Allan Takes Aim Blog

First published The Chronicle Tuesday 12 April 2011

The recent elections in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia, shows that the Australian Labor Party is under siege from both the Coalition and to a lesser extent The Greens. That said the ALP now needs to ask itself if it can it raise the siege and return to its previous position in Australia’s duopolistic two party system. With an election looming in Queensland and facing a rejuvenated Opposition it is a question that needs answering sooner rather than later.

According to former PMs Bob Hawke and Paul Keating plus many prominent Labor luminaries, the omens look less than favourable. Indeed they seemed to think that, unless corruption was removed and union influence reduced, its condition could become terminal.

 Many rank and file members and once rusted on supporters said it had become a party that did not listen, Research following the NSW election showed that voters in general supported this view with the result that they deserted the party in droves because Labor was no longer a party they could trust to govern on their behalf with the integrity, honesty and transparency.

In general NSW voters did not want to be governed by arrogant people who thought themselves gifted with a level of intelligence equating to genius who saw election to Parliament as a means of climbing aboard the political gravy train. History shows that many of the elected were geniuses, not at carrying out the wishes of voters but in looking after themselves and preventing intelligent candidates who would do so from becoming MPs.

Such thoughts are not particular to NSW voters. Unfortunately for the ALP faces the view that on a nationally voters think such arrogance is rife within the party. That being said, can Labor raise the siege and produce policies that will prevent supporters from deserting the Party at the next State and Federal elections?

Having been involved in politics for a long time in Scotland, England, New Zealand and Australia, it seems to me that too many in the Labor Party are stuck in the past. I suspect that John Robertson, the new Labor Leader in NSW and some members of the Federal Parliament, is a man in that mould.

Labor that once thought itself the party of radical thought is now a party of conservatives with too many of its elected politicians afraid to risk putting out new ideas and getting offside with the party. They are conditioned to view that getting elected and re-elected as the most important issue they face and so measure ideas only by how they fit within parameters of party policy.

Gone are the days when many Labo(u)r politicians, many of them without the benefit of higher education came equipped with a level of common sense that can not be obtained even with the highest level of education. They were politicians who took risks; politicians who looked into the future and studied how to use technology not only to imagine what the future should be but also went on to create that future; they did not have tunnel vision nor move as if on tramlines.

Unfortunately we have too few people like that today in politics. Now we have parliaments with too many lawyers, PhDs, political scientists, economists et al, with little real experience of life outside the cocoon of safety enjoyed by politicians. This also applies to the Coalition parties.

It is interesting to note that these early visionaries lived in troubled times and much of the future they envisioned was driven by both economic and social issues and often by war, with the latter causing death on a scale even greater than the plagues.

For these reasons they encouraged sensible economic development, development of education and development of the Arts. More broadly, they encouraged the development of science, new machinery, new sources of power and new methods of transport etc that would help reduce disease, lighten mankind’s workload and help create an awareness that the wonders of the world should be available for everyone to enjoy, not just a few.

Thankfully for us today, their horizon of thought changed every day, which is why the time has come at both the local and federal level to elect people like them again.

dca@netspeed.com.au

The Chronicle for Canberra’s best community news. Published every Tuesday

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First published The  Chronicle Tuesday, April 5 2001 

 What makes an interesting week in politics? Silly sods like me think an interesting week is when some politicians manage to put out new ideas or new policies they think will help benefit the people they represent rather than ideas and policies they think will help improve the image they have of themselves as innovative and intelligent.

But silly sod or not, like most people, I think I can sort the political wheat from the political chaff and so the only thing I’m likely to think when I read what some politicians put out is that they are even bigger dills than I thought.

Nevertheless, two weeks ago as I contemplated the political program of the week ahead, it gave promise of being interesting. The first item on the program showed that on the Wednesday, an anti carbon tax protest would take place on the hill outside parliament house while on the Saturday, a mass execution of New South Wales Labor politicians would take place.

I was in no doubt the carbon tax protest would attract a large crowd and also generate heat in parliament. It did both. The former from the pro carbon tax lobby, the latter to the extent that, if Australia had a pollution policy that fined people for creating unnecessary volumes of (CO₂) the politicians would still be paying off the fine even after the next election.

A fact not generally known is that expiration of breath produces more nitrous oxide (N20) – known as laughing gas – than CO₂, although in this case the volume must have been lower than usual because laughter was noticeable by its absence.

Indeed neither the words on the placards of the protestors that some pro carbon tax supporters alleged maligned the Prime Minister, nor the later verbal sparring in Parliament, inclined one to laughter. If anything, the poverty of expression in the exchanges from both sides displayed a poverty of intelligence that did little to aid the cause of either.

But of the two, the verbal sparring in Parliament was the most serious because it will be enshrined in Hansard and become a model for future generations of parliamentarians to follow.

Of course, watchful of votes, Cabinet Ministers in the minority Labor Government aided and abetted by Senator Bob Brown, Leader of the Greens Party which is helping keep the minority Government in power, called on the anti carbon Placard People – many of them older citizens – and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, to apologise for maligning the Prime Minister.

However, if anyone needed to apologise it seems to me Senator Brown is the one who should be apologising, at least to the older Placard People (Tony Abbott can look after himself) for the words of James Higgins, a Greens candidate at the 2008 ACT election who, it was alleged on a local radio station had twittered in relation to the protest of the Placard People, that this was a world for young people and that the Placards People, should GTF away. And there was I thinking that Twitter was a social network. So what about it Senator Brown? 

And then on Saturday came the political show of the week, the mass execution of NSW Labor politicians predicted by various political oracles. Like the curate’s egg their predictions were only good in parts.

You might say the NSW elections have nothing to do with the ACT. Well, yes and no. It is important for the ACT as part of the larger regional area that includes Queanbeyan, maintains good cross border relationships with the NSW government particularly with reference to the areas where we serve each other.

These areas are many. With so much of Canberra’s needs being serviced by road, it is important that roads within the region that connect to, and are used to service Canberra, are well maintained. These roads are also important to Canberra’s tourism industry, as they carry the bulk of domestic tourists, the mainstay of Canberra’s tourism industry.

But Canberra is connected in many other ways: hospital, education services, sport, fitness and many cultural activities. Last, but certainly not least, Queanbeyan and surrounding areas house thousands of people who help keep the wheels of industry turning in Canberra.

dca@netspeed.com.au           

The Chronicle for Canberra’s best community news. Published every Tuesday.

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