The New South Wales Liberals are in the news again for having amazingly backslided in an election period where everything that could have gone wrong for the ALP has gone wrong for the ALP. I suspect that a lot of this represents inflated support for the Liberals in earlier periods by people who believed they might pull out all stops at the election and come out with something worth listening to, however this campaign is marked by extraordinary voter apathy, and apathy tends to favour the incumbent.
It is of no help that the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party has a reputation for being controlled by people who want to use the power of Parliament to tell other people how to live their lives &emdash; or else! That each person has the right to live their life as they see fit provided they are not harming others in doing so is an elementary truth that much of the Liberal Party in New South Wales seems unable to understand.
A New York Times column is suggesting that part of the solution to global warming will be to embrace environmental heresies. Among these heresies are support for things environmentalists are generally thought to oppose such as genetically modified crops, nuclear power.
It is true that environmentalists are often seen to oppose nuclear power and genetic engineering, however neither of these is opposed absolutely by the greatest minds in the environmental movement. The realities are much more nuanced.
Genetically engineered products are opposed by environmentalists for good reasons. There are many dangers involved in genetic engineering. On the other hand genetic engineering does provide great promise to reduce mankind's impacts on the environment. The problem is not with genetic engineering itself, but rather with genetic engineering being conducted by profit-driven corporations. The profit motive provides an incentive for corporations to cut costs by taking inadequate precautions and conducting insufficient testing to ensure that their products do not cause damage to ecosystems.
This morning's news is that the ALP's most recent star recruit, Maxine McKew, is to be their candidate in Bennelong in 2007. This means setting aside their previous candidate - a local who was going to fund his own campaign - to bring in a star from outside the electorate. In doing so they send a clear signal that they believe they can win Bennelong this year. Given her profile, this will make Bennelong an even tougher environment for minor parties and independents than it was in 2004.
Last week's Morgan-Crikey poll of Bennelong voters was taken when the choice was "Howard verses an anonymous ALP candidate".
The US response to Howard's recent complaints that the Hicks matter has dragged on too long is strange. The charges were "sworn" but not laid by his mid-Februrary deadline. The US is refusing to guarantee that the Hicks accusations will be dealt with this year as Howard says he has demanded. Today Cheney has claimed the Bush Administration has no power to speed up even the process of having the charges approved, even though the organisation that has to approve them is a branch of the US military and can be instructed by the President to do so at any time.
This is starting to look like intentional delay. If the US Administration is intentionally delaying the Hicks matter when Howard has started making noises about wanting Hicks sent home this could only be because they want Australia to demand Hicks' return.
A lot of mainstream press today is claiming that the Treasurer's proposed legislation will make organised boycotts of products by pressure groups illegal. Based on what has been revealed so far this is not true for two reasons &emdash; firstly, Costello's plan is not to change the substantive rules in place, but to allow for the ACCC to enforce the rules. The victims of this kind of conduct can already enforce the rules if they want to go to court. It is unlikely that the ACCC would attempt to enforce the rules in the case of a consumer boycott.
Secondly, the rules do not apply to an ordinary consumer boycott &emdash; they apply to what is known as a secondary boycott. The proposal is to allow the ACCC to take action to enforce two specific provisions: sections 45D and 45E of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth). Section 45E only applies to the conduct of unions, so we can ignore that for now. Section 45D is the basic secondary boycott provision and can apply to the conduct of pressure groups.
Commentators have been suggesting that Howard would attempt to turn this year's Federal election into a referendum on security. This seems unlikely. His security message has been seriously muddled by the planned British reductions &emdash; even if the regions Britain has been dealing with are safer (a claim that is seriously questionable), if the Bush Administration is right that more troops are needed then the British troops ought to be redeployed elsewhere in Iraq. On the one hand you have the Bush Administration, with Howard's support, claiming that more troops are needed, and you have the British Government reducing troops. You cannot escape the contradiction by saying one particular region is safe when the troops purportedly no longer needed there are purportedly needed elsewhere.
News reports today have described the overnight decision of the Washington DC circuit Appeals Court in the Guantanamo Bay cases as though it sealed Hicks' fate. No doubt some of those who support incarcerating people without trial will claim the result as evidence that Hicks should continue to be detained. Neither conclusion is correct.
The Hicks case will naturally be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCotUS). SCotUS has previously reversed decisions of the DC circuit on Guantanamo Bay cases, and with a persuasively argued dissent in the most recent decision there is plenty of scope for reversal on appeal.
The headlines were sensational &emdash; "Howard sends more troops to Iraq" &emdash; but the truth more mundane. Howard has decided to send 70 military trainers to Iraq to help train Iraqi troops. Training Iraqi troops is in principle a good thing because it means they ought to be better positioned to take care of their own security. On the other hand, the CoWs have been in Iraq for almost four years now &emdash; in that time the Iraqi troops could have undertaken a university degree including an honours thesis. If more training were going to help, this raises the question of why there has not been ample opportunity to provide such training already.
A Roy Morgan Research poll conducted specifically of Bennelong voters has found that the Prime Minister would lose his seat if an election were held today. The poll was commissioned by Crikey, whose political editor, Christian Kerr, has suspected this for some time now. Kerr has been looking for a similar poll from the 2004 election but there does not appear to have been one (if you know of a poll specific to Bennelong, let him know via the "Contact" link at the Crikey web site).
Previously the ALP State Secretary, Mark Arbib, has been adamant that the ALP would not put significant resources into Bennelong until Howard retired - the feeling of the NSW executive of the ALP was that Howard as PM was too difficult to move and that it was a waste of resources to make a serious attempt. This new poll could change that.
With even The Australian now giving up on climate change denial, it is interesting to note that one newspaper publisher is still sticking to his position. John Booth, owner, publisher, photographer and editor of The Weekly Times, a local newspaper covering roughly the area of the Bennelong federal electorate, has delivered an editorial describing climate change as:
the greatest load of old fashioned bulldust ever that keeps rearing its ugly looney head every century or so.
