Kipling, the Mufti and the Clash of Values

Photo: Rudyard Kipling

Neil (Ninglun) had am interesting post triggered by the latest controversy around Sheikh Hilaly. I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with Neil. So, and consistent with Neil's point about the need for perspective, I thought that I would try to come at the points raised by Neil from a different perspective.

To begin with, I agree with Neil's key point about the need to keep a sense of perspective on Mr Hilaly's remarks. We can think of this at two levels, one of values, the second political process.

The comments that follow draw from previous posts. I will not have time this morning to insert the links, but will try to do so later.

Political process first, because this is in some ways the easier issue.

I have written a number of posts about the sometimes pernicious way in which the media, current dominant values and our politicians interact.

The Pauline Hanson phenomenon is an example. To a substantial degree One Nation was created by the interaction between media and politicians. This fed the Party's growth. We can also see this in the case of Tamworth and the refugees. There the Australian metro media turned a complicated local issue into a major international story to this country's detriment.

We can see something of the same process at work in the sometimes almost hysterical responses to the Mufti's words, especially in the broad sheets.

In the case of Tamworth, I pleaded for time and space to allow the local community to work the issues through. The same things holds for Australia's Muslim community, although things are more complicated here simply because the community is not really a community at all, but a number of very different communities linked in some way by a common religion that is itself not a single entity.

The danger for us all lies in the risk that the interactions between media and politics may create the very things we fear.

We can tease this out if we now look at values.

Freedom of speech is a if not the core value in a democracy, a core bulwark standing between us and oppression. Not surpisingly, as in Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany or more recently Sadam's Iraq or Mugabe's Zimbabwe, control over freedom of speech is central to the maintenance of totalitarian power.

So I think that if we are to maintain freedom of speech we have to start from the pre-supposition that Mr Hilaly is entitled to say what he likes even though some find his views repugnant. Now this is likely to draw an immediate response. Surely, people will argue, a society has a right to control views that are repugnant to and threaten that society?

Now this is where things get really slippery because it brings you to what has always been the core problem with free speech, where do you draw the line and when? Here Sheikh Hilaly has created an especial problem because he has managed to offend both those holding certain moral values (they find his comments repugnant) and those with concerns flowing from the perceived threat from Islamic extremists.

No one doubts that there are Islamic extremists. Equally, no one doubts that there are organised terrorist groups. Few would challenge the right of Governments to take action to protect their citizens. The problem for Governments is to define what they can and should do. The risks are that those actions may create or encourage the very thing they are intended to fight while also eroding the civil liberties of citizens.

Controlling or attempting to control what people say because their views are repugnant and conflict with other people's deeply held values is a very different issue. This an area where we have to be very careful indeed especially where, as in the case of Mr Hilaly, expressed views risk being interpreted through the prism created by concerns about Islamic extremism.

Let me be clear here. I am not talking about what Mr Hilaly said, just about the way in which people interpret or respond to what is being said. We can see this in the more extreme responses such as suggestions that he should be deported.

I am out of time on this post. I will post what I have written so far and then continue the discussion tonight.

Later

First, thanks to Neil for advising me that he has updated his post.

I was also very sorry to hear that Lord Malcolm has only a few days to go, glad to hear that the Department of Housing issue has been sorted out. I did not say so before but perhaps should now that I am presently doing some work in part of that Department. Knowing my colleagues if only for a short while, I was sure that it would be sorted.

One of the things that I really like about Neil's approach to blogging is not just the conversation, but the way he provides links so that his comments can be further evaluated.

Now here I want to extend my discussions on values and politics by taking the case of the Kashmiri Nomad, a site I found through Neil.

I should say up front that this is not one of my favourite sites because I find it a bit like a broken record with its emphasis on the wrongs of the West.

I should also say in fairness that Kasmiri Nomad has had a positive influence on my own writing by pointing to the difference between the Australian and European treatment of migration, thus triggering my migration matters series as well as my emphasis on the need for Australians to recognise the unique elements in their own experience (the Australian Way) instead of simply importing and applying overseas views and concepts.

Neil referred to a post by the Kashmiri Nomad reading in part:

Western civilization no longer defines itself for reasons of political correctness in terms of race but none the less views it as a collective duty upon itself to civilise those less fortunate than itself. The language in which imperial conquest is couched in may have changed but the effects are still the same. No longer is there mention of the White Man’s Burden or the Manifest Destiny but rather platitudes regarding globalisation, free markets and democracy are now the oft repeated mantras.

Rudyard Kipling was quoted as an example of the previous view.

The views expressed by Kashmiri Nomad are widespread. Here I came across an interesting example on Al Jazeera, a discussion forum on Zimbabwe.

Neil in his post referred, as he has done before, to Zimbabwe's problems. Under his influence I followed through on some of his links to view blogs on Zimbabwe.

One of my real difficulties has been to understand why Mugabe was still getting support given everything I could learn. Leaving aside the odd case of Iran paying for a jamming station, why was Angola prepared to send paramilitary police, why was there still support for him from at least some of the ANC leadership when South Africa itself was groaning under the strain of a reported 3 million refugees.

The Al Jazeera forum shows some of the reasons why, the presence of a very different world view. Willy from the Cameroon can be taken as an example. He wrote:

I would like you to understand that Zimbabwe and Africa do not want any involvement into Zimbabwe affairs by Europe, Europe's current actions in the world speaks for themselves; Europe has military bases all over the world into other peoples countries, for what? If Europe is the kind place you pretending it to be, just to name that example. Your version of facts about Zimbabwe is not true, Zimbabwe was all right until president Mugabe did justice by getting our brothers land back, then Europe started to destabilize Zimbabwe, again tell your governments and people to stay out of our business, that is not much asking. It has been scientifically proven that Europe is the cause of all our present and past problems, there is nothing Zimbabwe wants from Europe, just leave our brothers alone, then we can have a life too.

Willy's views are not very sensible, but in their expression have not dissimilar messages to those expressed by the Kashmiri Nomad. Both link back to the ending of the colonial period

I think that there is no doubt that western governments and their respective citizens are inclined to want to impose views and approaches that they believe are right, nor is this new. Further, many at least in Australia become very uncomfortable when they hear alternative views and especially faith based views that conflict with their own beliefs and values.

Here I feel, and this is an opinion, that Australians have become less accommodating of alternative views since the start of the seventies. I base this opinion on the combination of my own experiences with my analysis of changes in our society and culture. To the degree that this assertion is true, it does us no harm to be forced to recognise that many majority views in Australia are minority views elsewhere.

None of this means that we should move away from our views and values. The reverse is true. Linking back to my opening point, we need to protect our core values including tolerance and freedom of speech.

But I think that we need to go further than this. I think that we need to analyse, to properly understand, alternative views. To illustrate this, I want to finish with Rudyard Kipling.

In his post, Kashmiri Nomad quotes Kipling's White Mans Burden in full as an example of the previous racist attitudes now replaced by the modern imperialist equivalent. He says in part: Kipling wrote the poem entitled "The White Man's Burden" as way of rousing the American nation to civilise the native Filipinos, teach them western ways and allow them to join the community of civilised nations. In doing so, he completely misses the irony in the poem, an irony dating back in part to Kipling's still recent US experiences.

Born in India in 1865, dieing in England in 1936, Kipling lived at the height of the British Empire. He was, indeed, an Imperial writer. And what, indeed, is wrong with that? We all write within a prism set by the circumtsances of our time. But Kipling was no mere Imperial writer.

Published in 1899, Stalky & Co is a thinly disguised autobiographical account of his time at school in Devon. Kipling himself is the eggregious Beatle, bookish, overweight with glasses.

I loved that book. I was being bullied at the time and the book gave me hope. Yes, the Imperial element was there. But so was a keen eye to the world. The pompous politician who tried to set up a cadet corp but failed because the boys saw through his cant.

India and Empire were always there in Stalky & Co in part because the school trained boys for imperial service. But Kipling loved India, even though India today may not love him.

Published in 1901, Kim is a both a gripping spy story set in the midst of Great Power rivalries and a graphic picture of Indian life as Kim and his master travel along the great road in search of the mystic river. Sure the story is written from the perspective of the British spy service, but this was the Brittish Empire.

For a man of his time, Kiipling was remarkably free of either racial prejudice or religious intolerance. Kim deals pretty fairly, I think, with all ethnic groups and religions. They are just there, accepted.

Loyalty and service were also central to his writing. Officials and officers were there to serve the local people as well as the Empire. They did so in often thankless conditions, dieing in their tens of thousands far from home.

This is where the irony comes in in the poem. Kipling is telling the US that now they have become a colonial power, then they must be prepared to accept the burden of so doing. In this sense, Kashmiri Nomad completely misses the point.

Lovers and Luggers

Photo: Lovers and Luggers (1937). Shirley Ann Richards (Lorna Quidley) sitting on the verandah steps with her father Sidney Wheeler (Captain Quidley).

Australia is just too damned big! I keep on coming across new trails to follow.

Over on the Regional Living Australia blog I decided that it was time I looked at the Kimberly region of WA, an area that I am interested in but have yet to visit. In turn, this took me into the history of the pearling industry in Australia. And that took me back to Lovers and Luggers.

A number of years ago, in the seventies I think, the ABC had a series replaying Australian films from the industry's heyday prior to the Second World War. This was, I think, the only period in which the Australian film industry has occupied a key local box office position. I would love to see the series repeated, although it maybe that our images of ourselves have shifted so much that the films would no longer resonate. If so, that's a pity.

One of the films I most enjoyed was Lovers and Luggers. Made in 1937 by Ken Hall with a 194o US release under the title Vengence of the Deep, the film tag reads "Epic pearling adventure romance in glorious sun-splashed tropical settings of Thursday Island!" while the plot is described in these terms "A concert pianist, as concert pianists are wont to do, goes pearl diving in the South Seas to find a giant pearl for his girlfriend. He does, and that's when all the trouble begins."

The film is a romp sitting squarely in the middle of a number of now past streams.

As I remember it, the opening scenes show what used to be called a lounge lizard clearly from the effete side London focused side of the Empire clearly in need of redemption, thus playing to both Australian's images of themselves and of themselves in comparison to the English.

Then we have the tropic, Pacific location, appealing to resonances of the Pacific as an exotic location and source of wealth. Then ,too, we have pearls. By the time the film was made the pearl industry with its romance but also its horrors and dangers was in sharp decline. Still, it retained its fascination.

Needless to say, pianist Daubeney Carshott (Lloyd Hughes) falls in love with and is redeemed by Lorna Quidley ( Shirley Ann Richards). As I said, a romp, and one that I really enjoyed.

A Far Country - Armidale Demonstration School 1955

One thing that I find so satisfying about blogging is that the way in which the slowly accumulating posts are starting to create a framework story on some of the things that I am most interested in. So many posts now add a little detail, extend, something that I have already said.

Bruce Hoy kindly sent me a photo of the year 5 class, Armidale Demonstration School, 1955, along with some information on his doings. I have now put up a story on this on the New England Australia blog. In this post, I thought that I would provide a little additional context.

History, at least as I see it, is about people and experiences. Here I want to capture and present aspects of the Australian experience before they are lost, to help people reach back into the past.

Back on 10 September 2006 in my first post in the Migration Matters series I referred to a rather good book by Don Aitkin looking at change in Australia through the prism set by the Armidale High School Leaving Certificate class of 1953.

The children of year 5, Armidale Demonstration School 1955, live in the same world as Don's 1953 Leaving Certificate class. You can see this in the clothing in the rather grainy and damaged black and white photo. Here there are no designer labels, no smart uniforms.

You can also see this in the composition of the class with children from all sorts of different groups and economic backgrounds sitting together. In fact, and this is an issue that I really still have to deal with, society on the New England Tablelands was highly stratified. But that did not stop mixing among groups in a way that is really alien today.

Today we reject the idea of social structure based on birth. Yet, at least as I see it, we have created structures that effectively stream children based on one determinant, access to money. Armidale Dem was very different.

Armidale was always different from other places because this was the site of the first experiment in regional higher education. Today the spread of higher education across regional Australia has caused major changes in regional life. This could not have happened without Armidale and the New England New State Movement. Here I quote from the NSW Heritage Register on the Armidale Teacher's College site, now UNE's CB Newling Centre:

The C B Newling Centre, formerly the Armidale Teachers' College, is of State significance. It was the first Teachers' College built outside the Sydney Metropolitan area to train country teachers for country service. The College played a significant role in the establishment of the University College of New England in 1938, leading to the establishment of the University in 1954. It is also physical evidence of the influential New England New State Movement and the role country politicians played during the 1920s and 1930s, particularly the Local Member of Parliament, D.H. Drummond, in the decentralisation of education. The New State Movement heavily influenced State politics between the 1920s and the 1960s, using political parties and dissatisfaction with services in regional areas, to further their attempts to secede from New South Wales. The Movement significantly improved infrastructure in the region, with the C.B. Newling Centre being the first notable example of their success.

I sometimes get smiles because I still want self government for New England, because I argue that without a strong New State campaign New England will continue to be ignored. Perhaps I should rest my case with this quote!

I also sometimes try to counter in my writing the idea that current Australian society is more outward looking, more mobile and more progressive than that of the past when in fact I think that the reverse is true. My view is that as Australia got bigger, we have turned in.

I mentioned eleven people in my post. None of them are still in Armidale. They have gone all over Australia and the world.

Finally, I think that the post brings out another theme, the complexity of Australian life.

NSW Elections 2007 - final Legislative Assembly results

We now have final results for the Legislative Assembly from the recent election. While the overall outcome was clear on election night, results in the last few seats really bounced around.

I found this a confusing election, especially in trying to compare the results with those in the previous election. There was the redistribution, then in the run up to the election itself a number of sitting members left their parties to sit on the cross-benches, increasing the technical number of independents from six to ten.

I also found the weight placed on the two party preferred vote confusing and indeed at times misleading.

Preferential Voting

For the benefit of international readers, to win Government, you must achieve a majority in the Legislative Assembly or lower house.

NSW has what is called an optional preferential voting system. Under this, you vote one for the candidate of your choice. You may then, if you wish (this is the optional part), vote for other candidates in order of preference, two, three, four etc. If a candidate does not get a majority of votes, then the preferences of the candidates with the lowest vote are distributed until a majority is achieved.

Given the existence of a preferential system, a lot of analysis including most polls present data in two party preferred terms between the Labor Party and the Liberal/National Party coalition. This creates two major problems.

First, in an increasing number of seats - I have not counted them exactly, but I think that it is around 17 of the 93 assembly seats - the candidate with the second highest votes does not in fact come from either of the major blocks. This makes the standard two party preferred approach misleading.

Secondly, in an optional preferential system the changing number of electors who either do not put in preferences (this exhausts their vote) or if they do put in preferences do not follow the party line can have dramatic impacts on the final results in individual seats. This does not matter in an aggregate sense when, as in this case, the final results are clear. However, it can be very important in close elections.

Turning now to outcomes.

ALP

At the 2003 elections, Labor won 55 of the 93 seats. They finally ended this election with 52 seats, so down three. As late as last Wednesday the ALP still hoped to get 53-54 seats, so final counting went against them.

All Labor's losses came outside Sydney.

In the Lower Hunter they finally managed to hold off the independent challenge in Newcastle and Maitland, although it was line ball in Newcastle for some time. However, they lost Lake Macquarie to the independent, Port Stephens to the Liberal Party. Elsewhere. they lost Tweed and Murray-Darling to the National Party.

The Liberal Party

At the 2003 elections, the Liberal Party won 20 seats. They ended this election with 22 seats, so up two. They regained Pittwater, a seat they lost in a by-election following 2003 so counted as one of their 2003 seats, defeated the independent sitting member in Manly and gained Port Stephens.

The Nationals

At the 2003 elections, the Nationals won 12 seats. The Party then had one seat abolished in the redistribution and faced major challenges from independents, so the Nationals were in a degree of trouble. They ended the election with 13 seats, gaining Tweed and Murray-Darling from Labor. Importantly, while the Party failed to win independent seats back, they also withstood independent challenges in the seats they did hold.

Independents

At the 2003 election, independents won 6 seats, 2 in Sydney, 4 in the bush. This increased to 10 seats by election night with one by-election win plus defections They ended this election still with 6 seats.

With the exception of Clover Moore in the seat of Sydney itself, all the Sydney independents went down. Outside Sydney, the position was far more complex.

Independent candidates mounted major challenges in the Lower Hunter seats to Labor, to the Nationals in Barwon and the Liberals in Goulburn. These challenges failed with the exception of Lake Macquarie. However, the independents also held off all challenges in the seats they held elsewhere in the state, although the Nationals came close to defeating them in Dubbo. The net result was a one seat increase outside Sydney.

The future of the independent movement is interesting. Outside Sydney, they have in some ways consolidated their position as a natural country alternative to the National Party especially in that party's New England heartland. However, they have also not been able to extend their reach.

The Greens

Finally, the Greens. They ran candidates in all 93 seats, increased their vote slightly, and will gain increased upper house representation. But the big question, as it was in Victoria, was the Party's capacity now or in the future to break through in terms of lower house seats. Here I do not think that the signs are hopeful for the Greens.

To test this, I went through all 93 seats to identify seats where the Greens scored more than 10 per cent of the vote. I do not pretend the following analysis is either rigorous or error free. It is just a quick test.

The Greens gained more than 10 per cent of the vote in 24 of the 93 seats. I

The Party scored more than 25 per cent of the primary vote in two seats, both inner city:

• Marrickville 33 per cent, coming second after the ALP (47 per cent) with the Liberal Party on 13 per cent.
• Balmain 30 per cent, coming second after the ALP (39 per cent) with the Liberal Party on 24 per cent.

The Party scored between 20 and 25 per cent of the primary vote in four seats:

• Coogee 21 per cent, coming third after ALP (39 per cent) and the Liberals (36 per cent)
• Ballina 20 per cent, coming third after National (53 per cent) and the ALP (24 per cent)
• Heffron 20 per cent, coming third after the ALP (56 per cent) and the Liberal Party (22 per cent)
• Vaucluse 20 per cent, coming equal second with the ALP (also 20 per cent) and behind the Liberal Part (60 per cent)

Heffron is inner Sydney, while Coogee and Vaucluse are both Sydney Eastern Suburbs. Ballina is a New England seat in the north east corner of NSW.

The Party scored between 15 and 20 per cent of the primary vote in five seats:

• Lismore 18 per cent, coming third after the National Party (54 per cent) and the ALP (26 per cent)
• North Shore 18 per cent, coming equal second with the ALP (also 18 per cent) and behind the Liberal Party (53 per cent)
• Blue Mountains 16 per cent, coming third after the ALP (41 per cent) and the Liberal Party (28 per cent)
• Sydney 16 per cent, coming fourth after independent (40 per cent), Liberal Party 22 per cent and the ALP (20 per cent)
• Lane Cove 15 per cent, coming third after the Liberal Party (52 per cent) and the ALP (24 per cent)

From this point the Green vote tails away. There were 13 seats with a vote between 11 and 15, a solid number in the range 7-10 per cent, then the vote falls away especially in outer Sydney areas and country NSW.

These numbers scope the challenge facing the Greens.

The Green vote is high enough to give them upper house seats. However, their strong lower house vote is especially concentrated in two relatively small areas, the inner suburbs of Sydney with a smaller concentration on the far north coast.

In the first they seem to appeal especially to a generally younger, left of center metro group that forms a much higher proportion of the population than elsewhere and would otherwise have voted Labor or Democrat. The far north coast is a little different. This an area where environmental issues have been important and is also the original heart of the counter culture movement.

There is an interesting dichotomy here. Intuitively, you would expect these drivers to also affect, if to a lesser extent, the Green vote elsewhere on the New England coastline and on the Tablelands especially around Armidale. However, this is also independent heartland. My rough check of the figures suggests that the independents have been able to capture a significant part of the vote that would otherwise have gone Green.

The Greens face another problem as well. To get lower house seats in their core areas, they need second preferences. On the surface, they might have won Balmain this time with Liberal preferences. Here they face an enormous problem in terms of the attitudes of their members and supporters as well as views in other parties about deals with the Greens.

These problems won't go away. In the absence of some as yet undefined change, they mean that the chances of the Greens actually winning lower house seats do not appear high.

The Importance of Sixteen Cents

In blogging terms, I am just over a year old. I put my first test post up on 19 March 2006.

I didn't immediately rush to write. There was just one post in March, three in April then one in May. Regular posting really started in June. The following few months settled in at around 18 posts per month, then stepped up to the present level of 30-35 posts per month.

What on earth has all this to do with sixteen cents?

Well, as I put more time in, I thought that it might be good if I could generate some income stream from the blogs, create something that might help support me down track. Sort of a retirement plan. So as a first step I added Google Adsense to the blogs.

I quickly realised that this was going to be a slow process, although the fact that there were some ads on each blog was helpful in giving me some basic site stats at a time when I had no other data source.

The reason for this is simple. Revenue depends on the number of visitors, the number of those visitors who click on the ad link and then the payment per click. So you actually need a very large number of visitors to make real money.

Google pays when accumulated income reaches $US100. Yesterday there was great excitement when I realised that I was just sixteen cents off the critical $US100. I woke this morning and went to look at the stats only to find myself still three cents short! Still, I should earn that three cents sometime today.

It probably sounds a bit silly to be so excited over such a small sum of money. I suppose that I think of it as a small tangible reward over and beyond the real reward, the pleasure I get from blogging.

Personal Reflections - 5 April 2007

One of my irregular end week reflections, musings to myself, this time perhaps more important because tomorrow is Good Friday. Whether one is a Christian or not, Easter marks a major event in world history.

Like so many musings, this one is a mixture of the important and the trivial, the serious and the frivolous.

During the week Neil (Ninglun) kindly nominated me for the Thinking Blogger meme. In doing so, Neil said: "Jim and I do not see eye to eye on everything, but we certainly share a lot of values and attitudes. His work is always thought-provoking and far more conscientiously researched than most blogs." Needless to say, I was flattered.

Like all these memes it requires me to nominate five blogs meeting the criteria. I will do so because I think that this meme is not a bad idea, but there are some things that I need to think through first.

Tonight I listened to an interview with Tony Koch, the Australian's chief political reporter in Queensland who has just won the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year award - the nation's most prestigious journalism prize - for his coverage of the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island. Mr Koch was talking about his experiences in years of reporting on Australia's Aborigines. It reminded me how little I know.

One point that I do know, and its one that Mr Koch made, is the need to balance reporting on problems with reports of successes. This is a point I made some time ago and I have heard the same point repeated a dozen times over the last two weeks.

In all this, I was thinking about the role that this blog should play in reporting on indigenous issues. I musn't take myself too seriously, but for my own personal satisfaction I need to feel that I am adding something if I am going to write on a topic.

There are many things I cannot do. I cannot, for example, write on things from an indigenous perspective because I am not indigenous nor do I have the direct contacts with indigenous people required. For similar reasons, I cannot write sensibly on the detail of many specific matters because, unlike Mr Koch, I have never visited the places referred to, nor do I have twenty year's experience to draw from.

In all this, I have been slowly working my way through to three things that I think that I can do within the limits set by the blog format and my own time.

First, I can continue to use my own skills as a policy analyst to scrutinise policy towards or affecting our indigenous peoples. I remain of the view that this area is not well covered.

Secondly, coverage on indigenous issues is, or so it seems to me, remarkably patchy. This blog is not and cannot be a newspaper. But I can at least pick up issues that might otherwise slip between the cracks.

Finally, I can do something about consolidating information and information sources to make material more accessible. The present traffic stats on my blogs do not allow me to look at the detail of referrals over extended periods, but when I look at apparent patterns people search on quite a varied range of Aboriginal topics. Here I know from my own experience in preparing material that it can be quite hard to find what you want.

The first fourteen day meal challenge finishes tomorrow. I fear that while I did meet the rules, -with the exception of roast chook on Sunday, this required a different meal every night - time pressures kind of destroyed the real intent.

Last year I wrote a fair bit on matters connected with the NSW Higher School Certificate. This year I have not had the heart. It has not been a good HSC year from our viewpoint. I really don't like the system, although I am not sure how to fix it. Perhaps reintroducing the concept of education might not be a bad start.

Federal education minister Julie Bishop might also take this to heart. At the moment she seems to be the minister for education system "productivity" and "standards".

Just to check that I was not being unfair, I did a quick scan of her media releases over the March quarter (here). Have a look for yourself. At the risk of sounding tart, every time I meet someone who wants to abolish our Federal system, I respond Julie Bishop.

This links to an interesting discussion during the week on strategy vs policy. Strategy and associated action plans remain big in all Australian governments. So I asked what was the difference between policy and strategy.

When you really boil it down, high level policy is really concerned with the what and why, what should we do, why should we do it? Inevitably, this involves values. These policy deliberations then flows into the objectives that form the starting point for strategy and action.

They have finally finalised the election count for the NSW Legislative Assembly. I will put a post up on this. While the final seat uncertainties did not affect the overall results, I found the way the results kept swinging as counting proceeded quite fascinating. But then, strange things do interest me.

I hope that the weekend is fine, although the forecasts are not encouraging. I was looking at the garden yesterday, feeling that I must do something. Still, I can report that I am now picking salad vegetables from my last burst of spasmodic gardening.

Time to move.

Continuity in the face of great change - the case of Cheddar Man

Update 2 May 2018. The latest results on Cheddar Man cast serious doubt on the conclusions set out in this post and my own uncritical reporting. See Cheddar Man revisited - More hype and complexity

Readers of this blog could be forgiven for thinking that I spend my whole time thinking and writing on political issues. Perhaps its time for a change.

I have been reading and enjoying Norman Davies's The Isles: A History, the story of the territory now occupied by the United Kingdom and Ireland.

When I first studied what was then called English history, there is another interesting story in the use of this name, I was struck by the constant waves of invasion. I suppose I assumed, I know that I assumed, that this meant the replacement of one group of people by another, essentially extinguishing the earlier group. We now know that this is not true because of the rather remarkable case of Cheddar Man.

In 1903 the complete skeleton of a human male was excavated from Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, hence the name Cheddar man. We now know that the remains date to approximately 7150 BCE, at least three thousand years before the advent of agriculture in the area. It appears that he died a violent death, perhaps related to the cannibalism practiced in the area at the time.

In the late 1990s, Bryan Sykes of Oxford University sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of Cheddar Man with DNA extracted from one of Cheddar Man's molars. He then, and this is something that I suspect that I would have regarded as a gimmick, tested the DNA of a sample of twenty residents of the modern Cheddar village. He found two exact matches plus one very close match.

Leaving aside the excitement of the two school children who gave the exact match and probably have the oldest scientifically established family tree in the world, the results show that Cheddar Man's family continued to reside in the same locality for perhaps 350 generations, surviving through all the invasions and changes.

It also made me wonder about the role that DNA testing might play if we could do it in the appropriate way in extending our knowledge of Australia's Aboriginal past.

We know that Aboriginal populations were not static, but shifted over time. We do not really understand those shifts.

Australia's Treasury and the Formation of Public Policy

Please note. I have done some minor formatting (5/11/2020) to this post. Sadly the official links no longer work because of subsequent institutional changes. 

Photo: Dr Ken Henry, Secretary, Australian Treasury

Under the headline "Revealed: Treasury chief's blast at government policy", today's Australian Financial Review carried a story reporting on a leaked speech made by Secretary of Treasury Ken Henry to Treasury staff. I cannot give you a link to the story because the AFR does not allow free access to its coverage.

The story created considerable media excitement because of its apparent criticism of the way Government policy was being formed, together with the revelation that Treasury had apparently been sidelined in some recent policy discussions including especially the PM's $10 billion dollar water plan.

The Labor opposition leapt at the material, while Ministers responded in a dismissive way. Water and Environment minister Turnbull was especially dismissive. Quoting from an ABC radio report:

HAYDEN COOPER: But Mr Turnbull maintains climate change and water are not issues for Treasury officials to deal with.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: This is not a narrow or arid economic analysis issue, this involves a lot of big questions, it involves dealing with practical people, people who've got a lot of dirt under their fingernails, who work all day in the bush and know how things work. And they're the people I'm spending my time consulting with and listening to.

Following the controversy, Dr Henry quickly released a full copy of the speech along with an clarification. You can find both his speech and his press release here.

I am sure that the story will run for some time. However, I thought that I might make a brief comment from my own perspective because Dr Henry's speech provides an interesting and in my view positive insight into the formation of public policy in Australia.

First and for the especial benefit of my international readers, unlike the US system the Secretary of the Australian Treasury is not a political appointee but a public servant. Treasury itself is one of the original Departments formed at the time of the Australian Federation. It's core role is the provision of economic policy advice.

Treasury, along with the Departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet and Finance, is what is known in Canberra parlance as one of the central coordinating agencies. These agencies must normally always be consulted on matters going to cabinet. Here one of the challenges always faced by the Cabinet Office is the desire of ministers to bring things into cabinet below the line, without the preparation of the required formal cabinet submission.

Traditionally, the cabinet process has worked like this. Matters going to cabinet require preparation of a formal cabinet submission. Interested agencies, and in the full process this always includes Treasury, must be consulted and their responses included in the cabinet submission. This is what Dr Henry is referring to in his speech when he refers to coordination comments.

All submissions are meant to be lodged with the Cabinet Office a specified period before the cabinet meeting. This in combination with the coordination comment process is designed to give agencies and ministerial offices time to brief their minister in advance of the cabinet meeting. All this gives Treasury considerable influence.

In carrying out its role, Treasury has always prided itself on the rigour of its thought and its willingness to give what it sees as objective advice, sometimes to the discomfort of ministers and even governments. Even when I was in Treasury I did not always agree with the Departmental line, less so when I left the Departments and was providing countervailing advice to my former colleagues. However, I never doubted the intellect of Treasury staff nor their pride in what they did.

In this context, I was saddened that Dr Henry's speech to staff was in fact leaked, because that leak is itself a breach of the Treasury ethos and especially the relatively open internal nature of the Department with its emphasis on discussion, ideas and information exchange.

On the other hand, I also found the speech itself enormously reassuring in that it showed that the traditional Treasury ethos is still alive and well despite all the changes that have taken place in public administration over recent decades. Three quotes to capture the tone:

The Government, our ministers and other agencies are under no compulsion to rely on our advice. In respect of water, that point is all too obvious. We are competing for influence with other central agencies, line agencies and independent policy advisers, such as think-tanks, commentators and consultants.

What gets us to the policy table is a reputation for deep analytical rigour and economy-wide thinking Analytical rigour and economy-wide thinking gets us to the table, but it’s not enough. If we are not effective in communicating these messages to our ministers and stakeholders and influencing their thinking, we will fail in our mission.

The quality of our relationship with Treasury ministers is of vital importance for very obvious reasons. We need to be responsive to our ministers, tailoring our advice to the current economic and political environment, but at the same time safeguarding the integrity of our advice. We need to nurture our ministers’ confidence and their trust in us. As I have noted on other occasions, I have never known the Treasurer to not welcome frank and honest advice when it is provided in-confidence and in good faith.

I commend the speech to you.

Climate Change Zealots Revisited

Today was a very good day. I have nothing spectacular to report. Simply that I felt that I made progress inside and outside work.

We all need these days. Sometimes life seems just too difficult. Then something, often small happens, and the world seems better.

My post on Counterpoint and the Climate Change Zealots drew comments from Lexcen and Neil (Ninglun), Lexcen from the climate change sceptic position, Neil from the other side. Neil's own position has been made clear in various posts. See for example.

Neil phrased his response to my post very carefully but was, I think, clearly upset about my use of the word zealot. Back last October I set out a statement of editorial policy on all my blogs. Consistent with this, I said in response to Lexcen and Neil that I would put up another post to make my own position a little clearer.

On this blog I often adopt a contrarian position, trying to come at issues from a different angle. I do so because of a strong belief that this creates a necessary balance in discussion.

On the climate change issue, lets start by clearing the undergrowth.

I am not a climate change sceptic as such. I do not believe that you can pump large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere without having some impact. I also believe and have done so for some considerable time that we needed to address possible responses in a sensible fashion. So what, then, was I on about? Let met try to disentangle the issues.

The starting point was a Counterpoint story, an interview with Professor Garth Paltridge, Emeritus Professor and honorary research fellow, Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania. The audio is now up on the ABC site and I commend it to you.

Professor Paltridge phrased his words very carefully. However, he made a number of important points.

Most importantly from my perspective, he expressed concern about the way in which, at least as he saw it, scientific discussion about climate change was being twisted. This was the same point made earlier by Kevin Vrane. Vrane is not a climate change sceptic but, like Professor Paltridge, he is concerned as a scientist about the way in which science is being practised.

Now from what I know, I suspect that the Paltridge/Vrane position is correct. If so, we have a very real problem because it means, among other things, that we have to treat the scientific arguments put forward by climate change proponents with a degree of scepticism over and beyond the normal uncertainties associated with the science itself.

In saying this, I am not saying that the scientists involved are guilty of practising bad science nor am I implying that they are trying to mislead us. The position is far more complex than that. In simplest terms, and for a variety of reasons, we have created a position where funding goes in certain directions, where those expressing different views or who want to follow different lines can experience difficulty.

Part of the problem we face is that the science itself is just plain uncertain. Let me try to explain this as I understand it. Here I stand to be corrected since I am about to go far outside my area of competence that everything I say has to be treated with a huge degree of caution.

We know from the historical record that the earth's climate is extremely variable, something that makes forecasting difficult. The further we go back in time, the greater the range of variability. To get a feel as to what I mean, have a look at the post I put up on the Macleay Valley - the glacial age.

All this makes modern society with its expectation that things can be controlled, its focus on risk management, very uncomfortable. It also makes the science very difficult.

Again expressing things in terms that Belshaw can understand, to show the effects of green house gases on climate change, you have to start by defining current longer term climatic trends. This is difficult enough. Then you have to establish the variation from this trend and link it to green house gases. Then you have to extrapolate in some way to generate future forecasts as to effects.

To do these things, we have to use complex mathematical models of the world's climatic system. Or perhaps systems.

Fifty years ago such models were not possible in any realistic senses. We lacked the data. Now through the combination of satellite based technology with an extension of ground, sea and air data recorders we have a lot more data. But things are still uncertain.

Put all this aside. Assume that we have a problem even if the parameters are uncertain. What do we do about it? This is where zealotry really comes in.

First, a dictionary definition. Zealotry = fanaticism: excessive intolerance of opposing views.

This word applies to some on both both sides of the climate change debate to this point as they try to convince the world that their position is right. But if we assume that we do have a problem, and this is where public opinion has got too, all this drops away. Now we have to decide what to do. We have moved from a scientific to a public policy debate.

One of the problems we presently face in the public policy debate is that the adversarial nature of the previous debate is still with us. A second problem is the desire of people to rush to solutions before defining the problem. This, also, is the stage that we are now at.

If we look at the issue objectively in public policy terms, we are still dealing with uncertain science. How do we manage this?

It seems to me that we start with the worst case scenario and then discuss possible responses. We do not have to do these things, but they provide a base should we have too. Then, at the other extreme, we define some things that we can do now to get things rolling. In the meantime we continue to monitor scientific research, and this includes funding non-mainstream views, modifying as we go along.

Australia's Aging Population - Treasurer Costello releases second Intergenerational Report

The graphic shows the latest projections for the changing age composition of the Australian population through to 2007.

For the benefit of my international readers, back in 2002 the Australian Treasurer Peter Costello released the first Intergenerational Report looking at the impact of Australia's aging population.

One of Mr Costello's messages, one that I agree with, was the need to recognise and deal with impacts now to avoid burdening later generations. While I am often critical of the way that public policy is developed in Australia, especially at State level, the first Intergenerational Report was an example of something I applaud in policy terms, an attempt to provide information and ideas on a long term issue.

Mow Mr Costello has released the second Intergenerational Report. You will find the Treasurer's speech here, the full report can be found here.

The second report reveals some interesting changes over the five years. While still below the replacement rate, the Australian birth rate has increased instead of declining further. Migration has been higher than projected. Participation rates by older workers have increased. The net effect is to reduce the projected impact of an aging population.

One thing that I found interesting in the Report is that it provides further straws in the wind indicating some profound social changes in Australia, changes that I have seen signs of recently but which are still somewhat below the radar. I won't go into details now - this is really just a note to myself.

Further Reading

Back in November 2005 I wrote a piece on demographic change in Australia. While now a little dated, it does provide an introduction to the issues. A stocktake on some of my various posts on demography and demographic change can be found here.

Counterpoint and the Climate Change Zealots

Back in December in Science and Political Correctness I expressed concern, among other things, about the way in which zealotry affected climate change discussions. Here I referred to the views of Kevin Vrane:

For the moment I simply note that one of Vrane's concerns is, in my words, the way in which climate change has become so entrenched as a dominant popular view that scientists who want to express or discuss alternative views on issues such as the speed of the process fear to do so.

My concerns were highlighted by an interview tonight on Counterpoint, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation program. The details are not up yet, so I cannot refer you to them.

Michael Duffy as presenter was interviewing an emeritus professor from the University of Tasmania. Starting from the premise that you cannot inject large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, the professor made points.

First, he noted that those scientists expressing counter views in the debate were all at or near retirement age. The reason, he suggested, was that this was the only group that had the real freedom to take a counter view.

Secondly, he noted the way that research funding was now biased in favour of those supporting climate change. Crudely, you could not get funding if you wanted to test a counter position.This is part of the same point as made by Vrane.

Thirdly, he pointed to the problems in the very complex models used to test climate change issues.

Later

Nothing like blogging to restore a sense of perspective. I had to stop and get tea. The fourteen day meal challenge continues, something I will report on in due course. Then, coming back, I browsed around for before starting to write again.

I was going to be very rude about Sydney's attempt to turn the lights off as an environmental demonstration. Then I read Adrian's post and did not have the heart. Incidentally, I was very pleased to read that Adrian's mum is better. She is obviously a very feisty women.

Returning to my main theme.

I have two quite distinct problems with the current climate change debate.

The first is the one I have been alluding to, the way opinion on the debate now seems to be twisting scientific analysis. The second is the way that climate change has become the new political correctness, making it hard to express alternative views or query solutions.

An example.

Everybody in South Eastern Australia, at least those living in the metros, seems to believe that the drought that we have just experienced is the worst on historical record and a symptom of climate change demanding radical action.

As I understand the position, at the start of November it was the worst drought. Then we had some more rain and now it is not. Because the drought is back within historical parameters, it is a bit hard to argue that it is a sign of climate change.

Further, the fact that Sydney has water problems is a sign of population growth on one side, lack of planning on the other.

From a personal perspective, I don't want actions and restrictions jammed down my throat. I don't want every special interest group, and I include the Greens in this, taking the opportunity to use climate change to impose their special agendas. Instead, I want the information that will help me as an intelligent person to form my own position. And that is simply not there.

To illustrate my point, start from the premise that climate change is a significant problem, that this is linked to CO2 and that we must do something. Well, the starting point here is the presentation of information in a form that people can understand in advance of decisions.

People are trying to tell me what I should do when I don't have the most basic information to inform my response. I don't know what the main contributors to green house gasses are. I don't know what the real gains are from different proposed policy options. I do not know what the problems are with each option. So I cannot make real judgements.

John Howard says that I should support clean coal and nuclear power. The Green tell me that coal should be phased out ASAP, that nuclear power is bad, that we want renewables. So far as I am concerned, in the absence of basic information these are all just opinions.

Take clean coal.

Research into clean coal seems a good thing, so I have no problems there. However, I would like to have better feel for the time lines associated with possible research outcomes.

Assume that clean coal won't work. Does this mean that we should phase out coal? From an Australian perspective I would be reluctant to accept this because coal is so important to us. Well, then, what are the options?

I suppose the first point is that coal is an input demanded by our customers. If they phase out coal, then willy nilly we will too. If they do not phase out coal and we stop supplying, they will simply buy coal elsewhere. Here the end green house result is the same. We may feel pure, but we have suffered.

If we don't phase out coal, can we compensate in some other way? That is, absorb the green house emissions of our customers? Now here I actually do not know the value of green house absorbing mechanisms and especially trees. Alternatively, can we encourage our customers to do better in some other way?

The point in all this is that we seem to be locked into the same policy bind that I so often complain about, a rush to imposed simple solutions without the information required to allow people to form sensible judgements.

New England's Aborigines - Stocktake on posts

Across on the New England History blog I have just put up a stocktake on posts linked in some ways to New England's Aboriginal peoples.

The post took me some time to write. You can see this from the date, 24 March, which is actually the date I began to write.

The post is also long, very long, at over 4,000 words. However, I wanted to capture some of the main themes in on element of my writing.

I face a growing problem. Since I started using blogs as my main writing mechanism, I have written hundreds of posts across six blogs. While many posts are short, some are quite long thought pieces. The tag and search mechanisms on blogger are far from perfect, so there is a growing issue in keeping track of material.

Apart from a very small band of insanely dedicated readers, I do not really expect people to read all this stuff. However, I want it to be accessible as required both for myself and those who want to find out about particular issues.

Here I am conscious of those who come to my blogs via search engines - over 700 first time unique IP addresses last week, over 37,000 per annum - in search of information. These totals are growing, although no where near as fast as the recent spike in Neil's traffic. I stand in admiration, even awe, of the evolution of Neil's blogs.

Even though my traffic figures are far lower, the numbers are not insignificant. Here in an off-line discussion with Neil, we talked about the need for bloggers to recognise their responsibilities as publishers.

I do not expect any of my blogs to become A list blogs. You do not achieve this by writing 4,000 word posts! I do expect my blogs to occupy a small but respected place as a source of information and comment in the evolving information society.

To do this while also making material more accessible for my own use, I need to find new ways of combining and representing material.

Noric Dilanchian, an old friend, and I often talk about the role of content. Content is no longer a problem. The problem now is how to manage that content.