A time to build — not balance

Australia is giving every indication of a country coming apart at the seams — an endless drought that has many farmers seriously contemplating their future on the land; raging bushfires devouring lives and property, and the prospects of more of the same, and worse, for months ahead.

Never has there been a greater need for leadership, but leadership is in short supply. Instead, name-calling and the blame game are in top gear, insults and accusations are being hurled across the ideological divide.

Never have politicians seemed so helpless, and hopeless; so completely lacking in answers.

Yes, emergency aid is forthcoming and eventually the shock and mourning will begin to subside, but increasingly Australians are demanding there should be something more than Band-Aid solutions.

Firstly there should be an end to the debate over whether climate change is real. Those that have the view that current weather patterns are just a blip on the radar, to be endured and then forgotten when everything returns to normal, should be respected for their opinions (it’s a free country) and ignored.

Australia simply does not have the luxury of continuing this discussion. Time is running out — and I am not talking about a far-off date in the middle of the century. Some areas are running out of water now. Deserts are on the march.

Secondly, it should be accepted that while Australia’s contribution to what is a global problem is minimal, this should not be used as an excuse for doing nothing. Australia’s climate change crisis and a determination to tackle it must set an example for the world.

Some research suggests that Australia may be the worst affected by a warming climate over the next decades — all the more important that it should be seen to be doing more than anywhere else to combat it.

Dams need to be built, research funded and infrastructure planned, all with the aim of reducing the country’s emissions beyond the modest targets currently set. Above all there is a need to think big, to inspire and lead.

One major project that could fall into this category is high-speed rail, outlined by the Chief Executive of the nation’s largest property developer, Stockland’s Mark Steinert and others.

Steinert believes the Federal Government should commit to funding a Sydney-to-Canberra high-speed train and other rail projects as part of a major program of fast-track infrastructure spending.

“A high-speed rail service between Canberra and Sydney would have a significant, positive impact on productivity given the frequent travel between, and national importance of, these two cities,” he said.

High speed rail would easily be the most efficient method of moving goods and people around the nation, reducing the need for pollution-emitting heavy vehicles and cars on the roads.  

That network could already have been in place had former Prime Minister John Howard not listened to a barrage of dry economic advice in the 1990s after he proposed it as an ambitious nation-building project.

Unfortunately that thinking still dominates the current Government and its obsession with ‘balancing the books’ to prove its ‘sound economic management’.

One wonders how much inspiration the public will draw from black figures in the Treasury’s balance sheet in contrast to a sustainable infrastructure program that would boost economic activity through jobs growth, productivity gains and increased mobility.

Last chance for second thoughts on Brexit

With the United Kingdom General Election now under way and described as “the most crucial in a 100 years” (we’ve heard that many time before but there is a ring of truth about it this time) former Foreign Secretary David Miliband says the long running debate over whether the country should leave the European Union is undermining  democracy.

Slamming the persistent Government rhetoric that the “will of the people” as expressed in the 2016 referendum to leave must be followed, Miliband (pictured) says that mandate is out of date, given all that has happened — and been revealed about the campaign itself — in the three years since.

In a recent visit to the UK from the United States where now serves as Chief Executive of the International Rescue Committee overseeing humanitarian aid and development programs in around 40 countries, Miliband decried the claim that leaving the EU must be implemented because to do otherwise would endanger democracy.

“It cannot be more democratic to plough on with a version of Brexit that was never presented to the public in 2016, than to consult on whether they want to go ahead with this plan,” he said.

It should be apparent to any reasonable person that what Miliband says is true. In 2016 there was little or no debate on the status of Northern Ireland and its land border with the Republic.

There was no serious discussion on the status of EU citizens in the UK, some of who had been living there for decades, or of what would happen to UK citizens who had made their homes in EU countries.

Concerns about the problems that might be faced by British companies that did much of their business with Europe, or who were reliant on EU exports, were dismissed with the fatuous slogan “Project Fear”.

In fact slogans were all that the supporters of Brexit really had. “We want our country back” was one that was heard over and over again — an Animal Farm-style drowning out of any chance of rational debate.

Worst of all were the deliberate lies: The hundreds of million pounds to be saved that currently went into the greedy coffers of Brussels; the lucrative trade deals with the rest of the world that would be lined up on the day after departure.

I have no doubt that among segments of the population there is a hatred of Europe that borders on fanaticism; a desire to leave whatever the price to be paid, whatever the hardships to be endured.

A recent poll among current supporters of Leave found that 75 per cent did not care if Remain-supporting Scotland became independent, and Remain-supporting Northern Ireland joined the Irish Republic, if that was the price to pay for an English Brexit.

These people are entitled to their opinions. However, they are opinions that should surely be tested in a new public vote, given the consequences that have been revealed.

Given also the frail 3.9 per cent margin in 2016 and what has happened since, it would be reckless irresponsibility to do anything else.

Miliband went further, saying a first-past-the-post referendum that split the country almost down the middle was an example of “an early 20^th century class-based structure struggling to cope with 21^st century demands.”

Calling for a “reboot of UK democracy” he said changes could include the adoption of citizens’ assemblies, electoral reform and a written constitution.

I would add compulsory voting, but these are matters for later.

For the moment, it can only be hoped that the outcome on 12 December will produce an opportunity for the British people to have second thoughts on whether they want to take the momentous step of cutting themselves off from their European partners. 

Is this the world we want?

Throughout my career as a reporter I have had almost as many people tell me that politicians are all liars, as those that say they don’t believe anything that journalists write.

The prevailing opinion was that “politicians are out for themselves”; that “there is no difference between the political parties”.

Those of us who were closer to the action knew that while there was always a grain of truth in these comments, most politicians were genuinely trying to do the job they were elected for, and if they didn’t quite measure up…well they were only human.

That was before the election of United States President Donald Trump.

Trump uses Twitter to communicate with his public. While traditionalists might cringe at this, it has to be accepted that Twitter, and other social media, are good ways, maybe even the best ways, of getting a messages across in the modern era.

After all, Trump wasn’t the first. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used it effectively to win election back in 2013; Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was a skilful practitioner.

Apart from the countries where they don’t have to bother, most leaders now use social media to convey their messages to the population.

What makes Trump different is the significant percentage of the more than 11,000 tweets he has made since the beginning of his presidency that are lies — not misrepresentations; not a slight bending of the truth, but flat-out proven porkies.

A couple of examples: “I have cut illegal immigration in half” — Department of Immigration figures show that his record in this area is inferior to Obama’s.

“The Kurds are safer after the US troop withdrawal” — scores have been killed and thousands misplaced.

This is happening to such an extent that lying has become an established part of the Trump presidency, polls showing that most Americans, including many among his own supporters, no longer take him at his word.

A strategic adviser to former President George W. Bush, Peter Wehner says Trump is not just a serial liar, he is attempting to murder the very idea of truth, reaching a stage when the veracity of what is said is no longer relevant.

“That is far worse,” Wehner says, “because without truth a free society cannot operate”.

This is the theme of Trump’s re-election bid. I am the tough guy who doesn’t play by the rules, cuts a few corners, but that is what it takes to face up to the effete denizens of the Washington swamp that are trying to drag down the president you elected.  

Trump’s methods are beginning to resonate. Imitators, to a greater or lesser degree, are springing up in democracies and pseudo democracies around the world. His success points to a tempting path for others to follow.

The longer his example remains, the greater the temptation.

The question is do we want this kind of world? While change is inevitable and often positive in many areas, are there some fundamental principles of honesty and integrity that are worth retaining?

Worth handing on to our children and grandchildren?

We will need answers to this — and very soon.

Australia is catching the Trump disease

For many Australians in these troubled times, international current affairs have become something of a spectator sport.

I am not talking about those whose attention rarely strays beyond their immediate surroundings of work and family. In many ways they are the lucky ones, self-insulated from the misery, disruption and upheavals of the nightly news.

Yet even for those who are interested, there is often a degree of detachment. They express shock, horror, maybe even anger, but they are the emotions of an audience watching a powerful drama. Easy to switch off and return to the ‘real world’.

It’s all happening somewhere else and we are comfortable and safe in our living rooms.

Or are we?

I do not mean the country is about to witness angry crowds taking to the streets of Sydney and Melbourne demanding governments fall with the associated tear gas, water cannon and looting. Australia has not reached that point.

There are other, far more subtle signs of a disturbing trend that is leading to increasing division and alienation in societies around the world – not just in those whose cities are currently wracked with violence.  

It is the abdication of the responsibility of leaders to govern for the greater good of all, rather than for the benefit of a core group of supporters.

This has long been the method of dictators, but it is also being adopted in countries that call themselves democracies — in Erdogan’s Turkey, Duterte’s Philippines and Bolsonaro’s Brazil.

The template is United States President Donald Trump whose virulent and often abusive attacks on political opponents, journalists and academics who dare to question him have become routine.

In the United Kingdom the concerns of 48 per cent of the population who opposed leaving the European Union have been derided and dismissed by supporters of the small and increasingly perilous majority who support it.

Australia is not immune, with the arrogance of the Coalition Government ever more on show since its surprise third consecutive election win earlier this year.

Critics are dismissed as being “part of the Canberra bubble”; Ministers refuse to take responsibility for the failings and even the possibly illegal actions of their staffs; blind eyes are turned and parliamentary questions deflected over police actions against journalists.

Perhaps this is not so surprising as it was an Australian, Lynton Crosby, who formulated the successful election strategy for the UK Conservative Party that it should play to its strengths with the electorate and not try to patch up its weaknesses.

That lesson came straight from Niccolo Machiavelli’s 16^th century playbook when he said that as long as politicians cared for a powerful elite group of supporters they were “free to engage in evil”.

Trump-like slogans such as ‘Make Australia Great’, and ‘Drain the Swamp’ are now regular parts of the conservative Government’s lexicon, as are increasingly virulent attacks on any organisation or group that questions the philosophy of the right, from Get Up to climate activists.   

The politics of division is on the march.   

Is Trump too dangerous to defeat?

Those of us who have travelled and lived long enough to experience democratic government in all its forms can only be recoiling in horror at the events of recent months.

I do not directly refer to impeachment proceedings against a United States President; or to the convolutions of a minority Government in the United Kingdom. Unsettling as they are there have been precedents.

What must concern anyone who believes in government of, for and by the people are the antics of those we have placed in these positions of power and the effect it could have, not just on us, but on those nations who in the past looked up to and respected our  systems and tried to emulate them.

As well as for those, trapped and oppressed by authoritarian regimes, who might have clung to the faint hope that our example might eventually result in a change.

How the autocrats must rejoice at the events in London and Washington – a Prime Minister who defies the law; a President who tears up international treaties and tips the bucket on his allies.

The dictators would see this as overwhelming justification for strong and inflexible leadership, keeping an iron grip on their populations as an inoculation against the infection of individualism and democracy creating such havoc in the so called Free World.

US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson have both backed themselves into corners of their own making. Johnson’s intransience will hurt his own country and damage the European Union, but the real danger lies with Trump.

An erratic and unstable US President who tweets about his “great and unmatched wisdom” has at his disposal matchless economic and military might. Already during his presidency we have heard threats to consume North Korea in fire, to obliterate Iran from the map and lately, to destroy the Turkish economy.

Should impeachment fail, which is likely in a highly politicised Senate trial, Trump may yet go on to win the 2020 presidential election. Even though the polls are against him, he can still rely on the antiquated Electoral College system to get him over the line — remember that in 2016 he lost the popular vote by some three million, but still won handily in the College.

Yet what if he did lose? This would leave him still in the White House with full presidential powers for more than two months between Election Day and the inauguration of his successor, the so-called lame duck period.

Might he decide to sign off with a dramatic gesture? Cataclysmic revenge on some of the enemies, or countries that have dared to defy him over the previous four years?

If so, who would stop him? The US Constitution, designed in a slow-moving, pre-technological age when it was assumed that those in leadership positions were always going to be reasonable men who played by the rules, is silent on the subject.

Asking these questions would have been unthinkable three years ago, but that was another time; a different world.

The autocrat and the activist

Russian President Vladimir Putin joined the ranks of those who derided 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg after her recent address to the United Nations.

Thunberg’s critics, while a small minority, have been vocal: Some patronising, others dismissive, insulting and worse.

However, Putin’s comments were different.

While taking the oft-repeated line that while Thunberg’s attention to the environment was admirable, the Russian President went on to describe her as “a naïve child who is allowing herself to be manipulated”.

He continued:

“No one has explained to Greta that the modern world is complex and people in Africa or in many Asian countries want to live at the same wealth level as in Sweden.”

Really, Putin’s conversion to concern for the people in less well-off parts of the world is illuminating.

Up until now his attention in this area has largely involved sending his air force to wreak havoc on defenceless civilians in Syria. His road to Damascus has only been in order to support of the murderous regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Elsewhere he has sponsored the Wagner Group, a shadowy band of mercenaries waging secret wars on his behalf from Ukraine to the Central African Republic.

He has taken part in a not so subtle war against the European Union, cheering on the United Kingdom’s plans to leave that group, while his support for Assad had ensured a steady and destabilising flood of refugees into European countries.

Only in recent days, the identity of another group, so called Unit 29155, has been revealed, charged with attacking the EU through campaigns of disinformation, hacking, even plotting attempted coups in individual member countries.

It would be a welcome change of course for Putin if he was to become the champion of the oppressed people of this world instead of trying to blast them into the next.

It would be absolutely wonderful if he used some of Russia’s capital to construct wells rather than bomb craters; if he made a contribution to world peace, rather than indulging in Tsarist plots to expand his nation’s territory and malign influence over his neighbours.

Perhaps he might even do something about the more than 19 million of his own people who live below the poverty line – a figure that is expanding at an alarming rate.

The Russia President was right about one thing: The modern world is complex — a complexity that demands difficult solutions, involving sacrifice on all sides.

Unfortunately he and a growing number of world leaders do nothing to solve these complexities. In many cases they are the problem, not the solution.

Thunberg is over-young for what she is seeking to achieve, but she and her supporters have pointed to a way forward, and even if the details are missing, they have the energy and commitment to put to the task.

They will also be around for many years after Putin and other current world leaders are just pages in the history books.

Two men on the wrong side of history

Amid the torrent of news and comment out of Washington surrounding efforts by the White House to rope in national leaders to discredit the Mueller Inquiry, speeches by the two main protagonists at the United Nations have been largely passed over.

United States President Donald Trump and Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov gave widely varying accounts of how they saw the world, but their addresses to the General Assembly had one thing in common — neither had any relation to reality.

Trump concentrated on the “spectre of socialism — the wrecker of nations and destroyer of societies”.

Referencing Venezuela, he described socialism and communism as “being about one thing only: Power for the ruling class”.

He claimed the United States Democrat Party was embracing radical socialism, and called upon Americans to “defeat rising socialism in the US”.   

Lavrov used his address to take aim at the ‘West’ (by which he means the United States and its European allies), saying it held to a dated philosophy that was out of step with present-day realities. 

“It is hard for the West to accept seeing its centuries-long dominance in world affairs diminishing. It is trying to impede a polycentric world,” he said.

Interestingly he also chose Venezuela as an example, saying that under Western intervention that country’s statehood “was destroyed before our eyes”.

Trump’s attack on socialism fails to recognise the many socialist governments that have existed around the world in the 20^th and 21^st centuries which have neither wrecked their nations nor destroyed their societies.

The United Kingdom’s Labour Government of 1945-51, the most socialist administration the country has had before or since, was instrumental in setting the nation on the path to recovery after a ruinous war.

Socialist governments in Europe and elsewhere were often at the forefront of legislation that has been of immeasurable benefits to their citizens – universal health care, affordable education, support for the less fortunate.

Those European socialists never, as many doom-sayers predicted, lapsed into authoritarianism, even when the Soviet Union’s communist-controlled clients were on their doorsteps.   

Lavrov is similarly mistaken when he talks of the ‘West’s’ out-of-date philosophy.

The rise of right-wing elements in Europe is a challenge to traditional liberal democracy, but by no means signals its destruction.

Trump himself is a challenge to the traditional order in the US, but a country that has survived a civil war, two world wars and decades of racial unrest, will not easily succumb to the eccentricities of one man, even if he temporarily holds the most powerful office in the land.

Liberal democracy has weathered much worse, survived and prospered.

Indeed, Lavrov is guilty of wishful thinking by seeking to draw a firm division between Russia and his West. There is no definite line, it is at best blurred.

Liberal democracy infiltrated Russia after the fall of communism and despite the best efforts of President Vladimir Putin, refuses to be put back in its box.

Attempts by the Kremlin to play the Superpower game will eventually founder in an ageing nation with an economy no bigger than that of Spain. Signs of dissent are already apparent in Russian cities and are only likely to grow.

There is no doubt a regression has occurred among some of the world’s leading nations.

Politicians with dreams of self-grandeur have resulted in an Emperor in China, a Czar in Russia, and a President in the US whose fondness for adoring rallies and distaste for the truth provoke dark echoes of the 1930s.

Their antics have produced a rash of minor imitators from Turkey to the Philippines, but they will not prevail.

At the UN it was Trump and Lavrov who were on the wrong side of history — and history, while patient, is eventually unforgiving.