The refugee swap deal with Malaysia has been sealed, and for the life of me I cannot see what this achieves. In what way was this necessary? It's as if the Government has engaged this process purely so they can win the semantic argument. The refugees are not 'boat people' 'because we've swapped them for people who will presumably arrive by plane. It's not a return to the Pacific solution because Malaysia is not in the Pacific Ocean, and it's not a solution because it's a one off. Basically, because 'The Indian Ocean One-Off Swap Thing' does not roll off the tongue, and is too long for headlines, it is thought that it will not take on the ignominy of the more pithy Howard-era policy title.
But really what is the point of winning the semantics game? It does provide your ministers with answers for hard questions, but those answers immediately make it sound like the minister in question is either dodgy or simple. Sure, a dodgy answer is better than a near soundless groan followed by mild infrequent drooling on Chris Uhlmann's shoes, but only marginally.
And what about the public, whose whims based semi-detached attention to the 6 o'clock news provide the basis for national policy directions? Is 'The Indian Ocean One-Off Swap Thing' enough to sate the wild cry of 'IMMIGRANT' in their subconscious?
Well….no.
Why would it?
This is not all about boats; you know…actual boats. People like boats generally I think. The dislike of boat arrivals is merely a cover for a broader mistrust of refugees. It's easier, and perhaps more ethically defendable, to ask "Why to they have to come by boat" than it is to ask "Why do they have to come at all?"
One thing that struck while watching SBS's 'Go Back to Where You Came From', was the need of the participants to interrogate every refugee they encountered. The tone of this interrogation was always of the 'Was it really all that bad?' variety. The subtext being; "Did you really have to come here?" This interrogation was not restricted to individuals who arrived by boat, but to those who where 'properly' processed at UN refugee camps as well. This reveals a broader problem of attitudes toward immigration in general. If individuals who simply have nowhere else to go are accommodated under such sufferance, then what of attitudes towards people who migrate for economic purposes or simply because they want to?
Playing the semantics game will not change attitudes or make problems go away. Let's say, for the sake of argument, this policy works, no more boats arrive here ever, and Australia simply takes it's refugees from an increasingly overextended Malaysia. What will happen?
A different problem.
Different argument.
Different, but the same.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
No Experts Thanks; We're Australian
As the Carbon Tax 'debate' slowly drowns us in the aural quicksand of repeated one liners and 2 second clips of irate tax-rage munters, it has become almost impossible to comment on it. I mean, how can you really? There is no change, no development, there are no new arguments, it is simply a contest of campaign media strategies: the bout to knock the other guy out, the search for a line that will resonate with a group of people unwilling to consider the detail, trialled by endless repetition on Channel 7.
How many times has Tony Abbott said 'this toxic tax', or Julia Gillard uttered the phrase 'our plan to tax polluters'? Barnaby Joyce has run out of fingers and toes to work it out. If they have said anything else, we haven't heard it, because the media would not dare play a grab longer than five seconds lest we fall asleep accidentally.
This has led to a situation where two thirds of the electorate claim to be against the Carbon Tax at the same time that 80% admit they can't describe what it is. It's not about the detail; it's about the media war. It's about who the public want to tell them what the carbon tax is. Shades of grey are not allowed and experts can get fucked.
I don't know what it is about Australia these days. I can say, on a personal level, there is nothing more engaging than listening to someone who really knows what they are talking about speak at length about an issue. All the nerds who watch 'Big Ideas' on a Saturday morning know what I'm talking about. Experts are useful; they know things about stuff. It's impossible for someone to know everything about all things, so why not specialise and share it around? That sounds perfectly reasonable, which it is, but yeah…no…fuck that.
The hatred of experts in this country is completely unbelievable. Not only do we refuse to listen to them, we actively resent them for having the audacity to claim that they know more than us about something. "If you're so smart then why can't you stop my shoes from hurting?" Next comes the accusations that such individuals 'live in ivory towers' (which any expert in engineering will tell you aren't really built anymore), and are not part of 'the real world', like all academics are millionaires and have their bills paid by some cashed-up intellectual deity.
I've got news for you, if you work on a mine; you earn more than they do. Calm down, it doesn't make you better than them but at the moment, you are the one who does not live in 'the real world', whatever the hell that is. The new 'ivory tower', if there must be such a thing, is the desert donga.
So yeah, sit on that.
How many times has Tony Abbott said 'this toxic tax', or Julia Gillard uttered the phrase 'our plan to tax polluters'? Barnaby Joyce has run out of fingers and toes to work it out. If they have said anything else, we haven't heard it, because the media would not dare play a grab longer than five seconds lest we fall asleep accidentally.
This has led to a situation where two thirds of the electorate claim to be against the Carbon Tax at the same time that 80% admit they can't describe what it is. It's not about the detail; it's about the media war. It's about who the public want to tell them what the carbon tax is. Shades of grey are not allowed and experts can get fucked.
I don't know what it is about Australia these days. I can say, on a personal level, there is nothing more engaging than listening to someone who really knows what they are talking about speak at length about an issue. All the nerds who watch 'Big Ideas' on a Saturday morning know what I'm talking about. Experts are useful; they know things about stuff. It's impossible for someone to know everything about all things, so why not specialise and share it around? That sounds perfectly reasonable, which it is, but yeah…no…fuck that.
The hatred of experts in this country is completely unbelievable. Not only do we refuse to listen to them, we actively resent them for having the audacity to claim that they know more than us about something. "If you're so smart then why can't you stop my shoes from hurting?" Next comes the accusations that such individuals 'live in ivory towers' (which any expert in engineering will tell you aren't really built anymore), and are not part of 'the real world', like all academics are millionaires and have their bills paid by some cashed-up intellectual deity.
I've got news for you, if you work on a mine; you earn more than they do. Calm down, it doesn't make you better than them but at the moment, you are the one who does not live in 'the real world', whatever the hell that is. The new 'ivory tower', if there must be such a thing, is the desert donga.
So yeah, sit on that.
Monday, July 11, 2011
'Where's My Carbon Money?'
Now that the carbon price has been released, and most of the tax architecture and associated rebates announced, the foci of arguments around the issue has shifted from economy-ending doomsday predictions to the alarming pettiness of thinly veiled greed. Complaints are no longer the half screamed nonsensical panic of 'Won't someone please think of the economy', as they have switched to the far more common 'What do I get and why can't it be more?'
The first salvo in this new paradigm of whinging was the banner headline at that bastion of baseness News.com.au. Accompanying a large photo of a 20 cent piece, it read 'For Most, this is what the Carbon Tax is Worth'. Yes, according to News, under the Carbon Tax many will only be 20 cents a week better off. Oh the shame of it. You mean it won't affect me whatsoever? A tax reform where I don't come out miles ahead? Where if someone hadn't told me it existed, I wouldn't even know it was there? Treason.
Remember when this tax was meant to make middle-income earners take on third jobs as Dickensian era chimney sweeps? Remember when the end was nigh? When cats were laying with dogs and jaguars were falling from the sky?
Now it's: '20 cents…bit stingy.'
Completely without irony.
It's as if there has been a conscious forgetting of all that came before this announcement. No one has appeared to click that the past six months of debate on this issue has been an orgy of what ifs based on exactly no information. Much of that is the Government's fault, as there wasn't any to go on however, the seamlessness of the switch from blood curdling cries of impending poverty to slightly perturbed bean counting is astounding. There has been no collective 'phew'. No relief. Nothing. Just collective furrowed brows at the national even steven.
Tony Abbott has continued on his merry way. Being in opposition, things he says one week to the next do not need to match up anyway. This morning he's staked his political future on defeating the tax. How he will do that I'm not sure, but I am sure that if the parliament passes the tax he won't be resigning. It certainly looks like passing at parliament as well, with the independents and the Greens deeply involved in the decision making, it would take mass public revolt to force a change of position, and once it's passed, that's the ballgame. By the time of the next election, the tax will have been in place for more than a year, which will make it pretty much immovable.
Much will now rest on whether the Gillard Government has the stomach to resist the whims of the polls to pass and implement the tax without falling in a wobbly heap. Judging by the polls of the last two months, they have pretty good stomachs.
The first salvo in this new paradigm of whinging was the banner headline at that bastion of baseness News.com.au. Accompanying a large photo of a 20 cent piece, it read 'For Most, this is what the Carbon Tax is Worth'. Yes, according to News, under the Carbon Tax many will only be 20 cents a week better off. Oh the shame of it. You mean it won't affect me whatsoever? A tax reform where I don't come out miles ahead? Where if someone hadn't told me it existed, I wouldn't even know it was there? Treason.
Remember when this tax was meant to make middle-income earners take on third jobs as Dickensian era chimney sweeps? Remember when the end was nigh? When cats were laying with dogs and jaguars were falling from the sky?
Now it's: '20 cents…bit stingy.'
Completely without irony.
It's as if there has been a conscious forgetting of all that came before this announcement. No one has appeared to click that the past six months of debate on this issue has been an orgy of what ifs based on exactly no information. Much of that is the Government's fault, as there wasn't any to go on however, the seamlessness of the switch from blood curdling cries of impending poverty to slightly perturbed bean counting is astounding. There has been no collective 'phew'. No relief. Nothing. Just collective furrowed brows at the national even steven.
Tony Abbott has continued on his merry way. Being in opposition, things he says one week to the next do not need to match up anyway. This morning he's staked his political future on defeating the tax. How he will do that I'm not sure, but I am sure that if the parliament passes the tax he won't be resigning. It certainly looks like passing at parliament as well, with the independents and the Greens deeply involved in the decision making, it would take mass public revolt to force a change of position, and once it's passed, that's the ballgame. By the time of the next election, the tax will have been in place for more than a year, which will make it pretty much immovable.
Much will now rest on whether the Gillard Government has the stomach to resist the whims of the polls to pass and implement the tax without falling in a wobbly heap. Judging by the polls of the last two months, they have pretty good stomachs.
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