Saturday Morning Musings – public administration, dashboards and pink batts

This morning I started with my normal news round-up. The increasing newspaper restrictions on public unpaid access have really started to hurt. I wish Google would stop indexing those stories from, for example, The Australian where you click and get a message saying you must subscribe if you wish to continue.

The restrictions by other papers to a maximum number of visits in a period is also difficult. These vary from two for the Courier Mail to thirty for the Sydney Morning Herald.  It really bites when I come to do a round-up story. The current Australian Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program is a case in point. Here I wanted to do a more detailed check of reporting to try to determine key facts. To do this, I normally trawl my way back and forwards through reports, often visiting the same story several times. In such cases, I can now quickly exceed my visit limitations.

That’s not always a bad thing, for it forces me to check source documentation when available. However, I do not have research assistants and my personal time is very limited. The restrictions therefore make it harder to do the summary reporting that I like to do. 

In what must first seem like an unrelated segue, yesterday I attended a training course on the writing of ministerial briefs and letters put on by the Institute of Public Administration. My present work colleagues were surprised that I went. After all, I wrote my first ministerial brief a long time ago, most people know that I am a writer, while in the current work context I write a lot of briefs, policy statements, Q&As, communications strategies, risk plans etc. However, I wanted a refresher. I also had specific things I wanted to achieve. 

In official writing whether in the public or private sectors, system, culture and context are critical. Writing itself is a craft. However, system, culture and context determine the way you present your material. They determine what is included, who you write for. Here my own extensive experience can sometimes be an impediment. I have to write just what is required in the way that is required, not what my experience says might be actually best. In management jargon, we call it fitness for purpose.

I am told that we have flatter structures today. As I have said before, I don’t see it.

When I first joined the Commonwealth Public Service, there were three or four reporting or decision levels between me and the Minister. When I first became a Second Division Officer and had direct access to the Minister, a graduate clerk could come to me with a worry, a concern about a program, and have that concern on the Minister’s desk that day or the following morning if I agreed. It didn’t matter how it was expressed; I and the relevant section head would handle that. If necessary, I would consult my Division Head, Secretary or Deputy Secretary before providing advice, but that was my call. If I got it wrong, then I would pay a price.

Today, depending on the circumstances, there are between seven and nine reporting/clearance levels between my recommendation and the minister. Further, as a contractor in a small agency that forms part of one of the new mega agencies, I don’t necessarily understand the rules, relationships and contexts that dictate what is acceptable or, even, what is done and why it’s done. My experience allows me to form views, to make guesses, but I don’t know. Mostly I’m right, but it is a battle.

This was my reason for doing the course. I wanted to be more effective in my current role, and that required me to fit in, to learn the acceptable way of doing things. As it happened, I learned far more than this.

The course was run by Dennise Harries. In listening to her, I responded at multiple levels.

As part of my tool-kit I am a professional trainer, so I watched her technique. That got a tick. As presently part of an agency and someone who cares about my colleagues (they are nice people) and knows their frustrations, I was watching to see if the training was practical, if it would help them do their jobs. That got a tick too, although as one said outside during a cigarette break, I wish my manager would do this course. One of the standard problems with this type of training is that you learn, become enthusiastic and then go back to an unchanged work environment. You then feel, what’s the point?

Speaking professionally, there was actually some good stuff here, simple techniques that would work independent of the immediate work context. Again speaking professionally, I started wondering how one might best embed this. Training is learning by doing, so you must have follow up practice.

  At the start of the course, I wrote down my objectives for the day. They were simple. They did not include training skills, nor the extent to which the course might deliver simple practical outcomes in writing terms. What I wanted to know was how to write more effectively in an environment that I did not properly understand, that sometimes frustrated me. I did find the course helpful in this regard.

As I listened, I thought of the on-going ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) inquiries in NSW and the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program, Both reflect failures in public administration. Both reflect the systemic complexity that has been created. In both cases, the outcome is likely to be more complexity, more rules.

For those who are interested, you can find a copy of Mr Rudd’s statement to the Royal Commission here. The Commission web site includes full transcripts of the hearings, as well as the evidence provided. The release of Mr Rudd’s full statement was delayed by issues of Cabinet confidentiality, something I wrote about in February: The principle of Cabinet confidentiality. A truck has now been driven through that principle, something the current Government and indeed future Governments may come to regret.

The Royal Commission centres on the question of who was responsible for what, who told what what, who should have told what what. A lot of whats I know, but this Commission is all about who and whats!

I have only skimmed the material, but several things stand out. The first is that there seems to have been no clear chain of command, the second the sheer complexity of it all.

Let me introduce you to the concept of the dashboard. No, not the car dashboard, but the management information systems dashboard. As organisations become larger and more complex, it becomes harder and harder for those at the top of the chain to know what is going on. Pressed for time in a 24/7 world, awash with information and electronic chatter, they need devices that will simplify, that will present key information in an easily absorbable fashion. Hence the dashboard.

In the case of the Home Insulation program, Mr Rudd referred on a number of occasions to the way that reports going to Cabinet on this program, reports that were part of the overall stimulus reports, were coded green meaning no problems. “We didn’t know”, said Mr Rudd. Then, when the problems were identified, the shock reaction was to cancel the program, imposing a new and different set of costs on those who had become involved.

Now go to the bottom of the chain. There is a long, long, distance between the bottom of the chain and the dashboard on which Cabinet seems to have relied. Each link is under pressure. Each has to make a judgement on what to report in the midst of doing, a report determined not so much by what is important in a practical sense but by the things that have been specified as important.

This is the command and control world of the modern organisation. Is it any wonder that Cabinet’s dashboard failed?

In theory, responsibility should be pushed down to the lowest accountable level. This has risks, but does give the best results overall. In practice, things don’t work like this.

I am. I suppose, in a somewhat unusual position. I have worked towards or at the top of the food chain. Now, for personal reasons including the desire to make writing central, I am towards the bottom. However, I have lost neither the knowledge or skills that I previously possessed, nor have I lost my passion for improvement. I am just seeing things in a different way. It’s made me something of a campaigner.

I have enormous sympathy for the public servants caught up in this inquiry. To my mind, they did a  pretty good job under very difficult circumstances. I suspect they worked very long hours at all levels. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." There is some truth in that.

Please, pretty please, can we have the Country Party back?

I am working on my Australian budget analysis and hope to bring it up at the weekend. Much of it has been covered in the commentary, but I am trying to focus on the dynamic impacts, not the politics. It’s quite hard, for some of the detail required for analysis is not yet available on line.

So far as the politics is concerned, Mr Abbott played hard ball in opposition and will now get that back in spades. That’s actually not helpful to any of us, but it will happen.

Reading the material and considering my own views: please, pretty please, can we have the Country Party back? The old Country Party and indeed the National Country Party and early National Party always tempered the more ideological and personal ambition driven Liberal view. Whether you agreed or disagreed with the Country Party, one of my friends used to fulminate in his beer over what he saw as special pleading, the Party prevented domination by a single position within the Liberal Party.

The Party was also useful because it asked different questions, concerned about the local impact of national or state wide policies. Sure, this might lead to special pleading, but it forced reconsideration of issues in a way that extended benefits well beyond any narrow sectional group. 

This is the National Party’s official position on the budget.

Record Investment in Regional Australia – WARREN TRUSS

13-May-2014

The Nationals in Government are helping to deliver a record $50 billion in infrastructure and billions more to support communities in every corner of the country in the 2014-15 Federal Budget.

Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of The Nationals Warren Truss has spearheaded the record spend to ensure regional Australia gets its fair share and continues to be the engine room of the nation’s economy.
The Nationals have fought hard to make sure the regions are at the heart of our economic recovery, which will start with this Federal Budget.

This Budget puts in place the structural reform that will repair our economy and secure the nation’s economic future.

That’s why we are investing in the things that will get our country moving again - investments that will underpin our productivity and prosperity for generations to come – and why regional Australia has a key role in our plans.

Our Nationals team will continue to work hard to ensure our regional communities get the support they need to continue making a sustained contribution to our national economy, and the recognition they deserve for their efforts.

The centrepiece of the Budget is a fast-tracked $50 billion investment in new infrastructure, including in regional Australia:
– $6.7 billion to fix the Bruce Highway
– $5.6 billion to complete duplication of the Pacific Highway
– $450 million for more four-laning of the Western and Princes Highways in Victoria
– $480 million for the North West and Great Northern Highways in Western Australia
– $400 million for the Midland Highway in Tasmania
– $90 million for the Northern Territory’s Regional Roads Productivity Package
– Up to $1.3 billion towards the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing
– $508 million for the Warrego Highway
– $300 million to kickstart the Inland Rail project, linking Melbourne to Brisbane

Funding with a regional focus includes:
- $1 billion for the National Stronger Regions Fund to create stronger, more prosperous regional communities
- $2.5 billion to continue the popular Roads to Recovery programme, including a double payment in 2015-16
- $565 million to fix dangerous roads under the Black Spots Programme
- $300 million for the new Bridges Renewal Programme
- $100 million for the mobile phone Black Spots Programme
- $314 million for important capacity building projects across the nation under the Community Development Grants programme
- $320 million in drought relief measures including $280 million in drought concessional loans, $12 million for emergency water infrastructure, $10 million for pest management in drought affected areas and $10.7 million in social and mental health support.
- $100 million extra for applied agricultural research and development
- $15 million to help small exporters with costs
- $8 million to improve access to agricultural and veterinary chemicals
- $20 million to build a stronger biosecurity and quarantine system
- An extra $9 million for fisheries, including more support for recreational and commercial fishing bodies.

As you might expect, this bombed without a trace. Indeed. and this has become a rule, outside defensive comments at local level trying to play up the positives, the National Party does not exist so far as this budget is concerned. It is a non-entity. It has no independent position.

That makes me sad. As I said, please, pretty please, can we have the Country Party back?

Budget Night

Well, Mr Hockey’s first budget is over.  TV has killed the budget speech itself. You don’t need to listen beyond getting a a rough feel.

In a comment to a blogging friend, I said go through the budget speech and rule out all the rhetoric. You have to leave in some things that may be cast in rhetorical terms but are critical to following the thread. Look how little there is.

Think I’m wrong? This the budget speech. Try it.    

African thought, Border Force, budget conundrums with a dash of New England soap

Treasurer Hockey will deliver the budget tomorrow. Like most Australians, I just want to get through tomorrow to find out just what we are dealing with. Tonight’s post is a just a round-up on a few of the things that I have been thinking about or working on.

In a comment on Saturday Morning Musings – South Africa votes in 2014, DG wrote:

Malema (my link) a "charismatic" figure? Well, to some I suppose; and much in the way that Hitler proved "charismatic" during the Weimar Republic. This lunatic enthusiastically endorses the Mugabe model of economic growth.

While I do not pretend to be in any way an expert on African thought, I have followed enough posts and comment streams on African posts to know that it is very different from Australian thought. One stream is that of the left, where Mugabe is still a hero, old anti-colonial and left agenda battles still being fought out. A second is a conservative stream. the imposition of absolute moral values, religious and political, whether by Christian or Muslim groups. My feeling is that I should know more about this, for population and economic growth will make Africa very important in coming decades.

In politics and public policy, organisational roles and the language wrapped those roles is very important in historical terms. I mention this now because I got completely sidetracked yesterday.I started a post looking at certain aspects of the pre-budget discussions, then introduced Australian Border Force. This is where the side-track came in.

My feeling at the time was that the creation of Australian Border Force was an important marker in the evolution of a new and, to my mind, not especially nice feature of Australian life. To try to test this, I began an exploration of the changing titles and administrative arrangements that had  governed the customs and immigration functions since Federation in 1901. This historical analysis tended to confirm my view, but what had begun as a short contained exercise suddenly became a middling piece of historical research. 

I started in the early morning, then had to take Clare to hockey. That was fun, but sidetracked me. I continued for another hour, then realised that it was just more than I could manage. I promise to bring it up. When I do, bear with the administrative detail, I accept that is boring. Yet I think that I have done enough research to at least establish that we have been trough a fundamental change without realising its significance.

The post that I had started before being sidetracked by Australian Border Force was on the importance of interconnections and lags in public policy. We have tightened and focused so many Government policy areas over recent years that a change in one area.

Consider this example. Over the last four years, the number of older Australians on unemployment benefits has grown by more than 40 per scent. Part of the reason appears to be changes in the pension age, especially for women.

Or this. Whereas public housing used to be a device for assisting lower income working class Australians to improve their conditions, limited supply and priority setting means that social housing has become focused on high priority cases. Most of these people live on benefits, paying a proportion of their income for rent. So when benefits are lowered, social housing rents drop. Rents are not high enough now to support the system, so each benefit drop adds pressure to the deteriorating social housing fabric via lower rents. 

In both these cases, a saving now in one area than can be measured creates costs in other areas that cannot be so easily measured in the short term. I think that we need to recognise this.

I will leave this argument aside for the moment. My end point is not what you might expect.

Meantime, this is the trailer for a new ABC TV series. I really have been enjoying it, including its soapy nature. Further comments follow the trailer.

This is a New England TV series, my New England, the Northern Rivers within the broader Northern NSW that forms my new state New England. Again, I will write a broader story. 

Saturday Morning Musings – South Africa votes in 2014

South Africa has just been to the polls. I  summarised  the results of the 2009 elections in this post: Saturday Morning Musings - South African elections. The post contains a link to a post summarising the 2004 election results.

The 2014 results are not final. However, I would summarise the key features this way:

• The ANC (African National Congress) retains its dominance, although its vote continues to decline slowly, from a peak of 69.69% in 2004 to 66.11% in 2009  to 62.16% in 2014.
• The Democratic Alliance has consolidated its position as the main opposition party. Its national vote has risen from 12.37% in 2004 to 15.82% in 2009 to 22.37% in 2014. Importantly, it has increased its dominance in Western Cape with 56.37% of the vote, remaining in government in that province. It is the only party other than the ANC that controls a provincial legislature,
• Both the Inkarta Freedom Party and COPE (Congress of the People) weakened further. Led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Inkarta had its roots in the previous system. while COPE was a split-off from the ANC that hoped to challenge ANC dominance.
• This was the first election for the Economic Freedom Fighters, another split off from the ANC formed by former ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, a radical and by reports charismatic figure. At this point, the EFF has scored 6.35% of the national vote, making its the third largest party after ANC and Democratic Alliance. It is also now the official opposition in Limpopo, the poorest of the South  African provinces.

As an outsider with limited knowledge of South Africa, the most important feature of the elections to me beyond the simple fact of their apparent success is the way that Helen Zille’s Democratic Alliance has been able to establish itself as an official opposition.

With fifty three million people and the most sophisticated economy on the African continent, South Africa is a critical player in Africa’s future. It is also a country whose re-foundation after the apartheid era is based on a multi-racial, polycultural premise. I think that’s important.  

Postscript

The first report in the Australian media.  Not dissimilar.

Hot air balloons over the Hunter

We were woken by  a hsst hsst sound. While daylight, it was still early. With breaks, the sound continued. We wandered out onto the little patio at the front of the room to find out what it was, shivering in the still cool Hunter Valley air.  In the distance, we could see a hot air balloon.

We had seen them in the sky the day before, but some distance away cross-country. Finding one nearby on the ground was confusing. Had it just landed? What was going on?

While hot air balloons have a long history, dating back to their use as airborne lanterns (Kongming lanterns) for military signalling purposes in China during the Three Kingdoms era (220–280 AD. However, the first untethered flight with human passengers seems to have taken place much later, in France on November 21, 1783.

The hssst hsst sound continued. As we watched, we could see that there were in fact two balloons, that they seemed to be inflating. This is a long range shot. From where we were standing, we could barely see the balloons, let alone the people.  

As the hsst hsst sound continued, first one and then the second inflated, then came the first take-off.

Now the second was ready to go. In this shot, you can clearly see the hot flame heating the air, with the chase vehicles standing by. With hot air balloons, directions depends on wind. The chase vehicles follow the balloons to collect the passengers at the other end and to repack the balloons.

  

As it lifted, the first of the chase vehicles set off through the vineyards. The others soon followed.

Hot air ballooning has become big business, with providers packaging the flights with all sorts of extras such as champaign breakfasts to add to the experience. This is an example. Excitement over, we wandered inside to prepare for breakfast. 

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Abbott and Shorten and a problem of trust

I made a vow to myself to stay away from politics until after the budget when I could reasonably analyse what had been said. It seems not. Think of this as a not especially profound  observation, rather than a political comment.

One of the things that puzzled international observers during recent years was the degree of economic pessimism in Australia as compared to, say, Europe. Australia was doing well in economic terms, Europe not. Why, then, were Australians economic pessimists? It seemed irrational.

The real answer was, I think, that Europeans expected their economic position to improve, if sometimes from a dire base.  By contrast, Australians had the nagging feeling that their economic individual position was likely to get worse. I think that’s still the case.

This creates the first problem for Mr Abbott. He is plainly telling people that they must bear pain, accentuating existing pessimism.

This feeds into a second problem. Globally, the decline of the middle class in western countries has become accepted dogma. It’s been coming for a while, but it’s strongly there in popular thinking. This Essential Research story indicates some dimensions of public reaction at this point.  Now Mr Abbott’s difficulty here is that when he says that his proposals will create future wealth, people say so what. It’s not going to come to me. It’s going to go to firms and the wealthy. You tell me that I must bear pain for the good of the country, but I don’t believe you when you say that I and my kids will benefit.

Mr Abbott’s third problem is that there is a remarkably high degree of economic literacy in Australia. His budget analysis and rhetoric is strongly countered by alternative views made more dangerous because, often, they are starting from similar premises. Australians don’t actually care about a one or two percentage point shift in the Government’s share of GDP. They do care about their welfare and that of their kids. They are quite capable of making judgements based on alternative reporting.

When I first did microeconomics all those years ago, we distinguished between value (what was earned) and distribution (how it was distributed). We were told that these two must be kept separate. In his focus on value (maximising national wealth), Mr Abbott has ignored distribution (how will people benefit?).

Now I happen to believe that we do have a longer term budget problem, if not quite as articulated by Treasurer Hockey. I also believe that we have to increase national productivity, given the changes around us in a globalising economy. However, I have also argued that we must look at fair sharing of returns and of compensation for those adversely affected. We have to present a case to what is, in fact, an intelligent electorate.

The idea that the electorate is actually intelligent is, I think, anathema to the commentariat of left and right. How can punters think?  Well, consider this. How did independent Peter Andren hold Calare when his views on some issues were so far removed from those of his electorate? 

I never met Peter Andren. However, as I understand it he was a straight shooter; he listened, explained, but would not shift on things he believed in just to retain his seat. People might disagree and even vote against him, but they had a base on which to make a judgement. He was a solid figure in a shifting world of political advantage. People knew what they were getting, not on specifics, but in terms of stance and values. They also knew that he would work hard for them regardless of their views.

Both Mr Abbott and Mt Shorten suffer from the simple question of trust. We trust neither them nor their parties. Until they engage us in sensible debate, lack of trust will remain.   

Populating a landscape – writers and writing

In an earlier post (Train reading – Conversations: Interviews with Australian Writers) I mentioned that I had been reading Paul Kavanagh and Peter Kuch (editors) Conversations: Interviews with Australian Writers(Collins/Angus & Robertson, North Ryde, 1991). Reading that collection, one phrase came to mind to describe the writing task: we take what we will and use it in our own ways for our own purposes.

We all mentally populate the worlds we live in. We impose order, patterns, create the familiar. You know how it works; photos on the desk; finding that favourite coffee shop; the shape of the buildings or country that we travel through all the time; and so it goes on.

The writer faces a particular problem because he or she is trying to bring the reader into a world that is often not familiar to that reader. The landscape has to be created in the reader’s mind by the reader based on what you write. Simple description won’t work, You have to attach a degree of emotion, build in such a way that the relatively ephemeral task of reading for a short time builds into a landscape that, if not familiar, is at least understandable.

You might think that this is just the domain of the novelist, poet or playwright where they are starting from scratch creating an imaginative journey. That’s not true. The same challenge is faced by other writers, including journalists, travel writers and historians. Each part of the craft has different rules, faces different issues, but the challenges are similar.

With a travel writer, there are hooks and tools to be used to attract the reader. A journalist can usually assume some base degree of familiarity. A novelist’s challenge is different again, for here the novelist is creating a new world. Most novels are situation and location specific, with novelists writing from their experience or research. However, the best novels transcend this in their ability to cross time, location and culture. 

An historian faces a different problem. Most historians write for a niche or, if popular, for a specific market segment. Like the novelist, the best histories at least partially transcend time, space and culture to reach out to a broader audience whose personal landscape is very different. They stand as literary works and are popular for that reason. 

I want to try for that for personal and professional reasons. To do this, I am trying to intensely populate my landscape, in this case New England,  over time in my own mind. I walk the streets and landscape,so that I know what they look like. This is both good historical practice and necessary for the picture being created in my own mind. I look for patterns and constraints, I smell the air.

Now before going on, consider this piece by Tod Moore on the Morpeth Review. I found it because I was trying to think of a story for my next Express column. St John’s College, arguably the first and very early tertiary institution in Australia outside a capital city, began in Armidale before moving to Morpeth.  There it and the short-lived Morpeth Review had an impact on Australian thought, an outlet for Christian humanism.  Look at some of the names; Burgman and Elkin can be taken as examples. 

Tod writes from a particular perspective, as do I. We are on different sides of the political fence. But when I look at the material, I see interface after interface with the work that I am doing; I  know the St John'’s building in Armidale; I have just walked the streets of Morpeth, although I did not get to the College site; I know or know of most of the people referred too; reading the names, I am aware of the links to Professor Anderson at Sydney University; but there is so much more than this. Local, Northern and national intertwine with events and thought elsewhere.

This is a writing post, not a history one. I am not arguing a case, just illustrating. So how might this fit into my history?  More than you would expect. There are so many interconnections with different parts of the New England story, of thought and political action. How many words? Perhaps 500 in a 100,000 word book, but interspersed over time; from the coal fields to depression Newcastle to attitudes about the Aborigines; from Christian humanism to worker education; It’s part of a story that illustrates and adds colour.

I thinks that’s both nice and exciting. However, it’s only a first step. The populated landscape in my own mind has complex physical and human dimensions. As I read and learn more, as I walk across the physical landscape and add that to the mix, the landscape constantly evolves. Facts, thoughts, stories and images swirl, forming new patterns. To write, I have to freeze all this. With so much detail, I have to select and then write sparsely, constantly building patterns. This is the writing challenge.

Stray cats, cruelty, civil aviation and my Hunter Valley trip

Much of Sunday afternoon, Monday night plus three hours this morning before I went to work, were spent first on trying to fix email problems and then on resolving quite aggressive virus/malware issues. Given that this meant that I had not been able to write pretty much anything, I was so looking forward tonight to coming home and settling in to writing. But it was such an early start and then busy day that I was exhausted by the time I got home. 

In an earlier post I mentioned the stray that I felt obliged to feed, in part because I had known him for two years (I’m sure that he had belonged to someone). I called him Blackie; obviously he is not. Still, Scrawny is not a bad name.

For the benefit of the pet Nazis in our midst, he is not my cat. I have neither the time nor money to put him through the cat registration process. I am simply stopping a nice and well natured cat from starvation.

Speaking of Nazis or at least the Authoritarian robotic rule makers who now dominate public policy, we were talking today at work about the impact of the latest anti-smoking laws in prisons and especially mental institutions. The mark of a psychopath is lack of human empathy. The mark of an authoritian system is rules enforced conformity. There seem to be a lot of both around at the moment, For the first time, and it is a first time in this country,the word cruelty has entered the public debate as a marker. I hadn’t seen it before, but I think that it’s right.

The latest Australian Government action on boats may or may not be cruelty. I don’t share some of the views of refugee advocates, but it certainly seems to have had a further adverse impact on our relations with Indonesia.  The practical suspension of our cooperative relationship with Indonesia continues. Assuming the newspaper reports are correct, It is hard to see how the relationship might be fixed before the Indonesian elections.  And then there will be a new and probably less sympathetic Indonesian president.

Turning to more positive matters, I began a series with Towards a new approach to economic and community development 1 Introduction. Winton, while I have only done one post since I haven’t forgotten. The New England aviation series is actually part of the story.

On a still more positive note, kvd will remember my 2010 Greek trip series. I am now doing something similar with my recent trip to the Hunter Valley.  So far only two posts, but I am working on a third. This is the first post in the new series: Journey to the Hunter – Friday 18 April 2014: the adventure starts

Saturday Morning Musings – Ukraine, confusions over Australian politics

Another Saturday Morning. Up early; Avenger immediately demanded to be fed. I have now ended up with two cats to feed.

I have had a nodding acquaintance with Blackie, a neighbourhood stray, since I first moved into Astrolabe Road. It seemed quite a big cat, well fed, and apparently belonged across the road. I say apparently because it was always there. Recently, it has fallen on hard times becoming a shrunken vision of its former self, emaciated with big patches of missing fur. In the end, I couldn’t bear it any longer, so gave it an meal. Cats aren’t stupid, although they are very dumb compared to dogs. One meal led to another!

Our blogging friend AC is back in Poland, something she writes about in Back in Gdansk. She is there at a somewhat difficult time given the Ukrainian crisis. This goes from bad to worse (Ukraine unrest: Military trying to retake eastern town of Slaviansk, say pro-Russian rebels, Ukraine crisis: Dozens of people killed in building fire, more shot dead in Odessa). Poland has a small border with Russia via that strange anomaly known as the Kaliningrad Oblast, a somewhat larger border with Ukraine, so the Ukrainian troubles are naturally a matter of concern within Poland.

One of the things that I hadn’t properly realised until this crisis broke was the extent of EU dependence on Russian natural gas. Thirteen pipelines link Russia with Europe: three are direct pipelines (to Finland, Estonia and Latvia); four go through Belarus (to Lithuania and Poland); five through Ukraine (to Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland); and one to Germany via the Baltic Sea.   

I had thought, naively, that Europe would have been able to import natural gas from other sources if Russian supplies were cut off. It’s not as easy as that. There are both price and supply questions. In simple terms, in the event of a cessation of Russian exports, supply chain issues mean that gas prices would skyrocket while European demand would have to be suppressed by rationing. That explains some of the EU reluctance to take strong action in the current crisis.

Just at the moment, I would be inclined to buy shares in Woodside or any other Australian gas entity. Looking at events in Eastern Ukraine, some cessation of Russian gas supplies to the EU would seem inevitable. I just don’t think that Mr Putin has the subtlety to handle the forces that he has unleashed.

In the short term, European gas politics continues. This Reuters story will give you a feel. All this will be swept away if, as seems increasingly likely, the situation in Ukraine ends in Russian intervention. It may be that the Russian special forces that Mr Putin appears to have committed to Ukraine will be sufficient to carve out a quasi-autonomous area that Russia can either negotiate with or absorb while Kiev remains helpless. At present, it seems more likely that the position will deteriorate to civil war and planned Russian intervention.

Europe went through two dreadful wars in the twentieth century. There is no taste for another one. In military terms, Europe will go just so far and no further. Mr Putin is counting on this. However, Europe cannot simply stand by.

I don’t believe in attaching precise probabilities to highly uncertain events, although I do so from time to time because it makes explanation easier. My best guess is that Europe will draw a line.

In government offices across Europe, officials are presently huddled in conclaves: what are the risks; what might happen if we do this; what should we do if they do that? I suspect that they are no clearer than I am.

Returning to Australia, the continuing investigations by the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) has another scalp, this time Police Minister Mike Gallacher. There is something unpleasantly like a star chamber in the way that ICAC is conducting its affairs. There is too much ambush for my liking. It’s not necessary.

The combination of Ukraine with ICAC has cast a real gloom over what started as a nice day. It’s not helped by the total collapse of my email system, that’s another story, nor by Canberra events.  For the life of me, I cannot understand what the Abbott Government is on about. I know that’s not very good English, but you get my drift. There seems to be a total disconnect between rhetoric, proposals and reality. The good, and there is some good, gets lost in the rhetoric.         

One of the points about a change in government, the reason why they are necessary, is to challenge the status quo. Mr Abbott is certainly doing that. But I so wish that the government hadn’t locked itself in in the way it has.

With Ms Gillard and her administration, i said that the problem was to find that quiet spot, that point of stability, that would allow them to regroup, It didn’t happen. The same applies to Mr Abbott. Once commentators start talking about a one term government, you know that there is a problem. Mr Abbott needs two or even three terms to bring about change. I doubt that he will get it. 

Meantime, Labor in NSW is blessing it’s lucky stars. Having, rightly, wounded the previous Labor administration, ICAC is now damaging the Liberals. Who would have thought it? The combination of Mr Abbott’s  missteps with ICAC is rapidly rebuilding Labor strength at branch level.

Sadly, neither Labor at NSW or Federal level is really presenting an alternative. They don’t have too. All they have to do is wait.          

Social housing and Aboriginal affairs – brief reflections on the Commission of Audit report

The Australian Federal Government commissioned National Commission of Audit Report was released yesterday. You will find the full report here. It has been well covered in the Australian media. Here are just a few examples:

• Chris Uhlmann, Commission of Audit: From crazy brave to politically suicidal, no easy options for Federal Government
• Ian Verrender, Learn from history and heed audit's warning
• Markus Mannheim, Suck it up, Canberra taxpayers, and keep pouring cash into Tony Shepherd's pet project
• Phillip Thomson, Noel Towell and Tom McIlroy,Commission of Audit recommends public service job cuts, mergers
• Peter Martin, Tax: the flaw at the heart of the National Commission of Audit
• Mark Kenny, James Massola, Axe falls hard as audit recommends gutting Medicare, cutting pensions

And so it goes on. Well, what does it all mean? Not a lot, actually.

I spent two hours today to read the report and attachments. I focused especially on those areas I was most interested in, so skimmed other parts. Obviously two hours is not a lot, but here are a few observations.

The report starts with what we might call an economic model, for it has to project the future. Then in analysing what should be done, it builds in what we might think of as a set of ideological assumptions, of values. Some are explicit, others implicit. It creates a new federal construct that then sets a frame for some of its recommendations. From there, it drops to detailed analysis of specific policies and programs guided by its economic assumptions and conclusions, its ideological assumptions and values. and its new Federal construct.

I happen to agree with some of its analysis. For example, I believe that power should be shifted back to the states, subject to to the creation of new states. Others such as the implicit assumptions about the maximum size of government or some of the simplistic modelling I disagree with. However, it’s when you get to the very specific detail of individual proposals that I think that they have gone plain crazy. Perhaps that’s harsh, but let me illustrate.

Take Aboriginal affairs. There are elements in their analysis that I strongly agree with, but the idea that the Feds should stop spending on things like housing and instead put all the cash into a voucher scheme for Aboriginal education borders on the plain crazy.

Or housing. The Commission suggests that this is a state responsibility and the Feds should pull out except for rent assistance. I might agree with that, so long as the the other recommendations about enhanced state revenue and powers were approved. But then, they make a very silly suggestion. Rent assistance should be extended to public housing tenants so long as rents are then increased to market. I don’t even know how to begin to say just how silly this is.

Rents in public housing are based on a percentage of income.There are other models, but that’s the one that generally applies. If Commonwealth rent assistance is made available to public housing tenants as it is to community housing tenants, something I support, then housing authorities can restructure rents so as to attract the maximum amount of rents assistance while leaving tenants to pay the same. In most cases, that rent will be below market. If tenants now have to pay market less Commonwealth rent assistance, rents will increase to the point that some tenants will be up for rent that exceeds their income. That’s a crazy result.

If you are going to bring reform, new approaches, to particular policy areas, then you have to have experts in that area matched by technically competent non-experts. You need them both to avoid capture by the status quo.  You also need time and the freedom to generate new ideas. Sadly, none of this has happened in this case. The result is a bit of a mess. Ah well!

The need for quiet places

This is the inside of the Roman Catholic Church in Singleton. There is a story to this church and surrounding buildings that I have written about a little in some of my historical writing.

Its an old church by Australian standards, actually smaller than I had expected. When you research something that you haven’t seen, when it’s important to the story you are telling, it acquires a size in your mind beyond the physical reality.

Once, most churches were open. They were a place of refuge, of contemplation. You could just drop in, sit and reflect. Sometimes you might be asked if you could be helped, if you needed something, but most times you could just sit there.

At least so far as Australia is concerned, we live in an age that has lost both its innocence and, to a degree at least, it’s enthusiasm. We live in an age of chatter and of constant movement. The churches that were once open have closed, except for services or events. Too many risks  are involved to maintain open access.

This is another picture of the church from the opposite direction. It is being prepared for the Easter services.

I don’t know about you, but I am a little tired of current complexity. I wish for space and peace.

You don’t have to be a Christian to get a sense of peace from a church. The building is designed for that purpose. You can get the same feeling from a quiet garden  or a bush scene. Still, and increasingly, it’s  becoming harder to find those places.  

It’s not just a question of size. Those living in crowded societies, the Japanese and Chinese come to mind, have found ways of building in space for quiet contemplation. Australians are not especially good at this. We crowd, we chatter, we establish formal rules to govern access.

Looking at the church in Singleton, I felt a sense of weariness, of ennui. I was, after all, on a journey with its objectives and time limitations. I also felt that I could not just sit in the way that I might have done in the past. I am sure that there would have been no objection, we were allowed into the church even though it was officially shut, but it didn’t seem right. This feeling distracted.

I suppose that the need to find quiet places has increased with age, but it’s always been there.  Like most of us, I have memories with value that continue to come back, that I can call on. The garden at Lanyon with its big English trees providing shade on a hot day; a New Zealand beech forest; the backyard at Marsh Street. Sadly, as i get older I find it harder to find new such places. Maybe it’s just me, but the feeling does appear to be fairly universal.