What Obama Means for Australia
And no, the answer is not "nothing". :p
The ABC is starting a four-part documentary on November 17 about our former Prime Minister, titled The Howard Years. One hour for every term. Interviews with Howard and his team, his friends and his antagonists. (Watch a promo here.)
Did I miss something? Did the Howard years actually take place in the 1950s as it so often seemed, instead of finishing in 2007? Just last year? Why does John Howard deserve a major documentary about his reign so soon after the fact? This seems kind of unprecedented, and I wonder what tone the piece will take.
I won’t deny that Howard’s government was in power for a long time and saw some pretty big changes, but I don’t want to relive it. For me, the Howard years were painful. Our Prime Minister consistently lied to the Australian public, on topics as diverse as the GST and the children overboard affair, and the Australian public lapped it up. John Howard exploited the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in the wake of September 11. He showed a callous disregard for the very real plights of asylum seekers and others without a voice. He did his best to ruin my university experience, by deregulating HECS fees and imposing voluntary student unionism. The past 11 years for me were, politically speaking, a time of anger and helplessness. During those years, we were not an Australia that I was proud of. Howard did some good things, but not good enough.
I will try to watch this doco if I remember, because I want to see what Howard has to say for himself when they get to his mistakes, his lies, and his biggest controversies (and if they don’t touch on these issues I will be severely disappointed in the ABC). An article about the documentary said that it reveals just how much power Howard had, and how little he consulted with Cabinet and the rest of the party. It was a one-man show the likes of which I hope never to see again.
Part of that show was his "friendship" with George W. Bush, which gained Howard the kind of attention on the world stage that he must have found irresistible. He was in Washington on September 11 and I don’t deny that he did the right and politically savvy thing in immediately offering support to Bush and the US. But we shouldn’t have sent troops to Afghanistan or Iraq. Our involvement went too far, and it was not an equal relationship: I'm struggling to think of anything that we got out of it, except maybe cheaper access to US network television thanks to the 2004 Free Trade Agreement (which in turn may have had a negative effect on locally produced content). And on perhaps a more trivial note, I can’t help feeling that the friendship of George W. was not worth much. Cordiality with the US is important, yes, but a personal relationship with George W. Bush? That’s not really something that I’d boast about. With friends like these...
And then there's this, a quote from George W. about him and Howard: "In many ways our friendship was forged in fire, the fires of war."
Huh? As if they were both out there, on the frontlines? In the trenches? Risking their lives in combat? My ass.
Things are a little different now. Kevin Rudd, our current Prime Minister, has a female deputy, is culturally aware and not a slave to sport, and is committed to Aboriginal reconciliation. He and Obama have been in contact, and while perhaps Rudd will be keen to show that he is not the only politician who can make friends with a US leader, he and Obama seem to have some similar views and policies, and Rudd is strong and won't be just a yes-man. He moved to make changes to our Iraq involvement as soon as he took office, and also signed Kyoto, which John Howard would not do while the US wasn't. There’s a lot of potential for Rudd and Obama to work together in new ways, and it could be awesome. My biggest hope is that world politics, for Australia, will be less about getting in with the big boys, and more about working on real issues. Having friends in high places, but not forgetting what’s happening in our own backyard.
And in our backyard? The end of Helen Clark’s tenure as the second female Prime Minister of New Zealand. Those Kiwis are pretty awesome, sometimes. Here it’s a big deal that Julia Gillard got to be Acting Prime Minister and that Quentin Bryce is the Governor-General, meanwhile New Zealand was quietly getting along with being progressive.
Also, today at the post office I bought a stamp and they gave me free lightbulbs. Thanks, QLD Government!
The ABC is starting a four-part documentary on November 17 about our former Prime Minister, titled The Howard Years. One hour for every term. Interviews with Howard and his team, his friends and his antagonists. (Watch a promo here.)
Did I miss something? Did the Howard years actually take place in the 1950s as it so often seemed, instead of finishing in 2007? Just last year? Why does John Howard deserve a major documentary about his reign so soon after the fact? This seems kind of unprecedented, and I wonder what tone the piece will take.
I won’t deny that Howard’s government was in power for a long time and saw some pretty big changes, but I don’t want to relive it. For me, the Howard years were painful. Our Prime Minister consistently lied to the Australian public, on topics as diverse as the GST and the children overboard affair, and the Australian public lapped it up. John Howard exploited the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in the wake of September 11. He showed a callous disregard for the very real plights of asylum seekers and others without a voice. He did his best to ruin my university experience, by deregulating HECS fees and imposing voluntary student unionism. The past 11 years for me were, politically speaking, a time of anger and helplessness. During those years, we were not an Australia that I was proud of. Howard did some good things, but not good enough.
I will try to watch this doco if I remember, because I want to see what Howard has to say for himself when they get to his mistakes, his lies, and his biggest controversies (and if they don’t touch on these issues I will be severely disappointed in the ABC). An article about the documentary said that it reveals just how much power Howard had, and how little he consulted with Cabinet and the rest of the party. It was a one-man show the likes of which I hope never to see again.
Part of that show was his "friendship" with George W. Bush, which gained Howard the kind of attention on the world stage that he must have found irresistible. He was in Washington on September 11 and I don’t deny that he did the right and politically savvy thing in immediately offering support to Bush and the US. But we shouldn’t have sent troops to Afghanistan or Iraq. Our involvement went too far, and it was not an equal relationship: I'm struggling to think of anything that we got out of it, except maybe cheaper access to US network television thanks to the 2004 Free Trade Agreement (which in turn may have had a negative effect on locally produced content). And on perhaps a more trivial note, I can’t help feeling that the friendship of George W. was not worth much. Cordiality with the US is important, yes, but a personal relationship with George W. Bush? That’s not really something that I’d boast about. With friends like these...
And then there's this, a quote from George W. about him and Howard: "In many ways our friendship was forged in fire, the fires of war."
Huh? As if they were both out there, on the frontlines? In the trenches? Risking their lives in combat? My ass.
Things are a little different now. Kevin Rudd, our current Prime Minister, has a female deputy, is culturally aware and not a slave to sport, and is committed to Aboriginal reconciliation. He and Obama have been in contact, and while perhaps Rudd will be keen to show that he is not the only politician who can make friends with a US leader, he and Obama seem to have some similar views and policies, and Rudd is strong and won't be just a yes-man. He moved to make changes to our Iraq involvement as soon as he took office, and also signed Kyoto, which John Howard would not do while the US wasn't. There’s a lot of potential for Rudd and Obama to work together in new ways, and it could be awesome. My biggest hope is that world politics, for Australia, will be less about getting in with the big boys, and more about working on real issues. Having friends in high places, but not forgetting what’s happening in our own backyard.
And in our backyard? The end of Helen Clark’s tenure as the second female Prime Minister of New Zealand. Those Kiwis are pretty awesome, sometimes. Here it’s a big deal that Julia Gillard got to be Acting Prime Minister and that Quentin Bryce is the Governor-General, meanwhile New Zealand was quietly getting along with being progressive.
Also, today at the post office I bought a stamp and they gave me free lightbulbs. Thanks, QLD Government!