The impact of the election on current next steps

Well, my life has changed. With Abbott in the driving seat, Australia is a different place to the one I have been ruminating about for the last few years. Here is a summation of some realities I am going to have to come to terms with, as the 'next three year' period commences:

Royalism vs republicanism

My reason for spending a great deal of time setting up the BloggerMe website is that I had a picture in my mind of regular unabated and progressive movement towards Australia becoming a republic. Most of my friends were very sceptical about the 2020 Summit, and saw it as a Rudd extravaganza; an event that would have little or no practical outcome. I was aware of its deficiencies but saw it as part of an inevitable long term progression, towards the 'maturation of the nation'.

For me, the political/social/historical reasons for the maintenance of the British monarchy in Australia had long since passed, and since the 80s when the legal ties between the States and the British parliament had been repealed, there were serious complexities and incongruities in the legal functioning of the Constitution of the Commonwealth that needed to be resolved.

The replacement as PM of the royalist Howard with the pragmatic Rudd, I saw as a natural progression towards my pictured goal.

And the replacement of Brendan Nelson with Malcolm Turnbull further added to my idea of 'inevitable progress'.

Racism vs Indigenous rights

I also had in my mind the normalisation of and improvement generally in understanding of indigenous rights. I had in my mind Keating's Redfern declaration, the progressive thinking of a Liberal Party ex-prime minister Fraser (now a proper liberal), the commitment of Rudd to the statement of "sorry", which Howard had always said he would not do, and the election of the progressive Malcolm Turnbull, as leader of the Liberal Party.

Of course there were real anomalies there that I wasn’t taking into account.

Rudd pulled off the "I'm sorry" statement, but there were few progressive developments running parallel to it that gave one any sense of any real reparations, and I have always said, throughout my life, that you can't have one without the other.

For those countries whose past has in it the appropriation of land and genocide and crimes against humanity (and there are many of those, Australia is just one of many), you can say you're sorry all you like, but unless the declaration is coupled with real changes; a proper change to the 'quality of life' and 'human dignity', a real change to the numbers in 'imprisonment' and 'deaths in custody', a proper recognition of association with 'place', a proper change to the concept of 'ownership', a proper recognition of serious 'acts of genocide' in the past and some form of compensation for 'crimes against humanity', they are simply words on a bit of paper. Important words, but unless the words are just the first step in a real process of some form of reparation, just words, nonetheless.

So I was giving the ALP far too much leeway to say nice words but to fail to deliver.

And whilst the Gillard government was succeeding, on a number of important fronts, to make some real inroads, such as the strength of the Australian economy during GFC, the re-writing of the employment contract after the Howard Work Choices debacle, the introduction of  the NBN, the introduction of socially progressive policy in health/education/aging/disability, the introduction of some tools to modify Australia's contribution to global warming, they were failing on a number of serious matters, that I would never have expected someone like myself to accept.

The intervention

The first clear failure was their seeming inability to understand or do anything about the Intervention.

Howard had introduced the Intervention, in 2007, an open attack on human rights (a failure to respect those as detailed in the UN Charter), in a cynical manoeuvre, similar to the 'Children Overboard' fiasco, an attempt to shift the blame for the failures in his government to take action on 'quality of life', 'third world life expectancy', and 'imprisonment' issues of indigenous populations.

The election was coming in 2007. His party was under serious strife in the polls and he was a smart and ruthless player.

He associated the 'quality of life' issues with special needs of indigenous populations, best described by their misuse of alcohol and the associated rape of minors.

Howard's Racism

For me this was just racism; a glib portrayal of a separate race of people whose "fragile bodies and simple minds (see Note below) are incapable of dealing with the realities of modern life".

For me, that concept was completely false and if you read a bit of history that concept had been promoted by a colonial ruling class from the beginning, had been around since the first days of the colony; and had been used to justify enormous crimes against humanity, from the beginning of settlement right up until very recently, with Aboriginal voting rights coming in 1967 and the removal of children only finding some closure in the 1970s.

Howard's shipping in of armies into the north in 2007 to modify the intake of alcohol and protect the children from "rampant sexual abuse", to control personal life in Aboriginal communities in the north, to control their access to their own money and their personal right to purchase, was a throw back to the past. It was going back to controlling the water holes, using aboriginal labour and paying for it with bread and bickies, and bringing back the concept of removal of children. But Howard's act was cynical, now more directed at the Labor Party and south-eastern voters, who have always been sold simple characterisations of social complexities; to move focus away from his own failure to deliver in the south and replace the real dissatisfaction of voters in Howard in the south, with a bit of racism in the north.

ALP's acceptance of Intervention, also racist

This tactic failed and Howard got booted out, and well-done the electorate. But instead of taking Howard on, and showing him up for the racist that he was, his abuse of human rights in a cynical attempt to try to influence the election, the ALP appeared to take the bait, hook line and sinker, and, when they got into power in 2007, they continued the Interventionist policy, as if Howard had had proper intentions and had gotten the policy framework right from the outset. This put them into a world that has a clear link back to the colonialism of the past and directly called into question the "I'm sorry" public routines that had given Rudd the moral highground.

UN right to asylum vs illegal

The other clear failure was the boat people. Neither Rudd nor Gillard nor any of their ministers seemed to be able to take a progressive stance on Australia's UN responsibility to offer asylum to a proper share of the huge populations on the move around the globe.

Illegal vs unlawful

For me, both Rudd and Gillard knew that it was not illegal to seek asylum, and that Australia had clear responsibilities under the UN Convention. Such matters are just matters of fact, clearly dealt with in Australian legislation and properly explained in the associated government papers on the Convention and the key Act.

If any MP continued with illegality claims, (s)he did so with the full knowledge of his/her lie, and did it to seek influence over an ignorant audience for political gain. Whenever any MP did that, they needed to be taken on, and told the legal realities, and brought into line. Rudd, Gillard and relevant ministers seemed to lack the will or the guts to take them on.

Comparatively minor

And they knew that, because of our isolation, the numbers coming to us seeking asylum were reasonably light (even with the big increases, which everyone saw as policy-failures) when compared to other countries, including poor third world countries with few resources to throw at the problem. Where our numbers were in the thousands and then the tens of thousands, other poor countries were copping hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions.

Asylum not true?

And they knew that almost all asylum seekers, given proper access to the courts and able to be properly assessed, actually turn out to be asylum seekers, despite continual effort, by people who should know better, to portray them as selfish economic migrants, seeking to take jobs away from the locals.

Lack of leadership

Rudd, Gillard, Evans, Burke, etc all seemed unwilling to become political 'leaders', to systematically explain to an ignorant audience the nature of asylum and the character of Australia's responsibilities, and the realities we face on the ground across the world, for fear of being humiliated by the media pundits looking for any shit that will stick, to make them look incapable of protecting Australia from the coming hordes (it reminded me of the domino theories of the 60s that had hordes streaming in from the north).

So, Labor policy changes were prepared with nasty, negative Liberal MPs in mind, rather than a proper long standing signed UN Convention, and tried to tell an ignorant audience what they wanted to hear. By doing so they dragged Australian political life into the gutter.

Progressive future or am I deluding myself?

These were my ideas, throughout the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd days. But, with all this attitude, I still had a problem in understanding my own reality.

Of course, on reflection, now that they are gone, I realise that these failures said something quite real about the nature of the governments under Rudd/Gillard/Rudd and it seems obvious, now, that I should have been more realistic as to what that meant for my dreams of progressive change.

And on the conservatives' side, the progressive leader Turnbull only lasted a year. It is now obvious, that, although Abbott only won by one vote (so there must be quite a few progressives in the Liberal Party) there was no way back for the progressives.

Abbott to me was a royalist imbecile, whose time had come. A leftover from the past. I always saw him as a temporary fix; someone who had nothing to offer, someone who couldn’t care less about anything but his own transformation into high office, which he assumed was rightfully his, and which I assumed he was incapable of holding.

For me, Abbott was someone who would be replaced when he had done the job of trashing every initiative taken by Gillard, refusing to support any progressive idea, and painting all the enormous successes of the strong economy (which no other 1^st world economy had been able to achieve) as an unnecessary fiscal deficit which Labor was setting up for future generations and future non-Labor governments to clean up. I knew it was a lie but I dealt with by projecting my own analysis on the situation.

This meant that while I was prepared to live with Labor's failures, and waited patiently for changes that never came, the lack of policy on Abbott's part and his seeming inability to offer anything but negativity, and his stupid mistakes and gaffes and lack of political rigour caused me to write him off as a potential leader capable of taking over the reins of power. I always pictured someone like Turnbull stepping on to the scene at a future date to again take the nation forward. I could not have been further from the reality of the game being played out.

It is now obvious that Abbott will be the next prime minister and that he will lead in his own way, and will be have as much prospect as any other leader, who comes into the job with weaknesses and learns on the job. And, on governments of the past, we will have to surmise that he will have two terms in which to make serious mistakes, and set us back, or learn to become a fine political leader, worthy of respect.

Issues arising

My quiet confidence in the need for and likelihood of progressive change needs now to be seriously revised; I don’t know what all the answers are, but I have a pretty good handle on the issues arising:

The NBN

For me, as a small business operator, the NBN is one of the key issues arising from Tony Abbott being elected as Australia's next prime minister. The NBN is fundamental to the future of life in Australia. It's a bit like electricity at the beginning of the 20^th century. The NBN project introduced by Labor was like the projects that began in the 1930s to get electricity into every household in the country. So, since it has all happened before, we know quite a lot about what is going to happen.

But I have to be realistic.

Murdoch is largely responsible for Abbott's success yesterday.

He's not responsible for Labor's lack of unity and the undermining from within which is largely the reason why Labor was so on the nose in the electorate.

But Murdoch was responsible for any initiative to unify the ALP being largely ignored by the MSM and for Abbott being given such an easy ride without any significant analysis or interrogation by journalists working in the MSM. And with virtually no policies, and no competence to explain any policy, and no work done to plan or cost any policy initiatives, Abbott might also have been on the nose, if Murdoch had not been there to completely change the focus in the run up to the election.

Murdoch supported Abbott because of Labor's success with the NBN.

Murdoch could see the likely impact of the NBN on his newspapers and on Foxtel.

Murdoch needs more time to finalise a broad plan to take his entire empire into the future. He needs this time to make significant changes while still able to make considerable profit.

And Abbott will have to deliver.

Turnbull understands the impact of the NBN on Australia. While Abbott is ignorant of these matters, and has little idea of the huge disservice he is doing to families and to small business, Abbott has continually sidelined Turnbull and forced him into line, by making Turnbull the relevant minister. Turnbull's reading of the policy statement after it was published is a clear indicator as to how much impact Turnbull can have on his portfolio.

Murdoch's requirement for quid pro quo means we can write off the prospect of progressive changes in NBN for at least two terms. Murdoch needs as little progress in this domain as can possibly be viable.

So there is a serious sense in which the claim by Abbott that he will seek to rule for all Australians is rubbish.

As far as NBN is concerned, Abbott is ruling for one man, a man whose interests are best defined as those of an international plutocrat with no ethical concerns, capable of any action that is in his interests to perform, regardless of the laws of the particular country in which he finds himself, and a man who is not even an Australian. An international billionaire plutocrat who is a citizen of another country is the last person a voter, an association, an MP, a Senator, a government department can expect to have any impact or influence over. He is untouchable and a law unto himself.

Generational change in the ALP

This abandonment of the NBN is a serious price for ordinary voters, and especially small business, to pay for Labor's political mistake. So we want Rudd's personal contribution to political instability recognised openly in the party; we want Rudd gone, out of parliament, in the same way that Gillard so gracefully achieved, without any need for involvement of others. And if he won't leave parliament, we want him chucked out of the ALP, to sit on the cross benches, so that that instability can never happen again. It seems a harsh thing to do to a man who has served the party twice as prime minister but anything less would continue to undermine true generational change, so necessary at this point within the ALP.

Where should Rudd go?

For me, the best place for Rudd to go is the UN or China. There, he would be capable of significant contribution to Australia's interests as a nation, in a way that he could not if he was here, trying to find a place for himself in Australia. He would enjoy it, and do well.

This appointment can only come from Abbott. This doesn’t cost the country, as those positions need to be filled in any case. It's in Abbott's own interests as a new leader for there to be a real break with the past, and he too would benefit from true generational change within the Opposition. And there are significant traditions that Abbott can call upon, to justify such an appointment. So, if Abbott is serious about ruling for all Australians, that is one thing that he can get on to straight away.

Abbott & real change

On asylum seekers, Tony Abbott, with no policies of his own, simply made the same mistakes as Labor but with a more shrill tone, in an attempt to appear tougher, again playing to a distressed and ignorant audience.

And he made a few stupid gaffes along the way.

Whether Abbott can bring about real change, in the next two terms, and move Australia towards becoming a more humane society, one capable of removing imprisonment from the agenda, one capable of understanding our rights and responsibilities under the UN Charter, one capable of welcoming a realistic reasonable quota (based on the realities across the world) of real asylum seekers with open arms and a true wish for integration into the community, only time will tell.

You've got to assume that he is incapable of such change, on past statements, and past performance, but the realities of office have yet to hit home, and, since he has no policies, it is impossible to say at this point.

Climate change - Abbott is a sceptic

There are some real dangers for Australia in having Abbott at the helm.

One thing we don't need at this point is to go back to the beginning on climate change. There have been some minor developments and some real progress, to date. These can be easily squandered if change is introduced without thought in the interests of the polluters.

It will be difficult for Abbott not to squander them because of the use he made of this issue in the one liners he used as a substitute for real policy development. There will be interests crying out from all sides in an attempt to influence him on this matter.

Our only hope is that Abbott is capable of real transformation to take himself above these interests and rule in the interests of the nation.

He has made it pretty clear he is a climate change sceptic. Just like the issue of abortion when he was Health Minister, it is important that he rules without reference to his personal scepticism (and that held by interested MPs on his team) but in accordance with science and the key scientists advising the government.

Abbott supported the referendum (but not really)

One issue that is important to BloggerMe is the Referendum to introduce Australia's local government layer into the Constitution.

We have been watching with interest

• the crisis in the High Court,
• Labor's initiation of the change to overcome the crisis,
• their strategic funding to give the key local government association the major role in selling the referendum to the electorate, and
• then their sidelining it and dropping it altogether as their internal machinations engulfed them, yet again.

We watched with interest as Abbott initially agreed to a bi-partisan approach, giving public support to the Referendum, and then watched him go cold on the idea, and then begin to undermine his own support with new statements telling people to act according to conscience.

We assume that this Referendum will not see the light of day, under an Abbott government.

There are real dangers in letting this problem in the High Court go unresolved.

The key problem is to allow States to dominate the funding of local government by the federal parliament, leading to increased power and influence by the State, with no pragmatic reason or benefit arising from their involvement. It is not in the interests of the federal government or local government for the state government to control this relationship. We are the rare case of having a real interest in the outcome whilst not being a local government body.