Queensland elections
Thank you to the people of Queensland for giving Labor a timely kick up the arse.
Special thanks to the electors of the electorates in the Brisbane-Gold Coast corridor who put the rights of Nature above yet another obeisance to the sacred car and private profit. I know this amounts to a rebuke for one side rather than any guarantee of good behaviour by the other, but it's nice to know the green side of green issues can carry that sort of clout.
And thanks to the Queensland Greens for showing green preferences have to be earned, not taken for granted and treated with contempt.
Sad as it is to think of my old state of origin under unabashed big-business rule, it is sadder to think that Labor, the party of promise, provides no real alternative when it gets into power.
Paul Keating take note. Not everyone who covers you with shit is necessarily doing you a bad turn. Look upon Queensland and
learn.
David Mathers
Lidcombe NSW
Martin Ferguson
Martin Ferguson, head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has announced his nomination for ALP preselection to represent the seat of Batman in Federal Parliament.
The Parliamentary Labor party has presided over the disappearance of the basic wage, the loss of margins (they were payments for skills) the loss of quarterly cost-of-living wage adjustments,the disappearance of progressive taxation, the use of troops in strikes, the disallowing of small unions with a consequent reduction in unionisation, and the privatisation of publicly owned assets without reference to or mandate from the owners of those assets, the taxpayers.
They have let loose the banks like predators to assault the meagre savings of the low income earners, taxed pensioners (by use of the deeming scheme) on income they might have earned if their savings had been invested in some shonky investment company run with impunity by some fly-by-night friends of politicians.
During their term of office we have seen massive losses of employment on the waterfront, from Telecom and from the finance industry but still the catch-cry is greater productivity.
Except at election time, there is no pretence that the Federal ALP is anything but a party for big business.
As the head of the ACTU, a body which has acquiesced and assisted in all of the above assaults on the citizenry, Martin Ferguson should fit very well into the present Federal Government.
CM Friel
Alawa NT
Aboriginal rights
I always found our relationship with the indigenous people, the Australian Aborigine, hard to understand. For instance, when King George III authorised Arthur Phillip as first governor to take over Australia, it was on the basis of it being "terra nullius" i.e., unoccupied land. At the same time in the document, he enjoined Phillip to treat the natives kindly.
The question is, who or what did the King think the natives where? The answer apparently was, just part of the flora and fauna.
At one time, the Australians were denouncing at the League of Nations, forerunner of the United Nations, the representative of the Soviet Union, Molotov, for its behaviour towards some of their indigenous people.
To which Molotov replied, "At least we count ours".
Jean Hale
Balmain NSW
Silber's book
I was most unimpressed by Irwin Silber's so-called "response" to Reihana Mohideen's earlier review of his book. I say "so-called" because in fact Silber dealt with nothing at all of the substance of Mohideen's review.
In so far as the "response" went beyond trying to scare us with the word "Trotskyist", Silber's argument seemed to consist of three assertions, only one of which is at all novel or controversial: 1. Capitalism changes. 2. Open-mindedness is valuable. 3. Therefore my book is right.
Richard Ingram
Sydney
Romantic monarchist
There is one myth about Australia that badly needs debunking. This is the one that goes "Paul Keating is a republican". Let us part the clouds of rhetoric a minute and see what lies beyond. Sometimes old bottles are no longer correctly labelled.
You would certainly not mistake him for your common variety of populist republican. Naturally the PM is not your classical monarchist, loyal to the British Crown, the English royal family and their hereditary line of succession. But there have been other kinds of monarchies.
For a time Ireland was ruled from Tara by the Ard Ri or High King who was merely the chairman of a council of independent provincial kings who often defied him. Though the parallel with the PM's preferred option may not be exact, it is suggestive. Paul Keating is what I would call a romantic monarchist, with his allegiance to the exile Gaelic clans, nostalgically dreaming of misty glens, of Finn MacCool and of the ancient High Kings of Ireland.
What puzzles me though is that if the present day Irish people can manage quite well with a popularly elected President, then just why couldn't we? Do we need paternalistic government? Time to stop being history, time to make history.
Justin White
Bardon Qld