Memories: Brian Birchall, George Crosslé

There were two stories in recent weeks linked to people from my past.

The Sydney Morning Herald carried the obituary of Brian Birchall (1941-2010). Born in Newcastle, Brian worked first as a PMG technician before studying at Newcastle University College and then going to Sydney University to complete his PhD, the first awarded in Philosophy. In 1971, he accepted a position as lecturer in Philosophy at the University of New England; he was to spend the rest of his life in Armidale.

Brian was something of an eccentric who, as the obituary notes, became "a vibrant figure in the UNE landscape. Rather than being aloof, he cultivated friendships with students and contributed both an intellectual vigour and an informed sense of mischief to the university." I think that's pretty right from my own experience. 

In 1981 I went back to UNE to work full time on my PhD. With fond, somewhat nostalgic, memories of student life, I found a much shrunken campus. Somehow during the growth and social change of the 1970s, the dynamism had been lost. Looking around, I found that the Philosophy Society was one of the few remaining student societies, so started attending meetings. This brought me into contact with Brian. Like me, he felt that student life had contracted compared to that he found in 1971. I think that he consciously used his personality and reputation for eccentricity as a tool to try to stimulate thought and activism among students.

In Alex Buzo on George Crosslé, Paul Barratt reprints Alex Buzo's 2000 obituary of Robert (George) Crosslé. I am glad that he did, for George was a remarkable figure. Proudly Irish, he was also an anglophile and a political conservative who wrote regular letters to the Armidale Express in support of causes including the Country Party and New England New State Movement. Yet, when it came to teaching, he was remarkably balanced, concerned to present various views and encourage discussion.

Part of George's impact came from his physical presence. Blind in one eye, he varied a glass eye with an eye patch, something that was fascinating to the young. Part of George's impact also came from his enthusiasm. Concerned, for example, about poor general knowledge in the school, he handed out a voluntary general knowledge quiz requiring a fair bit of work to answer, offering prizes for the best results.

I absorbed my love of history from George, but it was more than that. He also taught me to look at alternative viewpoints. One that stands out in my mind, one that I have mentioned before, is when he set an essay topic on the White Australia policy. I suppose I wrote a fairly safe and conventional response. I still remember George praising one class member who had taken a strong stand against the then policy for his ability to take an alternative view. I learned, then, that it was okay to challenge. 

The ALP-Green Deal

The Australian Greens & The Australian Labor Party (ʹThe Partiesʹ) – Agreement
Between:
The Hon Julia Gillard MP Prime Minister, MP Lalor, Leader of the Australian Labor Party
The Hon Wayne Swan MP
Deputy Prime Minister, MP Lilley, Deputy Leader of the Australian
Labor Party
And
Senator Bob Brown
Senator Christine Milne
Senator for Tasmania, Leader of the Australian Greens
Senator for Tasmania, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens
Adam Bandt MP ‐elect MP Melbourne, Australian Greens representative in the House
1. Purpose
1.1 This agreement establishes a basis for stable and effective government.
1.2 The Greens will vote with the ALP government to ensure supply.
1.3 The Greens will oppose any motion of no confidence in the government from any non‐Greens
member.
2. Principles
The Parties agree to work together to pursue the following principles:
a) transparent and accountable government;
b) improved process and integrity of parliament;
c) policies which promote the national interest; and
d) policies which address climate change.
3. Goals
The Parties will work together and with other parliamentarians to:
a) Establish a Leaders’ Debate Commission
b) Seek immediate reform of funding of political parties and election campaigns by
legislating to lower the donation disclosure threshold from an indexed $11,500 to $1,000;
to prevent donation splitting between different branches of political parties; to ban
foreign donations; to ban anonymous donations over $50; to increase timeliness and
frequency of donation disclosure; to tie public funding to genuine campaign expenditure
and to create a ‘truth in advertising’ offence in the Commonwealth Electoral Act.
c) Seek further reform of funding of political parties and election campaigns by having a
truly representative committee of the Parliament conduct a national inquiry into a range
of options with the final report to be received no later than 1 October 2011, enabling any
legislative reform to be dealt with in 2012.
i. The Parties note that the Greens are predisposed to a system of full public
funding for elections as in Canada.
d) The Parties note that Senator Bob Brown will reintroduce as a Private Members Bill the
Commonwealth Electoral (Above‐the‐Line Voting) Amendment Bill 2008. The ALP will
consider the Bill and work with the Greens to reach reforms satisfactory to the Parties.
e) Refer issues of public interest disclosure, where the Senate or House votes on the floor
against the decision of a Minister, to the Information Commissioner, who will arbitrate on
the release of relevant documents and report to both Houses.
f) Hold referenda during the 43rd Parliament or at the next election on Indigenous
constitutional recognition and recognition of local government in the Constitution.
g) Agree that this Parliament should serve its full term and further agree to investigate
legislative proposals, which are within the terms of the Constitution and give greater
certainty to the Australian people about the Parliament serving full three year terms.
4. Improved processes and integrity of parliament
4.1 The Parties agree to work together and with other parliamentarians to implement
parliamentary reforms.
4.2 The immediate reforms include:
a) Improving Question Time in the House of Representatives by setting fixed time limits
for questions and answers with supplementary questions given at the discretion of
the Speaker.
b) A fixed and fair allocation of questions for independent and minor party members
with the first question no later than the 6th question in each Question Time.
c) At least 2.5 hours dedicated for debating and voting on private membersʹ bills
including a fixed and fair allocation of time for independents and minor party
members in every full sitting week in both houses.
d) In addition to clause 4.2(c), dedicated time for voting on motions from independents
and minor party members in every full sitting week in the House of Representatives.
e) The House of Representatives will debate and vote, during Government Business
time, private senatorsʹ bills as passed by the Senate within 6 sitting days of the
message being received by the House.
f) Amending the Standing Orders of both Houses so that there can be a recommittal of
any vote within one sitting day where a member was absent from that vote due to
inadvertence.
g) Agreeing that in the House of Representatives, ʹpairsʹ may be made by private
arrangement during votes, similar to the arrangements which currently occur
between Whips in the Senate or that another arrangement to facilitate Members who
cannot attend due to ill health, family circumstances or performing Government or
electorate business be agreed.
4.3 Further reforms include:
a) Establishing within 12 months a Parliamentary Budget Office within the
Parliamentary Library with the structure, resourcing and protocols being the subject
of decision by a special committee of the Parliament which is truly representative of
the Parliament.
b) Establishing within 12 months a Parliamentary Integrity Commissioner, supervised
by the Privileges Committees from both houses to:
i. provide advice, administration and reporting on parliamentary entitlements
to report to the Parliament;
ii. to investigate and make recommendations to the Privileges Committees on
individual investigations, to provide advice to parliamentarians on ethical
issues; and
iii. to uphold the Parliamentary Code of Conduct and to control and maintain
the Government’s lobbyists register.
5. Working relationships
5.1 The following arrangements will govern the working relationship between the Greens
and the ALP for the duration of the 43rd Parliament. These arrangements may be altered
by mutual agreement.
a) When Parliament is in session, the Prime Minister will meet with Senator Brown and
Mr Bandt each sitting week, principally to discuss and negotiate any planned
legislation.
b) When Parliament is not in session, the Prime Minister, or her delegate, will meet with
Senator Brown and Mr Bandt, or their delegate, at least once each fortnight,
principally to discuss the upcoming legislative agenda.
c) The Government will endeavour to give at least six working days notice of the
introduction of legislation to the House.
d) If the Greens Party Room has not considered legislation, the vote of Mr Bandt on
legislation to facilitate its promulgation should not be interpreted as reflecting or
determining the final position of the Greens in the Senate.
e) The Parties will ensure that the ALP’s budget is subject to an exchange of information
and views between the Parties as follows:
i. The Greens Treasury spokesperson and Mr Bandt receiving economic and
financial briefings from the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance and the
Secretaries of the Departments of Treasury and Finance and Deregulation at
regularly agreed times.
ii. The Greens Treasury spokesperson and Mr Bandt having regular discussions
with the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance on economic circumstances, fiscal
strategy and budget preparation.
f) Should Senator Brown, Mr Bandt and other Greens Senators with portfolios, wish to
propose new policies, these proposals may be formally submitted to the Office of the
Prime Minister and forwarded to the appropriate Department and Minister for
analysis. Where the proposal is likely to involve costs, it may also be sent to the
Department of Treasury, and the Treasurer, and the Department of Finance and
Deregulation, and the Minister for Finance, for costing.
i. The number of proposals that may be considered in this way is not limited in
number but the Parties will ensure that the workload arising is reasonable
ii. Every endeavour will be made to provide required advice within ten business
days
iii. The Parties acknowledge that during the six week period leading up to the
Federal Budget, the turnaround time may be greater than ten business days.
g) The Parties acknowledge that the above mechanism can be used to have any of the
Greensʹ policies for the 2010 election considered.
h) The ALP notes the Senate resolution on appropriations bills which contain matters
which should have been the subject of separate legislation. To prevent this occurring,
the ALP agrees to work with Greens to resolve the matter prior to the introduction of
the bill.
i) Senior staff members of the Prime Minister’s Office and Senator Brownʹs Office will
liaise to ensure that Senator Brown, Mr Bandt and other Greens Senators with
portfolios have access to Ministers, key public servants and the Prime Minister, as
outlined above.
j) The Greens will ensure best possible access for Ministers to be informed about
Greens‘ legislation and will endeavour to give at least six working days notice before
bills are introduced.
6. Policy
6.1 The Parties agree on the following policy issues:
a) That Australia must tackle climate change and that reducing carbon pollution by 2020
will require a price on carbon. Therefore the Parties agree to form a well resourced
Climate Change Committee which encompasses experts and representative ALP, Greens,
independent and Coalition parliamentarians who are committed to tackling climate
change and who acknowledge that reducing carbon pollution by 2020 will require a
carbon price. The Committee will be resourced like a Cabinet Committee. The Parties
will, by the end of September 2010, finalise the structure, membership and work plan of
the Committee.
b) That Australia needs urgent further action on dental care and that proposals for
improving the nation’s investments in dental care should be considered in the context of
the 2011 Budget.
c) That an implementation study for High Speed Rail should be completed by July 2011.
d) That there is a full parliamentary debate on the war in the Afghanistan.
7. Administration
7.1 This agreement will come into effect on the day Government is established.
Signed on this 1st day of September 2010.
The Hon Julia Gillard MP The Hon Wayne Swan MP
Prime Minister Deputy Prime Minister
Leader of the ALP Deputy Leader of the ALP
Senator Bob Brown Adam Bandt MP ‐ elect
Leader of the Australian Greens Australian Greens Representative in the House
Senator Christine Milne
Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens

The importance of community activism

We community activists are stubborn folk. We know that the chances of success are often slim. We know that Governments in the name of efficiency and effectiveness will over-ride us or, worse, destroy the things that we have worked for. Yet we go on.

Up in Bellingen, the community is still fighting for its hospital. I haven't written on this for a while, but the campaign continues. The Facebook page now has 3,515 supporters. I think that the Government simply hopes that it will all go away, that the system can outlast the campaign.

Down south in Wollombi, Peter Firminger is using the intenet to unite the Wollombi community. After 36 months, Wollombi Valley Online has over 380 members and attracts over 50,000 visits per month (currently averaging around 1,633 visitors per day viewing 3,552 pages per day). This is just one of a number of community sites that Peter has developed.

At our Hunter Valley new state lunch I asked Peter why he did it. After all, he has yet to make any money from it. The reverse, in fact; he has to subsidise the sites from his own business earnings. Not only that, he is on the committee of many if not most local organisations. He does so because he considers it to be important.

We community activists are not always right. Sometimes we support causes that are very local, very specific, very much nimby (not in my back yard). Sometimes we win when, arguably, we shouldn't. Yet these failures, if failures they are, are more than offset by the long term gains to community and country.

Our very democratic processes depend upon the activists. Not so much the career activists like Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard who go from University politics through the union and/or party machines to parliament, but to the thousands who turn out each election to pass out the how to vote cards or to scrutineer. Without them, our system would collapse.

Then there are the tens of thousands of volunteers who man our fire brigades, our emergency services, who provide meals on wheals, who run the fund raising BBQs and stalls for a variety of local causes. As we go to vote at the schools and halls around Australia, we collect our how to votes and then pass the BBQs and cake stalls raising funds for the local P&C.

The contribution of any single person may be small. But, in total, these activists are in fact absolutely central to Australian life. Without them, our community would be impoverished. They mark the difference between a successful and failed society.

The thing that stands out to me when I look at the warp and woof of life at a local level is not so much the successes of party and politics in meeting needs, although this can be important in individual cases such as Henry Parkes and public education in NSW, but the way in which community activism provides the base for later developments.

Today we live in a measurement world. Yet when I look at the huge variety of performance indicators, and I spend a lot of time doing this, most don't matter a damn in a long term sense. The most that they can do, and most don't do this, is to improve performance at the margin. To my mind, the real changes to Australia in twenty years will actually be determined by what community activists are doing now.                 

Blog performance, August 2010

Stats time again. The chart shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over the last month. After a decline over June and July, numbers in August were up again. Mind you, there were 31 days in August.

The ten most popular posts over the month were:

•  Sunday Essay - the importance of quiet time in a crowded world 269 page views
• Report of the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board, year ended 30 June 1940 208 page views
• Belshaw's Animal Meme 112 page views
• Interview with Tony Abbott 1979 92 page views
• Australian history and the migrant experience 72 page views
• Three Amigos and the future Australian Government 60 page views
• Cub Gunston? 56 page views
• Northern Daily Leader: Second-term support a must 54 page views
• End of the Nats? 49 page views
• Reflections on the end of the Housing NSW/AHO Aboriginal mentoring program 48 page views.

So, in all, a mixture of past posts and current events; the top two seem to remain relatively constant.

Postscript

As part of my monthly review, I also looked as the stats for my other blogs. I was surprised  at the spike in traffic in August on New England Australia (Blog visits take off) and New England's History (Blog Performance August 2010).

In fact, in August on the New England Australia blog, the number of followers, visits and page views all passed this blog for the first time! While I am obviously pleased at the increases on the other blogs, I found myself with mixed feelings. My overall personal interests attracted less interest than my more specific interests!

I have felt for a little while that this blog is becoming a little stale. I need to do something about this.    

Managers, Myer and the rights of shareholders

A few days ago, there was a press report that really riled one of the regular commenters on this blog, KVD. I won't quote the private comments that he sent to me, but indeed he has reason to be riled. 

In a story in The Australian, Bernie Brookes regrets Myer public listing, the CEO of this recently re-listed Australian Department store is reported as complaining about the time spent in briefing investors. Two quotes from the story will give the flavour. 

The chief executive ... said life was better when Myer .... was a private company.

Mr Brookes told a business breakfast in Perth today that the management team was now forced to spend "an excessive amount of time" talking to investors and briefing market analysts.

"It's like herding cats, you've got a diversity of shareholders all with different needs." he said.

Then a little later:

"Unfortunately, the structure of the way in which the system works from an equity market’s point of view means that you move from being a retailer to a finance manager and to an equity market manager - and that’s I think quite a pity, particularly to myself who loves to spend most of his time in stores, just walking the stores."

The story raised a number of concerns in KVD's mind. He was annoyed at the apparent assumption that dealing with shareholders was a waste of time; after all, it is their company. He was also annoyed at what he saw as the way that certain occupational classes - those in business or politics or the media - acquired apparent rights associated with their occupation independent of their real responsibilities. They all, my words, become game players; corporate games, political games, reporting games.

KVD has been concerned with problems of management, responsibility and control in the corporate sector for some time: Sunday Essay - Opes Prime provides an earlier example of our evolving conversation.

Mr Brookes' comments obviously reflected a degree of frustration. However, the difficulty I had with them lay in the way he actually mixed so many things together in such a short comment. I thought that I night unpick this a little.

The shareholders own the company. At the end of the day, Mr Brookes is responsible to them. The decision by the previous owners to list as a way of unlocking cash may have complicated Mr Brookes' life, but that's tough.

Mr Brookes reports to and is directly accountable to the Board. In theory, the Board is accountable to the shareholders. In practice this does not properly happen and for three reasons:

• shareholders are often diverse and may have conflicting interests
• some many external obligations have been placed upon Directors that, sometimes, the poor shareholder is really the last thing considered. Consider, for example, the need to keep the market informed via a whole series of reporting obligations. Here, among other things, boards can face a conflict between protecting the position of existing shareholders and informing prospective future shareholders.
• Boards and management join together in playing their own games. As an example, in the Qantas case, the then CEO and certain board members combined to try to sell the company. While justified in terms of "unlocking value for the shareholder", this really had nothing had nothing to do with shareholders.

I accept that the concept of responsibility to the shareholder is a difficult one, especially since so many shares came to be controlled by funds managers who are, in turn, responsible to those investing the funds. This creates practical difficulties of the type referred to by Mr Brookes, including the way shareholder value can be affected by things that actually have very little to do with the value of the company. Still, I would argue that a focus on shareholder needs and ownership remains important.

Certainly, as a sometimes small shareholder, I would argue that the way the system has evolved makes individual share investing far more risky and uncertain than in the past.

We live in a world whose focus on growth and the achievement of short term targets means that the totality of companies cannot achieve target because the total targets are unachievable. This creates instability. Further, targets are set in such a way that they generally reflect relatively narrow metrics. We also live in a world where the combination of regulation with modern corporate management approaches builds in conflict of interest.

When I first began to invest on the stock exchange, things were actually pretty simple. The first question was the likely yield compared with fixed interest. The second question was the extent to which dividends might increase over time, since this would increase return and also the value of the shares. Then, too, there were returns from rights issues and the issue of bonus shares. Bonus shares were important because they allowed cash to be realised, while maintaining an interest in the company. Then, too, there were irregular returns from takeovers.

As today, there was a trade-off between income and capital gain. As today, companies did crash. However, for the ordinary investor, the main thing was the stability and management of the company. So long as the management was okay and the business sound, returns were built in.

In this world, it wasn't hard to beat the index. Here I looked at the returns on my mother and father's portfolio, as well as my own. The reasons were mathematical. Investors placing the greatest emphasis on yield and for perfectly sensible reasons, would invest in companies offering greater cash now. However, these companies tended to offer lower capital gain.

The overall move in the index combined different types of companies. Any reasonable combination of cash now and growth later was likely to beat the index.

How things have changed! The idea of index based funds whose sole purpose was to match long term index trends through a very diverse portfolio would have seemed a bit incomprehensible then. Why bother? In fact, risk averse people then did do something similar by investing in fixed trusts that offered security in combination with a dividend stream and modest capital gains.

To my mind, the dividing line came with the collapse of Australian Fixed Trusts in, from memory, 1987. Unable itself to resist corporate games, AFT went down. As it fell, it wiped out those elements of the family portfolios that, to my father, had seemed most secure when he invested in them all those years before.

I may seem to have come a long way from KVD's original point. I have not. To my mind, Bernie Brookes' comments are symptomatic of the problems that we have built into our corporate systems.        

New states

My main post today is on the New England, Australia blog, A new state for New England.

It's hard for me to be objective on this one. My grandfather was one of the leaders of the Northern or New England New State Movement. My father, while not a new stater, launched a regional councils movement at the end of the Second World war. When it became clear that NSW would never give the councils any power, the regional councils movement turned into a reformed New England New State Movement. Convinced that existing approaches would not work, my father turned to the concept of selective decentralisation, something that later appeared as the Whitlam Government's growth centre approach.

I grew up thinking of myself as a New Englander. I still do. I was sixteen when I acted as an usher at the Armidale Convention that launched Operation Seventh State, the campaign that led to the 1967 plebiscite. At nineteen, I was a member of the executive of the New England New State Movement representing the University of New England New State Society.

After my move to Canberra and the defeat of the plebiscite, I put the new state issue aside as no longer relevant. It wasn't until I came to write a biography of my grandfather for a PhD thesis that the whole thing came surging back. Then, looking at the evidence through a prism created by my experience as a relatively senior public servant, I suddenly concluded that the arguments for New England self-government were right after all. More, I concluded that systemic problems in policy and politics actually precluded any effective regional development.  That began something of a campaign that has continued to this day.

Looking back, it is hard to re-capture the simple certainties that I held as a sixteen year old. Then, in the world that I lived in, the views that I held were in fact the majority view. Now they are a fringe view. It's actually quite hard to hold to a view when that view is alien to pretty much everybody one meets.

Some time ago, I formed the view that the only way to overcome the loss of history and all the supporting arguments was through writing. Since then, I have written more than 1,000 blog posts on New England, 86 newspaper columns, then this year so far two academic papers on New England history, with a full history on New England about a third of the way through.

All this has come at a cost. I won't bore you with the details, beyond noting that all this writing, this obsession, has been at the expense of things directly related to my professional career.

I guess that I am a stubborn cuss. For much of the time, my writing has taken place in isolation. It's only in the last two years that I have felt that my writing has started to gain some traction.

I don't want to overstate this. I am talking about a person here, a person there. Yet, or so it seems to me, there comes a point at which the critical mass required for organic growth is achieved.

For the moment, I simply take pleasure in the fact that whether it be New England's Aboriginal languages, the history of the New England New State Movement or New England public policy, I now have someone to talk too.

A minor thing perhaps, but once you have a couple of people interested in any topic, then growth in interest is possible.

Quite a bit of my time now is spent in linking and responding. This takes away from both writing and my professional interests. Yet it is very important in building things; just getting people interacting is an advance.

Where will all this go? Realistically, I don't know. I have my own objectives, of course, but experience to this point shows that action triggers responses in ways one cannot predict. So we shall see!         

Musings on the changing world of blogging

I hadn't intended to post today, but this morning I did my usual blog round-up.

Looking back over the blogs plus Facebook and Twitter feeds left me with a feeling of fragmentation: it's partly that I have more blogs on my list; more that so many of the blogs that I used to read have become irregular or even vanished; more still that Facebook and Twitter have developed as alternative mechanisms; most, my feeling that the little village that I used to talk about a lot has somehow morphed into a more anonymous urban sprawl.

I think that this is partly my own fault. Writing on a daily basis is quite hard, harder still when blogging is one part of a spreading writing load. I spend less time interacting with other bloggers, more time just writing. The pleasure drops. However, it's also a symptom of genuine fragmentation.

The best independent blogs combined thought with a dash of the personal. Some of these blogs have become Facebooked or Twittered to the detriment of the blogs. Sure, I read the Facebook or Twitter streams, but they don't compensate. Further, I often see the same short form material repeated. The length of time it takes me to scan Facebook or Twitter is actually falling despite the increase in the number of items. To make matters worse, some favourite blogs have simply vanished.

I have told this story before.

I long time ago local retailer Joe Hanna complained that Armidale was getting smaller. I blinked, because the city had been going through a growth phase. When I asked what he meant, he said that whereas it used to take him all morning to get the mail, it now took half an hour. The difference lay in the conversation along the half block from the store to the post office and back. He used to spend lots of time seeing people and yarning, now there were very few people to talk too.

More people, fewer conversations. That's what's happened to blogging. As one symptom of this, links to this blog from other blogs have really collapsed. Whereas I used to get several links a month, I haven't been able to get to an average of one link per month over the last eight months. Further, this includes a small number of blogs with multiple links.

Of course, and I accept this, it may be just that I have just become a boring old fart! However, I think that it is really more than this.

I write quite a bit about the decline of country Australia because it is important to me. One feature of that decline is the movement of people to new centres. To my mind, this is what is happening to blogging. We have gone to the latest big city lights.

But what to do? I can only respond at a personal level.

I do want to continue to write about the things that are important to me, to continue to use my writing and reading to clarify my own thinking.   However, I also really want to rebuild the sense of the village. A village is not bound by the presence of dissenting views. Villages just have to deal with that. Rather, a village focuses on conversation and even gossip, as well as ideas.

As part of this process, I spent multiple hours checking, re-sorting and, in some cases, deleting blogs. This was a bit like an archaeological excavation into my own past. It was both strange and a bit sad.

So many things have changed! What do I do with my old favourites that no longer exist?  In some cases, they are writing in new guises. In others, they are people that I liked who have left the village. Then there are some blogs that mark old interests now swamped by the present.

One pleasure in all this was moving blogs from, say, weekly checks into current. I had almost 30 blogs in my current category, 100 in the weekly check list. Now I have 12 in current, 31 in weekly. Of course, this is a little misleading in that I have more subject categories that are in fact daily or weekly checks. Still, it is much easier to control.

So what, in all this, is my personal response to rebuilding the village? I suppose, simply, that I want to spend more time responding and interacting, refocused on those who take the time to write or to respond.

Short break in transmission

Because of other pressures, it will be Monday before I can post again.

Principles vs rules in Australian electoral reform

In a comment on Independent conundrums - a chance for change, Kangaroo Valley David wrote:

Election reforms I would like to see include: set terms; an absolute limit on the amount of radio and TV minutes advertising; no new policy launches within two weeks of the election date; unlink electoral campaign funding from ‘campaign launch’ - i.e a set cut off date to which taxpayer money is available; Treasury costing on all major party policies to be mandatory, and to be released no later than a week prior to election. These would require much goodwill on all sides to be effective, so no doubt will never come to pass.

On the Independents, while I respect Mr Windsor, I think that Messrs Katter and Oakeshott provide several good reasons why non-aligned candidates should be disregarded when calculating parliamentary majority. Their votes on declared matters of importance (which needs definition) should automatically flow to the government of the day, leaving them free to influence most policy areas, including of course the position and angle of the pork barrel.

Finally, (sorry for length) I think the idea of a cabinet composed partly of unelected members does not fit with our form of parliament, just as I thought Ms Gillard’s 150 citizen congress on climate change was unrealistic. Idealism (and I include the Greens in this) is a very fine thing, but has little to do with stable government of any flavour. Meanwhile the GFC rolls on, and our troops continue to mark time.

I found myself confused and to a degree conflicted when I came to look at his comments. I can see various ways of improving the Parliamentary process, but my thinking about electoral reform is quite muddy. Part of this lies in the distinction in my mind between rule based and principle based approaches.

By rule based, I simply mean specific rules intended to control actions. By contrast, principle based approaches allow for a variety of outcomes so long as the core principles are observed. Of course, both approaches have their weaknesses.

Once you set a rule, then people are meant to comply with that rule. In practice, human ingenuity soon leads to the practical outcome that while the letter of the law is complied with, people work around it to achieve their ends. Electoral funding laws are an example. New rules are then required.

For their part, principal based approaches can fall over when people either ignore or even reject the principles. Further, their nature allows plenty of room for alternative views. Yet they can be quite powerful because they provide a broader guide to action and to judgements about action. This may sound abstract, but a fair bit of our constitutional system is not written down but relies instead on the acceptance of general principles.

Rules based approaches may be introduced when principle based approaches fail. More often, rule based approaches come into effect because people want action to fix something that they perceive to be a problem without addressing the basic principles at all. See problem, fix problem. The difficulty is that as rules expand, principles tend to decline.

One of the reasons why my thinking is so muddy lies in the interface between practice and principles, between rules and principles.

We are all influenced by our own experiences. I grew up in a world in which Parliament was central. This was also a world where the role of the local member was seen first in terms of effective representation, if constrained by Party and, more importantly, by obligations to Parliament. Then, too, it was also a world where the views and causes that I might espouse were generally minority positions in a state or national sense even when majority positions in a local sense. Most times, the problem lay in getting action despite the views of the two major parties.

This was also a world where, and especially in the 1960s and 1970s, the battle of ideas was sharply tinged by battles with the far right. Supporters of Eric Butler's League of Rights and its various out-riders were active.

Much of the commentary in this area at the time and later focused on particular aspects of League of Right views perceived to be anathema in broad terms. Less attention focused on their constitutional principles. Here they argued, and with force, that the local member must be bound by the views of the electorate. Of course, they also argued that they represented that view! There is, in fact, no difference between League of Rights' views in this area and some of the arguments put today in The Australian about the need for the country independents to do as their electorates say as measured by the public opinion polls. They are both majoritarian positions

The defence developed to this type of attack lay not in party, but in the combination of two broad principles.

The first principle was the need for effective electoral representation that took into account needs and views across the electorate, as well as your own values. This then linked to a second principle, the importance of Parliament. Once you became a Parliamentarian, you accepted a broader obligation not just to other parts of Australia, but to Parliament as an institution. Like all principles, these two could conflict. You just had to work your way through as best you could.

Let me give an example from my own experience. In 1961 the Menzies Government had a majority of one and was on a knife-edge. In pursuit of its two airline policy, the Government placed pressure on East-West Airlines to merge with Ansett. When Don Shand as chair of EWA said this, the Minister for Civil Aviation denied it.

The then Member for New England knew that pressure had been place on EWA. Despite the wafer thin majority and the pressure placed upon him to desist, he rose in the House to confirm what Don Shand had said. In doing so, he represented not just his electorate, but also the role of Parliament and the parliamentary member in holding the Government to account.

There is not room in this post to trace the decline of the local member. However, key to that decline has been a decline in both the conventions and principles that used to apply to local MPs. I guess I can see it just because I have been involved at a personal level since I was a kid.

None of this should be construed as an attack on KVD. I think that his suggestions are worth pursuing. Rather, consider the post as an opening shot in an effort to clarify my own thinking.                  

Independent conundrums - a chance for change

Interesting times continue in Australian politics. I don't want to comment on the detail, just note a few points.

The seat position is still unclear. There are 150 seats in the House of Representatives. To govern, you really need 177 seats. This leaves you with 76 seats, a majority of one after appointment of the speaker. 

Subject to final counting, the coalition is likely to have 72-73 seats. In addition, the WA National Tony Crook while formally sitting on the cross-bench can probably be counted as a coalition member for immediate purposes, bringing seat numbers to 73-74.

Mr Crook's position is an interesting one. The WA Nationals went to the electorate opposing the mining tax and supporting instead their Royalties for the Regions program. Since Labor continues to support the mining tax, it is hard to see Mr Crook supporting a Labor Government.

I know that some people have found the National's Party position confusing. The Party is a Federal body. At Federal level there is a coalition arrangement with the Liberals. However, the state position varies.

In the Northern Territory and Queensland, the Liberal and National Parties merged to form the Country Liberal and Liberal National Parties respectively. However at Federal level members may chose to sit with either the Liberal or National Parties. In other states, there may or may not be coalition agreements with the Liberals. In WA, the Nationals clawed their way back from the brink of extinction by differentiating themselves from the Liberals. So in the case of Mr Crook, he will (as I understand it) be a member of the Nationals party room but not of the joint coalition party room.   

Again subject to final counting, Labor is likely to have 71-72 seats. The new Green MP has indicated a preference for a Labor Government, so that potentially gives Labor 72-73 seats. Mr Wilkie has indicated that he wants to hew his own course.

If the three Country Independents support Labor, will have 75 to 76 seats; Mr Wilkie position's will then be clearly important. If the country independents support the coalition, then the coalition will have 76 to 77 seats. You can see why the independents are placing such weight on waiting for the final count. My feeling is that if the coalition gets to 74, then they will go with the coalition.

There is quite a lot of orchestrated pressure being placed on the country independents. A Galaxy poll commissioned by Sydney's Daily Telegraph suggested that 55 per cent of voters in their electorates favoured a deal with the coalition. An on-line poll in the Northern Daily Leader, Locals shun Labor: Majority of Tamworth voters urge Windsor to back the Coalition, gave a stronger if less scientific result. A Leader editorial, Responsibility heavy burden, essentially pleaded for Mr Windsor to be given more time.     

The media has always been a political player in its own right. You only have to look at press reporting over time, although I would argue that there is more use of news reports and especially columnists as compared to editorials than in the past .  The very publicity attached to this issue is attracting its own media responses. Just to quote Dennis Shanahan in the Australian.  

IT'S getting to the stage where Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and the nation would actually be better off if we just went back to the polls.

The early promise of stability for a minority government is dissipating as the independents threaten to force a new election, refuse to guarantee a bloc vote for either side and declare diametrically opposed positions on key policies that have split the Coalition and paralysed Labor.

Using spurious logic, obscure language and blackmail, three MPs accidentally thrust into the balance of power are claiming a "new paradigm" in politics where none exists as justification for unprecedented treatment and control. More than 90 per cent of Australians voted for Labor, the Coalition or the Greens -- the old-paradigm parties.

This isn't just horse-trading over amendments on a piece of legislation; this is demanding an erratic ransom for government and an ongoing part in that government.

Mr Shanahan is arguing a very particular position, one consistent with the line followed by his paper during the election. However, his remarks illustrate the way the issue is now clouding up.

The Indendents' Requests

The requests of the three country independents are set out below.  

TO JULIA GILLARD and TONY ABBOTT

Requests for information

1. We seek access to information under the ‘caretaker conventions’ to economic advice from the Secretary of the Treasury Ken Henry and Secretary of Finance David Tune, including the costings and impacts of Government and Opposition election promises and policies on the budget.
2. We seek briefings from the following Secretaries of Departments:
   1. Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
   2. Health and Ageing
   3. Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
   4. Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government
   5. Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
   6. Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water
   7. Defence
   8. Resources, Energy and Tourism
3. We seek briefings from caretaker Ministers and Shadow Ministers in the above portfolio areas to discuss their program for the next three years.
4. We seek advice as soon as possible on their plans to work with the Clerks of the Parliament to improve the status and authority of all 150 local MP’s within parliamentary procedures and structures. In particular, we seek advice on timelines and actions for increasing the authority of the Committee system, private members business and private members bills, matters of public importance, 90 second statements, adjournment debates, and question time.
5. We seek a commitment to explore all options from both sides in regard “consensus options” for the next three years, and a willingness to at least explore all options to reach a majority greater than 76 for the next three years. Included in these considerations is advice on how relationships between the House of Representatives and the Senate can be improved, and a proposed timetable for this to happen.
6. We seek a commitment in writing as soon as possible that if negotiations are to take place on how to form Government, that each of these leaders, their Coalition partners, and all their affiliated MP’s, will negotiate in good faith and with the national interest as the only interest. In this same letter of comfort, we seek a written commitment that whoever forms majority Government will commit to a full three year term, and for an explanation in writing in this same letter as to how this commitment to a full term will be fulfilled, either by enabling legislation or other means.
7. We seek advice as soon as possible on a timetable and reform plan for political donations, electoral funding, and truth in advertising reform, and a timetable for how this reform plan will be achieved in co-operation with the support of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The three non-aligned MP’s will now be heading home to families, electorate duties, and a long-standing appointment with the Governor-General (unrelated to this political deadlock). We have agreed to be back in Canberra on Monday for the full week of meetings in relation to the above. We expect all the above information to be made available through best endeavours as soon as possible, so that formal negotiations with all stakeholders can begin by Friday 3rd September – if, based on final counts, negotiations are indeed needed at all.

If you look at the requests, they break into three parts:

1. The first is requests for information. What is unusual here is that it the independents are seeking a quite wide range of information. This is the type of information provided, at least in part, to an incoming government. However, it goes beyond this because the independents are asking for information that will, in effect, help them to choose between sides and also to form their own policy views as to what is possible.
2. Processes and proposals for Parliamentary and political reform.These draw in part from earlier NSW experience. One of the things that is interesting here is the revelation that Labor Party Election strategist Bruce Hawker had been in previous discussion with Rob Oakeshott about reform possibilities, discussions carried out at a time when the present situation was not envisaged. In this context, Bruce Hawker has been involved in the establishment of three state Labor minority governments, including the other side of the earlier NSW discussions. You will find the full transcript of the 7.30 Report here. It appears, in fact, that the independents have asked for discussions with the key strategists on both sides.
3. Advice and assurances intended to allow any Government to run its full term.

The Responses 

The response from the Government is set out below:

The reported response from Opposition Leader Abbott has be far more muted. He refused, as he had done during the election campaign, to make the details available to Treasury for a common independent costing. Instead, he said that the Opposition would provide the independents with its own costings analysis. In doing so, Mr Abbott effectively completely discredited the Charter of Budget Honesty introduced by the Howard Government; ''It's very difficult for the public service to understand opposition policy with the same degree of insight and depth as government policy,'' Mr Abott stated.

This has not pleased the independents. While noting that it would not end negotiations, Mr Windsor stated that Mr Abbott's position was not acceptable: "I think it's appropriate that both sides be costed by the same person," he said.

Discussion

The suggestions put forward and especially by Mr Oakeshott about things such as a grand coalition simply won't work, nor are they necessarily good. The intent - the development of a less adversarial system - may be praiseworthy, but the difficulties are to my mind just too great. However, there is also a simple practical intent, the desire to make it more difficult for a Government to simply rush to a new election just because the polls have moved in their favour.

The requests for information fall in a different class. I made my own position here clear in New media, independents and change when I wrote:

There is so much frustration about the current system that the possibility of a hung parliament has unleashed a wave of new ideas and optimism. Yet we have to be realistic. Some groups must be disappointed with the result.

To my mind, if we get improved access to independent sources of information, that will (of itself) be a major advance. I think that we can get this. If we do, I will be happy. Beyond this, every advance such as an improved question time would be an added bonus.         

I accept that the requests by the independents do raise difficulties under the current conventions. I also accept that Mr Abbott has justified grievances about leaks during the election campaign. If Treasury/Finance is to be provided with information, then that information has to be sacrosanct outside subsequent agreed releases of analysis.

All this said, I think that the Australian people and our Parliamentarians in particular are entitled to receive the information that they require for effective decision making and monitoring, not to be drip fed just that minimum amount that the Government thinks will support its cause. To take a simple practical example, how can the people judge the effectiveness of the various National Partnership agreements if they do not have access to the implementation plans?

I am not a supporter of information for the sake of information. I actually have problems with some of the expectations about just what information should be made available under, for example, Freedom of Information because release can actually constrain effective decision making. However, when we get to the stage that citizens and Parliamentarians cannot make independent judgements because of information control, we have a problem.

The idea of reform of Parliamentary and political processes is a good one from my viewpoint, although I am not blind to the difficulties. The reforms introduced by the independents in NSW are a case in point. They did improve the working of Parliament but did not improve the working of Government. NSW in 2010 demonstrates this!

One of the difficulties faced by the independents is that reform of the Parliamentary and political process required cultural change, and that takes time, more time than they have. Still, if we can get some changes, that to my mind is a good thing.            

New media, independents and change

I was off-line yesterday with the internet connection down. Really very frustrating at this time when Australian politics is providing such great theatre. So this morning has seen a hasty run-round just trying to catch up. Now I want to make just a few disconnected comments, really reflections to myself.

 Supermarket Politics

Prior to the last NSW State elections, I complained that both sides were engaged in supermarket politics, the presentation of a bundle of somewhat disconnected goodies that we, the voters, were meant to choose between. Now I see that Mr Katter is describing the Lib/Lab as the Woolworth and Coles of Australian politics.

One of the very interesting things about this election campaign has been the way in which cynicism about the two main sides' approach to policy formulation suddenly burst forth. I accept that my scanning is unrepresentative; I have a bias towards blogs and these are (by definition) unrepresentative. I have also been arguing for a long time that current approaches to policy development do not and cannot work, so I am biased. Still, its been interesting.

Exposure: Q&A, Twitter and the role of alternative views

To my mind, one of the reasons why the current approach to policy development hit the wall in such a spectacular way this time lay in the emergence of the new media. I don't want to overstate this, just point to three interconnected features.

The first and perhaps least important feature was the role played by bloggers. Quite a few blogs, Catallaxy and Larvatus Prodoe are example, essentially talk to the converted. This is not a criticism, but part of the pattern. You can rely on them in posts and comments to pick apart the other side of the intellectual debate. This is actually important, because they are part of the of the information flow. Then there are other more independent bloggers who try to take an alternative view.

I have suggested that blogs and bloggers are the least important mainly because I don't know how to judge our influence.

I have been campaigning on the need to improve our approach to policy development for a number of years. I have a limited reach measured by visits and by links. Yet my feeling is that the cumulative effect of all those like me is not insignificant. We just can't measure it.

The second and still embryonic feature was the role played by new media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

I have now been monitoring the use of Facebook for campaign purposes for several years. Here I want to focus not on the use of Facebook by the big end, but on the way that Facebook provides a vehicle for minority groups including small but important local causes. Like blogs, their direct impact is small. However, their cumulative influence is not insignificant, because they provide a focus for smaller issues that then feeds into the total impact. Further, the impact grows as people learn how to use them.

This links to Twitter.

To my mind, this was the election that Twitter came into its own in two quite distinct ways. The first, and this is the way I mainly used it, is simply as a quick source for information and developments that interest me. However, the second way is the way in which Twitter comments provided short, often sardonic, immediate reactions to speakers and events that were then picked up elsewhere.

This links to my third point, the emergence of new types of programs and events such as the ABC's Q&A. I do not know whether this type of program is unique to Australia. Presumably not. But the idea of exposing panelists to unscripted questions including Twitter feedback is quite powerful. This then links to other ideas such as the Village meetings, forcing the leaders to face groups of voters in an unscripted, uncontrolled, format.

Both Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard did pretty well here at a personal level. Yet the shallowness in their policy positions also came through.

I could not finish this section without a reference to Get-up. I do not support many Get-up causes. I ended up this time on the Get-up email list because there was one issue, mental health, that I could support what they wanted to achieve. Since then, I have watched the emails they sent me.

No-one could deny that Get-up has affected this election, although none of us could be sure just how. Get-up's action in the High Court to force the admission of voters excluded under the Howard Government's anti-democratic legislation may well have affected the results of such a tight election, although we may never know just how. Certainly, Get-up has written a small place for itself in Australian history.

The Power of Hope

One of the most interesting things about the outcome of this election lies in the nature of the response to the possibility of a hung parliament. To voters disillusioned by the major parties, and at this point, the possibility that a hung parliament might force change is been greeted almost with joy. Suddenly, the possibility that things might change is on the table, leading to a burst of new ideas.

The country independents all deserve credit here, as do the Greens. Of this group, Tony Windsor is (I think) the most important, simply because he has come across as so sensible and re-assuring. It is hard to take the presented threats of a hung parliament seriously when Tony keeps talking about the need for stability.

I have been especially interested in the responses of Labor supporters where the responses to the country independents has been remarkably positive. Of course, this may change if the country independents end up supporting the Coalition, as they may be forced to do, but it holds for the moment.

It is also interesting that right around Australia commentators and reporters alike are being forced to address new issues - not new in the sense that they weren't there before, but new in the sense that they were not politically relevant before.

Reforming the System

Suddenly, reform of the current parliamentary system is on the agenda in a way it has not been for years. Some of the ideas are not very sensible, while many of us struggle with the idea of a more sensitive and cuddly Tony Abbott!  

I think that the single most important issue, one that has been picked up by others (here, for example) is the need to provide more and better information independent of Executive control.

I have complained about this a lot. I am reasonably bright and have had a lot of experience, but I struggle to make sensible comments on some policy approaches because of the way they are presented. I simply cannot make any form of judgement as to what might actually happen without weeks of work. I don't have time to do this.

Many of the reform initiatives focus on the information question. The key is to make objective data available. Without this, we are back to spin and presentation designed to sell, not explain.

Here, as a simple example, I was interested in Tony Windsor's comment that both Labor and Coalition should now provide their programs to Treasury for revised and independent costing. How, Mr Windsor argued, can we make judgements if we don't know what the budget position is?

Managing Expectations

There is so much frustration about the current system that the possibility of a hung parliament has unleashed a wave of new ideas and optimism. Yet we have to be realistic. Some groups must be disappointed with the result.

To my mind, if we get improved access to independent sources of information, that will (of itself) be a major advance. I think that we can get this. If we do, I will be happy. Beyond this, every advance such as an improved question time would be an added bonus.                  

Northern Daily Leader: Second-term support a must

This morning, the Tamworth based Northern Daily Leader (the largest newspaper in Tony Windsor's New England electorate) editorialised:

WITH only the faintest hope Labor might fall across the line with the support of one Greens MP, a “Greens independent” and a win in the West Australian seat of Hasluk, Tony Windsor and his fellow conservative independents will likely need to decide to fish or cut bait in the very near future.

Even if Labor, by an extremely fortuitous chain of events, secures the 76 seats it needs to govern, such a government would be intrinsically unstable.

Unless it could rely on the support of the three bush independents, it is hard to see how it could form an effective government with a working majority of one in the lower house.

This is especially so given the Labor-leaning Greens don’t own the Senate for another six months.

It is this paper’s belief – and one we have stated many times – that the conservative independents have an obligation to give the Rudd-Gillard government a second term.

A failure to do so would make this the first one-term federal government since before WWII.

To force a change of government when the opposition has not won a clear majority of seats would represent a serious short-circuiting of the democratic process.

This is particularly the case given an independent-backed ALP minority government would be inherently more stable than its Coalition equivalent.

With the independents citing broadband and stable government as major issues, they seem to have no option but to back Labor.

To do otherwise would be to appear as if they were self-indulgently pandering to their own electorates at the expense of the national interest.

It is becoming more and more apparent a marriage of convenience between the conservative independent faction and the Coalition is extremely unlikely.

On a special edition of the 7.30 Report last night, Tony Windsor reportedly referred to The Nationals as a “dying party” and called Senator Barnaby Joyce – once mooted as a challenger for the seat of New England in this election – as “a fool and an embarrassment”.

Bob Katter gave Warren Truss a serve before saying he had worked with people he loathed and detested in the past.

As an aside, it appears from the NDL that Andrew Wilkie, the possible new Tasmanian independent grew up in Tamworth and went to Tamworth High. To complete the trifecta, National's Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce was also born in Tamworth and considered running in New England against Tony Windsor. Both Tony Windsor and Barnaby Joyce went to the University of New England.

As I write, National's leader Warren Truss is being interviewed on radio tip-toeing around the question of relationships between Nationals and independents. I discussed this in my last post,Three Amigos and the future Australian Government.

This was a good election for the Nationals. Including the Queensland members of the Liberal National Party who will sit in the National Party party room, the Party has seen an increase in its lower house numbers. It has its first member from Western Australia for many years. To now be dependent on ex-National independents must be galling!

During the campaign I was critical of the failure of the main parties to properly address country issues with a special focus on the broader New England. I accept that I can be classified as parochial, but it was an election where both Liberal and Labor combined nation "uniformities" on one side with quite blatant marginal seat strategies on the other. The Nationals disappeared in this mix; it was unclear to me whether this was just a reporting blonde spot, or was a policy failure.   

The first problem for the Nationals during such a presidential style campaign lay in the difficulty to properly differentiate themselves within the tight disciplines of a Coalition campaign effectively controlled by the Liberal machine. The second problem was the bitsy nature of National specific policies. The two were connected. Really, the Nationals could only tinker at the margin.

Warren Truss made the telling comment that in WA, it was royalties for the regions that made the difference. There the Nationals were not bound by coalition. 

From my perspective, as I said I am being parochial, I think that both the Nationals and independents need to focus properly on regional development. A pottage approach will nor work.

The problems faced by Australia outside the metro areas did not emerge overnight. Both the Howard and Rudd Governments responded with band-aids. Very few of the "policies" actually addressed core problems, although some things such as expansion of medical training did offer longer term benefits.

One of the problems faced by the small number of analysts such as myself who did try to address key issues at a broader regional level is that our analysis was seen as unimportant, parochial, not main-stream. This held even where blind-freddy could see that "national" policies based on statistical uniformities were not going to work.

Australia is not a single uniform country, but a mosaic of regions with different issues and needs. All decisions and policies have differential impacts across the country. Of course there are areas where uniformity is required, but policies placed upon blind application of uniform approaches at state or federal level using simple statistical standardised needs or performance measures  are going to have totally differential on-ground impacts.

I suppose, and I am speaking personally, that one of my greatest frustrations has been my almost total inability to get across what I see as wrong in the current system.

Part of my problem here is simply that things are not black and white. I support national approaches, I recognise that trade-offs are involved, I know that effective policy development is a complex process. This makes it hard for me to put forward simple nostrums.

Part of my problem also lies in the way that my concerns are seen as narrow, as lying outside current ways of thinking. It is more important to play the current game, to work within the system, to accept the constraints of what is rather than to look to what might be.

I have classified my own political beliefs as New England populist, a label I coined and which I carry with pride. one central tenet of those beliefs is what was called by David Drummond the tyranny of the majority. In simple terms, this means the tendency by the majority to impose their views regardless.

In an earlier discussion on this blog, one of my old work colleagues (Bob Quiggin) who was involved in our attempts to re-shape industry policy, challenged me. Surely, he said, it is the role of the minority to argue their case? To Bob's mind, and this is my interpretation of his ideas, failure of politics and policies to represent particular minority positions is simply a failure of argument, a failure to get a majority to agree.

Bur what do you do when systems and structures actually prevent or limit argument? This is my charge when it comes to decentralisation and regional development.

The process is a complex one: it affects the issues selected for debate; it goes to the way data is collected; it affects the way things are presented in the media; it affects the topics selected for research that later feed into journals and books; it appears in the structure of policies and programs.

The process compounds: less research and reporting reduces the visibility of issues; reduced research means that alternative data is less available; those who want to argue alternative lines are increasingly marginalised; less funding is attracted; and so it goes on.           

In part, this is simply the normal process of change. But when a gap starts to open up between the majoritian position and the views and concerns of significant minorities, the system becomes unstable.

My historical research is focused on the broader new state New England. Here the combination of Country Party and New State Movement drove the core regional policy debate, with the New England University College/University of New England increasingly providing the intellectual fire-power.

Debate about decentralisation appeared in the mainstream media, in the journals, in the small intellectual magazines, in theses. New bodeis emerged such as the Hunter Valley Research Foundation. There was a surge in regional studies: from the Riverina ,to New England to the Darling Downs, to North Queensland. Then it all stopped, as the drive coming out of New England stopped.

Yes, there were some on-going developments such as the work done by the University of Newcastle on regional historical resources, but the total volume of work done at all went into sharp decline. As a a simple example, there has been no new prehistory of New England published since 1974.

This might not matter if the same topic had been picked up as part of broader work. It has not. There was more research work done, I think, between 1960 and 1974 than in the 36 years since.

This may sound trivial. It is not, for this was one of the biggest Aboriginal population areas in Australia. The same pattern is replicated elsewhere. Take away the drive and interest, and the work stops.

This had begun to change over the last few years. Maybe, just maybe, the current political position provides an opportunity to change things, to force a renewed focus on things country and regional. I would like to think so.