The Most admired people in 2020

 

In two polls reported for the most admired people, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama were the most consistently regarded.

 

To be precise, Barack Obama came first worldwide, and first or second in the US, depending on the poll. In Australia and the UK, he was beaten by David Attenborough.

Michelle Obama was the most admired woman worldwide, and in both US polls. In the UK, Queen Elizabeth II ranked ahead of her; in Australia, both the Queen and Jacinta Ardern ranked ahead. Ardern was top in New Zealand, unsurprisingly, followed by the Queen and Obama.

Donald Trump beat Obama in one of the US polls - but that’s because it was taken at a highly politicised time, and the Democrat vote was split, with Obama coming in second, and Joe Biden third. Trump was supported by 18%, Obama by 15%, Biden by 6% and, interestingly enough Bernie Sanders by 1% (7^th most admired). It’s quite salient to find that Obama outperformed Trump in every country surveyed - except Russia. They have a friend in Trump!

 

In Australia, only two Australians made each list: the prime minister, an athlete, an actor... and a previous prime minister, Julia Gillard.

 

Of the top 20 men globally, 35% (7 men) were leaders/politicians, 20% were athletes, 20% actors, 15% capitalists and 10% spiritual leaders. I might have expected a more eclectic mix, but that gives some idea who people look up to the most: leaders and achievers that are in the public eye. People admire their power, admire them physically, or admire their wealth. There’s a 12.5% exception for their humanism, if you count Bill Gates as half philanthropist.

 

The Australian list was similar, but we admire leaders less (25% instead of 35%) and sports people more (25% instead of 20%) - which suggests we have the same regard for each! David Attenborough was an addition and exception. Is he admired as a scientist or a humanist? Possibly more of the latter.

 

The methodologies for the surveys need to be mentioned. In the US, Gallup surveyed in December, and asked an open-ended question, which meant people could choose personal acquaintances.. For the rest (including the other US survey), 42 countries were included (which included Turkey - so Erdogan got to the global top 20, although two Turkish figures were ahead of him within Turkey, both singers). YouGov did some preliminary polling earlier in the year, then asked the survey questions from a closed list of people.

My List? Off the top of my head, I’d include

 Jacinta Ardern

 Julia Gillard

 Barack Obama

 Bernie Sanders

 David Attenborough

If I wanted to include entertainment, I might include Neil Young (for his enormous. varied musical career and great guitar work), George Clooney (for his humanitarian as well as screen presence) and Patrick Mahomes (US quarterback for the KC Chiefs, for his ability and leadership). If pressed, I might come up with more names from science, literature, music and American Football.

 

And what is admired? The list of qualities seems to differ, depending on whether the involvement is personal, work-related, or those with no direct connection.

The following list appeared in Forbes, which might speak to leadership as much as anything:

 

1. Humility

2. The ability to learn

3. Integrity 

4. Responsibility

5. Resilience

6. Compassion for others

7. Respect for others

8. Big vision

9. Inspiring others

10. Reinvent ourselves

 

Film: Goldstone (Australia, 2016) - one of the best of Australian films

One of the best Australian films I have seen, if not the best, Goldstone is passing through our cinemas and will quickly vanish.  It is ostensibly about a detective seeking a missing person in an outback mining community, but this is one of those rare films where an engaging plot turns out to be secondary to the overall filmic experience.

After an unusually deceptive beginning, it is quickly clear that this film has power, strength and unity.  Strength in the dialogue - in particular the silences that respond to the dialogue.  Unity in the sparseness of the landscape which matches that of the dialogue - and the movement.  Power in the bursts of action that punctuate the apparently slow pace - but again, the periods of stillness are an inherent part of the action, a character and a characteristic of the film.

No, the pace is not a weight to be borne, a forced meditation.  The plot stands on its own feet - and in fact the trailer gives the impression it is a full-on action film, but the silences in between have more lasting impact.  It is the visual spectacle, the acting and above all the masterful filmmaking that eventually wins over the audience.

For what I know, depiction of the various communities and locations have a documentary authenticity.  The locale describes a wide, barren landscape, but gives clear hints that it is only a small part of a far larger, empty country that simply dwarfs its inhabitants.  One of the techniques to achieve this remains a mystery to me: the occasional aerial shot that is impossibly high and still.  Never seen anything like it.

There are outcomes rather than resolutions.  Many things in life don't have satisfying conclusions, but the film respects its audience enough to neatly tie up some of the loose ends.

The indigenous lead is Aaron Pedersen, who I recognised from a support role in Jack Irish, a competent set of detective telemovies located in urban Melbourne; here, he has the opportunity to shine, in an understated manner.  He has an impressive portfolio of work in tv and film.

Supporting roles include an oddly young-looking Jacki Weaver, an unexpectedly aged David Wenham, and David Gulpilil.

I later found that the director was indigenous filmmaker Ivan Sen; and that this had been his second feature to lead off the Sydney Film Festival; although it is characterise as a sequel, it is not strictly so, and is standalone.  Despite the accolades, I expect Goldstone to sink with little trace, simply because people are more acclimatised to Hollywood and its industrial-strength capital.  There is no solution, save to seek out this film while you have the opportunity.

The slide of a Prime Minister: why the knighthood?

The downward trajectory of PM Tony Abbott was sharpened by the announcement on Australia Day that Prince Philip would be given a (recently-resurrected) Australian knighthood.

This had a spillover effect on the Queensland State election a week later, and was undoubtedly the deciding factor in putting the opposition over the line.

Abbott survived a party-room vote for a leadership spill, but has been left with the certainty of a harrowing descent from top dog to oblivion before the next election.  He had been consistently on the nose with the electorate ever since he was elected, demonstrating his opposition skills did not transfer to actual leadership.  He has clearly not grown with the job, as recent media attested.

The biggest puzzle here is: why did Abbott give Prince Phillip a knighthood?  The following is the only rational explanation I can find.

First, a brief history.  Australia’s own honours awards were established in 1975; prior awards to Australians were under the British system.  However, it wasn’t until the conservative Liberals were elected in 1976 that knighthoods were awarded.  These lasted only until 1983, when Labor abolished knighthoods again.  The next conservative PM (Howard) didn’t re-establish them, but Abbott, a long-time monarchist, did in 2014, after a gap of 30 years.

This was “advised” to the Queen, signed and gazetted from April 2014.  Honours are awarded in June (the “Queen’s Birthday” public holiday on the second Monday in June) and January (Australia Day, the 26^th).

Clearly, to give Prince Phillip a knighthood, it would have to be squared with the Palace in advance, say four months.  My thinking is that Abbott effectively gave him a knighthood at the first available opportunity.  But the question is, why?

I suspect that as a monarchist, Abbott had such a plan from way back.  He may have felt that the republican sentiment of recent times was a little close to the bone, and the best way to draw back from that was to bring the monarchy closer to Australia.  A royal tour, yes, and we’ve had two since Abbott was elected.  But if a Royal with sufficient gravitas was knighted, surely that would bring the two countries closer together?  Of course, this excludes the younger ones who inhabit the pages of the gossip magazines.  So who’s available?

Surprisingly enough, Charles was given an Australian knighthood, in 1981 – possibly in anticipation of his wedding.  So there’s a precedent.  Can’t do the monarch, so who’s left?

Now Phillip’s not that bad.  Harmless, shows he has a sense of humour.  And if he’s a bit of a duffer, surely the larrikin in the typical Australian will warm to this as we draw him closer to us.

So the plan was put in train as soon as possible after Abbott became PM in September 2013.

However, that didn’t allow for Abbott’s poor reception with the voting public – which only compounded when his actual policies floundered (and foundered) at the hands of a less-than-sympathetic Senate.

Sometimes, when faced with unpopularity, Abbott spoke glibly of his prerogative to make “Captain’s calls”.  Come January 2015, he didn’t want to lose face with the “Palace” by withdrawing the Sir Prince proposal, so he figured he’d just have to grit his teeth and take a tiny bit more flak for one more Call.

He must have known it was a stupid call, because he admitted to “consulting” only one other person beforehand: the Chair of the Order of Australia Council – Angus Houston – who, as it happened, was the only other Australian whose knighthood was announced for the same day.

In the cloistered world of his own opinion, Abbott may have thought Australians would put up with this Captain’s Call with few grumblings, especially since the electorate had apparently voted in favour of monarchy in 1999.  But the depth of the subsequent backlash must have surprised many.  Even within his own party, a significant groundswell of opposition was publicly voiced.

Australia has a strong tradition of not electing governments for a single term only.  However, the Victorian election in November gave the lie to this, and the Liberals were booted out.  Surely this couldn’t happen in Queensland, where the Liberals comprised 78 out of the 89-seat parliament, and Labor had been reduced to a rump of seven?  Although one might expect a backswing at the next election, but not normally such a reversal that the Liberals were defeated.

So my story is one of a Prime Minister who came from a presumption of prerogative, then later felt he couldn’t lose face with the Palace and back down from a risky move, even at a dangerous time.  It speaks to a particularly autocratic leadership style, one that is not inclined to the consultative.  This is reflected in both his Captain’s Calls, and his strong affinity to a chief of staff (Peta Credlin) who is by all accounts particularly capable, but just as authoritarian – even to Cabinet Ministers.

There is no Get Out Of Jail for Abbott by now.  His several electorates have stopped listening, and the slips he is still making are not being indulged.

Taman Shud mystery code - it's obvious

The weekend Herald ran a recapitulation of the Taman Shud mystery, where an unidentified, well-dressed man was found dead at an Adelaide beach in 1948.

I had come across this before, mainly in the context of cryptography: he had a code that could not be deciphered.  But it wasn't until the Herald article that I actually saw a photo of the code - and it instantly made sense to me.

What else could it be but an initial-letter code?  That is, he's using these notes as a memory jog, for something like a to-do list or a set of options.  Initial letters instead of the full sentence could be because:

• he wanted to keep it private;
• he wanted to be brief;  or
• he didn't have much space

However, I'd clearly go for the former.

It matters not.  But since it's a string of personal reminders, they're unlikely to ever be successfully interpreted.  Some guesses have been made, including a draft suicide note.

The man's clothes were traced back to the US.  The disparity between them and his semi-literate handwriting have been noted.  An exhumation has been advocated, which may provide further DNA clues.

But the code's clear.  I look on it as an application of Occam's razor: don't multiply factors unnecessarily.

What makes Australia different from the US

I saw a number of internet memes around the recent US election.  Most were average, a fair few scatological, and a handful were really funny (viz for example Tony Abbott, and Big Bird).


 Having seen the number of Americans who swore they would move to Australia if Obama won, it was gratifying to see such a succinct response:

Further, a clear and consistent majority of Australians preferred Obama to win - as did most of the rest of the world (bar Pakistan).  Doesn't leave much of an option for those wanting to move.



It's important to have heroes - and vision.  And the world is a slightly better place.

Rubbish opinion polls and media beatups

There's been a real beatup in Australia's media in the past few weeks.

Part of the problem is opinion polls.  The standing of Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been poor for a long time.  Correspondingly, that for the conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott has been comparatively strong - for a long time.

Enter Kevin Rudd, who was deposed as PM by Gillard, but still served as foreign minister - until recently.

The stir factor lies in the fact that Rudd does well in opinion polls - better than Abbott, even.  And so he resigned his post and the leadership's up for a vote tomorrow.

But Rudd was quite unpopular at the time he was deposed.  And Gillard fared better in the polls.

I think opinion polls have a lot to answer for.  When you aggregate people's opinions, they often get contradictory.

I remember back in the 1980s in New Zealand, when the government had an anti-nuclear policy.  As a result of the US "neither confirm nor deny" stance on whether their warships had nuclear weapons, the NZ government felt obliged to refuse access to NZ ports to those warships.  In retaliation, the US threatened to exclude New Zealand from ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, U.S.), which was NZ's most important military alliance.

Opinion polls? They firmly affirmed the non-nuclear stance, but in contradiction strongly desired to keep the ANZUS alliance.

The point being that when you aggregate people's opinions, you can easily get rubbish.

On the basis of past experience, should Kevin Rudd become PM again, I'm quite sure his poll ratings would plummet after a few months.

In any case, the numbers are clearly against Rudd.  And the numbers that count are the ones that vote: those in the parliamentary caucus who will vote tomorrow for their leader.  Rudd doesn't stand a snowball's chance.  In large part this is because past experience has taught them that Rudd is particularly difficult to work with as a leader.  Authoritarian and micro-managing.

But the media has been in overdrive on the matter.  They don't care that the outcome is clear: media outlets are driven by the desire to be popular and to fill space with content.

But there have been people who have been media junkies around this stoush - one person even deviated from his usual Sydney Morning Herald diet to buy a Murdoch as well, to get additional field.  Despite the outcome being tantamount to pre-ordained.

Lessons: beware contradictory poll results; pay attention to the real signs - and really, that's no reason to buy a Murdoch.

Dicynodont fossil find is evidence of... what?

How meaningful were media reports (eg  in the UK Telegraph, The Age) in December of a dicynodont fossil find in Tasmania?

The find, dated back to about 250 million years ago, was reported in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, but interested-party scientists and media have a strong interest in making the information a story.  Thus overlaying a slant and significance that the lay person cannot easily navigate.

Dicynodonts (I’m told it’s pronounced dee-, not die-, which does not sound palatable to me, but that probably shows what an amateur I am) were widespread both before and after the great Permian extinction 245 million years ago (which marks the start of the Mesozoic era, typified as the “age of the dinosaurs”).  That event wiped out 80% of animal species and is still subject to debate over cause, although volcanic activity is a popular explanation.

But these animals survived.  They’re not just a single species really, but an infraorder: a group of species one below a class (such as mammals).  They were herbivores, ranging from small to cow-size, the “most successful and abundant land vertebrates of the late Permian” period, according to Wikipedia.

And after an extinction such as the Permian, the various environments are largely depopulated, and ripe for expansion by any species that can survive.  And in fact, after the Permian, a single subset of the dicynodont – the lystrosaurus genus, comprising about five species – truly proliferated throughout the world.  However, the world at the time of the lystrosaurus – and the dicynodont found in Tasmania – was very different – it was one big continent, referred to as Pangea.  Spreading wide would not be a problem at that time – if a species was suitably adaptive to the environment.

So the Tasmania find was not even narrowed down to a species, and it’s not surprising to find it in Tasmania, which was part of Australia until recently, and thus part of Pangea.

In fact, another dicynodont fossil had previously been found in Australia - announced in 2003, after re-examination of a fossil held for decades in Queensland Museum.

Dicynodonts are part of a wider grouping of animals called therapsids, of which only mammals remain.  Yes, all dicynodonts and descendants eventually became extinct.

And despite one of the interested-party scientists (Andrew Rozefelds) saying that the find “fills an important gap in our knowledge of these mammal-like reptiles and where they lived”, I’m still struggling to find what gap it fills.  It’s not to be found in the media.  Alas, access to the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology is by subscription only.  Maybe if I get to a university library sometime…

References

ABC Science: Ozfossils

Tudge, Colin (2000): The Variety of Life, OUP

Wikipedia: including dicynodont, lystrosaurus, therapsid, permian

Australia’s great leap forward:Julia Gillard

Today, Australia will get its first female Prime Minister, when the government caucus votes Julia Gillard to replace Kevin Rudd as its leader.

That’s by no means a global precedent. Nor is it a precedent that she’ll be sworn in by a female Governor General (Australia’s first).


But it is a milestone. One that is necessary to a sophisticated society, and one that is overdue, in world terms. Although history suggests it can make little practical difference, nevertheless it remains a meaningful symbolism.

The nature of the leadership change demonstrates one very real point of difference between a parliamentary and a (typical) presidential system. In other respects, Australia’s political processes have come to represent a de facto presidency inasmuch as a large proportion of attention is focused on the leader, at least informally.

In that sense, Australia was moving towards an election with both leadership options – Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott – facing significant public disapproval. Rudd in particular seems to have lost much of his expected support base due to delaying the implementation of an emission trading scheme, despite his own characterisation of climate change as the “most significant moral issue of our time”. In likelihood, part of the erosion of support would have been due to the intrinsic outcome, and part would have rested with the obvious gap between his words and his actions.

Broadcasts of parliamentary proceedings clearly demonstrate Gillard’s ability in that setting. How she will manage the transition to full-fledged leadership – and how the votiung public will react on a gut level – is something that has historically proven very hard to predict. Although Gillard had been a core part of the Rudd administration’s decisionmaking processes, leadership is another matter.

The world is going to the dogs. Discuss.

Australia's largest carbon polluters are back on comfortable ground, spending big on advertising to persuade enough Australians that "jobs" is a better motherhood concept than "global warming" or "brace yourself for very disruptive changes".

My memory tells me that the last time the coal-based industries stomped in to defend their patch, they focused on their political muscle rather than a public campaign.  Still, they retain that in their arsenal if they aren't already using it.

And Kevin Rudd, as Australia's "more conservative than thou" Prime Minister, is gearing up for the climate change battleground by persistent abrogation of international principles on asylum seekers:
1) Continuance of  the evil John Howard policy of excision of Australia's territory (to whit, Christmas Island) from the geopolitical State;
2) fear-mongering over the Sri Lankan asylum seekers sitting in on the Australian Customs ship Oceanic Viking. -again, attempting to follow Howard's lead.

And not only does Rudd perpetuate another disastrously short-sighted Howard policy of incentives to parents to participate in a renewed population boom; he also claims Australia can fit in many millions more people over the years.  (the unspoken parameters: population is okay if it us, not them; we don't want a great influx of people who are too far removed from our culture; and - purportedly - baby booms protect us from our own ageing population, and provide the economic growth that makes us richer - that, perish the thought - asylum seekers couldn't do.

Which is all a load of alarmist claptrap, of course.

Meanwhile, the Government and Opposition are preventing implementation of any carbon emission policy by both arguing variants of the same weak stance on climate change.

Facing the pressing problems of the world... the wrong way.

This is just Australia.  You can fill in the gaps for the rest of the world.  Despite some valiant policy efforts from the European Union, nobody is going to the Copenhagen climate change talks with anything like the necessary power and will.

Brace yourself for decades of instability.  If the world's governments can't cope with prevention, how will they fare with the effects of rising sea levels?  The least of their worries will be the rich retirees already complaining about their crumbling coastline properties.

Latest on Australian interest rates and economic prognosis

Australia's Reserve Bank left interest rates on hold today - but this can't last.

The news didn't filter to the forefront of the Fairfax media (the Sydney Morning Herald's analysis is relegated to the business section, and lifted from Melbourne's Age); Murdoch's Australian gives it more prominence but scant analysis (see their lead article and brief analysis), but everyone seek different devils in the detail, in this case, the RBA's statement that accompanied the 'inaction'.

In fact, analysis of the differences between phrases emitted this month and last show more heat - subtlely, but definitely - in today's release.  They all but raised interest rates, and patently flagged at least one rise in the next couple of months.

The trade deficit is worse, but business investment imports don't imply a negative.  Australia is, after all, the only major developed economy not to experience recession - which suggests bravura economic stimulus measures, albeit ones that could have been more strategically targetted (but fast action and conservative economics are not good bedfellows).  This alone can win the government next year's election - and they can be expected to ram it home.

Expect employment recovery to lag.

Peter Garrett: politics is hard on principles

Politics is hard. Rough and hard. Peter Garrett knows this better than most.


He's onto his third or fourth career now. From international success in the band Midnight Oil, he has had various roles in environmental activism, from president of the Australian Conservation Foundation to the board of Greenpeace international.


So what do you do if it's hard to make enough impact from the outside? Get on the inside, and know what real frustration is like. That must be life for Garrett as Australia's Environment Minister.

Last Saturday, an article in the Herald's Good Weekend (colour supplement) attempted to get to the core of Garrett's move. The results are predictable and disheartening: Garrett has learnt what it's like to be a politician.

His long-time associates do not doubt his sincerity and commitment to environment. However, the article stresses that in Garrett's position he is obliged to be a "team player". He's not rambunctious: he doesn't denigrate his colleagues either inside or out of cabinet, and he doesn't break ranks. All his politicking now takes place within cabinet, and he toes the line most strictly with whatever outcomes he has to swallow.

Case in point: in one of the "strongest speeches of his political career", Garrett has warned an international conference that some Australian animal species would have to face extinction. With 1750 threatened species, the government was moving from project-based ecology to preserving ecosystems - which would inevitably mean the death knell for some species.

That is understandable - quite rational, even, if cold-blooded. In fact, I cannot see the world changing course quickly enough to preserve all remaining species, let alone habitats. Human rapacity for land makes it inevitable that any ecosystem that is not explicitly preserved will be strongly threatened. Islands of wilderness are the only viable outcome of our present course.

But imagine being Peter Garrett, and having to announce the impending extinction of a random handful of species. And to keep that stony silence in the face of other environmental injustices that cabinet solidarity had demanded. At what point is one's voice sufficient on its own to sway outcomes? And by that point, are you then accustomed to compromising away your favoured outcomes for other factors?

My kids recognise Garrett more than other politicians - simply because he's our local MP, and he's been to their school. I'd hate them to come to understand him on the basis of what he can't achieve, rather than what he can. It's not his ideals that corrode - it's the political system that's corrosive. I still have hope he can sufficiently influence outcomes.


Update 06-Sep-09: A letter in today's Good Weekend in response to the above article vociferously sums up the attitudes of many:

"Peter Garrett's plea that he was just following the party's orders is possibly the most famous dud defence known.  Far from being the Faust or King Lear suggested, he appears to be the most common of political animals: the chameleon opportunist."

It is worth pointing out that that writer fully misunderstand Garrett's situation.  Despite being environment minister, he is bound by cabinet decisions - and so effectively has no say in many of his "decisions".  The only options here available to him are to resign from cabinet - and so be able to speak out without any real effect - or to attempt to influence outcomes from within.  I cannot comment on the actual machinations, but this process shows how politics can apparently corrupt (and actually corrupt the reputation of) even those with integrity.

Dredging up John Howard's legacy

Drawn to it by professional whinger and nitpicker Gerard Henderson, I watched the final part of the SBS series Liberal Rule, on the nature of John Howard's Prime Ministership.

After living through those years, dredging the past may seem too academic. Still, the documentary (of mainly talking heads) drew together some narrative arcs of the time, and made some connections that are clearer with hindsight.

One point was the effect on Australia of the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Howard was in the US at the time, and the personal effect on him both solidified his commitment to US interests ("This would lead to war - the only question was, who with?"), and reinforced his approach to the divisive politics that was a hallmark of his tenure.

The Australian election took place a scant two months after that. This was the Tampa campaign, where a premature conjecture that refugees were throwing their own children overboard was turned into a political football that was deliberately carried by Howard's coterie (particularly the smarmy Peter Reith) far faster than the truth could chase after it. This was the flipside to Howard's consistent efforts to bend Australia to his own mould of uncritical nationalism. An election ad extolled Australia as the greatest country on earth, and "we must do more for border protection and defence to keep it that way".

Footage was shown of refugees from persecution in Afghanistan, who were patently pleased to disembark their boat for a safe shore, not knowing they were being corralled straight into a prison.

We know that Howard deliberately dissembled about his intentions to send troops to Iraq if asked by Bush. But we may remember the footage that showed Howard personally perpetuating the baseless line that Al-Qaeda was influential in Iraq - with even less backup "evidence" than Bush.

This confluence of forces global and local ended up benefiting only Howard - but it wasn't a zero sum game, as the refugees and Australian muslim victims of racist attacks would bear witness.

As the narrative of Howard years drew to a close, one reason for the end was his very politics of fear: "fear runs out if the threat doesn't eventuate" - so Howard's message ultimately fell out of step with the electorate.

That was not before his ideology had taken its toll on the Australian political landscape. Despite Australian muslims being forced to vociferously declare their Australianness, Howard's dogged campaigns at one point had resulted in 50% of high school students believing "muslims are terrorists".

Another stark piece of footage showed Howard responding bluntly to a journalist's question: "I always tell the truth". Yet pollsters found through most of his tenure that the electorate's response to the uncovering of his lies was "tell me something I don't know". Despite a majority believing him to lie, of themselves those lies didn't stop him winning elections until 2007.

Career diplomat Richard Woolcott, who served extensively under both Liberal and Labor, had the final word when he said that when the history books are written, "the legacy... will not be substantial". That could be said to be a truism for a conservative leader - but it needn't be, for anyone. Yet such is Howard's ultimate mark.



PS Answer to yesterday's puzzle: dreamboat (no, it's not boardmate!)

Turnbull performs as expected

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating offered current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd some advice about the then-new opposition leader: He's brilliant, he's fearless... and he's got bad judgment.

(Reported by Peter Hartcher in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald.)


Keatings words could easily be Turnbull's epitaph. If you're going for the PM's jugular, it pays to have more evidence than a single email - as Turnbull found out, it could be forged.

The fact that Turnbull pushed it so hard - and with such personal arrogance in one or two conversations - is fully reflected in the three opinion polls released today, which show a plummet in support for Turnbull and the Liberals. Of course, he'll survive this... and could well lead the Liberals to defeat at the next election - for precisely the reasons I expected when Turnbull was on his way up.

Damned statistics and climate change

A news item in the local Southern Courier discussed the privately-owned train link to Sydney's airport.

• Botany Bay's Mayor Ron Hoenig: "In reality, it was shown to be cost inefficient, and a disaster."
• In response, "Airport Link chief executive Tim Anderson... said there had been a 27 per cent increase in patronage on the airport line over the past two years."

The context was the exhorbitant charge for that particular stretch of rail ($14.80 from central, one way), and the effect on locals who might otherwise use it.

Put aside other issues, such as whether the patronage increase justifies the usage charge, or whether the increase was from such a low base that any change would look like a win.

The question is over the use of the statistic, and how it can mislead. If Anderson looked at the fluctuating usage figures over the past 9 years since opening, he could pick any two years he liked to make his point. Likewise, Hoenig could pick any other years to justify the opposite perspective. For a reality check, read about Airport Link above.

As with a work of fiction, most people don't stop to question figures presented in a news report. There's just not enough time in the day to analyse everything.


Climate change skeptics are particularly guilty of this. As this article details, Steve Fielding, a key balance-of-power Senator, was persuaded that there is no significant issue because global temperatures are not significantly different from those of ten years ago.

And that is a favourite approach of climate change skeptics - near universally, they use this trick (eg The Great Climate Change Swindle). Pick a year that was slightly out of kilter with its neighbours (in this case, 1998, which had a strong El Nino weather pattern) to prove the case. Take that statistic in isolation, without revealing or analysing the sequence of readings over time. Which in this case show that the past ten years have been the hottest decade on record.

(An extension of this argument is the use of long-range figures to show that Earth's climate has always been changing, and has indeed been hotter. True, but a) significant evolutionary change - including much species extinction - accompanies such changes), and b) we are currently inducing one of the fastest periods of climate change in the planet's history.)


It's devilishly hard to read statistics with a critical eye, if you don't have access to the full data set. The best that can be done is to scan for context. (In the case of Fielding, he's known as a conservative who is not fiercely intelligent, and he went fact-finding to the US, hosted by the Heartland Institute, known as conservative and funded by fossil fuel and tobacco interests, amongst others.) Scanning for context includes a healthy degree of questioning, critical analysis, and absorbing information from a variety of credible sources. But you knew that already, didn't you?

Australia and the complexities of racism

India press has been awash recently with news of racism in Australia, specifically in the context of claims of attacks on Indian students in Sydney and Melbourne.

From Sydney's west comes stories of violence against Indians in Harris Park. A column in the Sydney Morning Herald puts a bit of context on this. Tanveer Ahmed paints a picture of Harris Park as home to successive waves of fresh migrants to Australia, formerly Mediterranean or Lebanese, and most recently Indians. In fact, when I worked close by there a few years ago, I noticed a heavy preponderance of Indian shops, with no particular signs [left] of previous communities maintaining a distinct identity. As always happens, the waves of migrants tend to blend in over time.

The writer positions recent violence in Harris Park specifically in the context of second-generation descendants of original migrants: "the worst racism encountered by the average migrant is usually from other migrants".

I would add a few anecdotal observations to that, having first arrived in this country something over twenty years ago. Coming from a similar culture, I could blend in barely noticed, yet I observed with fresh eyes the attitudes of Australians to those who were different. First, outward manifestations of violence [and racism] tend to come from young males (of course), say about 15 to 25. There was little overt racism towards earlier migrants, but noticeably more so towards recent arrivals. Those that are obviously different in speech and culture were the most likely targets - and, for example, if someone of darker skin spoke perfect english, they were more easily accepted.

But, I noticed at the time, Australians as a whole seemed to reserve their most vituperous ill-feeling to the original inhabitants - aboriginals. Having seen both sides - through both aboriginal friends and being on the receiving end of violence - I know better than to lump everyone into one basket. Not so your average Australian, who had simply not had any day-to-day involvement with any aboriginals, and so absorbed simply what they were exposed to by tabloids and talkback.

So yes, there is racism here, but I very much doubt that its worse than any multicultural country. And yes, where there is racism, it's most likely to be directed at aboriginals or recent migrants - yet the latter receive the press, while aboriginals just suffer day to day.

I would also add that those of the dominant culture are quite blind to the subtleties of racism, and would be quite ill-qualified to put a believable case against the existence of racism.

My personal feeling is such barriers best break down in situations where people are working together and get to know representatives of a variety of cultures. There's nothing like a multicultural workplace.

Climate change and the politics of pseudo-science

In the midst of the absurdity that constitutes current debate on climate change, Steve Fielding, an absurd Australian politician, has illuminated some of the reasons such a debate remains festering long after rationality has won through.

Fielding, a quixotic conservative (who scraped into parliament on preferences and votes from people who didn't realised where his 'Family First' party stood on anything), has latched onto an issue that he doesn't realise has left him all asea.

He had argued that a) debate on climate change had been stifled, and b) global temperature rises are not anthropogenic (human-caused) in origin.

Fielding's views - and the reactions to them - are discussed in this article. In a nutshell, he had based his understanding on a single, selective source: Heaven And Earth, a book by Adelaide geologist Ian Plimer.


Lessons:
1. Don't expect politicians to appreciate that their leadership position behooves them to at least attempt to act wisely.
2. Getting your information from a single source - and then not reading critiques of said source - does not make you wise.
3. As quoted in the above article, a book that is "an opinion of an author who happens to be a scientist" does not necessarily equate to a "work of science".


This last point is the most salient, as it gives some insight into how easily people's understanding gets hijacked if they don't a) don't appreciate how scientific consensus is formulated, and b) don't read much.


11-Jun-09 update: According to a more recent news report, "Senator Fielding's newfound scepticism is a result of his trip to the US to listen to the Heartland Institute of Chicago, an organisation that is funded by the fossil-fuel industry."

I would say that people are responsible for their own reputation, and are entitle to muck it up as they choose. Unfortunately, the ramifications are a little more severe: he is one of several people that hold the balance of power in the Senate, and so is uniquely placed to derail any government initiatives on climate change. Yet to pile irony upon irony, the government's plans are quite sub-optimal, so at this point it is hard for anyone to tell for sure whether Fielding's stumblings will help or hinder the cause.

Gillard's rising star

(Finally opened up my spare keyboard and fixed it, so I can type out a few words.)

I've mentioned before our impressive deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (including here and here). I'm not the only one to have perked up, though.

Peter Hartcher, The Sydney Morning Herald's political editor, gave her a warm writeup a few days ago, which placed her star in greater ascendancy than I could have expected.

Her biggest problem is that she comes from the Victorian left of the ALP, and the left would never have the numbers to get up their choice for leader - especially, Hartcher says, due to specific anomosity from the NSW right wing.

However, by Hartcher's account, she has won everyone over with her competence and intelligence. That would not normally be enough for the right wingers, but apparently she has proven her mettle to them by not being beholden to some on the union left (of particular note: standing up to the CFMEU against some of their shoddy practices in the building industry).

Hartcher characterises Gillard as moving from the left more towards the centre in recent times. Regardless,

Of polls, presidents, and kangaroos

An informal readers poll in the Sydney Morning Herald gave some interesting results for kangaroos and presidents.


The sample size given was 1256. Of those, just over three quarters felt that kangaroos "should be killed to provide meat for human consumption".

Of the quarter that didn't agree, doubtless some of them thought kangaroos were just too cute and furry. But the environmental debate is all but won by the carnivores.

Assuming there is a certain amount of inevitability about meat consumption, it would make more sense to harvest kangaroo than cow. They're lean, and built for the Australian environment - and so have far less effect on the Australian environment - and the global one, for that matter. Most overseas-originating arguments against it seem somewhat specious*.


And how do you think President Obama's going? About one in seven thought he was brilliant - somewhat less than I might have expected. Most just thing he's good. Some don't know, some go for the average... but less than two percent think he's performing poorly. That's surprisingly low, especially as one could expect there to be a reasonable number of partisans from the right in that sampling. And Obama has already been faced with a high number of no-win situations in a short amount of time.

I still contend that he imparts wisdom more consistently than any other players around him, but I would think that the mass judgment counts wins more than anything else. And it's hard to say that what clear wins he has had.

With any luck, the general public is collectively trying to use a bit of wisdom. Now that would be about as much of an ask as calling for a wise leader...


*Update 29-May-09: There have been some instances of bad industrial ethics/practices in the kangaroo industry (including brutality and lack of hygiene), but these are certainly not intrinsic to the issue of kangaroos vs cows.

Counting your enemies in Australian politics

Arch conservative nitpicker Gerard Henderson is now one of the longest running columnists in the Sydney Morning Herald. He's happiest when the Liberals are in power, of course, but he's never beyond giving a spray to either side of politics, the ALP for the all the perceived failings of the left, and the Liberals for, well, just not being conservative enough.

Recently, he was rather miffed that the Greens won a state parliamentary seat in the Fremantle by-election in Western Australia. He was comforted by his own analysis that the Greens would never win a seat outside the inner city electorates. But what really got his goat was the Liberals' part in the affair: they didn't run a candidate.

Fremantle was, admittedly, a safe Labor seat. And there is a strong tradition of major parties not turning up in by-elections where a) they cannot hope to win, b) the overall poll numbers are not finely balanced, and c) there is no topical scandal.

So by Henderson's numbers, Labor got their usually tally, while "nearly all" traditional Liberal voters [must have] voted Green. He shafts responsibility home to the Liberals' practice of preferencing the Greens over Labor in close-to-the-wire electorates.

Of course, this assumes that Liberal voters either a) do what they're told, or b) see Labor as their worst enemy, and in either case, c) are pretty stupid if they're meant to be conservative or right-wing, but end up voting for a good solid left-winger.

Henderson characterises the Greens as "Australia's only left-wing party" - which, despite some on the left agreeing with that, is more a measure of his sniping at Labor (something he does at every opportunity). Of course, there are plenty of left-wing parties, but none (to my knowledge) have parliamentary representation in Australia, bar the Greens and the Australian Labor Party.

But it really depends on the conversation you are having as to whether you call the ALP left or right. Certainly anyone with clear left-wing sympathies would consider them right, but come election time, if it's a choice between two evils, left preferences mostly end up with Labor. Of course, there are those left fundamentalists who would rather attempt to foment revolution by ensuring those Labor quislings are out in the cold and waiting until the Liberals are sufficiently on the nose.

Unfortunately for them, the Australian electorate as a whole is rather conservative, and so will never - as a whole - go any further left that the ALP. Cold comfort for Henderson, whose nose is put even more out of joint by the actions of the Liberals at the margins.

The margin in this case is how-to-vote cards, which can have some influence on outcomes. From a purely party-political perspective the Liberals, of course, see their fundamental enemies as the ALP. So they will do anything to reduce their parliamentary presence, even so far as to encourage their own voters to go over the heads of Labor, even further left to the Greens.

So it depends who you consider your enemy - and this is where the equations go perverse. Labor is the enemy of the parliamentary Liberals, a fair few people on the left, and Henderson when it suits him. The Greens are the enemy of the far right, and the ALP when the Greens are too close at their heels. The Liberals are the enemy of the left and parliamentary Labor.

And Henderson, at times, seems to profess to being surrounded by enemies.

Climate Change Australia: bad policy goes worse

Having Kevin Rudd as a Prime Minister has meant an era of management rather than leadership. Evidence is the revised but still tragic climate change policy: the Emission Trading Scheme is being delayed past the next election, emission prices are to be set at a low $10 per tonne, and industrial polluters are compensated even more.

Activist organisation GetUp! has the facts of the new policy. The Sydney Morning Herald gave an environment perspective and a political perspective on this change, which has been variously characterised as a backflip or a watering down of action over climate change.

The original plans were fundamentally flawed from an environmental perspective, such that Ross Garnaut, author of the government-commissioned report on the subject, said it might be better to hold off on implementation - in the hope that public pressure will yield better policy. Be careful what you wish for, Ross. Public opinion has had a long tradition of clamouring for contradictory outcomes, effectively leaving key issues up to those they vote for.

Rudd was juggling a number of balls over the issue: industry concerns (peak bodies had been holding the previous labour government to ransom on this specific issue, even before Kyoto), economic crisis, and pressure from environmental voices. That last was the weakest pressure, because traditionally the ALP has the environment vote in the bag (would you rather vote for something even more conservative, hey?). They also figured that the buildup of pressure on climate change remained weak despite the mammoth publicity over the last three years. Some justification for this view exists in the voting record at the last election, where green votes did not surge to reflect the apparent level of interest. Again, the public agrees there is a problem, but want "someone else" to do "something". How to break this toxic nexus? Same as ever, I guess: hope for good leadership, participate in public pressure (via GetUp!'s campaign, for example), and vote right. Political vision entails hard choices for the right reasons, and persuading the electorate to follow. Rudd was elected for a raft of reasons other than that, unfortunately. I have little confidence in anyone on Australia's political horizon (whilst holding judgment on Julia Gillard and Peter Garrett, who may well be hamstrung); fortunately, there remains hope in Obama.


06-Sep-09 Update:  Two important points I mention in a later post:
1) There is a truly evil effect of the government's plan: any attempts by individuals to reduce their carbon emissions is used to offset the burden of the large corporate polluters, thus rendering individual action worse than useless.
2) The original bill for the Emission Trading Scheme was knocked  back by the Senate; to date the government intends re-introducing it with little substantive change.