Politics
Democratic failure 1 – sports betting
It appears that the government can’t muster up the political courage to take on gambling and media companies. Rather than banning gambling advertisements, as recommended by a bipartisan committee, it intends to legislate for an insipid and ineffective compromise on sports betting.
This can be seen as the normal way politics progresses, but the issue goes deep into the relationship between Parliament and executive government. Even though Parliament has established a case for legislation in the public interest, executive government has given parties with vested interests privileged access to ministers who will shape legislation.
Just over a year ago, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs presented a report – You win some, you lose more – with 31 recommendations aimed at reducing harm from online gambling. One of those recommendations was that the Commonwealth, in cooperation with the states and territories, should “implement a comprehensive ban on all forms of advertising for online gambling”, staged over three years to give the industry time to adjust.
The committee was chaired by Labor MP Peta Murphy, herself an accomplished sportsperson. She died of breast cancer shortly after the report was produced. All members of the committee, including two from the Liberal Party and one from the National Party, signed off on the recommendations. There was no dissenting report.
Once the report was tabled the path from there on should have been straightforward for the government. All interested parties had had an opportunity to put their views and evidence to the committee. Public health experts had made their submissions, pointing out the adverse consequences of sports betting. Public opinion is on the side of restricting or banning wagering advertising. A ban on advertising would have no fiscal implications. And the recommendation was made to a social-democratic government, ostensibly committed to being guided by evidence-based policy.
All that remained was for public servants to work out the administrative detail and draft legislation, which should have been waved through Parliament because both main parties had agreed on the recommendations: it would be very hard for the Coalition to turn around and oppose it.
But that’s not how government works in Australia. It’s now apparent that those who have a financial stake in the way sports betting is regulated – sports betting companies and the media companies that carry advertising – have been in rounds of consultation with government ministers. That has led to well-informed sources reporting that the government proposes a weak compromise well short of a ban.
Jeff Kennett, former Premier of Victoria, former President of Hawthorn Football Club, and founding chair of Beyond Blue, says that the case for a ban on sports-bet advertising is well-established. He has been speaking out about the damage caused by sports betting for many years. He is dismissive of the idea of a half-hearted compromise – you cannot be “a little bit pregnant” he says on the ABC: Will Labor’s gambling reform miss the mark? (8 minutes)
Kennett’s annoyance is in straight public health terms. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for government to represent the interest and the welfare of its community, particularly its young community”, by bringing sports betting under the same advertising rules as poker machines and casinos.
A similar criticism of a partial ban is made by Independent MP Kate Chaney. You can hear her in a 10-minute interview on ABC Breakfast: The world won't end: push for greater crackdown on gambling. She points out that since the report was presented the government has been involved in extensive consultation with the AFL and media companies with a vested financial interest in sport gambling.
Also speaking on ABC Breakfast Samantha Thomas of Deakin University makes the same points as Kennett and Chaney, but she goes further, supporting academics who have written to the government demanding that public health experts be given the same access to ministers as sports betting and media companies: Academics push for govt talks on gambling ads. (10 minutes)
“Parliament is for the plebs, access to executive government is for the real men who run the country” is the message the government is sending the community.
That’s not the way democracy should work.
Democratic failure 2 – a backdown on Makarrata and truth telling
It’s becoming clear that the government has dropped a pre-election commitment to a Makarrata commission and truth-telling. Patricia Karvelas explains how Albanese has squirmed out of this commitment with a shoddy re-interpretation of Makarrata: Timidity reigns as Anthony Albanese backs away from Makarrata at Garma Festival.
You can hear newly-appointed Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy do her best to explain and defend the government’s backdown.
The ABC’s Dana Morse explains Albanese’s political transition, from the opposition leader who promised a referendum on the Voice and establishment of a Makarrata Commission, to the prime minister who backed down last week: Three years, three Garma festivals, and three different versions of Anthony Albanese.
The government’s political strategy is understandable, but not excusable. It may be letting down indigenous Australians and all Australians who embrace the ideals of the Uluru Statement, but it believes it has nothing to lose politically, because the Coalition is taking an even harder line. Dutton and the opposition’s Indigenous Affairs spokesperson boycotted the Garma Festival, and Dutton has made it clear in a statement on Sky News“Under a government I lead, there will be no Makarrata and there will be no revisiting of truth-telling”.
That’s unsurprising: the federal Coalition has a difficult relationship with the truth, and it’s consistent with its political strategy on the Voice. Indigenous matters give the opposition an easy opportunity to run a divisive campaign as a means to embarrass Labor. Laura Tingle explains on Late Night Live that Dutton has been waiting for Albanese to announce a Makarrata Commission so that he could misrepresent it in the same way as he misrepresented the Voice: Has Albanese squibbed on the Makarrata Commission?
Jüdisches Museum Berlin
One reason the Voice referendum failed is that it was not preceded by a long period of truth-telling. Because it was premature, it was easy for Dutton and a band of discontents to play on people’s ignorance and fill that space with misinformation and disinformation.
We could learn a lesson from postwar Germany, which has dealt with its past in a long and difficult period of truth-telling. To this day schoolchildren are taught about the Holocaust. As one wanders around Germany one cannot help running into memorials, exhibits in former concentration camps, and plaques on houses reading: “Here lived the X family, murdered in Auschwitz in 1944”.
We have brought indigenous history into our school curriculums, and have had other movements to acknowledge indigenous history, but could do more without indulging in the misery of a “black armband” view of history. Germany has its anti-immigrant movements, but it is a vibrant democracy, and its people of all ages are proud of its place in the world. By contrast, in some other European countries, that have not dealt with their Nazi past, there is a certain stifling of history contributing to an uneasy feeling that not all is resolved.
The government has mounted the pathetic excuse that it is focusing on practical economic concerns aimed at closing the gap, rather than establishing Makarrata and truth-telling. But we can do both. To continue with the German analogy, imagine if, in 1945, the allied powers and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had decided to work only on the country’s economic reconstruction, while ignoring de-Nazification.
The government’s backdown fits the textbook pattern of behaviour of a reformist party competing in a two-party system. The reformist party has to sit only a little bit to the left of the reactionary party. Any bolder move could cost it support.
This depressing political calculation will hold sway so long as the “Westminster” two-party system dominates our political thinking. It fails to hold the government to account. Rather it gives too much opportunity for scaremongering demagogues with little respect for the truth, to block reform. The sooner it gives way to a multi-party democracy the better.
The gap is closing too slowly
The latest update to the Productivity Commission’s Closing the Gap Dashboard has received more attention than is usual for these updates, presumably because they have been published just before the Garma Festival.
The annual update presents a discouraging picture. To quote from its summary:
We have assessed 15 out of the 19 socio-economic targets, which includes new data for nine targets since last year. Some targets are on track to be achieved, such as healthy birthweight, pre-school enrolment, and land and sea subject to Indigenous rights. However, outcomes are worsening in four areas: children removed into out-of-home care by child protection systems, the proportion of children who are developmentally on track, the rate of people taking their own lives and the number of adults imprisoned. And while five outcomes have improved since measured at the commencement of the Agreement, they are not on track to be met. This includes life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
An illustration of the data produced by the Commission is in the chart below, showing one of the main indicators – male life expectancy. In the period 2005 to 2007 non-indigenous Australian men enjoyed 11.4 more years of life expectancy than indigenous Australian men. By the period 2020 to 2022 this gap had come down to 8.8 years (red dots). The gap was closing, but it was not on a trajectory to close to zero by 2030 (dashed line). At the current rate of progress the gap won’t be closed until about 2065 (solid red line, projected).
Writing in The Conversation Grace Sarra of the Queensland University of Technology and Marnee Shay of the University of Queensland summarize some of the report’s main features, particularly data showing promising attendance at preschool, and disturbing trends in criminal justice and suicide: More Indigenous children are going to preschool, but is this enough?
Also writing in The Conversation, Eileen Baldry of the University of New South Wales focuses on incarceration rates: New Closing the Gap data shows more First Nations Australians are in prison. Why?. Incarceration rates for adult indigenous Australians are 15 times the rate for non-indigenous Australians, and the gap is widening.
Although there is progress on children with healthy birthweights, a group of researchers from the University of Queensland, writing in The Conversation, drawing on other sources of data, report that First Nations women are at greater risk of stillbirth than other women.
It appears, from the Prime Minister’s speech at the Garma Festival, that the government is giving more attention to closing the gap. It is turning to specific measures, particularly economic development, ensuring indigenous Australians can be involved in the nation’s energy transformation – a transformation that will involve a great amount of activity in inland Australia.
The Closing the Gap dashboard suggests that indicators for children are better than indicators for adults. That’s an encouraging sign for the very long term.
The gentle art of prebunking
Australians may be pleased that our extreme right is not as well-organized or as politically entrenched as Britain’s Nazi movement, the English Defence League, who have been organizing riots in northern England. Outfits in Australia such as Advance and One Nation have been less successful in mobilizing the politics of hatred.
But we should not be complacent. As these hoodlums hurl rocks at mosques and at hotels accommodating asylum-seekers, they chant “stop the boats”, a slogan coined by a now-retired Australian politician who occasionally crawls out of the woodwork.
Just last week, in Adelaide, we saw repulsive behaviour by young men in a white supremacist movement. In the 10 months since the terrorist attacks in Israel, we have seen the proliferation of online hate speech against Jews and Muslims.
Even though anti-Semitism has been and still is an organizing rally of the far right, including theocratic misogynistic Islamist movements, the Liberal Party, in an attempt to sow partisan division, associates anti-Semitism with the “left”. There are early signs of a return to religious divisions, a right-wing minority in Australia’s Muslim community is talking about organizing an explicitly religious-based party to contest next year’s election. It has taken more than a hundred years to establish the principles of secular democracy and religious tolerance in Australia: a return to the sectarian battles of the past would be tragic.
Fortunately, as ASIO’s Mike Burgess and criminologists stress, only a minority of people who hold way-out political views turn to violence. For the most part such people commit no more harm to the community than trampling on the lawns in front of Parliament House and voting for the Coalition. But they can be easy prey for outfits determined to inflict harm on our country. A transition from holding eccentric beliefs to engaging in activities such as provocative Nazi rallies or other brands of terrorism is nurtured by a stream of conspiracy theories. Jews, Muslims, Zionists, climate scientists, public health officials, refugees: they’re all fair game for those who feed conspiracy theories.
The Nazis in England have exploited a well-known tactic of rabble-rousers: get in first with the story. That story gains credibility if it can be set in terms of a conspiracy theory.
Once a conspiracy theory is established, it is almost impossible to dislodge. Psychologists explain the process. We hear or read something that is at least plausible and, rather than subjecting it to sceptical analysis, we tend to be receptive to other sources promulgating the same theories. We’re all subject to confirmation bias. Attempts by scientists, policy experts and others to debunk conspiracy theories have to push against this bias.
Writing in The Conversation Christopher Arnott of Griffith University puts forward the idea of prebunking: In a year of global elections, how do we stop the spread of misinformation? “Prebunking” is part of the solution. He writes:
Prebunking is based on the idea of psychological inoculation. If we anticipate misinformation, and the tactics used, we can be better at identifying it. Similar to how a vaccine works, prebunking gives your brain the ability to recognise misinformation tactics.
Arnott describes a game called “bad news”, which can help us anticipate the tactics to be used by those who spread conspiracy theories. Participants act as fake news promulgators, who have to come up with ideas that could gain followers but not be so far out that they are completely beyond credibility. Prebunking involves being aware of the likely themes of fake news and disinformation, and getting in early with accurate accounts of developments.
As he stresses, prebunking is “part” of the solution. Just as a vaccine’s effectiveness wears off, so does the inoculation of prebunking. Boosters are required.
Polls
Voting intention – how are the Teal independents faring?
The simple media story is that Labor is sliding in the polls.
The real picture is more complex. Labor enjoyed a surge in support after the 2022 election, but that soon started to fall. It seems to have stabilized at around 31 percent, or 1 percent down on the election.
More seriously, the Coalition primary vote is up by around 3 percent.
The current support for the main parties, as indicated by polls, is shown in the table below.
The Coalition has gained ground, but not from Labor. It is possible that they are taking support from “Teal” voters. The Saturday Paper’s Jason Koutsoukis, reporting on non-published polls, suggests that the Teals are at risk of losing four seats – two in Sydney, one in Melbourne and one in Perth. (The electoral redistribution has already abolished Kylea Tink’s North Sydney electorate.)
Koutsoukis goes on to explain that electoral funding changes, proposed to be introduced into Parliament, could put independent candidates, particularly new independent candidates, at a disadvantage, while further privileging Labor and the Coalition. Measures that would make it harder for billionaires to finance far-right parties would also work against organizations such as Climate 200 that have been funding independents. Independents are concerned that funding limits aimed at keeping big money out of politics, when combined with rules around public funding which favour political parties, would be particularly disadvantageous.
Koutsoukis explains the politics and the financial details around the government’s proposals. It is not clear whether it is just too hard to find a method of campaign reform that protects our democracy from dark money without disadvantaging independents, or if the government is doing a Faustian deal with the Coalition.
If the latter, it is serious, for it raises the risk, although slight at present, of a majority Coalition government at next year’s election. The damage to our economy, our social cohesion, and to our national security, of a government run by the current front bench of the Coalition would be severe and enduring. Even a respectable showing that allowed the Coalition to gain a few seats would be enough to entrench the Trumpists, the climate-change deniers, and the low-tax-small-government adherents in their ranks, removing political pressure to reform the Liberal Party.
Also, in terms of immediate public policy, the Teal independents sustain pressure on the government in relation to important issues, including climate change, integrity in government, and the influence of lobbies such as the AFL holding Labor and the Coalition to ransom.
Koutsoukis’ article sits behind the Saturday Paper’s paywall, but the main issues to do with electoral funding reform are covered in a post by the ABC’s Tom Crowley: Government close to finalising electoral reforms but faces a sceptical parliament.
Although the funding cards are stacked against them, it appears that there will be strong independents, with financial backing from Climate 200, in several Coalition-held seats, and perhaps even a few Labor or Green seats. That will have the benefit of the Coalition having to spread their financial resources to contest more seats, as if they are marginal. Such competition can only be good for democracy, particularly if it can help keep the current Coalition front bench out of office
Climate 200 is already funding community groups in McPherson, Moncrieff, Fisher, and Fairfax in Queensland, Cowper and Bradfield in New South Wales, and Casey, Monash, and Wannon in Victoria. They are currently seeking donations.
Trade unions – we actually quite like them
The most recent Essential poll has eight sets of questions about our attitudes to unions. No doubt there has been elevated interest in the role of unions because of allegations of corruption in the CFMEU.
Anyone hoping that those allegations have set off a wave of anti-union sentiment will be disappointed by the responses to the Essential poll. We see unions as an important part of our economy, but while we like and value unions, only a few of us belong to one.
One might believe that we would have been seeking to see stronger unions when the Coalition was in office, but in fact we have become more aware of the need for stronger unions since Labor was elected.
The main findings from those Essential questions are below.
Only 11 percent of respondents belong to a union. There are still more men than women reporting membership but the gap is small. Older people are most likely to reveal that they once belonged to a union.
Increasingly we think unions are important – 52 percent in 2012, 64 percent now, particularly among younger people. Similarly there has been growing agreement, from 39 percent to 51 percent, with the statement “Overall, would workers be better off if unions in Australia were stronger?. We strongly believe (63 percent) that “Unions are good for the economy because they help distribute wealth more evenly”. On all three statements there are predictable partisan differences.
There is a set of questions about people’s beliefs about which groups have too much or too little power. The responses make little sense however, possibly because the question does not specify the context (e.g. power over public policy?) and whether respondents think organizations are exercising power for the common good. There is a related question asking people about the way the Australian economy works: do we believe “the Australian economy puts the interests of businesses ahead of workers”, or is it the other way around? We think the economy prioritises the interests of business, but it’s hard to make sense of responses to a question which asks respondents to anthropomorphize and assign moral agency to “the economy”.
Then there is a set of questions about which is the better political party for workers. Labor comes out strongly ahead of the Coalition for “improving the rights of workers” and “supporting higher wages and better working conditions”, somewhat ahead for “ensuring the economy operates fairly for everyone”, and only a few points ahead for “ensuring unions are operating ethically”. Strangely, Coalition voters believe that the Coalition is better than Labor at supporting higher wages and working conditions”, even though the Coalition’s policy in office has been to keep wages suppressed. Coalition voters also believe that the Coalition is far better than Labor at ensuring unions are operating ethically, even though neither party has a good record in dealing with the construction unions.
There is a set of questions about our concerns about corruption, in government, in big corporations and in unions. Unsurprisingly Coalition voters are much more inclined than Labor voters to believe that we have a problem with corruption in unions, while Labor voters are much more inclined than Coalition voters to believe we have a corruption problem in big corporations. Responses to such questions don’t tell us much.
What if Australians were voting in the US election?
The same Essential poll has three sets of questions about our views on Donald Trump and how we would vote in the US election if we had the chance. Trump doesn’t go down well in Australia but not as badly as some might believe, and he is the candidate of choice for Coalition supporters.
While we still feel fairly negative towards Trump, we feel more favourably towards him that we were in 2020. Perhaps we have forgotten about the insurrection and his contempt for the election process. We believe that if Trump were elected president our relationship with the USA would worsen, but we’re less apprehensive about the way he might damage the relationship than we were in 2020.
We rate Kamala Harris more favourably than we rate Trump, except for Coalition voters, who rate Trump more favourably.
If we had the vote we would vote “Democrat” (candidate not specified), 37 percent, vs “Trump and the Republicans” 29 percent. Again Coalition voters stand out: they would vote for Trump (39 percent) in preference to the Democrats (36 percent). An even stronger preference for Trump is among those who say they would vote for minor parties or independents. We can be fairly sure they are not Teal supporters.
Gender differences are predictable: women don’t like Trump. But age differences are not as one might have imagined. Older Australians are particularly turned off Trump, while people aged 35 to 54 would vote for Trump by a small margin. This is quite the reverse of voting intention in the USA, where Trump enjoys strong support among older voters. Similarly older voters in Australia are much more inclined than younger voters to believe the US-Australia relationship would worsen under a Trump presidency.
There are two questions on AUKUS, revealing that we don’t really know how a Trump presidency would affect AUKUS. In response to a general statement, independent of the US election, respondents are asked for agreement or otherwise with the statement “The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine partnership will make Australia more secure”. Agreement with that statement has steadily fallen from 45 percent in 2021, when the partnership was announced, to 37 percent now.