SIEV X - Will it be just a memory ?

In October 2001, 353 asylum seekers drowned on the way to Australia. Questions remain on the involvement of the then Howard government which was determined to disrupt the flow of refugees into Australia. Why was the government so determined to prevent the disclosure of information regarding this "incident" ? What was the involvement of the Australian Federal Police ?

Even the construction of the memorial to the victims was discouraged. Today the "temporary" memorial still stands on the bank of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra. It was a remarkable project created with the involvement of schools and other communities.

For a helicopter view of the site, click on the object below (sourced from Youtube). (Visit http://www.sievxmemorial.com/ )

Hissy Howard

Letter in The Australian, 11 Dec 2007, in the aftermath of the Howard defeat -

Not happy about John

Someone not happy with John Howard standing outside his campaign office in Eastwood demonstrating his displeasure.

Howard's Transformation

This cartoon in the Weekend Australian of 13-14th October 2007 summarises it all . . .

Howard and the Aborigines

Speculations are rife as to the real reasons behind John Howard’s latest backflip – that over the status of the aborigines. For more than a decade he had resisted any kind of reconciliation and refused to provide a formal apology for past atrocities. Recently he even introduced draconian measures to deprive aboriginal communities of some basic rights. Then suddenly yesterday, he declared that the aborigines were deserving of special status in the Australian society and he would initiate a referendum to incorporate that in the Australian Constitution !

Some guessed that he had a true change of heart and perhaps was worried about his legacy in the face of imminent election defeat. Others believed he was pleading to more progressive constituents in his electorate so that he might snatch a win from the jaws of defeat.

There could be another reason. He might be attempting to create fear among his more ignorant constituents. By making a symbolic accommodation with the aborigines he might be indicating that Labor would be doing much more and therefore something to be fear for.

Contrasts in Leadership

Peter Beattie, Premier of Queensland has just stepped down after 10 years saying that leadership renewal is in the interest of the party. Recently other State leaders had stood down for the sake of leadership renewal.

In contrast, the Prime Minister John Howard who is 13 years older, is saying today that he intends to contest the next election because he is the only one who could win it.

The comparison is most striking - Howard is only there to win elections and nothing else matters more.

As Paul Keating said, the "desiccated coconut" is "Araldited" to his seat.

Collaborating in Silence

Steve Burrell of Sydney Morning Herald on Aug 14, 2007 ( http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/nobody-tackles-after-pm-throws-a-hospital-pass/2007/08/13/1186857430882.html )

listed for comments a number of Howard government’s targeted pork barrelling in recent months in a cynical and desperate effort to survive the next elections. The list included

- Taking over a non-viable hospital in Tasmania

- Funding legal challenges to amalgamation of local councils recommended by an independent review

- Propping up a timber mill that was in danger of losing supplies after breaching contracts with the state NSW government

All the interventions were in marginal seats. All were directed against reforms which governments and businesses advocated.

Burrell’s main point was not that the Howard government’s desperate intervention was surprising. It was the deafening silence from the business sector. A sad state of affairs indeed !

Howard on his knees?

No, he wasn't appearing before George W Bush. The poor guy just had a fall, just like his ratings. Will he get up again?

Watch out for the Asians, John

Telstra's Phil Burgess has raised a new excuse for keeping out Singapore-owned Optus from the broadband competition. "We're talking about turning over Australia's only nationwide telecommunications network to a consortia run by the Singapore Government. .... that executes people...." he said.

(see
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21883831-2702,00.html)

Burgess' past record on the issue of capital punishment is not known. But cautioning John Howard about an Asian threat is a well proven tactic, one that was successfully used by Qantas when Singapore Airlines wanted to take over the failing Ansett.

Just mention to John Howard about a potential threat from the Asians. It always works.

Will CEOs and economists cut their wages to help the economy?

Some writers to The Australian criticised complaints about Work Choices implying they did not understand economics. Here is Kay's reply in today's Australian --

Work Choices = Lower Wages

Treasurer Peter Costello smirked that interest rates would rise if Labor were to dismantle Work Choices once in government. This seems to be a desperate attempt to bring back Howard's successful interest rates fear campaign of the 2004 Elections. Kay put it in another way in her letter to The Australian today -

A Bilingual Encounter on NSW Elections Day

At the polling station of affluent Beecroft for last Saturday's NSW State Elections I watched with some unease a Caucasian woman demanding from an 80-year-old Chinese lady what the Chinese characters were saying on the How To Vote cards the latter was handing out.

As the old lady spoke very little English, I ventured forward to help. After perusing the bilingual material, I reassured the voter that the Chinese scripts were exact translations of the parts in English - how to vote for the Unity Party in the Upper House and in the Lower House. The voter stomped off, not entirely convinced, probably a little suspicious that we were in some kind of collusion.

I am not a supporter of the Unity Party. It claims to be a party promoting multiculturalism but it had often if not invariably given their preferences to the John Howard's party regardless of his past records on multicultural and race issues. In one instance they had even reneged on a preference swap agreement with the Labor Party towards the Elections Day and after the How to Vote cards have been printed, receiving the preferences from Labor but giving theirs to the Liberals! Sadly many new Asian Australians are either ignorant of the rather complex electoral voting system or oblivious of the Unity Party's preferential deals.

Which brings us to the question of why the Unity Party would use this frail 80-year-old who spoke hardly a word of English to hand out election day materials in affluent Beecroft? What do they hope to gain in contesting a lower house seat such as Epping, apart from grabbing some unintended votes from the Asian community for the Liberal Party ?

I believe the Unity Party a party of Asian business people out to establish contacts and do convenient deals with some ultimate private business 0bjectives.

Howard's Emergency Landing

Prime Minister Howard's undignified dash out of an RAAF plane inspired Kay's letter in Sydney Morning Herald (19 Mar 07) --

Alliance against .......?

There is a sudden push by John Howard to form security alliances with some of our northern neighbours. One has just been signed with Japan. Suddenly there is a talk about enlisting India into the alliance (see Dennis Shanahan’s article in The Australian today

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21384779-601,00.html) which US Vice President Cheney apparently raised with Howard in his recent trip Down Under after it was rejected by Bush administration. Of course the deputy sheriff could not bring himself to refuse this one.

I learnt from one of Lee Kuan Yew’s speeches many decades ago that when there is a call for an alliance the logical question is “against whom?” Howard carefully dropped the hint by saying that he thought China not be upset. We are all too used to Howard’s dog whistling to know that he usually means what he denies. Shanahan had no qualms about pointing out that an alliance with Japan and India would be an encircling of China.

It would suit the US paranoia about China’s economic growth. But what is there for Australia?

Is it a coincidence that Opposition leader Rudd who is doing spectacularly in the polls despite all the mud slinging, happens to be fluent in Mandarin apart from other things Chinese? Is it a coincidence that Howard’s own constituency may become vulnerable because of the increased number of Chinese and other Asian migrants who would be impressed by Rudd language skills?

Howard is experienced enough to know that China is not going to be bothered by a few gestures for internal consumption. He also knows from experience that he can scare some of his older votes with the old fear of China and of someone like Rudd who can be cast as a Sinophile. He is probably hoping that increasing distrusts of China would ultimately discourage Rudd from using his powerful language weapon in the elections later this year.

The sacrificing of some foreign policies can be a small price to pay to retain one’s power.

Howard's Legacy

Kay's letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald today -

RUDD vs HOWARD

For the past week, we have been hearing John Howard and the rest of his cabinet pouring smears on Kevin Rudd over his presence in three gathering which included Brian Burke.

Rudd has been trying to explain it all in his usual analytical and rational way. Along comes Paul Keating and contributed the best lines of the debate so far:

“Look, look, Kevin has done something, he's met Brian Burke. But I'll tell you what he hasn't done - he hasn't lied to his nation about reasons for committing Australia to a non-UN sponsored invasion and war. He hasn't turned his head from the plight of a boat full of wretched individuals looking for shelter, and then adding insult to injury by saying they threw their kids overboard first, you know. And he hasn't prostituted the UN Oil-for-Food program by falsely declaring that Australia's wheat shipments were not ultra vires of the UN guidelines. Now, this is what this prime minister has presided over, you know …I mean, look, you know, Howard has, you know, lied to the country about the reasons for going to war, going to war for God's sake, and now he wants us to believe it's a major problem if Kevin Rudd meets Brian Burke, you know, Brian who?”

and

“Well, the thing about poor old Costello, he's all tip and no iceberg, you know. He (laughs), you know, he can throw a punch across the parliament, but the bloke he should be throwing the punch to his Howard. Of course, he doesn't have the ticker for it.”

Perhaps Rudd needs to learn to use the old methods to deal with Howard and Costello. From Keating.

WHY HOWARD ATTACKED OBAMA

Interesting point made by Michael Gawenda in today’s Sydney Morning Herald -

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/howard-has-tarred-himself/2007/02/14/1171405293594.html

that John Howard attacked only Obama Barack but not other Presidential candidates - like Senator John Edwards (and, if I may add, Senator Hilary Clinton) for opposing the Iraq War.

Why?

Of course, John Howard has a long history of targeting those who are not Anglo Saxon. Is he up to his tricks again now that the polls are going badly against him?

THE SIGNS THAT SHOCKED SYDNEY

Not often are churches faced with irate customers or rather congregation members. Signs like the one below appeared outside many churches, including the Presbyterian Church in conservative Epping, smack in the middle of John Howard’s constituency.

I looked it up in my copy of the Bible, it was right there in Matthews 5:44.

I suppose those who are unhappy can take it or leave the church. Others may prefer to change the Bible. After all, history has been rewritten many times.

TAINTED AUSSIE FLAG

Our leaders from both sides of politics have expressed shock and horror over the banning of the Aussie flag from a Sydney youth music festival Big Day Out. Perhaps they missed those images that were flashed to the TV screens and the Internet for the whole world to see during the shameful events of the Cronulla riots. Here are some as a reminder -

Nowadays, I too get a bit nervous when young people wrapped the Aussie flag come near me. Perhaps the leaders have left it too late to condemn the wrong use of the flag. To many it no longer represents what it used to. Australia no longer represents what she used to. Our Prime Minister had made sure of that over the past decade.

Rudd's Interview (Unofficial translation)

In one of my previous posts I mentioned about Kevin Rudd handling a TV interview in Mandarin. Very interestingly I received comments from someone with the blog name of Goodtobewithyou, Rudd’s trademark greeting. Goodtobewithyou was kind enough to point out to me the link to the website of Phoenix TV network (a Hong Kong TV network partly owned by News Corp) where I could find a transcript of the interview, in Chinese of course, but he then asked if I could translate it for him! For someone supposedly to have an occasional contact with Mr Rudd, I thought he could get one more quickly from the man himself. We can only speculate who this mysterious and anonymous character really is – and if only we can get on his own well protected blog!

http://goodtobewithyou.blogspot.com

Being quite keen to read the full text, I looked for an English translation which I thought must surely exist. I had hoped for a quick perusal without the tedium of frequent references to my still brand new Chinese-English dictionary. The most obvious place was Rudd’s own office. Alas, my email went unanswered – either because they were too busy planning the takeover of Canberra or just plain rude! Undeterred, I ventured into an unofficial translation myself, while under my breath thanking my parents for encouraging me to build a basic foundation in Chinese during school. After some hours’ work, it was finished, all five pages of it. To post it in the normal way would take up too much web space on the opening page of my blog. Instead, I have posted them as comments, in two parts, below.

Iemma vs the Sheik

Premier Iemma of NSW must be happy to read that the bizarre Sheik Hilaly is considering contesting against him in the state elections in March.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/shock-showdown-for-iemma/2007/01/20/1169096030968.html

Apart from allowing the people (including the Muslims who make up more than 10% of the voters in the seat) to make a clear choice it it will be an opportunity for the government to debate the issues regarding the Muslim minorities.

Most of all, it puts the Liberal coalition leader Debnam in a quandary - who will he support or oppose ?

35 Days

I was away for 35 days and many things changed. Firstly and very sadly one of my best friends died, which among many things, reminded me of my mortality. Then there was a local council by-election which proved once again how resistant people are to change. And finally there was a new Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd.

Locked in a hotel room with my sick daughter in freezing Harbin a couple of years ago, I channel surfed the TV and happened upon an interview of Rudd by a Chinese reporter. I was most impressed with Rudd's handling of very technical foreign relations issues in fluent Mandarin.

It would serve him well if people are impressed with the ALP policies under his leadership as I was with his Mandarin!