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Greg Barns raises the prospect that liberal Liberals might cross the floor to block illiberal government legislation in the Senate. This will take one government senator if the rest of the Senate is opposed, or two if the government can line up an additional vote, say from Family First. As Barns observed, this happened a couple of times under Fraser

And during the 1980s, when the Liberal Party was in opposition, it was liberals such as Ian Macphee, Peter Baume and Fred Chaney who curtailed the impact of the Liberal Party’s social conservatives on matters such as immigration and women’s rights.

Of course Macphee lost preselection and Baume and Chaney were marginalised. But, as Dave Ricardo pointed out in recent comments, if you want to look at what’s happened to the 1980s liberal wing of the Liberal party, you need only look at its remaining representative in Parliament – Philip Ruddock.

As Mamdouh Habib returns from Guantanamo Bay, released without charge after three years, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock is suggesting that the government may seek to stop him selling his story, using legislation that prevents people gaining income from the proceeds of crime.

Contrary to some other commentators, I hope Habib sells his story and that the government makes good on its threat of legal action. I’d be very interested to see what information the government has on this man, whom they have effectively labelled a terrorist, and left to rot, first in Egyptian torture chambers and then in Guantanamo Bay. If they can show, even on the balance of probabilities, that Habib is a terrorist, then he shouldn’t get any money from media organisations, though he should still be free to tell his side of the story without payment.

And now that the issue has been raised, the heat is on the government. If they don’t act, it can reasonably be inferred that it’s because they couldn’t win, and given his statements on this and previous occasions, Ruddock should resign[1].

fn1. Fat chance, I know. But the presence of Ruddock and others like him is the main reason I’ll never be reconciled to this government, no matter how lame the opposition.

I don’t think the Australian media has much to be proud of in the way it’s treated Mark Latham, over his entire period as Labor leader and particularly over the past few weeks. When he was new and exciting, he got fairly uncritical reporting and was built up further. Then, inevitably, he was torn down and, after the election loss, subjected to quite unfair criticism. This is the nature of the way media treats celebrities, including rapidly-rising politicians, and there’s probably nothing much that can be down about it, but it’s still depressing. And, of course, the Labor Party itself didn’t behave too well. Latham made some significant tactical mistakes, particularly regarding the way the Tasmanian forests issues were handled, and he had same bad luck, but he still performed better as leader, in my view than anyone Labor has had since 1996, and arguably since 1993.

Meanwhile, the view that Kim Beazley must lead again is being presented as irresistible by all the papers. One striking thing is that a lot of them refer to opinion polls showing that Beazley is the popular choice, but none of the polls I’ve seen (survey-based or write in) give him more than 35 per cent support. Both the Age and SMH have Internet polls running, and in both cases the combined vote for Rudd and Gillard exceeds that for Beazley. Given that most voters have already made up their minds about Beazley, this is not very promising.

Still, it looks as if we’re going to get him back again, and I’ll just have to hope he outperforms my expectations.

fn1. Keating did a great job demolishing Hewson, but let this narrow victory go to his head, and his second term was a disaster for Labor.

Following a lead from Bill Gardner I’ve been reading >The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects our Health and Longeivityby Michael Marmot[1]. The core of Marmot’s book, which is fascinating in itself is his empirical work showing that, as you move up any kind of hierarchy (Marmot looked at British civil servants) your health status improves. I’ve done a little bit of work myself relating to the links between health, education and life expectancy at the national level, and Marmot’s micro findings fit very neatly with mine.

What’s even more interesting though (to me and to Bill, I think) is the general idea of autonomy as a source of good health[2]. He debunks, for example, the long-discredited, but still widely-believed notion of executive stress and shows that the more control you have over your work environment and your life in general, the less likely you are to suffer the classic stress-related illnesses, such as heart disease.

It seems to me that autonomy, or something like it, is at the root of many of the concerns commonly seen as part of notions like freedom, security and democratic participation. I’m still struggling with this, but reading Marmot has crystallised some thoughts I’ve had for a long time. I’ve put some thoughts over the page – comments appreciated.
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There’s been a lot of interest in oil lately, so I’m reposting a piece I posted last year (here and on Crooked Timber if you want to check the comments from last time). Also of possible interest is this older piece on whether the Iraq war was all about oil ? And here’s a piece about the idea that America has a crucial concern in making sure that oil is priced in dollars, not euros.
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As part of the fundraising appeal for the tsunami, I offered to write sincere praise for John Howard, at a rate of 100 words for each $50 pledge. The offer was taken up by commenter 2dogs, who generously gave $50. As I plan to try this shameless stunt again, I’m going to do the easiest 100 words first, focusing on the last few weeks. If you want to see praise for Howard on some other topics, wait for the next fundraiser when the offer will be reopened (or until he does something I regard as praiseworthy enough for a post). In the non-adversarial spirit of the exercise, I’ve closed this post to comments, but if you have something to say on the topic, you can comment here. With those preliminaries out of the way, here’s my 100 words.

Howard’s response to the tragic tsunami disaster has been virtually faultless. He was the first national leader to offer significant financial assistance and the size of the offer, coming from a small country like Australia, helped to shame bigger countries into offering more. The decision to focus our aid efforts on Indonesia was the right one, both in terms of need, and of our national interest. At times like this, we see John Howard at his best. His reactions to such disasters are pretty much those of the average Australian and, nine times out of ten, that’s a good thing.

It’s back to another round of Labor leadership speculation, and, inevitably, the first name pulled out of the bag is that of Kim Beazley. I’ve made all the usual arguments against him too often to repeat them, but there’s a new one that I think is relevant.

On current indications (these could change of course, but they’re what we have to go on), Labor is unlikely to win in 2007, so a successful appointment as leader would need to serve two terms in Opposition before becoming PM. Presumably, the party would want at least the option of two full terms from their leader in these circumstances. So, we’re looking at electing someone who (if successful) might still be leading the party past 2015. Beazley is 56 now, and not, at least in my perception, a young 56. Leaving aside the fact that (IIRC) Labor still has compulsory retirement at 65, can anyone see him as a credible leader for the next ten years and beyond?

Of course, that’s his whole attraction for quite a few of his backers. He’s a safe choice, meaning that he’s pretty much guaranteed to lose and go quietly after the next election, allowing a comfortable ride for [insert preferred name here].

It might be objected that John Howard was the same age when the Libs elected him leader, and that turned out well for them. But the electoral position was much more favorable and, after the demise of Hewson and the failure of the Downer-Costello dream team, there was no real alternative. In any case, Howard is, and always has been, a much more substantial figure than Beazley in all but the most literal of senses.

Labor isn’t short of options. I favored Rudd last time around, and I think he’s probably the right choice this time. But I’d also be happy with Gillard, and there are a string of reasonably able candidates who might turn out well, either in the long-term or to hold things together while the party recovers from the last election. Finally, although it’s looking unlikely that Latham can hang on, I don’t think he’s done a bad job in the circumstances, and if he does manage to recover in both health and political terms, I’d be glad of it.