Train Reading - class warfare and Ross' history of the miners' union

At the moment, my train reading is Edgar Ross's A History of the Miners' Federation of Australia (The Australasian Coal and Shale Employees" Federation, 1970, second edition 1984). I hadn't heard of Edgar Argent Ross (1904-2001), but he clearly played an important role as a journalist and writer in the struggles within the union movement and Labor/left politics.

It's an interesting book, although the detail is sometimes a bit eye-glazing. I find I lose track of the significance of overall patterns in the shifting detail of our how much was paid for particular types of work. I shouldn't, for the payment patterns are very important in understanding what happened and why.

I am reading the book as part of the research I am doing for my history of Northern NSW, the broader New England. I need to understand more of the history of Newcastle and the coal fields for their own sake and because the tensions and differences between these areas and those further north form one of the themes within New England history, culminating in the narrow defeat of the 1967 self government plebiscite. 

I never know when I start reading just where that reading will take me. That's one of the joys of the process. In this case, I simply hadn't realised the national significance of some of the early labour struggles on the Northern coal fields, nor the role played by (among others) the Australian Agricultural Company. As I read, I was also struck by similarities between coal field history and that of the country movements further north that gave rise to the Country Party and the twentieth century Northern self government movements.  Apparently different ideologies, different outcomes, but very similar structural causes and indeed operational responses.

Ross's analysis is set firmly within a framework of class warfare, of fundamentally opposing interests. He pours scorn on those who supported co-operation as an alternative, who tried to cooperate with the masters (the early phrase) or bosses. Yet he is objective enough to recognise the successes of those who held alternative views. He argues that they failed in the longer term and provides evidence to show why, but you can at least understand his arguments.

As I read, I found an unexpectedly current resonance with current conditions and debate. As I write, there has been a pay dispute on the Northern coal fields between unions and rail company Aurizon, culminating in a  three day strike. Aurizon, in turn, has locked the drivers out for three days, arranging for another rail company to carry the load. The photo shows an Aurizon coal train.

I don't want to get into details of the current dispute. I am not close enough to it. Instead, I want to make a broader point about the asymmetry of power and the sharing of benefits and costs.

On the Northern coal fields in the nineteenth century, the owners wanted freedom and flexibility to set wages and conditions. When times were good, they would negotiate with miners' lodges and agree to new conditions, When times were bad, they sought to maintain profits by maintaining or expanding production, while also cutting costs. Coal miners worked in harsh conditions, facing insecure incomes. They opposed this flexibility. Sometimes they lost, sometimes they won. Sometimes when they won, it had adverse results.

The first problem lay in an asymmetry in power between management, the bosses, and a disorganised and individualised workforce.The union argued, rightly, that without some countervailing force individual workers would be penalised, that workplace conditions would not improve. They had evidence to support that view. The coal companies argued, rightly, that they needed flexibility in working conditions to survive in an unstable and changing market place.

Sometimes the two sides coincided. When conditions were good, the companies would give concessions. The workers would raise their glasses to the masters, they did use that word. Sometimes, the two sides would join in individual action designed to protect the companies so that the companies would protect them. One result was the Vend. 

The Northern coal fields dominated the Australian coal trade. If the companies formed a combine and linked this to influence over shipping, then they could set prices. When business was bad, they could contract production. When business was good, they could expand. The emerging union movement, the lodges, supported this. for it meant that the companies could afford to maintain stable wages and employment. From a union viewpoint, anything would be better than the unstable working conditions created by what they saw as the ruinous competition between the four coal majors.

The Vend failed, swept away by competitive forces. Attempts to create cooperatives including coal mines failed. They must fail, Ross argued, because they failed to recognise the basis class warfare built into the capitalist system. These concepts became deeply imbedded in the union movement. They created a culture that, in the end, would fail the union movement itself. but you can see how it might have arisen 

In systems with asymmetrical power, the powerful need to recognise and accommodate the needs of the less powerful. If they fail to do so, they are likely (not always) to pay a price. That price will have to wait to a later post.

Growth, CANZ and red tape

If I interpret Treasurer Hockey's G20 growth target correctly, it simply means that at the end of five years, global GDP will be 2% higher than would otherwise be the case. The base measure appears to be the current global growth trajectory.

While the word target is misleading, the number of variables involved would make success very hard to measure, such an aspiration is not necessarily a bad thing. Until recently, the global economic focus has been so all-pervadingly negative that any form of economic cooperation has been difficult to achieve. You can see this in the growth of of trade barriers and beggar my neighbour policies. The target does not require countries to do anything grand, simply look at ways of improving their own performance while encouraging greater global cooperation on trade and investment matters.

Of more importance domestically, however, is the interface between the target and Treasurer Hockey's own rhetoric. It is part of the platform he is trying to build to justify proposed changes in fiscal policy and in the role of Australian Governments. Something similar applies to another part of the rhetoric, the comparison between Australia, New Zealand, Canada and, to a lesser extent, the UK.

From the very early days of his Government, Mr Abbott referred to those countries as the models Australia should follow.  The UK references have become a little muted.

You can see why if you look at the accompanying graph. The UK may now be growing at around 1.9% per annum, but as the bottom line shows, this downturn has been far worse than its predecessors, recovery far slower. That's hardly a model for Australia to emulate.

Now the rhetoric seems refers mainly to New Zealand and Canada, both countries with Governments ideologically aligned to the current Australian Government. Now we have CANZ (Canada, Australia and New Zealand) as a new grouping. I am not close enough to Canada to make an informed comment on that country's economic performance, beyond noting that it survived the global economic crisis for much the same reasons as Australia, a resource base combined with a relatively transparent and well managed institutional structures. New Zealand is a somewhat different case, although it too had a product in demand, in its case dairy. I think that New Zealand does have lessons to offer,

To a degree, the economic debate in Australia has been clouded by problems of the Abbott Government's own making, as well as the opposition's sometimes inept and short term reactions. This has sucked the oxygen from the public debate. However, the debate has continued behind the scenes, with constant markers in the financial press.

I make this point now because I think that we are entering a period when the debate over economics and ideology is going to be very important. The ground has been laid. I think, too, that the debate has to be fought on facts and analysis. Will this work? What does it mean? 

One of the test points here will be the forthcoming Parliamentary session on reduction of red tape. Will this just address business red tape, or will it venture into the social red tape that is now costing the country so much?        

Jottings

Very short post tonight. I do so like my commenters. Because of them I have been able to extend The principle of Cabinet confidentiality. Also, have material on Indian history to extend Sunday Essay - determining who will live or die.

Behind the scenes, I have a very history focus at present. Added a little on the Chinese in Australia (First Chinese connection with the newly established settlement at Port Jackson) and started an entry page on the Australian Agricultural Company - Introducing the Australian Agricultural Company.

Time for bed. Talk to you tomorrow.

Election cycles, Jenny Gardner's retirement, the Country/National Party

Here in Australia, we have entered another election cycle with enough elections or by-elections to keep the most tragic of the election tragics happy.

At the Redcliffe by-election on 22 February, Labor's Yvette D’Ath won convincingly with a swing of 16.3%. This by-election was seen as a test of the popularity of Queensland Premier Newman. Not that Mr Newman has to worry greatly at this point because of the sheer size of the LNP majority.

Down south, both South Australia and Tasmania go to the polls in elections widely expected to see the Liberal Party defeat the incumbent Labor Governments. This would leave the ACT Territory Government as the last Labor Government in the country. Meanwhile, we await the date of the WA Senate re-run.

In NSW, the latest electoral redistribution has seen a brewing fight between the Liberal and National Parties for the state seat of Goulburn (National ginger group attacks Goward, O'Farrell in battle for Goulburn). Here the fight is between two ministers - Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson (National) vs Community Services Minister Pru Goward (Liberal). The next NSW State election is still some twelve months away,

That NSW election will see the retirement of the National's Jenny Gardner. She announced her intention not to recontest her Legislative Council position on 16 February. Our connections go back to the time when we were both active members of the NSW Young Country Party.  I have always had a high opinion of Jenny. She has worked tirelessly for the party and for country people in general. She is not your stereotypical Country/National Party MP, but then, many are not.

The Country/National Party has always been a broader church than most realise. It has to be, for it really represents areas rather than ideologies. If you look at electoral patterns over time, there is no such thing as a safe Country/National Party seat, for the Party is contending not just with Labor, but with the Liberals and country independents and now, in some areas, the Greens. This makes for a very particular mind-set, one in which you have to represent the whole people, not just those who agree with you. 

That is why, after all these years, I still call myself Country Party even though it must be evident from the pattern of my posts that I disagree with many aspects of the modern National Party.  And yet, when I come to talk to a National Party MP, I still find myself in agreement on core issues and especially the need for special representation for regional or country Australia and for my own North.

Sunday Essay - determining who will live or die

These poems come to me from Helen Dale aka skepticlawyer. The first is from Marya Mannes, a US author that I had not heard of.

Borders are scratched across the
hearts of men
By strangers with a calm, judicial
pen,
And when the borders bleed we
watch with dread
The lines of ink across the map
turn red.

It's just so true.

The second poem comes from W.H Auden. It, too, is just so true.

Unbiased at least he was
when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on this
land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically
at odds,
With their different diets and
incompatible gods.
"Time," they had briefed him in
London, "is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or
rational debate:
The only solution now lies in
separation ..."

"The Viceroy thinks, as you will
see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his
company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you
with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two
Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final
decision must rest with you."

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with
police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep
the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task
of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his
disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost
certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check
them, no time to inspect.

I don't share the views expressed in the current attacks on the British Empire and Commonwealth. They are, to my mind, simplistic and stereotyped. On balance, the Empire was a good thing that shaped the modern world.

I could wish that the British Government had fought harder to preserve the Indian Empire, to buy time, to give time, to the Indian factions to work out their differences in a new world that had been progressively evolving over so many decades. It was a tired Government, a broke Government, that just wanted out. Give them want they want now, clean up, we must move on.

An uncle of mine was in India at the time and saw the bodies piled in the river beds. A true Indiaphile with a deep knowledge of Indian history and culture, he loved the place, he understood the religious divisions. Running for Liberal party pre-selections in Sydney in the late 1960s, he told the bemused branch members that the Muslim challenge would become a dominant theme in global politics. He wasn't anti-Muslim, although he was (I think) pro-Hindu. Rather, he saw a clash of irreconcilables. I just filed it away, something for later use.

There is something cold and sad in that Auden poem. Here you have a person who must do his job regardless of poor evidence, who must deliver. Don't think it doesn't happen today. It does. Policy is about people, policy analysis is about statistics. 

This is something I wrote in a seminar paper a few years back:  

By the 1970s, country was losing favour, in part because of the growth of urban centres whose residents did not identify with the term. In its place came the word regional. This fragmented in turn. By 2000, there was something of a crazy patchwork quilt of words – country, regional, rural, remote, coastal – that overlapped and were used in different combinations. This growing confusion in terms reflected in part the increasing use of ARIA.

ARIA, the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia, was developed by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care and the National Key Centre for Social Applications of GIS. ARIA measures remoteness based on the physical road distance between a settlement and four classes of service centre[1]. In 1999 a further revision of ARIA called ARIA+ was developed that incorporated more information on the location of service centres.

While ARIA was a simple geographic descriptor intended to measure remoteness from services, its widespread use by the Commonwealth Government for statistical purposes and to guide service delivery affected the use of words. In 1950, the Australian states still retained a substantial degree of independence. By 2000, the Australian Government was involved in every aspect of policy once the preserve of the states. To the officials in Canberra seeking mechanisms to allow for national uniformity in service delivery while also taking geography into account, the ARIA classifications seemed a useful device; very remote, remote, outer regional, inner regional and major city were now firmly added to the semantic mix.

The difficulty from a New England perspective lay in the way that these various terms cut across the area’s natural geography, further fragmenting the sense of New England or Northern identity, while creating problems for integrated service delivery based on geography. We can see this if we look at New England’s Kamilaroi or Gamilaraay Aboriginal language group who occupied the Western Slopes and Plains. Their traditional territory was variously classified from very remote to inner regional, a classification that affected the services provided. People with a common culture sharing common problems received different benefits depending on just where they lived.

In the global scheme of things, this is a minor example. Yet the decisions made based on statistical constructs, on evidence that is old or uncertain, determines what happens. The question of whether or not an Aboriginal family has a house or not depending on their ARIA classification is a minor thing compared with those who lost their lived during the partition of the Indian Empire, yet the principles are the same.

I really shuddered when I read the Aulden poem. It captures stark reality. Everyday, international civil servants and others make decisions that affect who will live or die.  That's a dreadful burden often confused in the statistics.     

---

[1] History and definitions of ARIA drawn from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Glossary of Statistical Geography Terminology 2011, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/1217.0.55.001, accessed on-line 15 March 2011.

The principle of Cabinet confidentiality

The principle of cabinet confidentiality is deeply engrained in the Westminster system. The traditional British form was once explained to me in this way by a then boss at Treasury. The papers of a Government belong to that Government and cannot be made available to a new Government, This principle provided the base for a very funny episode of Yes Minister in which Jim Hacker conspired with his predecessor in the previous government to force Sir Humphrey as head of Department to reveal not the papers, but the principles embedded in a paper prepared for the previous minister.

Leaving aside the constitutional principles underlying the approach, there are good, practical, reasons for the confidentiality requirement. If an incoming government can trawl through the papers of its predecessors, it will always find things that it can use in the political fight. Then, once it has established that this is okay, it will be exposed in its turn.

The apparent decision by the Commonwealth Attorney General George Brandis to release cabinet papers from the previous administration to the Royal Commission into the abandoned home insulation scheme is without precedent. It is also unnecessary.  The Commission does not need those papers to do its job. It can find out all it needs just by asking people under oath, by seeking other documents.  

Former prime ministers Bob Hawke and Malcolm Fraser have expressed alarm at the Brandis move, saying it will invite payback from future governments and threaten cabinet confidentiality. They are right to be alarmed.

In releasing the documents:

Senator Brandis said the government respected the importance of cabinet confidentiality, but it had decided the documents the Commonwealth would produce for the commission ''will include documents over which a claim for public interest immunity might be made, such as cabinet documents''.

In providing such documents to the commission, Senator Brandis said the government would indicate that it did not waive its right to claim public interest immunity from their contents becoming public.

''Accordingly, should the commission wish to publish any of the cabinet documents … the Commonwealth requests that it be notified so that it can consider whether it is necessary to make submissions in relation to such documents or uses, or whether it should seek protective orders,''

This is actually  a rather important statement. Senator Brandis is establishing a new principle. Cabinet documents can be made available, but the Government reserves the right to oppose publication. However, it is then a matter for the Commission or courts to decide.

Meantime, lawyers representing former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and several former cabinet ministers who have been summoned to appear before the commission are believed to be considering legal action that would see the courts decide if cabinet confidentiality should be waived in the public interest.

The principle of cabinet confidentiality is just that, a principle. It exists because, in combination with other things, it makes our system work. I think it unlikely that this Royal Commission will choose to publish cabinet documents, although they may wish to publish excerpts to set a context. That doesn't matter. The new principle has apparently been established.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. In simple terms, it means that the next Government, and there will be one, can choose to hold Royal Commissions into its predecessor's actions on particular matters (refugees come to mind) and provide the most sensitive cabinet documents to support its case. Alternatively, the Commission may demand those documents. As our former PMs said, payback followed by payback. 

Postscript

There is a little more analysis in this ABC News report. In a comment, kvd wrote:  

Abbott tonight: "Can any of you think of a government program which actually killed people?"
Snowy Mountains Scheme, War (anywhere, but specifically) in A'stan, and I'm willing to bet that Sydney's second airport will have a death or three. In other words, just about any government program you might name.

This man is not stupid, so there must be something deeper in his present rhetoric.

I don't know whether or not there is anything deeper in the present rhetoric, but if quoted correctly, that is a monumentally silly rhetorical question from Mr Abbott. Try this story, for example: Scott Morrison admits information he gave on Manus riot was wrong. Can't you see the questions coming up as people trawl back through the records?

There is something badly out of kilter with this Government's judgment and priorities. The really annoying thing from my perspective is that it's distracting from other things that are very important from a policy perspective.

The Commonwealth is now in diabolical trouble largely of its own making. Much of the media reporting is unfailingly negative, with doubts surfacing even in the supportive papers.

I do not pretend to know how all this is playing out in the electorate. The latest opinion polls showed a bounce-back in Government support. I do think that the Government cannot afford many more mistakes at a time when it is trying to soften the electorate to an apparently tough May budget.

Australian elections are won or lost in the middle ground. Compulsory voting reinforces this. While I don't know about public opinion in general, I would be pretty sure that Government support in the middle is starting to erode. This doesn't happen overnight. It takes time.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten must really be counting his blessings. Immediately after the last election, the Labor party was a dispirited mess. Now membership is up, the faithful have been reinvigorated and Mr Shorten really hasn't had to do a thing. It's been done for him!

Strange times.

Postscript 2

A commenter asked "Where does the Archives Act 1983 fit into this"?" It has been a very long time since I had cause to look at this act. I have had a quick browse only, you will find the Act here,

Having browsed the Act, the short answer is that I am not sure. One question might be whether or not the cabinet records in question are classified as a current record or have been transferred to Archives. The legal position appears to be different. A second question lies in the distinction between giving the Commission access to cabinet records (intuitively, that would appear to be legal since the Commission is a Commonwealth creation) and any subsequent publication by the Commission. Would the time limitations on public access set out in the Act impede the Commission?

Senator Brandis' statement would appear to suggest that the Commonwealth can give the Commission access to the records, but that the Commonwealth reserves its position on any publication. Perhaps some more expert reader can better explain the specifically legal issues.

Postscript 3

This is the record of what PM Abbott actually said. Thanks to kvd for the link.  

"QUESTION:

Has the Government handed over Cabinet documents to the pink batts Royal Commission?

PRIME MINISTER:

We've established a Royal Commission because we want to get to the bottom of the most incompetently managed programme in Australia's history. Can any of you think of a government programme that actually killed people? Let's not forget that this programme was so incompetently devised and carried out that it resulted in four deaths, hundreds of house fires, a billion or so was spent putting insulation in and then a billion or so was spent taking insulation out.

An absolute monumental act of ineptitude. Now, it's very important that we get to the bottom of how this happened and why this happened so that we can learn the lessons and make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. What is actually required and who is actually going to be interviewed, will be a matter for the Royal Commissioner. If the Royal Commissioner asks for documents, that's a matter for the Royal Commissioner.

QUESTION:

Do you think that would set a dangerous precedent for the future though, if you did hand over those Cabinet documents?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well, it's not a question of us handing over the Cabinet documents, Royal Commissioners are entitled to ask and to indeed be supplied with documents. Royal Commissioners have very extensive powers to demand documents, to summon and question witnesses. This is a very powerful inquiry and it should do its job.

QUESTION:

There have been calls for a royal commission into the asylum policy. One could argue that that’s a government policy that’s resulted in loss of life.

PRIME MINISTER:

There is an inquiry going on into what’s happened in Manus. We’ve got General Campbell up there at the moment, so that we know exactly what’s happened. The Papua New Guinea authorities will have their own inquiries into what happened. The important thing is that we protect our borders, we implement our policies and we maintain order in these camps and I'm pleased to say that despite a very serious riot, the camp was fully functional the next morning, people were being fed, people were being housed, people were being looked after and our obligations were being discharged."

Postscript 4

Am I the only blogger writing on this? I did a web search across the blogosphere and could not find a single reference beyond this post. Anybody else out there?

Postscript 5

One of the things that I really like about my commentators is the way that they help me carry a story forward. In this case, the key question becomes was the Government asked or did it volunteer? If it volunteered, that's the end of the story. If it was asked, how did it respond?

From this story, the facts appear to be these:

1. The government was asked. The PM approved the release.
2. Neither the Prime Minister nor anyone from his office had seen the documents, which were passed to the Attorney-General's Department to send to the commission. They were part of 4,500 documents supplied over time, including a range of cabinet documents.
3. The cabinet documents were given to the royal commission on the condition they be viewed privately. If the commission wants to make any of the documents public, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has requested it be told in advance so it can apply for a ''public interest immunity'' waiver to block publication.
4. Cabinet documents had previously been provided to two royal commissions, (the Centenary House investigation and the inquiry into the Mohammed Haneef affair), so it wasn't the first time.

If these facts are right, then there are still points to argue, but they are somewhat different points. It leaves me wondering about ministerial advisers. Have they become so wet behind the ears that they can no longer deconstruct an argument and present facts and principles? 

Postscript 6

Thanks to the digging of my commentators, this matter has shifted again. First, however, all this has Ross Gittins quite upset: Under Tony Abbott, political principles reach an all-time low.

Turning now to my commenters, the Hansards to the estimates' discussions on this matter are:

• First, the PM&C discussions
• and now the Attorney General discussions.

These cast a different light again on the discussions. meantime, kvd has been exploring the history of the apparent transmission of cabinet papers on two previous occasion. This raises at least some uncertainties. He also asked for the definition of cabinet papers. I thought I knew, but now it seems that I don't.

All this requires a proper forensic analysis. Maybe next week!

Friday Notes

Like many, I watched events unfold on Manus Island with a degree of horror. Like many, I found the idea of China lecturing Australia on its human rights record a little ludicrous. Like many, I felt a little sad at the loss of Australian moral authority that made such a lecture possible.

Over on My Observations, AC's Judy Cassab explores aspects of life and art. I always enjoy her Thursday posts with their special idiosyncratic style. On a less pleasant matter, Caracas Chronicles'  The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night – and the International Media Is Asleep At the Switch records another chapter in the increasingly troubled Venezuela.The shortage of Venezuelan toilet paper made global news, but not other developments it seems. Hat tip to Neil Whitfield via Facebook for this one.

At his place. Neil's Icon gone, and some sadder and more frustrating things records the end of Wollongong's iconic stack, with some references to the refugee question.

With the High Court ordering Western Australia back to the polls for a new Senate election, Ed Killesteyn has resigned as Commonwealth Electoral Commissioner, as has AEC WA state manager Peter Kramer. That was kind of inevitable, I guess. Nobody knows just which way voters will go. I suspect that Mr Abbott wishes that he lived in less interesting times. The difficulty with his no surprises mantra lies in the surprises suffered by the Government.

Expect an expensive election campaign. Both Labor and Liberal will spend big, as will Mr Palmer. The Palmer United Party wants that final seat.

The G20 Finance Ministers are in town, allowing Commonwealth Treasurer Hockey a place on the international stage. Apart from the need to close tax loopholes, something that most governments appear to be able to agree on, the emerging core focus is the need (or not) to kick start global growth. Interesting that the International Monetary Fund, once the driest of the drys, should become so wet.

It seems that the Australian Federal Police suffered from a word processing error as part of their Schapelle Corby raids on Channel Seven. Oh dear, I had to laugh, but I was actually sympathetic. How could I not be as someone who transposes digits and just doesn't see the error?! I also remember the sad case in an aerospace tender when a secretary faxing key financial bid data to Defence hit the wrong button and sent it to the competitor firm. Ouch.

Staying with legal matters, down in Canberra the inquiry into the conviction of David Eastman for the murder of Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester continues. The murder and subsequent conviction were a major national story, but the inquiry is just being covered in the Canberra Times. So things go.

I am watching this one with interest and I really shouldn't comment. David and I worked together in the same small section in the Commonwealth Treasury and I knew him quite well. Yes, he could be difficult, but the unfolding evidence is making me a little uncomfortable.

Well, that's all tonight folks. More tomorrow. 

Postscript

The Venezuelan troubles have finally made the news in Australia.    

Mr Pyne's review of teacher training

I read Commonwealth Education Minister Mr Pyne's announcement on a national review of teacher training with a degree of befuddlement. The core of the review seems clear enough:

Reporting later this year, the group will undertake extensive public and stakeholder consultation while focusing on three key areas:

· Pedagogical approaches: the ways teachers teach their students, and the different ways teaching and learning can occur.
· Subject content: how well teachers understand the content of subjects they are teaching, and
· Professional experience: opportunities for pre-service teachers to put theory into practice through quality in-school learning experiences.

My primary confusion in this case lies in my own lack of knowledge as to just what is included now in teacher education. I had a look at the course outline at one university with major involvement in this area, and in the end wasn't all that much clearer beyond noting some of the current bureaucratic flavour to the English used. I think that reflects the primary destination marketplace, in this case the NSW school system.

I know that some of my readers have far more expertise in this area than I do. I can analyse the English involved and link it to its different contexts, but I don't really know what its like to be taught this material. Now putting Mr Pyne aside for the moment. I wondered if someone could give me a simple explanation of what is actually taught or not taught; how it helps or hinders if and when you get to the classroom; and, given that many who do these courses don't teach in the end, how useful the course as a broader education?

This last is quite important. In law, for example, there are so many Australian graduates now that a significant proportion will never practice. Law is having to sell itself on the broader attributes attached to such studies as an entry to other careers.

Is the Abbott Government Ruddifying itself?

At a cooking course tonight with eldest at the Sydney Cooking School, Duck & Pinot. Very good actually. It was my Christmas present and i enjoyed it. This us eating the results.

Lots has been happening, but I am tired and don't feel like writing about it.

The riot on Manus seems to get worse and worse.  A Customs and Defence review has found that Australian boats entered Indonesian waters six times between December and January. Apologies made in all directions. According to today's Financial Review, I can't give a link, the Australia-Chinese Free trade Agreement has been pushed down the priority list by China because of previous Australian Government public statements. This agreement is a key Abbott Government priority.

In my early analysis of the Rudd Government, I focused on Mr Rudd's process approach, the way he did things. This led me to express severe doubts, doubts ignored by the mainstream media still enamoured with Mr Rudd. Something similar is happening now, although Mr Abbott has not had the same media honeymoon.

Political capital needs to be extended carefully; the way you do things is very important. The Government has important agenda items that it needs to sell, but these are being lost in the static created by the way the Abbott Government is doing things. Are we seeing the Ruddification of the Abbott Government?  I am beginning to wonder.  

Introducing Robert Dawson

Yesterday's main post, New England Lives – Robert Dawson (1782-1866), company manager, pastoralist and writer, was again on the New England History blog. This is likely to happen a bit over coming weeks. This year is meant to be the year of the book, but I found that I was again getting behind. Now I'm writing to fill gaps and to extend my thinking.

Robert Dawson really was an interesting man, the Australian Agricultural Company an interesting company. Along with the establishment of the Bank of NSW, the AA Co is Australia's first really big corporate venture; the coup that overthrew Dawson, the first fight for control in a major Australian public company.

Do read the post, but also click through to the links to Dawson's own writing. The first is Dawson's defence against the charges laid against him, the second starts with Dawson's story of his early work with the AA Co. It's actually a very good yarn.      

And the plaque? This is an Australian Agricultural Company plaque on a stone column erected at Learmonth Park, Hamilton, dated 1914. Hamilton, now a Newcastle suburb, was one of the towns founded by the AA Co. 

The hidden textures of Australian history - the New England Chinese

"Ernest Sue Fong who joined the staff of the Hong Yuen store in Inverell in the early 1930s recalled his early years at the store:

I worked at Hong Yuen for 25 bob [shillings] and keep. I lived in the shack with about seven other Chinese boys from all over. Another five lived upstairs [above the shop].

Now the way it worked: at 7.30 in the morning the cook would ring the bell, and everyone would go down to the kitchen...and we’d have a Chinese breakfast with rice and Chinese food. Then into the shop until the shop opened and we’d cut up bacon, fill the shelves, jobs like that. At lunchtime, the bell would ring again and all the staff [Chinese and non-Chinese] would go for lunch. It would always be English meals... Then back to work.

At 6 pm supper was served. Chinese food this time... Some nights, say two or three a week, we’d go back to the store to, for example, bag up sugar, depending on what was needed. We’d work until 9 pm."

Sunday's main post was on my New England history blog, Family counts: glimpses of Chinese life in New England in the first half of the twentieth century. Growing up in Australia during the 1950s, I was reasonably familiar with modern Chinese history. That was partly due to my love of stamps, partly to closeness to the Second World War and the success of the communist revolution. At the same time, I knew little of the Chinese experience in Australia.

I am not sure how old I was, at primary school certainly, when I first found Sydney's old China Town. The thing that struck me in wandering the streets at the time were the faded notices and signs for Chinese organisations, including the Kuomintang. It was a strange new world. However, I didn't think of the living Australian experience of these people.  

I didn't properly realise it at the time, but the area I grew up in had had a very large Chinese population. This was concentrated in the gold and especially tin mining areas on the western slopes of the Northern Tablelands. At the 1891 census, for example, Chinese born still made up 11 per cent of the population in these areas. Their story did not end with Federation and the White Australia policy. It continued.

Many of the stores in Inverell, Tingha, Glen Innes, Emmaville and Tentefield carried Chinese names. Chinese immigration continued, if on a lower scale, utilising existing networks and the exemption clauses in the White Australia legislation.

My post was based on the work of Janis Wilton, a fellow member of the University of New England's Heritage Futures Research Centre. Her work provides an insight into the life of one group in one area in the first half of the twentieth century. It adds to the texture of the Australian story.      

Saturday morning musings - the workhouse and the age of entitlements

My main post today is on another blog, Friday Economics - implications of the changing Australian labour market. While it has Friday in the title, it actually came up this morning.

My focus in that post was as the name says, but there was also a bit of a back story.

Just at the moment in Australia, there is a running debate about entitlements, Commonwealth Treasurer Joe Hockey in the forefront. This is a recent example of reporting, Joe Hockey warns Australians the age of entitlement is over. Mr Hockey is consistent. This is a speech he delivered in 2012: “The end of the Age of Entitlement”. This matter of entitlements has also worried our fellow blogger, Winton Bates. 

Just at the moment, my reading has drawn me into looking at the derivation of certain words and attitudes such as the deserving poor or entitlements. This provides the back story to the Friday economics post.

I don't have time for a proper history post; my focus was a narrow one limited to an immediate purpose. However, as I browsed I couldn't help be struck by just how much current Australian politics is still influenced by discussions dating back to the the English poor laws. 

Keeping the history very simple, the problem of the poor had exercised minds over a very considerable period. The system of relief that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws before being codified in 1587–98 was parish based and provided for indoor and outdoor relief.The term the deserving poor dates back to Eliazabethan times.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century and into the early nineteenth century, there was an explosion in demand because of the side-effects of the economic changes taking place. On top of that, the British Government ended up with a debt to GDP exceeding Greece's recent level because of the costs of the war against Napoleon.

In 1832, a commission of inquiry was appointed. The commission concluded that there must be uniform national (in this case read English) standards. Conditions must be set such as to discourage anybody entering the system. The word entitlement was used for the first time that I can find to indicate something that must be discouraged.

These recommendations were taken into account in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. One result was the emergence of the nineteenth century English workhouse whose evils were described by Charles Dickens and others.

There are no easy answers to these social problems, but watch the language used for it can disguise.