Saturday 28th of December 2024
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trust who .....

trust who .....

from Crikey .....

Cox: vote 1, trust, seems to be the order of the day

Eva Cox writes:

FEDERAL ELECTION 2010

The election campaign is on. And the first to be led by a female PM!

This is the type of change we once naively hoped would signal more attention to better social outcomes, rather than the economic ones. We thought women were more likely to put social issues on the agenda, but it doesn't necessarily work that way. The good society, or at least a somewhat better one, needs level of trust for sharing resources for the common good.

The inevitable tensions means governments need goodwill if they are to enhance wellbeing and not damage the social fabric. Voters with low or limited trust become easy targets for political populism and fear campaigns, the so-called race to the bottom. The Coalition used this tactic time and time again under Howard and it is at it again.

Politicians often ask for trust and this was part of the PM's case for going to an early election. In her first campaign speech, Gillard made it clear that Labor's election pitch would focus on "moving forward" and added: "In this the forthcoming election campaign I'll be asking the Australian people for their trust." However, there are many indications that this poll appears to be shaping up as a low-trust marketing exercise that will exacerbate existing divides. One Galaxy poll question, reported on Channel 10's Meet the Press on Sunday, suggests that both major parties have problems in convincing electors of their fitness to govern. When asked if either party deserved to be elected, more than half said the ALP did not and nearly two thirds claimed the Coalition did not.

This is not a good start, given other data also show low levels of personal and political distrust in the community. A recent representative sample in a poll by Reader's Digest, was asked to rank 100 well-known Australians from No.1 being the most trusted. Bob Brown is the most trusted politician, rated at 74, with Julia Gillard at 78. The rest were at 80 plus, including Tony Abbott at 89. They did, however, all beat Kyle Sandilands at 100!

The same sample ranked 40 occupations and politicians came 38th, just beating car salesmen and telemarketers. A more academic study, the 2009 ANU Australian Social Attitude Survey reports that only 13% of respondents had great confidence in federal parliament, but a further 44% had some confidence. This still left over 40% who had little or no trust. At least, more than half of the sample (56%) still felt almost all or most other people could be trusted, which suggests the voters trust each other more.

These results put the plea for trust and confidence by political leaders in context. Moving forward together sounds good because who wants to be seen as going backwards, but that collective aim requires higher trust levels? Who will be part of the "together", for instance? The pictures Gillard has drawn include rule-abiding hard workers, conscientious students in school uniforms. Women and men are presumably sharing the paid hard work, otherwise this image would fit behind John Howard's picket fence. This image comes from the female PM who did benefit from the feminist changes that saw her gain professional qualifications, jobs and political offices that would have been unthinkable in the fifties. However, these seventies feminist changes were not produced by staying within the rules but by our changing them, and I wonder whether this strategy is still on the agenda.

How then do I, as a public feminist commentator, judge her and other pitches to voters? Not on gender because it is not appropriate to expect women to fit stereotypes any more than men should. I will continue to look at policy to see whether its effects are likely to create a fairer society, served by sustainable but more ethical markets that encourage social as well as environmental responsibilities. I do happen to believe that most people are to be trusted, if treated with respect, and that voters are not essentially venal or dumb.

Unfortunately this is not shaping up to be the campaign that appeals to our better angels.

Ability is the issue, not gender.

As a Labor voter from way back, I can see the value in the opinions of Eva Cox and I would like to have an opinion on the gender issue.

I have always been a strong believer in Juries being replaced by computers programmed under the contemporary laws of that nation, which should decide the guilt or innocence of a person before the media and the rabble rousers have a chance to decide the fate of the accused. 

A Judge would decide (as they do now) what evidence is acceptable to be fed into the computer and, the result should be a fair dinkum decision on that person's charge IF the evidence against them was sufficient? 

No gender, no slope heads, no slant eyes, no religion but fair dinkum impersonal judgment.

Then, as we have already, the maximum and minimum of the punishment of an alleged offence mitigated by the only human frailty, the Judge – and a  true judge who can even then be appealed against.

Back to Julia Gillard.  I have always been impressed by Julia, since her appearance on question time.

Given that I am positive in my belief that Australia can “only prosper if our wealth is more evenly shared” and that Labor is the only party whose intentions have been so targeted since they were the first party in Australia’s history.

And the only thing that is consistent is change, and Labor to their credit, against the multi-national predators, have striven to be helpful in avoiding the WorkChoices policies of the Corporations.

There is an enormous and exploited gap between the good and bad publicized achievements, or the absence thereof, between the media biased political opinions, dressed as - but not acknowledged as - truth by facts.

As in America, we in Australia are cursed by the power of the press and yet, that is a monster which we all created under the guise of “democracy”.

God Bless Australia and may all of our young people register to vote.  NE OUBLIE.

 

 

ducking, weaving & deceiving .....

Is there a single candidate in this federal election campaign advocating an increase in immigration? Haven't seen it so far.

I went the long handle against Julia Gillard anti-immigration rhetoric in this piece for Crikey on Monday and then got clobbered in the comments section - as did Michael Pascoe in this piece for Fairfax, although I snuck in with support in the final post.

Crikey declined to run a follow up, but the issue was given a solid burst on 774 ABC Melbourne during the regular chat with Lindy Burns yesterday afternoon. Some of the objections coming through on the SMS were pretty strong.

As The Australian's Paul Kelly correctly pointed out on page one yesterday, Julia Gillard is the first Prime Minister in 60 years to label globally modest levels of immigration as "irresponsible".

And now that Mark Latham has entered the election campaign savaging Gillard as a "fraud" for not promising to slash immigration, the PM could have some tricky days ahead.

Gillard is clearly on a short term poll-driven political winner railing against a Big Australia but she refused to answer Kerry O'Brien's question on Monday night as to whether she ever expressed concern to Kevin Rudd about his pro-immigration position.

And yesterday she has once again refused to say how much she is proposing to cut the current intake of 270,000 a year.

Until assassinating Kevin Rudd, Gillard had never publically said boo about record immigration. The best she could do on Monday night whilst dodging O'Brien's question was mention local residents in Melbourne's western suburbs who approached her with concerns. Since then she's been stoking the anti-immigration flames in western Sydney.

Kerry O'Brien has given the population issue considerable attention ever since this interview with Kevin Rudd on October 22 last year when the PM declared his support for a big Australia immediately after a long discussion about unauthorised boat arrivals.

Bipartisan support for strong immigration was clearly evident in Tony Abbott's Australia Day speech and then Rudd followed up with another detailed discussion with O'Brien two days later on January 28.

The 7.30 Report's considered week long series on population pressures in late January was the game changer in the debate and O'Brien distinguished himself in the way it was handled.

Indeed, O'Brien did a pile of research before delivering this insightful speech on population to several hundred councillors at the big Australian Local Government Association annual conference in Canberra last month.

Local government in Melbourne and Sydney are clearly struggling to keep up with record immigration. Indeed, Melbourne's population grew by more than 100,000 for the first time in a calendar year in 2008 and there are few if any councils issuing enough planning permits to cope with the housing projections into the future.

However, Malcolm Turnbull was right on Tuesday to point out the primary problem is a lack of planning and infrastructure investment, especially by the state Labor governments. Manningham's 4600 septic tanks and complete lack of rail or tram service leading to Australia's highest car ownership ratio were all given an airing on 774 yesterday.

As Bernard Keane pointed out in Crikey on Tuesday, Gillard is on the right track redirecting $200 million of funds for proposed new affordable housing projects and infrastructure from the capital cities to the regional centres, but there will need to be a lot more policies along these lines.

Others country manage quite comfortably. For instance, if Arizona can accommodate almost 7 million residents with its extremely hot and dry climate, surely some of Australia's warm and dry inland centres should become havens for retirees just like Phoenix.

And, as Australia's best known demographer Bernard Salt pointed out last week, Canberra is chronically under-populated with only 360,000 residents. Is there a smaller national capital in the top 50 countries?

And what about Darwin? Surely it should be a city of more than 1 million people.

The population and immigration debate is complex, but it would be a real shame if the country with the most urbanised population in the world and the lowest rate of population to arable land in the world, withdrew into its shell courtesy of narrow political opportunism.

Julia Gillard will win this election preaching this hard line on population, but she is also recklessly poisoning the immigration debate for many years into the future.

It will be very interesting to see if strong Labor advocates of immigration, multi-culturalism and economic growth come out and slam Gillard after the election.

Take Paul Keating as an example. Go back and read this transcript of his interview on The World Today on the Monday after John Howard won the Tampa election in 2001 with all those tabloid ads declaring "we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come".

Keating opened up as follows: "John Howard's victory has been won at the cost of the country's reputation and its character. It's been won by staining the soul of the country. The win in electoral terms, of course, under the electoral system was legitimate, but the method of achieving it illegitimate."

Despite John Howard's crude tactics on refugees, as Prime Minister he never railed against strong immigration.

Stephen Mayne

inertia will be the new black .....

Julia Gillard has revealed that her next Labor cabinet will include a Minister for Procrastination, with the job of ensuring that nothing controversial or unpopular actually happens over the life of the new government.

In a stinging repudiation of the frantic policy activism of her predecessor, the Prime Minister wants it known there will be no more of Kevin Rudd's great moral challenges of our time. ''People are tired of being told they should worry about the so-called big issues of climate change, or immigration, or the global financial crisis,'' Ms Gillard told an election rally of photogenic kindergarten children at Innisfail, in northern Queensland, yesterday.

''As I travel around the country, I find it's the simple things that concern hard-working Australian families: how to stop your bearnaise separating, or where to buy genuine truffes du Perigord.''

To prove her point, the Prime Minister spent time at the kindergarten comforting four-year-old Shianne Bogan, who was in tears after her twice-baked souffle of four cheeses collapsed in front of the hovering media pack.

Ms Gillard was clearly moved. ''Don't worry, darl,'' she said. ''Just plate it up. That's all I do for Tim at home and he always says it tastes lovely.''

Later she told a news conference the Procrastination Minister would have a whole-of-government brief to dispatch difficult policy decisions to the too-hard basket. ''Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow?'' she said.

''The last thing Labor wants are policies which frighten those much-loved equine quadrupeds that so many Australians - and I am one of them - like to think of as horses.''

Asked by journalists to name the new minister, Ms Gillard said no decision had been taken and would not be for some time. Focus groups would have to be consulted before a working party could be formed to discuss strategies for establishing a taskforce that would go forward towards selecting a peoples' deliberative assembly to lead a three-year enquiry into a suite of recommendations to be put before a cabinet subcommittee of senior ministers. As one Labor insider put it: ''Inertia will be the new black.''

Mike Carlton