The Sensible Party

I noted with interest this week that the 5 surviving members of Monty Python announced they are re-forming for a series of stage shows in London. One suspects that there will not be a lot of new material on display and that the concerts will consist mainly of keynote sketches from their early 1970s TV show, however this is excusable - the Pythons have made an enormous contribution to comedy over the years, and they are entitled to some profit-taking in the twilight of their careers.

I first discovered Python as a teenager in the 1980s, and since then have been an avid devourer of any piece of work that the group or its individual members have done since. As I have gone through life and found myself in a number of situations that can best be described as "Pythonesque", I often marvel at the skill of the group in being able to hide biting satire below the surface of a sketch which on its surface appears patently absurd. For example, I once had an experience with an architect which drove me to distraction as they completely refused to stick to our design brief. It called to mind the famous "Architect Sketch" where John Cleese gave an impassioned presentation to the client about the abattoir he had designed for them, only to have the client give reply: "Look, it's a lovely abattoir, but we wanted an apartment block, really", cleverly sending up the tendency of some architects to be precious about their designs and more or less completely ignore what their clients want.

Another Python sketch which resonates with me is the "Election Special". In the sketch, Michael Palin plays an election night presenter describing the battle between the Sensible Party, the Slightly Silly Party, the Silly Party and the Very Silly Party for control of the British government. Typical of Python's humour, the sketch is filled with cheap gags, preposterous names (eg the Silly Party candidate Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel) and no small amount of slapstick, but underneath all of this, the sketch eerily resonates with the current state of modern domestic and international politics. The only difference is that in the sketch, the Sensible Party performed quite well at the mock election, whereas in real life, you have to say the current political landscape is dominated by the Silly and Very Silly Parties.

To wit, we've all seen the partisan bickering in the United States over the debt ceiling, which is still not resolved and could well derail the fragile economic global recovery if it is not dealt with once and for all in the new year. Despite the public contempt levelled at Congress over this self-destructive behaviour, locally the Victorian Parliament has gone down this path as well, with Labor and the rogue independent Geoff Shaw choosing political opportunism and a lock up the business of the State Government over a negotiated outcome with the elected Liberal government in order to resolve the impasse.

At the Federal level, in 6 months time we will see the results of what has become an obviously dysfunctional Senate voting system, with the balance of power about to be held by Clive Palmer, someone who likes cars and a senator elected by way of a "donkey" vote. The result of this no-one can predict but all I can say is that if you think that Brian Harradine was eccentric, well wait until this lot take up their seats in the Senate chamber. I have all the respect in the world for Glenn Lazarus as a great rugby league prop, but at the same time I'm not sure I want him debating the finer points of tax reform or defence policy.

All this idiocy got me to thinking that perhaps the time is right for someone to pick up the Python's idea of the Sensible Party with the aim of seizing the balance of power away from crackpots like Clive, Family First and the Greens. Having a Sensible Party thought isn't of course a new idea. The late Don Chipp tried it back in the 1970s when he broke away from the Liberal Party and formed the Australian Democrats. However, the Democrats imploded 20 years later once it turned out that their leader Cheryl Kernot who coined the party's slogan "We'll keep the bastards honest", couldn't even be honest with her parliamentary colleagues (or even her own husband) and abruptly defected to Labor. This is not to say that the Democrats were a complete failure, because at the height of their power they managed to broker changes in legislation which saved us from the worst excesses of the major parties. However, for it to be a true Sensible Party, its mantra should not have been directed at keeping the bastards honest, it should have been to keep them from behaving like idiots. Or, at the very least, behaving in a way which genuinely advances Australia's interests instead of being politically opportunistic.

To this end, what would the Sensible Party's manifesto look like? Well, I can't fit everything into a relatively short blog but here are a few ideas for starters:

• Tax: the Sensible Party should support a complete overhaul of the country's tax system, as most of our existing taxes are inefficient and regressive to economic growth. Ken Henry laid out a blueprint on tax reform for the Rudd government, but as was Kevin's wont, he didn't have the political will to take on the recommendations and instead cherry picked a couple of ideas such as the mining tax, the implementation of which was an unmitigated disaster. A comprehensive overhaul of the tax system would no doubt prove unpopular in the short term, not least because those with vested interests in Australia would come out swinging and oppose it,  but history shows that the public's backlash against taxes tends to be very short lived. Who really now gives a tinker's cuss about the carbon tax and the GST? So let's get on with the task of fixing a broken tax system that is inappropriate for the modern world.
• Infrastructure: buoyed by the additional revenue flowing from the more efficient tax system, the Sensible Party would throw its support behind whichever major party committed to upgrading the country's creaking infrastructure. This would, as a priority, include a new airport for Sydney, as well as better measures for securing the country's water supply. As well as being desperately overdue anyway, major infrastructure projects would help replace the jobs that dwindling mining investment is currently shedding.
• Foreign Aid: the Sensible Party would insist the government stick with our foreign aid program which Hockey and Abbott want to cut so as that Australia can honour the obligations it agreed to under the 2020 millennium goals. Just because we are going through challenging economic times does not excuse Australia or other rich nations from honouring its international obligations to poorer nations. Also it will have the happy effect of making those countries more favourably exposed to Australia and less inclined to want to blow up some of our prominent public buildings.
• Defence: the Sensible Party would honour its international treaty obligations to the US and others, however given that nowadays there is no external threat to Australia's sovereignty, it would take a hawkish view on defence spending and also resist where possible participating in unwinnable foreign conflicts that have nothing to do with us, unless the need for the conflict is ratified by the United Nations. The Sensible Party believes that there are many more productive areas to deploy government money than in the area of defence.
• Boat people: the Sensible Party would engage in a comprehensive education program directed at the public which explains exactly why a few hundred boat people a year is such a non-issue, and would aim to shame the major parties so that they stop using these poor wretches as a political football. Having gained the public's understanding, the Sensible Party would then develop a plan with the ruling major party which involved treating these people decently, and instead directed government resources to flushing out the thousands of illegal immigrants who come into the country on tourist visas and then do a runner.
• Climate change: because the Sensible Party accepts the scientific consensus of 98% of the world's scientific community over the opinion of Lord Monckton, it supports Australia taking action on climate change. However it would prefer that this be by way of a market-based scheme adopted by most of the western economies as opposed to Gillard's ill-conceived carbon tax and Abbott's patently absurd "direct action" plan. More generally, the Sensible Party would heavily support investment in science and education, because without this, in the longer term the Lucky Country risks becoming the Stupid Country and will just wind up being one ginormous mine for China and India to dig up.
• Gay marriage: seriously, who cares? If it gets the issue out of the newpapers and off the television, then for heaven's sake let them do it.

Finally, just to show we can get distracted by petty issues just as well as the major parties, the Sensible Party would also support the following:

• Mandatory 30 lashes for anyone playing an mp3 device on public transport that can be heard by another person sitting more than 2 seats away.
• Mandatory death penalty for any driver who sits in the right lane next to a car in the left lane and being able to do so, does not take steps to overtake the car in the left lane within 10 seconds.
• A ban on all pubs, clubs and bars accepting credit cards for payment for a round of drinks between the hours of 5pm and 8pm.
• A ban on all 4WD drive vehicles from entering any major shopping centre or venturing within 200 metres of a primary school, with the further proviso that if the vehicle is not in fact taken "off road" by the owner at least 4 times a year so that is used for what it was made for, the vehicle gets impounded and crushed into scrap metal.

There, that ought to get some ideas going. Now, if we can just find a like-minded multi-millionaire to fund this entire operation and we are away. Hmm, now, let me think - oh that's right, 95% of them support Abbott ... but there may be one ...

Malcolm Turnbull - don't fancy switching sides do you?

The Woman Who's Eating Australia

Anyone who has siblings knows that from time to time they can play cruel jokes on you. This is especially true when, like me, you happen to be the youngest in a relatively large family. Typically though as everyone grows up, moves away from home and starts families of their own, the motivation and opportunity for playing these jokes declines.

However, the urge never goes away entirely as I found out last Christmas when I opened my brother's present to find out it was nothing other than a biography of Gina Rinehart. As I have never held back on my thoughts about the world's richest woman, I accepted the familial attempt at humour for what it was but given my feelings regarding its subject, let the book sit untouched on my bookcase for the next 6 months. However, eventually a morbid sense of curiosity took hold of me, not dissimilar to the feeling people get when they drive past a car crash and feel compelled to slow down to take a look. Hence a month or so a go, I went into the study, retrieved the weighty tome (no pun intended) and began to read.

I was pleased I did because the book turned out to be eminently readable and despite the obvious challenges one would face getting accurate information about the private and notoriously litigious Rinehart, particularly well-researched. As well as applying her considerable journalistic skill to the work, in the course of her writing Adele Ferguson clearly managed to win the confidence of a number of Rinehart's family and business associates. As a result she has produced a work which while uncompromising about its subject, is very matter of fact in its telling to the point where even when she recounts some of the more extraordinary anecdotes, it is impossible to discern what her own views as an author are. Given the polarising nature of her subject, this cannot have been easy and Ferguson is to be commended for being as impartial as possible and letting the reader make up their own mind.

Which I did. And it's fair to say it didn't change my mind. Assuming most of what Ferguson recounted in the book is true, Rinehart would have to be one of the most selfish, unbalanced and vindictive people in public life in Australia today, not to mention one of the most dangerous given the sway she clearly has with our new Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Let me recount a few vignettes from the book to explain why.

First and foremost, in many respects Gina is a chip off the old block of her father, the late Lang Hancock. For most of Gina's life, her mother Hope battled with cancer and as a result, much of her childhood was spent in her father's care travelling to business engagements both in Australia and abroad. Like his daughter, Lang held some extreme views on a wide range of topics. These included dismissing entirely the harmful effects of asbestos (he once famously sprinkled asbestos on his Weet-Bix and ate it to prove his point); proposing that miners in the Pilbara be allowed to detonate atomic bombs as a means of extracting minerals more efficiently; and wanting to eradicate half-caste aboriginals by poisoning their water holes. This last one despite the fact that Lang sired an illegitimate half-caste aboriginal child himself - a half-sister that to this day, Gina refuses to acknowledge.

Despite his often crackpot and highly offensive views, as a businessman Lang clearly had a level of trust and integrity. Often his business relationships were consummated and operated based on nothing more substantial than a handshake, most notably his prospecting partnership with Peter Wright which was the prime generator of the Hancock fortune.

Gina, on the other hand, clearly trusts no-one, is highly litigious and anyone who gets in her way is fair game. She may have many faults, but at last you can't accuse her of being devious. Her attitude to business and life is unapologetically: "I want to control everything, make as much money by whatever means possible, and stuff anyone and everything else." Well, she has certainly succeeded as far as the money side is concerned, but the human cost and other collateral damage Rinehart has caused in the pursuit of her objective is simply staggering.

Gina's mistrust and foul treatment of others didn't take long to manifest itself. Her first marriage to Englishman Greg Milton produced 2 children but didn't take long after that to founder. As part of the divorce settlement, Milton was given $60,000 but in exchange, had to agree to have no contact whatsoever with his children - an incredibly harsh condition for any parent to agree to but one he felt he had no choice but to accept.

Her next marriage was to an American lawyer 37 years her senior, Frank Rinehart. Rinehart by all accounts was a nasty piece of work. He possessed a foul temper, was often cruel to his step-children and was a convicted felon and tax cheat back in the USA. Lang Hancock was understandably appalled by the union which led to a falling out between father and daughter. Despite all this, Gina put Frank Rinehart on a pedestal and had 2 further children with him.

When Frank Rinehart died suddenly in 1990, Gina found out that long before he met her, Frank had an illicit relationship with a New York woman during the course of his first marriage and had bought her an apartment in Manhattan to provide for her. Unfortunately for the woman concerned, Frank had never physically transferred the title to her so despite the value of the apartment being chump change to Gina, she decided to take legal action to reclaim possession the apartment. Not for the last time, her litigation would end in failure but not after causing untold stress and cost to someone who clearly didn't deserve it.

This "stuff you" attitude to everyone other than herself has percolated right through her professional and business life and destroyed countless relationships. Apart from the conga line of mining executives that have been through Hancock Prospecting and found her impossible to work with, Gina also has a poisonous relationship with her father's former business partners the Wrights, pursued her stepmother Rose Porteous relentlessly through the courts for years and most sadly, is estranged from and is engaged in legal action with 3 of her 4 children. The most idiotic thing about her numerous law suits is that they are almost always based on flimsy legal grounds and invariably result in failure, to the point where the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of WA took the unusual step of publicly criticising both her and Porteous for not being able to resolve their squabbling amicably and chewing up valuable court time and resources in doing so.

Rinehart's adversarial relationship with her family and business associates carries over into her attitude to the government - primarily because it seeks to impose regulatory controls over her business activities and wants her to pay a fair share of tax. Apart from having contempt for any form of taxation and environmental regulation, Rinehart has lobbied long and hard for cheap, foreign workers to be brought in from offshore so that she can avoid having to use local, unionised labour who might be able to demand fairer wages - and therefore reduce her obscene profits. However, her reluctance to pay tax or accept any form of government control over her projects (which might, for instance, stop her from using atomic bombs as mine explosives) hasn't stopped her from complaining endlessly about the government not building her train lines and other infrastructure in the Pilbara to enable her to get iron ore offshore more efficiently and make her more money. The fact that a government can't build things without raising tax is entirely lost on her.

Apart from all of this, Rinehart thinks and does a lot of other things that would be anathema to anyone with moderate or progressive views, such as supporting climate change denialists, wanting Western Australia to secede from the Commonwealth and become its own monarchy and failing to give more than a tiny fraction of her vast wealth to charity. However, ultimately it is her prerogative to think what she wants, just as is it is her prerogative to continue accumulating a huge piles of cash. So in this vein, why bother to get all worked up about what she does?

The answer is simple. With the huge rivers of cash flowing into her coffers, Rinehart now has the financial wherewithal to take her obsession with controlling everything around her to a whole new level. This has extended recently to controlling what is said about her in the media, where she has bought significant stakes in both Network 10 and John Fairfax, which publishes two of the major daily papers in Australia. Her influence over what gets put on Channel 10 is patently clear - how else would someone as comprehensively godawful as Andrew Bolt get his own TV show? The board of Fairfax, justifiably concerned that Rinehart would try and influence editorial direction in a similar manner, baulked at giving her seats on the board.

As a result, the prospect of seeing Lord Monckton on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald may have receded for now, but with $30 billion to play with, you have to wonder what Rinehart will try to pull next, especially now has a very sympathetic ear in the Lodge. Already we are starting to see Abbott float publicly some of Rinehart's ideas, like a separate tax zone for the Pilbara and importation of cheap offshore labour.

Of course, its not a crime nor necessarily undesirable for business people to be involved in the public debate, nor to make policy suggestions to government about how best to help the economy along. However, given that she has the altruism and empathy levels of your average cat, you have to question whether its in any of our interest to have people like Gina Rinehart involved in running our media or influencing the government. By her words and actions she has made it abundantly clear that she is only interested in looking number 1, and doesn't give a tinker's cuss about what happens to the country that made her into the kazillionaire she is today.

So, Mr Abbott, a word of warning. This woman has already devoured the Pilbara, countless mining executives and most of her own family. Given half a chance she will make short work of you, too. I suggest you therefore be very careful which bedfellows you choose while in office or you could wind up looking like a bigger goose than both your 2 predecessors.

Banged Up Abroad

I admit to any readers out there that I have been very quiet in the blogosphere in 2013; the demands of running a new business together with good old fashioned laziness are the root causes. It's therefore taken an event which ought to send chills down the spine of any Australians working abroad to lull me out of my torpor and back on to the Internet.

This week in Dubai, more than 4 years after his initial arrest, Australian property executive Matthew Joyce was sentenced to 10 years jail and a $25 million fine for his role in a property transaction on the Dubai waterfront which had the effect of leaving one of the local sheikhs out of pocket. The circumstances surrounding the case have been covered extensively in the mainstream press but given the conflicting stories of Joyce and his colleagues and the other main player in the saga, Sunland Group, its impossible for anyone other than the people involved to know what exactly has gone on. However, it is worth noting that the subject matter of the criminal proceedings in Dubai were dealt with extensively in a civil case brought by Sunland in the Victorian Supreme Court, and the judges strongly endorsed Joyce's version of events. Clearly however this has carried no weight and the Dubai court has elected to go its own way and hand down its very onerous judgement against Joyce while interestingly, acquitting his colleague Marcus Lee.

Naturally given the publicity surrounding the case, the Department of Foreign Affairs have been petitioning the Dubai government since Joyce and Lee's arrest with a view to bringing them back to Australia, or at the very least, having the charges against them brought on in a far more expeditious manner than what has occurred. As is now painfully clear given the judgement this week, these entreaties have amounted to very little, at least in Joyce's case. Bob Carr did make the point on television the other night that unfortunately in cases involving expats, there is very little the government can legally insist on via official channels, as you are effectively seeking to intervene in the domestic affairs of another sovereign nation. He also made the observation in relation to the Victorian Supreme Court proceedings that a Dubai court would give us much weight to those deliberations as a crusty old Supreme Court judge would give to proceedings in a Dubai court.

That all may be so, but what he didn't go on to say was that if a Dubai national were charged with fraud in Australia or any other country with a legal system based on the common law, they could expect to receive the same level of justice that an Australian citizen would be entitled to, ie. they could not be held indefinitely without charge, they would have a right to a fair and speedy trial and in the event of being found guilty, they could expect sentencing which would be balanced having regard to the nature and severity of the crime. After being detained in custody for 10 months then placed under house arrest for a further 3 years before copping a ridiculously punitive sentence, Joyce clearly has not received similar treatment.

It is these sorts of differences between how we are used to things working in the Western world and how things operate in places like the Middle East and Asia that ought to serve as a salient warning to any ambitious young Australians looking to make their fortune overseas. The legal protections we offer foreigners in Australia are simply not reciprocated in most other countries, particularly in emerging economies. Their attitude when something goes wrong tends to be along the lines of: "I belong here, you don't; so if you weren't here, this wouldn't have happened, and therefore its your fault that it has." In Joyce's case, a sheikh lost money on a land deal, but it can't be the sheikh's stupid fault for not carrying out proper enquiries in relation to the deal; the blame has to sit with the foreigner who put the deal together.

It's easy to compare Joyce's situation with that of Chappelle Corby or the Bali 9 as another unfortunate Australian who has fallen victim to the punitive legal system of another country, and who must therefore accept his lot. However, this sort of comparison is simply not appropriate. His "crime" if you have to call it that, didn't involve potentially highly damaging activity like trafficking drugs but simply the loss of money - probably a drop in the ocean to the particular sheikh in question. Further, the allegations against Joyce have already been discredited in a competent court of record. On any measure, Joyce has been treated highly unfairly, and in these circumstances, the government can't simply throw up their hands in exasperation a la Bob Carr the other night on television; more must be done by the government to right this dreadful wrong that has been done to one of its citizens.

The problem however is that we currently have a government in this country in terminal decline and one has to wonder, what is their motivation to spend what little political capital they have left on rescuing a lone expat from a legally backward country? The only way to keep this front and centre with the government is not to let the issue go away, which is why family and friends have obviously set up the Bring Matt Home campaign on the internet. If Joyce's plight and DFAT's dithering somehow can become a hot political topic in the lead up to the election, then you can bet more time and effort will be dedicated towards getting him justice.

It is worth also bringing the shadow Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, more into the picture. Bishop has her less endearing qualities but one thing she clearly does not lack is balls, and as a person she is far more likely to stand up to the Dubai government than Bob Carr ever would. Further, sometimes in diplomatic relations, a change of government can act as a form of circuit breaker, as we saw with the Iranian hostage crisis when Reagan took over as President from Jimmy Carter. Who knows, armed with the proper facts, maybe she can succeed where Carr and Rudd have failed?

As for anyone who feels as outraged by all of this as I do, please go to the website below and sign the petition. The good folks behind the website are planning some further publicity and events in the coming weeks as the time for Joyce to lodge his appeal draws near, so stay tuned for some new developments.

www.bringmatthome.com

Also in closing it would be nice if the relevant Sunland executives came forward and told the relevant courts what really happened, but regrettably we will have to wait for Hell to freeze over or more unlikely, Gina Rinehart to fit into a size 10 dress before that ever happens.