I’ve been too busy to post much, but I’ve written a number of articles over the past month or so that might be interesting to readers here. This one, published by various Fairfax papers looks at the damp squib of the G20 finance ministers meeting, and links it to the Abbott government’s elevation of tribalism over good government, and even over market liberal ideology.
There’s a follow-up here from Charles Richardson at Crikey and something more on similar lines by Rob Burgess at the Business Spectator
John Quiggin 
@Donald Oats
To follow up with a link, Anson’s article on Abbott’s speech to the logging industry is worth a quick read.
One of your best summaries .@Paul Norton
@Jim Rose
You have exceeded your quota, and haven’t contributed much beyond snark. Please take a break of at least 24 hours from all threads.
The fact that this thread has gone off the rails to the point where everyone is chipping in factoids to support their worldview is A-grade evidence that the left does not suffer from tribalism. Knee-jerk defences of the left against the out group du jour has been very few and far between in this thread. Compare that to any given right-wing thread where they will go on the offensive whenever they are called out by using the same stale talking points about commies and unions and welfare recipients as they have done for the past century or so.
Heat a wonderful echo chamber it is here.
Firstly, Professor Q has not demonstrated that Abbott is any more tribal than other governments. No evidence at all. Just his personal distaste for a LNP government.
Secondly, as much as I abhor violence, that video posted by Hermit is what happens when Greenies try to destroy someone’s livelihood. For people that “care” for the working class you aren’t demonstrating it!
Meant to say that “it is” a wonderful echo chamber… Damn my ipad!
@Faust
Your statement is false. There are several examples in the article. Since you don’t refute any of them, nor offer comparable acts by other administrations it would appear the person making statements without evidence is yourself.
@Megan
Hi Megan
I usually enjoy your posts and find them very informative, which is why your comment that Labor is just as tribal as the Libs, surprises me.
In several other areas (such as political viciousness and treatment of refugees) I could agree to a point, but John Quiggin has pointed out in this very post the example of Tony Abbott as head of the G20.
I just can’t imagine Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Paul Keating or Bob Hawke (let alone Gough Whitlam) embarrassing Australia the way Tony Abbott has.
Even at its worst, on refugees, Labor seems to be playing “catch up” with the Libs, so as to neutralise refugees as an issue and then get the conversation back to real problems like improving education and help for disabled people, as through Gonski and NDIS (which the Libs have now abandoned or threaten to abandon).
As Scott Morrison said about Kevin Rudd’s cruelty to refugees “His heart just isn’t in it”. Morrison on the other hand actually seems to enjoy cruelty to refugees.
On economic issues the two parties are arguably converging, but on education, disabilities, environment (specifically climate change) Labor is streets ahead (although not perfect, particularly on climate change).
Can you imagine a Labor PM giving the go-ahead to dump three million cubic metres of rubbish on the Reef?
Cheers,
I see Mr Shorten has ‘distanced’ himself from the March in March. He appears to be morphing into the alternate face of the government, not the face of the alternate government.
Speaking of raw tribalism protests often bring out some “colourful” characters. This report on March in March:-
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2153746/ian-kirkwood-anger-mobilises-crowd/?cs=391
@Geoff
With the greatest respect (and thanks for the kind words), WTF?:
This is the weirdest, and yet sadly typical, ALP ‘pragmatism’ I have heard in a while – and I appreciate your honesty about it because I think it also makes my point about being unable to have anything to do with a political party that thinks/operates this way.
@Megan
Hear! Hear!
FTR Megan, you will be pleased to hear that the Sydney rally/march barely mentioned the ALP except to damn them as complicit. “Sonia”, for the organisers declared herself and her colleagues politically non-aligned. There were no banners or speakers from any of the parties on the podium (not even us) and I didn’t spot anyone from the ALP until the march ended at Victoria Park, Glebe. A guy was wearing a t-shirt.
I had many positive conversations and even ran into those Year 9s who made the viral video of Newtown Performing Arts Year 9 excursion to Canberra, in which they buttonholed Abbott. Wendy Bacon referred to them in her speech, not knowing that a number of them were there. It was a great moment. Along with a number of others, I commended them on their commitment to social justice and their intellectual accomplishment.
@Fran Barlow
Glad to hear that the Sydney protest didn’t live up to my worst fears. It looked like Melbourne also had a dilutive effect on the ALP links.
Sadly, Brisbane didn’t. It was, from reports, far too ALP. Jo-ann Miller spoke and wheeled out the spectre of “Joh!”.
@James
Shorten was at the Croatian Festival, “another example of the success and importance of multiculturalism”.
For their sake – I hope the pies were to his liking.
John Quiggin’s IA post on his MiM paper generated extensive discussion (to which I refer you). For me the take home message was general satisfaction of participants that the aim, a “Statement of No Confidence” in the Liberal National Party Coalition Government, was achieved.
So what happens next? I hope that the 3 marches in WA would affect the outcome of the upcoming half-Senate re-election in April with its 77 candidates. From the viewpoint of containing the Abbott regime’s pernicious agenda, it’s import that he be denied easy control of the Senate, which can at least hold the government “accountable.” Then perhaps Australia can limp along with its dignity intact until the next federal election.
Twitter tag #MarchinMarch
Lots of good pics eg https://twitter.com/misskayesera/status/445036303759843328
Terje, well-deserved criticism of particular individuals for their actions and words is not “tribalism”. Rinehart would be just as repugnant, though less important, even if she’d been less successful in court, and some other family member had inherited her father’s money. Ditto for Joyce.
If Labor figures routinely denounced farmers and small business owners (or even big business owners) as a group*, you might have a point. But they don’t. Maybe they did in the distant past, but not in my memory. The closest thing I can think of to an exception is Paul Keating, who could do a good line in tribal rhetoric (any kind of rhetoric, for that matter) when he wanted to.
*Though even here there is a critical difference between pointing to the conflict of interest between classes, and attacking your opponents as “the wrong sort of people”.
@John Quiggin
I am still waiting for an cogent explanation of your “tribalism” thesis. What do you mean by the term “tribalism” when you use it as in your comment article in The Age March 2nd?
I can safely assume you do not literally mean traditional tribalism. You might mean some sort of modern tribalism possibly based on the thesis of neotribalism. Neotribalism postulates “that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass society, and thus will naturally form social networks constituting new “tribes.”” – Wikepedia.
However, if you meant “tribalism” in this sense you would ackowledge that both Liberal and Labor were “tribes” in some senses. This would particularly be the case as their ideological differences melted away. And nowhere do you come up with a theory which might explain why their ideological differences are melting away.
Do you have any reasonably precise technical meaning in mind for your term “tribalism” or is it a loose journalistic term with a sensationalist, attention grabbing factor? Are you are using sensationalist and emotive terminology devoid of any intellectual content? If so, how do expect to perform any meaningful social, political or economic analysis with this term?
Background: “French sociologist Michel Maffesoli was perhaps the first to use the term neotribalism in a scholarly context. Maffesoli predicted that as the culture and institutions of modernism declined, societies would embrace nostalgia and look to the organizational principles of the distant past for guidance, and that therefore the post-modern era would be the era of neotribalism.” – Wikipedia.
@Megan
Hi Megan
Sorry, it was late, far too much abbreviation.
Without being presumptuous again, I think we’d agree that the number of refugees coming into Australia does not pose a threat to Australia. The issue is a beat-up by Abbott and Murdoch to cause fear and distract Australians from what I at least would describe as real issues, Liberal cuts to health and education.
As PM, Kevin Rudd originally closed Nauru and got rid of TPVs. Therefore we might assume that he wants to do the right thing and be compassionate to refugees.
But, during an election campaign, the Liberals stopped Kevin Rudd from pointing out impending Liberal cuts to jobs and services, by going on about refugees. Therefore in the middle of the election campaign, given that a section of the community is racist and ignorant and easily manipulated the Liberals and Murdoch, Rudd had to appear to be as mean-spirited as the Liberals, to neutralise the issue and try to change the conversation. Only this way did he stand a chance of returning to power (I would prefer Julia Gillard but that’s another story) and so doing things in the background to help refugees.
You said “This is the weirdest, and yet sadly typical, ALP ‘pragmatism’ I have heard in a while – and I appreciate your honesty about it because I think it also makes my point about being unable to have anything to do with a political party that thinks/operates this way.”
I think that Tony Abbott and the Liberals used refugee advocates during the 2013 election, to return to the racist and ignorant hysteria about refugees, and so return to power. Now, back in power, Tony Abbott claims a mandate to cut tens of thousands of jobs and attack the unions, just as Reagan destroyed the pilots union in the US and then the US middle class in the 1980s, paving the way for the financial sector’s takeover in the 1990s and 2000s.
Just as the Timorese army ran for the hills in 1999, rather than give the Indonesians an excuse to perpetuate their killing by claiming a civil war, so too refugee advocates might have been quiet on refugees and campaigned on other issues instead, to stop Abbott’s election.
As it was, refugee advocates help Tony Abbott get elected, by focussing on refugees. (I presume you disagree?)
But now that the Liberals are in power federally, and have shut down discussion of refugees (with their Murdoch friends), I whole-heartedly support refugee advocacy again. Unlike Labor, the Liberals have no track record of helping refugees behind the scenes, while reflecting (racist and ignorant) community sentiment.
Hope this doesn’t dig my hole even deeper,
Best wishes, G
@geoff
Geoff, while Megan can, and no doubt will, speak for herself, I imagine she would agree that it is absurdly, even frighteningly, euphemistic to say that Rudd had to “appear to be as mean-spirited as the Liberals”. What Rudd did, in fact, was deliberately establish a policy that is cruel and inhumane, very likely in breach of Australia’s international human rights obligations, and certain to ruin the lives of people affected by it. The policy has been only mildly intensified by the Abbott government – the core remains Rudd’s and the ALP’s.
Rudd’s deliberate initiation of such a policy renders his earlier, apparently more humane, position entirely irrelevant. I think this defence of an evident willingness to treat human lives as garbage in order to “neutralise the issue” and “change the conversation” is precisely what Megan objects to. The fact that Labor did it with less enthusiasm than the Liberals is hardly an excuse.
That sounds an awful lot like you’re saying you only care about refugee rights when the Liberals are in power. Without wanting to sound disrespectful, that doesn’t sound very principled to me. In fact, it reminds me disturbingly of Orwell’s doublethink: This week we profess our undying enmity of Eurasia. Next week, of course, we will have always been at war with Eastasia.
@Tim Macknay
Hi Tim, thanks for engaging.
I have to disagree. I campaigned for refugee rights while Labor was in power, so your personal attack falls flat.
Mr Rudd’s closure of Nauru and ending of TPVs was not “apparent” compassion. As for politics, do you really think that everyone in a cabinet agrees with every decision that a cabinet makes? Or that everyone in the public service agrees whole-heartedly with every decision that they have to carry out? Sometimes people have to weigh up the pros and cons of leaving the public service or cabinet, and the personal cost to them and their family, or staying and trying to change things from the inside. Same with Mr Rudd.
If you were Rudd and you were faced with the immediate prospect of Mr Abbott becoming PM, might you not think it was necessary to do what Rudd did?
I would again refer you to the heroic example of the Timorese. At the risk of appearing to treat human lives as expendable, they allowed thousands (was it a quarter of the Timorese population?) to be killed by the Indonesians, in order to avoid giving Indonesia the excuse of claiming a civil war had occurred in East Timor. It was a terrible responsibility for the Timorese leaders to have to bear, but they faced it and did the right and heroic thing.
I’m not going to call Mr Rudd heroic, but I can accept that someone who had previously cared enough about refugees to close Nauru and stop TPVs, could adopt a different course in order to stop Tony Abbott becoming PM. It didn’t work, partly because clever Liberal Party operatives were able to manipulate refugee advocates into bringing the conversation back to refugees.
For example I remember how during a debate in Brisbane Mr Rudd made an incisive point about Mr Abbott’s plans to attack Australians. A refugee advocate in the audience immediately jumped up and asked a question about refugees, and Mr Rudd was on the back foot again. Well done guys! I think the conniving and manipulative Liberal Party operatives would have been toasting their own cleverness at that point.
These are very clever people and they know how to manipulate racist and ignorant people for their own political and material advantage, and they also know to manipulate idealistic people like refugee advocates. Good on people for being idealistic, but not at the expense of inflicting worse conditions on refugees under an Abbott Government.
I presume you deny that refugee advocates help get Tony Abbott elected?
@geoff
I’m sorry you saw it as a personal attack. I didn’t intend any offence – it was simply how I understood the remark quoted, which I read as you implying that you didn’t support refugee advocacy while Labor was in office. You now say that in fact you campaigned for refugee rights while Labor was in power. Fair enough, although I’m now having trouble understanding what you meant by the earlier comment.
I strongly doubt that refugee advocates made the slightest difference to the outcome of the last election. No doubt they criticised Labor before and during the campaign (although I personally don’t recall them receiving any significant attention), but seriously, how many voters moved from Labor to Liberal because of outrage at Labor’s treatment of asylum seekers?
I presume that the debate you’re referring to is the second leader’s debate, which was held in Brisbane. I didn’t watch it (the first election in my adult life I haven’t bothered to watch the debates), but I note that the leader’s debates were the least watched in any election campaign since that type of campaign event was introduced, and I haven’t been able to locate any MSM reporting that referred to the exchange you mention.
The East Timor analogy doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, sorry.
@geoff
I do agree with what Tim wrote.
As I read your argument, refugee advocates helped get Abbott elected by being critical of the ALP’s refugee policy, even though that policy was shared by the LNP. Therefore, it was the criticism that changed the vote and not the policy.
For that to hold true, a fair percentage (say about 2%, given that the swing against the ALP was 3.6%) of voters changed their vote from ALP to LNP because refugee rights advocates criticised the ALP on refugee policy even though those voters were fully aware that the LNP shared the same policy.
In that case it could be argued that rather than cunning LNP operatives it was in fact cruelly idiotic ALP operatives that brought about Rudd’s defeat. By your reasoning, the ALP could have won the election by silencing the refugee critics through going back to a less inhumane policy.
As with the defeat of Howard in 2007, my belief is that a major factor among others was humane treatment of refugees.
@Ikonoclast
Political parties and their leaders can adopt or advocate positions out of a mixture of motives. Sometimes they can be motivated by a belief that a policy or program will materially benefit groups they rely on for organisational, financial, or electoral support; sometimes they can be motivated by belief in moral principles; sometimes they can be motivated by calculations of strategic advantage in their competition with other parties; sometimes they can be motivated by a reflexive impulse to oppose what their (real or supposed) rivals support and support what their rivals oppose. I suspect that it’s rare for them to be motivated solely by that kind of purely reflexive opposition, but it’s clear that John Quiggin is suggesting that Abbott and the Abbott government are much more driven by that kind of impulse than past governments have been. I am inclined to think this suggestion is correct, but even if it’s not the meaning is clear. Possibly the use of the word ‘tribalism’ obscures that meaning, which is why I’ve tried to articulate it without using that word.
@geoff Is this really how you see these things, purely as a chess game between political idiot savants, with citizens as pieces? Your vision would exclude this possibility by fiat: that democratic candidates and their supporters might get everything right, but still cannot attain power because the citizenry gets it wrong. If that’s really how it is, then we might as well eliminate democracy altogether, as passive subjects are more efficiently managed by a kind and intelligent uncle.
Julian Burnside gets this right (http://theconversation.com/how-we-treat-the-vulnerable-is-a-moral-test-beyond-politics-24412). This is a test that Australian society at large has failed, thus far. I doubt that cunning leadership is best placed to make a fat lot of difference at this point.
@geoff Is this really how you see these things, purely as a chess game between political idiot savants, with citizens as pieces? Your vision would exclude this possibility by fiat: that democratic candidates and their supporters might get everything right, but still cannot attain power because the citizenry gets it wrong. If that’s really how it is, then we might as well eliminate democracy altogether, as passive subjects are more efficiently managed by a kind and intelligent uncle.
Julian Burnside gets this right (“How we treat the vulnerable” in The Conversation [link just forces mod]). This is a test that Australian society at large has failed, thus far. I doubt that cunning leadership is best placed to make a fat lot of difference at this point.
@Megan
It’s my view that whatever most people think the settings for brutality should be, the ALP was never going to win a debate nor neutralise the issue by posturing as every bit as hostile to IMAs as the LNP. ALP-inclined voters who fear boats are every bit as likely to continue effectively preferencing the ALP for the same reason that most Green voters swallow hard and preference the ALP — they see the LNP as the greater harm.
What the ALP ought to have done was offer those inclined to vote ALP but concerned enough to consider defecting to the LNP on the matter a reason for not doing so other than we’re just as horrible”. Better would have been “it’s unthinkable that we could entertain the brutality needed to convince people that seeking our protection would be a fate worse than death. That’s not who we are as a country and we are disgusted that the Liberals say we are. This election people can declare whether we are callous and indifferent as the Liberals imply, or compassionate and humanitarian as we believe.
A shibboleth like that turns the contest into one for the high moral ground and the nation’s values — and that’s one contest the ALP could hope to win, because a good many conservatives are uneasy about the policy and morality is not counted in the boat scorecard.
Of course, they’d have had to do that from at least 2009 and repudiate Tampa and moved to exclusively humanitarian dealing, but it’s an entirely plausible policy position. I doubt the ALP would have performed worse with this policy — I suspect they’d have done far better because there would have been no pictures and no internment camps and you could have run feelgood stories about how fabulously the asylum seekers were doing and how we were ahead in revenue terms and how this like more liberalised trade — but in any event, even had they lost the election, they’d have won the battle for the high moral ground and opened up a clear space from which to attack the Liberals now.
@Fran Barlow
I agree.
I would say the ALP could even have taken that stance as late as Rudd MkII (although it would have been better to be consistent from 2009, as you say).
Which brings us back to my first position at #1 – BOTH the ALP and LNP share virtually indistinguishable ideology (neo-con and all that goes with it) and deliberately choose to “fight” each other by seeking to rally voters along purely “tribal” lines (no offence Geoff, but your arguments above would bear this out I suggest).
@Tim Macknay
Hi Tim
“You now say that in fact you campaigned for refugee rights while Labor was in power. Fair enough, although I’m now having trouble understanding what you meant by the earlier comment.”
While Labor was in power there was a chance for the government to treat refugees more humanely in private, although claiming to be as vicious and hard-hearted as the Liberals in public. That’s why over time I came to see that private advocacy could be useful, although I came to stop the public lobbying and protesting I had been involved in (because it kept the issue in the headlines, and offered Mr Abbott a chance to even more cruel to the refugees than Labor – in public it seemed a race to the bottom.
“I strongly doubt that refugee advocates made the slightest difference to the outcome of the last election. No doubt they criticised Labor before and during the campaign (although I personally don’t recall them receiving any significant attention), but seriously, how many voters moved from Labor to Liberal because of outrage at Labor’s treatment of asylum seekers?”
Then did Labor figures say “We’re dying in Western Sydney?” and Labor put such an effort into appealing to voters there? Also, personally speaking, I know recent immigrants who feel better when they (wrongly) criticise refugees as “queue-jumpers” etc. It wins votes for the Liberals votes and distracts the public conversation from the severe cuts that Tony Abbott is about to make right now.
“I presume that the debate you’re referring to is the second leader’s debate, which was held in Brisbane….”
It wasn’t just a one-off. It kept happening, repeatedly. Labor also campaigned poorly, with Mr Rudd leaving his big policy launch too late, but as long as the Libs were able to rely on refugee advocates to bring the conversation back to refugees, they were always going to win because they were avoiding scrutiiny of Lib policies. They are able to get recent immigrants to vote against their own interests. The Republicans in the US are brilliant at this.
“The East Timor analogy doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, sorry.”
I think it’s pretty straight forward. Doing the apparently wrong thing of running away can sometimes be the right thing. Applied to Australia, the apparently wrong thing of running away from debate on refugees and instead debating economic policy would have helped keep Tony Abbott out of office.
Cheers, G.
@Megan
Hi Megan
“I do agree with what Tim wrote. As I read your argument, refugee advocates helped get Abbott elected by being critical of the ALP’s refugee policy, even though that policy was shared by the LNP. Therefore, it was the criticism that changed the vote and not the policy.”
Well, the criticism stopped the ALP from getting its message out on other issues.
“For that to hold true, a fair percentage (say about 2%, given that the swing against the ALP was 3.6%) of voters changed their vote from ALP to LNP because refugee rights advocates criticised the ALP on refugee policy even though those voters were fully aware that the LNP shared the same policy.”
I’m not sure about the “fully aware” part. Voters who are swayed by the anti-refugee arguments seem to be prepared to vote against their own economic interests, in order to feel better about themselves, that they at least are not “queue-jumpers” like those awful people coming on boats.
“In that case it could be argued that rather than cunning LNP operatives it was in fact cruelly idiotic ALP operatives that brought about Rudd’s defeat. By your reasoning, the ALP could have won the election by silencing the refugee critics through going back to a less inhumane policy.”
Sorry, perhaps it’s a bit late but I don’t understand your argument. I am admitting, though I hate to do so, that appearing just as cruel as the Liberals are, to refugees, appears necessary to stop people like Tony Abbott getting into office.
“As with the defeat of Howard in 2007, my belief is that a major factor among others was humane treatment of refugees.”
As Pauline Hanson said, please explain. Perhaps you do in later posts below.
I agree with John Quiggin’s response to- guess who- Terje, a little earlier.
I think “Tribalism” is a good way of explaining politics in this stressed world, something fairly mindless, reactive, isolationist and an encouraged fear-driven retreat from engagement with life in the meaningful sense.
Am not going to deny the element of tribalism also residually exists withing the ALP, but that is a deeply ingrained and inscribed working class survival response from harsher times in the past, where unity could mean life or death.
Besides, why is it not right to recall the messages of the 1890’s, as to courage and resolution in the face of employer power? I proudly identify with older generations and their resistance, the foundation upon which I got a better chance at life than them. If I am going to belong I am happy to belong “here” although I agree that right wing populists should not be allowed to twist elements of working class culture involving identity, into racism, sexism, gay bashing or anti intellectualism.
@Crispin Bennett
Hi Crispin
“@geoff Is this really how you see these things, purely as a chess game between political idiot savants, with citizens as pieces?”
I hate to admit it, but the fact is that some people can be manipulated. Repeatedly. Against their own economic interests.
“Your vision would exclude this possibility by fiat: that democratic candidates and their supporters might get everything right, but still cannot attain power because the citizenry gets it wrong. If that’s really how it is, then we might as well eliminate democracy altogether, as passive subjects are more efficiently managed by a kind and intelligent uncle.”
It’s just that we have malicious and crafty “uncles” running things at the moment. I’m just pointing out that the good guys also have to be crafty to beat them. As in my Timorese example, sometimes it is necessary to not make a valiant stand. Or as Kenny Rogers said “you got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. Know when to walk away, know when to run”. (Country music is not a crime. Although perhaps it should be. ;-))
“Julian Burnside gets this right (“How we treat the vulnerable” in The Conversation [link just forces mod]). This is a test that Australian society at large has failed, thus far. I doubt that cunning leadership is best placed to make a fat lot of difference at this point.”
I really really REALLY want to agree. But we didn’t go for cunning “followership”. Through refugee advocacy the conversation stayed on refugees, the Liberals didn’t have to make their case for government – remember how they released a limited version of their policies in the last day or two or the campaign (or even not at all – I found it too ugly to watch) – and we now have Tony Abbott as the Prime Minister of this beautiful land – ie. a disaster.
Treating the Liberal and Labour policies on asylum seekers as equally bad is odd.
I really liked the Malaysian solution proposed by Labor. It essentially told people attempting to come directly to Australia that they were queue jumpers and that they would have to join the queue in Malaysia. And the good bit was that we would take 4 Malaysian refugees for each new one we sent them.
So the total amount of good in the world increases.
Of course this doesn’t address why there are so many people desperate to leave their homes and start a new life. We seriously need to fix this.
@Geoff
You argued that the criticism of cruelty to refugees (rather than the policy) helped the LNP defeat the ALP.
The ALP could have avoided the criticism by not having the cruel policy.
Therefore, my point is that – using that argument – refugee advocates’ criticism of the ALP’s adopting the ‘lurch to the right on refugees’ was not cunning on the part of LNP strategists but stupidity on the part of ALP strategists (assuming the goal was to win the election and not simply to lock Australia into a concentration camp system of refugee treatment, an assumption that is not necessarily valid).
The most obvious difficulty with this proposition is that Abbott is the PM. So there cannot be anything “necessary” about the ALP’s decision to be cruel to refugees, if the goal is to stop Abbott winning the election. It didn’t work, predictably.
The “please explain” is:
In the years before 2007 the Howard LNP government was heavily criticised for cruelty to refugees. In 2007 the ALP defeated the LNP (oppositions don’t generally win elections, governments lose them) on a few key issues, one of which was humane treatment of refugees.
The new ALP government initially kept to that commitment, then they did the internal coup thing and adopted – or attempted to adopt – a suite of policies that treated refugees more inhumanely to varying degrees.
Then they did the other coup thing in 2013 and Rudd implemented the most cruel and inhumane refugee policy of them all.
Then in September 2013 the ALP lost government, I say (as you appear to also say) that refugee policy played a major part in that loss.
@John Brookes
People trafficking, only this time by the state, and for PR rather than money. It’s unethical to violate one human’s rights to serve the advantage of others. That trade by implication, turns something non-convertible — the right to be free from arbitrary application of force, kidnapping and arrest — into a mere value in a ledger.
Human rights vanish in that calculus.
You should stop glossing the barbarity of the ALP. It’s over. Their nasty baton in their nasty political relay race has been passed to their rivals who have said thanks, we will use it to imprison claimants in Cambodia. That’s where your argument went, unsurprisingly.
@Megan
One might add, Megan, that if there’s one thing worse than bad people doing bad things, it’s apparently good people doing bad things, followed shortly thereafter by the forced conclusion that all people are bad and one must simply accept that.
Tony Abbott winning was not the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen would be for the whole polity to become debauched and defined by fear and hatred. That’s what the ALP did in a futile attempt to keep its snout in the trough and its rump positioned for the government benches, if not now, then next time. Everything principle of conduct was expendable and secondary to that.
PS: If refugee policy was a distraction, wasn’t that in large part because ALP supporters spent so much time attempting to defend it?
@Geoff: true though it is that people are often manipulable against their own interests (and have been quite deliberately crafted to be so by various forces, most saliently corporate propaganda), thinking about politics in that tired old way puts you on the horns of a dilemma. You play to win, and lose people who may have a sympatico picture of the good society, or you play fair, and lose the cattle. Counsel of despair, eh?
Except that, let’s face it, that game’s up. It’s run its course and no-one truly believes in its potential to create meaningful change. Labor hasn’t so much lost the progressives, as they’ve moved on and decided they don’t want to play any more. Even the cattle are sniffing the air.
Whether all this is a good thing or not has yet to play out. It depends in part on whether there turns out to be a stable alternative to the cynicism which has become the norm in contemporary liberal democracies.
Hi Megan
“You argued that the criticism of cruelty to refugees (rather than the policy) helped the LNP defeat the ALP. The ALP could have avoided the criticism by not having the cruel policy.”
Sorry I don’t argue that at all. I argue that (refugee advocates’) criticism of cruelty to refugees (rather than the policy) helped the Liberals defeat the ALP” because it allowed the Liberals to evade discussion of their own policies. Had the ALP not had cruel policies toward refugees, the Liberals would have played upon the fears of racist and ignorant people even more. As Kim Beazley recognised when the ALP suffered a 20 point drop in the polls.
If I may say so, the rest of your post is based on a different view of people to mine. I do think that Liberal strategists can count on refugee advocates winning elections for them, by getting angry about refugee issues rather than other issues which many of advocates would also feel passionately about.
I would also note that you haven’t responded to my argument that the Timorese retreat in 1999 from the Indonesians was necessary and yet resulted in many people dying. On a much lesser scale, and wanting to respect all those people and the terrible sacrifice made, I would yet again suggest that the ALP refugee policy was necessary and yet also resulted in a (much less) bad thing – Tony Abbott becoming PM.
I think I have to beg to differ on the rest. I would also say that I am active in refugee issues, now that the Liberals and the Murdoch press are conspiring to hide them. I believe that unlike the Labor Government, the Liberals are not doing anything behind the scenes to try to alleviate refugees’ suffering, but rather in statements like Mr Morrison’s “you will never settle in Australia” are trying to destroy refugees’ hope.
I still maintain though, that the ALP has been trying to “keep up” with the Liberals (in a most dreadful sense) rather than actively promoting racism and ignorance, because the ALP does have positive policies to offer Australians whereas the Liberals just want to pillage and plunder the Treasury.
Thanks for engaging and your informative posts.
@Fran Barlow
Really well put and powerful point if I may say so. Much to think about.
@Megan
A bit circular, I would suggest. ALP supporters had to spend so much time defending it, because refugee advocates … you get the idea.
@Crispin Bennett
So true Geoff, we definitely need an alternative to the present cynicism. It is so soul-destroying, for both individuals and our society (not to mention the physical and mental effects on refugees in Australian concentration camps).
@Fran Barlow
But what then Fran? Lets say we don’t try and stop asylum seekers reaching Australia. And in order to have them not die at sea, we simply allow them to fly here. And to be fair to persecuted people without money, we should pay their air fares.
Given the current state of many countries, we’d be totally flooded, as would Europe and North America. Maybe you think we should accept that? I’m in favour of us taking more refugees. But definitely not as many as would come if we threw open the doors.
I have no idea how to solve the problem. And its easy to rail against the viciousness of our asylum seeker policy. But have you got a humane solution?
@geoff
No, you didn’t get the point.
It wouldn’t be circular at all if ALP supporters had been straightforward about the policy:
“It’s cruel and inhumane and it has to be this way because Australians want us to be cruel and inhumane and they also want NDIS and Gonski and NBN. You can’t have one without taking the lot, deal with it.”
Although on reflection that pretty much was the ALP supporters’ pro-ALP argument leading into the 2013 election.
That didn’t really work out so well as an election strategy I would suggest.
I don’t really care, I have made my views on the ALP clear many times before. If they wish to drive themselves into oblivion I’ll happily wave them off.
@John Brookes
It isn’t very complicated at all.
When people apply for refugee status we assess that claim in a fair, equitable, transparent and just way within our legal system including avenues for appeals and ‘natural justice’. This applies whether for the tiny amount who seek asylum having arrived by sea or the huge amount arriving by air.
Obviously they need to be accommodated, fed and cared for, if necessary, while we carry out that process.
Those who are refugees will be treated accordingly and those who fail to make out a claim would be deported.
I can’t understand why that is so complicated that it requires an entire concentration camp complex spreading from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific incorporating privatised unlicensed ‘security’ guards bashing an asylum seeker to death.
And especially why it needs an entire army of online apologists to try to make me think it’s OK and normal.
@geoff
I think you make a valid point in that there was an attempt by Rudd to make the issue of refugees go away. Initially that meant dismantling Howards camps. What upset that was the ascendecy of Abbott, Rudd expected to deal with Turnball and thought there would be some bipartisanship. Abbott had outstanding success at creating an atmosphere of crisis. He was helped by the failure of various policy initives and the ALP coup. In end Abbott’s rhetoric took on a life of its own leading to Rudds second attempt at neutralisation which came to late, was immoral and bound to fail. My 2 cents worth.
@John Brookes
That has nothing to do with the rationale for “stopping the boats”. It’s cant designed to forge an alliance that can politically engage open reactionaries and those who know they are crossing a huge ethical rubicon but want to keep voting ALP anyway. The reality is that if there were 95% mortality the regime wouldn’t bother having a policy different from that of NZ.
Current policy was adopted because mortality was too low (about 5%), notwithstanding the attempts of successive regimes to raise it.
I will discuss alternatives below.
The point of the Refugee Convention is to provide relief to those who seek protection from signatories. That is the limit of its humanitarian offer. It makes no distinction in its choice based on wealth.
One may argue — I certainly do — that the wealthy parts of the world ought to do a great deal more to relieve poverty in situas this would foreclose displacement on a far wider scale, but that is a separate question from the more narrow one here.
IMO those countries who pay lip service to the convention ought to bind themselves to sponsor resettlement based on their own GDP, domestic population size and the size of the world asylum seeker numbers and so forth. They could host or sponsor with financial support for placement or some combination depending on circumstance. Provided they met quota, they could choose the regions from which they drew. It would be open to them to consult with non-signatories to offer sponsored places in third countries for non-coercive placement. They might like to package this with honouring their commitments to MDG, which obligations most countries have as yet failed to honour.
Countries like Australia could become processing hubs, assessing and qualifying applicants in major aggregation points — such as Indonesia. In some cases, those there might be qualified for placement under skills-driven rather than humanitarian programs. Again, this would count as “aid”. I’ve done some calculations and under my system Australia might be responsible directly for something like 300,000 per annum all up, though not necessarily settling them all or mostly here. Bear in mind that non-coercive 3rd country placement and skills/business migration would alter the net migration here.
See above.
@Fran Barlow
“One may argue — I certainly do — that the wealthy parts of the world ought to do a great deal more to relieve poverty in situas this would foreclose displacement on a far wider scale,” – Fran
If the West stopped fighting wars where it has no business fighting wars, stopped supplying military aid to proxies, stopped supporting dictators and stopped pushing arms with its arms trade this would go a long way to reducing refugee numbers.
The world is over-populated too. Educating and empowering women does much more to reduce over-reproduction than does war. It’s a lot more cost effective and humane too.
However, a person like me can have all the opinions he likes. So can everyone who blogs here. Opinions are largely forceless in our system. The results we are getting are the inevitable result of the system we have chosen.
That’s already what happens in most cases. The relatively smaller number of boat arrivals are highlighted in order to stoke fear and hatred. If the boat arrivals were of white Europeans or Americans, this manipulation would obviously fail, which is how we can be certain that racism, not practical policy constraints, is at the root of all this.
Arrival numbers (both informal migration and ASs) are larger in Europe and the US. By our standards they are ‘flooded’. So far (and this could easily change) they have managed to resist any temptation to set up concentration camps.
This does make for policy challenges. They’re the costs of humanity, take them or leave them. But you can’t leave them and still pretend to be humane.
The Pacific camps can only be considered even to make the list of candidate solutions if you consider the Pacific internees nonhuman. There’s a great deal of government and media effort exerted to maintain the two fictions (that it’s a solution–which can only be maintained by forgetting what the problem is–and that the internees aren’t fully human–the efforts of a vastly expensive and extra-democratic militaristic secrecy regime).
@Megan
“… an entire army of online apologists to try to make me think it’s OK and normal”.
Ouch.