Crispin Hull

Federal Labor feels bitter and cheated that a Government can be tipped out of office merely by a protest vote even when the Opposition has not developed a set of policies. It is not just the Queensland result that worries Federal Labor, but the resemblance to its own situation. The Federal Opposition, it argues, is like the Queensland coalition _ bereft of policies.

It appears to be asking a question in a way that suggests it has no answer: how can the voters elect a party with no policies over a party with policies? But the question does have an answer. People will vote for a party with no policies when the Government conduct and policies are so objectionable that they prefer the unknown to the devil they know.

Mr Keating imagines that voters will prefer his “”big picture” to the lack of vision and picture being presented by John Howard. Not so. If Queensland is any guide people do not care about big pictures if the detailed management is wrong _ if tollways are being built against community wishes; if interest rates rise; if special interest groups are given benefits through government spending over the broad interest; if economic management appears to allow one recession to drift into another with precious little time between them.
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The Prime Minister Paul Keating said virtually in the same breath yesterday that the Queensland election was not a rebuke to the Federal Government and yet there is no joy in lodging protest votes by voting for what he called no-policy parties. It sounded like whistling in the dark. Why did he argue there was no federal rebuke and then immediately drawn an analogy with the Federal situation _ that he might be thrown out of office purely on protest.

Mr Keating’s view was also a very self-centred view of what happened in Queensland. Perhaps Mr Keating imagines that because he took no part in the campaign that the election was divorced totally from Federal politics. Not so. Opposition Leader John Howard campaigned there extensively.

Of course, much can be read into any election result. It would be silly to claim a “clear message” arising from more than a million votes. Many factors were at work. Among them, perhaps, was that some voters were not going to vote Labor because of the performance of the Keating Government. Others, perhaps, did not like Mr Goss or the performance of his Government. Others may have thought the unity of the Coalition deserved credit; that the days of the corrupt National Government of the 1980s were gone for good; that the Liberals had asserted themselves, particularly in the south-east, to a point where they were a viable choice whereas in the past those who could not bring themselves to vote National voted Labor; and still others might have imagined Mr Goss was getting to self-assured and that though he ought to win he should not win by too much.
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It is tragic that in this 50th anniversary year of the founding of the United Nations that it should have failed so comprehensively in the former Yugoslavia. It now seems that the UN safe zones for Bosnian Muslims in the east of Bosnia are not such thing. Bosnian Serbs have been allowed to move in to the most significant of them _ Srebrenica _ and forcibly take away all male Muslims aged between six and about sixty and force the remaining population out to the north. The aim is clear. It is “ethnic cleansing” of pockets of Muslim territory which are surrounded by Serbia areas. The aim is clearly a Greater Serbia, created by force. Worse, it is being created at the expense of the Muslim population in flagrant disregard of human rights and UN principles while supposedly powerful nations seem helpless to do anything about it.

From the Bosnian Muslim point of view the UN and NATO role has been doubly cruel. On one hand the UN and NATO have failed to provide protection yet on the other hand they have enforced an arms embargo precluding the Muslims from defending themselves.

It is not that the UN and NATO should have stayed out and allowed the Serbs and Muslims to fight it out. Rather, having decided to go in, they should have done a thorough job.
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The tiff between Opposition Leader John Howard and Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser highlights the need for a closer look at the role of the Reserve Bank in Australia. Mr Howard has accused Mr Fraser of showing poitical bias towards the Government because he has endorsed the Accord and generally supported the Government’s economic direction. Mr Fraser, in turn, has dismissed Mr Howard’s comments that Australia is enjoying only five minutes of economic sunshine as a hollow-sounding throwaway in the face of five years of economic growth. Mr Howard says the bank is not independent enough.

The Reserve Bank and its Governor are in a unique position in the Federal public sector. Some statutory authorities and government businesses are almost completely independent. Other bodies like the Auditor-General’s Office and the Australian Bureau of Statistics are not responsible to the Government but to the Parliament, though the Government appoints their heads.
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Senator Bob Mc Mullan’s proposed move to the House of Representatives is a welcome one. It shows that, since the March by-election, the Labor Party has recognised that the ACT cannot be taken for granted.

Hitherto, Labor had won every election and by-election for all ACT seats since their creation bar three (in 1949 when the first ACT seat was created and won by an Independent, and for the seat of Canberra in the extraordinarily anti-Labor elections of 1975 and 1977.)

At the March by-election in the seat of Canberra Labor was severely shaken by a 17 per cent swing. It lost one of its safest seats. The loss could be put down to several factors: general by-election trends against governments; fear of interest rate rises in a mortgage-belt seat; an anti-Paul Keating sentiment; and a general feeling of a tired government. However, another factor stood out above these _ the selection by Labor of a person, Sue Robinson, who was seen _ rightly or wrongly _ as a far-left candidate more interested in factionalism in the party than in the people she was to represent. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, in Brendan Smyth, chose someone quintessentially of the Tuggeranong mortgage belt.
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NSW Premier Bob Carr and Queensland Premier Wayne Goss have recycled the regular calls from state premiers for an overhaul of the federal system, including moves to make the Senate more relevant and changes to federal-state financial relations.

On financial relations the states have shown a foolish reluctance to take up income tax which they were forced to abandon in World War II. Their idea of reform usually involves more money from the Federal Government with no electoral accountability for levying it. Without an independent tax base, the states’ power will inevitably wane further.
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The Australian Defense Forces face a difficulty over the Human Rights Commission ruling last week that it unlawfully dismissed a man who was HIV-positive. The commission ruled that an employer must look only at a person’s ability to do a job. If someone’s disability meant they could not do their job then it was reasonable for an employer to end that person’s employment, but if the person could continue the job, the employer could not end the job without being found guilty of discrimination.

On its face that seems a reasonable test. Thus someone who loses both legs cannot continue in a job as a ski-ing instructor but might continue as a mathematics teacher.
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The Papua New Guinea High Commissioner, Sir Frederick Reiher, put a very forthright view that Australia has been heavy-handed, remote and unsympathetic to his county in its time of need. He was referring to Australia’s rejection of a recent request for $100 million bridging finance. The Australian Government offered $20 million immediately and a further $20 million on conditions.

Sir Frederick’s assertions went wider than that incident. In condensed form his argument is that Australia should not treat PNG as naughty boys not to be trusted with block grants; that Australia left PNG in the lurch at independence time two decades ago; that PNG helped save Australia during the war; that Australian companies take large amounts of profit out of PNG; and that it is in Australia’s interest to have a politically stable PNG so Australia should help PNG economically to ensure that. That is one way of looking at it.
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Less than $20 is a small price to pay for a family’s lives. That is the clear message from a couple of incidents in Canberra in the past week when smoke alarms saved two families in separate fires. In one the family’s house was extensively damaged by the people got out in time. In the other the occupants were awakened by the alarm and saved themselves and their dwelling.

Residential smoke alarms do not require electrical wiring or any cutting of existing ceilings or walls. Nor are they expensive. They run from normal AA batteries and are attached with peel-off-and-stick strips. They are very cheap and easily tested. The Fire Brigade will help if necessary. Human’s sense of smell is cut off during sleep so the smell of smoke will not wake someone. It requires noise.
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John Howard is a politician in touch. He is in touch with the views of some red-necks who call in to the worst talk-back radio shows. He does not appear to be in touch with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander opinion, nor the opinion of the bulk of mainstream Australia on the question of official recognition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.

The objection raised by Mr Howard is that the recognition is a “divisive gesture”. Nonsense. Only those people already irrationally ill-disposed to indigenous aspirations are going to find offence in giving recognition to the flags. In the short term it might add a tad of bitterness to a few people who are already embittered. That is a very small price to pay for the enhanced self-esteem the move will give to indigenous people and the value to both indigenous and non-indigenous people from the act of reconciliation.

Tragically, some of that value has been eroded by Mr Howard’s comments. He must carry most of the blame for that. But some of the blame must go to the Government. It did not consult with the other political parties or with the states and territories. Rather it used executive power under the Flags Act to proclaim the two indigenous flags as flags of Australia.

It would have been better for the Parliament to have adopted the flags in legislation. It would have given the Opposition a chance to gauge opinion and would probably have resulted in a better approach. A quick change to the regulations by the Government, however, was bound to result in knee-jerk reactions. The point about a legislative approach is that it can only be undone by legislation. The regulation can be undone by ministerial action. The Australian Flag and the Red Ensign are recognised in the Act itself and cannot be changed by ministerial decree _ only by consent of the Parliament.

If anything, Mr Howard should have objected to the way the recognition was given, not to the fact of it. He should have argued that the two indigenous flags required legislative status like the Australian flag.

In any event it is sad that what should have been a united recognition of the flags has become the subject of petty party politics.

The two indigenous flags deserve recognition. They are both Australian. They both represent significant, identifiably parts of Australian society in the same way as a state or territory, albeit ones with a heritage rather than geographic base. The Aboriginal flag and to a lesser extent the Torres Strait Islander flag are instantly recognisable and acknowledged. It is better to include and incorporate them into mainstream Australian society legally as well as in fact.

Indeed, there may be some secret jealousy among those who oppose legal recognition of the flags. The flags are not only flown, but also worn, with pride among Aboriginal and Torres Islanders and universally accepted by them, in a way that the Australian flag does not enjoy. A large number of Australians see the Union Jack _ which takes a quarter of the flag _ as no longer relevant, unrepresentative or an unsuitable symbol of Australian nationhood. Others view the present flag with enormous pride.