It
was the end of an era last week with Leanne Coleman’s departure from the
National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA) to work on the staff of Kristy McBain,
MHR, the Member for Eden-Monaro.
For
a quarter of a century people involved with the health and well-being of those
who live in rural and remote Australia have been receiving messages from leanne@ruralhealth.org.au. Thousands
upon thousands of people have been provided with information from that source about
events related to improving rural health and well-being. The information has
been provided in good time, with precision and, continually, with an
inclusiveness based on Leanne’s polite indifference to the status or position
of people who care for – or might be persuaded to care for – the well-being of
those in danger of being left behind simply because of where they live.
This natural ability of Leanne to deal with all people in the same open, respectful and task-oriented fashion, irrespective of their formal status, was first observed when she worked in the office of John Kerin in Parliament House. In her time on John Kerin’s staff, Leanne served as Personal, Cabinet and Appointments Secretary.
John Kerin and a couple of Leannes
In that last position she was required to manage the Minister’s diary; arrange travel and accommodation for him and his staff; and organise meetings. Following the Minister’s decision, it was Leanne’s job to inform people and to make all of the arrangements for a meeting to happen – or not, because there were always more requests than could be met. As Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, John Kerin undertook an immense amount of travel, both within Australia and overseas. His diary was a thing of great logistical complexity, especially as he liked to be in his electorate in south-west Sydney for the party’s branch meetings on Monday nights.
Flowers from Helen, designed by Catherine
John Kerin was one of those who attended a celebratory dinner last week to recognise the value of Leanne’s service to him and, even more so, to the people of rural Australia during her 25 years at the NRHA. By the time she joined the NRHA this young woman from Queanbeyan had become a mature and valuable asset to any organisation with administrative complexity and the aspiration to grow its effectiveness, its policy footprint and its contacts database.
Jenny, Stephen and Catherine o’Flower
It would be quite unfair to equate Leanne’s email address with the woman herself. But the reality is that many thousands of people who have never met her face-to-face have had the opportunity to contribute to better health for rural people because of Leanne’s networking abilities. And her main means of communication, since its arrival on the scene, has been email.
Lyn Eiszele and Peter Brown
In her later years at the NRHA her substantive job was as Manager of Programs and Events, a position she took over from Lyn Eiszele, from whom she learned the ropes of professional conference organising. In this capacity Leanne was responsible for every aspect of the administration, promotion, budget and (in conjunction with the NRHA’s policy staff) professional content of the biennial National Rural Health Conference. This is the NRHA’s largest and most important project and Leanne has played a key role in building and maintaining the reputation of the event, both for its contribution to professional developments in rural and remote health, and for its culture. Leanne was also responsible for leadership of the Conference team of staff and volunteers.
Andrew and Lindsay
The Conference has won awards for education and for social responsibility and through Leanne the NRHA has provided advice and support on conference and event management to other like-minded organisations.
with Jenny
But Leanne’s effective leadership and management of the conference and other meetings is put in the shade by her roles with the NRHA’s social media presence and content. Leanne almost single-handedly invented, grew and managed the NRHA’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube activities. While other members of staff were busy tending their own gardens, Leanne – recognising the potential value of the new platforms and methods to an organisation like the NRHA – just got down and did it.
Friends of the Alliance is a group of people and organisations who know the NRHA well and seek to support its work. So its members are people who will not only recognise the email address but will have had sufficient contact with the real Leanne to recognise her unique qualities and to value her friendship. They are among the lucky ones.
Kellie and Alpha
Our recent dinner in Canberra – appropriately socially distanced and with only a small amount of singing – was testament to the high esteem in which those who know Leanne hold her. Two past Chairpersons phoned in to thank Leanne for her service. And Warren Snowdon, on a dodgy phone link from Alice Springs, recognised that the greater challenges posed by engagement with people in remote areas and Aboriginal communities were never too much for her.
with Frank [OneVision] Meany
John Kerin braved the unlit external stairs at the venue to reflect on Leanne’s time well-served in his office; and the bolder or more loquacious of her NRHA colleagues, past and present, who we could fit into the COVID-restricted space, ventured various warm opinions as to her contributions, work ethic and manner. Frank built a nice slide show with photos from meetings, conferences and Christmas parties. The opportunity to contribute at the dinner was missed by many ex-colleagues who were unable to be out or could not be accommodated.
Simon, Jenny and Dave aka 60%of Skedaddle
Photography for the evening was in the hands of Janine Snowie, much loved by RAMUS scholars everywhere and by her colleagues at the NRHA.
Sue Pagura and Janine Snowie
For me the happiest tenor of the views exchanged at the dinner was
that while the NRHA and rural people around the nation will miss Leanne a great
deal, their loss is Eden-Monaro’s gain. The point was aptly made by Kristy
McBain, Leanne’s new employer, who also phoned in her best wishes. Kristy was met
with threats from around the table to pull her arms off if she fails to look
after Leanne.
I’m sure she won’t fail. Together the two of them will be part of
a great team.
Note: This is Part 2 of ‘Politics and economics explained’, an assignment happily entered into for my immediate family and made freely available here to others. The narrative is made more accessible to non-economists as a result of its unreliability and through the addition of references to a number of films which relate to the piece’s subject areas. Part 1 was ‘1940-1960’ and is available on this same blogg.
The scariest thing about living during the Cold War was the possibility of a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the US. Back then it seemed possible that one or other of those countries might somehow get an unhinged leader who could order a nuclear attack on the other superpower. [Dr. Strangelove. 1964]
By 1960 people seemed to have forgotten the value of having a government lead on commercial activity, and suddenly the only thing that mattered was the profitability of commercial enterprises. When Dr Beeching took over as Chairman of the British Transport Commission in 1964, British Rail was losing £140 million a year. So he closed 4,500 miles of railway line and 2,128 stations. This was one third of the track network and 55 per cent of stations, or the equivalent of six extra seasons of Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway Journeys (on BBC2). These closures led to the loss of 67,000 British Rail jobs – a sort of dress-rehearsal for what was in store for much of the UK’s heavy industry.
Soon
after Beeching’s closures people thought they could see light at the end of the
tunnel. Unfortunately it turned out to be a train coming in the opposite
direction. This was the thundering, unstoppable neoliberalism, a new fashion
for western governments that was to dominate politics and economics for half a
century and wasn’t really challenged until there was an unexpected viral
pandemic.
Neoliberalism
was invented by Milton Friedman in Chicago one day in 1967 – and we’re still
trying to get over it today. Friedman said that not only was it a bad idea to
have governments do stuff, but that government intervention actually does harm. When the economy is slowing down and
unemployment rising, the government should sit on its hands and let the central
bank manage growth by increasing the amount of money in circulation. This will reduce interest rates and increase
spending. (This is ‘monetarism’.)
People were persuaded. After 20 years of controlled economic expansion in which government investment (especially by the US) played a leading role, governments everywhere – Conservative, Liberal, Labour – signed up to ‘monetarism’ and turned their backs on Keynes. [Capitalism: A Love Story. 2009]
Monetarism is a central tenet of neoliberalism which has a particular view of the relationship that a government should have with its people. It holds that free-market capitalism is all the go. It sees competition as the best characteristic of human relations. We are all consumers, not citizens. All of our choices and behaviours and attitudes are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. ‘The market’ delivers benefits that can’t be achieved by planning and ensures that everyone gets what they deserve. Inequality is a sign that things are working well. [Suits. 2011-19]
The successes of neoliberalism include the financial meltdown of 2007‑8,
the Panama Papers, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent
child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, and the rise
of Donald Trump. [The Laundromat. 2019]
[Sorry We Missed You. 2020]
One of the best practitioners of neoliberalism was Margaret, Baroness Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. She loved markets and put structural change in the UK economy on steroids by closing all the coalmines and steelworks. She also had a wapping victory over print unions and helped Rupert Murdoch buy news organisations and salacious newspapers. [Hack Attack. date tbc] [My Beautiful Laundrette. 1985.]
PM Thatcher famously said there is no such thing as society:
I think we’ve been through a period where too
many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the
government’s job to cope with it: ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m
homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on
society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. [High Hopes. 1988.]
Between 1984 and 2014 over a quarter of a million coal miners in the UK lost their jobs. In 2014 there were still 5.5 million people in ‘coal mining regions’ who needed financial support. The steel industry was similarly affected. The UK steel industry employed 323,000 people in 1971, but 32,000 in 2019. The fracturing of local communities had serious adverse effects on a whole range of communal activity, including sporting clubs and local orchestras, but these were offset for some people by increased employment opportunities in male strip shows. [Brassed Off. 1996] [The Full Monty. 1997]
From
1997 to 2003 there is stable and fun government in the US. The leader of the
Western world and his staff grapple in entertaining fashion with tough issues
like modernisation of the US polity, religious fundamentalism, terrorism and
the politics of the Middle East. [TheWest Wing. 1999-2006]
However in response to terrorist attacks on the US, in 2003 President Bartlett’s successor led the United States into war in Iraq. The aims were to punish the Iraqi President for the use of chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction, to install a pro-US government there and to dissuade it and other countries in the Middle East from shielding terrorist organisations. The US was joined in the operation by Australia and the UK. The Iraq War lasted seven years, saw 4,488 U.S. troops killed and cost the US over a trillion dollars. In comparison, World War 2 cost the US $4.1 trillion (inflation-adjusted) and the Vietnam War $738 billion. [Good Morning, Vietnam.1987] [Platoon. 1986]
In the UK, 1997-2010 is a period of faux socialism during which social-democratic and neoliberal policies and approaches are pretty much indistinguishable. Then, in 2010, David Cameron (a Conservative) becomes the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. As Prime Minister he has two good moments. The first was when he became uncharacteristically firm in negotiations with the US President when he (the President) was caught coming on to his girlfriend. [Love Actually. 2003] The second was when he inexplicably decided to hold a referendum (June 2016) into the UK’s membership of the European Union. [Brexit: The Uncivil War. 2019]
Despite
ample evidence from The West Wing, the Panama Papers and a global financial crisis, neoliberalism
is still unchallenged as the preferred paradigm for governments throughout The Developed
World. It succeeds in reinventing itself time and again through ephemeral
schemes like subprime mortgages and less ephemeral ones like the sudden stupendous
wealth of Russian oligarchs. All of this means that, in 2016, even someone like
a 59-year-old carpenter who has had a heart attack has to fight bureaucratic
forces in order to get unemployment benefit. [I,
Daniel Blake. 2016] [The Era of
Neoliberalism. 2019]
It’s as if the world’s economic order is waiting for some unstoppable natural phenomenon to jolt it into the realisation that it needs to Make Kindness Great Again.
Like many others, our family has started meeting by VTC for a catch-up once a week. The agenda requires one or more of us to lead discussion on a topic of interest. I was recently required to open discussion on changes to the world’s political economy from the second war to 2020 – a jolly little assignment, I’m sure you will agree.
Some
of my children communicate best using the language and vocabulary of films and
TV shows, having no experience with the simile and metaphor of economics – the
dismal science. It therefore seemed helpful to couch my background contribution
in language and terms they would relate to more easily. The story is mostly
based in the UK.
This
is Part 1 of the piece: 1940-1960. Part
2 is Dr Strangelove to coronavirus.
Part 1: 1940-1960
It is 1940. The Second World War has started. The two sides appear to be fairly evenly matched until the third quarter when (7 December 1941) the United States comes off the bench. Japan sinks seven US battleships at Pearl Harbour but not their primary target – the American aircraft carriers. Yamamoto concludes: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” [Tora! Tora! Tora! 1970]
A shy steel factory worker in Russia surpasses his production quota and receives the order of Lenin. His town is attacked by the Germans who move forward to reach the gates of Moscow. Hitler is furious when he hears that Moscow has not fallen, and the Russians also successfully defend Stalingrad. The Soviet armies then close in on Berlin. [The Fall of Berlin (Падение Берлина). 1949]
Both sides attempt to destroy the
other’s manufacturing and heavy industries including, in the case of the
Allies, with a cunning bouncing bomb dropped by Lancaster bombers flying at 60
feet. [The Dam Busters. 1955] Even
submarines do not escape destruction, including U-96, a German U-boat hunting
British freighters in the north Atlantic. [Das
Boot. 1976] There was also significant destruction of infrastructure
effected by Alec Guinness in Thailand. [The
Bridge on the River Kwai. 1957]
Many
people flee from Europe to the U.S. when the war begins, some of them via North
Africa. Exit visas are not easy to come by, even for people as important as
Czech resistance leaders, except in Rick’s Cafe. Some of the European intellegentsia who make their
way to the U.S. play a part in the Manhattan project to develop a nuclear bomb.
[Casablanca.
1942.] [The Day After
Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb. 1980]
US President
Roosevelt is determined to prevent a retreat into isolationism once the war is
over. In 1941 he and Churchill announce the formation of the United Nations. In
1945 fifty nations sign the charter for a permanent United Nations, an alliance
“with power adequate to establish and to maintain a just and lasting peace.” [Scary Movie 4. 2006]
In 1944 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are created in the hope of preventing a return of the cut-throat economic nationalism that had prevailed before the war. One of the architects of the post-war financial system agreed at the Bretton Woods Conference was John Maynard Keynes. He died in 1946 so wouldn’t have known that governments everywhere soon adopted his idea from the 1930s, when unemployment reached 20 per cent. He thought increased government spending could make up for a slowdown in business activity and so prevent recession and the loss of jobs. At the time, balanced budgets were standard practice with governments, based on Mr Micawber’s recipe for happiness. [David Copperfield. 1935]
The pattern of the political
economy for forty years is set by the fact that, in winning the war, Russia
bore down on Berlin from the East while the Allies approached, fashionably
late, from the west.
Western nations fear that the poverty, unemployment and dislocation which exists across Europe immediately after the war would strengthen the appeal of communism. The political situation begins to unravel in Greece and Turkey so US President Truman (Roosevelt having died suddenly) announces his eponymous Doctrine, to provide countries with support to prevent them from turning to communism.
In Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and places further to the right) Russia is doing the same sort of thing to shore up communism. Berlin is divided and becomes the symbol of the division between East and West and of the Cold War that results. This provides the background for lots of James Bond movies. [Goldfinger 1964. Thunderball 1965.]
The Truman Doctrine is the foundation of the greatest foreign-aid program in world history: the Marshall Plan or European Recovery Program. The U.S. spends $13 billion to rehabilitate the economies of 17 western and southern European countries. Assistance was offered to Eastern-bloc countries as well, but Stalin gave them better offers.
The
Marshall Plan helped to restore industrial and agricultural production,
establish financial stability, and expand trade. The countries involved
experienced a rise in their gross national products of 15 to 25 percent during
this period. The plan contributed greatly to the rapid renewal of the western
European chemical, engineering, and steel industries.
People in London and Coventry were finding it particularly tough, with rubble in their gardens and leaking roofs. Therefore, to help them out, in 1948 William Beveridge invented the welfare state. This saw the government protecting the economic and social well-being of citizens by taking responsibility for people unable to find for themselves the minimal provisions for a good life.
The welfare
state is a good idea and it spread to many countries.
Firms of consultants are established to help smaller firms to combat the rapaciousness and pillaging of large multi-national corporations. The consultants begin by providing direct help and then move to a community development paradigm, passing to the managers of smaller enterprises the skills and self-confidence needed for the ongoing challenge of sustainability. [1960. The Magnificent Seven]
It seems odd that there has been no clear
and unequivocal advice about whether or not it would help if we all wore face
masks. This piece considers the many different aspects of the question which,
between them, explain its complexity and why there has not yet been a single clear
recommendation. Instead the matter has been left to individuals to decide.
This organic approach to an issue in which every one of us is potentially involved has at least two advantages. It lets the authorities off the hook of accountability for any sort of uniform advice. And it cedes responsibility to the people, which is widely considered a desirable principle. But if and when there is a clear technical (health or clinical) case for a particular protocol relating to masks, it will be an important challenge for the authorities to spread the word and obtain widespread community compliance.
“Who was that masked man?”
School
closures
Two weeks ago the question of whether
or not schools should be closed seemed to be the most critical on which there
was no clear advice. The experts had discussed the matter. We were told that
schools would remain open but it would be good if parents who were able to do
so would keep their kids at home.
The solidarity of the National Cabinet
seemed to be fractured. Different jurisdictions provided different advice,
based not just on medical views but on logistical matters such as when school
terms were ending. Very soon it became apparent that the matter was apparently
too complex for uniform national action to be agreed and it fell to parents to bear
responsibility for the decision.
This cannot be seen necessarily as a
criticism or failure of ‘the powers that be’. It may well be that the mixed
mode that emerged about schools was in fact optimal given all the relevant
circumstances and considerations.
The characteristics of that decision on schools which made it so complex seem now to relate to the question of whether or not to recommend or potentially even to mandate the wearing of masks. Is it to be Tonto or the Lone Ranger?[1]
Aspects of the question
Where the wearing of masks is
concerned, the aspects to be considered include the following.
1. Does the wearing of masks reduce
rates of transmission? This might appear to be the simplest and most important
question but, even without scientific knowledge, one can understand its
complexity. It obviously depends on the number, type and location of mask
deployed. Does the effectiveness of masks depend on the proportion of the
population who wear them? Why does the evidence from other countries seem to be
conflicting? One thing that is clear is that masks are effective only when used in combination
with other measures, most particularly frequent hand-washing with soap and
water. The efficacy of masks is impacted by their supply; in short
supply, the risks multiply of having them used in an unhygienic fashion.
2. Does the wearing of masks have
desirable or undesirable effect on the extent to which the population, or
particular groups within the population, are compliant with critical measures
like self-isolating and social-distancing? Some have argued that people wearing
masks, or seeing others wear them, instils over-confidence and a lack of the
required discipline on other fronts. The widespread use of masks could
conceivably increase the public’s pessimism and propensity for
‘catastrophisation’. This could have adverse effects for mental well-being.
3. There is clearly a hierarchy of
need relating to the wearing of masks and other personal protective equipment.
Clinicians and others ‘on the frontline’ must be given first dibs, both for
their own safety and for the effectiveness of the health and related systems.
Any increase in the encouragement of others in the population to wear masks would
therefore have to be moderated by accurate knowledge about the supply of masks.
4. “A mask is not a mask.”
All sorts of products exist, including surgical masks and cloth or
fabric face coverings. Surgical masks and respirators are essential for
practitioners dealing with COVID-19 patients and those suspected of having it. Even
if a uniform decision was possible on other fronts, there would be questions
about what types of mask is useful in particular circumstances. We have seen
and heard much about ingenuity of individual people and retooled companies
making masks, but the efficacy of
various models and their uses has to be considered.
5. Consideration needs to be given to the cultural aspects of wearing masks. In Australia we look to countries to our north to see community/political entities (Singapore and the like) which are more accustomed both to wearing masks and to being told what to do on such matters. To the rugged individualists we are supposed to be, being told to wear masks may be a bridge too far, jeopardising a national consensus.
6. Some will argue that the question
of mandating the wearing of masks is a legitimate battleground on the ‘personal
freedom v. government control’ front.
7. There may be implications relating
to the effect of a uniform approach on particular subgroups of the population.
If wearing masks has cost indications not covered by governments, mandating
their wearing would contribute to further inequality between rich and poor,
employed and unemployed. The same might be said for urban-rural differences and
equity. If there are national shortages of masks and other personal protective
equipment they are certain to be greater and to have more impact in rural and
remote areas than in the major cities.
8. Wearing a mask needs to be done
properly. Any mandatory use of masks would need to be accompanied by detailed
practical advice about what to do before putting it on, when to change it, how
take it off and how to discard it. The WHO and many other organisations provide
essential information about such matters which should be consulted by potential
users. There is a recent article on the issue at https://insidestory.org.au/so-you-want-to-wear-a-mask-in-public/
It might be that, in their wisdom,
governments and their advisers have tacitly agreed that it would be best if the
decision about wearing masks remained organic – something to be owned and
narrated by the community itself, evolving at the pace determined by people
themselves. This would have some of the characteristics of the responses to the
COVID-19 situation advocated by those who trust in citizen engagement and
community development. I belong to that group but also crave information and
advice from technicians about matters that can be subject to technical
certainty.
And the Lone Ranger? Every week after
he and his trusty friend Tonto had saved the world in 30 minutes, they would
ride off into the distance, silhouetted against the skyline. Someone turns to
the sheriff to ask who that masked man was. The sheriff responds that it was
the Lone Ranger, who is then heard yelling “Hi-Yo Silver, away!” as
he and Tonto ride away. We could do with him back again.
Information
and disclaimer: this article has been written in the belief that policies relating
to the wearing of masks are complex and illustrative of the great difficulties
posed for decision makers by the current COVID-19 situation. It is not my
intention to make or promote judgements about the clinical, social or economic
aspects of the matter and it is certainly not my intention to provide advice to
individuals. There is a mass of information online about the wearing of masks
in the current situation and people making a personal decision should consider
that information.
Some circumstances make the wearing of
a mask essential. They include the situation in which a patient is suspected of
having infection or when someone is coughing or sneezing such that a physical
barrier between them and another is of obvious value. But based on the majority views in
Australia at present it seems that in other circumstances most people will not
benefit from wearing a surgical mask.
General practitioners should be able
to access surgical masks through their local Primary Health Network.
For the latest advice, information
and resources, go to www.health.gov.au
The National Coronavirus Health
Information Line on 1800 020 080 operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If
you require translating or interpreting services, call 131 450.
[1]
Those of you old enough to get this joke are hopefully self-isolating at home
and getting your grandchildren to drop groceries at the door.
What is the right thing to do? And how is it best to encourage us all to do it?
An emotive appeal may well have greater impact than a weight
of statistics and numbers. I was inspired by something Amy Remeikis, journalist
with the Guardian Australia, said on ABC TV’s The Drum last week:
“I just hope that when people are walking around and they’re seeing what they’re calling apocalyptic scenes and everyone’s seeing how negative it is; I look at an empty space and I see that as an act of love or of giving, because it’s people trying to save the lives of people they may never meet and that includes my father. – – I know there are people all over the country who are terrified for their relatives and that’s why l really do hope so many people are taking this as seriously as it needs to be taken.”
The Prime Minister and others have consistently attributed decisions
they have made about the virus to the health advice from the Federal and State/Territory
Chief Medical Officers. “Don’t blame or credit us governments; we are simply
following independent, world’s best scientific advice.”
In turn, the Chief Medical Officers have referred to (or deferred to?) the modelling of COVID-19 transmission
and
infection done both here and in other countries.
We
have been promised an open-book approach to the modelling being relied upon,
but have yet to get it. This is perhaps because complete openness would lead to
more distraction from the central task. Those who are already frantic providing
health advice to the National Cabinet can do without debate about their preferred
judgements, including because they differ from those of some other experts.
These
‘others’ include a team from Australia’s leading research universities, asked
for advice by Professor Brendan Murphy, Commonwealth CMO. Their view was not unanimous
but the majority of them called two weeks ago for “a rapid, sweeping and
costly lockdown to pave the way for a national recovery once the crisis
abates”.
Even with open access to the health modelling still more would
be needed in order to understand – and evaluate – the decisions made in
response to the pandemic. Presumably the economic impacts of various potential
decisions have also been modelled, with the inputs being potential decisions
about restrictions on businesses and movement, and the outputs such things as
business turnover, the number of jobs lost and investor confidence.
The third part of the equation, and the most outrageously difficult,
has been to make judgements about the relative value of different outcomes from
the health and economy models. Put simply, it has in effect been a question of
how much economic cost is justified to save a life.
When we have a chance to scrutinise the health and economic
modelling that has been relied upon there will still be disagreement about
whether or not the decisions made have been optimal. One thing we can be sure will
be agreed is that all such modelling consistently displays great sensitivity –
meaning that small changes in the assumptions and inputs at the front end have resulted
in huge variations in outputs. Sensitivity must be even greater where the
phenomenon being modelled is subject to exponential growth.
The Prime Minister has spoken often of the importance of
preserving “life as we know it” – a euphemism for protecting the
economy. For some people it has been impossible to shake the belief that his
and his government’s embarrassment about their premature ‘back in black’
celebrations made them attribute, for some time, more weight to the economic
crisis than to the virus.
In the earliest discussions with my eldest son – rational
and risk-averse – I had taken the (disgraceful?) line that if there is a new
virus in the world we might as well get used to it and develop immunity as well
as we can. On the last weekend before the 500 threshold was declared I was in
Bathurst with about a thousand others at the NSW over-65s hockey championships.
Just in the nick of time.
Soon after that I was a convert to what I think of as The
Norman Swan Line: the government should go hard and early, to maximise the
probability of halting the spread. As Dr Swan has been saying for several weeks,
the only potential down-side of this approach is that if spread is prevented and
nothing happens, the nay-sayers would be able to say that the government had
over-reached. That would be a great outcome!
I have been doing my bit for the Swan line. A sort of epiphany
was at the Parkinson’s singing group on the Monday of the week after the hockey
tournament. As soon as I sat down with the small group of us in the church hall
I realised what we were doing. Given our small number and our recent history of
travel, the probability of our meeting increasing the rate of transmission of
the virus was close to zero. But my decision to attend had contributed to a
meeting – and gatherings of 10 or 500 are occasioned by the individual decisions
of 10 or 500 individuals. The desired outcome cannot be achieved without my
compliance.
We each need to commit to that act of love or giving in order
to save the lives of people we will never meet.
Thus disposed, the staged or gradualist approach adopted by
the National Cabinet “as a result of the medical advice”, never
seemed to me to make sense. If we know that a total lockdown will work, and
that we will probably need that eventually, why wait?
Which brings us back to the modelling of health and economic
impacts. In the case of school closures, the modelling would require assumptions
about different transmission rates with various proportions of school children
at school, based on even more basic assumptions about the behaviour of school
children, parents and the virus itself. The decision to keep schools open while
encouraging parents to keep their kids at home seemed to indicate a lack of
confidence in the modelling and the Federal Government’s unwillingness to be
held accountable for a decision on the matter. The hard decision rested with
the States and Territories.
The Federation seems to have come to the view that the States
and Territories are responsible for action consequent on the belief that overcoming
the health crisis is a pre-requisite to beating the
economic crisis, while the national government acts through its taxing and
spending powers to engage in preparations for economic bounce-back.
The generosity of the national government on economic
matters has been astonishing, although it is people not governments who will
inherit the debt. And it is fervently to be hoped that the cart and the horse
are lined up in the right order.
This piece was published in Croakey on 10 February 2020. It was edited for Croakey by Amy Coopes.
One of the reasons Prime Minister Scott Morrison has given for not bolstering emissions reduction targets is his belief that building resilience for the future is a better way to go.
Speaking to reporters at Parliament House on January 14, this is what he had to say:
I’ve set out what I think we need to do in terms of the future and
that has been very much ensuring that we continue to meet and beat the
emissions reduction targets that we’ve set. I’ve said, though, I think
more significantly that resilience and adaptation need an even greater
focus.
The practical thing that actually can most keep you safe during the
next fire or the next flood or the next cyclone are the things that most
benefit people here and now… The emissions reduction activity of any
one country anywhere in the world is not going to specifically stop or
start one fire event but what the climate resilience and adaptation work
can do within a country can very much directly ensure that Australians
are better protected against what this reality is in the future.
We must build our resilience for the future, and that must be done on
the science and the practical realities of the things we can do right
here to make a difference.”
His address
to the National Press Club on January 29 featured 16 references to
‘resilience’. They included an assertion about the economy’s resilience,
resilience to natural disasters, to a changing climate, and to
unspecified other threats. He spoke of national resilience, practical
action on climate resilience and adaptation, and asserted that
mitigation and adaptation both contribute to resilience.
Farmers, he said, are on the frontline of resilience.
“The $5 billion Future Drought Fund will support practical,
resilience-building measures, including small-scale water infrastructure
and improved information on local climate variability, sustainable
stock management, soil and water regeneration and the like. Our Drought Resilience Funding Plan
— the framework to guide funding decisions for projects and activities —
is expected to be tabled in Parliament by March of this year,” he said.
The Reef 2050 Plan
and investments in “the technology of resilience, science of resilience
through agencies such as the Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO and the
Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC” were among other measures touted by
the Prime Minister in his address.
Looking ahead, he said he had tasked the CSIRO with bringing forward
recommendations, supported by an expert advisory panel chaired by
Australia’s chief scientist, on “further practical resilience measures,
including buildings, public infrastructure, industries such as
agriculture, and protecting our natural assets.”
Added Morrison:
I will be discussing resilience measures with the states and
territories at COAG in March, and I know they’re looking forward to that
discussion, including to ensure the Commonwealth Government’s
investment through the National Bushfire Recovery Agency will be in
assets that are built to last, built to resist, built to survive longer,
hotter, drier summers. Building Back Better for the future.”
But what exactly is this ‘resilience’ of which much is expected? Do
we all share a common view of what it is, what it does, and how more of
it can be created?
the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.
ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy.
The first thing to note is that ‘resilience’ is a positive thing – an
asset. In this particular definition, resilience is a power or an
ability.
When applied to a physical entity, resilience refers to its capacity
to return to original shape, following the application of external
pressure. In such a case, resilience is attributable to the properties
of the substances of which the entity is made.
The extension of this notion to human communities is easy and
pleasing. The individuals in the community are the constituent parts,
akin to the molecules that provide a substance with its physical
properties. The property of a particular community with respect to
resilience is determined by the individuals in it, the relationship
between them and their aggregated response to an external force.
There is a large and rich literature on community and personal
resilience, traversing disciplines such as psychology, sociology,
engineering, geography and management.
One systematic literature review
of definitions of community resilience related to disasters published
in 2017 found no evidence of a common, agreed definition. It did,
however, identify nine common core elements of community resilience.
They are:
local knowledge
community networks and relationships
communication
health
governance and leadership
resources
economic investment
preparedness
mental outlook
The study notes that due to climate change and demographic movements
into large cities, disasters are occurring more frequently and in many
cases with higher intensity than in previous years. This has prompted a
stronger focus on how best to help communities to help themselves, with a
concomitant focus on understanding what factors contribute to making a
community resilient to disasters.
The authors write:
The concept of ‘community resilience’ is almost invariably viewed as
positive, being associated with increasing local capacity, social
support and resources, and decreasing risks, miscommunication and
trauma.
Yet consensus as to what community resilience is, how it should be
defined, and what its core characteristics are does not appear to have
been reached, with mixed definitions appearing in the scientific
literature, policies and practice. This confusion is troubling.
The way we define community resilience affects how we attempt to measure and enhance it.”
So community resilience is something that cannot be identified at a single point in time, but over time — in particular over the period after a community has been exposed to pressure.
How did the community respond? Did it return to its original shape, form and pattern of behaviour?
Resilience located
People who live in communities that can rebound are the lucky
ones.The lives of many others are characterised by pressure and
deprivation, but without the resources (the skills, financial means,
information, personal health etc) and equitable access to the supports
required to bounce back.
There are a number of educational resources relating to the fostering of resilience. One has it that the seven Cs of resilience are competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. Another asserts that resilience is made up of five pillars: self awareness, mindfulness, self care, positive relationships and purpose.
The 5 Pillars of Resilience. Image credit: The Wellness Project
I am familiar with the term and its application from my time working for the National Rural Health Alliance as a rural advocate. One of the purposes of that work was to try to ensure that rural issues were ‘on the agenda’.
This season’s bushfires
have thrown the public spotlight on rural and remote areas like almost
never before, also highlighting the community spirit which commonly
exists in them. We have been reminded daily of the devotion of
individuals who serve rural communities so expertly and selflessly: in
rural fire services, the SES, Shire Councils, charitable organisations,
the State and Federal public service, and many other bodies.
Though not exclusively a rural phenomenon, this sense of community — a
key ingredient for resilience — seems to flourish more easily or more
frequently in rural areas, so much so that community spirit is often
said to be one of the features distinguishing rural from city living.
‘Community’ flourishes where human networks are small and open,
making for rapid communications and visible personal circumstances.
Local communications were perhaps always more efficient and
comprehensive in rural areas due to partyline phone services and an
effective bush telegraph, roles now largely adopted by social media.
The visibility of personal circumstances is not always a positive
thing. It is a major contributor to stigma, which inhibits help-seeking
in rural areas among some population groups in some circumstances.
The prosaic signs of community spirit and connectedness include a
willingness by people to roll up their sleeves and get involved in work
towards a shared local purpose; a can-do attitude witnessed in spades
over recent months, with some local communities already rebuilding in
earnest.
Occasionally, though, we should perhaps pause and consider the
possibility that replication of patterns and structures that existed
before the firestorms may not represent resilience. Such a return to the
status quo may run counter to the adoption of new, more desirable,
regulations relating to such things as where houses are built, how they
are constructed, and what fire precautions are required. Not just
building back, but Building Back Better, as framed by the government.
When the fires are out and the rebuilding is underway, it is to be
hoped that the public and its governments maintain an appropriate focus
on the communities of rural and remote Australia. It is vital that they
do so because the conditions that exist — not just in times of crisis
but in good times as well — are in some respects quite different from
those in the major cities, requiring policies and programs that fit.
Thank you cards for NSW firefighters in the foyer of the Rural Fire Service HQ, Sydney. Image credit: Sascha Rundle
Resilience enhanced?
Rural communities do not need or want to always be seen through a
deficit lens. Despite the real and ongoing challenges they face, people
from rural and remote areas frequently score higher on self-perceived
notions of ‘happiness’. It is not clear what the main reasons for this
are, but they are likely to include the benefits of a stronger sense of
community.
However there is a risk involved in this. Greater community
connectedness must not be seen as an alternative to or replacement for
services provided by governments and paid for from the public purse.
Resilience is not a reason to let governments off the hook as service
providers whose challenge is providing equivalent access to such things
as health, education, broadband or aged and disability services to
people in all parts of the nation.
It’s not as if resilience and public services are a zero-sum game.
And rural people want to be thought about and properly considered in
good times as well as bad.
Given the local, spontaneous, community-driven nature of resilience,
the active involvement of the government in enhancing it may be
ambitious or even counter-intuitive. If it is to proceed as the Prime
Minister has indicated, there needs to be an agreed definition of what
it is, and agreed measures to quantify its existence. It should be
possible to design research which will meet the need for both agreed
definitions and empirical research on its existence and effectiveness in
various locations.
When defining resilience some of the urban (and rural) myths must be
exposed. Rural males have sometimes been thought of as ‘resilient’
because of their unwillingness to see a doctor or to care for their own
health in other ways. This is to confuse resilience with pride, risk
aversion and fear.
Health services in rural areas — although stretched by large
distances, higher costs and workforce shortages — must be prepared to
meet the challenges posed by environmental disasters such as floods and
fires, animal-borne infections, and epidemics. The responses of health
agencies during the bushfires will be a matter for consideration once
the emergencies have passed. And, unfortunately, those same health
services may soon be tested in relation to a new epidemic.
It may be short of resources, but in a cultural sense Australia’s
rural health sector is well-equipped for disaster management. It has a
strong values base, centering universality, equity and compassion.
Resilience is a second-best approach
The systematic review quoted earlier drew a very practical conclusion:
“In spite of the differences in conception and application, there are
well understood elements that are widely proposed as important for a
resilient community. A focus on these individual elements may be more
productive than attempting to define and study community resilience as a
distinct concept.”
And what of the choice between disaster prevention and enhanced resilience?
Of course it’s not either/or, but given a choice between disaster
prevention and resilience, any rational being would choose the former.
The best bet is to be without adversity and unhappiness in the first
place.
Occasionally since the May 2019 election people have wondered,
rhetorically, just how quiet the Prime Minister wants Australians to be.
It is to be hoped that the Quiet Australians — whoever and wherever
they are — appreciate the basic after-the-event connotation of
resilience, and do not allow it to displace or reduce Australia’s
efforts to minimise carbon emissions.
It’s more important and more rational to prevent the need for a community to rebound than to enhance its ability to do so.
Climate change ‘resilience’ must not be allowed to morph into climate change ‘silence’.
Brexit (/'breksit, breqzit/; a portmanteau of 'British' and 'exit') is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Following a referendum held on 23 June 2016 in which 51.9 percent of those voting supported leaving the EU, the Government invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, starting a two-year process which was due to conclude with the UK's exit on 29 March 2019—a deadline that has been extended to 31 October 2019. [From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
It’s none of my business. But I have a strong emotional attachment to something called the United Kingdom.
Why on earth would Boris Johnson commit to leaving the European Union on October 31 – “No ifs, no buts” – on the basis of a decision made by the people over three years ago?
Such a dogmatic approach to an outdated electoral outcome makes no sense.
Tying oneself to yesterday’s facts is neither admirable nor principled; it is ideological.
Keynes may or may not have said “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”. Irrespective of the accuracy of this famous attribution, it’s a fine and robust idea. Matters of fact should be determined by the best information. And the best information must include the most recent.
Surely ‘the statute of limitations’ has been reached for a decision made over three years ago? For goodness sake: in Australia, three years is longer than the average term of an elected parliament! There’s no way we would have our Parliament peopled by candidates who were successful in the election before last.
Rory Stewart, who flared brightly and briefly in the Conservative party firmament in recent months, made a case for not having a second referendum. He pointed out that, should the decision be reversed, the Leave forces would take to the streets immediately and there would be no end to the schism.
But even if that were the case, at least the divisiveness would be based on up-to-date information! And there might be every chance that the case to remain in the EU would be better than 51.9%. The demographics have shifted in favour of the remain vote. There is now much greater clarity about what leaving means in terms of trade and jobs, and what the practical difficulties are.
And surely a significant proportion of those who voted leave would agree that they did not vote for the uncertainty and bedlam of the last three years?
There are only three options: to leave subject to the agreement reached with the EU; to leave with no agreement; or to call the whole thing off. Maybe those could be the choices in a second referendum.
Respecting the primacy of the people and their vote is the essence of democracy. But it is false logic and dysfunctional to be tied to historical decisions of the people which, in all probability, no longer hold.
And there is one way to be absolutely sure. Ask them again.
Post script: in an interview with James O'Brien, and asked whether he thinks Boris Johnson is "dangerous", Rory Stewart paused for 11 seconds before answering. There was an earlier and revealing discussion between the two on O'Brien's LBC radio show.
Note: this piece was published in Croakey on 23 July 2019. My thanks to Melissa Sweet and to Amy Coopes, who edited the piece for Croakey.
Serious proposals for redesign of the structure and financing of Australia’s health system have had a chequered history. The level of enthusiasm for discussing radical reform seems to fluctuate like the water level in Lake Eyre, which turns into an oasis only every eight years or so on average.
Currently the health reform discussion cycle is in its barren phase. But ten years ago this week it was in full flood. On 27 July 2009 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd released the final report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC).
In a section headed Facing Inequities it proposed a series of initiatives for remote and rural health, on matters including equitable and flexible funding, innovative workforce models, telehealth, patient travel support, and expansion of specialist outreach services (e.g. pharmacy and dental/oral services). That same section also had proposals for better Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, such as improving the affordability of fresh food in remote communities.
But almost certainly the most important of its 123 proposals, because of their centrality, were the recommendations on health system governance: who should manage the health system and how.
Unwieldy and complex
The report recommended that Australia develop a single health system, governed by the Federal Government.
Steps to achieving this were to include a Healthy Australia Accord to agree on the reform framework; the progressive takeover of funding of public hospitals by the Federal Government; and the possible implementation of a health funding model, called Medicare Select, under which public and private health plans would compete, allowing consumers to exercise choice and preference.
The problems of the current health system governance arrangements were then and are still well known. The split between the Federal Government and the States/Territories leads to fragmentation of service delivery, cost-shifting, a lack of accountability, and enormous complexity for users of the system.
Currently there are a number of high-level matters causing concern that are related to the system’s governance. They include uncertainty and complexity associated with public hospital funding; increasing out-of-pocket costs incurred by patients; and questions about the place in the system and the purpose of private health insurance.
Also still on the agenda are unresolved access and workforce issues which compromise the universality of Australia’s health system, most notably for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and those who live in more remote areas.
However the central reform issue relating to governance of the health system is not currently being debated.
The pivotal fact around which these current concerns revolve is the mixed (public/private) nature of the health system. Ten years ago the NHHRC report provided a serious challenge to the prevailing assumption that the best health system is one which has a mix of private and public enterprise.
Writing five years after the Commission’s report was presented to government, Christine Bennett renewed her faith in the following terms:
Moving to a single national public funder model with a national health authority responsible to the Council of Australian Governments could provide a system-wide approach that builds on the strengths of a national funder and purchaser.
This is not to say that the federal government would be the sole funder (federal and state contributions could be pooled), nor that the federal government would manage the public hospital system (state governments would continue to operate public hospitals with transparent activity-based funding, and private hospitals could add competition for funding of public patient care).
The independent national body could be an active purchaser across the continuum of services, building on the platform of activity-based funding and exploring more innovative purchasing over time. In the meantime, we could further explore ‘Medicare Select’, as recommended by the Commission, where greater consumer choice, competition and innovation in purchasing may also enable better use of our mixed system of public and private financing and provision.”
Bennett also reiterated the NHHRC’s strong belief about the need to do more for illness prevention, and the critical need for national leadership:
"We need to get more serious about prevention. As with tobacco products, a package of actions is required — from education, social marketing and behavioural change through to regulation and taxation measures. It requires time, investment and the involvement and collaboration of many parts of government, the health system and society. It must be evidence-led where possible, and new initiatives must be actively evaluated.
It is unacceptable to walk away from personal and shared responsibility. We should each have the starring role in our own health and health care decisions. However, inequities mean we do not all have the same life experiences and opportunities. Health literacy, educational attainment, employment, stable housing and many other factors may affect our capacity to make healthy choices. If we are serious about the good health of Australians, we must be serious about making healthy choices easier and fairly available.
In addition to health service reform, there is a serious need for a national action plan that crosses governments and portfolios to address factors in the social environment that affect health status.
Health needs to be a live issue on the national agenda. While there has been some valuable progress, we have not yet resolved the structural flaws in funding and governance that fragment health care delivery in Australia. We have focused largely on public health financing and public hospitals but have not yet considered innovative approaches, such as Medicare Select, to better use the private sector.
We have a long way yet to go on our reform journey, and we need political leadership and strong engagement with the health sector and community as we continue to move towards a sustainable, high-quality and responsive health system for all Australians.”
We need a public debate, made simple enough to be accessible to all of us, about why Australia persists with a mixed system.
Many of the deficiencies of our health system, and much of its complexity, exist only because it is a mixed system. There is duplication and overlap, making it hard to ensure a safe, smooth passage for the patient through an episode of care. There is cost and blame shifting. There are divided responsibilities for workforce planning.
With a unitary public system it would be simpler to identify and fill gaps in services and access; and it would be easier to establish the desirable level of national expenditure on health. In the current situation people are unable to understand how the financing arrangements work.
From deluge to drought
Ten years ago the enthusiasm for radical reorganisation of Australia’s health system dried up for a number of reasons before much was achieved.
Kevin Rudd and then Julia Gillard had to focus on the consequences of the global financial crisis, as well as the turmoil within their own political ranks. They were also consumed by the search for a budget surplus and the possibilities of tax reform outlined in the Henry Tax Review.
The COAG meeting promised by Kevin Rudd to focus on health reform was held on 7 December 2009. It was agreed at that meeting “that national health reform would be a central priority for 2010”.
The assertion that the Prime Minister gave Nicola Roxon, his Health Minister, a weekend to plan and manage the transition is perhaps apocryphal. But it is clear that both Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott (as then-Leader of the Opposition) were at the time enthusiastic about major reforms to the health system.
When the two of them debated health at the National Press Club the former was promising to take health reform to a referendum if the States and Territories failed to back his proposed change, while the latter was talking up abolishing regional health bureaucracies and moving control of hospitals (at least in the most popular states) to local boards.
This was not Tony Abbott’s only excursion into significant structural change in the health system. In his 2009 book Battlelines he said Medicare should fund dental care for every Australian. As it happened this was one of the proposals in the NHHRC’s final report: a Medicare-style scheme — labelled Denticare — for dental treatments.
However the wheel turned and the lake dried up again.
Some ground was gained and some lost. The Australian National Preventive Health Agency, proposed by the NHHRC and established in January 2011, targeted the prevention of obesity, tobacco use and harmful use of alcohol. It was abolished in the 2014-15 Budget.
Health Workforce Australia, established before the NHHRC in 2008 but which it saw as providing a platform for a national, coordinated approach to health workforce planning, training and innovation, was also abolished in the 2014-15 Budget.
But all is not lost: we still have images of a time when fundamental health system reform was on the agenda and being seriously considered. Those images can remind us of the good times and inspire us to visit the vision splendid again some time in the future:
Health reform does not happen overnight. It takes time and patience, commitment and goodwill from all of us. But we also believe that there is a pressing need for action, and health reform must begin now.” Dr Christine Bennett, Chair, NHHRC, in letter of transmittal to Minister Roxon, 30 June 2009
COAG agreed that long-term health reform was required to deliver better services for patients, more efficient and safer hospitals, more responsive primary healthcare and an increased focus on preventative health.” COAG Communiqué, 7 December 2009
For some of us, the astonishment felt as a result of the Federal Election result has been replaced by a sense that, where policies are concerned, almost everything is now on hold.
Anyone needing a reminder of the generalist and homely agenda that won the day should re-read the Prime Minister’s Press Club address of Thursday 16 May. It is the clearest and most detailed statement of Scott Morrison’s case, with its focus on the silent majority and avoiding risks by avoiding change.
That speech is full of praise for “the honest, decent, humble aspirations of Australians going about their lives”. It celebrates those who have no time for political activity because “they’re too busy doing the things that matter most to them and frankly build our country and make it stronger every single day”.
If the Prime Minister’s aim was to get politics off the front pages, he has probably succeeded. With virtually nothing on the national agenda, politics and current affairs seem to have become uninteresting. During the election campaign there was a contest of ideas on a number of fronts. They included wages and Newstart; cancer and national health reform; the speed at which the nation’s response to climate change can be improved; coal and renewable energies as parts of the economic base of rural areas; child care; tilting the balance in the taxation system away from people who are reasonably well-off; housing policy; and dental care.
Now all we are left with are questions relating to free speech, including as they relate to the role of the Federal Police, the Israel Folau case, and the potential advantages of a Charter of Rights.
Of course this is an absolutely fundamental issue. And the media and commentators are not yet dealing with the matter – expounding. exploring, explaining – in a way that will enable us all to be involved.
For example, discussion on last Sunday’s Insiders on ABC TV (Barrie’s last) hinged on whether the legislated changes have gone too far in enabling intrusion of government agencies into people’s private lives. The Labor opposition will presumably adopt the position that many apparently feel and argue that the balance is not yet right. Whistle blowers and journalists are now too exposed; the nation’s security and other agencies are not sufficiently accountable to the public.
These are complex matters and, to date, there has been very little simple explanation of the nature of the recently-legislated changes. The discussion on Insiders started to do this but then the question seemed to become hypothetical when it was revealed that recent AFP raids were legitimised by the provisions of the previous Act, not the new one.
All of us will continue to grapple with understanding of these complex political and ethical issues and how they are codified and managed in Australia. But in the meantime discussions of things such as public housing policy and dental care for older people seem to have disappeared over the far horizon.
It’s as if the Grand Final was played halfway through the season and, now that it is over, there is nothing but a series of dead-rubber fixtures to which only a few tragics will drag themselves each Saturday afternoon as the Winter rolls on. The rest of us have tuned out from the competition and will stay sullenly indoors until a new season begins.
Note: this piece was published first in Croakey on 22 May 2019. My thanks to Ruth Armstrong who edited it for Croakey.
One measure of a person’s engagement with Australian politics might be the word they select to describe Scott Morrison’s election victory. Morrison himself has described it as a miracle. Others have called it a debacle. Plenty of others are not much concerned. Some of those at my hockey game on Saturday were not even aware that the campaign was ending; and few of them intended to forego the Canberra Raiders NRL game or the AFL Match of the Day, in favour of the TV election coverage.
A friend of mine who had been on the campaign phones during the week reported that more than one person with whom they had spoken said they had already voted but couldn’t remember who it was for. And when I was in the supermarket on Sunday afternoon the nice young man who served me said he hadn’t yet had time to find out the election result.
Being astonished
The word that continually comes to my mind is ‘astonishing’. This is my word of choice because it connotes the chasm between what I had expected and what actually occurred. In my own defence, it was surely impossible to follow current affairs without being affected by the ongoing and underlying picture painted by the polls that the ALP was ahead.
More detailed attention revealed that the Coalition’s electoral challenge was made even tougher by a seat redistribution, that made two Victorian Coalition-held seats notionally-Labor.
Then there was my close observation of the Labor campaign itself – observed, it has to be said, through the lens of partisanship. It would be natural, I assumed, that the voting public would prefer a plan openly focused on an increase in taxation for some of those who could afford it, as a means of providing a range of additional or new government services for those in greater need. Preferred, that is, over the Coalition’s promise to give everyone a tax cut, and otherwise to continue to do what needs to be done “to maintain a strong economy”.
In pursuing tax cuts it is to be hoped that we have learned from the long-term risks and damage of the regular Howard-Costello tax giveaways and, in contrast, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund approach to current largesse. If we do have to proceed with tax cuts, let’s hope we experience just a gentle global zephyr, not strong headwinds.
Naïvely I really did believe that, if the case was clearly made, people would be prepared to pay a small price to provide more preschool education, dental care for pensioners, penalty rates for workers and a more rapid transition to renewable energy.
Among other things, I gave insufficient attention to the impact of a negative perception of the Labor leader’s personality; to the hatred that some people have for unions and union bosses; to the fact that a number of people still do not believe in the science of climate; and to a generalised fear of change.
Having initially been astonished, I am now sifting through the various commentators’ reflections on what has occurred and drawing my own conclusions.
Three reasons why
It is my view that, in the main, Scott Morrison’s victory was founded on his success in making it a presidential campaign, and Labor leader Bill Shorten’s inability to get ahead in that.
In the light of their spectacular inability to predict the election results it would be ironic to give too much credence to polls relating to the status of ‘Preferred Prime Minister’. But we know that Bill Shorten regularly trailed Scott Morrison on that measure. His automatic response to a question about why people seem not to warm to him, when he said “Wait till you meet me,” was one of his best interpersonal moments in the campaign.
Shorten’s televised set pieces suffered because of his seeming lack of a natural sense of theatre, of an awkwardness in vocal patterns and body language, resulting in a manner of presentation that comes across (to me at least) as wooden or contrived.
Everyone says how good he is face-to-face when working a room, and in negotiating between conflicting interest groups. But I and the vast majority of the population have not had the chance to share such time with him.
My suspicion about the importance of his style of presentation was deepened by Shorten’s interview to camera immediately following the death of former Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke. Here was an opportunity for some ringing phrases, some rhetorical leaps and lucid praise delivered with generosity and gravitas. What we got instead was a hesitant interview based on the formula that Australians loved Hawke because he loved them.
The unsatisfactory nature of this immediate response was counterpointed by the four-page media statement Shorten released a little time later:
In Australian history, in Australian politics, there will always be B.H. and A.H: Before Hawke and After Hawke. After Hawke, we were a different country. A kinder, better, bigger and bolder country.”
So the first and foremost reason for Labor’s defeat, in my belief, was the superiority of Scott Morrison’s interpersonal and media style.
Next, in my view, was Labor’s lack of clarity around its level of support for the proposed Adani coal mine.
Adani as a lightning rod for jobs and economic development of regional areas. (Yes we saw that the ALP proposed alternatives for economic development. But still.)
Adani as a constant reminder of the capacity of politics to project the economy and the environment as being mutually exclusive. (Wrong, yes, but powerful.)
Adani as an emblem of the umbridge taken by locals to interference from those ‘down south’ who are not personally or commercially invested in those affairs.
Finally, I believe the third reason for the election result was the real or perceived losses to be borne by some as a result of the ALP’s suite of revenue raising measures, such as rolling back negative gearing and franking credits.
Target size – a small red herring
Commentators in the media have made much of the asserted folly of an opposition going to the polls with a large policy agenda. Comparisons have been made with John Hewson’s Fightback! Package which is thought to have lost the Liberal Party the federal election in 1993.
In my view, the notion that oppositions with large policy targets lose elections is an artefact created by media commentators.
In the lead-up to the 1996 election, which he won, John Howard made a series of headland speeches in which he considered matters such as the role of government, a fair Australia, national identity, what he called “the innate conservatism of the Australian people”, industrial relations, and telecommunications.
It was Howard’s hero Menzies who emphasised the need to pay attention not only to the what is needed but also to the how and when, in order “to persuade a self-governing people to accept and loyally observe” coherent plans for change.
Labor Prime Ministers Whitlam and Hawke both came to power on the back of policy agendas that had been carefully planned over a long time and were successfully sold to – and even provided inspiration to – voters.
Another Labor contender, Kim Beazley, lost in 1998 and then in 2001. On the latter occasion he was thought by some to have failed to develop alternative policies on domestic issues. If he had won the election this could perhaps have contributed to the myth of election-winning small target strategies, but unfortunately he was undone by the need for a bipartisan approach to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Tampa affair.
It is hard to make the case that the losing party leaders between 2004 and 2013 (Latham, Howard, Abbott and Rudd) all lost because of the common characteristic of having a broad policy agenda. One must concede, however, that on at least one occasion the obverse was true. Tony Abbott won in 2013 with a target so small as to be regularly rehearsed in three triptyches: “Stop the boats, Axe the tax, Repay the debt”.
Bill Shorten adopted a similar approach in 2016 but lost. He risked becoming known as ‘Invisibill’ because of his small target, small policy strategy. Perhaps he suffered from a triptych deficit.
It is certainly true that the ALP’s agenda for election 2019 included some very complex issues. Most noticeable among these were proposed changes to franking credits and negative gearing. The complexity of these matters exposed the ALP to both real and invented doubts and uncertainties which could always be traded on by political opponents.
While people might not object to proposed policies in a general sense, they are more likely to take a negative view if they believe the policies will impact on their own income and lifestyle. How many were there who, like a very good friend of mine, failed to vote Labor for the first time ever because his family was set to lose income from the changes to the arrangements for franking credits? How many of that number were correctly informed about the potential impact?
Incidentally the debate about whether those new arrangements would have constituted a retirees’ tax or the withdrawal of an unsustainable gift is merely semantics. What should really have mattered is the number, and economic situation, of people who would have been affected. More should have been made of details about the proportion of the refund under current arrangements going to super funds with large balances.
Frequent references to “the top end of town” and to the investor who already has five or six properties and is benefiting from negative gearing were unhelpful to the ALP’s case.
In housing as in other policy areas there is surely a hierarchy of need, starting with the 100,000 people estimated to be sleeping rough each night in Australia. Then there are issues of public housing supply, rentals and rental regulation.
Home ownership is still a vital and worthy aspiration in Australia but given the changes in patterns of settlement, population numbers and commercial realities it can no longer be viewed as holding the same place in Australian society as it did 30 years ago.
A mandate for Government and Opposition
Some of my views about elections and mandates have been put on the agenda elsewhere. A mandate should be neither a straitjacket nor a carte blanche licence to proceed unencumbered with proposed policy actions.
A mandate won or imposed should not preclude a new government from changing its mind on something promised. The belief that politicians and, in particular, Prime Ministers should never ever change their mind is one of the silliest and most damaging characteristics of government in Australia.
On the other hand, it is annoying and illogical for a new government to claim a mandate for a swag of specific issues as if, when people cast their vote, they were aware of and supported every single commitment in a particular Party’s platform.
The situation with the new Morrison Government is quite odd: in the election the Prime Minister promised very little by way of a forward agenda. This makes it even more important for him to engage with the public in explaining and debating new policy proposals that emerge.
The central economic issue of the winning case in the campaign was preservation or improvement of people’s family income – whatever the consequences for the future. Given this fact, there is an overwhelming case to make one of the first new policy proposals of the new government an increase in the rate of Newstart.
Not only would this strike a significant blow for economic fairness but it would also provide a significant boost to the economy through an immediate increase in consumer spending, including in regional areas.
It would be a very sad thing – one might say astonishing – if the 800,000 people on Newstart, which has not increased in real terms for 24 years – were trampled over while the rest of us wait for our (early?) tax cut.
As for the new Leader of the Opposition: whoever it may be, she or he has no mandate from the public but an important responsibility. The Westminster system relies on there being an Opposition at all times, not just for the duration of an election campaign.
The Opposition’s duty is to scrutinise the government’s activities in the light of its own beliefs and agenda, and to provide alternative ways and means of doing government business.
As Labor Senator Penny Wong has already observed, the ALP in opposition will continue to advocate for the sort of reform that will have a balance between securing growth and enhancing fairness, which is different from the stance likely to be adopted by a conservative Morrison Government.
