On menstruation and menopause

The Victorians have a lot to answer for. No, not those from the state of Victoria, those from the Victorian period in history.  

When I was young, my mother used to send me down to the corner store with an envelope. I would give this to Mrs Beatty who would pop away and then on return hand me a brown paper bag. It was years later that I realised that I was buying sanitary pads. 

A little later, I suddenly started growing pubic hair. I had no idea what was happening. Something was wrong. Each night in my bath I would use my father's razor to shave the hair away to try to get back to my smooth skin. Eventually I realised what was happening. 

There was no internet then. Years later I asked my mother what she hadn't told me about these things. She looked very embarrassed and said but we gave you a book! She may have, but I have no recollection of ever seeing it,  

The Victorian period wrapped sex and bodily functions within a blanket of restrictive language, religion  and custom that would create scars lasting to this day. It wasn't until I started going out with girls and then later still after marriage and the birth of my daughters that I started too understand the female body including the impact of menstruation.  

When I say body I do not mean the body in a sexual sense, but the body as a functioning physical object with all its processes. By now, I was used to going to the chemist or supermarkets to get tampons or painkillers.

This knowledge affected my management style. I became much more sensitive to changes within female staff members. If a woman was displaying signs of bad period I didn't ask are you having a bad period? After all, she might just be having a bad day and might question might be construes as an insult. I would just ask are you alright? With time and trust, this would usually be sufficient to bring out any problems.

The idea of menstruation as somehow unclean is deeply imbedded in past and some present societies. I know that this is silly, even dangerous, but the idea persists. 

Later still, I was introduced to the menopause. This can be a difficult time for women. Apart from things like sometimes hot flushes and pain, it affects women's attitudes to themselves, the attitude of partners and others, It also affects sex as lubrication can be reduced.

As men age, they retain the capacity to create children but libido is reduced. As with women, many men suffer sexual anxiety, fear of non-performance, fear that they are losing their attractiveness.

I am a male therefore I focus more on women. I understand the practical effects of menopause and understand both men and women's concerns. But I also know that older women remain attractive sexual objects if, perhaps, the form of sex has changed somewhat: companionship, cuddling, becomes more important. I know, too, that older women remain beautiful. 

This can be physical. More, it relates to a variety of things like contribution and intelligence, to the fit between people. 

We presently live in a world dominated by sex and sexual activity, an obsession that would have done the Victorians proud. I wonder in all this if we are missing the point? We should be concerned not just with with activities at a point in time but with changing relationships over life.

Australia's continuing trade surpluses conceals weaknesses

One of the things I have been monitoring is the impact of covid on international trade with a particular focus on Australia. This also links to the relationship between Australia and China.

On 4 March  2021, the ABS released the latest trade data showing that Australia was maintaining a trade surplus in terms of goods and services. This is set out in the following graph from the ABS.

As Greg Jericho pointed out in an interesting Guardian article, Australia's economy is more reliant on iron ore than ever, the pandemic reduced both exports and imports, leaving a trade still making a positive contribution to GDP.  

The following graph by Greg refers to merchandise trade, but service exports and imports both declined dramatically, leaving the position broadly unaltered. 

Greg also noted the growing importance of iron ore exports, offsetting declines across the board in other export areas.  

China gives and it takes away. Iron ore exports have grown because China presently still needs Australian iron ore. This growth has been sufficient to offset an average  40% decline in most other Australian exports to China, with some exports blocked entirely.

Greg suggests that the growing dependence on iron ore reveals and conceals a narrowing of and potential fragility in Australia's export base. I agree with him.  

Setting myself a challenge

I think that I have something like six part completed posts written over the last two months. I know that I should have finished them but events - personal and external - intervened. 

This morning in a an interview with the ABC's Fran Kelly, Federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher made the point that the business of Government has to go on regardless of current controversies. I immediately said yes!

Like many Australians, I am disgusted by some of the allegations now coming out. Like many older males, events over the last few years have caused me to reflect on my own past. And yet I am very conscious and indeed confused about present change processes, some of which threaten this country's future.  

I have tried writing very short posts focused on one issue but find myself distracted.  I wonder if I can change this? We will see!            

Saturday Morning Musings - the Facebook imbroglio. What does it really mean?

I had to smile. I was lined up at the checkout when the nice lass in charge pointed out that someone was trying to talk to me. Deeply absorbed in my own thoughts, I was oblivious to this. 

We met outside for a chat. My friend reported a conversation at a local function where someone had remarked that a group that I was involved with had been reduced to a few malcontents! I had to laugh. True, by December last year the active membership had dropped to a very small number of increasingly ancient people. Since then we have restructured the committee and have created a Facebook support group with 113 members. That's not huge, but it's still good progress for two months.

I am reasonably expert in social media and use Facebook in particular as a platform to achieve specific objectives. The interconnected groups, pages that I am involved with give me a reach now over 10,000 people. That's not huge, my present interests are specialised in terms of both locality and content, but it's far more than I could reach through the conventional media even when papers were still being printed. 

All this means that I have a very particular interest in the current dispute with Facebook. However, that interest is affected by my local experiences since returning to Armidale. As a policy adviser I have have always argued that good policy depends upon movement between the macro, the overall objectives and principles, and the micro, 

I live in an electronic world as do most if not all of those making or advising on policy. That's an example of the macro. But what about those who do not? Here I have been surprised since returning to Armidale at the number of especially older Australians who do not. To illustrate.

The Armidale & District Historical Society has several hundred members. Around half do not have email. In the history course I have been running a small but significant proportion do not have email or internet access. A much bigger proportion do not access Facebook. In many cases, this is a matter of choice not money. However, there are also large groups of poorer Australians especially in regional areas who cannot afford the kit required.

The cessation of the print editions of many of the print edition of papers including free papers such as the Armidale Express Extra has effectively cut these people out of the news system outside TV and radio. I see the practical effects because I appeal to an older demographic. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me that they miss my columns, while the direct feedback that I used to get after individual columns has largely vanished. When I say to people that the columns are generally still on-line, they respond that they don't use the internet or, if they do, they are not prepared to subscribe to the on-line paper or if they do that they either don't bother or can't find the columns. A problem here is that the columns that once appeared for free every Wednesday, a known, now appear at different dates and are tagged in different ways.

A broader problem lies in the growing dependence of on-line for processing without proper alternatives. There was a simple practical example during the week. Access to a particular facility requires on-line application. You also need to do a covid checklist that can only be done on-line. This blocked out an older Australian working on a specific project. There is apparently no provision under current rules to accommodate someone who does not have internet access or skills. I think that we can do something about this, but it is an example of a problem.  

I mention all this because it explains my somewhat complicated reactions to the current dispute between Facebook and the Australian Government.

Following Facebook's blocking decision., all the Australian Community Media (ACM) mastheads carried this type of message:  Facebook news ban prompts ACM to ask Australians to delete the app. The message was reinforced via my email feeds from ACM itself and from some of individual newspapers. I had a very dusty reaction indeed, 

I would be the first to admit that Facebook has overplayed its hand. Far to many people have received message such as the above. Far to many non-news sites were blocked.  There was no discrimination between smaller independent local news sites such as the Clarence Valley Independent. their Facebook site now shows this message, and the bigger chains. Mr Zuckerberg is playing a big end of town game, but so is ACM and indeed the Federal Government itself.     

I am not a typical news consumer. If I were asked if I use Facebook to access news I would answer yes, but its not accessing news in the conventional sense.

 I use multiple media sources (radio, TV, media web sites, twitter, blogs among others) to access news. So far as Facebook is concerned, I do follow feeds from multiple media organisations, but with rare exceptions they simply indicate to me what is being covered. Exceptions include some of the immediate on-line TV coverage and small independents such as the Clarence Valley Independent where I have used Facebook as my main entry point. Now I have simply bookmarked its home page and will go direct so long as the current trouble lasts. For most of the newspaper feeds and especially ACM I do not click through because it immediately brings me up against a paywall. 

Where Facebook does come into its own as a news source lies in particular types of news where media coverage is often slow, non-existent or only to be found behind paywalls. This includes feeds from particular institutions where I have an interest and from local organisations and groups. Here the Facebook platform is actually filling a gap left open, even created, by the traditional media as their coverage becomes more restricted. But "news" in a conventional sense is peripheral to the main ways people such as me use Facebook.

One test of a policy is to ask what will happen if it's implemented. At a purely micro level ,I would not expect it to have a  significant effect on the news that I can access. Yes, some of the bigger media groups may receive some funds that will allow them to expand journalism, but I struggle to see how this can have other than a marginal effect. 

Feel free to correct me!   

Postscript

I have wandered a little in this post. Google raises somewhat different issues, but in both cases control over advertising is the underlying critical issue. I think that this is also being addressed by another ACCC inquiry, but it's complicated making for slow progress.  

Trump, Biden and Pelosi - an early assessment

Ten days into the Trump administration I wrote (Monday Forum - the administrative competence of the Trump Administration) I wrote: 

I think that the thing that most surprised me about President Trump's Executive Order "PROTECTING THE NATION FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES" was the apparent administrative incompetence involved, something that may be becoming a feature of the new US Administration at this point in its life. 

I think that this assessment was reasonably accurate. 

We are now at the same point in the Biden administration and I haven't yet formed a view beyond a degree of concern about the huge number of Executive Orders, As President Trump found out, an Executive Order does not an action make.

Rightly or wrongly, I think that President Biden's biggest problem is his own party. In  Trump, fear, hate, love and the need for objectivity in US politics, I wrote: "Nancy Pelosi. To my mind, she has become part of the US problem, impeding a US solution."  She forced and lost a first impeachment trial. Now she is trying again. 

Her base case my be stronger, but in going for an ex-President she has created circumstances where Republicans can combine to reject the move on in-principle grounds without really addressing the underlying issue. Even more precisely, they can recognise that what President Trump said was wrong and then reject the impeachment on procedural grounds. 

The Democrats may have hoped to gain by dividing the Republicans. In fact, they have given Republicans a get out of jail free card.

I may be wrong of course. We will see. In the meantime, we have to wait to see how President Biden goes. As I said, I don't have a view here yet, just a concern.      

Writer's Block

 

A weight on my shoulders

I have rarely suffered from writer's block. More normally, I have the opposite problem, too many ideas chasing to little time. Yet now I struggle to write anything really productive. The ideas and words won't flow.

I know that part of the problem is that I'm over-extended, a perennial problem that I can normally manage to some degree at least. It's partly that I have been pushing too hard, building frustration with myself. But beyond these two things lies a simple fact, my reading has collapsed. 

I don't know about you, but many of my ideas and some of my language comes from others. I pick up some ideas through personal interaction, more through books. 

Inevitably, a fair proportion of my reading is professional. Most recently, this has been strongly connected with my main history project, the history of New England, something I will write about on my history blog in my part completed annual review. This reading feeds into the community activities I have added since I returned to Armidale. I value these, I have objectives to achieve, but they do take time.

The reading outside that I have to do is the area of collapse. I used to read widely in what I call my train reading. This began with a conscious effort to pick books at random off my shelves that I had not read to read on the train. There were two rules: I had to finish the book and then write something about it. I found it very stimulating, forcing me in new directions. 

Many of the books were much older, some now 150 years old. I am not talking "classics" here, although some were. Rather, they were a varied range often inherited from my father or grandfather, most now long disposed of in the skips used by libraries to clear books considered as irrelevant or out of date. As I read the memoirs of a long dead foreign correspondent or a pioneering study of the classical world or an analysis of Chinese history, I absorbed "new" old ideas as well as new ways of writing. English style changes, but change does not always mean improvement. 

In truth, my train reading declined after I stopped travelling to Parramatta. It is one thing to read stuck on a train or bus, a second to allocate time in the morning or afternoon to read things not relevant to one's immediate concerns. Then the thought that you should really be doing other, more "relevant" things, constantly intrudes. However, I did retain other reading for a period. Most recently, that has dropped too, as have my general writing notes.   

I need to address this. Sitting in front of a computer trying to research and especially write when neither ideas or words will flow is not especially helpful. After a point, it becomes totally unproductive. Somehow I have to re-learn just how to read for pleasure without specific objective no matter what else I should be doing! 

         

  

Trump, fear, hate, love and the need for objectivity in US politics

Nancy Pelosi. To my mind, she has become part of the US problem, impeding a US solution. 

Like many Australians, I watched events unfold at the US Capitol Building with a degree of distress. Like many Australians, I felt that President Trump had gone totally off the rails. All that said, I think that the Democratic Party is in danger of doing the same. that many who oppose President Trump and his objections are doing so blindly, allowing emotion to overcome objective analysis and that we will all be poorer as a consequence.  

Some 75 million Americans voted for President Trump. He has used his marketing skills and showmanship, his understanding of the many Americans who feel disenfranchised, to develop a loyal supporter base that spans from decent Republicans through independents and even Democrats, to right wing conspiracy theorists. As many have pointed out, President Trump is a symbol of a divided America, an America in which many feel betrayed by the American system. 

Alone in his White House bunker with encircling enemies, President Trump lost all sense of tactics, let alone strategy. He kept trying to pull the levers of power even though they were becoming increasingly disconnected, even as his closest aides were distancing themselves. As recently as four weeks ago I thought that he had a path through not to retention of the presidency but to retention of influence and protection of his commercial assets. It was not a path I would have chosen, but as an analyst I could see ways in which it might work.  

His remarks and consequent Capitol riots have destroyed that path. It left a country further divided, fearful.The key need in these circumstances was unification, the calming of emotions. Instead, President Trump's opponents have resorted to emotional language driven by payback and a get Trump mentality playing on the fear of what right wing fringe groups might do that has further divided the nation.  

One common thread in all this is that Trump brought US democracy and the US system of government to its knees. I have a very different view, This episode has actually demonstrated the strength of US democracy. President Trump used every one of the diminishing levers at his disposal to try to overturn the results and failed.

The move by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats to try to impeach the President strikes me as very unwise. The previous attempt failed and was early recognised as certain to fail. In that sense, it was a symbolic gesture whose political purpose was to wound the President. It failed there too. 

Now in the last eight days of the Trump presidency, we have another Pelosi political gesture in impeachment which adds to the theatre of it all but whose practical results are quite uncertain.  It does play to the Democratic political base, but equally it plays to the underlying Trump narrative that everybody is out to get him, that he and his supporters are being robbed. In doing so, it does increase the risk that some Trump supporters may take matters into their own hands. 

For the moment in all this I am just keeping my fingers crossed that we get through to the Biden administration with minimum trouble. Then we can look at new things.    

        

Reflections on the passage of time - deaths of Mungo MacCallum and Doug Anthony

Talking to people and in on-line discussions, the major reaction to the new year has been one of relief that 2020 has finished. It has indeed been a dog's breakfast of a year! I may try to write something in detail later. For the moment, some random observations in another matter. 

Hotel Wellington, Canberra 1970. Photo Noel Butlin Archives. Prior to the opening of the National Press Club in 1976, the Wellington was one place where journalists, ministerial staff and public servants gathered to drink on a Friday afternoon   

The inexorable passage of time means that events once fresh in our minds, formative periods in our lives, fade. Then something happens to bring at least the emotions and textures alive once more.  

Two such were the deaths of Mungo MacCallum and Doug Anthony, bringing alive a particular slice of Canberra in the 1970s.  

Mungo's death has been well covered in the Australian media. This ABC piece provides a general overview of his life, the Echonetdaily piece provides a picture of his life after he moved to Ocean Shores. 

I did not really know Mungo, although I knew about his family connections with the eccentric Wentworth's, This post, 1923: Classical Greek in the New England countryside, will give you a little taste of that family. However, we did coincide at drinks.   

Canberra was a very small place in the 1970s, a gold fish bowl in which everybody knew or at least knew of everybody else. It was also a remarkably discreet place, at least so far as personal matters were concerned. The sometimes prurient reporting on personal lives that we know today still lay in the future.  

I was working in Treasury at the time and sometimes used to drink at the Hotel Wellington on a Friday afternoon. The front press bar there with its walls covered by copies of past news stories was a favourite watering hole for journalists, staffers and the younger public servants including those from Treasury. Mungo was often found there or later at the Press Club after it opened. 

My memory is of a tall, slightly stooped figure with a bushy if some what straggly beard. Casually dressed, sometimes wearing sandals, he would expound on the world and political events in a barrage of words and hand gestures. I liked him and found him interesting but rarely joined in, partly because of shyness, more because I had different interests and views. 

I knew Doug Anthony rather better. At the time I was heavily involved with the Country Party as a party official and pre-selection candidate, I was also involved in attempts to give the party new directions through bodies such as the McEwen House Group. For several years during the Whitlam period, a number of us gathered in Doug's office on budget night to analyse the budget and provide Doug for talking points in response. 

I said that Canberra was a much smaller place. It also lacked much of the security paraphernalia you find today. This allowed us to come into Parliament House (now the Old Parliament House) all the time. Technically, the attendants should have stopped us, but so long as you looked as if you knew where you were going, were walking with purpose, nobody objected. 

This access plus our knowledge of the Press Gallery was central to the most successful stunt I ever pulled, something I wrote about in  The story behind that 1976 Queanbeyan $100,000 Yowie reward. 

Upon reflection, Doug was pretty tolerant. One issue at the time was whether or not the Country Party should re-enter into coalition with the Liberals. Our view was no, because we saw this as an opportunity for the Party to continue to rebuild its separate identity. Here there has long been a divide between those whose primary focus lies in blocking Labor as compared to those who believe that the Party must maintain a clear separate identity and adhere to its traditions if it is to deliver for its constituents.   

Doug's view was that coalition was necessary. We prepared a counter case, copied it in Doug's office and distributed it to all Country Party Parliamentarians. It had little impact, but the point is that we could do it and were not reprimanded or disciplined in any way.

I found Doug personally charming, open to new ideas, someone I could follow.  I am not alone in that view.  Reflections on his death across the political spectrum show respect and liking. 

Postscript

 As an aside, I am sad that I threw out or lost in moves the material relating to this period. I think that it would now be an interesting historical record. 

Covid 19 weariness

This has been a funny mixed up year, 

At the start  of 2020 year we were coming out of a period of fire and drought. I was four months back in Armidale and was becoming comfortable with my new/old life style. Indeed, I was enjoying myself. 

On 6 February I launched my introductory course on the history of Australia's New England. That same day Helen and Christian arrived in town from Copenhagen. 

The first known Australian covid-19 case had been identified on 25 January in a traveler returning from Wuhan, but the virus still seemed somewhat remote. Matters accelerated from there, although the spread was at first uncertain. 

On 5 March I delivered lecture five on my course, on 10 March held the third discussion group. On 13 March, the National Cabinet was created to coordinate Commonwealth-State responses. On 17 March, U3A lectures were suspended indefinitely.

On 19 March, the cruise ship Ruby Princess docked in Sydney, disembarking 2,700 passengers. This started a super-spreader event spreading covid across Australia.    

Australia closed  its borders to all non-residents on 20 March, requiring returning residents to enter quarantine. On 21 March, all the states and territories introduced some form of social restrictions intended to slow the spread of the disease. 

These measure were initially successful despite the Ruby Princess. After growing rapidly, the number of new cases levelled out at about 350 per day around 22 March and then started falling at the beginning of April to under 20 cases per day by the end of the month. Then after this initial success, a second wave began in Melbourne in May and June linked to failures in hotel quarantine arrangements.

On 6 August with lower case numbers in NSW, none in our region, and the lightening of social distancing restrictions I was able to resume the course if under reasonably tight restrictions. The local mood had lightened considerably, a process that continued with the progressive reduction and then apparent suppression of community transmission. 

Then came the sudden outbreak in Sydney's Northern Beaches, leading to the area being declared a covid hotspot on 18 December. With more cases, the previously re-opening state and territory borders closed again in sometimes chaotic conditions. 

Reflecting on all this today, my main feeling was one of weariness. It's all becoming too complicated. The chaotic scenes at Adelaide Airport where travellers were told, wrongly, that they had either to return to Sydney or, alternatively, go into hotel quarantine at their own expense beggar belief. At least in the Northern Territory, airline passengers from New South Wales who were caught out by the sudden hotspot declaration for Greater Sydney yesterday were given the choice of a free flight home, a cost-free mandatory quarantine stay or a refunded ticket if they had already bought a return flight.

I do take pride in the way that Sydney's Northern Beaches have responded to the outbreak, but I think that we need a more nuanced approach, something I have commented on before. I was at an outdoor  function today that was legal yesterday, may not have been today. It's hard when you have had no community transmission to maintain precautions month after month after month after month after month. Of course, there is always a risk that someone may bring covid in. That has to be accepted and reacted to, but universal restrictions maintained for very long periods become ineffective.   

This morning the ABC's Dr Norman Swan commented if I heard him correctly that everyone in NSW should be wearing masks. Good luck with that. I have noticed that very few do now in this area. I always used to cleanse my hands before going into a store. I rarely do now and I'm not alone. You can only go on so long on a what-if basis. 

The real challenge is, I think, to get people to quick in quickly the instant a need appears. This does carry risks, but they are less (I think) than the attempted maintenance of universal restrictions that become ineffective. As part of this, I think that should be gaming of possible scenarios so that people know what to do. This needs to be done at local or regional level to be truly effective.   

   

      

     

China and Australia; China's economic power is less than we think

My post, China's apparently expanding Great Wall against Australia (18 November 2020), was an attempt to sort out my own views in the face of deteriorating relations between China and Australia. The position has continued to deteriorate since I wrote:

• Temporary "anti-dumping security deposits" have been imposed on Australian wine deposits, equivalent to tariffs ranging from 107 to more than 200 per cent. The effect is to block Australian wine from the Chinese market 
• Some seventy bulk coal carriers are still held up waiting to dock in China, entry blocked by Chinese "environmental" concerns. Coal is now being diverted to other markets
• An image, depicting a grinning Australian soldier holding a blood-stained knife to the throat of an Afghan child, was posted yesterday on the verified account of China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. An angry Australian Prime Minister demanded an apology, leading to the Chinese Foreign Ministry apparently doubling down on the issue. 

In my previous post I suggested that the Australian Government's position suffered from lack of subtlety, noting that Mr Morrison was not an especially subtle man. I also noted that we had no control over the Chinese Government. It will  do what it will do. If we are to be punished, we will be punished. We just have to get on with life regardless. Our responses are the only things that we can control. 

I'm not sure that Mr Morrison could have handled the image matter differently given local circumstances. You will find Mr Morrison's press conference on the matter here. I suspect that I might have said that, unlike China, Australia was prepared to deal with its problems in an open, transparent fashion and then moved on.  Still, that might not have been wise either! The alternative would have been to trivialize the tweet.

As I write, the Chinese Embassy has apparently just issued a press release. I quote from Sky News:

 The Chinese Embassy has responded to the uproar from federal government ministers and media over a fake social media post from Chinese Spokesperson Zhao Lijian, claiming Australia was misreading and overreacting to the image.

The embassy claimed the "the rage and roar" of some Australian politicians and media was designed to "deflect public attention from the horrible atrocities by certain Australian soldiers" and to "blame China for the worsening of bilateral ties". 

"These may be another attempt to stoke domestic nationalism," the embassy said.

"All of this is obviously not helpful to the resetting of the bilateral relationship. It's our advice the Australian side faces up to crimes committed by the Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, hold those perpetrators accountable, and bring justice to the victims.

"We also urge the Australian side to face up to the crux of the current setback of the bilateral relationship and take constructive, practical steps to help bring it back on track."

I said that Australian responses lacked subtlety. In fairness to Australian ministers, they have tried hard to focus on specific issues, treating Chinese trade claims in due process terms, Mr Morrison himself has also tried to restate Australia's position. Here I quote from Mr Morrison's answer to a question at the BCA AGM.

QUESTION: Thank you Jennifer. Good evening Prime Minister, and thank you again. My question is also about a topic that not be so concise and what’s your views on our relationship with China and the various trade bans and export bans that some sectors face and importantly your comments on what we can do as business to manage business to business relationship and trading partnerships from a business point of view? 

PRIME MINISTER: Well, it is a very difficult issue and I won't pretend it's not. There are clearly tensions there and have been played out again over the last couple of days but I think what we've seen over the last couple of days is you know what is more at the source of these tensions. Australia has always been keen for a productive, open, respectful, mutually beneficial partnership with China and we've put a lot of effort into that over a long period of time as have, as have the members of the BCA who sit around this table and so many outside. Australia has not changed, our view is the same. Our view about our national interests, our view about securing those interests, whether it's on foreign investment or technology or communications or wherever it happened to be, our Ag sector, how our polity runs, how our freedom of our press, our parliaments, our views on all of these things haven't changed they're exactly the same but I, I had not seen before say, 10 or 20 years ago, and I often have these conversations with former Prime Minister Howard. It was a very different China back then. You wouldn't have seen a list of alleged grievances come out of the Chinese Embassy that we've seen in the last 24 hours. You wouldn't have seen that list 15 years ago. That was not the outlook that was there about Australia but Australia is no different to back then. Australia's democracy, what we stand for how we stand up for those things when we speak out, what we believe is important, the integrity of our systems. These are things that we won't compromise and I understand that others understand this as well. It struck me, as I said on the media this morning, that the tension is based on Australia just being Australia. Now, some suggest that this all could be fixed by a phone call. I think that doesn't really appreciate what's really at stake here. Australia has never, at any stage, not been willing to have a meeting or pick up the phone but I'll tell you what I'm not prepared to do. I'm not prepared to agree to a meeting on the condition that Australia compromise and trade away any of those things that were frankly listed in that, in that unofficial list of grievances. Some of them were misconstrued. The other thing that we struggle with and I've mentioned this in some of my national international speeches this year, is it's important that people understand, those who are dealing with Australia, that we set our own agenda, that we have our own interests and we make our own decisions. We don't make decisions at the behest of other countries. Never have, never will. We make our own decisions. If people or countries are unhappy with decisions Australia has made, that's not because someone else told us to do it. It's because we've decided to do it. So we're the ones who can talk about it and we can sit down and help to build understanding about the decisions we’ve taken. I think that's very important. Australia's relationship with both the US and China can't be seen through the prism of China's relationship with the United States or the US's relationship with China. That's their relationship. Where they've got issues in that relationship, that's up to them. We have relationships with both of them, just as Japan does where I was just yesterday and the day before and so it would be, I think, unfair to look at Australia's decisions and Australia's policies as somehow a function of our relationships with other countries and so I would hope that we can make this point, that we remain always very keen to continue to pursue a mutually beneficial relationship but if Australia just being itself, is the cause for tensions, then that's not something that we can change and so we need to be able to push through that and continue to hold to those perspectives in a polite and respectful way as we can but it's, being Australia is something we should never apologise for. Now, it's important that we work through the technical issues that are raised in relation to trade. Now, the Chinese government rejects any notion that, I assume, that the issues that have been raised as the source of the tension is is is the product is being worked out through these trade, these trade issues. That's a matter for them. But we just have to practically work through those through the channels we've got and we will and if others are introduced into that for whatever reason, then we'll just have to practically and patiently work through that as well. But you know, the Indo-Pacific will benefit from trading relationships like the RCEP we agreed to last weekend, where partners can deal openly and confidently with each other and in a transparent way, and where there are tensions and I said this at the RCEP meeting on the weekend that where there are issues that arise, then leaders and ministers have to be prepared to talk to each other. Now, I'm very prepared to do that but all it takes is for that to be arranged. 

I have quoted this in full despite it's length because it is a quite important foreign policy response. 

As I said, we cannot control China, only our responses. 

My personal view is that China's so called "wolf diplomats" have overreached.  They have mixed together too many messages, in so doing ensuring that their apparent external aims cannot be achieved. This is a big topic, so I just want to focus on one thing, trade.

In a piece in the Conversation, Rod Tyers and Yixiao Zhou argued that an all-out trade war with China would cost Australia 6% of GDP. I actually think that Australians might accept that just at present, but it's not as clear cut as that. 

We have seen with President Trump that trade restrictions are a very imperfect weapon. As a simple example, according to the Hellenic Shipping News the diversion of high grade Australian coking coal from China to India and Japan as a consequence of trade blockages has already delivered China an own goal by giving the Japanese and Indian steel industries a price advantage over their Chinese competitors. 

Still, for the purposes of discussion, let's assume that over the next few years China moves to cut Australian imports to zero. It won't happen, but it's a good working assumption. The arguments about relative costs and benefits assume, correctly enough, that Australia is a small economy relative to the size of China's and that Australia will therefore suffer more. It's not quite as clear cut as that. 

Take coal as an example. The loss of the Chinese market to Australia coal will open the Chinese market place to others. That coal will be sourced from local Chinese higher cost producers, that imposes a cost on China,  or from other other producers. As coal is sent to China from other sources, that will open a market for Australian coal in other markets, The end result may be lower prices for Australian coal, but this is actually not clear. 

Or consider all the imported inputs in Australian production that come from China. Australian producers or importers would shift from China to other sources such as Vietnam. Australian is not a huge market in global terms, between one and three percent, but it's not insignificant. The shift of Australian demand to other suppliers would give those suppliers a scale advantage in competing against China. 

As I said, a total trade ban is not likely, but Chinese trade restrictions can only really hurt Australia in the short term. Perhaps more importantly, China is still proclaiming its support for an open trading order. It can only impose so much cost on Australia before its claims become absurd. 

So in all this, I think that we can just take a cool head, at least in trade terms. China can hurt, but it's economic power is more limited than people realise.           

  

Discomfort and discordance when your own past becomes part of history

 It’s strange when you read a history that is analysing events that you lived through yourself. The events are familiar, of course, but there’s also an element of surprise at things you didn’t realize at the time, and at the matters that the historian has placed emphasis on, when you weigh them against your own perspectives and memories. It’s also rather disconcerting to realize that your own lifespan is now considered ‘history’.‘ The Resident Judge of Port Phillip reviewing Michelle Arrow's "The Seventies: The personal, the political and the making of modern Australia." 

I must say that this comment struck a real cord. There is something disconcerting about about finding part of your life the subject of history, to find that what individual historians select as important jars with your own recollections and lived experience. 

Aquarius Festival Nimbin, May 1973

Historians select their own questions based on what they are interested in and consider to be important. Inevitably this is based on the present. But if you lived through a period, if it's still in your current memory, then those selected topics may seem peripheral or, if important, less important than other questions you considered to be important at the time. Your views may be re-balanced with time and new experiences, that is inevitable and indeed desirable, but there is a discordance.

This has been much on my mind because of the introductory course I have been delivering on the history of the broader New England, the New England Tablelands and surrounding river valleys. The last part of the course covered the period from 1945 to 2000, including the 1970s. Here I had to choose what I should focus on, what to include and exclude, how much weight to place on particular issues, recognising that I could not cover everything. I also had to recognise my own biases. 

The approach I followed was based in part on the geographic area under study. Was it relevant to the history of the area under study.? As an example, I said very little about the Whitlam period because much of that story including the dismissal was not relevant to my story. 

My approach was also influenced by the fact that I was looking forward, not back. By the time I came to the 1970s I had spent multiple lectures sketching out the area's history. I needed to address change from the perspective of what had come before. Looking forward with questions dictated by the past is very different from looking back with  questions dictated by the present. 

Let me try to illustrate.The 1970s were a tip decade, one that marked a break between the Australian present and past. This was also a period that marked the start of a structural decline within New England, this actually began earlier but accelerated, that would consign many of the things that we had talked about on the course, the dreams and aspirations, to the dustbins of history. I had to address this, to try to explain.        

Consider the rise of the counter-culture movement that included the Aquarius Festival but began in the sixties. 

This was part of a global phenomenon that had considerable local impacts in social and cultural terms. I tried to explain that. However, the combination of cheap rural land associated with the decline of dairying, the rise of the surfing culture and the counter-culture movement marked the start of a sea-change rush in the 1980s that would, among other things, totally disrupt the balance that had existed in populations terms between coastal and inland New England. In so doing, it would disrupt and then break the sense of Northern identity that had previously facilitated cooperation between local and regional areas despite intense parochialism. 

That is one example. There are many others. 

I was at least a bit player in many of the events I am trying to teach. In some case, I am still a player.

This raises obvious questions of perception and bias.  But it also creates a sense of dislocation at many levels. I read histories that conflict with my lived experience. Then in trying to teach, I have to challenge my own perceptions and memories. It's a sometimes uncomfortable experience!  

  

Sunday Essay - Armidale: avoiding submergence in the local

 

Beardy Street Armidale, 1964

It's very hot in Armidale today, 28.0C as I write. I find the heat enervating. I suppose that's a sign of just how much I have acclimatised in the twelve months since my return to Armidale. 

Writing of growing up in Armidale. I said that it was an unusual experience, intensely local on one side, international on the other.

The very particular rhythms  of life in Armidale and, to a lesser degree, the North dominated life. Sydney was remote, Oxford and Cambridge closer. I was more aware of global developments than I was of events in that parochial metro centre huddled round its harbour. Even then, the city's growth had created its own urban sprawl with outlying suburbs that few visited or knew much about. 

From birth until my twentieth birthday I visited Sydney perhaps eight times. 

Three of those trips were to Manly for holidays, creating an image in my mind of central Manly, the harbour and ferries and the Sydney CBD. Childhood memories are vivid, I remember the way that pineapple crush made my nose sting with the cold. 

Two of the trips were were for sporting events, one running in the GPS athletics, one  to play rugby.against Cranbrook. Two more were transiting Sydney on the way too or from New Zealand. In all cases I stayed in what might be called the inner city or at least that area and immediate suburbs. In the remaining trips I transited Sydney, spending the day wandering around Central waiting for my next train.  

Later and especially after I moved to Canberra, I would visit Sydney many times, For the moment, I am simply trying to illustrate how remote Sydney was when I was growing up. I came from a middle class family. Many people had less money and fewer opportunities to interact with Sydney. Many had never been to Sydney at all. 

Tattersall's Hotel, Armidale, before modifications in the 1930s

Once I decided to return to Armidale to live, I started to dig back in to create and recreate links. I knew that the city had changed and had no automatic expectation that I would fit in. I had to earn my place. As it happened, I need not have worried. My newspaper columns have given me a continuing base in town. Indeed, many did not realise that I was not living in Armidale and indeed had not for twenty years.  I also found that the combination of my personal history  with the work done in rebuilding my connections had paid of in ways I could never have expected. But I also found a problem.

Armidale is a scarred city, scarred by history and present lack of vision. I find this difficult to describe. 

Arnidale as a city has been greatly affected by external decisions and especially by externally imposed changes in education, now the city's main industry. Those changes are externally imposed I find that people are focused on internal responses, on the failure of those responses, not the challenges themselves I find that people are so concerned with parry and issues divides, areas dealt in absolutes, that they cannot respond to cross-areas except in political or preferred issues framework, 

I experienced this in the context of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Authority (APVMA)  move to Armidale. In the face of virulent attack from ACM's Canberra Times, I attempted to mount a counter case based on economic and policy analysis. I struggled. 

The Armidale Express simply picked up the arguments from its fellow ACM masthead. Those opposed to Mr Joyce attacked the move. Labor's Joel Fitzgibbon said that anybody who expected the move to happen had rocks in their head. There were arguments about the procurement process, arguments picked up in detail by the Canberra Times.  In the end, APVMA did move, but Armidale did not deserve the move. It had worked very hard to stop it. 

During the APVMA discussion, Col Murray as Mayor of Tamworth attacked the  APVMA move. It was, he suggested, featherbedding Armidale. Why shouldn't Tamworth get benefits from decentralisation? While I attacked him at the time, I have to say that I have some sympathy with the Mayor. 

When both the Teachers' College (!929) and the University College (1938) were established in Armidal,e there was no opposition from the Northern Press nor from other Northern towns. Ii was seen a a logical extension that would benefit all, Today, Armidale residents and many civic leaders oppose water to the Costa tomato plant in Guyra, the extension of university education in Tamworth, on the grounds that it might damage Armidale. And then Armidale people wonder why those outside the city oppose things that might benefit Armidale! 

At the moment, I am working on a new project, the development of a new approach to UNE's Heritage Centre.   Success depends on getting people to recognise the benefits that the Centre offers to Northern NSW and beyond. Sometimes I regard Armidale as the greatest impediment to success.  

If this is seen as an Armidale focused initiative it's dead, wrecked on the rocks of dislike of Armidale. I really had no idea how great this had become until I returned. If we come up with a model that involves diminution of the Armidale role, can we sell it in Armidale?

Bluntly,  Armidale needs to ship up, to adopt a a broader Northern perspective, or it should really ship out.