Last weekend, I took part in a revolution of sorts led by angry people that brought a government crashing to Earth.
A government that had been in power too long. A government that had become so arrogant, it believed its own lies — and expected we would too, but we didn't.
A government that thought it could take away rights set by state and federal courts that have existed for 100 years and which gave us one of the world's best standards of living and without doubt, the best overall pay and working conditions for a silent, hard-working majority of any nation on this Earth and the prosperity and lifestyle to match it.
A government that did this by enacting laws that threatened the very fabric of this wonderful, progressive society by pitting one against the other in squabbles over money, jobs and ideology.
A government that prosecuted and threatened to jail journalists it considered had overstepped the mark, but who were simply acting as conduits in the exercise of the right of the people to know what the government they had elected was really doing. A government that used loopholes in its own Freedom of Information laws to stifle legitimate attempts to gain information.
A government that played on real fears about terrorists and mass murderers who had already killed our people and promised to kill more; and in so doing threatened the right to free speech that has existed for 1000 years both in this country and the country from which it was inherited by deciding that some of the things we might say in the exercise of that right could be regarded as seditious, and bad for the country, and would therefore carry the risk of prosecution and a jail sentence.
A government that in the exercise of those sweeping laws could suspend the due process provisions of our criminal law, breach the sanctity of the writ of Habeas Corpus that had been written into English law in 1679, end the right to a quick and fair trial by a jury of our peers, and everything else good that our justice system stands for, and incarcerate us or keep us under surveillance on an ongoing basis without charge if the courts agreed (and luckily, for the most part, they didn't).
A government that pretended it was low taxing by giving small cuts in income tax, then imposed a 10 per cent tax on everything we bought except for basic, uncooked foodstuffs.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Great personal insight on the election, SS. Sorry it took me so long to get it published, but it's been a busy day.
The article does raise one question.
You cataloged all sorts of things which were wrong with the exiting government, and I was pleased to see you could see beyond the superficiality of the Iraq War involvement.
But that's only part of the formula. Surely you weren't just voting against the Liberals. What reason do you have to think that the new government will be any better? Did you have anything to vote FOR?
Dave
2 - STM
Anything to vote for? Shit, yes. Basically, the exact opposite of what John Howard stood for.
That's how we saw it. That's what we voted for.
A new beginning for a new generation of change. We have a saying in this country that oppositions don't win government, governments lose government.
That's pretty much spot on in this case.
Now see what happens up your way in 2008.
3 - Jonathan Scanlan
Anything to vote for? Shit, yes. Basically, the exact opposite of what John Howard stood for.
Hey Stan, you voted for Rudd? Me Too ;)
4 - Dave Nalle
So everything about the Howard government was so totally bad that the opposite has to automatically be good? Things aren't usually that black and white in politics from what I've seen, but maybe things are different downunder.
What you describe sounds an awful lot like just voting against the Liberals and assuming that whatever you get instead will be better, when it very well might be just as bad but in a different direction.
Dave
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Stan,
You wrote this piece like a poker player with his cards held close to his vest. Who won? By what margin? Do you have a coalition government or a straight party line?
Or do I have to buy the newspaper where you work to find out?
6 - Dr Dreadful
Dave, of course you have a valid point, but I think Stan's piece does a very good job of illustrating just how politically bankrupt Howard's government had become. It had, quite simply, run its course.
They've probably changed now, but just before the election I had a look at both the Liberal and Labor parties' websites. It was quite an eye-opener. The Labor site was full of what they would do if elected. In contrast, the Liberal site was almost exclusively devoted to trashing Labor.
So it's not simply a case of Stan voting for Rudd just because he wasn't Howard; that, as he rightly points out, is a very valid reason to vote. But it was also that Labor, at this election, had far more to offer Australia than the Liberals did.
7 - Dr Dreadful
Ruvy, good to see you back. Where ya been?
8 - Clavos
Stan,
Where's the bio pic with titfer???
9 - Dr Dreadful
Where's the bio pic with titfer???
I think that was supposed to be you, Clav!
10 - Howard Bowen
This article reeks of liberal contortionism. The grocery stores are filled with foodstuffs that can provide all the ingredients for epicurian banquets that would have satiated the pallets of Louis XVI and Marie Anntoinette. A rational thinking person would not expect to have fillet mignon and lobster placed before them for every dinner. Likewise, a rational thinking individual wouldn't blame the government because they happen to be of an economic budget that curtails that amount of cost per meal. Also, if you can find one rotten apple in the produce section of a super market chain, the liberal assumption, then, is that the government is attempting to poison all of society. It is liberal sensationalism that is the poison.
11 - Dr Dreadful
#11: Biggest pile of straw-man nonsense this side of the International Date Line.
12 - Dr Dreadful
Whoops. Comment #10, I was referring to.
13 - Clavos
I dunno, Doc.
I think you had it right the first time...:>)
14 - Silver Surfer
Howard Bowen, eh? ...
I'll tell you what, Howard - forget the fillet mignon, lobster and apples.
What we got to eat here before Saturday was a shit sandwich.
15 - Silver Surfer
Dave, the truth is, even the politics of the Right in Australia would, for the most part, be regarded as quite liberal in the US, simply because we do have things like universal health care.
I guess the big difference between Liberal and Labor is that the Labor Party promised to roll back Howard's bizarre IR laws, implement high-speed broadband out there in the bush, where the farmers, graziers and station owners hadn't been looked after, increase funding to schools by giving every kid a computer in the last few years of high school, more cash for the health system, etc etc.
In reality, in terms of their campaigns, their promises aren't that different.
For instance, Rudd has promised he will turn back the boatpeople (they usually end up being processed off shore), but expect the new government to be far more compassionate in that regard. I, for one, found it reprehnsible that people were being held for years on end in immigration detention centres and with a very hardline attitude taken to children and families in terms of their ongoing incarceration.
I guess it comes down in the end to a choice between a government of division (very much like Maggie Thatcher's Britain) or a government, as Rudd says, for all Australians.
Mate, that's what we voted for.
We voted for a government with heart. The Liberals had turned their backs on what what they once stood for - small "l" liberalism. They had become a so-called braod church encompssing everything from true social-conscience liberals to the far right, and therein lies the problem.
However, you will find that Rudd's Labor will be similar to Tony Blair's New Labour - it won't do all this at the expense of the nation's booming prosperity.
And yes, Howard did do one good thing: he banned the types of guns that enabled Martin Bryant to gun down dozens of people at Port Arthur a decade ago. Since then, we haven't had a mass shooting of that kind.
Good on him for having the balls to do that. That'll be what he's remembered for. That, and the emphatic nature of his rejection by the people of this country after he introduced IR laws designed to target the ordinary worker (and cut their pay and conditions) while tax cuts and benefits for the comfortable and the rich gave them more money.
I am in the comfortable class, so in a way, I voted against myself ... because I don't want to live in a divided country.
16 - STM
And Ruvy, the Labor Party won the election.
It's a bit like America, although with some crucial diffences. There are only two real choices here for the lower house: the Liberal/National coalition and Labor, which also gets the support of some minor parties like the Greens (which a lot of young people voted for this time, and their preferences under our preferential voting system mostly go to Labor unless the voter chooses to number the ballot paper differently according to their own choice).
In the senate, however, minor parties can often hold the balance of power - which is good, because they are not partisan and it keeps the other bastards honest. As a house of review, that's what you want from the senate.
17 - Doug Hunter
"I am in the comfortable class, so in a way, I voted against myself ... because I don't want to live in a divided country"
Best pay the poor unproductive types off before they riot and take your 'comfort' by force. Let them vote themselves the fruit of your labor instead. That's democracy, ugly but effective.
18 - Dave Nalle
I guess the big difference between Liberal and Labor is that the Labor Party promised to roll back Howard's bizarre IR laws, implement high-speed broadband out there in the bush, where the farmers, graziers and station owners hadn't been looked after, increase funding to schools by giving every kid a computer in the last few years of high school, more cash for the health system, etc etc.
So it was the usual chicken in every pot, government largesse bribery of the public we see from leftists everywhere.
I guess it comes down in the end to a choice between a government of division (very much like Maggie Thatcher's Britain) or a government, as Rudd says, for all Australians.
See, there's where you lose me. Thatcher saved Britain. I lived there both before Thatcher and after she had been in office for a while and the improvement was palpable. I'm not sure who she divided, but she literally pulled the country back from the brink of utter economic and social destruction.
Howard did do one good thing: he banned the types of guns that enabled Martin Bryant to gun down dozens of people at Port Arthur a decade ago. Since then, we haven't had a mass shooting of that kind.
Good on him for having the balls to do that. That'll be what he's remembered for.
In America that would have gotten him voted out of office almost instantly. It's the kind of pandering to irrational fearmongering that we're very intolerant of.
Dave
19 - STM
Dave, you live in America and I live in Australia.
For all our similarities, we're also very different.
Thatcher may well have saved Britian, as you say, but she spilled an awful lot of blood doing it. The only good thing about Thatcher and Howard from my point of view is that they moved Labour/Labor closer to the centre.
Our IR laws go back to the early 1900s, when the courts set down the first minimum wage and associated working conditions - the first place to do it.
I guess it depends on your point of view, of course, but we're a bit further advanced down that track than you.
That's why you can't look at this from the US perspective.
When workers have been enjoying decent pay and conditions for years thanks to a system of arbitration and collective bargaining that is set up by accord with productivity, it's a vastly different ballgame to the piecemeal approach to this stuff that you have in the US.
It's worked for us. If you came here and had a look, you'd understand why.
The prosperity has been very evenly divided ... and it's the way most of us want it (as evidenced by the emphatic nature of John Howard's removal from office).
The working man here - rightfully - expects to get a decent share of the profits he makes for business, along with protections in regard to his labour. That's how it's always been, and Howard make a huge mistake in trying to change it.
20 - Aquaman
Disillusionment is a right we hold dear in our country. You can't make somebody believe in democracy, its a separation of state and state thing, or something.
Crabs anyone?
21 - STM
Lobster?
22 - STM
Doug Hunter: "Best pay the poor unproductive types off before they riot and take your 'comfort' by force."
No Doug, there aren't too many unproductive types here and all workers are entitled to be comfortable, and they don't need to riot here to do it. There's no reason in this country why workers shouldn't have the kind of disposable incomes they've had in the past, given the immense prosperity of this country at present.
That's democracy; ugly for the libs, who got themselves punted out of office over it, but effective.
23 - Dave Nalle
Dave, you live in America and I live in Australia.
For all our similarities, we're also very different.
So True.
Thatcher may well have saved Britian, as you say, but she spilled an awful lot of blood doing it.
IMO she stopped a lot of bloodshed. She had to deal with the Brixton riots and the enormous rise in crime coming out of the 1970s, elevated racial tension and incredible economic problems, yet by the time she left office England was more prosperous than it had been since before the War.
The only good thing about Thatcher and Howard from my point of view is that they moved Labour/Labor closer to the centre.
I don't know that much about Howard, but Thatcher instituted much needed tax and economic reforms which brought the English upper class back from overseas and revitalized the economy. Howard didn't have the same kind of crisis situation to deal with in Australia, of course. It helps to have a really crappy situation when you get elected so you have something to fix to make you look good.
Our IR laws go back to the early 1900s, when the courts set down the first minimum wage and associated working conditions - the first place to do it.
Sorry for my ignorance, what are 'IR laws'? Individual Rights?
That's why you can't look at this from the US perspective.
When I can I try to look at things from a kind of universal liberal perspective.
From what I know about Howard he seemed like a big nanny-stater who seemed to want to run everyone's lives, which is similar to the attitude of the American left.
When you say that the Labor party is farther left than that it puts me in mind of an actual communist takeover, but I'm hoping that means that your left and our left are different.
When workers have been enjoying decent pay and conditions for years thanks to a system of arbitration and collective bargaining that is set up by accord with productivity, it's a vastly different ballgame to the piecemeal approach to this stuff that you have in the US.
We don't exactly have problems with fair wages and bad working conditions. Between unions, government regulation and the marketplace everyone does okay.
To put it in perspective, Putin just instituted across the board wage and price controls in russia - back to the old centrally planned command and control economy.
The working man here - rightfully - expects to get a decent share of the profits he makes for business, along with protections in regard to his labour. That's how it's always been, and Howard make a huge mistake in trying to change it.
That's what I'm missing - how did he try to change it?
Dave
24 - Dave Nalle
BTW, Stan. Any thoughts of the newly formed Australian LDP? They seem to have some pretty good ideas. Where do they fit in the picture?
Dave
25 - STM
Dave: IR laws ... industrial relations.
There's always been a spirt of sharing here, to a greater or lesser degree. The unions haven't had a real foothold here in terms of the damage they can do since the 1970s.
Successive governments, except Howard's, have tried to bring the unions onside by reaching accord - with increases and conditions tied to productivity.
It's worked, for the most part.
Here's something that will blow your mind: I get 7 weeks a year vacation.
Why? Because my employer recognises that because I work shifts that include weekends, nights, early mornings, public holidays (including Christmas and New Year), I deserve a decent break.
I have traded a few weeks a year of that off for a cash out so that I have a bit of extra dough at Christmas to cover the bills, but still get close to five weeks a year off. Sometimes I'm lucky and get a public holiday at Xmas or Easter. If I don't, I can take abother day instead and usually add it to my annual leave.
I'm also paid penalty rates for weekends/nights/public holidays that change my pay rate considerably. Some of these are in the range of 17 per cent, which is what my leave loading has been as well (17 per cent on top of my normal pay for annual leave). That was all the stuff Howard was doing away with. His attitude was: You are all lucky to have jobs. Big problem: a lot of aussies depended on that kind of stuff and their overtime to pay the mortgages they took out after believing Howard would look after their aspirational needs.
It's true that we are lucky to have jobs, but we all had 'em before as well, and the country was doing just fine before he did this, thanks very much. In a period of prolonged growth, in fact. So what we all realised was that he did it simply as an ideological thing. Unfair dismissal laws remain an issue, however, because they prevent small businesses under a certain number of employees from sacking staff without going through the hoops. Those laws were designed to stop unscrupulous employers, but probably went a tad too far.
Still, that's how we've always done it, and it works for us. You can't really argue with any of this stuff when a) a country is very prosperous with these kinds of benefits for its workers and b) business is still making obscene profits.
My view: there's plenty of loot to go around ... and happy workers are loyal workers and hard workers.
The happier they are, the more money they make for their employers, and the more they are paid in turn.
And the workers, after all, are the ones putting in the hard yards and making the profits for their bosses.
I realise this might not fit with your world view Dave, but it's how most of us here chose to see it on the weekend. Gotta love (representative) democracy ...
And the LDP? I don't think they picked up more than a tiny percentage of the vote ... preceded by zeroes, which is how small.
I predict they won't ever be a force to be reckoned with because Aussies are happy enough having big government. We do have libertarian ideals, I guess, but it's more whinged about than put into action except where people might personally confront government organisations.