Oz Politics Blog

On Wednesday I flew from Canberra to Dubbo and back again. To help pass the time, I decided to read a book. The bookshop at Canberra airport had a shelf dedicated to Mark Latham’s latest offering, A conga line of suckholes. It was my third Latham book; Latham’s seventh.

My first Latham book was Civilising Global Capital. I hated it. It was a turgid, pompous head wank, a never-ending story spanning some 440 pages of pseudo-academic gobbledygook. For sure, there were some bloody good ideas there, but they would have been better expressed in plain English in under 100 pages.

It was with some trepidation I plunged into my second Latham book, the Latham Diaries. To my surprise, I really enjoyed it. I wrote then, “it is a book packed with insights on Australian politics and the key policy debates between 1994 and 2004. It’s a passionate insider’s view: biased, at times jaundiced and occasionally over the top. It is as Latham claimed, politics in the raw. I found it a bloody good read. Four stars.”

My third Latham book, A conga line of suckholes, is simply a collection of quotes and anecdotes sorted alphabetically by category. It is as described in its subtitle: Mark Latham’s book of quotations. According to Latham,

During my time in politics I not only kept a diary of events … but also a collection of quotes and anecdotes. In our daily lives we all come across words that leave a lasting impression, whether in the form of favourite sayings or telltale stories. In my case when something caught my eye I would jot it down or rip it out, and then keep it in a large blue folder on my desk. Over two decades I built up a substantial collection: some of it amusing, some of it philosophical, all of it (in my eyes, at least) an interesting reflection on public life.

Where do I begin? It was not amusing. It was not philosophical. It was not an interesting reflection on public life. The book is crap.

The quotes are (barely) of a sophomore standard. Most you would be familiar with. They can be summed up in three words: trite, hackneyed, and prosaic. The monthly Reader’s Digest has more insightful and amusing quotes that tell us more about life. For my flight to Dubbo, the Reader’s Digest would have been the better investment.

The saddest thing was Mark Latham’s need to quote himself throughout. Thank god this guy did not become Prime Minister. He is clearly long on self-delusion and short on humility. A quick flick through the index revealed more quotes attributed to Latham than anyone else. Latham would have us know that his words are many times more valuable than the other great men and women of history. He is a legend in his own mind.

I can think of no better demonstration of the book’s failing than to regurgitate Latham on Latham. Unfortunately, you would not be surprised to learn that the Latham quotes are among the longest in the book. Even avoiding the prolix and interminable Latham, these quotes reveal the banality of a conga line of suckholes.

[Economic rationalism] is a slogan for people who don’t like the market economy, but don’t know what to do about it.

Take your badge off, Adolf. (Latham to Ruddock)

Some people see the media as a profession or a career. It is, in fact, a sickness: a crippling addition to public voyeurism.

An American wag once described politics as showbiz for ugly people. In this country, political commentary is payback from ugly old men.

Beneath every problem is a process which needs fixing.

My “favourite” Latham quotes were the ones that were not Latham. For some reason I cannot explain, Latham attributed each of the following quotes to himself. I will let you be the judge.

[Keating] on Stephen Smith (Shadow Minister for Communications): ‘How could he ever handle Packer? He’s always between a shit and a shiver’.

At Caucus, Keating recalls Arthur Caldwell’s advice: ‘The secret to politics is to be at the first Caucus meeting after each election’.

Carl Jung was right: churches do not encourage religious experiences by individuals because it might make the priests redundant.

As I said, “the book is crap”. (Perhaps quoting yourself is contagious). Zero stars out of five.

There are three recognised approaches to predicting election outcomes: opinion polls, the betting market and economic models. Today it is time to look at economic models.

Leigh and Wolfers made the observation, “The logic of the economic models is simple: voters are more likely to re-elect incumbents who deliver a robust economy. This pattern can be motivated either as voters providing an incentive for politicians to deliver good outcomes, or as voters using available information to discern high-ability incumbents.” Leigh and Wolfers discussed a number of economic models that have been developed to predict electoral outcomes. The most statistically significant variables across the range of models are: the inflation rate and the change in the unemployment rate over the electoral cycle.

On July 7 this year, Mumble repeated a plain-English paraphrase for the language of mathematics that underpins the economic models. “If two or more of [the unemployment, inflation and interest rates] rise over a full, three-year electoral cycle, the government will lose. Conversely, if two or more fall the government will be returned.” Apparently, this formula, which Mumble called the Sawford Formula, has picked every Federal election since 1961 except 1974 and 1980.

Yesterday’s jump in the inflation rate has resulted in speculation of an interest rate rise next week from the Reserve Bank (which other bank economists see as between 75 and 90 per cent certain, and which the stock market appears to be punting close to 100 per cent certain). As a consequence, we are starting to see increased speculation that the 2007 election will see a change of government driven by a change in the economic fundamentals.

However, there are some factors that need to be considered before we jump to any conclusions.

First, while there has been a 250 per cent increase in the price of bananas since cyclone Larry, bananas are easily substitutable for other items of fruit in the household budget. The Bureau of Statistics assumption that Australians have continued to buy bananas, at the same rate as before the price hike, is simply wrong. I don’t recall seeing any bananas at the fruit market when I was there last Saturday. I believe the impact of bananas on inflation should be ignored.

Fuel costs are more problematic to assess. If we assume that household fuel demand is relatively inelastic. Then the rise in petrol prices has a comparable demand dampening impact as a rise in interest rates. Where it becomes difficult is the broad-based contribution of fuel costs to production and distribution costs, which risks continued inflationary pressures – the so-called second round inflation. With underlying inflation at almost 3 per cent, this may already be the case.

The difficulty with rising fuel prices is not new. High crude oil prices in 1973, 1981 and 1991 all resulted in recessions. It could be argued that those high prices were supply driven and today’s prices are demand driven, largely from the US and China. However, with the current Middle East conflict, and the lingering Iraq war, the contribution of demand and supply elements to pricing is difficult to assess.

Speaking of the recession threat, Megalogenis made the observation that an interest rate rise would be felt disproportionately in Sydney.

Sydney has the nation’s most-exposed home borrowers. They are the most likely to squeal, and close their wallets, if the bank pushes up interest rates on Wednesday, as almost every pundit expects.

But what happens if Sydney responds with a mini recession, as it did in the second half of 2000?

The most recent national accounts confirmed NSW as our slowest economy, with state final demand crawling at less than half the national average: 2.1 per cent compared with 5 per cent in the 12 months to the March quarter. Western Australia, by contrast, soared 10.6 per cent over the same period, Queensland was up 9.2 per cent and even Victoria was looking good with 4 per cent growth.

In my view the Reserve Bank has a hard call. We must be getting close to the tipping point where the next interest rate rise (or the one after) will significantly impact on aggregate demand. Too much foot on the brake would see the economy crash into recession. With high oil prices, not enough could see inflation spiral out of control. Both scenarios would have disastrous electoral outcomes for the Howard government.

Following ‘walletgate’, Andrew Norton at Catallaxy and Kim at the Purple Rodeo have made some interesting observations about lying in politics. Both worth reading.

According to Andrew,

This seems to be the pragmatic Australian view of politics at work. You have to take the good with the bad with politicians as with other people, and fudging things a little is no more than a misdemeanour. The Left’s John Howard Lies campaign fell flat as a result. What matters politically is not so much trust as confidence that a political leader will deliver better than his rivals on key issues. On that count, for the meantime at least, Howard is ahead.

Kim’s arguement is subtle, and difficult to distill from a short quote. She argued that politicians should be judged by results for the public good (albeit legally achieved), and that expecting truth alone is niave.

This is why fundamentally the argument that “John Howard lies” is a very weak one. In the context of Walletgate, it’s not too dissimilar to McLachlan and Costello’s misunderstanding that they had a deal frozen in stone that should be honoured come what may. John Howard is in fact right to say that such arrangements are always provisional, and that politicians don’t have a right to pass on public office through private transactions (even if his own behaviour might belie his words).

And politically, for those wanting to hold the Howard government responsible for its disservice to the public good, it doesn’t work. If Howard could win the 2004 election based on a slogan of trust, after all the accusations levelled against him, it does indicate that there is a difference in the public mind between personal honour and public performance. The Labor Party, and Howard’s other opponents, would have done better to make a strong case as to why they ought to be entrusted with government. The fact that they resorted to various forms of raising the “character” question - for instance, Costello’s arrogance, and the fact that this failed, is proof again. Contra George W. Bush, feeling comfortable having a beer with someone is not a good argument. I’ve met politicians who were honourable in their own way, and who achieved good things guided by a set of convictions, who were quite distasteful as people in many ways. But I wasn’t picking a friend or a business partner, but supporting a political leader.

Pragmatically, as well, the evidence that the moral critique of Howard doesn’t convince is that it’s easily turned around by the Right into the accusation that the Left are out of touch and more concerned with issues of process than issues of policy. It does seem to follow from the claim that Howard lies, but nevertheless is re-elected and maintains his popularity that there’s some sort of higher morality available to those sitting in judgement that transcends that of the majority of Australian citizens. It’s easy again to see how this is translated into the “Howard-hating lefty elitist”. The fact, though, is that nice considerations of truth telling and lying are just not the issues that move the electorate. To claim they should be is also to make a claim, however implicit or downplayed, of a superior moral position.

That’s why Costello’s “my parents taught me never to tell a lie” line was rightly scorned by most who heard it. In saying it, he was himself trying to manipulate opinion and achieve position. In other words, he wasn’t making a moral accusation, but playing out a political tactic. It’s just that he’s rather bad at it, and Howard’s rather good.

So it’s not a good political argument. If Kim Beazley is indeed more honourable than John Howard, is that a good enough reason to vote for him?

Update 19 July 2006: Michelle Grattan wrote about truth in politics in today’s Age.

Occasionally I get conspiracy theory emails. Here is the latest.

I’m looking for some down-to-earth appraisal of what happened on February 8 of this year, when the federal government changed the Constitution by an act of parliament.

I was referred to a website with this explanation.

When Australia’s Constitution was written in the 1890s, it deliberately limited the federal government’s domestic military powers. The six colonies, giving up their own armies and navies at Federation, insisted that the new national defence forces must not be deployed against Australians, except in the case of a rebellion so vast that the police forces of a state faced being overwhelmed — and then only if the relevant state government appealed for help.

On February 8 2006, federal parliament overrode the Constitution to give John Howard (or any future prime minister) exclusive power to call out the defence forces against Australians on Australian soil. The Howard government claimed the risk of terrorism justified this new law, but the Bill doesn’t mention terrorists. Among the situations it allows the prime minister to quell with troops is any civil protest or industrial dispute that might threaten property.

Achieved by an amendment to Section 119 that directly contravenes Section 118, the Bill also makes soldiers immune to state law when called to turn their guns on fellow citizens, complicates the prosecution of any breaches of criminal law, and allows a defence of ‘following orders’. The Greens proposed an amendment to ensure that either house of parliament could immediately overrule any abuse of this power, but Labor voted with the Coalition to veto the amendment. The Defence Legislation Amendment (Aid to Civilian Authorities) Bill 2006 passed without publicity while the press and public were distracted by the antics of Tony Abbott and the AWB.

In terms of the alleged constitutional amendment, I gather the concern is that section 119 of the Constitution requires the agreement of the states before the armed forces are deployed in situations of domestic violence. Nonetheless, the new legislation enables the armed forces to be called out without the agreement of the states.

It is important to note that the new legislation primarily looks to sections 51(vi) and 61 as its source of Constitutional authority (and possibly sections 51(xxix), 51(xxxix) and 68). The majority on the Senate enquiry that considered the Bill before it was enacted by Parliament concluded, “that there is adequate constitutional support for the amendments proposed in the Bill.” The best Dr Bob Brown could assert in his dissenting report was that the Bill might exceed the Constitution.

However, it is not up to an individual Senator, the Prime Minister or the Parliament to decide whether legislation is constitutional. It is the High Court of Australia that gets to decide whether legislation is constitutional or not. If there is ever a call-out of the defence forces to address domestic violence without the agreement of the state government, I am sure the constitutionality of the provisions will be tested in the High Court.

Returning to the email I received, I suspect that the claims of a constitutional amendment by an act of parliament are little more than political theatre from those opposed to the legislation. A normal act of parliament cannot amend the Constitution. And if this act of parliament exceeds its constitutional authority, the High Court can strike it down as invalid legislation.

In short, nothing unusual happened on 8 February this year: the Australian Constitution was not amended by an act of parliament.

Good news. “Nude images of Michelle Leslie” is no longer the leading search term that brings people here. Now it is the 12 cartoons of Muhammad (also known as Muhamad and Mohammed) originally published in a Danish newspaper, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, on 30 September last year.

Since I have not blogged on this topic, I suspect the same mechanism was at work. Random words on my blog or news feed pages are picked up by google. After a few search hits, the phrase gets on to my site stats page, which is subsequently picked up by google as well. This is one of the problems of dynamic computer generated content.

Unlike nude images of Leslie, this issue touches on a number of grand political themes: censorship, freedom of speech, freedom of religious expression, civility, multiculturalism, tolerance, not to mention international relations. It also raises questions about accuracy in reporting. According to the international media, SBS reported that one of the twelve cartoons shows a pig-snouted Mohammed. However, that cartoon was one of three added to the series on some Internet sites by unknown people, to make the series more provocative. It was not in the original series.

Wikipedia has an excellent overview of the controversy.

I found myself in complete agreement with this statement by EU Commissioner Franco Frattini.

“As European Commissioner responsible for integration policy as well as the promotion and respect of fundamental rights, integrating communities with different religions, cultures and political affiliations is an objective that I strive for in my everyday activities. This is an objective that flows from the liberal principles that govern the European Union and its institutions, and indeed the life and history of our continent. I can understand the feelings of indignation, frustration and sadness of the Muslim communities over the last few days as they viewed the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper. Such events do not facilitate dialogue between faiths and cultures and provide barriers to the integration process to which the Member States of the Union are committed.

“However, one of the founding principles of our Europe is freedom of expression, including the right to criticize.

“A difference of opinion, even if it is bitter and disrespectful, often feeds into free polemic debate, in which satire plays a full part. We often discuss matters, sometimes passionately or even rudely, not only in our Parliaments or in the press, but in all manner of public arenas. This is the rule now, replacing armed and violent conflict, using words and ideas to create a society bound by the rule of law.

“It is my duty to enter this debate to remind us all that there are delicate issues, particularly in relation to religion and those ideals that are sacred to us. Consequently, I personally regard the publication of the cartoons as somewhat imprudent, even if the satire used was aimed at a distorted interpretation of religion, such as that used by terrorists to recruit young people to their cause and turning them into fanatics, sometimes to the point of sending them into action as suicide bombers.

“However, I am not offering these common-sense remarks with even the remotest intention of justifying the reactions that are currently being expressed against Denmark and others, including the European Union. Quite the contrary, it should be crystal clear to all that violence, intimidation and the calls for boycotts or for restraints on the freedom of the press are completely unacceptable and will not bring about a constructive discussion between communities. Indeed, no dialogue is possible with those who would threaten fundamental human rights, nor with those who would resort to terror. The fact is that deprivation of freedom has always generated suffering and sorrow, so we must defend freedom even when that means letting those we disagree with have their say. Preserving freedom is the foundation for dialogue.”

Links: The Purple Rodeo, MGK, Club Troppo, Alert and alarmed, Irf, Week by Week, Dog Fight, Mr Lefty, Guy, Tim Blair, Catallaxy,

Comments policy: I have sought advice (from someone whose ethical integrity I respect) about the uninformed and sometimes racist comments this post has attracted. My ethicist advised me to delete the stereotyped, uniformed and polemical. Free speech comes with the responsibility of wise use. I have followed his advice. If people are going to sledge others, they can find another venue. I am happy to keep comments that are well argued. But the mindless anti-Dane, anti-Westerner and anti-Islam comments have been and will be deleted. No correspondence will be entered into in respect of my deletions.

Update 13 February 2006: comments have been suspended.