I’ve been attending Labor’s National Conference (more on this later), as an observer, mainly because I spoke at a “Fringe Conference” event on the topic of federalism. Amazingly, around 40 people turned out at breakfast time to hear me and Bob McMullen on this exciting topic.

A more substantive cause for surprise is that this is an issue (the only one I can think of – maybe others will suggest examples) where the major parties have swapped positions in the last 30 years. When the Whitlam government was elected in 1972, the view that the states were obsolete anachronisms and the Senate a collection of “unrepresentative swill” was pretty much unchallenged among Labor supporters, and this was even more true after 1975. Yet now it’s the Howard government that wants to bring the states entirely under the heel of the Commonwealth and to render the Senate a rubber-stamp.

In part, this is the effect of elections that have produced long-lived Labor State governments and an even longer-lived Liberal Federal government. If the position were reversed, I imagine old views would reassert themselves. But, on the Labor side at least, the change goes much deeper than election outcomes. As Labor has been forced to defend the achievements of the past against neoliberal attacks, the benefits of the checks and balances provided by democratically elected upper houses and a federal system have been more deeply appreciated. And the fact that the states (and also local government) are the natural providers of the services central to a social democracy has become more and more evident.

If Labor wins (and it’s notable that no-one I’ve met here is counting their chickens on this – even the formulaic references to a Rudd Labor government are matched with negative references to what a re-elected Howard would do), there’s a real chance to fix at least some of the overlap and duplication that plague our system at present, and to make talk about co-operative federalism correspond more closely to reality.

The period since Kevin Rudd became Labor leader reminds me somewhat of the phoney war in the early stages of World War II. The government has relied mostly on attacks over trivia (the dispute over the exact circumstances in which Rudd’s family was evicted from their home, the dinner with Brian Burke, the Anzac day predawn dawn service and so on) most of which have had little impact, and some of which have backfired.

There have been some substantive issues of disagreement, including the broadband plan, the Iraq war and Kyoto, but the government’s position on all these issues is one of disarray. They have no idea how we’ll get a proper broadband rollout, how to extricate us from Iraq or how to do anything substantive about climate change while still refusing to sign Kyoto. Particularly on the second and third of these issues, they’re happened by the fact that much of their activist base, which is by now taking its views directly from US Republicans, still clings to delusional beliefs that victory in Iraq/demolition of the global warming conspiracy is just around the corner.

With the release of Labor’s IR policy we’ll presumably see some real action. This is an issue Labor has to get right and one where the government strongly believes in the rightness of its own position. They’ve got some impressive employment numbers to back them up, but they haven’t managed to get over the fact that their policies are centrally based on “managements’ right to manage” which, from the perspective of the average employee looks more like “bosses’ right to be bossy”. Nor have they given any explanation as to how we are going to avoid the situation that has emerged in the US, where incomes at the top have soared while wages for many workers have been stagnant for decades.

Obviously, the government will be hoping for conflict between Labor and the unions over the concessions to business in Rudd’s policy, most obviously the requirement for secret ballots for strikes. I doubt that we’ll see much of this. It must be obvious to all that another couple of terms of Howard or Costello government could break the union movement once and for all. Now that Rudd’s policy is out there, the unions have no real alternative but to support it.

One question on the latest round in the Burke saga. If Rudd were not in the firing line, does anyone think that Howard would have encouraged/forced Ian Campbell to resign?

Looking at the stories of pervasive corruption coming out of the Burke inquiry in WA, a point I haven’t seen noted is that Federal Labor dodged a bullet by dumping Kim Beazley just as the scandal was breaking. Beazley was no doubt telling the truth when he said he’d never spoken with Burke about the latter’s business interests. Still, given is role in WA Labor, he could scarcely have been unaware that Burke was in a position to influence ALP preselections, and that Burke was using that power for his own personal enrichment. That might not have been a crime, but it was obviously damaging to the Labor party. And given the damage Burke had already caused, having such a person as a friend was an indication of judgement so poor as to cast doubt on Beazley’s capacity for high office.

Sticking with state issues, I can’t recall such a deplorable choice as that being faced by the voters of NSW on May 24. If ever a Labor party could do with a spell in opposition to sort itself out, the NSW branch is that party. Iemma seems decent enough, but thoroughly mediocre, Carr made a dreadful mess of things but profited handsomely out of it, and the ministerial team seems On the other hand, thinking over the string of mediocrities, sharpers and no-hopers who’ve led the NSW Liberals since the corrupt but competent Robin Askin departed the scene, I can’t thing of one who’s less appealing than Peter Debnam.

By contrast with these states and with the systematic corruption of the Federal government (the fact that no-one in government can be charged with anything over the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars to Saddam Hussein indicates a situation far worse than if a single minister or public servant had acted corruptly), the problems faced by the other Labor state governments seem pretty minor. Still, I nearly spat out my morning coffee when I read that Peter Beattie was canvassing yet another canal project, reviving and expanded the Bradfield scheme. I can only hope this is some sort of diversionary tactic.

Update Not as clean a dodge as all that, as it emerges that Rudd met Burke several times. The factional system that gives power to people like Burke is a disaster for Labor. More generally, the decay of mass political parties is a big problem for Australia.

Seeing a link to a story headed Cheney brings out the hate in peaceniks I thought it would be the usual stuff from one of the increasingly desperate pro-war pundits at the Oz. But this piece purports to be a news story.

The actual events detailed in the story don’t do much to justify the headline or the similarly hyperbolic opening paras. A small group of protesters (about 350) marched down George Street despite not receiving police permission. Scuffles broke out and ten people were arrested and charged when protesters tried to break through police lines. No injuries were reported on either side. In other words, a run-of-the-mill minor demo just like hundreds of others we have seen.

Although the Oz has been increasingly detached from reality lately (its editorial the other day referred to Howard’s triumph over Rudd in the Obama stoush, and it has long since lost the plot on global warming) it has generally made at least some attempt to adhere to the idea that news and opinion are supposed to be separate. Obviously, that particular shark has now been jumped.

Peter Costello makes the plausible point that, if the charges against David Hicks are true, he could have killed Australian soldiers. But the same story in the SMH goes on to say

Australia has steadfastly refused to ask for Hicks to be released from Guantanamo because he could not be tried for his alleged crimes in Australia.

How can this be true? Under the Australian Criminal Code,

“A person commits an offence, called treason, if the person:

….
(e) engages in conduct that assists by any means whatever, with intent to assist, an enemy:
(i) at war with the Commonwealth, whether or not the existence of a state of war has been declared; and
(ii) specified by Proclamation made for the purpose of this paragraph to be an enemy at war with the Commonwealth; or
(f) engages in conduct that assists by any means whatever, with intent to assist:
(i) another country; or
(ii) an organisation;
that is engaged in armed hostilities against the Australian Defence Force; or

I can’t see how the alleged crimes for which Hicks is to be tried in the US are not covered by this crime (note, by contrast, that it is not necessarily a crime for an Australian to fight against the US, which explains the constantly shifting charges brought against Hicks there).

This has been tightened up a bit since 2001, when the relevant section of the Crimes Act read

(d) assists by any means whatever, with intent to assist, an enemy:

(i) at war with the Commonwealth, whether or not the existence of a state of war has been declared; and

(ii) specified by proclamation made for the purpose of this paragraph to be an enemy at war with the Commonwealth;

….

(f) forms an intention to do any act referred to in a preceding paragraph and manifests that intention by an overt act;

but it seems clear that if Hicks agreed to fight with the Taliban against a Coalition including Australia, as claimed in the charges against him, he’s guilty of treason.

The only meaning I can impute to the government’s position is that Hicks could not be convicted of treason because the evidence the American prosecutors plan to use (confessions extracted under torture, hearsay and so on) would be thrown out of an Australian court.

I was thinking yesterday about a column for the Fin, on the subject of personal relationships between Australian PMs and overseas leaders (prime examples being Keating-Suharto and Howard-Bush) and arguing that such relationships weren’t in our long-term interest since they create a risk of conflict with the domestic opponents of the leaders concerned, who may themselves be in power in the future.

Somehow I suspect that, by the time my column runs on Thursday, that idea will look rather old-hat.

Driving in Brisbane the other day, I noticed an ad for domain.com.au, claiming their website was so easy anyone could use it. This was illustrated by a picture of George W. Bush, looking mystified by a laptop.

It’s striking that the advertisers thought no potential customers (or not enough to matter) would be put off by the assumption that the leader of the free world is a byword for stupidity.* This in turn raises the question of why the Australian government remains so supinely obedient to this lame duck, over Iraq, Kyoto, the Hicks case and so on.

* Strictly speaking, Bush isn’t stupid. He’s shown himself to be quite sharp in the pursuit of his own short term interests and those of his backers. But he’s ignorant, narrow-minded, intellectually lazy and unwilling to learn from experience, a combination that produces reliably stupid policy decisions.