The Howard Legacy
It's over. They're finally gone. :)
We still have to see how the Senate works out; it's possible the ALP may face a hostile Senate. But i'm hoping on a few Greens senators taking the balance of power, like the Democrats ten years ago.
Moving on; there's going to be a lot of discussion over the next week about Howard's legacy, and, i predict, we'll hear a lot of people complimenting his skills as a leader - before that happens, I'd like to pre-empt the funereal praise of the Howard government by suggesting that maybe there should be more to being a good politician than being canny, sneaky and totalising. And maybe the phrase "strong leader" should be dissected for what it really means.
To start with, Howard's reign has been characterised by lies. These fell into three categories; lies about his party's policies, lies about current events, and propaganda intended to dumb down political debate and lower the level of intelligent discussion of policy.
Lies about Liberal Party policy:
Over the last 11 years, Howard has been teaching us the difference between "core" and "non-core" promises. Most of these come from the Labor Party website (http://www.alp.org.au/features/lies.php) - i imagine they won't need that any more! It's kind of nice to think that this is now just a historical document.
Medicare:
"It is our policy, without qualification, to retain Medicare . . . Not only does Medicare stay but so does bulk billing." John Howard, Health Policy launch of "A Healthy Future", 12 February 1996
*Dental coverage under Medicare is gone,
*Bulk billing rates have been dropped.
University:
*"I can guarantee we're not going to have $100,000 university degree courses."
John Howard, interview with Neil Mitchell on Radio 3AW, 15 October 1999
According to the ALP, "16 different degrees now cost at least $100,000." I should add, it's not just the inflation Howard's overseen that is responsible for this - his Education minister, Brendan Nelson, pushed through rises in HECS of up to 25% - and universities promptly lifted fees to match.
*He claimed the Liberals would not deregulate university fees, and later stated his intention to do just that.
The GST:
*He claimed that the Liberals would "never ever" introduce a GST, and now he is famous for overseeing the introduction of a GST. No, i don't buy his argument that he simply changed his mind - a GST was always a core part of Liberal party policy goals before he claimed that it would never be introduced.
Welfare:
*He claimed that no benefits would be cut. In 2002 the Liberal Party cut the disability pension and the payments for those caring with people suffering disabilities.
The Environment:
*The Liberal Party blocked a wind farm in Victoria because, they claimed, birds would be at risk, flying into the blades. In fact, the report they commissioned showed that the wind farm would pose virtually no risk at all to birds. The real reason for blocking the farm was to court votes from those opposed to having wind farms at all.
The Last-Minute Election Lies:
*Climate Change: In the last year or so, Howard magically switched from being a denier to being concerned with climate change. His public statement indicate that he is probably lying about this - he doesn't really beleive it, and he doesn't seem to fully understand it. He just knows which words to say to make people clap.
*Reconciliation: In the last few months, Howard magically switched from not giving a damn what Aboriginals want, to suddenly being interested in a "new phase" of reconciliation. Closer examination reveals that this "new phase" is substantially similar to not really doing anything about it at all.
*Aboriginal Welfare: After eleven years of neglect, Howard fumbled a massive intervention in the Northern Territory - he was trying to look like a PM who suddenly cares about Aboriginals. He just came off as a Draconian monster. But he wasn't after Aboriginal votes; he was after middle-class white people all along.
*?The Fairness Test?: It runs right against Liberal doctrine; i predict, in an alternate universe, this test disappearing and the Workplace Authority's power being quietly removed. There's no way Howard and other Liberals actually beleive in a workplace contract fairness test - it just runs against their basic philosophy.
The common thread is that deregulation, cutting back welfare, introducing a GST, cutting back Medicare, and simply ignoring environmental issues are all fundamental parts of the Liberal Party's political philosophy - he had to tell those lies because people naturally expected that that was what the Liberals were planning to do. These weren't just the little lies we tend to expect from politicians - they were lies about the party's fundamental political beleifs.
Cover-ups and lies about current events:
*Meeting with ethanol producers: According to the ALP, "on 1 August [John Howard met with] the head of Manildra Group ... which makes 87 per cent of our ethanol, and they discussed how to help the Australian ethanol industry." He claimed no such meeting ever took place, though there is an official record of it.
*Car manufacturers fears over the ALP gaining power: According to an alliance of car manufacturers, they had no such fears, and didn't know where the reports came from. It was pretty obvious where the reports came from, though; Peter Costello was repeating this lie constantly on the day that it was debunked.
*The AWB giving bribe money to Saddam Hussein's regime: They did it, there's no debate about that. What's intriguing is that Liberal Party ministers - John Howard himself, and Alexander "The Things That Batter" Downer - apparently knew what was going on. This might be the most famous cover-up of the last decade.
*Dirty foreigners throwing their children overboard to manipulate Australians into giving them asylum: "The Government's position remains that we were advised by Defence that children were thrown overboard, we made those allegations on the basis of that advice, and until I get Defence advice to the contrary I will maintain that position". John Howard, Sunrise, Channel 7, 9 November 2001 In fact, the asylum-seekers didn't throw their children into the water, and there is evidence that Howard knew that it was a dodgy claim when he repeated it, over and over again, to drum up sentiment against them.
*Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: Part of the rationale for participating in the invasion of Iraq, now it seems dubious whether the Australian Government ever saw any compelling evidence at all when they decided to go to war. Indeed, whistleblowers who have suggested that WMDs didn't even play a part in the party's discussions about whether to go to war have been slandered by Howard's professional mudslingers.
*Blocking Freedom of Information requests to see notes from Cabinet proceedings: Apparently the notes indicated that the Liberals were planning on strengthening Workchoices further - this would be consistent with their basic party policy, but, as with other core Liberal Party beleifs, Howard was denying it existed. And, unfortunately like many governments, he didn't feel we had the right to know what our leaders were talking about behind closed doors.
This is a short list, but i have a strong feeling that it will get longer as history starts to take apart the "Howard Years". We have to wait 30 years, of course, before we can see those Cabinet papers. It'll be interesting.
Propaganda and the Dumbing Down of Honest Debate:
As a Liberal party press release stated; "There is clearly a massive difference between necessary Government information for the community and blatant Government electoral propaganda. Propaganda should be paid for by political parties." That's pretty reasonable.
*Slander Campaigns: Howard maintained a high level of mudslinging on anyone who spoke out against the Liberal Party's policies. He did it to Army personnel, he did it to aides and politicians, and he did it to respected scientists and academics. He was truly a repulsive human being in his treatment of opponents.
*The Aboriginal Intervention and Protecting Little Children: The Liberals have obscured the debate over the Aboriginal intervention by claiming that anyone opposed to the intervention is risking the rape of little children - an idiotic suggestion, especially considering most of the opponents of the government's actions have been calling for proper assistance to aboriginal communities for years. But "Won't somebody please think of the children?" has been a frequent bit of brainless propaganda spouted by Liberals since it happened.
*Keep Australia Safe From Terrorism: Though Howard asked us to be "alert, not alarmed", there is a real question as to how much this ad campaign was a part of Howard's use of terrorist activities to drum up a climate of fear and encourage support for Draconian laws aimed at stripping away the legal rights of Australian citizens.
*Workchoices campaigns: And they weren't just laws, they were campaigns. They advocated controversial and disputed political positions, all with public money.
*Workplace Authority campaigns: Add to that the series of advertisements that saw a public servant breaking the code of conduct expected of public servants under the Westminster system of 'responsible government'. These ads created and popularised "Straw Man" arguments against Workchoices to weaken the opposition.
*Australian History and Culture: Howard has managed to idiotize Australian culture. We now speak about issues on a lower level than before. We understand our own history in a more limited, narrow way than before. He took the beliefs of the most ill-informed people in our society, and brought them to national prominence. He was, ironically, very clever at making dumb ideas look like the product of enlightened, liberal (small-l) thought. He brought us the concept of a "black armband" view of history: he taught us all how to ignore things. The only atrocity he didn't deny was the Jewish Holocaust - and I'm sure that's only because he wasn't born German.
And then we come to the things that they were honest about... these are the most important points to be aware of for the future, particularly for the next election, because these are the core actions of the Liberal Party; you can't claim they're just idiosyncrasies of the Howard Government. These are the things we'll need to remind people of in four years time:
Liberal Party Policy in Practise:
Asylum Seekers:
*"Illegitimate" asylum seekers were turned away whenever possible. At one stage before the war, a group of Iraqis were turned away - despite the fact that Iraq was under a brutal dictatorship, despite even the fact that the Government used this as part of the justification for invasion of that country.
*Asylum seekers were (and still are) processed in institutions that are, quite frankly, prisons. They have limited freedom of movement, limited rights, and armed guards. Occasionally there have been flare-ups of violence within these prisons.
*Others are sent to Nauru; this is a small Pacific island that has been environmentally devastated by first world exploitation (in the form of phosphate mining) - their government relies on foreign aid, and the Liberals have used this to exploit Nauru further, using it as an offshore asylum-seeker detention facility - the "Pacific Solution", to keep refugees away from public scrutiny by the Australian media.
*Liberal doctrine has been that they are "queue-jumpers" - as if there is some orderly process to escaping oppressive regimes and economic conditions.
*There are signs of racism in their policies - for example, the government has been more concerned with policing the refugees arriving from war-torn or oppressive regimes than with un-oppressed European backpackers overstaying their VISAs.
Racism and Bigotry:
*Normally, the Liberals have hid their racism behind pragmatic claims - e.g. with regard to asylum seekers, John Howard was very good at claiming pragmatism publicly, while in the same breath giving a sneaky wink and a nudge to the worst bigots in the community.
*Kevin Andrews famously screwed up the "Howard formula" on racism, when he fumbled his appeal to those who were sick of all those blacks by making his racism too obvious: Andrews declared that he would cut down the number of Sudanese refugees allowed into the country, because Sudanese immigrants caused social problems. This left us with two questions; 1) Is that true in the first place? 2) If it were true, what would you expect from people fleeing a nightmarish genocide? It's our responsibility to help such people, not to pick and choose the "best" refugees on racial and cultural pretexts. That's the point of giving "asylum".
The Aboriginal Intervention:
*Although they would NEVER allow it on white people, the Liberals saw no problem in sending an army of investigators to root out child abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Instead of listening to the recommendations of reports into problems in Aboriginal communities, they decided an "invasion" model would be more appropriate than actual, solid assistance.
*Bizarrely, this intervention involved restrictions on pornography, which make no sense at all, except as a form of pushing values onto people (like the Marriage laws, below), or as a response to bizarre racist assumptions about the tendency of aboriginals to abuse children when exposed to pornography.
Marriage:
*Legal marriages in Australia must now be accompanied by a patronising and, frankly, disgusting set of statements. The person running the ceremony now has to read out a bunch of conservative beliefs before the marriage is legal. Basically, John Howard now officiates at every legal wedding in the country, pushing his small-minded out-dated opinions onto all citizens who want legal recognition of their bond.
*The Liberals have worked to close up loopholes allowing gay marriage, rather than removing restrictions preventing gay marriage. Whether or not you think marriage should be legally regulated in the first place (I don't), they have said, in effect, certain people and their connections with each other are not as important, not as righteous, and don't deserve the same cultural consideration as others. It's another form of bigotry.
Human Rights:
*The Howard Government took part in the Indonesian massacres in East Timor by withdrawing foreign observers, to allow mass murder to take place unseen by the international community,
*The terror laws were introduced to give police more powers - by giving people fewer rights. For example, you can now be held without charge for up to two weeks.
*The Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, has used his position to severely damage the reputation and career of an apparently innocent man, Dr. Haneef, by revoking his VISA and basically sending him into exile. The Liberals apparently saw no problem with this.
*The man appointed as Attorney-General, Phillip Ruddock, turned out to be someone who does not even beleive in human rights in the first place, who does not beleive in basic legal fairness. This is a level of incompetence astonishing for someone who has been given that position.
*The Liberals failed to address the human rights violations of Australia's allies, the Americans, when they set up prisons and trial systems that would violate the most basic human rights provisions of their own constitutional amendments, by allowing and promoting the use of torture and illegal detention.
*Even when an Australian citizen, David Hicks (and yes, his guilt is irrelevant) became subject to the US's illegal imprisonment, they dragged their feet as much as possible and failed to spring to his defense.
Worker's Rights:
*The famous wharfies strikes in the late 1990s seem to have been forgotten by many people, but the fact is, the Liberal Party worked to undermine the union's quite valid case against a dodgy employer, and destroyed a lot of lives in the process.
*The Workchoices laws were introduced to make things easier for business - by giving workers fewer rights. Small business can now fire employees for no reason at all, and the real purpose of the laws have been to reduce the influence of unions - organisations dedicated to protecting workers from unfair actions by employers.
*Now unionists can't even enter some workplaces, and strikes are now much harder to do legally. (I find it incredible that the concept of a "legal" vs. "illegal" strike can even exist.)
Censorship:
*Phillip Ruddock worked hard to make sure there were certain things we were not allowed to see. The Terror Laws were also associated with restrictions on freedom of speech and on the right of intelligent adults to read certain materials - anything seeming to advocate terrorism became illegal.
*Ruddock also campaigned heavily to get certain books banned even though they had been approved by Australian censors.
Media Laws:
*They have worked to reduce the freedom and the diversity of the media, by making it possible for a single person to own virtually all the media in a given city.
The Environment:
*We've seen continued support for opening up uranium mines in a national park - we don't want nuclear weapons, and we don't want nuclear power plants, but we have no problem selling dangerous materials to other countries, and we don't mind damaging a supposedly protected national park in the process.
*We've seen the Liberals propose to actually use nuclear reactors in Australia, despite the fact that there is no way to dispose of the radioactive waste from it. (Perhaps 100,000-year decisions shouldn't be made by those with 4-year terms of office...)
*We've seen funding go to ideas such as "geosequestration" to reduce greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, rather than tried, tested and proven sources of alternative energy like solar and wind power.
*We've seen the Government block a wind farm in Victoria on fraudulent grounds.
Universities:
*Funding has dropped to pure scientific research during Howard's reign.
*HECS fees have been raised by Brendan Nelson, increasing student debt.
*VSU has been introduced - "voluntary student unionism" - which has devastated services at smaller universities, and dropped services and student facilities at larger institutions like Monash and Melbourne.
War:
*The Liberals dragged us into the invasion of Iraq when we still had not brought any kind of stability to Afghanistan - no matter what you think of the rightness or wrongness of the war in the first place. Ironically, Howard later referred to pulling out of Iraq as "cutting and running"; what, then, did he see as our responsiblities in Afghanistan?
*The Liberals have failed to show any leadership in encouraging the international community to intervene in Sudan, were a genocide is still taking place (and we hear virtually nothing about it). People are dying, people are being raped, entire townships are being wiped off the map - but I guess Sudan's coal, oil and gas reserves aren't impressive enough to warrant intervention.
*In fact, every war that Howard has dragged us into has something to do with economic resources - even the Australian troops in East Timor were delayed as long as possible due to economic links with the murderous Indonesian government, and then we began working to screw the East Timorese out of offshore gas reserves in that region.
Primary and Secondary Schools:
*The funding of school chaplains rather than school counsellors: As well as being a poor way to invest public money, this was a direct violation of the Australian constitution, which has a very explicit "seperation of church and state" clause.
*The Liberals favour funding to private schools; their rationale is that private schools take a burden away from public education, but another way to reduce that burden would be, obviously, to fund public education.
*Primary schools are required to have students sing the national anthem, and required to raise the Australian flag, in order to qualify for government funding.
*Schools are funded partly based on students test scores - not based on needs. In theory, this means that schools that need the funding most are least likely to get it, as poverty and a lack of resources are linked to low test scores.
*The Liberals were also proposing to link teacher's pay and promotions to students test scores - the problem is, 1) test scores are not a reliable measure of either teaching quality or student performance, 2) incentive-based systems encourage cheating, and place teachers in unhealthy competition with each other, thus reducing the quality of teaching, 3) this would also encourage overwhelming "teaching to the test" - reducing the quality of teaching again.
Tax Cuts and the Economy:
*The Liberal boasts about a massive budget surplus - which i see as a symptom of a failure to invest - have occasionally been followed by tax cuts. These cuts, always fairly paltry to begin with (and i take it that they were only intended to be symbolic), have always been focused overwhelmingly on the rich, on the highest tax brackets - basically, on the people who need the tax cuts the least.
*Paltry though they were, these cuts must have had some influence on inflation, which the Liberals are apparently incapable of controlling, having ignored calls for regulating the housing market.
*Their failure to increase welfare with the budget surplus meant they lost opportunities to narrow the gap between rich and poor and invest directly into the economy.
Attacks on the Democratic System:
*The Liberal Party passed legislation that makes it easier to pay off politicians and buy influence in the federal government, by raising the size of donations that can be given from a company to a politician without that politician having to report it.
*We've seen Howard asserting an unconstitutional right to "call into line" Liberal and National Senators - Howard sits in the House of Reps - he has no legal authority over the Senate at all. But he pulled the "party loyalty" card extensively.
*We've seen the reduction of the powers of the States over their areas of policy - the removal of some of the checks and balances of our democratic system (which traditionally has the Federal and State governments with seperate fields of authority).
Welfare & Medicare:
*The Liberal Party, for all it's attempts to dismantle welfare, oversaw the introduction of non-means tested forms of welfare, such as the baby bonus and the first home buyer's grant (allowing some cynical people to buy new property investments in their children's names at a taxpayer funded discount). Welfare is a system devised partly to alleviate the gap between rich and poor; the Liberals have used it to throw money at anyone who might vote for them.
*They have attacked funding for carers of the disabled and those with disabilities, only to return it in part, and claim the credit for increasing said funding (how can this be seen as anything other than a purely evil move?)
*The last 11 years has seen massive drops in bulk billing, leading to crowded waiting rooms and to less chance for those on tight budgets to actually get in to see a doctor.
*We don't have dental on Medicare anymore, thanks to the Liberals.
The Liberals only did one or two things that I actually supported;
*the introduction of tougher gun laws;
*the advocacy of the protection of whales in Australian waters.
Both ran against traditional "right-wing" policy, and both had a lot more to do with public opinion than Liberal ideology.
I'm very happy to be saying goodbye to one of the most incompetent circles of Ministers we've ever had. I think it's pretty reasonable to consider John Howard to have been the worst Prime Minister in Australian history.
We certainly have lived in interesting times. In general, the Liberal Party worked hard to make this country a crueller and more expensive place to live - and they used lies and manipulation of the public debate to do it, even lying about their own beliefs and goals. They've done a lot of damage. I only hope the ALP has the political will to reverse most of what's happened, and move forward with a more progressive agenda.
I guess a lot of that will depend on the outcome of the Senate election. Will it be a hostile Coalition Senate, an ALP Senate, or one with the Greens holding a balance of power? Fingers crossed for the latter.
We still have to see how the Senate works out; it's possible the ALP may face a hostile Senate. But i'm hoping on a few Greens senators taking the balance of power, like the Democrats ten years ago.
Moving on; there's going to be a lot of discussion over the next week about Howard's legacy, and, i predict, we'll hear a lot of people complimenting his skills as a leader - before that happens, I'd like to pre-empt the funereal praise of the Howard government by suggesting that maybe there should be more to being a good politician than being canny, sneaky and totalising. And maybe the phrase "strong leader" should be dissected for what it really means.
To start with, Howard's reign has been characterised by lies. These fell into three categories; lies about his party's policies, lies about current events, and propaganda intended to dumb down political debate and lower the level of intelligent discussion of policy.
Lies about Liberal Party policy:
Over the last 11 years, Howard has been teaching us the difference between "core" and "non-core" promises. Most of these come from the Labor Party website (http://www.alp.org.au/features/lies.php) - i imagine they won't need that any more! It's kind of nice to think that this is now just a historical document.
Medicare:
"It is our policy, without qualification, to retain Medicare . . . Not only does Medicare stay but so does bulk billing." John Howard, Health Policy launch of "A Healthy Future", 12 February 1996
*Dental coverage under Medicare is gone,
*Bulk billing rates have been dropped.
University:
*"I can guarantee we're not going to have $100,000 university degree courses."
John Howard, interview with Neil Mitchell on Radio 3AW, 15 October 1999
According to the ALP, "16 different degrees now cost at least $100,000." I should add, it's not just the inflation Howard's overseen that is responsible for this - his Education minister, Brendan Nelson, pushed through rises in HECS of up to 25% - and universities promptly lifted fees to match.
*He claimed the Liberals would not deregulate university fees, and later stated his intention to do just that.
The GST:
*He claimed that the Liberals would "never ever" introduce a GST, and now he is famous for overseeing the introduction of a GST. No, i don't buy his argument that he simply changed his mind - a GST was always a core part of Liberal party policy goals before he claimed that it would never be introduced.
Welfare:
*He claimed that no benefits would be cut. In 2002 the Liberal Party cut the disability pension and the payments for those caring with people suffering disabilities.
The Environment:
*The Liberal Party blocked a wind farm in Victoria because, they claimed, birds would be at risk, flying into the blades. In fact, the report they commissioned showed that the wind farm would pose virtually no risk at all to birds. The real reason for blocking the farm was to court votes from those opposed to having wind farms at all.
The Last-Minute Election Lies:
*Climate Change: In the last year or so, Howard magically switched from being a denier to being concerned with climate change. His public statement indicate that he is probably lying about this - he doesn't really beleive it, and he doesn't seem to fully understand it. He just knows which words to say to make people clap.
*Reconciliation: In the last few months, Howard magically switched from not giving a damn what Aboriginals want, to suddenly being interested in a "new phase" of reconciliation. Closer examination reveals that this "new phase" is substantially similar to not really doing anything about it at all.
*Aboriginal Welfare: After eleven years of neglect, Howard fumbled a massive intervention in the Northern Territory - he was trying to look like a PM who suddenly cares about Aboriginals. He just came off as a Draconian monster. But he wasn't after Aboriginal votes; he was after middle-class white people all along.
*?The Fairness Test?: It runs right against Liberal doctrine; i predict, in an alternate universe, this test disappearing and the Workplace Authority's power being quietly removed. There's no way Howard and other Liberals actually beleive in a workplace contract fairness test - it just runs against their basic philosophy.
The common thread is that deregulation, cutting back welfare, introducing a GST, cutting back Medicare, and simply ignoring environmental issues are all fundamental parts of the Liberal Party's political philosophy - he had to tell those lies because people naturally expected that that was what the Liberals were planning to do. These weren't just the little lies we tend to expect from politicians - they were lies about the party's fundamental political beleifs.
Cover-ups and lies about current events:
*Meeting with ethanol producers: According to the ALP, "on 1 August [John Howard met with] the head of Manildra Group ... which makes 87 per cent of our ethanol, and they discussed how to help the Australian ethanol industry." He claimed no such meeting ever took place, though there is an official record of it.
*Car manufacturers fears over the ALP gaining power: According to an alliance of car manufacturers, they had no such fears, and didn't know where the reports came from. It was pretty obvious where the reports came from, though; Peter Costello was repeating this lie constantly on the day that it was debunked.
*The AWB giving bribe money to Saddam Hussein's regime: They did it, there's no debate about that. What's intriguing is that Liberal Party ministers - John Howard himself, and Alexander "The Things That Batter" Downer - apparently knew what was going on. This might be the most famous cover-up of the last decade.
*Dirty foreigners throwing their children overboard to manipulate Australians into giving them asylum: "The Government's position remains that we were advised by Defence that children were thrown overboard, we made those allegations on the basis of that advice, and until I get Defence advice to the contrary I will maintain that position". John Howard, Sunrise, Channel 7, 9 November 2001 In fact, the asylum-seekers didn't throw their children into the water, and there is evidence that Howard knew that it was a dodgy claim when he repeated it, over and over again, to drum up sentiment against them.
*Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: Part of the rationale for participating in the invasion of Iraq, now it seems dubious whether the Australian Government ever saw any compelling evidence at all when they decided to go to war. Indeed, whistleblowers who have suggested that WMDs didn't even play a part in the party's discussions about whether to go to war have been slandered by Howard's professional mudslingers.
*Blocking Freedom of Information requests to see notes from Cabinet proceedings: Apparently the notes indicated that the Liberals were planning on strengthening Workchoices further - this would be consistent with their basic party policy, but, as with other core Liberal Party beleifs, Howard was denying it existed. And, unfortunately like many governments, he didn't feel we had the right to know what our leaders were talking about behind closed doors.
This is a short list, but i have a strong feeling that it will get longer as history starts to take apart the "Howard Years". We have to wait 30 years, of course, before we can see those Cabinet papers. It'll be interesting.
Propaganda and the Dumbing Down of Honest Debate:
As a Liberal party press release stated; "There is clearly a massive difference between necessary Government information for the community and blatant Government electoral propaganda. Propaganda should be paid for by political parties." That's pretty reasonable.
*Slander Campaigns: Howard maintained a high level of mudslinging on anyone who spoke out against the Liberal Party's policies. He did it to Army personnel, he did it to aides and politicians, and he did it to respected scientists and academics. He was truly a repulsive human being in his treatment of opponents.
*The Aboriginal Intervention and Protecting Little Children: The Liberals have obscured the debate over the Aboriginal intervention by claiming that anyone opposed to the intervention is risking the rape of little children - an idiotic suggestion, especially considering most of the opponents of the government's actions have been calling for proper assistance to aboriginal communities for years. But "Won't somebody please think of the children?" has been a frequent bit of brainless propaganda spouted by Liberals since it happened.
*Keep Australia Safe From Terrorism: Though Howard asked us to be "alert, not alarmed", there is a real question as to how much this ad campaign was a part of Howard's use of terrorist activities to drum up a climate of fear and encourage support for Draconian laws aimed at stripping away the legal rights of Australian citizens.
*Workchoices campaigns: And they weren't just laws, they were campaigns. They advocated controversial and disputed political positions, all with public money.
*Workplace Authority campaigns: Add to that the series of advertisements that saw a public servant breaking the code of conduct expected of public servants under the Westminster system of 'responsible government'. These ads created and popularised "Straw Man" arguments against Workchoices to weaken the opposition.
*Australian History and Culture: Howard has managed to idiotize Australian culture. We now speak about issues on a lower level than before. We understand our own history in a more limited, narrow way than before. He took the beliefs of the most ill-informed people in our society, and brought them to national prominence. He was, ironically, very clever at making dumb ideas look like the product of enlightened, liberal (small-l) thought. He brought us the concept of a "black armband" view of history: he taught us all how to ignore things. The only atrocity he didn't deny was the Jewish Holocaust - and I'm sure that's only because he wasn't born German.
And then we come to the things that they were honest about... these are the most important points to be aware of for the future, particularly for the next election, because these are the core actions of the Liberal Party; you can't claim they're just idiosyncrasies of the Howard Government. These are the things we'll need to remind people of in four years time:
Liberal Party Policy in Practise:
Asylum Seekers:
*"Illegitimate" asylum seekers were turned away whenever possible. At one stage before the war, a group of Iraqis were turned away - despite the fact that Iraq was under a brutal dictatorship, despite even the fact that the Government used this as part of the justification for invasion of that country.
*Asylum seekers were (and still are) processed in institutions that are, quite frankly, prisons. They have limited freedom of movement, limited rights, and armed guards. Occasionally there have been flare-ups of violence within these prisons.
*Others are sent to Nauru; this is a small Pacific island that has been environmentally devastated by first world exploitation (in the form of phosphate mining) - their government relies on foreign aid, and the Liberals have used this to exploit Nauru further, using it as an offshore asylum-seeker detention facility - the "Pacific Solution", to keep refugees away from public scrutiny by the Australian media.
*Liberal doctrine has been that they are "queue-jumpers" - as if there is some orderly process to escaping oppressive regimes and economic conditions.
*There are signs of racism in their policies - for example, the government has been more concerned with policing the refugees arriving from war-torn or oppressive regimes than with un-oppressed European backpackers overstaying their VISAs.
Racism and Bigotry:
*Normally, the Liberals have hid their racism behind pragmatic claims - e.g. with regard to asylum seekers, John Howard was very good at claiming pragmatism publicly, while in the same breath giving a sneaky wink and a nudge to the worst bigots in the community.
*Kevin Andrews famously screwed up the "Howard formula" on racism, when he fumbled his appeal to those who were sick of all those blacks by making his racism too obvious: Andrews declared that he would cut down the number of Sudanese refugees allowed into the country, because Sudanese immigrants caused social problems. This left us with two questions; 1) Is that true in the first place? 2) If it were true, what would you expect from people fleeing a nightmarish genocide? It's our responsibility to help such people, not to pick and choose the "best" refugees on racial and cultural pretexts. That's the point of giving "asylum".
The Aboriginal Intervention:
*Although they would NEVER allow it on white people, the Liberals saw no problem in sending an army of investigators to root out child abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Instead of listening to the recommendations of reports into problems in Aboriginal communities, they decided an "invasion" model would be more appropriate than actual, solid assistance.
*Bizarrely, this intervention involved restrictions on pornography, which make no sense at all, except as a form of pushing values onto people (like the Marriage laws, below), or as a response to bizarre racist assumptions about the tendency of aboriginals to abuse children when exposed to pornography.
Marriage:
*Legal marriages in Australia must now be accompanied by a patronising and, frankly, disgusting set of statements. The person running the ceremony now has to read out a bunch of conservative beliefs before the marriage is legal. Basically, John Howard now officiates at every legal wedding in the country, pushing his small-minded out-dated opinions onto all citizens who want legal recognition of their bond.
*The Liberals have worked to close up loopholes allowing gay marriage, rather than removing restrictions preventing gay marriage. Whether or not you think marriage should be legally regulated in the first place (I don't), they have said, in effect, certain people and their connections with each other are not as important, not as righteous, and don't deserve the same cultural consideration as others. It's another form of bigotry.
Human Rights:
*The Howard Government took part in the Indonesian massacres in East Timor by withdrawing foreign observers, to allow mass murder to take place unseen by the international community,
*The terror laws were introduced to give police more powers - by giving people fewer rights. For example, you can now be held without charge for up to two weeks.
*The Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, has used his position to severely damage the reputation and career of an apparently innocent man, Dr. Haneef, by revoking his VISA and basically sending him into exile. The Liberals apparently saw no problem with this.
*The man appointed as Attorney-General, Phillip Ruddock, turned out to be someone who does not even beleive in human rights in the first place, who does not beleive in basic legal fairness. This is a level of incompetence astonishing for someone who has been given that position.
*The Liberals failed to address the human rights violations of Australia's allies, the Americans, when they set up prisons and trial systems that would violate the most basic human rights provisions of their own constitutional amendments, by allowing and promoting the use of torture and illegal detention.
*Even when an Australian citizen, David Hicks (and yes, his guilt is irrelevant) became subject to the US's illegal imprisonment, they dragged their feet as much as possible and failed to spring to his defense.
Worker's Rights:
*The famous wharfies strikes in the late 1990s seem to have been forgotten by many people, but the fact is, the Liberal Party worked to undermine the union's quite valid case against a dodgy employer, and destroyed a lot of lives in the process.
*The Workchoices laws were introduced to make things easier for business - by giving workers fewer rights. Small business can now fire employees for no reason at all, and the real purpose of the laws have been to reduce the influence of unions - organisations dedicated to protecting workers from unfair actions by employers.
*Now unionists can't even enter some workplaces, and strikes are now much harder to do legally. (I find it incredible that the concept of a "legal" vs. "illegal" strike can even exist.)
Censorship:
*Phillip Ruddock worked hard to make sure there were certain things we were not allowed to see. The Terror Laws were also associated with restrictions on freedom of speech and on the right of intelligent adults to read certain materials - anything seeming to advocate terrorism became illegal.
*Ruddock also campaigned heavily to get certain books banned even though they had been approved by Australian censors.
Media Laws:
*They have worked to reduce the freedom and the diversity of the media, by making it possible for a single person to own virtually all the media in a given city.
The Environment:
*We've seen continued support for opening up uranium mines in a national park - we don't want nuclear weapons, and we don't want nuclear power plants, but we have no problem selling dangerous materials to other countries, and we don't mind damaging a supposedly protected national park in the process.
*We've seen the Liberals propose to actually use nuclear reactors in Australia, despite the fact that there is no way to dispose of the radioactive waste from it. (Perhaps 100,000-year decisions shouldn't be made by those with 4-year terms of office...)
*We've seen funding go to ideas such as "geosequestration" to reduce greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, rather than tried, tested and proven sources of alternative energy like solar and wind power.
*We've seen the Government block a wind farm in Victoria on fraudulent grounds.
Universities:
*Funding has dropped to pure scientific research during Howard's reign.
*HECS fees have been raised by Brendan Nelson, increasing student debt.
*VSU has been introduced - "voluntary student unionism" - which has devastated services at smaller universities, and dropped services and student facilities at larger institutions like Monash and Melbourne.
War:
*The Liberals dragged us into the invasion of Iraq when we still had not brought any kind of stability to Afghanistan - no matter what you think of the rightness or wrongness of the war in the first place. Ironically, Howard later referred to pulling out of Iraq as "cutting and running"; what, then, did he see as our responsiblities in Afghanistan?
*The Liberals have failed to show any leadership in encouraging the international community to intervene in Sudan, were a genocide is still taking place (and we hear virtually nothing about it). People are dying, people are being raped, entire townships are being wiped off the map - but I guess Sudan's coal, oil and gas reserves aren't impressive enough to warrant intervention.
*In fact, every war that Howard has dragged us into has something to do with economic resources - even the Australian troops in East Timor were delayed as long as possible due to economic links with the murderous Indonesian government, and then we began working to screw the East Timorese out of offshore gas reserves in that region.
Primary and Secondary Schools:
*The funding of school chaplains rather than school counsellors: As well as being a poor way to invest public money, this was a direct violation of the Australian constitution, which has a very explicit "seperation of church and state" clause.
*The Liberals favour funding to private schools; their rationale is that private schools take a burden away from public education, but another way to reduce that burden would be, obviously, to fund public education.
*Primary schools are required to have students sing the national anthem, and required to raise the Australian flag, in order to qualify for government funding.
*Schools are funded partly based on students test scores - not based on needs. In theory, this means that schools that need the funding most are least likely to get it, as poverty and a lack of resources are linked to low test scores.
*The Liberals were also proposing to link teacher's pay and promotions to students test scores - the problem is, 1) test scores are not a reliable measure of either teaching quality or student performance, 2) incentive-based systems encourage cheating, and place teachers in unhealthy competition with each other, thus reducing the quality of teaching, 3) this would also encourage overwhelming "teaching to the test" - reducing the quality of teaching again.
Tax Cuts and the Economy:
*The Liberal boasts about a massive budget surplus - which i see as a symptom of a failure to invest - have occasionally been followed by tax cuts. These cuts, always fairly paltry to begin with (and i take it that they were only intended to be symbolic), have always been focused overwhelmingly on the rich, on the highest tax brackets - basically, on the people who need the tax cuts the least.
*Paltry though they were, these cuts must have had some influence on inflation, which the Liberals are apparently incapable of controlling, having ignored calls for regulating the housing market.
*Their failure to increase welfare with the budget surplus meant they lost opportunities to narrow the gap between rich and poor and invest directly into the economy.
Attacks on the Democratic System:
*The Liberal Party passed legislation that makes it easier to pay off politicians and buy influence in the federal government, by raising the size of donations that can be given from a company to a politician without that politician having to report it.
*We've seen Howard asserting an unconstitutional right to "call into line" Liberal and National Senators - Howard sits in the House of Reps - he has no legal authority over the Senate at all. But he pulled the "party loyalty" card extensively.
*We've seen the reduction of the powers of the States over their areas of policy - the removal of some of the checks and balances of our democratic system (which traditionally has the Federal and State governments with seperate fields of authority).
Welfare & Medicare:
*The Liberal Party, for all it's attempts to dismantle welfare, oversaw the introduction of non-means tested forms of welfare, such as the baby bonus and the first home buyer's grant (allowing some cynical people to buy new property investments in their children's names at a taxpayer funded discount). Welfare is a system devised partly to alleviate the gap between rich and poor; the Liberals have used it to throw money at anyone who might vote for them.
*They have attacked funding for carers of the disabled and those with disabilities, only to return it in part, and claim the credit for increasing said funding (how can this be seen as anything other than a purely evil move?)
*The last 11 years has seen massive drops in bulk billing, leading to crowded waiting rooms and to less chance for those on tight budgets to actually get in to see a doctor.
*We don't have dental on Medicare anymore, thanks to the Liberals.
The Liberals only did one or two things that I actually supported;
*the introduction of tougher gun laws;
*the advocacy of the protection of whales in Australian waters.
Both ran against traditional "right-wing" policy, and both had a lot more to do with public opinion than Liberal ideology.
I'm very happy to be saying goodbye to one of the most incompetent circles of Ministers we've ever had. I think it's pretty reasonable to consider John Howard to have been the worst Prime Minister in Australian history.
We certainly have lived in interesting times. In general, the Liberal Party worked hard to make this country a crueller and more expensive place to live - and they used lies and manipulation of the public debate to do it, even lying about their own beliefs and goals. They've done a lot of damage. I only hope the ALP has the political will to reverse most of what's happened, and move forward with a more progressive agenda.
I guess a lot of that will depend on the outcome of the Senate election. Will it be a hostile Coalition Senate, an ALP Senate, or one with the Greens holding a balance of power? Fingers crossed for the latter.