .'' The implication is not only that the physical characteristics of his family make him more highly valuable as a political leader, but that his family are more attractive than that of his opponent. How absolutely sickening.

As if more evidence of the Liberal Party's underlying attitude regarding women was needed, let's examine for a moment the role of the most senior Liberal woman, deputy leader Julie Bishop. Since she was elected to the deputy position following John Howard's ousting by the electorate, the Liberal leadership has changed twice more and both times she was leap-frogged by her male colleagues and not considered for the role of leadership. That, coupled with her parading in front of the media (with Mr Abbott prodding her from behind) every time Mr Abbott makes a goose of himself with regards to women's issues, suggests her role in the party is little more than symbolic, as a figurehead to make the Liberal Party more palatable to women. It is far from it.

In the event that Mr Abbott is elected Prime Minister and is needing a deputy leader to be acting Prime Minister, the role goes to the leader of the Liberal's coalition partner, the Nationals. Currently, that is Warren Truss, but the man who has made no secret of his desire to lead the Nationals is none other than Australia's own crazy uncle, the wacky Barnaby Joyce. Like Tony Abbott, I am incredulous that these characters represent the best that Australian conservative politics have to offer. Don't even get me started on Mal Brough, Sophie Mirabella, or the truly vile Christopher Pine (remember Mr Pine and Mr Abbott’s mad dash from parliament in order to not fulfill the duties of their office in an attempt to score a cheap political point? It can be found here). At least Malcolm Turnbull has the decency to look mildly embarrassed when promoting Coalition policies.

The level of discourse in regards to the asylum seeker issue is appalling. In an effort to outflank the Coalition on the right, Labor has decided to adopt their distasteful approach to the treatment of the disenfranchised and voiceless, punishing those who would seek asylum instead of those criminal traffickers who take advantage of them. In this regard, Labor's slogan may as well be "vote for us, we're not quite as mean spirited as the other guys".

What of the NBN? It’s expensive, certainly, but it’s bold and big and more forward-thinking than so many political visions we are normally used to. It’s called leadership. In an extraordinarily retrograde move, Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull espouse the view that the copper wire many of us are using should suit us just fine. After all, we didn’t need that new-fangled internet thingymagig in the 1950’s and we did just fine, right?

I could go on with a considered defence of policies such as the mining tax and the carbon tax, but if the polls are to be believed, these things will be a thing of the past very soon, and more's the pity. It is said that Australians demand services like Norway while being taxed like Greeks. It's a pipe dream. We've lost a spirit of sacrifice and community. We are more concerned with what the federal budget might offer us, what we can get for ourselves, regardless of whose expense it is at. 'What's in it for me?' should be our new national slogan.

Certainly amongst the most selfish players in this election campaign must be Rupert Murdoch, the man who has rejected his Australian citizenship in pursuit of unimaginable riches overseas, all the while doing his level best to influence Australian politics by the way of his tabloid press in favour of his lapdog, Mr Abbott. His reasons are patently transparent: Labor’s NBN threatens the profits of his Foxtel TV network. One thing is guaranteed in the next few years if Mr Abbott becomes Prime Minister is that Mr Murdoch’s obscene grip on the media in Australia will go ahead unthreatened. As if there were not enough reasons not to vote Liberal, I think it is prudent not to, simply because it’s exactly what Uncle Rupert wants. 

Don't vote Liberal this election. Please don’t. That's not an endorsement of the Labor Party either. Funnily enough, I won't be voting for them either (one of my dear friends refuses to vote Labor because they are too socialist; I don't vote for them because they are not socialist enough). Labor has been quite the shambles for the last six years, but never has it been as backward or nasty as the Coalition promises to be. I will direct my own preferences Labor’s way after the parties I feel deserve my primary vote more, as I want my vote to count as much as it can, even in the face of what is likely to be a horrible defeat for the current government. I will do my best to cope with the gloating of those who accept the Coalition's pathetic attempts to elicit the nation’s vote, as if somehow those efforts are enough. And like Australia, a small piece of me will die, just a little.

On Debate

“Are we mere specks of dust floating through the Milky Way?

Are we here to learn to love? I think that's true either way

Come winter, come spring, come summer, come fall...

You're floating with me after all”

~ ‘After All’, by Derri Daugherty & Steve Hindalong

from The Choir album “The Loudest Sound Ever Heard”, 2012

Some arguments I've had recently have found me thinking about playwright Arthur Miller.

Perhaps a bit of history is in order.  Let's go back sixty years or so.

In the wake of World War Two, Communism found new prominence in the geopolitical scene, not least due to the commencement of Mao Zedong's reign in China and the Soviet Union's testing of an atomic bomb, both in 1949.  Any anti-communist sentiments in the West were somewhat muted during WW2 as the Soviets were Western allies against the Axis powers.  With the war over, the Cold War found itself in full swing, suspicions became especially rife amongst the peoples of Untied States against anything even remotely associated with the so-called Red Menace.

Along came a Republican Senator from the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin, Joseph Raymond McCarthy.  He became the public face of this suspicion, and thus the phenomenon known as McCarthyism was born.  A paranoid Senator McCarthy argued that there was a high level of Communist sympathy (if not outright treachery), bubbling just under the surface of all levels American society, but especially in the fields of politics and the arts.  The Senator's chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and its sub-branch, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, gave him the scope to pursue his foes, both real and imagined, with white-hot zeal.

There was another noteworthy event that occurred in 1949, on February 10th to be precise.  It was on this day that the play Death of a Salesman, written by young playwright Arthur Asher Miller debuted on Broadway. The director of this performance was one Elia Kazan, a collaborator and good friend of Miller.  In 1952 Kazan testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (not directly connected with McCarthy's investigations but certainly a close relation in terms of intent).  Kazan stunningly named several colleagues as being potential or former Communists and Soviet sympathisers.  This action was to fracture Kazan and Miller's friendship and stir controversy as recently as 1999, when Kazan received an honourary Academy Award.

The experience of McCarthyism lead Miller to pen one of the most powerful pieces of writing for 20th Century theatre and in 1953, in the midst of the rampant paranoia of the time, The Crucible was first performed.  A fictitious retelling of the Salem witch trials of Massachusetts in 1862, The Crucible eerily mirrored the experiences that many had of McCarthyism in the ‘Fifties. The Crucible tells the story of a young woman and her friends, who are caught behaving in an unseemly manner.  The girls find that by making wild accusations against others without basis or proof, they are not only able to justify their own actions but also bring harm to those who would oppose their selfish desires. Gullible citizens and even the authorities of the day are sucked into a vortex of lies, paranoia, greed, and self-serving viciousness, while the lives and relationships of often innocent parties are torn asunder. Several characters are executed under suspicion of being witches, without a shred of evidence being offered to condemn them.

It's a piece of writing at once beautiful in its execution and ugly in the themes it explores.  As a piercing cautionary tale it is the kind of story that needs to be retold time and again, lest we fail to learn from the mistakes of the past.  The lessons in The Crucible have extraordinary resonance today.  The emergence of the internet has made it possible for more voices and opinions to be heard than at any time in human history.  More than ever people have an unfettered opportunity to spread whatever message they choose to a wide audience without the authority of their voices being earned through graft, accountability, or the wisdom that comes with knowledge, training and experience.  I write a blog, and while I make every attempt to ensure that what I write is factually correct, there are plenty of people out there in the big bad world who have far fewer scruples.  This can become dangerous when mixed with an agenda.

We've all seen it.  The chain emails, the Facebook posts, the stories on A Current Affair and Today Tonight, the articles in tabloid newspapers like The Herald-Sun.  Topics ranging from anti-government rants to discussions about how the world is not as nice as it used to be.  And then the really nasty ones, the ones that really push my buttons, like those that debase asylum seekers.  They make all sorts of false and specious claims.  Asylum seekers are invading our fine land.  They're stealing our resources, taking our jobs, changing our culture, taking exorbitant welfare payments, breaking our laws, making our lives a misery.  These claims are often founded in half-truths or out-and-out falsehoods, designed to appeal to the basest part of our nature.

It's the Red Menace of the ‘Fifties and ‘Sixties, or even the more Antipodean Yellow Peril, all over again.

The thing is, it's not particularly difficult to see straight through the bulk of these claims.  All one needs is a modicum of intelligence (less than you might imagine), a dash of common sense, a willingness to enquire and question and examine, and a touch of unselfishness.  It's far easier to blindly accept the nasty paranoia of spineless, self-serving malcontents, especially when they have loud voices, or are in the majority.  To add insult to injury, to point out the inconsistencies, the untruths, the utter lack of concern for another human being, the selfishness of it all, is to invite scorn.  I've been plastered with unearned labels for having the audacity to stick up for the vulnerable, those largely without advocates of their own.  "You're too liberal," they say, "You have no faith, you're un-Australian, you’re anti-pensioners, you're soft on crime, you shouldn't speak up".  You are condemned.

It's McCarthyism.  All over again.

Many will be familiar with the recent KONY 2012 campaign by a US organisation called Invisible Children.    As a movement, it's not without its controversies and detractors, which are well documented.  I was fortunate enough to engage in a debate on the Internet with someone I'd not met or spoken to before, each of us with an opposing view on KONY 2012 situation.  It was starkly refreshing.  He was not at all concerned that I had a different idea than he did, just as I was unconcerned about his alternate views.  He made some valid points, and I'd like to think I threw a few out there myself.  We both listened and considered and argued our views passionately.  We did not come to an absolute concurrence in the end, and really, that wasn't the point.  My feeling was that KONY 2012 needed to be debated, the ideas tested.  My opponent and I parted with respect.

I thoroughly enjoy the contest of ideas.  I've heard it said that dumb people should surround themselves with smart people while smart people ought to surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.  I'm not claiming to be one of those smarties by any stretch, but I do endeavour to challenge my thinking and ideas whenever I can.  I hope that this habit would sharpen me in an increasingly dull world.  So many seem terrified at the though of having their ideas challenged and many more are ready with a thoughtless insult or a derisive tirade, especially in the largely anonymous environs of the internet.  One of the World Wide Web's biggest foibles is the way it makes it so very easy for us to relive and repeat the most horrid of mistakes of the McCarthy era.

Perhaps the biggest indictment on our current crop of political leaders is that they have stifled any robust debate about genuine policy in an effort to earn superficial political points in the immediate news cycle rather than considering and articulating a vision for the future.  Indeed the current level of debate in this country has a level of sophistication that is, to my eyes, largely unsatisfactory.  Perhaps it's as much our fault as theirs, with our appetites for the frequently facile popular media appearing to be endless.

There are as many ideas and opinions out there as there are people on the planet.  As a frequent holder of minority views (amongst my peers at least), I know this to be so.  It's OK.  Don't be afraid.  Accept new ideas.  Consider the views of others. Remember well the famous quote by novelist and philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.  Resist the impulse to be reactionary.  Don't blindly follow the safe footfalls of the masses.  Allow yourself to be challenged and please, oh please, resist the urge to condemn those who challenge you. We'll all be better off for it.

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