Anthony Albanese appears to be strikingly lacking in ambition. I am convinced that making some bold decisions, and explaining them, would strengthen his prime ministership significantly. Some influential Australians now call for moderation and “centrism”. This would be a grave mistake. What is the “centrist” position on killing children in war zones, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, corruption, torture, the death penalty, cruelty to refugees?

Racism, The Voice and lying to ourselves

The defeat of the Constitutional Referendum on the Voice in October 2023 demonstrated political paralysis on one side and reckless moral destitution on the other, and its echoes rolled on throughout 2024.

When Mark Twain visited Australia in 1895, he reported conversations with people who regarded the elimination of Aborigines as inevitable and shrugged off evidence of their murders.

H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds (1898) begins with references to the slaughter of Tasmanian indigenes.

On 12 March 1913 the site of Canberra was dedicated as the future national capital: ironically our only capital city with a First Nations name. William Morris Hughes – ‘Billy’ Hughes – then Labor Attorney-General, later Prime Minister and a Labor deserter, spoke at the event.

His words were deeply shocking:

“Here we have a symbol of nationality… the first historic event in the history of the Commonwealth we are engaged in today without the slightest trace of that race we have banished from the earth”. [My emphasis].

Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882-1944), an American journalist and historian, born in The Netherlands, was a powerful intellectual influence on me as a child, and shaped my thinking. He had the cartoonist’s gift for explaining complex subjects with powerful images.

The Home of Mankind (1922) was a world geography. He deplored the “incurable vice of nationalism” and the horrors of what he called “the Great Era of Exploitation”, during the Imperial expansion of the 19th Century. Then came three sentences, which horrified me, when I read them first, at the age of 6 or 7:

‘The man-hunts with horses and dogs organised to exterminate the Aborigines of Australia are rarely mentioned in the histories devoted to the early years of that distant continent.

“Why go on? I am merely repeating what everybody knows.* [My emphasis].

Well, I did not know, nor did my teachers. Nor did textbooks record it.

Significantly, although I read few books by Australians or about Australia as a child, I remember that in promotional material for the Sesquicentenary of European settlement (1938) Australian Aborigines had been included in a list of fauna. That did seem odd.

“The great Australian silence”, as W.E.H. Stanner called it, followed for decades. Then a policy of “assimilation” followed from 1937 to 1967, demonstrating the proverb about the road to hell. This was the time of “the stolen generation”, suppression of Indigenous knowledge, language and history. The much under-rated Prime Minister Harold Holt took a new approach after Menzies retired, securing passage of the 1967 Referendum to count Indigenes in the Census.

The High Court’s recognition of Indigenous land rights led to a cynical revival of racism by John Howard from 1996, taken to new depths by Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton.

Having a voice to address Indigenous disadvantage, raising life expectancy and reducing incarceration rates to the national average, improved access to education, health, housing and employment was attacked as conferring preferential treatment.

“Division! Division! Division! We can’t have division,” Dutton parroted with cynicism beyond measure. Truth became an invention – a projection.

The ABC

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has had a profound influence on both our lives, since childhood, but now faces unprecedented challenges, from social media, incessant vindictive attacks by the Murdoch empire and hostility from powerful vested interests. Its audience share is falling, ageing and can be characterised as elitist. But no other Australian radio or television network has the range, analysis and depth of the ABC: investigative reporting, foreign affairs, health, science, sport, law, philosophy, religion, history, children’s programs, music, economics, agriculture, art, gardening and Indigenous affairs.

Its high achievers include John Lyons, Robyn Williams, Norman Swan, Andrew Ford, Alan Kohler, Laura Tingle, Geraldine Doogue, Louise Milligan, Andrew West, Paul Barry, John Barron, Sarah Henderson and Tamara Oudyn. The ABC has played an essential role in covering emergencies – bushfires, floods and Covid-19. Its rural and regional coverage has been vital, even lifesaving.

Late Night Live is an outstanding example of what the ABC does best.

Phillip Adams hosted the program on ABC Radio National from 1991 and his last program, with Laura Tingle, was on 27 June. He interviewed thousands of major figures and often pursued unpopular causes. He was a driving force, endlessly curious, opening up dark and mysterious places. He was largely responsible for the revival, exhumation even, of the Australian feature film industry, and chaired the Commission for the Future 1985–90 which attracted international recognition for its work on climate change.

David Marr became Phillip’s non-apostolic successor at Late Night Live and has maintained its intellectual curiosity and challenge.

In March 2024, Kim Williams was an outstanding choice by the Albanese Government to become chair of the ABC, with his powerful intellect, driving force and exceptional range of interests. He faces enormous challenges, not only securing more public funding but recruiting new management and talent.

The ABC has some problem areas: programming where the bland are leading the bland, cooking shows, showbiz people talking to showbiz people, news bulletins headed by local human interest stories.

But if anyone can redirect the ABC, Kim Williams is best placed.

Effects? Always. Causes? Never

Liberal democracy is under threat across the globe. Even New Zealand is playing with Trumpian tropes. Canada’s Justin Trudeau is likely to fall. Germany and the Netherlands may turn hard right. India and Indonesia have authoritarian leaders. Keir Starmer’s victory in the UK has to be seen in the context of massive indifference, street violence and other dark forces.

In 2024 there were more elections than any year for the past century, and there were heavy swings against incumbent governments: India, the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands, with short-term factors, especially the cost of living and antagonism to refugees being central, while longer-term issues, notably climate change, fell down, or off, the list.

The rising cost of food, fuel, housing, transport, insurance makes voters angry, and political polarisation by Oppositions emphasises effects, in the here and now, and refuses to acknowledge causes, most of them long-term and influenced by external events, or demographic changes.

The ageing of Australia’s population, the cost of fixing Robodebt, the NDIS, tackling the scandalous quality of aged care, preoccupation with housing/real estate as the primary aim of investment, the effects of policy failures with Covid-19, including a record Budget deficit of $91.3 billion in 2021-22, disaster relief, disruption of international trade, the flattened economy of China, our largest trading partner, between $268 to 368 billion for submarines, beginning the transition away from fossil fuels – all these were inherited by the Albanese Government, not created. But the Coalition refuses to acknowledge any of this and insists on its superior skills in managing the economy.

The Coalition’s policy proposal to build seven nuclear reactors to provide baseline power has received surprisingly favourable responses in opinion polls, despite failure to provide plausible details about costs and timing. Dutton and his Shadow Minister Ted O’Brien, both Queenslanders, have had very gentle media treatment. They have pointed to Ontario with its 18 reactors as a model. But that is a very odd choice. Ontario can be covered with snow in winter, something I suspect, which is rare in Queensland. Sun and wind come free in Australia, and are abundant. Dutton and O’Brien assert that the reactors will be economically successful, but the entire cost of $331 billion over 25 years will be met by government (i.e. taxpayers), with no private or corporate investment. So much for a market solution, as offered with solar panels and wind farms! Critical analyses of the nuclear proposal and its costings by CSIRO, the Australian Energy Market Operator and the Grattan Institute are dismissed as “political”, and the Opposition relies entirely on estimates by a firm called Frontier Economics.

Albanese’s considerable skills are largely internal and hence invisible.

Oddly, Albanese from the Left proved to be more cautious on reform than Bill Shorten from the Right. In the 2019 election, the aggregate vote for the ALP (33.3%) was higher than when it won in 2022 (32.6%). There were two factors in the changed outcome: Scott Morrison and the Teals. In 2019 voters didn’t know Morrison and were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In 2022 they did and they weren’t.

Albanese appears to be strikingly lacking in ambition. I am convinced that making some bold decisions, and explaining them, would strengthen his prime ministership significantly. He could begin by bringing Tanya Plibersek in from the cold, experimenting with democracy inside the ALP, tackling the corrosive causes of Australia’s gambling obsession, addressing our grossly unequal education system, taking stronger action against racism and Indigenous deprivation, taking a far stronger line on all forms of terrorism, and a foreign policy grounded on morality, not just trying to avoid giving offence. He made a ritual visit in the hope of pleasing Rupert Murdoch (he won’t succeed here), decapitated the Nature Positive Bill to satisfy the mining industry, pledged to maintain the Tasmanian salmon industry and remained loyal to gambling lobbyists. Will it gain him any votes? Doubtful. Will it alienate ALP activists? Yes.

Australia has 137 billionaires and 3.3 million people living below the poverty line, including 761,000 children. Will the word “equality” be raised in the 2025 election by either side? Very doubtful.

Despite the swings to the hard right globally, Australia may become an important outlier. Some influential Australians now call for moderation and “centrism”. This would be a grave mistake. While attracted to having more collaboration and courtesy in political life, “centrism” is more like a tape measure that can be used to settle on a midpoint between two dubious policies.

What is the “centrist” position on killing children in war zones, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, corruption, torture, the death penalty, and cruelty to refugees? We need far more courage, not less.

https://johnmenadue.com/2024-a-year-of-racism-and-lying-to-ourselves/

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HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…