Good News Week
I am mindful of comments a few months ago, that the media tend to concentrate on tragedy and drama and that the good news is often neglected. So let me say from the off that it is good to see that Michelle Leslie (or "Sydney model Michelle Leslie", as the papers are wont to refer to her) has managed to avoid an overly long stay in a Bali jail for the crime of possessing two (count them, two) Ecstasy tablets; that the Bush administration has realised that global warming is a result of at least some human intervention; that the NSW government is taking positive steps to deal with the water crisis in Sydney; and that Australia has reached the world cup football finals (of which, more below).
I hate to be a glass-half-empty sort of person but there is a need to balance those positives with a few negatives. Van Nguyen has been hanged for allegedly smuggling 400 grams of heroin through Singapore (he never enetered the country and was transiting through it airport). Singapore's zero tolerance and mandatory sentencing policies have again snuffed out a 'mule', while the Mr Bigs of manufacture and distribution escape scot free (and somewhat enriched). The same situation applies in Indonesia, where an AFP tip-off enabled the police in Bali to catch the Bali 9, but not apparently any of the locals who supplied the drugs to them.
While the Bushies at last admit that human intervention may be leading us towards severe difficulties as a result of climate change, they are, as yet, unwilling to take the sort of action required to ensure that global warming doesn't result in catastrophe. Similarly the NSW government's action in the area of water is to undertake the construction of a desalination plant at Kurnell. This is wasteful in terms of money and energy and will not address the long-term problems. So far the government has given no indication it is willing to address water recycling or the enforced installation of rainwater tanks.
Everywhere you look, it seems to be a good news-bad news scenario. Even qualification for the world cup is only a reminder of the disasters ahead in Germany next June. And the federal government's industrial relations changes would seem also to fit into this category: good news for the bosses; bad news for the workers. It's good news for the press, as the government has been spending squillions on ads, in the print as well as the electronic media, and their contributions to newspapers' coffers have been matched by some employer organisations, who somehow see these changes, which the government says are fair for all, as benefiting them more than their workers. But it seems to be bad news in the short term for the government, which has suffered an unbelievable reversal in the opinion polls, which is of course good news for the ALP. Except that these results just don't ring true. Even if the IR changes are completely on the nose and folks are not chuffed with the proposed sale of the rest of Telstra I cannot imagine how the current Opposition can have a 58-42, two-party preferred, lead. Kim Beasley is taking it as good news - and why wouldn't he?
John Howard doesn't think so - and he seems to be trying to distract our attention with the idea that there's such a threat of terrorism within Australia that he needs to introduce a swag of new measures. And make grandstanding announcements about the imminent likelihood of such an attack and the consequent need to empower the police with extraordinary new powers in the war on terrorism. (No wonder no-one ever tells Howard anything. He was ignorant of the SIEV-X incident and knew nothing about the Tampa and the kids overboard were a complete shock to him. They keep him in the dark because they're afraid he'll blab, like he did a week before police raids found 17 allegedly dangerous radicals among the Moslem community of over three hundred thousand. I note that, when Bush and Blair are discussing bombing Al Jazeera, they too disinvite John to their talks. Don't want the old motor-mouth around.) The ironic thing about the tough new stand is that the Prime Miniature has been encouraged in this by the state ALP Premiers, who see this as an issue on which they can wedge their conservative oppositions. Making chest-beating noises about being tough on terror is one way for Labor types to win the law and order campaign. So, before he retired, Bob Carr challenged Howard to join him in a push for more comprehensive powers to combat terrorism. Howard recognises a winner when he sees one and consequently convened a meeting of heads of government and proposed a series of draconian measures, daring the states to match him. In terms of detention and interrogation powers, and extra leeway for police to use violence, they were all for it. With the odd result that the only group that has been well and truly wedged is the federal ALP, which has difficulty in opposing the worst excesses of Howard's measures because their own state colleagues are all for them. The sting in the tail of the federal proposals, something not made clear to the states at the joint meeting, is the 'modernisation' of sedition laws. Sedition is the crime of undermining the authority of the crown, the parliament or the state. It's so ancient and so out-of-touch with modern values that the last successful prosecution in Australia was in 1949 (the last federal case was in New Guinea (then a territory) in 1960 - some expatriate urged the 'natives' to seek independence). The 2005 modernisation seeks to extend the existing (but unused) regime by introducing offences of urging "assistance of any kind" to the enemy and by expanding the test for banning an "unlawful association", based on a broad definition of "seditious intention". The prosecution only has to show that you were 'reckless', it doesn't have to show that you intended to undermine Australian institutions or assist an enemy. The only defences provided are that you acted "in good faith". The onus lies on the defence to show this and the defence is unavailable in the case of an allegation of an unlawful association with a seditious intention. So a publisher who 'recklessly' publishes an interview with someone who says, for example, that the 'Iraqi resistance' deserves to defeat and expel the Coalition of the Wallies could be prosecuted for being part of an unlawful association with seditious intention (giving aid to the enemy) and have no 'good faith' defence. The sedition section is so bad that even Howard's people on the Senate committee have suggested its removal or, at the least, some wholesale changes to the proposals. Unless they are removed completely, Howard will have managed to criminalise thought crime. I suppose that's good news for someone.
Just like the good news Morris Iemma (the new NSW Premier) got when an independent won the Pittwater by-election occasioned by John Brogden's resignation (see last issue for the Brogden saga). The conservatives in the states and territories are already basket cases (as noted in a previous Necessity and in my award-winning Bulletin letter), and the loss of the third most blue-riband Liberal seat in the state will not help their cause here.
And there was good news for one-fifth of the Telstra workforce who will be encouraged to test the new industrial relations regime over the next few years. Up to 12,000 employees will be shed by the telecom as the new management team post-modernises the company. The board employed an American manager (Sol Trujillo) as the CEO and he has brought in a number of other Americans to form his senior management team - "Sol and the Amigos" as they have been dubbed. And a damned brilliant job they have done too: a number of senior executives with long experience in the company have been axed, leaving it bereft of knowledge of the local marketplace; the Amigos have talked down the company; and the Telstra share price has plummeted. And the new plan - job cuts linked with some non-specific restructuring and repositioning, all communicated in dense market-speak - has seen it slide further. Not good news for the government looking to sell the third tranche of Telstra shares, nor the mums-and-dads who bought shares in the first two sell-offs. But it does raise a very interesting question: why did they have to import an American to mismanage Telstra? Don't we have native-born mismanagers who would be equally capable of coming up with such stupid plans and, thus, lowering shareholder value? I'm confident that the record will show that our managers are just as poor as any American imports, and that's got to be good news.
World Cup
This is the era when a series of sporting curses have been laid to rest. The Bambino was put out of his misery when the Red Sox won the Series. A year later the White Sox put the Black Sox behind them. Whatever albatross has been hanging around the neck of the Sydney/South Melbourne Swans (their own version of avian flu I suppose) was discarded on the last day in September. And now the Curse of Mozambique has had its malign influence negated. "The Curse of Mozambique?" I hear you ask. Allow me to explain.
In 1970, the Australian football team, trying to overcome its history of perennially failing to make the world cup, was in Mozambique to play Rhodesia (as it then was) on neutral turf. Leaving no stone unturned, Johnny Warren and his mates contracted a local shaman to exercise his undoubted skills with decapitation of chickens and invocations of the influential indigenous deities. His efforts bore fruit in that the Rhodesians were overcome. Then, apparently, Warren neglected to carry through his end of the bargain and the payment of whatever wampum had been promised was not forwarded to the shaman. So he reversed the curse, aiming it fair-square at the Socceroos. As a result, the Australians failed to make the 1970 world cup; performed appallingly at the 1974 world cup (the one final we reached); and has been doomed since in all attempts to qualify again for the finals. We've been beaten at the last hurdle by New Zealand, Scotland, Argentina, Korea, Iran and Uruguay.
Last year, however, steps were taken to have the curse nullified. John Safran, the host of a humorous television program exploring the many manifestations of the divine and the religious, took it upon himself to do something. He enlisted the aid of Johnny Warren, by this time on his last legs as a result of cancer. They went off to Mozambique and underwent the appropriate cleansing rituals to neutralise the curse. This apparently involved not very clean ceremonies, more poultry and some fair amount of blood. The only thing left to see was whether these actions had cut the curse off at the pass. And last night, as I write this, at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney, the Socceroos defeated Uruguay 1-0, leaving the home and away series tied 1-1, and then won the resulting penalty shoot-out to book a place in the final 32 at the 2006 world cup. QED.
Some other random thoughts about the football playoff and its result:
- Ironically, and unfortunately, the one man who did not see the triumph, and see his earlier rash actions negated, was Johnny Warren, who succumbed to his disease earlier this year. But I am sure that he felt justified, covered in his eternal chicken blood, having made up for dooming his nation to football limbo for 35 years.
- The Uruguayan striker Recoba, who missed a very gettable left-foot shot from close range in the middle of the first half, a goal that would have just about eliminated Australia (away goals count double if the scores are tied), had asserted before the game that Uruguay would prevail because it had a 'divine right' to be in the Finals. In the end, it turned out that he didn't need a divine right, just a half-way decent left.
- In going to the show in Germany next year, Australia joins the senior fellowship of sporting nations in the globally most popular sport. There it will be part of an almost full roster of the Coalition of the Wallies: England and the USA are also going (although sadly neither New Zealand nor Canada will be there, like they aren't in Iraq). Football has been the sleeping giant of Australian sport; perhaps the world championships (and given representation from every continent but Antarctica it is a genuinely global affair, which should give Americans some pause for thought about their various 'world championships') will awaken the giant.
- The game demonstrated just how successful a multicultural country Australia has become, both with respect to the team and to the audience. Mixed in with the (very occasional) Anglo-Celtic name the footballers represented a melange of influences: northern and southern European to be sure, but also Croatian and Russian and Turkish and Lebanese, and south Asian and east Asian and Islander and Indigenous Australian and a host of others. Football is certainly the sport of the mixture that is modern Australia. Rugby may have a number of Islanders; League has the occasional Minichello; a Chee Quee has played representative cricket; and Australian Rules hosts a number of Kooris and Murris, as well as Dipierdomenicos and Silvanis; but none approaches the rainbow colors of football.
- After the displays of inarticulate and scatological language that has marked the finals of the other codes and the verbal clichˇs that are the hallmark of most Australian sportspeople (well, sportspeople worldwide as Bull Durham showed), it was a pleasure to hear the footballers speaking clearly and cogently about the game and their feelings. Even so, I had a bet with Cath about how long it would take for the first 'awesome' to be used to describe a winner's emotional state. It was the fourth line of the third interview when the first "oss-om" emerged. At least no-one was 'stoked' and the Uruguayans were not "duvestated".
- In spite of the night, I struggle to get enthusiastic about a sport where a 1-1 draw is seen as a scoring feast and experts can enthuse about a 0-0 result. I'm pretty sure that, even as I watch with interest the developments in Germany next June and July, the Swans will remain far more important to me than the struggle for global supremacy.
First written: December 2005
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