Tag: Politics

• The Fascist Dimensions of ‘Tom Clancy’s The Division’

  April 23, 2019 10:18 am Comments Off on The Fascist Dimensions of ‘Tom Clancy’s The Division’

  No one plays looter shooters for the story, and ‘The Division’ – whose sequel was released recently to critical acclaim – is no different. But maybe we should be turning a more critical eye to the stories we’re invited to live out.
  Here’s the concerned mothers’ summary: in ‘The Division’, players assume the role of the eponymous Strategic Homeland Division Agents in a crisis-stricken America, equipped with advanced technology and high-powered weaponry and tasked with rebuilding society. In the mainstream player-versus-environment sections you spend most of your time shooting the undesirables, upgrading your base of operations, and gaining newer and better gear.
  It’s the last line of defence – the unimaginable has happened, and all that remains are those select few of us who can be there to save us from it. Society can no longer turn to above, so it turns to within. “We are your co-workers. We are your neighbours. We might even be – your friends”, declares the opening cutscene. It’s the preparation for the worst despite the prayers for the best. It’s a fascist fantasy.
  Fascism, as Wikipedia provides, is characterised by ultranationalism, concentrated power, the suppression of opposition, and rigid control of society. The ABC states that fascists “embrace hierarchies within nations” and the notion that all life is struggle, typically between binary classes. The power fantasy of ‘The Division’ sits comfortably with all of these notions.
  The futuristic gadgets used by Agents come with an intended use, functioning within gameplay and canonically in efficient adherence to design. They are loaded with the normative supposition that they must work a certain way, against certain types of people. The technology is visually distinctive, bringing the flat orange motif of the player’s user interface into the game world. Bestowed to Division Agents exclusively, they separate the players from an otherwise recognisable setting sans post-apocalypse, including friendly non-playable grunt soldiers. Rather than the civilian militia that Machiavelli envisioned in The Art of War, which would draw its armed power horizontally to stave off undue State pressure (itself a notion with significant issues), we draw on what are effectively our superpowers vertically, from a source that is asocial to the common. We get the sense that we have been selected for a higher purpose.
  The America that anointed us is not the mundane bureaucratic government that turns around every four years. This is closed rooms sealed by voice-recognition doors, the stuff of conspiracy theories that will never be taken seriously. We’re like the Constitution – all the self-righteousness, but now we have our own distinct will to power and the guns to exercise it. No one but us and the structure we’re a part of has a claim to what we are or what we stand for. The Division initiative goes deeper than the State that is publicly accountable and malleable. Its mindset draws on a core that is national and also nationalistic – designed to last unchanged and unfettered for a thousand years and more.
  In Foucault’s imagining of the panopticon, the repressive state has given way to the surveillance state. A prisoner visible from a central watchtower at all times, you are never sure if you are watched, only that at all times you might be watched. The American State of ‘The Division’ is not only prepared to turn our neighbours into spies who have the training and extra-legal capacity to kill dissidents with impunity, it has done exactly that.
  In the crisis state, not only rebellion, but anything that might resemble rebellion, becomes forbidden – and this encompasses actions and thoughts far greater than mere anarchism. The Division sees in binaries – there are refugees and escaped prisoners, Agents and Rogue Agents, friendlies and enemies. A vast heterogony of others and near-others becomes only hostile. In staying away from the boundary so that we remain on the right side of this strict dichotomy, even mere thoughts of anything beyond the status quo become useless. We cannot think of anything better than what we have, only things better from what we have.
  Maybe it’s ridiculous to ask for something not tainted by some latent celebration of fascism from anything stamped with Tom Clancy’s name. And we can only expect so much from a videogame that wants both a simple split between good guys and bad guys to achieve its gameplay loop and to take place in a recognisable setting. But part of why it’s so ahem problematic is because of Ubisoft’s window dressing. We’re dropped into a supposedly liberal-progressive context with a diverse cast of characters including women, queer people, people of colour, and people with disabilities. Toxicity, while it exists, is external to the main and intended design of the game. We are told to relax – that this, even at least placidly, speaks to our values. But the game’s logic remains steeped in particularly fascist tendencies.
  I mean, I’ll probably still play ‘The Division 2’ for like 40 hours after I’m done with exams.

  Jeremy Tsuei

• Sorry, Prime Minister Who?

  April 13, 2019 6:34 pm Comments Off on Sorry, Prime Minister Who?

  Once upon a time, Australia used to go to the ballot box and vote for a party, a team to become the federal government… unfortunately, the last time that happened was literally when I was five.
  I have absolutely no recollection of Australians voting for a government and then having that same, or substantially similar, government makeup when they next went to the ballot box three years later.
  The election has now been called, and truthfully, I have no faith that a re-elected Morrison Government will still have ScoMo at the helm in three years.
  In the last decade, we have had five different prime ministers: Rudd, Gillard, (Rudd again briefly), Abbott, Turnbull, and finally, Scott Morrison. It may be fun to watch the unscheduled media circus every time there is a leadership challenge but is variety what we really want for the nation’s top job?

  “…it should not be an idyllic dream to hope that the government at the beginning of their term actually resembles the government which seeks re-election.”

  When Kevin ’07 was elected we we thought he would be in it for the long-haul.  Tony Abbott promised stability following the Labor Party’s woes, but then the sad opinion polls saw him out too. On and on it goes, until we reach today – over a decade of party infighting, opinion polls determining the end of politicians’ careers. One of the biggest ironies is that the minority government, led by the first usurper Julia Gillard, was marked by more stability and passed more new laws than any of the coalition governments since.
  Now I do not like gambling, but I’m going to take a guess and say that the Coalition will lose the election. At least part of the reason is that nobody actually knows who is part of the Coalition.
  Naming government ministers has become like one of those niche Buzzfeed quizzes which test your intellect. Personally, I will be impressed if you can name just four government frontbenchers.
  Scott Morrison bus-ted?
  For a PM who is supposed to specialise in marketing and slogans, he has failed to build brand recognition around his government. Sure, he might have created his own persona as a ‘fair dinkum’ bloke travelling the country in his bus, but he hasn’t done the same sell-job with his party.
  With many of the old guard, retiring and the party still unable to acknowledge that there are not very many female representatives, the only thing they’re trying to sell me is the budget (because that’s supposed to make me excited…). I know barely any of this government’s policies and don’t know if they’ve changed since old Malcolm was top-dog. All I get from the media is that it is a new face but the same product, and the government has done nothing to prove that wrong.
  Maybe I’m being unfair: there are so many members of Parliament and there is no way we can know them all. But with so many leadership challenges, and with so many ministers retiring from the Liberal Party, I have no idea what the next three years will look like if people decide to vote blue.

  “It may be fun to watch the unscheduled media circus every time there is a leadership challenge but is variety what we really want for the nation’s top job?”

  In comparison, Labor at the moment may not be wholly stable, but at least I can name a few likely frontbenchers and have a basic knowledge of their voting records. More than anything, they’ve made a point of letting the media and voters know that they have learnt the lesson from the last time and will not be doing the same again. And they’ve been kind of orderly during their time in opposition.
  The ‘broad-church’ of the Liberal party has cracks in the building and a dwindling congregation.  The Nationals are playing personality politics between the biggest male egos. It is going to take some real effort to make me believe that they can all play nice.
  Everyone has different things to think about when heading out for their May 18 democracy sausage, but one team certainly hasn’t assured me that they won’t fall apart halfway through the game. 
  The Coalition government, the Labor party and the media make a big deal of the fact that there is a lot of infighting up on Capital Hill. Perhaps this is coming to be what we expect from Australian politics.  But if this is the new norm, should we really just accept it? I think not. This is the election to make it clear that factional disputes should not determine who is the Prime Minister.
  And really, it should not be an idyllic dream to hope that the government at the beginning of their term actually resembles the government which seeks re-election.

  Ben Lawrence is the the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Woroni. The opinions in this piece are his alone and are not representative of Woroni. If you would like to submit an article on the election, please email a pitch outlining your idea to write@woroni.com.au.
  No matter your political persuasion, it is important that you have your voice heard. Make sure you are enrolled to vote and that your details are up to date on the AEC website. 

  Ben Lawrence discusses how ‘ScoMo’ has failed to build brand recognition around his government.

  Ben Lawrence

• Finally in Canberra… there’s an election coming

  November 7, 2018 3:08 pm Comments Off on Finally in Canberra… there’s an election coming

  There have been a number of moments this year where the best response to politics has seemed to be a retreat to a remote cabin in the outer reaches of Adaminaby. High and cool alpine air seems like the perfect antidote to the regular bouts of stupidity seen in hemmed-in Canberra.
  But that’s a cop out.
  A lot of political decision making is done by people for whom the decisions are largely inconsequential. If you had the pleasure of listening to Senator the Hon Matt Canavan on one of 54 affiliate talk back radio stations across the country last Wednesday evening, you would have heard the Minister for Resources explain away this bother about climate change.
  Coal being our biggest export, he said, renewables aren’t the answer to getting down household electricity bills. So onwards and upwards for coal and boo to renewables. At least, that’s the gist.
  But Canavan doesn’t have to live very long with the consequences. Youth engagement is key on climate change. The recent and alarming IPCC report on climate change charts a clear path for our lifetimes.
  Consider as well the question of whether we should raise the Newstart allowance. Those who get to lock in the answer aren’t affected. Sure, they might know someone, perhaps even a close family member, who relies on a welfare payment, but they aren’t deciding whether they will be able to find accommodation themselves.
  This process of decision making without consequences has been a theme I’ve returned to in this column all year. Climate change, drugs, government led by Newspoll and so on – all areas where decisions on the fly, policy on the run and politics by polling numbers dominate.
  Can politicians, who are afforded a privileged position in society in order to be politicians, make empathetic decisions in policy when it will have the greatest impact on people whose experience is so far removed from theirs in this supposedly egalitarian country?
  Yes, they can. But it certainly helps when voters reward that kind of behaviour. An election next year gives you a chance to show that’s what you’d like to see more of.
  A new book featuring some ANU heavyweights – Professor Frank Bongiorno, Professor John Uhr and Dr Jill Sheppard, among others – argues that elections are key moments in our political history and really do offer voters a way to meaningfully engage with politics and influence governments.
  The book is called, perhaps unsurprisingly, Elections Matter and is edited by Benjamin T. Jones, Bongiorno and Uhr. As Jones notes in his introduction, the book intentionally leaves out the Gough Whitlam’s 1972 “It’s time” election and other so-called landmark elections. “[E]lections can be important even when they seem relatively banal or routine,” Jones writes.
  Speaking in his Coombs Building office last week after this columnist managed to locate it, Jones said that while Australians feel disempowered by their democracy, they are actually “extraordinarily” empowered. He also had a couple of pointers for political journalists.
  “[Fewer] predictions would be good,” he said. “Political journalists love having a punt. If it doesn’t happen it’s forgotten. But if it does, they pull out their article and say what a great political Nostradamus they are.”
  Instead, there’s a lot to be gained from history. On the question of whether the internet and the 24-news cycle disruptor tornado has had a sizeable effect on the way politics is done here, Jones said it would be “great to wait nine years to answer that question.” If only there was such a period to cobble together this final column.
  But Jones does identify the “new normal”: short term governments and a lot of quick change over. “The old normal would presume that an incoming federal government will set the agenda for a decade or more. … The most pronounced feature of the new normal is the apparent ease with which a prime minister can be replaced,” he writes.
  Is there any guidance the book, which is published at the end of the month by Monash University Publishing, offers us going forward into next year? Can we reach into the past for answers? There are few hard and fast rules in politics among a smattering of constantly reworked precedents, but an election will always count.
  Luckily, we won’t have to wait nine years to answer the question of what happens when we do get to vote. Will the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, storm the Lodge with his apparent golden ticket? Or will Scott Morrison spin a masterful tale to win an election in his own right?
  It’s been a bizarre year. Or in other words, we’ve had a year of politics. Another leadership spill. Oodles of nonsense produced by spin operatives on both sides. Close attention to the sex lives of politicians and their citizenship statuses. The very live prospect of a Peter Dutton prime ministership. And, as ever, a trip further along the road to oblivion on climate change.
  There’s no need to suffer death by a thousand sound grabs, though. Retreat to the Adaminaby of your mind occasionally, but keep at it. Somewhere amongst all this noise there is something worth latching onto – and voting for, whatever side you come down on.
   
  …and lastly, a coda
  Chances are you’re holding the last Woroni newspaper in your hands. Perhaps use it to line a drawer as a memento.
  It was killed off last week in a Special General Meeting, with only two votes to retain it (one of them was mine). There’s a good chance next year that you’ll be reading some other undergraduate bang on about politics in a glossy magazine. It certainly won’t be me.
  I’m sad to see the newspaper go. Front pages still have impact and there remains a strong appetite for the printed word. It’s certainly possible to cover the news in the brave new digital world, but there is something symbolic about a newspaper that Woroni will lose.
  Woroni could be – and ought to be – Australia’s most prominent student newspaper. Fiercely independent, not beholden to a hostile student union and with access to a healthy budget, it could be strident and campaigning, with a real chance to hold power to account. It could put its money where its mouth is and make a difference with its journalism.
  Transforming into a magazine strikes at the heart of that. A magazine, if it’s any good, is a different creature that calls for a different kind of writing, a different view of the world.
  So when student journalism matters more than ever and when professional media have fewer resources to cover the affairs of universities, the degradation of another campus newspaper into a less frequent publication is a poignant occasion.
  No need to dwell. We must move on. It’s been a pleasure, but after one last press run, my time here has come to a close.
  Jasper Lindell is a former news editor and Woroni’s political columnist.

  Jasper Lindell

• Temperatures rising: the new naval Cold War in the Middle East

  October 24, 2018 2:56 pm Comments Off on Temperatures rising: the new naval Cold War in the Middle East

  “The Cold War in the Middle East is heating up”: a refrain parroted by Middle East pundits the world over. In this modern reinterpretation of the Soviet-American original, Saudi Arabia and Iran play the lead roles of bitter geopolitical rivals, dividing the region and drawing supporting actors into two opposing camps.
  To those watching local headlines, it seems as though each daily news cycle produces a fresh story pointing to the rising temperatures. With tensions escalating, many debate how close the region is to boiling point. But beyond superficial truisms, what does ‘heating up’ actually mean for the Middle East? And what might ‘boiling over’ mean for the rest of us?
   
  Much like its 20th century namesake, this Cold War is dressed in the rhetoric of competing grand ideologies – in this case, Iran’s Shi’ism and Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Islam – both with a rival claim to global leadership of Muslims. At its core, however, the conflict is a geopolitical struggle for influence between two near-peer powers, each being the only thing standing between the other and regional domination.
  Saudi-Iranian confrontation is playing out across the battlefields of Yemen and Syria, of the Iraqi and Lebanese elections, of Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel. Other incidents that manifest the rising tensions read like a grocery list of Middle Eastern geopolitical stereotypes: assassinations, mysterious disappearances, terror attacks, missile strikes, fire-and-brimstone rhetoric and accusations of political puppeteering.
  Despite mounting hostilities, conventional wisdom holds that a direct clash between the two is unimaginable. Indeed, a continental armed conflict seems unlikely. The long and bloody war with Iraq remains fresh in the Iranian national memory, and the costs of the proxy war in Yemen are quickly adding up for the Saudis. Both powers are contending with domestic economic and political challenges. Neither is looking to pick a fight that might threaten the survival of its regime. But, in reaction to a number of factors, states across the region are gearing up for a different war, in a different theatre. If there’s a great-power war coming in the Middle East, it’s going to be fought not on land, but by sea.
  The maritime Middle East has always been a critical international arena. But, developments of the 21st century have shifted the global centre of geostrategic gravity towards it more than ever before. The vast energy reserves needed to feed China’s explosive growth and its Belt and Road Initiative have raised the strategic significance of the Middle East’s key straits and the sea lines of communication connecting the Persian Gulf to East Asia. But as these vital trade arteries have grown in importance, they’ve also come under increased threat.
  On both sides of the Arab Peninsula, Iran and its proxies wield the spectre of a crippling blockade. In July, the Iranian military threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz in response to President Trump’s reimposition of sanctions on Iran’s crude oil exports. On a number of occasions, Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis in the Bab al-Mandab have attacked Saudi and US oil tankers as well as US, Saudi and Emirati naval vessels. In early August, these salvos led to a brief Saudi suspension of oil shipments through the strait. Most recently, on 7 October, Yemen’s Saba state news agency reported that Houthi rebels had detained 10 oil and commercial vessels at the port of al-Hudaydah, including an Indian-flagged fuel tanker.
  These incidents have highlighted both the vulnerability and the strategic weight of the Middle East’s key waterways. In response, the region is experiencing an unprecedented naval military build-up. States both within and external to the Middle East are desperate to secure the flows of their trading lifeblood, deter attacks, and match their competitors’ growing maritime forces. And it’s this paranoid, hawkish drive that should scare anyone worried about a thawing regional Cold War. The rapid militarisation of an extremely volatile region increases both its flammability and the chance of a spark to set it off.
  On both sides of the Saudi-Iranian confrontation, regional powers have scrambled to modernise and expand their naval capabilities. In July, Saudi Arabia finalised deals with Spanish shipbuilder Navantia to purchase five Avante 2200 corvettes and with US firm Lockheed Martin for four slightly larger Multi-Mission Surface Combatants. In so doing, it’s also secured technology transfer agreements to develop its indigenous defence industry for the longer term. Turkey is expecting delivery of its first “light” aircraft carriers in April 2021, in a similar technology transfer agreement with Navantia. Egypt has invested heavily in its navy, launching on 7 September its first home-built corvette. Concern over Iran’s small speedboat swarms has prompted the US to conduct defensive exercises against them using A-10 Thunderbolt II jets.
  Heightened maritime tensions have also seen a rush on ports and military bases up and down the Horn of Africa. China chose to establish its first overseas military base in Djibouti; Saudi Arabia and ally UAE have claimed sites there and in Somalia, Libya and Eritrea, while more Iran-aligned Qatar and Turkey have begun construction in Somalia and Sudan. Further stoking regional instability, both Iran and Saudi Arabia have used ports along the Red Sea littoral to smuggle weapons and launch strikes against opposing sides of the Yemeni civil war.
  While mutual military build-up never makes conflict inevitable, a maritime clash – by nature, more limited in casualties and scope, and slower to escalate – seems like an increasingly plausible eventuality. It’d be a threat to the Middle Eastern shipping lanes that ballast the global economy, and thus a threat to all of us. Western navies are stretched, smaller than at any point since WWII, and preoccupied with East Asia. Our decision-makers desperately need to divert some of their policy attention and professional panic from overwritten flashpoints like the South China Sea to the difficult multilateral powder-keg that is the maritime Middle East. The also need to remember that Middle Eastern wars do not disappear just because the West is tired of fighting them.

  Alia Huberman

• The TPP: a bad deal for workers

  10:53 am Comments Off on The TPP: a bad deal for workers

  DISCLAIMER: the author is a member of the Labor party, convenor of ANU Labor Left and an employee of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.
   
   
  The announcement of the renewed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11) purports to usher in a brand-new era of globalisation and free trade, aiming to promote Australia’s status in the region and strengthen our geopolitical influence – or so we are led to believe.
  In fact, the truth of the TPP-11 for the average Australian is far bleaker. The reality is, this deal will provide trade protection for large multinationals and safeguard the interests of billionaires, whilst leaving Australian workers in the lurch. This deal carves a new precedent for free trade, whilst leaving healthcare, the environment and labour laws in tatters.
  The TPP-11 – which recently passed through the Lower House – is set to create a slew of anti-worker laws, deregulating the labour market by removing the need for labour-market testing for various countries. This means that employers will no longer be required to test the Australian labour market for available employees before hiring migrant workers, who are often employed at lower pay rates and with less entitlements. This will result in many Australians who are willing and able to work being excluded from employment, whilst vulnerable migrant workers will be open to continuous exploitation in the temporary labour market.
  The deal also creates ‘Investor-State Dispute Settlement’ clauses, which essentially allow a foreign investor to sue the Australian government for creating laws which the investor claims to have an impact on their profit margins. Not only does this decision have huge impacts on Australian sovereignty, it also puts laws pertaining to the environment, health, and labour standards (that are in the public interest) under threat. This is a deal that puts the interests of working Australians far below the profit margins of big businesses and multinationals.
  From the deal’s inception, the Australian trade union movement has stood in staunch opposition to the TPP. Whilst unions around Australia are calling the proposed agreement a “disaster for workers”, the federal Labor party – the political wing of the Union movement – has failed to show any solidarity to working Australians. Instead, the federal ALP caucus has moved to support the trade deal, betraying workers around Australia and undermining decades of tireless work and activism by trade unionists. This disloyalty not only damages the ALP’s relationship with affiliate unions, but inherently contravenes their own national platform – a platform intending to put working people at the core of their political agenda.
  As both a trade unionist and a member of the Labor party, this move towards neoliberalism and away from the party’s primary socialist agenda is extremely disheartening. To see a political party built by unionists who wanted a better deal for working people utterly betray and repudiate the core principles of that party is unacceptable. The hard work of unions to eliminate wealth inequality, stop wage theft and the exploitation of workers, prevent multinational tax evasion, secure renewable energy schemes and provide a strong welfare system could all be seriously undermined with the ratification of this deal.
  Whilst several members of Labor’s Left faction remain strongly opposed to the TPP, this has not been enough to prevent the deal moving forward. The right faction – spearheaded by Labor’s trades spokesperson, Jason Clare – has remained steadfast in its commitment to bipartisan support for the TPP. This decision sees federal Labor turn its back on all it once stood for, including the millions of hard-working Australians who put their faith in the ALP.
  The TPP represents everything the Labor party was built to oppose, and the ratification of this deal fundamentally undermines the core principles of the ALP.  If the Labor Party ever wants to secure government, it must do so on the values it was founded on. Labor cannot be a party that bends to the whims of capitalist demand, and it cannot be a party that abandons its values for the sake of votes. As Jim Cairns once said, “The purpose of Labor is not to make governments, but to make better social conditions… Labor will long be prepared to remain in opposition rather than give up its policy by identifying with the parties of big business and other conservative organisations.”
  For Labor to truly become a party that represents the many rather than the few, it must remain true to its core values of standing up for working people. A good place to start is tearing up the TPP and blocking its passage through the Senate.

  Lachlan McGregor

• Political discourse: from the ecclesia to the newsfeed

  October 13, 2018 11:56 am Comments Off on Political discourse: from the ecclesia to the newsfeed

  CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of transphobia
   
  Politics, an art of interaction, will always be influenced by the platform on which it is conducted. The debut of democracy in Ancient Greece saw a radically different political system to the one we engage with today. The very physical platform on which politics took place influenced how decisions were made. Standing in an assembly of other Athenian men to vote on policy, you would have seen your friends raise their hands in support of a proposition. After this visible display, who knows if your decision to support or not is the same as it would have been if you’d voted in a secret ballot?
  In aristocratic and monarchical governments, the limited circulation of political information and decision-making influenced how policy was formed. In communist and fascist societies, the constant political discourse at a community level influenced the thoughts and feelings of the population when it came to make political decisions. In each case, it wasn’t just the government but the arena in which politics was conducted that influenced decisions.
  In modern democracy the platform for politics is the internet. Information is not circulated within small communities; letters from government are few and far between, and a citizen would count themselves lucky to have met their representative. Instead, we have access to a vast network of political information, government policy, opinion and analysis. It is easier than ever to be political informed and yet political discourse is, more so than ever, stagnant and aggressively partisan.
  One of the reasons for this is that social media politics resembles something like the Athenian ecclesia. Standing in the field, you see the hands of everyone around you. Similarly on Facebook and Twitter you see the opinions of others before you can form your own. Political information is vast, but opinion is orders of magnitude vaster. Social media is more than the ecclesia though; it is the field, organised such that your closest friends and those you share the most opinions with are standing as close to you as possible. As such, even if you haven’t formed an opinion on a new issue, you will be likely to follow the lead of those around you who have agreed with you in the past.
  The enclosure of you and your similarly-leaning friends within a social media network leads to the formation of an epistemic bubble; an unintentional ‘echo chamber’ which obscures alternative opinions from your view and reinforces your prior leanings. Politics thrives on the back-and-forth between people with different views. Ideally, this leads to some exchange of views, some moderation. But when conversations are locked within one camp or the other, this doesn’t happen, and the only outcome of political discourse is a strengthening of prior convictions.
  When content from the other side comes in through the walls of your epistemic bubble, it is only the most outrageous, straw-manned content used to destroy the opponent’s viewpoint. Case in point: a younger friend who expressed distaste for the view that “you can be whatever gender you want these days… you can be a carrot, or an animal, how ridiculous is that?”. Social media boosts these posts more than others because they are outrageous and attract more clicks than others. The failure of legitimate and representative political arguments to make it through to both sides of an issue is a huge problem for political discourse; essentially, it means that neither side of the argument really knows what the other is thinking.
  Finally, and possibly even more importantly, social media politics has given rise to a new form of humour that erodes certainty in political information both on the part of the recipient and the creator. Ironic, deep ironic and post-ironic memes and political pages present a quandary to viewers unsure whether the creators are serious, joking or somewhere in between. If they are joking, these jokes can spiral out of control when viewers don’t understand the context, and I think that even the admins can condition themselves to believe their own extreme content. For reference I point to banned page ‘Abhorrent Australian Memes’, one of a suite of alt-right meme pages that use particular branding to make aggressive partisan political statements in the guise of ironic humour. The defence that “it’s just a joke” will not cut it any more.
  Politics will always have systemic flaws. No method of communication, no instrument of democracy will ever perfectly capture the ideals of government by the people, for the people. However, understanding the platform on which it is conducted is important when entering any political conversation. Self-awareness and awareness of how others might be thinking and acting in a political space is necessary to engage in productive discourse. Above all, that is what we should be seeking.  

  Ben Jefferson

• Meanwhile in Canberra… ScoMo, Crackle and Pop on breakfast telly

  11:49 am Comments Off on Meanwhile in Canberra… ScoMo, Crackle and Pop on breakfast telly

  Demosthenes had the Agora, Franklin D. Roosevelt had the fireside chats, and Gough Whitlam had the Blacktown Civic Centre.
  Scott Morrison has breakfast television.
  It may seem quaint to give a lot of importance to breakfast telly, given that young people don’t watch it. You’re lucky to find someone under the age of 25 who even owns a television set.
  But those morning programs – which dress up advertorial with some light entertainment and often alarmingly off- kilter talking points – have become vital for any serious political media strategy in Australia.
  Kevin Rudd was the master. His regular spot with Joe Hockey on Sunrise helped create his public image in the lead up to the Kevin 07 campaign. Rudd worked hard to be relatable, doing his best to make sure we – voters – saw past his nerdiness and policy wonkery.
  Being relatable is key. Pauline Hanson, also a Sunrise regular, leveraged the exposure to come in from the political cold, all the way back to the hot and arid madness of the Senate. Nothing says, “They’re just like us!” than an appearance on breakfast television bemoaning the madness in Canberra. (Don’t let your desire to cause some of the madness get in the way.)
  Does a regular spot on breakfast television guarantee political success? Of course not, but it must do something. Why else would Morrison turn up six times for the breakfast television cameras in a month?
  There’s an election coming. Morrison has confirmed as much on his breakfast television appearances. He’s pulled out the classic line: that the government will get on with the business of governing. Yes, there’s an election coming, but don’t you worry about that.
  Morrison has the difficult task of making everything seem normal when it clearly isn’t. His party, despite a long history of sanctimony, convulsed and ate itself just as their opposition Labor colleagues did in the Rudd-Gillard era. Now, the government is leaking like a sieve. The Liberals are also strapped for cash and need to splash some to make sure they retrain Wentworth, fending off any by-election threats opened up by Turnbull’s swift departure.
  So he’s making it as easy for himself as possible. Older Australians watch breakfast television, and they’re more likely to vote Liberal. The interviews are short and breezy. Any appearance of depth or policy insight or probing questioning is just a mirage.
  On breakfast television everyone is a “mate”. “G’day” is the standard greeting when the PM appears on a live cross from whichever campaign backdrop suits the moment: solar farms, major infrastructure sites, that weird place called Canberra. The questions are softballs.
  Georgia Gardner, The Today Show: “All right, let’s add that to your to do list, Pprime Mminister, because you’ve been in the job for just month and boy, oh boy, you haven’t stopped! From the drought, to aged care, Catholic school funding, strawberry sabotage saga, you have been described as a man in constant motion. ‘ScoMomentum’ they’re calling you, fair assessment?”
  “Oh definitely not,” Scott Morrison didn’t say. “I really think our lack of action on climate change, housing affordability or raising Newstart is hampering our chances of winning the next election, don’t you?”
  The media has a lot to answer for in making politicians palatable. Politicians aren’t like ordinary people, even though they pretend to be. They shouldn’t be like us. I’m glad they’re not like me, for instance. I get distracted far too easily and quite like to sleep in. But that doesn’t mean their conservative views, bad decisions or personal grinding axes to grind should be airbrushed from their public image.
  Morrison’s transformation began as soon as he got the top job in the messy and nasty events of August. The Australian Financial Review called him “ScoMo” on the front page, a jovial nickname, the kind of thing you’d call a bloke down the pub.
  It isn’t just about respecting the person who is prime minister. There are some who contend no respect is necessary – and proceed in politics accordingly. This is about making sure journalists and those they report on are not mates. It helps if they get along but friendship is a dangerous development in journalism.
  The perception of it is perhaps even worse.
   
  Meanwhile, Morrison has accused the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, of swanning about like he owns the place. Speaking in Western Sydney, the traditional battle ground for all of our political and culture wars, Morrison said: “Bill Shorten thinks he’s already there and he’s strutting around, whether it’s Melbourne or Brisbane or Sydney or anywhere else around the country, as if he’s already in the job.”
  Can you blame him? Morrison has already shown he’s not the savviest political operator and the polls certainly aren’t in his favour. He’s been backed into a corner over Australia Day and the need to change the date. Then Morrison started to brick himself in, announcing a thought bubble: maybe we could have another day as well?
  This totally misses the point of changing the date, and Morrison soon distanced himself from the idea. He also reiterated the position of his predecessor, rejecting an Indigenous Voice to parliament.
  Pat Dodson, Warren Snowdon and Malarndirri McCarthy – Indigenous Labor parliamentarians – issued a joint statement to say they were disappointed by the Prime Minister’s view. But they weren’t surprised.
  It sums it up nicely. Morrison’s view is part of that widespread belief that politicians make the decisions and those decided upon will have to live with it, dealt with and not heard. Funny how conviction politicians have their strongest convictions when it’s out of step with the public they represent.
  If only issues were as simple as the strawberry crisis.
  Jasper Lindell is Woroni’s political columnist and a former news editor

  Jasper Lindell

• Meanwhile in Canberra… no sleep for the wicked

  September 20, 2018 10:57 am Comments Off on Meanwhile in Canberra… no sleep for the wicked

   
  In the middle of a week that sunk another sitting prime minister, the challenger, Peter Dutton, fell into an archetypal breakfast FM radio interview trap: he couldn’t name his favourite AC/DC song.
  Dutton blamed it on a lack of sleep. “Mate, this is the one where it catches you out,” a seemingly self-aware Dutton told Melbourne’s Triple M Breakfast. “I’ve had about an hour and a half sleep last night.”
  Furtive walks are taken around Parliament House with trusted allies or fraught friends as soon as the pre-dawn haze outlines Mt Ainslie. All the serious operatives are well and truly awake in time for early “AM” on ABC radio. In a Sitting Week, there’s every chance a cabinet minister has clocked a nine-hour day by the time Question Time starts at 2pm.
  Nor does the work stop when the houses rise. It can quite easily run into the early hours. Staffers are hardly surprised to find emails waiting from their politician bosses sent through the night.
  So it was no surprise Dutton was running near on empty in that mad week that called it quits on the Turnbull experiment but saw Dutton left by the wayside, a victim of bad planning and even worse execution.
  This question of how sleep and politics interacts isn’t an original one. Fleur Anderson spent 15 years in the Press Gallery, forever wanting to ask Australian leaders how they could switch off and sleep at night. Anderson left the The Australian Financial Review last year and finally did ask.
  On Sleep, published by Melbourne University Publishing last month, sees Anderson chart the fraught relationship between the political life and sleep. She asks Kevin Rudd, John Howard and Julie Bishop how they could sleep at night despite the pressure of their jobs.
  Rudd acknowledges the media image of his sleeplessness but maintains he tries to get six hours’ sleep a night at minimum. (There would certainly be some public service veterans from his time in government who would disagree.)
  So why was Dutton – a man who was looking to clinch the prime ministership – getting by on 1.5 hours?
  Anderson points out that the parliamentary sitting calendar was once far worse, often sitting beyond midnight. Whitlam, who went back to the Lodge for a steak after being dismissed in 1975 before telling parliament, was clearly someone who thought politics needed times of rest and contemplation in periods of crisis. He introduced more order to parliamentary proceedings.
  But, as Anderson points out, while adults were getting around 8.5 hours of sleep a night in the 1960s, we’re now getting 6.8 hours a night. Is the internet keeping us up? Did electric light permanently disrupt our circadian rhythms? What effect is all this having on our politics and our ability to think?
  Student politics, which has an unfortunate habit of setting precedents for how a whole generation of politicians can be expected to behave, is no longer confined to the campus. Campaigns run well into the night, featuring co-ordinated Facebook profile photos, Tinder campaigning and comment thread feistiness.
  Separated from reality, politics can continue in unhinged digital playgrounds. There’s no time to sleep when another vote can be clinched for your campaign as a second-year to serve as a general representative.
  It looks like we’re setting a dangerous precedent. Why let your competitors get an advantage? If someone’s going to work through the night and get an edge, everyone will be forced to by default.
  No wonder Dutton was barely catching a wink.
  And there’s another thing that federal and student politics shares: allegations of bullying.
  The results of a 2014 study of French school children “suggest a higher vulnerability of bullies to sleep deprivation.” The same found sleep could have a “a moderating effect on aggression in bullies.”
  No time to think, no time to sleep, and bullies potentially emboldened by their lack of sleep in the hothouse of politics: a miserable, detrimental, unnecessary combination.
  However, maybe there is a clear argument for legislating a sleep requirement. Maybe – just maybe – it would have calmed the stupidity of another leadership spill. Surely if there’s a political advantage to sleep, it’ll be taken up?
  Unlikely. Events run late and meetings start early. The risk of self-absorption comes with the territory – so caught up in the business of day and night politicking, there’s little time left to effectively govern.
  It led to all those sleepless nights for a Liberal party in the throes of its own discontent – and for what?
  It wasn’t to shore up election chances. A swing of 30 per cent against the NSW Liberals at a state by-election last week cost a seat held by the party since 1957. Wagga Wagga went independent. The NSW Liberals had their own problems – but the behaviour of their federal party colleagues certainly didn’t help. It doesn’t bode well.
  With no apparent concern for their electoral future, the Liberal party displayed all of its tired ideological ugliness, beamed around the country in real time by the eager journalists kept on standby in that maddening building on the Hill. This was about no one but themselves.
  The best interests of Australians certainly weren’t at heart – and it looks like Australians won’t have the interests of the Liberal party at heart when they vote at the next election.
  As Alan Ramsey would say, “Nothing changes.”
   
  Jasper Lindell is Woroni’s political columnist and a former news editor

  Jasper Lindell

• Meanwhile in Canberra… Let the Climate Burn, There’s Politics to Play

  September 15, 2018 11:58 am Comments Off on Meanwhile in Canberra… Let the Climate Burn, There’s Politics to Play

  If the last decade and more has shown us anything, it’s that politics clearly isn’t up to the task. Climate change is still advancing and we’re not doing nearly enough, captive to a system that will never prioritise action.
  And yes, you should be interested in its anthropogenic origins, unlike agriculture minister David Littleproud who said on ABC’s Q&A earlier this month that it was a “big call” to blame humans.
  There is the straight up lunacy of those who flat out deny climate change is happening. This European summer, ferociously baking the continent, should give some indication; mild summer days, reliable winters and ice sheets which have stood since time immemorial are not part of our new reality. Not to mention the drought Australia currently faces.
  But beyond this misguided interpretation, there is the far more sinister view that agrees that climate change is happening but contends that it might well be a natural cycle. A variety of vague anecdotal justifications follows, with references to great changes in climate that have occurred in the past and muttered condemnations of the science.
  Literature reviews have found the clear majority of peer-reviewed papers on global warming agree that it is happening. This is not the slim kind of majority which has plunged Britain into the mess of sorting out Brexit. This is a superbly solid 99.99 per cent majority.
  So what purpose does agreeing with climate change but remaining vague on the cause serve?
  It charts a firm course towards the Island of Inaction, steaming along on the Good Ship Politics. If we didn’t cause it, the argument runs, we can’t do anything about it, so why bother? Let’s leave things how they are: our polluting industries and petrol cars, our global trade networks and our waste, our throwaway mobile phones and, of course, our electricity grids.
  The National Energy Guarantee (NEG) is the policy this type of thinking leads to. It’s a temporary solution to a long term problem, one which shows the limitations of the system which created it.
  The NEG, now with support from the Coalition party room, replaces the Clean Energy Target, putting a reliability requirement and emissions requirement on electricity retailers and large electricity users.
  The reliability requirement means suppliers must supply a certain proportion of their energy from non-intermittent sources. That means gas, coal and batteries – but this would not have prevented the 2016 South Australian blackout, according to the Energy Efficiency Council, which developed the scheme. This is a political fix – and it’s the only one we’ve got.
  The NEG also mandates a 26 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 2005 levels by 2030. Greenpeace says this is “grossly inadequate”. In the first two years, modelling shows the first 24 per cent of that reduction will kick in, leaving a decade to achieve a further 2 per cent reduction. So much ambition.
  The NEG is complicated. There’s more detail than there are column inches. Barnaby Joyce, who keeps popping up in this column, summed up the political situation: “The issue is this: people in the Kmart, people in the local pub, they don’t care about the Paris agreement. It means nothing to them. It has no purpose.
   “What matters to them is this: that they can be able to afford their power bills and they currently cannot,” he said.
  If people in Kmart or the local pub don’t care, it’s not because they don’t have the capacity to. It’s because politicians like Joyce – who as member for New England represents some of the most drought affected farmers in the country – have failed in explaining why it matters.
  In the absence of any leadership on the planet’s future, the government is attempting to cut through to the hip pocket, with the promise of cheaper electricity prices. But how much do electricity prices matter when the planet is left to melt?
  Quite a lot, as it happens. As long as the sea hasn’t risen the 577 metres to flood Canberra, politics is still the main game (even though, at that height, the waters will have inundated a number of key electorates).
  The “greatest moral challenge of our time”, as Kevin Rudd put it, has instead become the greatest existential threat to political leadership of our time. Malcolm Turnbull’s first stint as Liberal party leader came to an end when he stood up for an emissions trading scheme. Julia Gillard was weakened by Tony Abbott’s incantations about the carbon tax. As prime minister, Abbott just didn’t care about the climate.
  Malcolm Turnbull sits precariously in the polls. It’s not a good time to start talking about the drastic measures that developed and developing nations would need to take to prevent the onslaught of climate meltdown. (Instead, an easy political win is orchestrated with a renewed effort to abolish the rightly unpopular GST on tampons and other sanitary products.)
  With Newspoll favouring the opposition at the next election, no one wants to talk about the positive impact on the environment winding down coal mining would have, or significantly limiting the number of litres of petrol we can buy. With Newspoll the way it is, the great grandkids will just have to rely on more air-con in those nasty hot summers they’ll face.
  Politics is not equipped to tackle climate change. The kind of vision we need just doesn’t cut it with the focus groups.
  Jasper Lindell is Woroni’s political columnist and a former news editor

  Jasper Lindell

• Meanwhile, in Canberra… Sights are set on next election after dismal display for Turnbull

  11:54 am Comments Off on Meanwhile, in Canberra… Sights are set on next election after dismal display for Turnbull

  The contest that was supposed to be about leadership suddenly wasn’t.
  For Malcolm Turnbull, the Super Saturday by-elections were, in hindsight, “about many issues. They are about the candidates, they’re about local issues, they’re about national policies, they are about national leaders.”
  With a 9.4 per cent swing against the government in the Queensland seat of Longman, and no luck for the government in collecting seats from the opposition, Malcolm Turnbull’s signature policy of company tax cuts now looks more like a burden than a cut-through message for voters. Turnbull insists it isn’t an “albatross” around his neck.
  Opposition leader Bill Shorten was supposed to be the one in strife, but now Turnbull’s colleagues are providing non-attributable quotes considering the future beyond their current leader. All it takes is a few dud by-elections to turn political fortunes around.
  Shorten is all but locked in to the Labor leadership thanks to changes made by Kevin Rudd in the bloody aftermath of Labor leadership backstabbings. He looks set to lead Labor to the next election, expected sometime before May 2019. And on the current trajectory, Shorten is leading Labor to victory.
  Trust Turnbull to play it all off, though. It was just an average swing and nothing much to worry about, he was at pains to tell reporters.
  “Now, I see that Bill Shorten is punching the air as though he’s won the World Cup. The reality is that the Labor Party has secured an average or conventional swing in a by-election to it in Longman and has not secured any swing at all in Braddon, at this stage it looks like it will be a line-ball result. So there is not a lot to celebrate for the Labor Party. There is certainly nothing to crow about,” the prime minister said.
  Shorten, whose days as leader were supposed to be numbered, has been buoyed by the results of the by-elections: Labor retained its four seats, despite predictions that nearly a hundred years of history would no longer hold and the government would win a seat from an opposition in a by-election.
  That was not to be, so Shorten has been doing the rounds on breakfast television. Speaking to The Today Show, he called on Turnbull to resign. Making these kinds of claims, Shorten knows he’s in a strong position.
  “The reality is that he needs to drop these tax cuts on the way out of office. He needs to drop them, and then he needs to leave the keys to the Lodge and he needs to go. He has made his whole case to be prime minister on the basis of reducing corporate tax rates for big business. I mean, it’s a bad idea. But if he can’t even sell his own economic ideas, he should hand over to someone who can sell economic ideas they actually believe in,” Shorten said last Monday.
  Who could sell the Liberal party to a sceptical electorate? Perhaps Peter Dutton, the man who presides over Australia’s cruel and inhumane refugee policy as home affairs minister, could give it a shot? He’s widely tipped to be a potential Turnbull successor, but he’s unpopular with the public and sitting on a wafer-thin margin in his seat of Dickson.
  The by-election results put question marks over five government seats, Dutton’s included. With government MPs and ministers postulating on what happens beyond Turnbull, there’s a lot of thought being given to the future, but maybe not yet to the bloody reality of the event which will propel the Liberal party into it.
  The dilemma about the proposed company tax cuts is the first hurdle.
  “Liberal losses put tax cuts in doubt,” screamed the front page of the Herald after the headaches of the Super Saturday weekend wore off and Monday dawned. But as Greg Jericho points out in The Guardian, Pauline Hanson, key to the legislation passing the Senate, doesn’t have the same politically expedient need to block the tax cuts.
  For Hanson, the focus is no longer pleasing the voters of Longman, so supporting a tax cut those voters don’t support – and have shown they don’t support at the ballot box – doesn’t generate as much negative PR.
  But a short term win for Turnbull in the Senate might spell more long term political pain. Next year’s election might well be contested on policy. Turnbull remains preferred prime minister, well ahead of Bill Shorten. Yet Shorten leads a party that has won more than 30 Newspolls in a row. (This is apparently now a very important benchmark in Australian politics.)
  This environment offers a couple of choices: you pick the leader you think is best for the country and put up with the dud party, or you pick the party you think is best for the country and put up with the daggy leader. With an apparently renewed energy for policy debate, it looks there will be more inclination towards the party.
  Still, there’s always room for a scare campaign. Last week, I received a leaflet from my local Labor member imploring me to vote for the Labor party to “save the ABC”. “Now the Liberals want to privatise the ABC,” said the card, disregarding communications minister Mitch Fifield’s assurances to the contrary.
  It’ll be a tough sell for the Turnbull government: cutting funding to the highly trusted national broadcaster at the same time as reducing tax revenue by lowering the company tax rate.
  A voter who asks “Who benefits?” and finds the answer to that question is “Not me” won’t vote for the government at the next election. Turnbull’s rhetoric on company tax cuts hasn’t worked so far, and if he doesn’t find a new way to sell the alleged benefits he will need to be ready to hand over the keys to the Lodge. 
   
  Fair winds falter for Fairfax
  “A newspaper office is like a pulsing heart, that, while it lives, must never lose a beat. … [It] must never cease to draw its life blood of news.”
  That was the metaphor offered by A. H. Stuart, general manager of John Fairfax & Sons, in 1931 on the occasion of The Sydney Morning Herald’s 100th year in print.
  A fortnight ago, newspaper offices around the country missed a beat.
  Fairfax would no longer be Fairfax. It would, in the words of outgoing Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood, become a wholly owned subsidiary of Nine.
  There was shock, sadness and concern when the news sunk in that Channel Nine, home of ‘A Current Affair’ and ‘The Footy Show’, would be publishing Australia’s oldest and most respected mastheads: The Herald in Sydney and The Age in Melbourne. Fairfax’s network of regional newspapers would be thrown in too, vital voices in their communities left almost like an afterthought in a merger that looked more like a takeover.
  Current Fairfax journos didn’t have a lot of time for the outpourings of grief from former Fairfax journalists. We’re still here to do the job, they were saying. And we’re not going to sacrifice our independence.
  There’s no reason Nine can’t run a quality newspaper. But do they want to? Unless you really believe in them, they’re not a great business asset.
  In America, The Los Angeles Times was sold in February to biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong for $500 million in cash. Soon-Shiong hopes the demand for quality journalism and the desire for a tactile, newsprint reading experience will come back into fashion. Maybe this is the way forward.
  If you have a lot of cash, care about journalism and don’t mind your journalists causing you strife or going on strike occasionally, Fairfax is still open to competing offers.

  Jasper Lindell