Thoughts on renewing my Crikey subscription

I’ve just paid $240 to renew my Crikey subscription for another two years. My current one doesn’t expire till early 2011 sometime but I fell victim to their end of financial year marketing campaign which saw the wonderful First Dog on the Moon spruik for business. With New Matilda going bust this week there is a nasty breeze from the hole in the Australian independent media space and it was time to insulate against it.

I’ve been subscribing to Crikey (or crikey.com.au to give it its proper name) for four years or so and while they have a mixed record, I enjoy their email daily news digest. Gen Ys supposedly can’t tolerate email but as an asynchronous long or short form communication mechanism, it remains the best of its class after 20 years. It hardly makes Crikey “new media” but it keeps them independent and mildly profitable, unlike New Matilda which fell in a hole between subscription and freedom.

Crikey delivers 20 or so stories in an email package every lunchtime. I’m usually busy around that time and will often skim through most of the stories. But I will always take the time to read some articles. I like Bernard Keane’s post-public servant acerbic take on politics. I also like Guy Rundle’s manic mutterings and of course there is the incomparable First Dog on the Moon, Andrew Marlton. Marlton is establishing himself as the cult Australian cartoonist of his generation. His arrogant, foul mouthed version of Jasper, Kevin Rudd’s Cat (who seems more suited to being Paul Keating’s pet rather than Rudd’s) is becoming one of the all-time great Australian fictional characters.

There is also Crikey’s well informed media coverage with Margaret Simons and the occasional tech rant from Stilgherrian. It has also collected a lively collection of blogs under its banner. Oddly enough, the one thing I don’t care too much for is Crikey’s rumour and gossip. This is the section for which it initially became famous, and how it is still described by bigger media when they want to pour scorn on the publication.

Its skirting along the edge of defamation cost Crikey’s original owner Stephen Mayne his publication and more savvy people like Eric Beecher came in to take it over. Beecher has the same impassioned belief in the power of a free press that Mayne had. But he also has business smarts. His appointment of Amanda Gome as Private Media CEO shows the publication is heading in a more serious business direction. Gome has a journalism background but she is also a publisher and a professor of business at Melbourne’s RMIT.

That direction may have interesting ramifications for Crikey staff. Jason Whittaker took on the role of Crikey’s deputy editor after Sophie Black was promoted to editor when Jonathan Green left to take over the ABC’s The Drum. Whittaker is on the public record (prior to his Crikey days) as a passionate defender of the traditional separation of advertising and journalism – the “church and state” of media.

However if their most recent advertising campaign is anything to go by, Gome and Beecher are no longer so sure such a strategy is effective. In no other industry would a refusal of two key branches to work together be tolerated – even if there is a possibility of conflict of interest. Crikey, like most media, is a business and it must perform as a business. It has a democratic function, but that, as New Matilda have found out, is a sidebar. The main game is making money to survive. That requires everyone working to the same objective. The fun part will be watching how Crikey evolves to meet that objective. I look forward to following the journey for the next two years.

Being Julia Gillard: Understanding Australia’s new prime minister

In Jacqueline Kent’s “The Making of Julia Gillard”, Gillard speaks about an event in Hopper’s Crossing outside Melbourne. She was at a shopping centre standing next to a board with a photo of her. “This old guy comes out of the supermarket, looks at me, looks at the photo, then turns back at me and says ‘Taken on a good day wasn’t it, love?’ I said “And you’d be bloody Robert Redford, would you mate?’”

Gillard will need her self-deprecating sense of humour after her stunning accession to the Prime Minister of Australia this morning. Most people believed Gillard was destined to become the country’s first female Prime Minister but until a few days ago no one believed it could happen in 2010.

But with Kevin Rudd in disarray in recent weeks and private party polling telling powerbrokers they were losing key marginal seats, it was suddenly time to up the tempo. Unlike Rudd and Tony Abbott, Gillard kept her personal popularity in the recent political upheavals. The time was right for kingmakers to dust off the guillotine and depose the incumbent. Rudd realised he no longer had the numbers and resigned without a fight.

Labor has panicked unnecessarily and would have won the next election under Rudd but they have handed an unexpected fillip to the opposition. At least the clean nature of the execution means there is no residual leadership tension that could further undermine Labor. Given Rudd’s intention to stay on, he could be restored as Foreign Minister under Gillard after the election.

Gillard was born in the South Welsh coal port town of Barry in 1961. Her father was a brilliant student but being one of seven children in a poor family he was forced to work in the mines. When four-year-old Julia was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia, a doctor advised her parents to move to a warmer climate. The family (including elder daughter Alison, aged 7) moved to Adelaide in 1966 where Julia’s father worked as a psychiatric nurse.

Gillard said she learned the value of hard work from him. At Adelaide University she was a student union organiser and then involved with the Melbourne-based Socialist Forum. Political views were heavily skewed in the ultra-left scene of 1970s student politics. Gillard told Australian Story being a Labor student meant she was viewed as a right-winger. “We didn’t really have that many sort of Liberals who were active in it to create that right-wing pole so most of student politics thought the Labor students were the enemy for being too right-wing.”

Gillard graduated with an arts and law degree. She worked her way up to a partnership in Melbourne legal firm Slater & Gordon before several unsuccessful attempts to secure Labor preselection during the 1990s. She gained government experience as chief of staff to John Brumby when he was Victorian opposition leader during the Kennett years and she was finally elected to federal parliament in 1998.

ABC Radio National’s Peter Mares said Gillard’s membership of the Victorian left of the ALP was “more organisational than ideological.” She is keen to promote social inclusion but wary of government heavy-handedness in social policy. “Gillard supports approaches that combine state and non-state actors in service delivery, encourage competition and individual initiative, yet maintain a safety net for those who fall,” Mares said.

Biographer Christine Wallace agrees Gillard was “no lefty” and said she is factional only so far as it is useful. Wallace described her as “transfactional” and said Gillard elicits an “intense, visceral response from voters, journalists and fellow political players.” Her talent was nurtured by Brumby, Simon Crean and Mark Latham. Gillard was one of the few Labor heavies not to suffer a tongue-lashing in the Latham Diaries and she is one of the few leaders not to twist the knife in Latham. By the time Rudd took over, Gillard was the obvious choice of deputy and since the election victory in 2007 she has revelled in the difficult twin roles of education and employment minister.

Wallace said what distinguishes Gillard from many female politicians is a genuine love of power. “Possessing it acts as a big political multiplier for her: the more power she gets, the better she performs and the more she accumulates as a result,” said Wallace.

Gillard has now hit the power jackpot and her immediate task is consolidation to ensure it doesn’t just last a few months. Assuming she wins the election, we may see a new style of leader in Australia. Her policy record is mixed, but her native intelligence, a driving will to succeed and her indefatigable sense of humour will prove major allies in the fierce battles to come.

I’m hearing only bad news from Radio Africa

When Cameroon were unluckily beaten by England in the quarter final of the 1990 World Cup in Italy it seemed only a matter of time before an African side won the World Cup. What no one predicted was that Cameroon’s 1990 performance would be remain an African high water mark, equalled only by Senegal who also went out in quarter-final extra time in 2002.

Things have gone backwards since then. With one round of the group matches left to go in the first ever African World Cup, it remains a distinct possibility no African side will make it through to the last 16. South Africa, Ivory Coast and Nigeria are almost certainly out already. Algeria has some hope in the group of sleep but will probably lose to USA. That leaves Ghana who top their group currently ahead of Germany and Serbia. However their lacklustre performance against a poor ten man Australian side suggests they will probably lose to Germany and allow Serbia to grab the other place with a win or draw against Australia. The one African innovation in this World Cup is not the football but the vuvuzela which has split sporting fans. Some love it for its ability to get the fans involved but more hate it for its incessant one-pitched drone which drowns out every other noise in the stadium. Problems with the vuvuzela were identified at the 2009 Confederation Cup which acts as a world cup dress rehearsal. FIFA boss Sepp Blatter didn’t want to ban the vuvuzela saying “we should not try to Europeanise an African World Cup.”As with most things Blatter, this was hypocritical bullshit. It had nothing to do with anti-colonialism and everything to do with office politics. There is no long history of the vuvuzela’s use in Africa or elsewhere. The plastic trumpet first emerged in Mexico in the 1970s and was seen at the Argentina 1978 World Cup. They didn’t become popular in South Africa until 20 years later. With its high sound level and closeness to the frequency of human speech, Blatter probably hates them as much as anyone not playing them. But the FIFA president was not prepared to risk African votes deserting him during the 2011 presidential election.While Blatter is buying votes, the tournament is gathering pace. The first week saw a succession of negative games and 1-0 scorelines. Desperately poor and uneven refereeing didn’t help. The code’s refusal to use technology to help the refs leaves it looking a laughing stock compared to the range of facilities available to rugby, cricket and tennis officials.

This is especially ludicrous now referees and assistants are wired up. It would not take long to talk to a fourth or fifth official in the stands with access to replays, goal-line incidents and offside decisions. The oft-quoted excuse it would “interrupt the flow of the game” beggars belief especially when considering how many interruptions exist as players fall over under the slightest provocation.

A European team has never won the competition outside its home continent and this statistic is likely to continue in South Africa. Germany looked strong against Australia only to fold against Serbia. Meanwhile Italy, France and England all lack a cutting edge. Favourites Spain inexplicably lost to Switzerland and may find it impossible to recover. The Dutch look the best of the Europeans so far but don’t have the aura of trophy winners.

The same cannot be said of Brazil and Argentina. Both sides have aura in abundance and won their games easily. With the right amount of fortune they should end up playing each other in the first all-South American final since 1950 (or 1930 if you are being picky and say there was no actual final in 1950) and the first ever final between these two old foes. It would be hilarious to watch Diego Maradona pick up another world cup trophy, despite all his flaws and madness. I suspect Brazil have too much guile to make that happen, but Argentina and its on-field genius Lionel Messi have my heart as we head into the next few fascinating weeks.

2009 NT Intervention Report shows slow but steady progress

The Federal Government has released its monitoring report on the NT Intervention for the second half of 2009. The report shows much has been achieved in health, education and crime reporting since the Intervention started though critics say there is not enough evidence yet to support its rollout.

The Northern Territory Emergency Response was a Howard Government initiative in June 2007 in response to claims of abuse and neglect of children in the “Little Children are Sacred” report. It was supported by the Rudd Government when it took office five months later. The NTER legislation period is five years and commits the Government to actions to “close the gap” between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal key health indicators. The objectives of NTER are ensuring the protection of women and children, reducing family violence, improving education, improving health, and promoting positive behaviours and personal responsibility.

In 2009, the Rudd Government attempted to remove elements of the NTER. Legislation is before the Senate to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act. Many of the 73 NTER communities felt they had been hurt, humiliated and confused by the discriminatory way in which the original legislation was pushed through. However the same people admitted children, women and the elderly were all feeling safer, better fed and clothed, and there was less humbugging for alcohol, drugs and gambling.

The Government has built eight of nine promised new crèches and upgraded 11 out of another promised 13. Average school attendance has increased from 60.1 percent to 62.2 percent in 12 months. This is still down on the 62.7 percent figure recorded in 2007. A school nutrition program is up and running, staffed mainly by Indigenous people while over 140 new teaching positions have been funded in the NT. Another 173 health professionals are on the books covering nursing, GP, dental and allied health.

Outreach teams have made 110 visits to 66 remote communities. Eighty-eight community stores were licensed to sell alcohol and out of 190 monitoring visits just one store had its licence revoked. Alcohol Management Plans are in place in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Palmerston and Katherine and on their way in Borroloola, Maningrida, Gunbalanya, Elliot, Tiwi Islands and Groote Eylandt. The Government created 2200 new jobs leaving almost 17,000 on welfare quarantine known as “income management”. Ninety-six percent of these spent $133 million on food and clothing using BasicCards.

The number of child abuse cases increased in the 2009 reporting period giving the ABC its gloomy headline. It rose from 72 in 2007 to 142 two years later. With 62 additional police in communities, there is an increase in reported crime, while the actual incidence of crime may have remained unchanged or have fallen. The numbers of alcohol related incidents went up 31 percent while the number of drug related incidents went up 23 percent. Reported incidents of domestic abuse went up a staggering 75 percent between 2007 and 2009.

Last year NT Indigenous children were six times more likely than other children to be the subject of abuse and neglect. Neglect remains the main crime (43 percent) followed by physical abuse (26 percent) and emotional abuse (24 percent). Sexual abuse accounted for less than 10 percent of cases and since July 2007 27 people (including four non-Indigenous people) have been convicted for child sexual assault.

Responses to the report have been limited in the media and non-existent in the blogosphere. Apart from the ABC article noted above, the NT News also picked up on the increased stats angle, The Australian published an article by Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, while ANU’s Jon Altman in Crikey called the state of progress “disturbing”.

Altman says we have gone backwards since 2007. However, until there is a concerted hue and cry by white Australia to follow through on the initiatives, nothing will change. Our media is failing us with this task. Part 2 of the report provides detailed information and analysis by sub measure.

Gaza: A History of Neglect

While the flotilla attempts to end the economic blockade have turned it into front page news, Gaza has been a forgotten add-on for most of its 62 years of existence. For millennia it was a part of Palestine occupied by a succession of foreign rulers. On 14 May 1948 the last of those rulers, the British high commissioner, left Palestine formally ending the colonial mandate.

(photo:AP)
The Zionists immediately proclaimed an independent Israel. Within 24 hours armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq launched an attack across the frontier but stopped short at occupying Jewish settlements. The Israelis, battle-hardened from fighting Germans and British alike, routed the invaders.When fighting ended in January 1949 Palestine had disappeared from the map. Most went to Israel, the West Bank went to Jordan leaving the tiny strip of Gaza administered by Egypt. The strip was home to thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled across the border or were forced to leave by Jewish settlers.

Egypt’s King Farouk ordered a new palace in Gaza where he could preside over a Palestinian Arab Government. His grandiose schemes fell apart when Nasser and his Free Officers deposed him in a coup in 1952. Nasser turned his attentions to removing the hated British from the Suez Canal Zone while Gaza reverted to lawless anarchy and fedayeen raids against Israel.

Four years later the Israelis invaded the strip in the Suez War. It followed a blitz on Egyptian forces in Sinai then a diversion south to open up the Gulf of Aqaba. The southern end of the Strip became a key battlefields of the war but the Israelis quickly overran the 8,000 Egyptian defenders before taking Gaza City.

After the war Israel told the UN it would keep its troops in Gaza and Sharm el-Sheikh in Sinai. The Americans, although sympathetic to Israel, reacted angrily and threatened to cut off aid and end its guarantee of unrestricted oil supplies. With a likely vote on a UN resolution condemning Israel, Prime Minister Ben Gurion agreed to withdraw from Sinai and Gaza in exchange for access to the Gulf of Aqaba. The war ended the facade there was an independent government in Gaza. Direct control went back to Cairo with a military governor installed in Gaza City.

Gaza changed hands again in 1967 as the Strip and Sinai were vital battlefields in the Egyptian flank of the Six Day War. At the end of the war the Israeli Government voted unanimously to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace agreements. Gaza was conspicuously absent from the decision and the arrangement was rejected by Egypt and Syria.

Israeli historian Benny Morris said at least 70,000 Gazans emigrated to Egypt and were forced to sign documents saying they were leaving of their own free will. Israelis moved into the Strip in large numbers taking up one fifth of the land in an already crowded area. Israel finally gave Sinai back to Egypt in 1979 but again the status of Gaza was not addressed by President Carter’s peace treaty. Egypt agreed to renounce its territorial claims on the area freeing it to become a part of Palestine, in theory.

Growing Palestinian unrest led to the First Intifada from 1987 to 1993 and a year later to the Oslo Accords which called for the total withdrawal of the IDF from parts of Gaza and the West Bank. It also created the Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority for a transitional period of five years. It was also the first time Israel and the Palestinians viewed Gaza and the West Bank as a single territorial unit. The Oslo Accords were a brave move but foundered on the ‘too hard basket’: Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees, security and border control, and the status of Jerusalem.

Yet there was impact in Gaza. The IDF left Gaza City and the Palestinian Authority began to administer and police the region. The PA was racked by corruption and mismanagement and by 2000 most of the Strip’s 400,000 residents were frustrated by the lack of progress and squalid conditions. The scene was set for the Second Intifada and the fracturing of the Oslo Accords.

After Israeli soldiers were killed by a Palestinian mob in the West Bank, the IDF launched air strikes against PA targets in the West Bank and Gaza. Attitudes hardened with Israel turning to the right wing Likud Party while Hamas grew in popularity in Gaza. An exasperated Ariel Sharon decided in 2004 to unilaterally evict all Israelis from Gaza’s 21 settlements. The IDF withdrew a year later. The disengagement did not address wider issues of occupation. Israel still retained control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, coastline, infrastructure and power

The withdrawal gave fresh hope to a peace settlement, hopes soon dashed again. Palestinian parliamentary elections were held in early 2006 for the first time in 10 years. Hamas stunned the ruling Fatah party by easily winning the election. With Hamas refusing to recognise Israel, the US and EU imposed sanctions on Palestine. Israel imposed a blockade on the Strip which exists to this day. The election result also led to the “fratricidal war” between Hamas and Fatah and the latter used its greater numbers in the West Bank to wrest back power there. Hamas remained entrenched in the Strip.

They also continued low-level war against Israel with home-made Qassam rockets a constant irritant in border regions. In December 2008, Israel lost patience and launched Operation Cast Lead with a series of air strikes before a ground-based invasion in which over a thousand Palestinians were killed and most of Gaza’s infrastructure was destroyed in a three-week campaign. The border remains sealed and the IDF strictly controls travel to and from the area.

The end result may to be harden attitudes within the Strip. Its future may not be part of a united Palestine with the West Bank but as a separate country in its own right. No one in the region has yet confronted this reality.

Red Cross say Kyrgyzstan situation is “an immense crisis”

The International Committee of the Red Cross say 100,000 people have been displaced from their homes in the crisis in southern Kyrgyzstan. An ICRC team which arrived in the remote area yesterday said Uzbek authorities have registered 75,000 adult refugees and an unknown number of children in Uzbekistan while tens of thousands remain stranded on the Kyrgyz side of the border. “We’ve seen for ourselves and also heard about pockets of displaced people ranging from several hundred to several thousand in number, so it’s impossible to say with any certainty exactly how many people have been forced to flee their homes,” said Séverine Chappaz, the ICRC’s deputy head of mission in Kyrgyzstan. “It’s an immense crisis.”

ICRC staff visited the main detention centre in Kyrgyzstan’s second biggest city Osh where they delivered food provided by the World Food Programme to 1,000 detainees. It was part of an emergency WFP operation to deliver food to 13,000 people affected by the humanitarian crisis. WFP said transporting aid from the capital Bishkek was difficult, as roads are not safe and commercial trucking companies are reluctant to risk their vehicles. “This crisis is unfolding rapidly and WFP is mobilising its global expertise to ensure that the vulnerable – particularly women and children – do not suffer,” said WFP’s Executive Director Josette Sheeran. “We implore all sides to ensure humanitarian access to the vulnerable, trapped by the crisis.”Officially almost 200 people have died in that crisis though the real death toll is likely to be much higher. Osh, the stronghold of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has been the epicentre of violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbek people for a week, though the roots of the violence date back a couple of months. Bakiyev was ousted from government in April in a coup that left 75 dead and hundreds injured in fighting between police and protesters. Ex-Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva said the opposition had taken over government and driven Bakiyev from office. Otunbeyeva was subsequently installed as interim leader.

Bakiyev refused to accept the coup despite losing the support of his Kremlin backers. He was elected president in 2005 and re-elected in 2009 though there was a strong suspicion of electoral fraud in both elections. After the coup Bakiyev fled to Osh before eventually going to Kazakhstan. Bakiyev remained popular in the south and his supporters are likely behind some of the violence that erupted spectacularly last week. The new Kyrgyz government was quick to blame Bakiyev. It said he hired “provocateurs” to instigate the deadly riots and they complained of a lack of international support, saying: “We were left alone with the enemy in the most difficult days.”

Kyrgyzstan’s most difficult days were not entirely Bakiyev’s fault. Clashes erupted on 11 June with the large Uzbek population of the city targeted by gangs. It spiralled out of control with possibly a thousand people dying in the clashes. It is not entirely clear who is driving the violence but it is tapping into ancient enmities. Ethnic Uzbeks make up 14 per cent of the country’s population of 5.3 million but are almost half the population of Osh and neighbouring Jalal-Abad. In echoes of ethnic conflicts elsewhere, they are also a target being overly represented in the commercial class. Ex-pat Craig Murray in the British Telegraph suggests the violence may have been orchestrated by Moscow to undermine the liberal Otunbeyeva regime.

The Kyrgyz administration has declared a state of emergency in the Osh and Jalal-Abad provinces and the next important date for the interim regime is 27 June. On that date there will be a constitutional referendum to pave the way for parliamentary elections in October. The new leadership is determined to hold the vote, which it needs in order to entrench its legality. “The situation in Osh is stabilising. We have enough forces,” said Azimbek Beknazarov, an interim deputy premier. “We need this [referendum] like air. Everyone who calls themselves a Kyrgyz citizen must vote.”

Twitter and politics: The Penrith Debate points to the future

Among 1,200 tweets with the #penrithdebate tag, the most retweeted comment of the day came not from a politician but from a journalist who has long been familiar with the medium, Joe Hildebrand. Hildebrand used the conventions of his craft to turn the debate into an ironic news headline “EXCLUSIVE: TWITTER DEBATE CONFUSED, NONSENSICAL AND UNPRODUCTIVE; PERFECT REPRESENTATION OF NSW POLITICS” At least 41 others liked Hildebrand’s contribution enough to send it on to their followers too (photo: ABC)

Hildebrand’s joke was funny because of the metaphor of the Twitter debate standing in for the entire panoply of governance in NSW. But Hildebrand as a Sydney based News Limited reporter is part of the problem. If as one observer noted, “Twitter is too short, and with a lot of people tweeting to participate in the debate means that information just flys [sic] by without being properly looked and picked apart” there is no reason for journalists not to pick through the bones of the debate after the fact.The Penrith Debate purported to be an exchange of ideas between three NSW political leaders using Twitter for 30 minutes ahead of a state by-election in Penrith on the weekend. Under the moderation of TV journalist Kevin Wilde, Premier Kristina Keneally, Opposition leader Barry O’Farrell and Greens leader Lee Rhiannon used the 140-character format to debate ideas, issues and policies. Keneally made grandiose claims about the possibilities: “Twitter flattens democratic debate. Enlivens democracy. A great tool for discussion, info exchange.”

But Twitter does not make for great theatre. Given its shortcomings for multi-pronged conversation, the debate became more geek gimmickry than flush of oratory. Tech and social commentator Stilgherrian picked up on this calling it “confusing and pointless” and said Twitter was “completely the wrong medium for a debate.” Stil made the point the three Twitter streams of the debate’s participants were almost like watching three TV stations. But he said, a filtered stream of the hashtag limited to the participants was available on the day.

Twitter may be flawed but we forget it is just one piece of the communication puzzle. Keneally used her iphone to make her Tweets while Rhiannon used Tweetdeck. Others used a bewildering array of tools that sit on top of Twitter to make their points. The stream is being tamed as people find uses for the vast amount of data it consumes. And the debate, though badly executed, contained the germ of an old and timeless ideal: public accountability.

The Dutch are masters of public accountability and they held several Twitter debates a couple of weeks ago in the lead-up to national elections. The Netherlands went further than NSW with at least three party leaders, two minister and three other MPs taking part. The commentary from Dutch-based John Tyler at HagueGuy showed a massive audience for this kind of interaction regardless of how chaotic the rapid fire exchanges got. While it was easy to get confused, the debates have added a vast amount of information for HagueGuy and Hildebrand to work with when critiquing politicians.

It is too easy to overlook just how exciting this kind of interactivity is. Working at its best, the Twitterati operates like synapses, a hivemind capable of massive thought and concerted action despite character limits, inherent anarchy, spamming, non sequiturs and juvenile humour. Forced to be brief, complex words and sentences are pared down to absolute essentials and often chiselled into remarkably dense thought. We didn’t see much of that today but there will be other opportunities.

More of these debates will be conducted in the trust economy of social media. Politicians will have to learn a new skill: how to become adept at ceding control. Twitter debates won’t decide the election, but with the right tools and the right filters, they can add to the general wellbeing of the body politic by getting tight messages out to an engaged audience.

Greens participant Lee Rhiannon thought the debate was a success. “There would have been more people following this debate on line than would fit into many local town halls,” she wrote “I am not saying these online events should replace public meetings but there is a place for online debates in the political landscape and we should encourage its development.”

But we should not get too carried away; Rhiannon and the rest did what politicians do in any other debate on any other media. They spoke to their own themes and ignored pointed replies. It is politics, after all. It is up to us to go through the entrails to make sense of it.

Helen Thomas and the truth about Palestine

Nothing has depressed me more this week than the Helen Thomas affair. If you cannot have a controversial opinion after nine decades on the planet then when can you have one?

Thomas had to “retire in disgrace” after she said the Jews should leave Palestine. She knows what she was talking about. All her working life she has watched the disaster unfolding in the region since Israel’s independence in 1948. In an age where media allow governments to get away with lies about “the peace process”, a journalist of almost 70 years standing losing her job when she call a spade a spade even when it’s a particularly dirty shovel, is particularly odious.

Palestinians can trace a 2,000 year old link of habitation with their land, while the Jewish Diaspora of Europeans, Russians and Africans have been there at most a 100 years. The Jews must reach into their religion to find their ancient connection with Israel. Given how they have battered the original inhabitants into submission, it takes little imagination to imagine Palestine as a Holy Land without the xenophobes that now administer the country in Jerusalem (a capital recognised by no other country).

Thomas is no fool. She knows she has no power to change facts and knows the Israelis are going nowhere. She has seen first hand how US support and military hardware makes the Knesset well-nigh invincible. With the blessing of every president since Eisenhower (the first of 11 presidents Thomas reported on) Israel have increased their stranglehold on Palestine. Thomas could see how they turned the West Bank into a mess of powerless Bantustans and how they have bombed the Gaza Strip back into stateless inertia.

So when this knowledgeable near 90 year old is asked a leading question by a Jewish rabbi “Any comments on Israel?” it is hardly wonder she should reply “I think the Jews should get out of Palestine.”

It was the word “Jews” that hung her. If she had said “I think the Israelis should get out of Palestine” it would have been free from the hoary charge of “anti-Semitism”, a cliché that shows no understanding of what a Semite is.

Perhaps Thomas realised this or perhaps she didn’t. She is 89 years old after all. But she did quickly realise the effect her words would have on the mediated public sphere, given she is a product of it. She chose to fall on her own sword rather than have to justify a position outside the US mainstream.

Thomas’s Cassandra-like words exposed her to political deviance. That is unsustainable when American public trust is based on the media lie Israel is never wrong.

Thomas is old enough to remember another event in the same year as Israel’s independence. In 1948, the Russians imposed a blockade on West Berlin aimed at starving it out of political existence. The western powers led by the US defeated it using outrage and ingenuity.

The blockade of Gaza deserves similar outrage regardless of the legitimacy of the Hamas Government. 400,000 people are being systematically starved by a government in a brutal piece of collective punishment. In any other context, this would be called genocide. Shutting an old woman up won’t make it any better.

Queensland Budget 2010

“Twelve months ago, this Government took the decision to fight for jobs, above all else.” These were the words Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser began his 2010 budget address with. Fraser is a hard-working and earnest young man but others might wonder if the jobs they were fighting hardest for were their own. The Anna Bligh government has been on the nose for 12 months and the latest Galaxy poll in the Courier-Mail on Monday showed a 55-45 margin to the LNP on a 2PP basis.

On Monday Fraser claimed he would not be distracted by the poll and in his budget speech he recommitted the Government its “true task, providing Queenslanders with a chance at the dignity of work.” Given the unemployment rate in Queensland is 5.6 percent, Fraser may be taking a gamble in his “first commitment” which does not address the other 94.4 percent of adult Queenslanders who have jobs or who are not registered with Centrelink.Fraser did have good economic data to report. There was of a better than expected growth rate of 3 percent which was still “below trend” but was better than the national 2 percent rate. This recession-busting construction spree represented 7 percent of the State economy and 120,000 jobs with a predicted 2.75 percent increase in 2010-11. They will continue to pour money into infrastructure promising $17.1 billion this financial year, though disappointingly roads still gets the lion’s share of the funds.

The state deficit has been reduced to $287 million which is well down on the $2.3 billion Mid Year forecast and a measure of how the resources boom has contributed to state coffers. Fraser said they are on target to deliver “a solid surplus” by 2015-2016 but the revised estimates suggest it will be a lot earlier than that.

Despite his money worries Fraser still has the ability to dish it out to various constituencies. Pensioners do well as usual, something governments may need to reconsider as the country gets older over the next 20-30 years. Fraser gave them another $90 million 50 percent concession on Compulsory Third Party insurance and an increased electricity rebate worth $50 million. As worthy as these sound, I wish governments became more creative with their grants by supporting a move towards the consumption of renewable energies and incentives to use more public transport instead of subsiding private vehicle use.

There are some environmental sops. There is $60 million for the popular Solar Bonus Scheme (which has 22,000 people signed up) $35 million for the Kogan Creek solar boost project (matching an amount from the Federal Government) to install a solar thermal addition to increase its capacity by 44 megawatts at peak solar conditions and improve plant efficiency.

The budget also has $300 million for education and training including funding for 316 new teachers and teacher aides and five new schools and 40 kindergartens. There is also $10 million for training in the booming Coal Seam Gas and Liquefied Natural Gas industries. There is an additional $72 million to provide disability support with good programs including autism services in regional areas, helping people with spinal cord injuries and transitioning disabled young people out of school. He also announced a new tax measure by excluding stump duty on homes purchased through a disability trust. The health budget has increased from $5.35 billion to $10 billion in five years. The government will add 1,200 doctors, nurses and health professionals as well as building or upgrading 22 hospitals.

The government estimates 100,000 people will move to Queensland in the next 12 months and Fraser said “we have to cater for that growth”. He announced a new Regional First Home Owner Boost, an extra $4,000 on top of the existing state funded $7,000 First Home Owner Grant to encourage people to move out of the South East. He also announced a $450 million new police academy as well as over 200 new police officers and spent $240 billion on yet another backwards looking project – the Gateway motorway upgrade south extension. Other roads in the cash grab were the Port of Brisbane with $330 million, the Ted Smout Bridge to Redcliffe $315 million, the Forgan Smith Bridge in Mackay $148 million and the $190 million Port Access Road in Townsville.

Queensland’s 150th budget is much like the 149 that came before it. It is a carefully crafted grab-bag of token initiatives, old solutions and outright bribes that paper over the economic cracks but do little to address the State’s longer term needs: how to move to a 21st century economy as the population grows daily older. It will take a government with a lot more vision than the cautious Anna Bligh/Andrew Fraser to deliver on that promise. Such a government is nowhere in waiting in Queensland.

American lawyer jailed in Rwanda for giving legal counsel to Opposition leader

An American lawyer has pleaded not guilty to charges of denying Rwanda’s 1994 genocide in a court in Kigali on Friday. Peter Erlinder was also charged with publishing articles that threaten national stability in a five hour hearing in the Rwandan capital. Erlinder is the lead defence lawyer at the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda held in Arusha, Tanzania. Erlinder said he believes the charges arise as a misunderstanding however he could face 25 years in prison if convicted.

The trial is no “misunderstanding”, it is political. Erlinder arrived in Kigali last month to defend opposition leader Victoire Umuhoza Ingabire, charged with promoting genocide ideology. Ingabire is the chair of the Unified Democratic Forces. She returned to Rwanda in January, after 16 years in exile in the Netherlands, to contest the presidential election against dictator Paul Kagame in August. Kagame, who has ruled Rwanda since 1995, threw Ingabire in jail on charges of “association with a terrorist group; propagating genocide ideology; negationism and ethnic divisionism”. She is now out on bail with her passport seized and instructions not to talk to the media.

This was a tactic to ensure Ingabire would not be able to contest the election. She enlisted Erlinder to fight the charges. The 62-year-old lawyer is a distinguished jurist and a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in Minnesota before working for the ICTR. In his defence statements at Arusha, Erlinder disputed the standard characterisation of the genocide as Hutus deliberately slaughtering innocent Tutsis. He said the violence was more spontaneous and possibly the result of Tutsi rebels killing Hutu civilians. These provocative statements outside their courtroom context made him an ideal candidate for “propagating genocide ideology”. He arrived in Kigali on 23 May and was arrested five days later. Martin Ngoga, Rwanda’s prosecutor general said it did not matter Erlinder made the offensive remarks abroad.

Erlinder requested bail to return to the US and receive treatment for injuries. He said he had not been maltreated but had also not had contact with family members or his doctor. On Wednesday, he was hospitalised after police said he had attempted suicide by taking dozens of pills. His family denied the suicide attempt claim. On Thursday, the US State Dept called for his humanitarian release. “We are pressing the Rwandan government to resolve this case quickly, and we would like to see him released on compassionate grounds,” Philip Crowley, a state department spokesman, said.

The criticism of Rwanda is deliberately gentle. The country is a close American ally that has received hundreds of millions of dollars of aid despite human rights violations in the months leading up to elections in August. No subject is touchier than the genocide and the US has covered up evidence Kagame and his Tutsi army were almost as culpable as the Hutu Power group that killed over half a million Tutsis between April and June 1994. In recent years, thousands of Rwandans have been charged with the vaguely worded genocide ideology, which criminalises any non-government version of events in 1994. As the New York Times says, Erlinder’s case is the first time Rwanda has leveled these charges against a Westerner.

Writing in MR Zine, American academics Edward Herman and David Peterson said Erlinder’s arrest revealed much about a regime routinely sanitised in Western intellectual life and media coverage. They remind readers Kagame does not like elections and has avoided and rigged them. Kagame did the same thing before the last election in 2003. “Kagame’s main rival at the time, a Hutu and former President Pasteur Bizimungu, was arrested and charged with ‘divisionism,’ a kind of Kagame-speak that means to provide political choices other than the one-party Kagame dictatorship,” wrote Herman and Peterson. Hopefully, he has gone too far in using that Kafkaesque gimmick against Peter Erlinder, a notable fighter against genocide and genocide denial.