The Bartlett Diaries

Pre-Budget speculation gets fairly tiresome after a while – mostly just scene setting leaks and people writing and saying things to fill the space before they have something substantial to write and talk about.  Budget night provides the relief of actually getting into the real thing after a lot of mostly empty shadow-boxing.

This will be the eleventh Budget I’ve examined since being in the Senate (and another eight prior to that as a policy advisor). In this era where governments engage in permanent campaigning, Budgets are probably less politically significant than they used to be, having become just one more weapon – albeit a big one - in the endless spin wars. But they are still very important as far as overall economic settings go, and even more so in regards to have they affect the day to day lives of every Australian.

I’ve written a few times in the past about what Budget nights can be like in Canberra – you can read those posts here, here and here.  This Budget has a different feel for me, as I won’t be around in the Senate after June to deal with any of the legislation out of it or examine how the various programs and promises are implemented.

For the first time in six years, I won’t be going into the pre-Budget lock-up. I’ll just look through all the piles of paper like everyone else when it appears at 7.30 pm.  There’s something for almost everyone in Budget papers, depending on what you’re interested in – the easiest place to find it all is through this link.

There will be one area I’ll be looking at above all else, and that’s Indigenous Affairs. (more…)

Andrew Leigh has posted some useful figures on his blog that are worth pointing to next time someone suggests that politicians should be paid more. He has provided a rough percentage breakdown of the annual income of individuals and households.  In short, it shows that only 2 or 3 per cent of the population earn over the $120 000+ a year which politicians get.

The figures also show that an individual earning $80 000 a year is a high income earner, but a household with an overall income of $80 000 is about mid-range. Which is also a stark reminder of just how big a struggle it can be for the many households who have a level of income well below that.

St James Ethics Centre also has a thread on the topic. (more…)

It is understandable that the media and community tend to focus on the people killed in action in wars, as well as on the civilian casualties in the war zone. But it does mean that the ongoing impacts on the soldiers who return home can be forgotten – especially those who return apparently unwounded.

It is an unfortunate tendency of governments to be more enthusiastic about sending people to war than they are about caring for the same people after they return. It seems this is especially bad in the USA. Despite the thousands of causalities their defence personnel have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan – much greater not just in actual numbers but proportionally as well – this story (found through the Huffington Post) reports the astonishing fact that suicides of returned US veterans may actually be greater in number than those killed in action (more…)

Whenever I travel along the main road between my office and my house, I go past a big billboard not far from where I live. A new poster has been put up there recently which boldly proclaims “The Future of Queensland has a Face”, alongside a large photo of National Party leader Lawrence Springborg.

I’ve seen that billboard at least half a dozen times now, but every time I do I have to double check to make sure I haven’t imagined it. Self-confidence is a good thing I guess, but there’s something about labelling yourself as The Future which just doesn’t seem quite right (more…)

It was over three weeks ago that I wrote about Steve Posselt’s kayaking crusade to highlight the stupidity of the planned Traveston Dam on the Mary River. On April 12th, he started his month long journey kayaking up the Brisbane River, down the Mary River and back down to Brisbane.

He’s now paddling his way back down the coast, having reached Noosa on the weekend and now heading into the Pumicestone Passage between Bribie Island and the mainland. You can read his daily progress reports here – each day’s entry contains lots of photos. Maybe it’s my Brisbane bias, but I found his reports on the Brisbane River as interesting as those about the Mary.  I guess the impenetrable hyacinth waterweed mats take on much more significance when you’re trying to paddle through them, but apart from the wider environmental damage, they’re also significant because these weeds consume so much water. 

For other photos of the area of the Mary River that will be drowned by the dam, you can also check out this site to see what might soon be flooded for ever. Of course, the damage to the river will not just be in the areas that are flooded, but also downstream, where it flows into the world heritage Great Sandy Strait.

Steve’s kayaking journey finished back in Brisbane this coming Saturday. DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST. (more…)

I marched in Brisbane’s Labour Day parade today – only the second time I’ve done so. I was part of a group marching in support of justice for the group of Queenslanders who were the most exploited and ripped-off workers throughout most of the Twentieth Century – Aboriginal workers whose wages were taken by governments and never given back.

This is known as the Stolen Wages issue. It is a sad irony that a Labor government, which is intertwined with and institutionally supported by the union movement, has knowingly and deliberately chosen not to pay back those workers, or their descendants, who had their wages stolen. Anna Bligh, the head of the government which continues to deny wage justice for these workers, led the march today.

Indeed after an initial package of 55 million dollars was put forward by the Queensland Labor government in 2002, which represented a fraction of what was taken and only provided for a token offer of 4000 dollars for a restricted group of people - who had to sign away all other legal rights before they could access it – the state government has even taken back a large chunk of that money.

The union movement has achieved a lot of good for huge numbers of people over many years. In my view their biggest collective flaw is their partisan alignment with the Labor Party, which results in continual acquiesce to unjust actions by Labor governments. (more…)

The previous federal government used the spectre of child sexual abuse as justification to scrap the permit system contained in the Land Rights Act, which required people wishing to visit Aboriginal freehold land in the Northern Territory to first obtain permission. It was cheered on its efforts by its ideological fellow-travellers, who were happy to smear anyone who did not support the move as protecting paedophiles and other child abusers.

At a Senate Committee hearing in Darwin examining proposals to reinstate the permit system (although also giving the federal Minister blanket power to waive permits whenever they feel like it), there was unequivocal evidence provided by people opposed to the permit system, supportive of the permit system and agnostic on the permit system, all of who said there was no link between the permit system and child abuse.

Indeed Paul Toohey, a journalist from The Australian who appeared before the Committee and voiced dislike of the permit system that was so vehement it makes Mal Brough’s views on the issue sound moderate, none the less went so far as to say that using the excuse of child abuse to justify these moves was a beat up.

I lean towards having a permit system, mainly because the majority of Aboriginal people affected seem to prefer to have this power, although I think the benefits of it tend to be overstated (not unlike many of the arguments made against it). But it is frustrating to see so much energy and focus being put onto an issue which has little if anything to do with child abuse.

Hopefully at least the pros and cons of the permit system – and maybe other details of the Intervention - can start being debated without people being slandered as protecting paedophiles just because they don’t uncritically support retaining every single aspect of the Howard government’s version of the NT Intervention.

I have been reading a book by Rosemary Neill called “White Out – how politics is killing black Australia”. It was published back in 2002 but its core message is even more valid now than it was then – that the desire of people from across the spectrum to use Indigenous issues to reinforce their preferred political or ideological narrative is coming before ensuring public policy assists rather than hinders Indigenous Australians in overcoming the immense hurdles so many of them face.

There is nothing new in people selectively using information which reinforces their views while ignoring any evidence that challenges this, but it seems to be especially prevalent with Indigenous issues. But because the human costs of the comprehensive political policy failures and public noninterest in this area are so high, the consequences of this ideological partisanship are much higher.

I am reminded of this at the moment, as I am in the Northern Territory attending Senate Committee hearings to examine a few small amendments being made to the Northern Territory intervention laws (more…)

When the Olympic Torch made its brief stop over for a run around the block in Canberra last week, Australia’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials gushed about the “values of the Olympic movement”, coupled with some tsk-tsking about pesky protestors ‘hijacking’ that movement for their political agendas.

It seems to me that the many people, in Australia and around the world – and most tellingly within China itself - who are trying to highlight the many serious human rights abuses of the Chinese government are doing a much better job of trying to defend the spirit and principles of the Olympics than the IOC. (more…)