Solstice Good News from Around the World

Well the solstice has passed and for those of us in the southern hemisphere that means summer is on its way. Those at forty degrees latitude south will have to wait a little longer than most but summer is good news. On the topic of good news it is timely to review some recent highlights.

Ukraine didn’t have a civil war

Despite the best efforts of some parties common sense prevailed and the country did no implode, Russian speakers were not massacred, the Nazi’s didn’t take over, and the country held credible elections that delivered a clear mandate. Russia placed considerable psychological pressure on Ukraine but there was no wholesale invasion or annexation of the Eastern part of the country. Crimea was taken in a largely bloodless intervention but frankly Russia had no choice. The alternative would be to risk NATO tanks within driving distance of the Black Sea fleet. No rational state would allow that and the world will live with it and move on. Ukraine now has the opportunity to make friends east and west and that is a good thing for everyone.

Indonesia is holding free and fair elections

Let me put this in context. Indonesia’s first president was a communist sympathiser who was ousted in a military coup in 1965. Following the coup anyone deemed or considered a communist was fair game and anywhere from a hundred thousand to half a million people were massacred. Thirty years of “guided democracy” followed under the Suharto regime. I was in Indonesia shortly before the revolution and wrote about it in my book. Would the army side with Suharto? Would Muslim extremists take over? Could the country transition to democracy? Could traditional values of respectful dialogue and consensus hold the country together? What would happen to minorities? Could democracy work in a developing country spread across 13000 islands with literally hundreds of languages? No one knew but they knew things were going to change.

 

Indonesia is the world’s biggest Muslim country and now one of the world’s largest democracies (India is the biggest). I know of no other democratic Muslim nation. Without a hereditary monarch Indonesia was able to invent its own system of elected representation and frankly it’s a lot more democratic than hours. For starter they get to elect their president. Our prime minister is chosen by their party through dysfunctional factional ‘horse trading’ from which the populace is excluded. Our head of State is nominated by the prime minister and appointed by a hereditary monarch. Presidential candidates in Indonesia can only be nominated by a party or coalition that has achieved at least 20 per cent of the seats or 25 per cent of the vote in the legislative elections. These were held in April. In order to contest the legislative elections a party must have:

• a branch office and branch in every province;
• a branch office and branch at least 75 per cent of the regencies or municipalities in every province; and
• at least one third of each party's candidates must be female.

This ensured broad based representation and militates against factional and regional favouritism. The logistical challenge of running an election in a far flung developing country is vast but they are happening well enough to deliver legitimate outcomes.

Solar eclipses coal and nuclear

It’s pretty much all good news. Solar power was always a matter of scale. The more panels are built the cheaper each unit becomes. As India and China come on board scales of manufacture drive down price. Nuclear carries enormous fixed costs and can only be made economic by not counting externality costs like managing toxic waste for the next 10,000 years, ignoring the cost of nuclear accidents, or the sunk R&D cost which includes the still classified cost of the Manhattan project. The more coal, oil and gas are burned the less remains and the higher the price of making electricity becomes. A tipping point is reached when solar becomes cheaper than coal/gas/nuclear.

That point has been reached. Solar in the USA is now competing directly with conventional electricity on price. India is poised to install the world’s largest solar plant. Germany generates half of its domestic electricity from solar. Australia’s three million home solar installations are now outbidding coal electricity during times of peak demand – when the sun is shining and everyone turns on their air conditioners. Naturally vested interests are not taking this lying down and have attempted through their proxies to dismantle Australia’s renewable energy policy. The first attempt has been blocked in the Senate by, of all things, a motoring enthusiast and a maverick billionaire mining magnate. Gotta love this country.

 

 

Tasmania’s World Heritage Area holds

Controversial locally but significant globally, the WHA extension completes a process begun when the Tasmanian forest campaign began in 1973. The first WHA in Tasmania came into being a decade later in 1983 following the campaign to save the Franklin River. It covers hundreds of kilometres of mountains, lakes, grassy plains, glacial remains, forest pockets, and stunning wild coasts. Excluded from the WHA were the ancient wilderness forests of the glacial river valleys to the east. Instead the boundary was drawn at the climactic tree line and snaked crazily around the hills and valleys. Thirty years later the WHA extension simply put back what remains of what should have been included in 1983.

However in a public admission that logging was degrading the area the federal government made a submission to the World Heritage Committee arguing that almost half the extension was too degraded to be included. This flew in the face of the fact that the world heritage system of international agreement allows for rehabilitation of damaged sites, and the degraded area was small. It did however risk a precedent that would have undermined the integrity of the world heritage system and placed at risk sites that are under pressure including the Great Barrier Reef. The Committee saw the submission for what it was and spent approximately seven minutes throwing it out – a humiliating and well deserved diplomatic defeat. See further here: http://theconversation.com/tasmanias-world-heritage-debate-needs-to-look-beyond-the-trees-28183

The forest debate isn’t over but this is the heart – the core areas that the environmental movement has been fighting for over thirty years. The forest industry is a mess and management of both the industry and the new reserves face significant challenges. Never-the-less the WHA has held and this is good news.

  

The EU Bans bee killing insecticides

The worlds’ bees are declining as neonicotinoids and other chemical herbicides and pesticides build up through the food chain. While farmers gain temporary benefits from chemical use there is a longer term risk of killing the soil ecology on which all farming ultimately depends. Recent chemical bans by the EU provides helpful leadership to developing countries and pushes back on Monsanto.

Tony Abbott does something good

Finding something good to say about Abbott was a significant challenge but I found three things:

• we are buying off-the-shelf submarines rather than building our, own saving around $30 billion over thirty years, plus the subs will actually work.
• the schools chaplaincy program is continuing. To people who harbour a deep personal angst at the thought that someone somewhere might come to faith or discover their religious and cultural heritage this terrible. In reality though the program has been embraced by people of all persuasions and the response from parents has been overwhelmingly positive. Thus far it has lent a listening ear to students and has not become a vehicle for pushing fundamentalist religion.
• the program of one year military enrolment has been re-started. This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. However having grown up in a working class/welfare suburb I can attest that this program will provide a bridge to employment and a better life for many young men who don’t want to sign up to the armed forces long term.

If anyone else wants to share some good news feel free.

Abbott Budget and the Other Side of Christmas

Do Values Matter in Public Life?

It has been a trend in OECD nations for some time to see politics as a largely a-political exercise in budget management and fiscal policy settings. The only real policy debates are about Keynesianism versus free market, and how to divide up the goods delivered by the market. The rest is the nuance of social policy. This week’s budget blew that out of the water. Stripped back to bones it is a statement about the sort of society the corporate right want – essentially a first step in the march back to the social conditions and class relations of the nineteenth century. Values are back on the agenda.

How significant is this? Consider the following photograph. It is perhaps the most extreme example of what the values held by a ruling elite can do to a country. Taken by a NASA satellite at night, it shows the bright lights of South Korea and the bright lights of China. The dark gap in the middle isn’t water, it’s North Korea.

 

Photo sourced from Huffington Post

North Korea is one of only two remaining Communist monarchies, the other being Cuba. South Korea is a thriving industrial democracy in which approximately a third of the population identify as being born again Christians. China is a State directed capitalist economy with a unitary government. North Korea is, well, North Korea. There are an estimated 80,000 -100,000 Christians in concentration camps there who refuse to worship the revered leader. Go figure. In short, values determine policy, and policy determines whether the lights stay on or the lights go out. In many more ways than one, North Korea is in darkness.

In Australia we like to elect governments we think will give us the most consumer goods – Christmas goodies if you will. In all the marketing hype it is easy to forget that we give presents at Christmas to celebrate God giving his son so that we could be forgiven. The message of Christmas, apart from chocolate, is that it is better to love unconditionally, walk in forgiveness and live a generous life. Folk with a religious or (Western) traditional bent will be familiar with the nativity.

However there is another side to the Christmas story that is never publicly acknowledged and seldom referred to even in church; and that is the massacre of innocents. After the Eastern Maggi (they are the dudes on the camels with the frankincense and gold) visited the local provincial Roman dictator and told him they were seeking the Jewish boy king in response to the celestial signs and Jewish prophesies, things got a bit messy. Herod didn’t want prophetic Jewish kings rising up on his watch so he ordered the massacre of all boys three years and under in Israel. History relates the event but not the death toll because no one was counting. What we can reasonably infer is that Roman soldiers kicked down everyone’s door, tore toddlers from their mother’s arms, and murdered them. This atrocity failed in its object. Jesus and his family were already refugees in Egypt. The Bible records “A voice is heard in Ramah, Rachael weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted because her children are no more.”

Herod continued to live into old age. This massacre could happen without censure because the Roman Empire didn’t exist to benefit its people. After-all, the majority of people were slaves. Only citizens had any rights at all, and only a very small percentage of people were citizens. In the later Roman Empire it was possible to buy citizenship, but it was prohibitively expensive. Rights and freedoms were things you bought with money or inherited based on your social class. The Empire existed for the fame, wealth and dignity, of probably less than one per cent of the population. Is any of this sounding familiar?

This budget has taken a step away from the message of Christmas. If goods are not shared, if opportunity is not shared, if freedom is not universal, if a society stops being about benefiting its members and starts being about the fame, wealth and dignity of the elite, bad things happen.

Some social systems are demonstrably worse than others. North Korea probably takes the prize for general lunacy. It really doesn’t matter though whether a country is a communist dictatorship, a fascist dictatorship, or a democracy in which the elite own the media, the education system, the health system, the phone system, the electricity system, the water supply, and dictate social policy. If society is about those at the top, that society will be in darkness.

Let’s remember Christmas and shed some more light.

Joint Strike Fighter and Ukraine Crisis

Anachronisms in the New Cold War

It’s Official – the Cold War is back-on. Putin has declared his doctrine that any place that has a significant Russian speaking population is “new Russia” and he reserves the right to invade and occupy any part of any country that has a substantial Russian speaking population. That includes all the old Cold War buffer States and their modern derivatives – Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine… Russia is no longer a country but the ‘greater protectorate of Russians speakers’ with fluid and flexible boundaries. It’s how you make friends and piss-off people.

So is Putin just an ego driven Tsar? Perhaps but….

In the early 1990’s Mikhail Gorbachev surrendered the Soviet Union, opened up the Soviet economy, freed his people, and ended the Cold War. He asked one and one condition only of the West – no Eastward expansion of NATO. Reagan promised that it would be so. It was not.

Essentially Russia wanted their own version of the Monroe doctrine – the right to meddle and be pre-eminent in their own back yard. However unlike the US they have genuine reasons. Western European powers have twice invaded Russia, on both occasions reaching Moscow. Accounts of Russian dead in WWII vary from 30-40 million. It is an oft overlooked fact of history that Russia won the Second World War in Europe. They did not and do not want NATO on their doorstep. They did want economic development and mutual respect. They got neither.

Western capital asset stripped the former Soviet Union plunging much of the society into poverty and creating a demographic crisis from which Russia may never recover. NATO courted the eastern states. Russia found itself surrounded by US/NATO military bases, while the US actively sponsored Islamic terrorism across the 20/40 window resulting in the Beslan massacre.  NATO bombed Yugoslavia then created a new Muslim state in Europe carved out of historic Serbia. The ‘Coalition of the Willing’ then went on a rampage across the Middle East liquidating Russian assets as they went. The ‘Project for a New American Century’ boldly proclaimed that the US would invade Iran after Iraq was dealt with, thus further encircling the Russian block. The ‘Great Game’ for the Eurasian pivot was back-on. Central to this Pivot is Crimea - home of much of Russia's Western Navy.

It didn’t go quite as planned however. Putin kicked out the oligarchs who ruled Russia, took control of Russia’s critical national resources, re-financed the military, and pulled his country up by its collar. The military adventure in the Middle East was halted by a concerted insurgency in Iraq and resistance among Western populations. Western oligarchs then raided the US and European banking systems creating a systemic crisis which is still playing out, has made Russia very sceptical abojut all the talk of "freedom and democracy" but has not touched the military industrial complex in the US or the JSF program.

…so back to Ukraine. Ukraine is not a NATO member. Latvia is. If Russia were to send forces across the border to Latvia NATO would automatically be at war with Russia. So Putin gambles that the US will only play proxy wars in Ukraine and he can create a pretext for expanding his borders West-ward. At least he hasn’t claimed that Ukraine has weapons of mass destruction, or that they harbour Al Qaeda, or that they gas their citizens.  But wait – he should be scared! The US and its sort-of-willing allies just spent US $400 billion on the Joint Strike Fighter. Australia just pitched in with a $14 billion purchase of a couple of squadrons. If you heard or read any of the hyperbole surrounding the purchase you will have learned that this is a radar evading aircraft that will have complete situational awareness and will guarantee victory in all future air combat environments for decades to come. With that kind of kit potentially heading his way Putin should be cowering in a fox hole – right?

Ironically the ABC radio news reader actually used phrases I recognised from the manufacturer’s public relations Office from circa 2008. Funny thing is, no one is scared because no one else believes it, least of all the Russians. The reason is simple. After the collapse of the USSR the Russian military industrial complex had to create competitive weapons or starve. Hunger is very motivating. The result was bleeding edge, cheap and lethal systems such as the many variants of the Sukhoi air dominance fighter – now the baseline for air power in the Asia Pacific as well as Eastern Europe. The Western military industrial complex figured it could just get fat by putting ‘their’ people into key decision making positions in the bureaucracy then bleeding tax payers to subsidise uncompetitive make-work programs. The most expensive of these is the Joint Strike Fighter, or JSF.

The JSF was originally conceived as a second tier second day of war ground attack aircraft. It was intended to operate in a relatively benign air power environment and under cover of the much more capable F-22. Its primary concern was to attack Soviet mobile columns on the North German plains and to avoid mobile Soviet surface to air missile systems as they were circa 1990. That was and is its primary design criteria. To that end it was made ‘stealthy’ i.e. hard to detect by radars operating in the X band but only from the frontal aspect, and was given limited self defensive capabilities. This very limited functionality was then ‘spun’ into being the supposed air dominance fighter of the 21^st century. It isn’t. Russian radars operating in the longer bands (S and L) can see it and shoot it down. The Sukhoi flies higher, faster, turns quicker, carries 11 missiles to the JSF’s 4, has a bigger radar, has a better infra-red suit…it can detect the JSF at tactical ranges, jam and out manoeuvre its missiles, engage and disengage largely at will. For a more detailed explanation of tech and strategy see here: http://findinghomebookspace.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/defence-force-pornography-meets-real.html

This was the finding of Dr Stillion of the Rand Corporation, and of independent expert think tank Air Power Australia. Other critics have noted basic engineering and design flaws too numerous to mention here. For some considered commentary about alternatives see here: http://www.newaustralia.net/defence_airforce.html 

The Joint Strike Fighter has become so expensive and so useles it even has a research website dedicated to what a bad deal it really is. See here: http://f35baddeal.com/ If anyone in Europe buys the plane - good luck! It won't defend your country but it could cost you the very things you want to defend, like affordable education and health care.

If the US or NATO want to send a message to Putin they can only do so by imposing a ‘no fly zone’ over Ukraine. The fact that they haven’t indicates that they don’t want to risk an air war with Russia. After all, they wouldn’t want any of their very expensive and fragile kit to get damaged in a real contest now would they….there is a lesson in that for Australia. Let’s hope we learn fast.

 

Open Letter to Senator Colbeck - Tasmanian World Heritage Area

 

 

Dear Senator Colbeck

I write to urge you to reconsider your comments on the Tasmanian World Heritage Area extensions posted on your website (http://www.richardcolbeck.com.au/featured_stories/the_tasmanian_wilderness_world_heritage_area_scam) . I appreciate your concern with this issue, but it would be helpful if you became better acquainted with the facts and background of this matter before ‘rushing to print’.

What your helicopter tour showed you was logging roads and coups deep in world heritage value forests. This happens with dispersed logging strategies and is standard forestry practice. It is the reason there has been a rather bitter conflict in Tasmania for four decades. What you saw was world heritage forests being whittled away. Including some logged areas in the new boundaries will allow those areas to recover ecologically and preserve the integrity of the reserves as a whole. Saying that the area is undeserving of protection because of logging is akin to saying that the Egyptian sphinx is unworthy or preservation because its nose is damaged.

Removing the logged areas from reserve areas is one option but it does not require a wholesale roll back of the world heritage area which is what your government is proposing (74,000 ha). Curiously this proposed role back includes the glacial lakes of the Mt Field National Park. Obviously this is simply cover for gifting old growth world heritage value forests to the logging industry. It reduces your credibility to pretend otherwise.

I understand your concerns about special species timbers. This issue was addressed comprehensively by Tasmania’s Legislative Council whose select committee was chaired by, and largely made up of, conservative members. It was widely expected that their changes to the Forest  Agreement areas would spell the end of the agreement. However the Environmental NGOs accepted the changes and allowed further areas into production. This was a substantial compromise which deserves acknowledgement. I encourage you to get across the detail and talk to the ENGOs before passing judgement.

I was particularly surprised by your statement that this process was political. In the four decade history of this conflict this was the only time an agreement has been reached rather than imposed. It was industry that approached the conservation movement seeking an outcome. The conservation movement obliged despite there being no moratorium on logging during negotiations. Political parties were kept at arms-length. The only political interference was by the Legislative Council which watered down the conservation outcomes in order to allow a greater supply of special species timbers.

I have spent a lot of time in Tasmania’s forests – logged and unlogged. The simple fact is that a 60-80 year rotational logging regime cannot conserve the ecological values of the forest. I discuss this in more detail in my blog post here:  http://www.findinghomebookspace.blogspot.com.au/2013_04_01_archive.html

Please talk to more than one interest group on this issue. The Tasmanian Forest Agreement is a complex negotiated document representing trade-offs between diverse groups. I am not an expert in the agreement but I know that there is no such thing as a ‘forestry vs conservation’ position on this. Different industry groups have different interests.  Unsurprisingly some of them did not get everything they wanted. Such is public life.

I will post this letter on my blogspot, and with your permission, will post any reply.

Yours sincerely

 

 

Erik Peacock

Tasmanian State Election - Building Resilience through Public Policy

How Tasmania can Prosper – the Conversations we Have to Have

Well its election time again in the great State of Tasmania. I initially set out to write a political commentary to help local readers better exercise their civic duty (voting is compulsory in Australia) but changed my mind. Instead I have tried to answer the question: “what would have to change for Tasmania to become economically self supporting?” It is a question with wider implications because Tasmania is a marginalised peripheral economy. There are lots of them in the world and we can learn from what works elsewhere.

So rather than talking about who to vote for, let’s talk about what we need….I don’t have all the answers but I would like to start a conversation, so here goes….

Evidence Based Policy....

Tasmania is stuck in a hole. It is a welfare dependent State in which forty per cent of the adult population are on some form of welfare/pension, youth unemployment is around 20 per cent, a handful of large foreign based businesses call the shots, the population is ageing and unwell, and the political class spend their time on wedge social issues and slagging the other team instead of figuring out how to fix things.

The thing that most needs fixing is the fact that almost everything that is spent on retail, insurance, chattel and home mortgages, business finance, gambling, much of our hospitality, and increasingly food, leaves the State to line the pockets of people who live somewhere else. Vast amounts of money have been made from mining but Tasmania is littered with dead, dying or just plain poor mining towns. The money is not here. Mining the Tarkine will help some folk for a time but it will not fix our economy. In my opinion things will only improve if we find an economic model that keeps our wealth circulating at home.

Here is an imaginary story based on real world examples that have worked elsewhere. Not all of these initiatives are necessary and not all are possible, but all are worth talking about.

“Once upon a time Tasmania established a State Bank which could issue its own credit. The bank was given the same charter initially given to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and for the same reasons. In addition the Bank provided small business finance at below market rates to foster and encourage small business. In addition the Government offered State based insurance for basic insurances on a not-for-profit basis. In this way a huge amount of money was kept in the State that would otherwise have left. Shares in both the State bank and the insurer were issued to all long term residents thus circulating money within the local economy. In addition to issuing dollars the State bank issues each long term resident with a ‘Taz’ which was time limited currency only recognised in the State. This had an immediate stimulatory effect on business by encouraging spending and preventing hoarding. The government also sponsored an Island wide ‘Community Exchange System’ or ‘tally system’ which allowed the exchange of goods and services without money. This system enabled persons with low incomes but with skills, to participate more fully in the economy and community. It increased business activity and strengthened the social fabric. Being untaxed it could also be considered an indirect form of economic assistance.

The Government appointed a Small Business Minister who soon learnt that the chief concern of small business was the cost of electricity, and that small business and consumers heavily subsidised a handful of bulk industrial power users. The Minister also found that small business was the single greatest employer outside the public service. The Government therefore mandated a single electricity price for all users in the State. This led to a dramatic increase in small business confidence and consequent uplift in employment. Bulk power users were concerned about how this might impact their viability but a ‘supply and demand’ study found that there was abundant electricity if it were not exported to Australia via Bass Link. From that time on only surplus electricity was exported and importation of electricity was banned. However the State continued to invest in wind power as a natural compliment to base load hydro electricity increasing security of supply and exporting the surplus. Income from exports was then used to drive down the domestic price or re-invested in further production.

The Small Business Minister also learnt that there was no effective civil enforcement mechanism for non-payment of debts. The law was modified to allow persons to obtain a ‘debtors judgement’ in the Courts and have that judgement enforced on a fee for service basis by the Monetary Penalties Enforcement Service. Assurance of debt recovery boosted business confidence.

 

This success in stimulating small business led to some serious debate about taxation policy. The new Government put a proposal to the Commonwealth to make Tasmania a ‘special economic zone’ in which all taxes were abolished except for GST, company tax, resource royalties, personal income tax; and taxes on alcohol, sugary drinks, and imported tobacco. Abolished taxes included FID, stamp duty on cars and homes, motor vehicle registration, land tax, capital gains tax, air port taxes, and taxes on employment. In addition council rates were found to be a poll tax where rates were based on the nominal value of a property rather than a fee for a service. Councils were obliged to radically restructure their rates. Those that were found to be unviable were merged. Motor vehicle owners were obliged to pay into an insurance fund – either the State insurer or a private equivalent, for medical care. These changes in themselves saved a great deal of bureaucracy and encouraged investment and employment. Removing a tax on motor vehicle registration was particularly beneficial to farmers and other businesses.

However all of this tax cutting led to something of a funding crisis for the public service which had already been asked to ‘do more with less’. The Government addressed this firstly by making a law allowing Departments to reduce staff hours as an alternative to redundancy. This copied the approach adopted by Germany during the GFC. It enabled cost cutting during hard times but kept critical skills, corporate memory and social capital within the public service, avoided a crisis of confidence, and kept money circulating. It also avoided the former ‘boom and bust’ approach where the public service grew during the good times then faced harsh redundancies during the harsh times.

The first Department to be tackled was Health and Human Services. The Government knew that it would never be able to provide a comprehensive public health system in Tasmania. This has been understood by academics and health professionals for over 20 years and reflects the situation in the rest of rural Australia. The Government also realised that Australia failed to tackle the emerging national health crises in part because the health system is run by and for the benefit of doctors and medical specialists. Further, legal liability increased the cost of medicine because medical practitioners feel safer referring patients to specialists. This has led to a dumbing down of general practise. In tackling these issues the Government set out the following policy road map:

·        Limit liability and the amount of liability claims by law, and provide a State sponsored not-for-profit professional indemnity scheme for medical professionals.

·        To the greatest extent possible for a state government, implement the recommendations of the Productivity Commission Report into Health Workforce (Australia’s Health Workforce, Productivity Commission Research Report, Productivity Commission 11 December 2005). See further: http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/study/health-workforce/docs/finalreport

·        Allow appropriately trained nurses to perform most of the treatment and diagnosis currently performed by GPs, both privately and in the public system, under remote supervision by a doctor.

·        Protect the practise of midwifery in private homes.

·        Trial delivery models for treatment in patient’s homes thereby freeing up hospital beds.

·        Trial delivery models for outsourcing medical treatment to developing countries.

·        Trial delivery models for web based analysis of medical data from specialists outside Australia where this is more cost effective.

·        Remove restrictions on intake numbers to surgery and medical specialist courses.

·        Properly fund medical student placements so that medical graduates are not obliged to pay ‘up-front’ and do not graduate with a substantial debt.

·        Restrict sugar, salt and fat content in drinks and processed foods.

·        Tax sugary drinks in the same way that cigarettes and tobacco are taxed.

·        Enact plain packaging for cigarettes.

While taxing imported tobacco the Government legalised the domestic production of tobacco for sale and personal use. As a result many people stopped inhaling tobacco laced with herbicides and pesticides in favour of less addictive organic leaf. These reforms over time delivered significantly better health outcomes and led to savings in the hospital system.

The next major area of reform was in education. Noting that previous State by State comparisons were unfair because Tasmania is part of regional/rural Australia, the Government compared educational outcomes against rural Victoria. While these results were more encouraging they were still found to be poor compared to OECD averages. The Government discovered that a decade of chaos with constantly changing curricula, constantly changing structures, and school closures had led to teacher burn out, loss of experienced staff, and lower educational outcomes. The Education Minister also learnt that in Tasmania a person can qualify as a teacher based on a university ‘pass’ of 49 per cent. This was lifted to 60 per cent overall, and 90 per cent in spelling, grammar and maths. The Minister also learnt that, while the requirements to qualify as a teacher in Tasmania are among the lowest in the developed world, the requirements to maintain registration are amongst the most onerous. This created a brain deficit at one end and a brain drain at the other. The Government moved to reverse that situation.

The Minister also found that:

·        Immigration, family breakdown and autism, have a negative impact on academic outcomes. It is simply not possible for a class room teacher to cater to high and complex needs, whatever their origin.

·        The state education system does not invest in bright students. There is no gifted education program in Tasmanian State schools, although gifted children both need more support than average, and provide a greater return on investment.

·        Many classes are chaotic and stressful because teachers have no effective tools of discipline and many parents do not discipline their children.

In light of the above the following approach was adopted:

·        rejecting the doctrine of ‘mainstreaming’ children in favour of special classes, and potentially special schools, where children with high and complex needs had some chance of getting their needs met;

·        advancing children according to their ability not according to their age;

·        abolishing teacher registration by shifting the onus of hiring competent staff to school principles;

·        shifting funding away from buildings and technology towards supporting class room teachers;

·        keeping focus on core competencies in maths, spelling, grammar and science;

·        supporting the right of parents to education their children subject to reasonable oversight by the Tasmanian Home Education Advisory Council;

·        increasing the age of compulsory schooling from five to six for girls and seven for boys in line with research on neurological development, particularly in boys; and

·        allowing appropriate disciplinary options for classroom teachers (following discussion with parent bodies).

The next area tackled was the criminal justice system....but the State Service Act prevents me from writing about it....

In tackling these issues the Government adopted the following policies. First they developed a realistic housing policy which is discussed later. Then they ...did another bunch of stuff I am not allowed to write about...

Tasmania had unfortunately inherited Australia’s decade long housing crisis. The self evident failure of the market mechanism to house families was identified as an exacerbating factor in almost every other social ill including crime and family breakdown. The Government conducted an audit of all vacant Crown land to which services could reasonably be connected then put low cost dwellings on that land. Initially these were pre-fabricated shipping containers that were fitted out at the prison as part of a ‘pay for incarceration for work’ scheme and as a trades training program. As modular units these could be configured to house anywhere from one person to a family of five as they are in Holland. Closed school buildings were re-modelled to hostel style accommodation. Various public/private partnership models were explored. In addition building and council regulations were changed to emphasise shelter over middle class ideals of housing. While the regulatory issues were initially complex, living in huts, sheds, shipping containers, and vehicles became a legal and viable alternative to housing insecurity and homelessness.

Having addressed health, education, justice and housing, the Government turned its attention to supporting agriculture. Unlike the Australian Government, the new Tasmania realised that not all investment is good, and that the buy-up of productive land by Chinese State companies did not reflect the operation of the free market, but rather reflected the foreign policy of the Communist Government of China. Sale of agricultural land to persons not resident in Tasmania was banned but Tasmanian farmers were allowed to lease land to foreign interests subject to a national interest test and limited to a 30 year lease.

Tasmanian retained its market niche by banning GM crops on the Island but actively encouraged establishment of an industrial hemp industry for the production various products including clothing, paper, food, oils, ethanol, and building materials. In time this came to be a major crop alongside poppies and essential oils. The Government did not invest money in irrigation although the State Bank was prepared to lend on favourable terms. However a comprehensive environmental impact statement examining salinity water table issues was always required. Similarly any person who wished to undertake coal seam fracking was required to prove that there would be no impact on the water table, and to conduct small monitored trials. This had the effect of banning fracking from most parts of the State. In recognition of the rights of farmers, the Government allowed farmers rights to all of their land to the centre of the earth and the right to deny access to it.

The new Government continued to respect the Forest agreement, recognising that industry had initiated negotiations, all parties had made compromises, and that the agreement was key to gaining recognition and international markets. The Government also commissioned a study into potential commercial uses of plantation timbers including composite structural timbers, log cabins, firewood, and combustion for electricity generation.

Those pushing for a Tasmanian Republic suggested that it could avoid buying expensive military toys and protect its territorial integrity by maintaining a citizen army. Military service would be compulsory after high school and would double as health and fitness training. Each person who was assessed as ‘fit to bear arms’ would be issued one and this weapon was kept under lock and key at local police stations to be issued in the event of war or insurrection, and for training. The police would became part of the new military structure thus creating greater linkages between the police and young people. Genuine conscientious objectors would not be obliged to participate. It was suggested that the Republic of Tasmania should be able to put around 80,000 people under arms – the same number as the Australian army.”

 

 

Australia Indonesia Espionage Controversy

For those interested in the recent diplomatic fracas between Australia and Indonesia I would like to offer some perspective.

I was a youth ambassador to Indonesia with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade AIYEP program during the twilight years of the Suharto regime. One of the most important things learned through that experience was the high value placed by Javanese society on the concept of gotong royong. Indonesia’s civic values come from the reality of village life – everyone is interdependent and everyone has to get along. Gotong royong means coming a decision through respectful dialogue with the aim of reaching the broadest possible consensus. The final decision may be made by the village head (Pak Raja) and there may be strong disagreements along the way, but once the decision is made everyone is expected to fall into line and get along. It is rather different from the adversarial approach which developed in the West as a way of mediating unresolvable conflicts between the monarchy, the Parliament, and the different orders of society.

Under Suharto gotong royong was used in a perverse way to stifle dissent (as I am sure the occasional Pak Raja has done too) but although Indonesia is now a democracy gotong royong  remains a core value of the society.

Indonesia doesn’t really care how rude Australians are to one-another. Westerners can’t be expected to behave properly, but Indonesia does expect maturity in international relations – which is why you can’t announce that you are going to “turn the boats around” if the country you are sending them back to hasn’t been part of that discussion as an equal partner.

Abbott is the antithesis of gotong royong. Indonesia had already rebuffed him over boat people. Revelations of phone tapping simply added injury to insult. So what does SBY gain from ramping up the rhetoric? After-all, the relationship is worth half a billion dollars in aid money to Indonesia each year alone.

Well, actually SBY gains a lot. ASEAN countries correctly perceive Australia as North America’s lap dog in Asia. Indonesia is the world’s biggest Muslim country. By humbling America’s lap dog in Asia Indonesia gains status within ASEAN. It says “we are here, we matter, we are a player”. It sends a message to both Australia and the US that Indonesia will not be dictated to. It also sends an important message to Australia: “We matter. You may be Europeans in Asia but you are in Asia and you must do things the Asian way. There is a big country to your North and you need to consider it carefully.” There is also another, perhaps unintended message: “you just elected an amateur for PM.”

In the nearly 20 years since I was in Indonesia Australia’s understanding of that country has grown little. Doubtless many Indonesian villagers still get their perception of Westerners from C grade American television from which they learn that we are all rich, greedy and promiscuous. However the Indonesian elite have grown to understand Australian society very well, mostly by virtue of living and studying here, but also through trade and diplomatic ties, and cultural exchange. They know our pressure points.

Eventually we will return to a reasonable dialogue, and we will all, like squabbling villagers, get busy getting along. SBY will emerge as the Pak Raja who brought the consensus about. Abbott will look foolish even though the spy scandal was none of his making.

In the longer term Indonesia appears to be embarking on a policy of military and diplomatic containment of its troublesome southern neighbour – but first it has to contain Abbott.

The Bus in the Bush

When I was little and we had first migrated to Australia we lived in the woods in a bus and a kombi van. It was a place called McGuires Marsh and you can read about that story in my book. After 30 years I went back there. Nothing had really changed. The bus is still there. I found wild deer, a Tasmanian Devil's den, and wombat holes. Surprised a couple of kangaroos but really there was just sun and wind and clouds and grass and a fast running creek, and gum trees stark against the sky.

I have made a picture essay below.

Turning off towards Osterly and the highlands we encounter newly shawn sheep



Three chimneys tell their own story of ambition and loss at Osterly

 

The farmhouse where we lived. Still sound but the water tank is gone, the fence is broken down, and the flower garden is no more. Not currently lived in.

The bus we lived in at first is still there - near the creek on the edge of the highlands

The bus is now a little worse for wear but the door still opens

Time for a walk across the hills. This is high sheep country but wild deer are also found here.

This tree has seen some seasons come and go

The view from the top - looking back towards the Wellington range and Hobart

 The farm gate where it all began. This trail leads to the Ouse river.