TINA: There Is No Alternative…

Alan Baird  writes: Re. “Rundle: Manning, Assange and the end of the age of innocence” (Friday). Ever since Bob Hawke disappeared overseas in the USA and emerged a “safe pair of hands” with Oz foreign policy, the ALP has had a generic Liberal Party policy on anything relating to the USA: broadly, what the USA wants, the USA gets. It’s a policy that works similarly to Rupert Murdoch’s policy on editorial independence: if Rupert has to explain what he wants on any headline, he doesn’t want you as an editor.

Every now and then someone in authority in Labor has opened his mouth and spoken some unspeakable truth about some aspect of US foreign affairs and has had to recant in a “time-is-of-the-essence” fashion. A good example was Mark Latham “slobbering a bibful” about the genius of George W. Bush, only to appear a nanosecond later tete-a-tete with a tasteful arrangement  of US and Oz flags to explain that he didn’t mean it … and that the USA was absolutely TRIFFICK.

It was a very similar scenario when a head of the federal police (during the Howard tenure) happened to mouth a stupid and outrageous assertion that being involved in Iraq could make Australia a terrorist target. Well, hush mah mouf! He didn’t mean that at all and his words had been “taken out of context”, the context presumably being that Australia wasn’t involved in the war in Iraq, and that there were no people of Middle Eastern extraction on Australian soil, visiting or resident, nursing aggrieved notions about Australia being involved in the war in Iraq, which we weren’t. Or not much. A bit, perhaps. Maybe that was true because I later recall Obama mentioning (when Little Johnny disparaged Barry) that our own Man of Steel had sent a rowing boat of soldiers over to assist where they could … and to butt out of US elections.

Since those enlightening days, each Labor leader has plainly been “taken out the back” and had the policy explained, so that in future, it is understood that no Australian is allowed to embarrass the USA in any way, and if they do, they’ll have Bob Carr to help them to the fullest capabilities of the Dept. of Foreign Affairs. Especially if he has Julian as a first name.

Re-examining “English only”

Chris O’Regan writes: Re. “Do you speak-a my language?” (Friday). Joe Boswell’s letter must have a different definition of “disrespect” to the one I learned. In the first point, Buswell might like to lecture the Swiss about how a policy of official monolingualism is necessary for national prosperity. He also might like to consider just how many nations worldwide invest a huge amount of time and effort in making their young citizens at least bilingual.

Secondly, the proposition that Aboriginal languages “were spoken in these lands before English” rather shamefully ignores the fact that these languages are still spoken, and were spoken on January 1, 1901, whether or not the newly formed government preferred to acknowledge the fact. And the fact that these languages are less spoken then they once were is in no small part due to official government programs aimed at their effective eradication. There is no message in “English only” curricula other than a person’s culture and their language are not worth preserving. That this level of cultural prejudice could still exist in the modern times unexamined is pretty concerning.

The best Labor leader the Libs ever had

Martin Gordon writes: Re. “Silhouettes against the storm as Labor faces catastrophe” (Friday). Bernard Keane missed a few points in his generally good analysis. The odds of a switch to Kevin Rudd are slight (but we could all be proved wrong there), but it is unusual for a party to stick with a leader in the face of such disastrous polls and reject the alternative party leader as worse than defeat. Keane referred to the Coalition dilemma with Howard in 2007 — while Howard stayed too long in my view, he did enjoy positive net approval of 6% according to Newspoll. (51% v 45%). He is the only PM in the last 20 years to exist office with positive net approval. (Keating was -18%, Rudd -19% and Gillard is around -30% plus currently.)

The political equation is to seek political power by seeking a parliamentary majority. To prefer to lose rather than change leader,suggests extreme conviction, resignation but certainly a complete inversion of the political equation. Having met a lot of public servants in Canberra I was amazed how hated Rudd was as PM, due to his manner and management style, so I appreciate why a majority of his colleagues are so adamant.

Peter Brent described Julia Gillard as “the first post-authority leader”, but I am constantly amazed how Gillard picks the wrong options, she may be described in time as the best Labor leader the Liberal Party has ever had.