Politics
The Australian politics of the Middle East conflicts
The most recent Essential Poll asks what we think of the government’s response to the Israel-Gaza war. As shown in the pie chart below, the government seems to have it about right politically.
Over the short time Essential has been running this set of questions, support for the government’s response seems to have grown.
Older people are more inclined than younger people to believe that the government has been too harsh on Israel. Similarly Coalition voters are more inclined than voters for other parties to believe that the government has been too harsh on Israel. Even so, 57 percent of Coalition voters are satisfied with the government’s response, and 20 percent believe the government has been too supportive of Israel.
Opinion polling strongly suggests that Australians do not want to take sides in this conflict.
So why all the fuss, and why is Peter Dutton trying to force us to lone up uncritically behind one side?
In a post on the ABC mounted on October 7, the anniversary of the attack in which Hamas terrorists murdered 1200 Israelis, Patricia Karvelas explains what has happened:
As a nation built on multiculturalism we thrive when our communities are brought together, not divided. But the October 7 massacre and the brutal Israeli response — which has killed thousands of innocent people, decimated Gaza and destroyed families — has polarised our communities and left many in despair. It has pushed people into distinct camps, broken families, smashed friendships, and made people who may be physically removed from the conflict feel alienated in their chosen homeland, Australia.
Binaries have been created and false choices demanded.
It’s an elegant account, but it doesn’t explain why this division has occurred. How come there have been separate gatherings of Australians expressing support for the people of Israel, and gatherings of Australians expressing support for Palestinians?
We were given a clue in a Radio National Breakfast session on that same day, in which Karvelas had on air two Jewish members of Parliament – Labor’s Josh Burns and the Liberals’ Julian Leeser. It’s a long session – almost 20 minutes – and both politicians conducted themselves with dignity, until about three minutes before the end, Leeser couldn’t help spoiling it all by bringing partisan politics into the discussion, when he accused the government of “backsliding” in its support for Israel.
In his regular weekly summary of political developments in the Saturday Paper, Paul Bongiorno notes how Dutton has focused on protests displaying sympathy for Palestinians. He has demanded that the government cancel protesters’ visas, has falsely claimed that Albanese failed to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah, and has claimed Foreign Minister Penny Wong is selling out Israel. He has described Wong’s statement on the conflict as “the most reckless foreign affairs decision in our generation”.
Really?
In fact there are only shades of difference between the Coalition’s and Labor’s policies. On the most basic issue relating to Israel and Palestine, there is a longstanding support, from both Coalition and Labor governments, for a two-state solution behind secure borders.
This all erupted in Parliament on Tuesday when Dutton refused to support a motion emphasizing support for victims of the October 7 terrorism and condemning anti-Semitism, and also expressing support for the Palestinians and calling for a ceasefire. SBS’s Emma Brancatisano describes details of the motion in her article Dutton says Albanese should be 'condemned' as he rejects Labor's October 7 motion.
It’s apparent that Albanese had been trying to negotiate a statement which Dutton could support, but Dutton dug into a hard position to confine it to support for Israel. (There is a detailed account of these negotiations in a Sydney Morning Herald article by Paul Sakkal, but it’s paywalled.) Most media are describing this as an attempt to forge a “bipartisan” statement, but that understates its significance. It was actually an attempt to make a statement from our Parliament – the chamber of the people of Australia and not just the Labor-Coalition club on the hill.
The motion that passed without Coalition or Green support, but with support from the so-called “crossbench”, seems to reflect the views of the Australian people.
In the same Essential poll referred to above there is a set of questions about support for specific actions Israel may take. (It was conducted just before the Hezbollah conflict erupted). Only about a fifth of Australians support Israel’s continuing military action in Gaza. There are partisan differences: almost a third of Coalition supporters support Israel’s continuing military action in Gaza, but even a greater proportion of Coalition voters support a ceasefire or withdrawal. About a third of all respondents answer “unsure”, a response that would include those who understand the complexity of the situation.
It is hard to come to any interpretation about Dutton’s behaviour other than as yet another attempt to sew discord and division among the Australian people. Surely that renders him unfit to hold public office in a democracy.
He is not the only one on the far-right fomenting division. If you have the stomach for vile and disgusting language, designed to set Australian against Australian, you can hear Peta Credlin and Tony Abbott ramp each other up in conveying their Manichean message – you are either for “Team Australia” or for Hamas. Dutton is riding that wave of division.
That is not to let those demonstrating support for the Palestinians off the hook for causing division. Just as Dutton and Abbott have conflated sympathy for Israeli victims of the terrorist attacks on 7 October with support for the Netanyahu government, so have demonstrators showing support for the Palestinians welcomed some Hamas supporters into their ranks. What were the rally organizers thinking when they invited Khaled Beydoun to speak to the October 7 rally?
My impression, having observed the small October 8 demonstration at Parliament House and having talked to some of the demonstrators, is that some of the younger people believe that Hamas is some sort of “left” liberation movement. They cannot, or don’t want to, grasp the reality that Hamas, like Hezbollah, is a far-right, authoritarian, misogynistic, religious-based movement, with little regard for anyone’s life, Israeli or Palestinian and that it has a particular dislike of young secularists. It is not by random chance that they carried out their murderous assault on a young persons’ concert.
Just as their understanding of Hamas is uninformed, so too are their political tactics naïve.
Where were the banners criticizing the Coalition?
They are directing their passion against the Albanese government, but if their political objective is to shift the Albanese government, they should be directing an equal or greater effort against the opposition, because it’s their misrepresentation and readiness to mount a scare campaign that’s blocking the government from any movement. Do they not realize this?
As for journalists, all but the best are suggesting that the government, in being wedged, has somehow failed. They seem to be reluctant to admit that when you’re being attacked from two opposing sides you probably have the politics right: that’s how democracy works.
What is the half-life of a political party?
Was Fatima Payman’s appearance on the 730 Report the Australia Voice Party’s fleeting 15 minutes of fame?
It was a precious opportunity to say something about this new party – its particular principles and how they differ from other parties, as Sarah Ferguson kept prodding her to explain. She might have announced one or two policies in line with those principles. But instead she simply committed herself and the party’s yet-to-be appointed candidates to consult with electors. That’s worthy but its inadequate to convince anyone to throw their personal effort or their money behind her.
When she resigned from the Labor Party she could have had a chance to stand as an independent in a Western Australian electorate with a young electorate – a long shot but her best chance. Or perhaps as an independent Senator for Western Australia.
But something doesn’t quite gel about someone who taps into the community’s discontent with political parties by forming a political party.
Katina Curtis, writing in The Nightly – WA Senator Fatima Payman abstained from most votes in Parliament since turning independent – points out that she has “chalked up a remarkable abstention rate in votes in legislation since becoming an independent”. On those 34 times she has voted her pattern has generally been to vote anti-Labor.
Michelle Grattan gives her a reasonably good cover in The Conversation – Fatima Payman’s new Australia’s Voice party to appeal to the “unheard” , but she’s going to face a much harder time with more assertive journalists. Less kindly, the headline on the ABC’s Tom Crowley’s post is Fatima Payman announces ”Australia's Voice” party with no policies.
Knocking up a policy agenda is hard enough. Even harder is the administrative task of pulling together a political party.
Sports betting – the issue that just won’t go away
The pressure on the Albanese government to ban sports betting advertising hasn’t gone away. A delegation of people whose lives have been harmed by gambling has come to Canberra, to pressure the government to enact the recommendations of the committee headed by the late Senator Peta Murphy.
The delegation’s organizer, Anna Bardsley, is in a short (6 minute) Radio National interview with Patricia Karvelas: Gambling survivors send message to the PM.
The issue has been covered several times in these roundups, most recently in the roundup of August 31. In spite of strong recommendations from Senator Murphy’s committee, pressure from community groups, and research showing evidence of costly harm from sports betting, the prime minister seems to be frozen like a rabbit caught in a spotlight.
His hesitation defies explanation, particularly when his detractors present him as indecisive and weak, and when political polling suggests that his supporters just want him to do something.
Here is a chance for the government to demonstrate that it can stand for the public interest against gambling companies and commercial media companies. They may get hysterical comment from right-wing media, but doesn’t Albanese realize by now that such comment is a normal occupational hazard for Labor governments?
He isn’t taking the opportunity.
If we had an opposition worthy of the name they would be pressuring the government, but it’s a stretch to imagine that the Liberal Party, under Dutton, would pursue a matter where the public interest really is at stake. They like to talk about “family values” but couldn’t care less when it comes to the crunch.
At least not everything has been going well for the gambling companies. In early 2018 shares in casino operator Star Entertainment were trading above $5.00. Covid hit them a bit, but in late 2021 their shares were trading at about $3.80.
Their price on Wednesday was 27 cents.
Ian Verrender explains this decline in his post How the end of money laundering sank Australia's casinos. Cashless gaming cards designed to identify problem gamblers and to make enforcement of money-laundering laws easier have taken their toll on casinos. Verrender writes:
If you believe the company, the tough economic times are taking a toll. Revenue is down and costs are up.
But even a cursory look at the figures suggest the game, if not over, has shifted dramatically since regulators started taking their job seriously and began enforcing the law.
At least there is possible redemption for Star Entertainment. Quoting from people with experience in the industry, Verrender notes that the company’s business will have to be “about accommodation, retail and restaurants with gambling as a sideline”. What was ever “entertaining” about money laundering and exploiting the vulnerable?
Polls and assessments of the government
The impression we get from media and other reports is that the government is in dire trouble, facing a monumental wipe-out at the next election. The headline in David Crowe’s report of the most recent Resolve Strategic poll, published in The Sydney Morning Herald, reads Albanese in voters’ sight over cost of living.
As evidence it reveals that 36 percent of respondents believe that the federal government is responsible for rising living costs, while 13 percent blame global factors, 13 percent blame business, and 12 percent blame the Reserve Bank. In its choice of responses Resolve Strategic didn’t offer the most likely cause – the failure by preceding Coalition governments to engage in economic reform.
In fact that 36 percent blaming the Albanese government is about the same as the primary vote support for the Coalition. There’s a hard core of voters who will never be swayed by argument or evidence – in this case the fact that the CPI peaked during the last months of the Coalition government, and has been coming down since.
Of more concern to government should be the finding in the same poll that the two parties are running about neck-and-neck on which party can do better on jobs and wages, and that the Coalition is seen as better at managing the economy than Labour – 38 percent to 24 percent.
These figures suggest that the government’s approach to communicating with the electorate is failing. The Albanese government rode into office on a wave of disgust with the Morrison government, and in its election hype it gave the impression that economic conditions could improve quickly. That’s normal campaigning, but once in office it failed to get the message across that it will take some time to repair the economic damage left by the Coalition, that productivity was at an all-time low, and that there would be pain before gain, the first pain being the necessity of a rise in interest rates because of the 8 percent inflation it inherited from the Coalition.
The government hasn’t been hiding anything. Those who look at the budget papers can see the plain message that economic recovery will be a slow process, but it has failed to convey this to the public.
At the same time it put too much faith in its belief that it could transform politics into “an idealistic, collaborative and positive ‘new politics’” to quote Carol Johnson from the University of Adelaide in her Conversationcontribution Failure to launch: why the Albanese government is in trouble. It had a political strategy suited to dealing with a Turnbull or Frydenberg as opposition leader, not a Dutton.
There is nothing wrong with a government pursuing a more civilized politics – the voting public are yearning for it – but those who have studied the dynamics of politics and negotiation advise that a government should not just “turn the other cheek” when the other side plays dirty. The government should call out such behaviour, and show it has the capacity to be nasty, with the occasional tit-for-tat response. That’s where the Albanese government seems to be failing.
Paul Strangio in an Inside Story contribution Is grown-up government enough? acknowledges that “a decade of policy indolence by the Coalition had left Labor with a backlog of problems resistant to quick or easy fixes”. In failing to explain why progress is necessarily slow, and in using a non-combative style, Albanese has conveyed to the electorate the impression that he is well-intentioned, but also “insipid and weak”. Strangio summarises the problem for Albanese in one key paragraph:
Albanese wanted his prime ministership to usher in a tranquil national political conversation but Dutton was having none of it. A foreboding political strongman, he relentlessly and recklessly pushes the hot buttons of fear and resentment in the electorate, especially on issues of race. Responding to Dutton’s incitements with a restrained stoicism, Albanese rebukes the opposition leader more in sorrow than in anger. This temperance might be statesmanlike and designed to douse social fires, but it can leave Albanese appearing limp next to Dutton’s muscularity.
Nevertheless, contrary to some of the rhetoric, there has not been a catastrophic fall in support for Labor.
Labor has lost the boost in support it enjoyed during its "honeymoon" period, but it is only one to two percent below where it was in the 2022 election. In the past many governments have picked up from that point.
Of more concern, however, is the apparent recovery in the Coalition's primary vote, now about 38 percent, shown in the table below. Most TPP polls have Labor and the Coalition around 50:50, or 51:49 in Labor’s favour. That’s enough for Labor to form at least minority government.
On the other hand while a primary vote of 38 percent for the Coalition is poor, adding 6 percent preferences from One Nation, and another 5 to 6 percent preferences from the Greens, could see the Coalition within cooee of winning majority government. Labor can no longer assume a high preference flow from the Greens, since they have formed a de-facto alliance with the Coalition in their aim to defeat Labor, and their antics in the Senate are contributing to the impression that the government is weak and powerless.
The Coalition’s rot
The Saturday Paper allows non-subscribers one free article per edition.
If you don’t have a subscription you have a choice between two articles about the Coalition’s troubles published in last week’s edition.
One is its editorial The Abbott-Credlin renaissance, about the influence Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin have on Dutton.
Dutton claims that he makes his own mind up. Indeed, it is hard to see Dutton embracing Abbott’s cult of pre-Reformation Catholicism as an ideology, but in terms of their shared contempt for Enlightenment values, their derision of science and learning, their attitude towards democratic institutions, and their use of disinformation in campaigning, Abbott and Dutton are close to each other.
The other article is John Hewson’s regular contribution, this time headed What happened to the Liberal Party?It’s about the Coalition’s deliberate failure to develop policies. He summarises his contribution in his opening paragraph:
… the current Coalition seems to believe it doesn’t need such things [as substantial policies], that it can win an election by just being critical and negative, by basically undermining the credibility of the government. It’s following the Tony Abbott playbook, spitting and jeering from the sidelines, rather than having the courage to rise to the occasion, to provide constructive opposition, to take the fight to Labor. In doing so, the Coalition relies on what, unfortunately, is becoming the norm: voters and the media are largely not interested in the detail. So the opposition can get away with headline-grabbing claims and misrepresentation. It expects a sympathetic media will just repeat its message without scrutiny, that voters can more easily be scared than won over by the substance of good argument.
But you don’t have to choose; you can take a subscription to the Saturday Paper.
Lest you think the Liberal Party is incompetent and rotten throughout, you might recall that Hewson was once Liberal Party opposition leader, who contested the 1993 federal election in that role. With a PhD from John Hopkins University his economic credentials are strong.
Australia is graced with two royal visits
The first royal visit, currently in progress, is by Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk. His visit is mainly about making contact with the large Bhutanese diaspora in Australia. Although Bhutan is renowned for its pursuit of gross national happiness rather than gross domestic product, there is the unhappy reality that the country holds 34 people as political prisoners.
But at least the Bhutanese monarchy has never been accused of conspiring to overthrow an elected Australian government.
Next week will see the visit of the king of a more distant country, whose monarchy has been deeply involved in interference in Australian politics – the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975.
On Late Night Live constitutional scholar Jenny Hocking describes the struggle she endured to get the Australian Archives to release correspondence between the British monarchy (“The Palace”) and Governor General John Kerr. She has managed to get many pieces of correspondence released, almost 50 years after the event: King Charles is on his way back to Australia - but will he release the Palace letters about the dismissal? (16 minutes)
It’s clear that Kerr consulted with the Palace before making his decision. We have known that for a long time, and most reasonable people consider it to have been inappropriate for Kerr to have consulted with a foreign power.
The correspondence Hocking has uncovered more recently is more revealing, because it reveals that the Palace, once it knew of Kerr’s plan to dismiss the government and call a new election, never asked “Have you discussed this with the prime minister?”. This omission meant that it was intimately involved in a secret plot to overthrow our elected government – a government which, by Westminster conventions, had the legitimacy of the confidence of the House of Representatives.
Hocking also reminds us that the plot involved not only Martin Charteris, the Palace’s top bureaucrat, but also the royal family itself. Two months before the dismissal Kerr discussed with Britain’s Prince Charles, now King Charles, the possibility that he would dismiss the government, and he told Queen Elizabeth of this discussion. She was definitely informed of and involved in the process.
Charles would have been well aware of the politics and the unconstitutionality of the dismissal, but that awareness didn’t restrain him from writing to Kerr, four months after the dismissal, concluding with the extraordinarily partisan statement:
I can imagine that you must have come in for all sorts of misinformed criticism and prejudice since I saw you in January and I wanted you to know that I, at any rate, appreciate what you do and admire enormously the way you have performed (and continue to perform) your many and varied duties.
Please don't lose heart. What you did last year was right and the courageous thing to do – and most Australians seemed to endorse your decision when it came to the point.
Even the Australia Monarchist League believes Prince Charles went too far. The League seeks to sustain the fiction that a foreign monarch can perform the apolitical role of the head of state of a country on the other side of the world – a country with a different political culture and different interests.
Hocking maintains the website Constitutional Clarion, which includes many short YouTube clips about Australian constitutional matters, contemporary and historical – a course in constitutional law without incurring a HECS debt. And for those inclined to their own research, our National Archines have a web site dedicated to the Kerr Palace letters.