Andrew Bartlett

Indian Court finds law against same-sex sex breaches Constitution

July 2, 2009 – 10:13 pm, by Andrew Bartlett

As President Obama works slowly on reforms such removing the counter-productive and discriminatory ban on openly gay and lesbian people in the US military, some positive news has come from India, where a Court has ruled that a law criminalising consensual sex between two people of the same gender breaches India’s Constitution.

Ironically, the law in question is a 19th Century hangover (and a hang-up) from the British Colonial era.  But it has been found to breach the Constitution put in place by India after Independence was gained.

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Trends in refugee movements & Coalition politics

June 30, 2009 – 6:13 pm, by Andrew Bartlett

I had an article published in the main Crikey e-newsletter today, outlining some of the trends, facts and government responses to the well over 40 million refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless people around the world.

It seems likely the issue of asylum seeker boat arrivals will once again be moving closer to the political centre stage in Australia, even though these currently number less than 1000 out of those 40 000 000 plus people.

Media commentary about Tony Abbott having reaffirmed his political ‘heavy hitter’ credentials during the recent ‘ute-gate’ stoush is being intertwined with suggestions he might be shifted to the shadow Immigration portfolio.  Understandably, this is one area the Coalition thinks they could score some political points off the government, given the political gains they made exploiting the issue in the years leading up to 2001 and beyond. Quite a few of the dynamics on this issue have changed since then, but given their current political difficulties, it might be tempting for the Coalition to be tempted to take the low road again.

I’ve previously pointed out that Petro Georgiou would have made an excellent shadow Immigration Minister, as he has more extensive knowledge and understanding of this area than pretty much anyone else in the Parliament, with the possible exception of Philip Ruddock.  But Mr Georgiou has since announced he will not recontest at the next election, so that option is now out.

Current shadow Minister Sharman Stone has had a mixed performance to date, but I don’t envy her having to not only get on top of a detailed and complex area of policy, but also having to navigate the much more tricky matter of the deep politcial differences within the Coalition parties in this area. I don’t see much benefit in shifting her just so someone else has to start all over again in getting up to speed in this difficult field.

It will be an interesting test of Mr Turnbull’s leadership to see what he does in this area – not so much because immigration is a potential political point-scorer issue for him, but because it is an area of policy which is crucial for Australia economically, socially and culturally, as well as being pivotal in how the Australia of the future sees its place in the world. Australia has suffered from a lack of attention to general policy and administration in the immigration area the past decade because of an excessive focus on asylum seekers and political point-scoring. The last thing our country needs is a return to that approach (and refugees & asylum seekers could do without it too).

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World Refugee Day: One refugee’s story

June 29, 2009 – 10:41 pm, by Andrew Bartlett

Last weekend saw a festival held in Brisbane to mark World Refugee Day.  Over the last 30 years, south-east Queensland has seen a big increase in the range of ethnic communities with a refugee background. A growing number are from our region in South-East Asia. One of the newest emerging communities in Brisbane is the Rohingyas. I hadn’t heard of them until a year or so ago.  They are originally from western Burma, although a lot of them live insecurely for many years in refugee camps in Bangladesh or at risk in Malaysia.

With a difficult and emotive issue like refugees, sometimes it is helpful to look at the experiences of individual people – taking it out of the realm of political sloganeering and into the grounded reality of individual human beings.

This piece on Derek Barry’s blog tells the story of one young Rohingyan man who is now living and working in Brisbane. It’s well worth reading.

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What matters about utegate

June 24, 2009 – 11:04 pm, by Andrew Bartlett

I don’t dispute that there are some interesting twists and turns in the utegate/fake email saga.  But it always infuriates me that politicians and political commentators will devote endless hours to such things, thus excluding any real examination being given to issues, policies and legislation that directly effect peoples’ lives.

There has been some small attention given to the climate change related legislation seeking to implement a carbon pricing mechanism, but even that coverage has mostly been about the politics surrounding the legislation, rather than the content and impacts of the legislation itself.  Meanwhile, many other proposed laws, such as workplace relations or transparency of donations to political parties, get almost completely ignored.

This isn’t about blaming the media – you can’t blame them for providing what people want to hear, and people prefer conflict, scandal and intrigue, rather than policy detail. But we should recognise such firestorms for what they are, and the excuse that such events suck the oxygen out of other issues is no real excuse at all. It is not politicians that determine what gets media attention, although they understandably try to do everything they can to influence that.

It was refreshing (and depressing) to read Ben Eltham’s perspective on the whole matter at New Matilda.

the OzCar debate is not about anything as real as actual policy. It’s not even about integrity. It’s about tactics. In other words, it’s not really about anything substantial at all.

But tactics and the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary attack and counter-attack seems to be what most politicians and political journalists care about in this country. For the media, it’s politics as a football game, complete with armchair coaches and half-time analysis. For both Labor and the Opposition, it seems, this affair is evidence that politics is really about manipulating the political process, rather than about the policies you propose to implement. The result is that in a week when emissions trading legislation is to be finally voted on in the Senate, Australia’s legislature and a large part of its senior public service have been consumed by a circus.

Of course, the emissions trading legislation wasn’t voted on in the Senate this week – it was put off until August. I doubt that bothers the government much. As I’ve noted before, the chances of the government wanting to call an election this year were very slim anyway.

If the legislation is voted down in August, reintroduced in November and finally voted on early next year, it just continues to leave the apparently unresolvable divisions within the Coalition festering. If another vote on the emissions trading legislation happens early next year, the Coalition will no longer be able to use the excuse that they need to see the results of the Copenhagen conference at the end of 2009 before implementing an emissions trading scheme. And whenever that final post-Copenhagen vote happens, it seems inevitable that the Coalition’s position and message will be split between at least two camps, if not more.

That will certainly be worth writing about.

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Senate stresses into final week

June 21, 2009 – 9:49 pm, by Andrew Bartlett

The Senate is moving into its final sitting week until mid-August. As is usually the case, the government has a large pile of legislation it is insisting absolutely must be dealt by the end of the week. As is also often the case, this includes one highly contentious piece of legislation – the Carbon Pollution Reduction (or emissions trading) Scheme (CPRS) - which is grabbing most of the attention and which could easily take a week just on its own to fully debate.

Dark threats are being made by the government of making the Senate sit through the Friday and into the weekend for as long as it takes to deal with all the legislation, or even calling the Senate back for an extra week’s sitting sometime in July. Adding to the atmosphere is the speculation that the CPRS Bill, which almost certainly will not gain the necessary votes in the Senate to pass, is being lined up as a trigger to call an early double dissolution election before the end of the year. Various advices, some formal and some not so formal, will be thrown around about whether adjourning debate – and a final Senate vote – on the legislation until August would meet the definition of “failure to pass” under Section 57 of the Constitution, and thus start the clock ticking on the three months required before the government can reintroduce the Bill to see if the Constitutional requirements for a double dissolution election are met by the Senate failing to pass the Bill a second time.

The atmosphere is further ‘enriched’ by significant differences within and between both Coalition parties, adding to the general tetchiness and aggravation that will no doubt grow as the week progresses.  The unfortunate ‘babygate’ incident at the end of the previous week, and the extraordinary vitriol heaped on Senator Hanson-Young as a consequence of what was obviously a totally innocent action, probably won’t help add to the goodwill in the final week.

There is also the uncertainty over whether the two Independent Senators will support any Coalition efforts to adjourn a final vote on the Bill until August. It might all be ‘resolved’ first thing Monday afternoon, if the Coalition and the Independents decide to immediately adjourn further debate until August. Or the uncertainty about when the definitive Senate vote for or against the legislation could drag on right through the week and into Friday.

Leaving aside the CPRS and early elections for a moment, one almost certain outcome of all this argy-bargy, agitation and speculation about the CPRS is that inadequate attention will be given to some of the other pieces of legislation that will be pushed through along the way.  One other near certainty is that whenever the Senate vote on the legislation is put, it will be defeated – probably at the Second Reading stage. Read More »

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Making the necessary carbon cuts “can’t be done”.

June 14, 2009 – 12:45 pm, by Andrew Bartlett

This comment by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is a clear and simple example of why the views of the major parties and most environment groups are so far apart on how best to respond to the threat of climate change.

Commenting on the National Climate Emergency Rallies held around Australia over the weekend, Senator Wong said

“What many of these people are calling for simply can’t be done. It can’t be done while supporting jobs.”

That’s a very clear indication that the government is not intending to make the sort of cuts in emissions that the majority of scientific opinion says is necessary, because they don’t believe it can be done with costing jobs.

It’s true some jobs will be affected if an effective carbon reduction scheme is introduced.  But other jobs will be generated. The task of government should be to facilitate a transition to a low carbon economy that is as non-disruptive as possible, not only go half way there to minimise impacts.

The problem with responding to climate change is that, unlike most other issues, there is not much room for compromising or trading off against other priorities. If you seriously believe the majority science view that major climate change is inevitable without rapid and major cuts in emissions, then your bottom line starting point has to be what the majority science view says is needed.

If you weaken that bottom line in an effort to soften economic or employment impacts, you may as well not do anything at all.  Once the climate change tipping points kick in, it will be too late.  Senator Wong’s comment suggests the government thinks it can have two bob each way on this issue – that might be doable in most other areas, but not on this one.

Back in February I wondered about the wisdom of the Climate Action Summit deciding to lock in a strategy of opposing the government emissions trading legislation so far in advance of the legislation being examined and debated.

Now that we are just days away from the start of Senate debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill, I believe we would definitely be better off with nothing than a half-adequate emissions trading scheme. I can’t see the logic in saying it would be beneficial for Australia to have legislation in place ahead of the Copenhagen Summit, if that legislation is inadequate. All that would do is tie our negotiating hands in a weak position.

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Anti-coal action outside Qld Minister’s offices

June 5, 2009 – 9:37 am, by Andrew Bartlett

I’ve often felt calls to ‘stop all coal exports’ were far too unrealistic.  But it is just as unrealistic to think we can even begin to make the necessary cuts in greenhouse emissions while governments continue to invest large amounts of money into “maximising coal exports”.  So it’s no surprise that climate change campaigners like Friends of the Earth in Brisbane are focusing more and more strongly on coal.

They marked World Environment Day in Brisbane by labelling the offices of the Premier, the Environment Minister and the Resources Minister as “global warning crime scenes.”

Friends of the Earth declare the Premier's electorate office in West End a "global warming crime scene"

Friends of the Earth declare the Premier's electorate office in West End a "global warming crime scene"

I fear that if the Copenhagen conference on climate change at the end of this year does not bear much fruit, and no strategies start to appear in Australia to reduce the reliance on coal, we will start to see direct action much stronger than a few photo opportunities.

Those who believe there is no threat from climate change are less of a barrier to effective action that those who believe there is a threat, but are either not willing or not able to confront the changes necessary to credibly meet the threat.

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