Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts

Sunday 22 October 2023

THOMAS MAYO: Although the Voice referendum was lost, and despite the racist vitriol it unleashed, the movement for Indigenous rights and recognition has grown

 

The Saturday Paper, October 21 – 27, 2023, No. 472:


Although the Voice referendum was lost, and despite the racist vitriol it unleashed, the movement for Indigenous rights and recognition has grown. By Thomas Mayo.



Analysis: The movement that follows the Voice


As a parent of five, I am acutely aware of the way in which our children absorb everything – conversations, body language, snippets of the news and the bits and pieces they share with friends at school. We try our best to protect them from the harsh realities of the world until we think they are ready. They might seem oblivious to it all, but they know more than they tell, as if they are reciprocating our care.


Though I knew this of our children, I wasn’t prepared for my 12-year-old son’s reaction to the referendum loss on Saturday. When I called my wife soon after the loss became official, to see how they were, she told me he had cried. He went to bed early, barely consolable.


The next day, when I checked in on them, she told me William was okay. She remarked on how he had mentioned several times that he felt calm that morning, as if the feeling were strange to him. We came to realise he had been feeling the weight of the referendum on his little shoulders. For the first time since the loss, I cried too.


The Indigenous leadership of the “Yes” campaign called for a week of silence that ends today. There was a need for contemplation after an intense campaign. Anyone who put up their head for “Yes” was brutalised. We were labelled communists, greedy elites, puppets of the United Nations and promoters of a racially divided Australia. None of this is true.


The racist vitriol we felt was at a level not seen for decades in Australia. Indigenous advocates for the Voice could not speak out about the abuse without some sections of the media, whose audiences we needed to persuade, falsely claiming that we were calling all “No” voters racist. Even if only in the way the headlines were worded.


Respected Elder and lifelong champion for Indigenous peoples Marcia Langton probably experienced the worst of this. The stories with negative headlines exploded and continued for more than a week because she dared to mention the race-baiting of the “No” campaign.


The “No” side, on the other hand, was barely scrutinised. When their figureheads claimed racism against them, some journalists showed sympathy and the “Yes” campaign was scapegoated. When leading spokespeople for the “No” campaign were racist beyond reasonable denial, their leaders doubled down defiantly. Most of the media’s focus quickly moved on. The abhorrent “No” campaign cartoon, depicting me in a racist trope and printed in The Australian Financial Review, is one example of many.


In the week of silence, I have had time to reflect on last Saturday’s outcome. I have concluded Indigenous peoples were correct to take the invitation in the Uluru Statement from the Heart to the Australian people. We were not wrong to ask them to recognise us through a Voice.


For a people with inherent rights but who are a minority spread across this vast continent – with a parliament that will continue to make laws and policies about us – it is inevitable that we will need to establish a national representative body to pursue justice. We need to be organised.


Delaying the referendum was never an option, not even when the polls were going south. Had we convinced the government to postpone the referendum, we would still be wondering what could have been, especially if the gaps continue to widen. We had a responsibility to try now, to use the rare opportunity we had, in the interests of our children. At least now we know where we stand.


While the outcome was disappointing, in all my years of advocacy for Indigenous rights, I have never felt such levels of solidarity.


As a leader of the campaign, I accept that, although we tried our best, we failed. I agree there were aspects of the “Yes” campaign that could have been better and I ponder what else I could have done. These thoughts hurt, like an aching emptiness in my chest.


An honest assessment compels me to mention Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as well. Dutton has shown he is bereft of the qualities held by the Indigenous leaders I have worked with. He is well short of the calibre of his opposite, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.


While Albanese listened to Indigenous peoples respectfully, Dutton ignored us when in power. When Albanese negotiated the constitutional alteration with the Referendum Working Group, he did so in good faith, while Dutton was duplicitous, two-faced, deceitful.


At the next federal election, the record will show the prime minister had a go. He followed through with his pre-election promise to hold a referendum in this term of parliament. He kept his word, even when the going got tough, whereas Dutton has already reneged on his promise to hold another referendum should the first one to fail to pass.


It is noteworthy, because it exposes that this is all politics on his part. If he ever becomes prime minister, it is an indication that he places no value in speaking with Indigenous people before making decisions about them. His promise of a second referendum was decided without consulting Indigenous leaders, not even his own spokesperson on Indigenous affairs.


None of this is bitterness on my part, just truth. Peter Dutton chose politics over outcomes. His career came before fairness. He sought victory at any cost.


When I go home on Sunday – just my 25th day in Darwin this year, having worked almost every day since May 21, 2022 – I can proudly tell my son that though the referendum failed, the movement for Indigenous rights and recognition has grown.


In 2017, we were almost 4 per cent of the population calling for Voice, Treaty and Truth-Telling. As of Saturday, we are nearly 40 per cent, walking together. Almost seven million Australians voted “Yes”. Both major parties would kill for a first preference vote like that.


Probably the most important analysis from the referendum was that polling booths in predominantly Indigenous communities across the entirety of the country overwhelmingly voted “Yes”. We have thoroughly established that this is fact: a great majority of Indigenous people support constitutional recognition through a Voice to Parliament. We seek self-determination over who speaks for us. Claims otherwise are an incontrovertible lie.


To my fellow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, I say we continue our push for our common goals. Don’t be silenced. Be louder, prouder and more defiant. Of course, you will be. The survival of our culture and our babies depends on it.


To the parents I met so many times, who turned up for their first doorknock with their little ones in tow, their “Yes” shirts worn proudly, sunscreen smeared on their faces: keep having those conversations with your neighbours at every opportunity. Keep turning up.


To the small number of people who registered to attend the town hall in Yamba and Grafton, and the hundreds more who turned up without registering, and who expressed their gratitude at how the forum had brought the community together: stay committed to this unselfish cause. In regional communities across the country, the town hall attendances were magnificent. Keep turning up.


To the random members of the public who have hugged me, to the beautiful Elders who treated me like a son, to the fellow union members who organised their communities, not just their places of work, maintain the love for what makes this country unique – more than 60,000 years of continuous heritage and culture.


While the outcome was disappointing, in all my years of advocacy for Indigenous rights, I have never felt such levels of solidarity.


Across the country, lifelong friendships have been made. I have new Aunties and Uncles, like the strong Aboriginal women at Baabayn Aboriginal Corporation in Mount Druitt, who themselves have formed bonds with the local ethnic communities as they campaigned for “Yes”. I love you, Aunties.


In this campaign we saw Liberals and Nationals give speeches alongside Labor and the Greens. We saw corporate chief executives leafleting with union officials. All denominations have prayed together. The “Yes” rallies, more than 200,000 people strong, brought colour, joy and diversity to the streets, in unity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.


Late this week, ending the week of silence, an official statement from Indigenous leaders was made public. In summary: we continue our calls for our voices to be heard, for reform and for justice, and we need your ongoing support.


This is the task ahead. I say to all the hundreds of thousands of people I have spoken with over the past six years, the many friends I have made on this journey: we were always on the right side of history. Young Australians voted “Yes” with us. Imagine what we can achieve if the almost seven million Australians who voted “Yes” continue to have conversations with their neighbours, meeting “No” voters with an understanding that they may have voted “No” because of the lies they were told. In time, we will turn the “Nos” into “Yeses”.


Let us talk of our strengths while addressing our weaknesses. Let us believe in ourselves, our communities and our country, rather than looking over our shoulders at the shadows Peter Dutton has thrown across Australian politics. Let us call on the parliament to shine a light on those shadows, those deathly shadows, lest they continue to undermine our democracy. Ask yourself, which group will be targeted next?


When I was writing my first book about the Uluru Statement from the Heart, published in 2019, my son was just eight years old. He asked me what the title of the book would be. When I asked him what he would call it, he proceeded to do a series of armpit farts. We both laughed. Then I told him I would call it Finding the Heart of the Nation. He asked me, “Where is the heart of the nation?”


I put my laptop down beside me on the couch. I pulled him close. I put my hand on his chest, and I said, “The heart of the nation is here.”


The heart of the nation is still here. It always was and it always will be, waiting to be recognised by our fellow Australians. Whether you voted “Yes” or “No”, I say to you with humility and respect, open your hearts and your minds henceforth. The truth should be unifying, not divisive.


This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on October 21, 2023 as "After the vote".


Thomas Mayo is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander man, assistant national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia and author of six books, including Dear Son – Letters and reflections from First Nations fathers and sons and the bestselling children’s book Finding Our Heart.


October 21, 2023



Tuesday 25 October 2022

'First Nations women are being murdered at up to 12 times the national average. In some regions, their deaths make up some of the highest homicide rates in the world.’

 

ABC News, 24 October 2022:








First Nations women are being murdered at up to 12 times the national average. In some regions, their deaths make up some of the highest homicide rates in the world.


Four Corners can reveal at least 315 First Nations women have either gone missing or been murdered or killed in suspicious circumstances since 2000.


But this is an incomplete picture. We will likely never know the true scale of how many First Nations women have been lost over the decades.


This is because there is no agency in Australia keeping count, and there is no standard way of collecting this important data in each state and territory.


Canada calls it a genocide. The United States considers it an epidemic. But here in Australia, we’re only just waking up to the scale of the crisis…..


Read the full article here.


Wednesday 9 February 2022

Lismore City Council began its new local government 4 year-term term in earnest at an Ordinary Monthly Meeting at 6pm on 8 February 2022. It quickly went downhill....



Banyam Baigham
The Sleeping Lizard
Images: Change.org & David Lowe









With little forewarning Lismore City Council Business Paper for its Ordinary Monthly Meeting of 8 February 2022 contained a Notice of Motion which shocked and alarmed the Widjabul Wia-bal People, traditional owners of the unceded lands on which Lismore local government asserts a jurisdictional right, as well as shocking a good many residents in the wider community of the Lismore area and across Northern New South Wales. 


Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau read thus:


Councillor Big Rob has given notice of intention to move:

That:


1. Council take no further action in relation to its decision of 13 July 2021 (Item BP21/567) to hand back all Council owned land at the North Lismore Plateau to the traditional owners;


2. staff prepare suitable information and budget estimates for consideration in the upcoming Operational Plan and budget process to investigate options for Council to realise a financial return on its R1 zoned land at the North Lismore Plateau;


3. the information above include an analysis of Council’s obligations and associated costs to rehabilitate the quarry having regard to the North Lismore Quarry End Use Plan 2012, the North Lismore Quarry Rehabilitation Plan 2012, with a particular focus on the E2 and E3 zoned land;

and


4. Council provide in principle support to transfer ownership of the E2 and E3 zoned land owned by Council at the North Lismore Plateau to the traditional owners and prepare budget estimates and supporting information to allow further consideration of this matter in the upcoming Operational Plan and budget process.  [my yellow highlighting]


The initial public reactions was two-fold - an online petition and a public meeting.



The Lismore Council meeting was webcast at 6pm and the following Twitter stream of consciousness from among those watching began in the hour before the meeting opened and once the relevant item was reached.


  • Do Lismore City councilors realise if they go forward /w assent in any form of Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau at tonight's Ordinary Monthly Meeting then Council will likely be subject of least 2 formal complaints to NSW Office of Local Government & to Minister? @WendyTuckerman


  • Have signed petition, downloaded business paper & attachment & opened a screen to listen to Lismore Council Ordinary Meeting at 6pm. I am seriously pissed off with Lismore City councillors!


  • I think the SK team will get the shits with Big Rob calling all the shots. This might be the turning point. (Noticed Nimbin GT labelled it Big Robbery).


  • this is not the only issue being tabled. The Sleeping Lizard agenda will attract much attention and the response may surprise this arrogant new council and mayor. The newly elected council are all in for a tough time and deservedly so.


  • What a way for the new Lismore City Council to start its local government term 😂😂😂



  • Uncle Mickey Ryan just presented a petition of 25,000 people to the Lismore Council meeting.

He expressed his thanks to all that have shown their support.


  • Way to go! Opponents of Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau politely & carefully raised the prospect of racist intent. The colonialist attitude of take what you want & let First Nations live on the scraps you don't want was written all over it #LismoreCityCouncil


  • Not normally a fan of watching Council meetings but that was superb.


  • One LGA resident told Lismore City councilors that if they voted for Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau they will be on the wrong side of history & another told councilors who might support this motion that it looked as through they intended to "steal" the land a second time.


  • Yet another LGA resident told councillors Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau is a test of their personal characters & referred to colonial attitudes towards First Nations peoples.


  • I never thought watching a Lismore City Council meeting would bring me so much joy. The deputations are on fire! #landrights #reconciliation #SleepingLizard #GiveItBack


  • OMG! Motion 10.7 Lismore Plateau is being changed on the run before being voted on - the details clearly demonstrating one particular councilor has no idea what spiritual connection to Country actually means. #OdiousDestructiveColonialismIsAliveAndWellAtLismoreCouncil


  • And the newby Mayor is making it worse!


  • Elly doing best to stop the mess that Cr. Rob created


  • Sheesh Mayor Krieg is totally out of his depth.


  • Yes. Caught the last 5 minutes. BR reading the meeting code and getting it totally wrong.

The Mayor’s got even less of an idea. It’s pathetic.


  • He thought he knew how to chair a meeting because he was a school teacher. Oh well, reality strikes.


  • I just witnessed so many breaches of the meeting code of practice, I don’t know where you would start a complaint.


  • A certain Lismore City councilor is calling the Sleeping Lizard "a piece of crap land" then tries to walk it back and blame others a la Scotty Morrison.


  • Oh please, someone save those new Lismore City councilors from themselves before they wreck this particular local government. A 5 minute break has been called in the OGM


  • I honestly fear for Lismore City Council. If it continues breaching Code of Meeting Practice & Practice Notes it will be under administration before June.


  • Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau before Lismore City Council at OGM 8 Feb 2022 failed decidedly! No-one except the mover voted for it.


  • And the motion goes down.


  • It should never have been contemplated, let alone put to a vote. This kind of shit harms people.

That said, I’m glad it was voted down.


  • 9-1! Excellent news.


  • Good news


  • Finally, in spite of the Lismore City Mayor & Cr. Rob the experienced councillors finally put the issue of Motion 10.7 to bed.


  • Honestly I have never witnessed new local government councillors anywhere undertake such a sustained insult of First Nations culture, lore & law #LismoreCityCouncil


  • To see the response to Lismore council brings strength to my soul. Thank you to everyone who has helped.



*

Tuesday 1 February 2022

CASHLESS DEBIT CARD 2022: make no mistake, Morrison will continue with his relentless - in his eyes seemingly 'righteous' - push to control the incomes and minutiae of daily living of as many ordinary Australians as he can convince Parliament to punitively define as ignorant, poor, deviant or Aboriginal at risk


On 17 December 2020 provisions of the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020 received assent and were incorporated into Social Security (Administration) Act 1999.


The principal purpose of that bill was to widen the scope of the Cashless Debit Card Trial, rename the trial as a “program” and establish it as an national ongoing social security program.


Those pentecostal buddies, Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison and then Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister for Minister for Government Services & still LNP MP for Fadden Stuart Robert, along with another member of the ‘Morrison Group’, Minister for Families and Social Services & Liberal Senator for South Australia Anne Rushton, were able to widen the scope of the trial & rename the Cashless Debit Card trial a “program”.


However, although the entire Northern Territory is now a Cashless Debit Card Program Area participation in the scheme is voluntary and despite sustained effort on the part of federal government the Cashless Debit Card Trial remains a trial with a sunset date of 31 December 2022 in all other remaining trial sites.


The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has been attempting to create a coercive, punitive, cashless payment system for government pensions, benefits, allowances and one-off payments since 2014 and, they have become quite skilled at political & legislative incremental creep.


Make no mistake, Morrison, the man who since at least 2006 has been voicing his belief that this is what the Lord wants … He wants me to become prime minister and who as prime minister seeks signs from God on how to proceed during an election campaign as well as secretly ‘laying hands on’ and praying for people he personally comes into contact with, will continue with his relentless - in his eyes seemingly 'righteous' - push to control the incomes and minutiae of daily living of as many ordinary Australians as he can convince Parliament to punitively define as ignorant, poor, deviant or Aboriginal at risk.


BACKGROUND


 7 News, 16 March 2021:


A $2.5 million government report into the cashless debit card is inconclusive on whether it reduces harm from alcohol, drugs and gambling, but has found people on the welfare cards are ashamed and embarrassed.


It’s ostrich policy - put your head in the sand,” Labor MP Linda Burney told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.


We do not believe there should be mandatory, universal application of a cashless debit card because people are on Centrelink benefits.”


Social Services Minister Anne Ruston made the decision to extend the trial sites without any evidence and without waiting for the report, Ms Burney said.


Commissioned in 2018, the University of Adelaide’s report on the cashless debit card looked at whether alcohol and drug use, violence and gambling reduced during trials of the card in Ceduna, East Kimberley and the Goldfields but found no conclusive evidence.


In many cases we found the reality to be more complex and nuanced than can be expressed as clear cut answers,” research head Kostas Mavromaras said in the report.


Ms Burney said the research “tells us nothing and is a complete waste of time”.


Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said the card is “racist and discriminatory” and should be abandoned.


These trials were always about targeting First Nations peoples, stigmatising people on income support and those with addiction issues rather than addressing the underlying causes of disadvantage,” Senator Siewert said.


The evaluation itself notes the difficulty in evaluating the so-called trials because they were never set up to be properly evaluated.”….


# Cashless Debit Card (CDC) Extended Rollout 2021: Briefing Paper March 2021


# Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Legislation Committee (Nov 2019) Inquiry into the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019 [Provisions], Submission 1, Professor Matthew Gray & Dr. Rob Bray, ATTACHMENT A: Bray, J Rob (October 2019), ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, Measuring the social impact of Income Management in the Northern Territory – an updated analysis”:


Executive Summary


A stated objective of income management in the Northern Territory, both under the Northern Territory Emergency Response, and through ‘New Income Management’ (NIM) has been to improve outcomes for individuals, their families and the communities they live in. The 2014 evaluation of NIM reported that it could not identify any impacts in its analysis of social outcomes that could be attributed to the policy.


This paper seeks to re‐examine this question using data, where possible from before the initial introduction of income management under the NTERIM, to the most recently available.


The magnitude of the program in the Northern Territory, with one third of Indigenous people aged 15 years and over directly being subject to the policy is such that to the extent the program makes an impact this should be apparent at the community level, in particular in contrast to the experience of non‐Indigenous people in the Northern Territory, and the Indigenous population nationally both of which were only lightly touched by these programs.


Analysis of key social outcomes indicates:


Over the period of income management the rate of infant mortality amongst Indigenous people in the Northern Territory has increased, this contrasts with falls for Indigenous people nationally and for non‐Indigenous people in the Northern Territory. This group has also seen a rise in low birth weight births, and an increase in child deaths from injury. Child abuse and neglect substantiations have also increased, although it is noted this may be influenced by a willingness to report. Indigenous children in the Northern Territory have not seen the same declines in developmental vulnerability as have Indigenous children elsewhere.


The period since the introduction of income management has seen falling rates of school attendance by Indigenous children in the Northern Territory, and while some NAPLAN results have improved for these children, others have not. Again where there have been gains these are smaller than those for Indigenous children nationally.


There is strong evidence of a decline in alcohol consumption in the Northern Territory. This is a trend that pre‐dates the introduction of income management with research identifying a range of policies, including pricing and supply limitations which appear to be driving it. Notwithstanding this Indigenous people do not report a lower rate of risky drinking in 2014‐15 than they did in 2002, and alcohol related emergency department presentations have increased.


Rates of assaults appear to be largely flat, although there is a decline in assaults associated with alcohol. No consistent pattern of declining crime is identifiable in data from 2007 onwards, although there is evidence of particular alcohol restriction enforcement activities directly impacting on crime. The rate of imprisonment of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory has continued to rise strongly across the period of income management. These findings not only reflect upon a failure of income management policies to achieve their goals, but also have implications for a wider range of interventions under the Northern Territory Emergency Response and Stronger Futures….. [my yellow highlighting]


The completer 59 page submission can be read and/or downloaded at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I9w2Tdurcb1XaiAlyrqA53yZPlKiVrkf/view

OR

sub01_ANUCSRM.


# The Cashless Debit Card scheme covering people who receive working age welfare payments is currently applied to residents in six areas.

These are:

Ceduna, South Australia

Kununurra and Wyndham in the East Kimberly region, Western Australia

Goldfields region, Western Australia

Bundaberg, Hervey Bay region, Queensland

Cape York, Queensland, and

the Northern Territory.


According to the Dept. of Social Services on 31 January 2022:


In the Ceduna region, the Goldfields region and the East Kimberley region the program applies to all people who receive a working age welfare payment. People receiving the Age Pension may volunteer to participate.


In the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region, the program applies to people aged 35 and under who receive JobSeeker Payment, Youth Allowance (Job seeker), Parenting Payment (Partnered) and Parenting Payment (Single). People over 35 years of age or receiving the Age Pension may volunteer to participate.


In the Cape York region in Queensland, the program applies to those who the Family Responsibilities Commission have referred. People on Age Pension may choose to volunteer to participate.


In the Northern Territory, the program applies to Income Management participants who have chosen to transition to Cashless Debit Card as well as eligible income support recipients who have volunteered for the program. If you live in the Northern Territory, you can now transition to the Cashless Debit Card on the same day.


According to Services Australia on 22 January 2022:


  • You will have access to 20 per cent (50 per cent for most participants in the Northern Territory and Cape York) of your welfare payment that you can withdraw as cash to use in circumstances where only cash is accepted, for example at school canteens, fetes and farmers markets.


  • If you were placed on the Cashless Debit Card in one of the first four sites, you can also transfer up to $200 per 28 days to your regular bank account.


  • The Cashless Debit Card works at businesses that accept eftpos or Visa. The only time the card cannot be used is for the purchase of alcohol, gambling products, cash-like gift cards or to withdraw cash. Or for any other goods or services determined by the Commonwealth of Australia to be banned goods/services in accordance with the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 (Cth).


  • Indue Limited and the Traditional Credit Union are the designated debit card suppliers/restricted bank account managers.



  • There appears to be no formal mechanism in place to appeal to Dept. of Social Security, Centrelink or Services Australia concerning any decisions or action taken by Indue Limited with regard to any  particular restricted bank account.


Monday 27 September 2021

Team Morrison and The Voter in 2021

 

The Shot, 21 September 2021:


Great Scott: the grand narrative of Scott Morrison















...On one end of the scale, we have the people who believe the entire charade of politics is made up and if it’s not made up then the “mainstreameeja” must all be in on it with them, sort of like fake moon landers but without the flags. On the other end are the people who let information flow over them like a long shower, obliviously taking it all in, the type who truly believe Scott Morrison once saved a lady from near death on a Sydney beach because 2GB said so…..


What Team Morrison want you to think over and above anything else, above the policy and the pressers and the talk of Oh-My-God nuclear submarines and the twitter chatter, what they want you to think when you think of Scott Morrison, when you talk to your friends in the supermarket checkout or swap the goss in your Facebook groups, when you go to vote, they want you to think that Scott Morrison is a strong leader, a hero of our times. They want you to feel it and know it deep to your bones.


They want you to think that Scott Morrison is our own powerful leader, the one that will lead Australia out of this mess, and they want that image embedded deep down into your subconscious, without any annoying detail to bother you or meddle with your own private photo album.


How they do that is by casting a vast, barely tangible net up into the sky, a grand narrative net, one that says: “Scott Morrison is strong. Scott Morrison is a hero. Scott Morrison will save you.”


The way they keep that imagery afloat is by pumping it full of air and reinforcing it all the time, constantly, every day of every week of every month in every way. Scott is strong. Scott is our hero. Scott will lead us all to safety.


Think of Scott Morrison holding up a plane in Kabul to save a woman and her baby. Or at least that’s what the Daily Telegraph told us. I’m going to ignore the dry retching noises coming from the audience, you ungrateful cynics. What’s that? It didn’t happen? Of course, it didn’t happen.


Sometimes, the truth has nothing to do with pumping the net up. Sometimes it does. As De Niro snaps in Wag The Dog,“What difference does it make if it’s true?” If you learn anything from our imaginary TED Talk, learn that reality, like detail, has no real place in the political grand narrative…...


The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2021:


Scott Morrison’s momentous national security announcement last week should have been a turning point for him and the government. Instead, because he delayed making one tough call, leaving himself open to accusations of backstabbing and deception from a great friend and ally, he robbed himself of a much-needed reset.


A few days later he again squibbed what should have been a straightforward decision involving a senior colleague, on a matter which goes to the heart of transparency and probity.


The way Scott Morrison dealt with the French, and Christian Porter, says much about his management style.CREDIT:DIONNE GAIN















Both were about trust. Both provided insights into the most troubling aspects of Morrison’s character and management style. Both have left a very bad smell.


The first was the big-bang unveiling of the new Anglospheric alliance – upending decades of diplomatic endeavours in Asia – which included the planned acquisition of nuclear submarines from the US or the UK.


By waiting until the night before the announcement to advise President Emmanuel Macron (Morrison’s office refuses to answer when asked if they actually spoke) he was torpedoing the $90-billion contract with France for conventional submarines, he guaranteed they went nuclear.


The second sounded like a transmission from a parallel universe. Morrison presented Christian Porter’s resignation from Cabinet as industry minister after refusing to disclose names of anonymous donors as the action of a man upholding standards.


At the end of March, Morrison could have, should have, relegated Porter to the backbench until his personal problems were resolved, rather than try to maintain the fiction the issue was fixed by his removal as attorney-general.


The fiction was compounded after Porter released his updated register of interests, then said he could not name donors to a blind trust helping pay the costs of his defamation suit against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan over the airing of historic rape allegations, which Porter vehemently denied.


Desperate to get some clear air for his major strategic announcement, soon befouled by the French, Morrison had tried to buy time by asking his department head, Phil Gaetjens, to advise on the bleeding obvious – whether Porter had conformed with the ministerial code of conduct.


Then on Sunday afternoon, without waiting for Gaetjens, Morrison hastily called a press conference to announce Porter had upheld those standards by opting to resign from the ministry.


He could have, should have, said Porter’s actions did not conform to the high standards expected of a member of his government and sacked him. But he didn’t. He also said Porter had disclosed the amount he had received. He hadn’t.


Incredibly, when asked whether Porter should remain in Parliament while in receipt of the money (given the disclosure rules which apply to all parliamentarians, requiring them to fess up to everything including freebie footy tickets), Morrison protested that had nothing to do with him because he was no longer Porter’s boss.


Of course. He is only the Prime Minister, the leader of the government and the leader of the Liberal Party…..


The AustralianNewspoll, 19 September 2021: