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Kelly's crazy

With Fairfax papers scarcer than hen's teeth around my Brisbane Hotel, I'm keeping closer company with The American than normal. So what on earth is Paul Kelly talking about today's edition?

DEMOCRACY took root in Australia faster than in any other nation on earth, a reality affirmed 100 years ago yesterday when the first federal Labor government began under the astute but forgotten Chris Watson.

How could this possibly be anything but barking mad? Only if you treat the Australian 'nation' as commencing in 1901, I guess. But then you have to ignore the election of Alfred Deakin, a measure that would make the democracy seem like it had 'taken root' even faster. Then you'd have to compare the pace with which the Australian democracy became operational with that of other nations, all of which would add up to something trite in any event ... and something that still wouldn't be true. Wasn't the recently born Timor nation also born as a democracy, for example? And since when does democracy 'take root' anyhow? Since the Americans and its symbolic allies decided they would try to impose it, I guess. Whatever. Kelly's off his face.

Dizzy in Brissie

For some completely unscientific reason, Back Pages always thinks that the wildest domestic news stories per capita are generated in Queensland. My prejudice seemed to be confirmed this morning, when I picked up my complimentary Courier-Mail to find the top story was a local sex scandal, under which was a shocking story about a former one nationist taking himself and his kids out, and overleaf came news of a new Azaria doco being shot around town. Yes folks, your blogger flew up to Brisbane overnight to do some research and talk to a few folks. The news might be more hair raising, but at least the people seem a few degrees warmer, as does the temperature ... and I'm pleasantly surprised to notice some great buildings around town that Joh somehow failed to knock down. Posts are likely to be intermittent and opportunistic 'till the weekend ... but what else's new?

August 7, again

What do we finally make of John Howard's Iraq visit? As Back Pages noted in the case of the Bush visit, which Jack has imitated plagiarised, this was smart politics, as in theatre, taking advantage of incumbency etc. His Darkness has cleaned up Australia's front pages, and in this case taken the opportunity to join his pro-Iraq war policy, not to turkeys, real or fake, but to Australian nationalism on the 'one day of the year'.

OK, so Jack wins the day. And given the way he joined the visit to the national story, there's nothing much Latho can do about it but nibble away re the missing exit strategy etc and move on. But what of the longer term? Clearly, Howard has further deepened his government's attachment to the Iraq issue in the public mind, underlining the effect with the announcement that the handful or so of Australian troops who are over there may stay another year, and he may even send over some more.

In sum, Jack's bidding to make Iraq policy the defining difference between the government and the opposition, the direction he struck out on from the moment Latho announced his 'home by Christmas' pledge. It's a high risk game, as Back Pages for one thinks Iraq's only going to get uglier, a helluva lot uglier, before we even get to the beginning of the end of the madness. As I don't find this a very adventurous thought, it again suggests, to me at least, that the election is likely to be held sooner rather than later.

The more things change

What has happened to the NSW treasury? In a feature in today's SMH, Paoloa Totaro profiles the state's most powerful bureaucrats. Most obviously in the print edition, the treasury is buried behind photos and bios of Col Gellatly, who heads the premier's dept, and four current or former senior cabinet officials, plus Jennifer Westacott from Craig Knowles' infrastructure etc dept and Tom Parry from the pricing tribunal. In the copy, Paoloa merely notes that in "the pivotal economic area, it is Michael Egan, the Treasurer, who talks through his turf with Carr, not the Secretary of Treasury, John Pierce".

The demise of the treasury's influence reflects two historical developments. Firstly, to some extent it again testifies to the demise of the political importance of economic ideas in this post-Greiner, post-economic rationalism/neo-liberal era, the neo-con era. The halcyon treasury days under Percy Allen during the Greiner period are long gone. Secondly, not so fast: the cabinet office was created by Greiner and placed under the leadership of one of Australia's most outstanding neo-liberal operatives, Gary Sturgess. In turn, Gary internalised economistic thinking within the cabinet office, effectively creating two treasuries, doubling the central neo-liberal influence on the NSW cabinet and guaranteeing the direction's hegemony. Both Percy Allen and Gary Sturgess departed during the period under John Fahey, marking the passing of the neo-liberal peak. But the latter's ideological legacy lives on, most particularly in the figure of Gary's former deputy, Roger Wilkins.

Wilkins' career, incidentally, goes back to the Gerry Gleason-Neville Wran period, as do those of the experienced ex-agriculture (under Jack Hallam) boys, Col Gellatly and Neil Shephard, and the talented Kate McKenzie (formerly the cabinet office, now in charge of the super commerce dept) and Robyn Kruk (also formerly the cabinet office, and now running health). Together, they undoubtedly represent the most long-serving clique of senior bureaucrats in any Australian administration. Unquestionably, this continuity goes a long way to explaining the combination of professionalism, caution and conservativeness that has characterised Carr's government, and which has also set the basic governing pattern for Australia's other state Labor governments. History, as always, flows below the surface.

Another intel failure

By mid-August around Pozieres and the British sector of the Somme the road and the trenches were strewn with the dead. The shrapnel left human bodies 'mere lumps of flesh'. A lieutenant cried like a little child. Some struggled and called out for their mothers, while others blabbered sentences no one could make out. The moans of the wounded and dying were heard above the din of battle ...

Supertahs

Tonight's rugby was great stuff, and the 37-29 NSW result better still. Playing at home before a full house, it could've gone either way, right 'till the last couple of minutes. There's still no real telling which's the best of the two teams, or even who really played best in tonight's near-epic confrontation ... a fact underlined by the Brumbies scoring four tries to three.

Healthy signs

As tipped by Back Pages, John Howard's apparent ruling out of the commonwealth taking over direct funding of public hospitals in early March was merely more tergiversation by the master of the dark art. Today's SMH reports that our health ministers have agreed to examine the case for sweeping changes to the health system and report in July. In this case, Jack's ability to appear to say 'no' while actually meaning 'yes' has had a happy result.

EC does RJ

One of the benefits of the 10 hours on the road from Elizabeth to Byron bays is that this means 10 hours of ideal CD listening time. And one album which copped a flogging during Back Pages recent excursion was Eric Clapton's Me and Mr Johnson.

I would only confidently recommend the album to folks who are both EC and RJ fans. EC fans who remain frozen in his Cream days are likely to be disappointed, and purist Robert Johnson fans are likely to think the whole thing half-baked on any number of grounds. But for those who do meet the said criteria, the CD is sort of like a family album, and they are bound to be delighted. The wonder of the thing is that it brings back many of the great RJ songs, but in a way that doesn't demand the intensity of the originals.

Service interruptus

From time to time, during the last couple of days I've had trouble opening Back Pages, suffering repeated time-outs. Please let me know if anyone else has encountered a problem.

Update: (Sat, 24) It worked like a dream this morning, but I just struck further trouble. The BP techie dept advises that Social Change is having some server problems, so we have no option but to be a little patient 'till they've worked through them.

Further on up the road

It's worth quickly breezing through Tony Jones' interview with Peter Singer about his new (must buy) Bush book on Lateline tonight (transcript here in the morning). They didn't get very far. And Peter's US-Aussie accent kept reminding me of Rupert, a younger version of whom he also looks a little disconcertingly like. But frankly, when I wasn't being synaptically drawn to thinking of the 'talking cardigan', love him or hate him, the Singer has a first rate mind. We really could have done with a 20 minute presentation, followed by 40 minutes of Q&A.; Still, the Lateline interview gave a succinct summary of the current Iraq position. Not the whole position. We all have our different orientations etc. But a neat survey of the main common points, nonetheless.

The most important and underdiscussed point concerns the UN, I think. How do we re-establish the UN as the credible institution the world now so very, very badly needs, after the trenchant campaign by the coalition of the willing etc to denigrate, discredit and devalue the thing? The UN was far from perfect, of course, but how do we now look to it as the reverse; as the much needed 'man on the white horse', after Dubya and his world-wide handmaidens have invested so much in turning the authority into, at best, a half-resented global soft-soap department? I find this institution-destroying aspect of neoconservativism, a tendency so strongly at odds with traditional conservatism (tautology?), one of the most distressing aspects of the current political direction, home and abroad.

Interestingly, the Singer seemed to finally go full circle on this point tonight, lamenting the trashing of the UN at the outset, but finding himself pleased to register the thing a little in front by the finish. Hope?

Lang was right

Australia's federation is a conspiracy against NSW. "I haven't really thought about the Wallaby jersey to be honest, my main aim this week is to bash the Tahs," ACT hooker Jeremy Paul said yesterday. "If it was another game you might be a little bit worried that you aren't mentally where you should be [after the bye]", said the ACT coach, "but the fact that it is [NSW] means we have absolutely no problems getting the players focused."

What's their beef? Aren't we ever allowed to win? How many chips can you fit on 15 pairs of out-of-town shoulders? Let's just face it, as PJK once said, 'if you're not living in Sydney you're camping out, ' and all yous out there in the provinces should get used to it. There's no call whatsoever for dishing up special treatment merely because you're playing against the great, unmatched, unmatchable metropolis on Saturday night. So just relax. Got that? Alright!

Cheap shot, well done

Good luck to the government for getting a story up on Latho' using some of Clinton's words in a speech. Politics is politics, and the Coalition has won the day so far on this one. But what a gigantic beat-up, relying as it does on an entirely false public perception of the context within which speeches are written and the standards with which they comply.

August 7

Speaking on local ABC radio this morning, Barrie Cassidy (who, incidentally, cops a serve from cranky Alan today), reported that His Darkness has pencilled in August 7 as the target election day. This is only about 15 weeks away, according to my often bad sums, which probably means only about two and a bit months 'till the campaigns proper, which sounds incredibly scarily close. Can't help thinking Jack has bet too heavily on his budget getting him back on a roll, but you never know what the ruthless bugger's got up his sleeve. It also strikes Back Pages as odd that Howard seems to want to get his poll over so long in advance of the big one in the US. OK, I know that if Bush falls and the Australian election is held afterwards, Jack'll be toast. But wouldn't the reverse also tend to hold? And isn't it His Darkness who constantly beats up the alliance? And aren't Dubya's polls holding up better? What am I missing here?

Update: Jack and Latho go toe to toe, with icon vs icon in the great take-no-prisoners pre-election sport vs ANZAC day stoush. Mate, maaate.

Update: Lots of talk about, with Latho declaring he's not only ready, but has been "for quite some time."

Update: (Thur, 22) Laura Tingle has picked up the story in today's AFR (subscription only). The government is working to August 7 as the first potential date. Jack is running the line that "any time after the middle of the year wouldn't be regarded as an early election." He's ruled out having it at the end of September or the beginning of October for obvious footie reasons, while also allowing that the poll could be delayed for up to three weeks beyond that. This leaves 10 possible Saturdays, with 23 October the latest.

Blogging, jamming etc

David Tiley of Barista fame has done a stirling Blogjam at Margo's place in the absence of Tim Dunlop, who may be regretting his suddenly begging off the job for mysterious undisclosed reasons. Leaving market analysts agape, this deft Tiley move follows his recent judicious incorporation of the The Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony within the restless dox.media.2 empire.

Meanwhile, Tug Boat Potemkin remains wrapped in a silence. Now. Silence. Despite the best provocative efforts of Back Pages, Barista Inc. and a stack of other Gummo addicts. And elsewhere, The Poor Man, aka the US-Gummo, is undertaking somewhat disconcerting renovations.

Update: (Sat, 24) The Governor General has now made a rare official address to the nation concerning the mysterious disappearance of Mr Gummo.

Yale, Princeton eat dust

What's the point of having a blog if you can't say congrats to an old teacher and longtime friend, one-time historian of the Indonesian labour movement, ex-tennis partner and now lofty suit, the indefatigable John Ingleson, for winning a front-page story in the local rag, by beating all comers to establish the first Australian campus in Singapore. "We all feel at home", says Ingo, nicely circuit-breaking the recent UNSW ceo bad news story, "because there's an airport in the background. What we need is a racecourse and we'll be right."

Rule one: no rollerblades

As much as I might admire PJK, Back Pages doesn't blame Annita for wanting to set the common public perception straight about who broke off with who and rumours about third parties and so on. Still, the also commonly alleged reasons, PJK's wife-control-freakery, remain intact. Michelle Gratten reports: "She revealed that in earlier years Mr Keating did not want her to learn English because 'he said I would lose my (Dutch) accent' and he disapproved of her rollerblading around the lake in Canberra. 'He thought I must be the oldest person ever on rollerblades. He said, "Make sure no one in the media or whatever sees you"'." The conflict would seem to go to the conflicts in PJK, who was always working outwards from a conservative catholic upbringing. Then again, as the man says: "No onlooker can ever know what goes on inside a marriage". These days, Annita's four children, two handsome houses, new qualifications and Beijing exchange don't look hard to take, even if Don Watson's book was. But all up, it smells like there's been a lot of heartache all-round inside this one, which has always seemed especially sad to the Labor tribe.

In freedom's heartland

A friend has kindly alerted me to George Monbiot's column in today's Guardian, which visits recent resolutions of the Republican Party (local) convention in Harris County, Houston, Texas:

The delegates began by nodding through a few uncontroversial matters: homosexuality is contrary to the truths ordained by God; "any mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns" should be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax should be abolished; and immigrants should be deterred by electric fences. Thus fortified, they turned to the real issue: the affairs of a small state 7,000 miles away. It was then, according to a participant, that the "screaming and near fist fights" began.

It then gets jaw-dropping mad, even if it's only half true, which Back Pages prays that it is.

And while we're on scary stuff from the US, check out some of the blogdope on John Negroponte, the new ambassador to Iraq, at Back to Iraq and Disinfopedia (via Southerly Buster).

The shorter Hendo

Gerry says: 'Alas, in today's wrong-thinking environment, the media finds people who place themselves in jeopardy by speaking out the "flavour of the day", which makes it terribly hard for the right-thinking general Cossi to keep a government lid on everything; but I'll help by giving Dick Tracey QC's anti-Toohey findings, which generated so much media coverage last week that the whistleblowing blighter is still complaining, another gratuitous burst.'

Update: (Wed, 21) This one was so bad, it even stirred the SMH's long Hendoweary letter writers back into action against the local tsar of all right-thinking.

Pretty smooth sailing

After all the bally-hoo over Latham calling Australia's half-a-dozen or so troops home from Iraq for Christmas, Newspoll finds the ALP continues to sail pretty smoothly toward the election. On the 2pp, Labor remains in an election winning 53/47 position (down 1 point), and Latho heads the PM on the satisfaction rating (59/53, which is up on whatever the much trumpeted fall was last fortnight). Labor has slipped behind on the primary count (42/43, which is down 2 points), and His Darkness remains in front on the least significant preferred PM score (37/48).

Dancing with Mr D

At last, I've spotted a post where I can say: just go read the whole thing.

The end to illusion

There is no way back for Bush, Blair and Howard. But for everyone else, Back Pages surmises that the biggest political game in the global town these days is called 'getting out from under'. Bob Woodward seems to be doing a pretty good job on behalf of Colin Powell, for example. Today's NYT also has an interesting article on crumbling conservative support, with both the libertarian and isolationist right US factions showing Bush an increasingly clean pair of heels. William Kristol, who remains an outspoken Iraq Hawk, is quoted recalling a famous saying of his father, the neoconservative pioneer Irving Kristol; to wit, that a neoconservative was "a liberal who has been mugged by reality." Kristol the younger has joked that the increasingly isolated neocons might end up as neoliberals — defined as "neoconservatives who had been mugged by reality in Iraq."

Tahrrific

Yes! 49-31 over Tana Umaga's team. Thank goodness for that. As NSW is now only one point out of the four, they can't be written off. Still, although they scored seven tries, they also let in four, and will be murdered by the ACT next week on that defensive form. I also give them little chance against Qld in the last game, which will be played in banana land, where those maddies up there will pull out all stops to grab a season face-saver over us. This means we've only reasonably got Dunedin (Highlanders) in the bag, which won't be enough, even with bonus points.

The main hope are the NSW forwards, who again played powerfully, and have started scoring the tries themselves ... picking up three of Saturday's seven. In the backs, Berne played better, but was no sensation, despite what the media is saying. Whits had a good game, as did Tuqiri. Morgan Turinui did pretty well facing Umaga, but is still to get right in the slot. For my money, apart from one unfortunate kick, Burkey was again the best among the posers. All in all, they should just stick with the rolling maul.

Bush books still booming

Back Pages has already remarked on the reading public's insatiable thirst for anti-Bush books. With news that yet two more have been released, the publishing industry might find itself getting all conflicted if John Kerry seriously looks like taking the prize come November. Not only are we about to get another tome from Bob Woodward testifying to secret Iraq war plans (actually, Woodward's revelations look a little outdated), but the always interesting Peter Singer has produced a work that apparently suggests Bush "has the moral development of a 13-year-old." One can't help wondering what 13-year olds might think of this, but the real question is, what will we do if Bush does take the big fall in six-and-a-bit months? I guess we could all go back to watching television. Sigh.

Update: (Wed, 21) Bush book author, John Dean, is to appear at the Sydney Writer's Festival, talking with Kerry O'Brien at Sydney Town Hall on 21 May.

RIP Greinerism and ...

John Brogden, who is the leader of the opposition in NSW (in case you haven't heard of him), made an extraordinary commitment in a speech to a business and Liberal Party forum at parliament house yesterday. According to today's SMH, Brogden has promised to abolish over 20 of the boards currently responsible to the government for the performance of the state's public authorities, including the directors responsible for Sydney Water, saying:

If you are the minister for transport you should be responsible for our railways. If you are the minister for utilites you should be responsible for our water supply. If you are the minister for health you should be responsible for our hospitals. That is our philosophy. No ifs or buts.

Now, subject to quite a few 'ifs and buts' in practice, I don't have a problem with this in principle. The commitment is, nonetheless, extraordinary.

Fancy that

Workers Online has a couple of interesting stories this week. As it happens, the QC who the Howard government has relied on to dismiss captain Martin Toohey's support for lieutenant-colonel Lance Collins has something of a record on the political right. Workers Online reveals that the dismissive army reservist colonel, Dick Tracey QC, also led hearings of the Cole royal commission into the building industry and was a guest speaker for the HR Nicholls society last year.

Now, while it might not be a good look, just because Dick may share the government's views on trade unions doesn't mean he'll also eagerly serve up whatever the government wants to hear on intel matters, of course. Back Pages would never suggest such a thing. Still, even this most fair-minded of blogs is beginning to wonder, given that, unlike Dick's effort, the hitherto confidential third report by magistrate colonel Roger Brown, which was released today, says the claims made in the initial Toohey inquiry were supported by the evidence. In particular, apparently the Brown report says the defence intelligence organisation "told the government what it wanted to hear".

With the score now two reports to one, Dick and Jack are looking a tad lonely. No doubt the further report will refuel the media's call for a royal commission, but my bet is that, given a choice, His Darkness would rather call an election any day.