Archives for December 2008

2008 is already being spoken of as the year of the unexpected, the tone set just 72 hours after the stroke of midnight when voters in the mid-western state of Iowa in the US decided that an African-American politician with an exotic-sounding name and a poetic turn of phrase deserved an unexpected victory in the first popularity contest of the US presidential election season.

Barack Hussein Obama, Sarah Palin, Lehman Brothers, Hank Paulson, Joe the Plumber. Most of the surprises and upsets came from America. For Australians, too, perhaps the most shocking single event unfolded in Lower Manhattan, with the tragic and untimely death of Heath Ledger. 2008 should have been the crowning moment of his brief but brilliant career, with his spell-binding performance as the Joker in Dark Knight. Instead, the country mourned his premature death, at the age of just 28.

Back in Australia, the defining moment of the past 12 months came with the utterance of a two-syllable word: Sorry. Some called it Australia's Day of Atonement. Others questioned why present-day Australians should apologise for past injustices to indigenous people. For members of the Stolen Generations, who had been drawn to the capital by the promise of a single word, it was an event of immense cathartic power. Thunderous applause rang out not only in Parliament House, but on the lawns outside and around big screens which displayed the event around the country.

Kevin Rudd started the year by fighting inflation, and ended it by declaring war on unemployment. The prime minister portrayed himself as a wartime leader, and likened the global downturn to a "rolling national security crisis". The resources boom ended, and Australia realised it could no longer bank on China's growth to underwrite its economic good times. Partly as a result, Australia's once cash-rich Treasury is about to get an overdraft. Australians will be heading off for their summer and seasonal break more uncertain about the economic future, perhaps, than at any time over the past 17 years.

Elsewhere in national life, Quentin Bryce, a former sex discrimination commissioner with a male-sounding name became Australia's first female governor general. Brendan Nelson, the former opposition leader, had his "kiss-me-Hardy" moment; and Malcolm Turnbull, the former head of the Republican movement, was crowned the leader of the once-staunchly monarchist Liberal Party.

Qantas had something of an annus horribilis, with two mid-air dramas and a series of other mishaps. Tourism Australia dropped its controversial "Where the Bloody Hell Are You?" campaign, and went "Walkabout" with Baz Luhrmann. Australia's most important visitor, meanwhile, was an 81-year-old Pontiff, who, for four days in July, was feted like a pop idol by over 200,000 adoring Catholic pilgrims.

The Beijing Olympics produced more than a few surprises, starting when the Aussie team marched into the Birds Nest in subtle shades of blue rather than the traditional green and gold. Golden glory also came from some unexpected quarters. A little-known and openly gay Australian diver, Matthew Mitcham, plunged 10m into the pool in order to climb the medal podium, while the pole-vaulter Steve Hooker propelled himself on a more upward trajectory to claim gold. And what a topsy-turvy year for the Australian cyclist Anna Meares, who broke her neck at a bike meet in January but managed still to win a silver medal in Beijing barely six months later.

Anna Meares was beaten in second place by a Pom, which became one of the stories of the games. For the first time since the Seoul Olympics, the Brits "out-medaled" the Aussies - a surprise to some, though not to Australian Olympics chief John Coates, who had watched with envy at the vast sums of lottery money being thrown at British elite sport and predicted as much beforehand.

Cricket produced more than its fair share of unscripted drama, with the angry "Bollyline" series at the beginning of the year. An Indian player, nicknamed the Turbanator, allegedly called the Australian all-rounder, Andrew Symonds, a "monkey". Then, as the recriminations threatened to derail the whole tour, many Aussie fans turned on their own team, which certainly came as a shock to skipper Ricky Ponting and his men. Australia started the year as the world's sole cricketing superpower but ended it in disarray, with defeats against India and South Africa. In the absence of Warne and McGrath (and, to a lesser extent, Adam Gilchrist) Australian cricket has lost both its fear factor and self-confident strut. Given its present pool of players, it is hard to see them getting either back.

Many things stayed the same: the ongoing drought brought more suffering for the nation's farmers, Telstra escalated its long-running war of attrition with the federal government, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard kept on talking about "working families", and the New South Wales government continued to be beset by scandal.
I'd love to hear your highlights of the year, or, indeed, your projections for 2009. But, in the meantime, have a fabulous new year and enjoy the fireworks.

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John Howard may have power-walked off into history, but he clearly manages still to arouse great passions. Thanks for your typically fiesty comments. metalLuc's 'the great divider' offers the neatest of headlines and summations.

They'll be one final blog before the end of the year, but I just wanted to wish you all a very happy Christmas and to thank you for your continued interest.

This blog certainly doesn't get anywhere near the most comments - should I deploy the fashionable per capita argument here? (I think not) - but I reckon we get some of the most considered, well-informed and robust.

So whether you find yourself above or below the equator, whether the white in 'white Christmas' refers to the sand or the snow, have a fabulous festive season.

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More than a year has passed since the political demise of John Winston Howard, an anniversary marked by the ABC, the national broadcaster, with its landmark television history, The Howard Years.

Famously crotchety, Mr Howard vilified and mistrusted the ABC for what he perceived as its institutional left-wing bias. But he agreed to sit for hours of insightful interviews, as did most of his former senior colleagues (a notable exception being the Liberals' present leader, Malcolm Turnbull).

Striving for balance, the four-part series portrayed Mr Howard as politically and physically courageous in confronting gun owners after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania - he was instructed to wear a bullet-proof vest when he addressed one hostile outdoor crowd - but reticent and timid towards the right-wing demagogue Pauline Hanson. Mr Howard waited seven months before delivering a rebuttal to Hanson's maiden speech in parliament, in which she complained that Australia was in danger of being swamped by Asians - which the programme showed as having angered many of his senior colleagues who were much quicker to speak out. (The former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer says that the only time he was reprimanded by Mr Howard was when he made a speech denouncing Hanson. According to Downer, the prime minister complained that it highlighted his decision not to do so).

The series showed him to be a central and forward-thinking figure in the independence of East Timor, and an early champion of the right to self-determination, a major shift in Australia's foreign policy toward Indonesia. But it also chronicled his lack of sympathy to asylum seekers heading for Australian shores, and reinforced the long-standing criticism from human rights groups that the Pacific Solution was borne out of political cynicism and opportunism. Fresh evidence also came to light concerning the notorious "children overboard" affair before the 2001 election. What the Howard government touted as pictures purportedly showing the children of asylum seekers being thrown overboard by their asylum-seeking parents were, in reality, photographs of them being rescued. No children were thrown overboard in a ploy by their parents to gain admission into Australia.

The series portrayed Mr Howard as determined to curb the power of the unions but suggested he pushed his reform agenda too far. The much-hated workplace reforms, called Workchoices, violated Australia's unwritten fairness doctrine, it implied. Still, the introduction of the GST, the controversial sales tax, was presented as a political triumph, and a very brave one at that.

On indigenous affairs, the programme portrayed him as having a tin ear and a closed mind when it came to apologising to Aboriginal Australians, although there was evidence to suggest that the controversial intervention in the Northern Territory was well-intentioned. Mal Brough, his Indigenous Affairs Minister, broke down in tears as he described the former government's motivations.

The Howard Years showed the almost umbilical relationship with George W. Bush, which became even more intimate after 9/11 when the Australian prime minister found himself in Washington as the Pentagon was being attacked. The series dealt with his well-known scepticism towards climate change, of which more below.

The Howard Years showed that Australia's second longest serving prime minister was blessed by weak Labor opponents and a hesitant internal rival. Interviewed at length, the former Treasurer Peter Costello came across as a broken man, his prime ministerial ambitions thwarted constantly by a politician who was much more cunning, bold and intimidating. John Howard achieved much of his political dominance, it seems, partly because his cabinet colleagues were cowered by his intellect, unswerving determination and temper.

The most enlightening and certainly the most entertaining part of the series was its opening sequence. Asked to sum up Mr Howard in a single word, his former colleagues came up with "tenacious", "determined", "conviction", "magnificent" (George W. Bush said he was "reliable", while Tony Blair came up with "strong"). But all the time, the film kept on cutting back to Peter Costello, who seemed in an unhappy state of verbal constipation as he struggled to find a word. Eventually, he came up with "relentless", which along with his earlier reticence, spoke volumes about the dysfunctional relationship which lay at the heart of the 11-year government.

ABC has delivered an assessment of The Howard Years. How were they for you?

PS: Thanks for your lively comments on Kevin Rudd's green credentials, which some clearly believe marks a continuation of the Howard years. On the per capita argument: Kevin Rudd argued that if you look at the planned cuts in emissions they compare favourably with Europe; it's by no means clear-cut. The best summation I've come across is the piece "Rudd's defence of target contains some telling omissions" in The Age.

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Kevin Rudd received a standing ovation at the international climate change conference in Bali last December, having just signalled a change in Australia's environmental policies with the flourish of his prime ministerial pen: his move to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. A year on, he may well have just lost any pretensions of being in the vanguard of global leadership on climate change after adopting cautious greenhouse emissions targets of cuts between 5% and 15% by 2020.

Earlier this month, the European Union adopted the goal of 20/20/20: a 20% reduction in greenhouse emissions, with 20% of energy from wind, sun and other renewable sources by the year 2020. Before that, Gordon Brown and Al Gore had personally lobbied Kevin Rudd to adopt bold targets. So he will not get quite the same green carpet welcome anymore when he struts the international stage.

Mr Rudd has argued that when you take population growth into account, Australia's per capita targets are comparable with Europe. But last week, the Climate Action Network claimed it was "Groundhog Day" in Australia, and likened his cautious approach to that of the former Prime Minister John Howard. European NGOs have ranked Australia below almost all developed countries in its performance on climate protection. Of the 57 largest CO2 emitters, Australian ranked sixth from the bottom, ahead of just Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, the US, Canada and Saudi Arabia. Australia also has the highest per capita greenhouse emissions rates in the OECD because of its heavy reliance on coal-fired energy.

Yet Kevin Rudd is, after all, the Australian prime minister, and he appears to have decided that the international green lobby is less important than the domestic energy and business sector. Neither does he want to inflame the voters.

Some leading figures in the business community wanted a delay to the emissions trading scheme, because of the global downturn and its impact on the Australian economy. With growth for the last quarter virtually flat-lining at 0.1%, Heather Ridout of the Australian Industry Group has argued that Labor's pre-election climate change commitments were based on the 'politics of prosperity' and thus obsolete. With so many opposing constituencies and lobbies to appease, no wonder Ross Garnaut, the government's advisor on climate change, called this the "most diabolical" policy conundrum of the age.

In announcing his policy - a speech at the National Press Club that was interrupted by three protesters shouting "not enough" - Mr Rudd repeatedly used the words "balance" and "responsibility". But pragmatism is the unspoken watchword. His environmental strategy runs in tandem with his economic strategy and his political strategy. The three are inextricably linked, and the global downturn has made that more so.

Slamming it as dismal politics and dismal policy, the Greens have already claimed that the Prime Minister's timid approach will mean the death of the Great Barrier Reef, and make it much more difficult for Barack Obama to achieve a truly significant international agreement at the vital Copenhagen climate change conference next year.

Trying still to burnish his green credentials, Kevin Rudd claimed in his speech that after eleven years of climate change scepticism, Australia is now part of the solution rather than part of the problem. But some might concur with the Greens leader, Bob Brown, who said: "I think John Howard would be making the same announcement were he at the press club today had he won the last election."

So "a global embarrassment," as the Greens suggest, or a sensible act of environmental protectionism?

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After Australia the movie, we have Shane Warne: the Musical - though it could just as easily have been titled Shane and his Amazing Technicolour Life. Cricket's greatest ever leg spinner is rendered here in all his messy and chaotic glory.

The stage show, which gets its world premiere in Melbourne on Wednesday night, features aspects of his life which are strictly Wisden: the bowling world records, the trophies and accolades, the fear and psychological frailty that he sowed in opposing batsmen.

Then there are the aspects of his life which are strictly tabloid: the prolific text messaging, the equally prolific pizza-eating, the stray diuretic which led to a one-year suspension and barred him from the World Cup in 2003. There is both reverence and ridicule in Shane Warne: the Musical. He is the subject both of admiration and admonishment, which probably neatly reflects Australia's sometimes conflicted feelings about one of its favourite and most uproarious sons. Sometimes you look at Warnie with wide-eyed amazement. On other occasions, you want to avert your gaze.

I got a sneak preview last week, and got to hear a couple of songs. The first featured Warnie in his pre-Test cricket days, nobly trying to get his corpulent figure in trim.

Eddie Perfect, the Warnie look-a-like who is both the writer and star of the musical, reckons that Shane Keith Warne is the classic Australian anti-hero, following in the tradition of Ned Kelly. He reckons Australians have marvelled not only at his talent, but his over-active anti-authoritarian streak. For him, Warne is the Australian everyman: the chubby suburban schoolboy who went on to become a slightly less chubby sporting sensation.

In many ways, he is the anti-Bradman. The Don was serious, considered, abstemious. Warnie is almost the polar opposite. Where these two Australian sporting legends come together, of course, is in the record books and on the field of play. Better still, some of their most miraculous on-field accomplishments came against the Old Country.

The Poms have always looked on the Aussies as a bit cocky when it comes to sport, and in particular cricket. In their differing ways, Bradman and Warne were a large part of that. It's hard not to exude self-confidence and self-assuredness with Bradman coming in a first wicket down or Warnie turning his arm over on the final day of a test match. Of course, Douglas Jardine and his men developed the 'Bodyline' bowling strategy to negate the genius of the Don (and, for all its sporting and diplomatic shortcomings, it proved reasonably effective). But right up until his retirement, the Poms never found a way of countering Warnie, one of the ultimate tributes.

The great blonded one is unhappy at the idea of a musical in his name. He has placed it in the same category as an unauthorised biography, perhaps even a tabloid hatchet-job. Still, this is a very affectionate portrayal of a sportsman who is fiendishly difficult not to like.

He comes across as a very human hero. Isn't that just the way that Australia likes them?

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Sports-obsessed Melbourne might have hosted an Olympics, a Commonwealth Games, the Australian Open, the Melbourne Cup, reams of test matches, AFL Grand Finals, etc, etc, but the tournament that's about to reach its climax amidst the crazy paving buildings of Federation Square may be among its most inspiring.

It's a hard-fought contest for people who have lived hard-fought lives: the Homeless World Cup. Every single player taking part has been homeless at some stage over the past two years.

You can hear from the founder of the event, Mel Young, below, and you can get more information here.

It's the sixth time the event has been held, and this is the biggest competition. It brings together 56 nations, and has thrown up some wonderfully improbable fixtures.

When I paid a visit this week, the temporary stands were packed to see Zimbabwe take on Afghanistan.

Remarkably, over three-quarters of the players end up improving their lives as a result of their participation in the tournament. That may mean getting off booze or drugs, finding a job or a permanent home, and repairing broken relationships.

The story of Stephen Docherty from Glasgow is not untypical. He was a drug addict and dealer in Class A narcotics, who spent time in prison. Now he is the captain of Scotland, the number one ranked side.

"I'm used to people crossing people the streets away from me, and treating me like cancer," he told me in between games.

"Now people are welcoming me with open arms, treating me with respect, treating me like a captain. It's unbelievable when I think what I've come from to where I am today. It's beyond my wildest dreams. But back then, getting a day clean was beyond my wildest dreams."

Sport has always had the power to elevate the human spirit. In Melbourne this past week, it's helping to lift people off the streets.

That, as they say, is a result.

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Is it time to rename the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" the "Nicole Kidman Syndrome"? In a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism and lack of pretension, the TPS is supposed to apply when Australians rise too quickly, achieve too much success, get above themselves or start to exhibit an air of superiority. At that point, they are supposed to be swiftly, savagely and ritualistically cut down to size. The TPS can be especially vicious when it targets Australians who have achieved greater success abroad than they did at home. Germaine Greer and Clive James, who both headed for Britain in the early 1960s, were both former casualties.

But does it apply today, beyond the inordinate and unparalleled amount of flak that seems to be hurled in the direction of one Nicole Mary Kidman.

Certainly, the TPS does not apply to Australia's other recent Oscar-wining actress, Cate Blanchett, who people appear to feel is much more deserving of her global recognition and fame. Neither is Hugh Jackman a victim, for most Aussies seem to regard him as an all-round good egg.

The problem some Australians had with the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin had more to do with his super-sized personality rather than his super-sized fame. To his detractors, the Croc Hunter was gauche, unsophisticated and an unhelpful Australian brand ambassador. To some metropolitan tastes, he was too low-brow rather than too tall.

Most internationally successful Australian sportsmen and women seem immune from TPS. True, Lleyton Hewitt is hardly "Mr Popular," but would he be elsewhere? Pat Rafter was also ranked number one in world tennis but it did not prevent him from being a popular choice as Australian of the Year in 2002. The public backlash against Ricky Ponting and his men during the disputed Bollywood series earlier in the year seemed to stem not from the Australian cricket team enjoying too much success, per se, but for being too aggressive in their pursuit of it.

Some remnants of the TPS might still remain. Perhaps it is worth noting that one of the main criticisms of Kevin "747" Rudd is that he spends too much time abroad, where he is often feted by international leaders, like Gordon Brown. In foreign fields, he can sometimes look like a Tall Poppy, perhaps. Conversely, his popularity at home seems to be built on his unassuming, unflashy and determinedly unglamorous public persona.

Ultimately, then, we are left with Nicole. Tall Poppy? There are times, certainly judging by the response on a talk-back radio show that I was listening to the other afternoon, when she seems to be public enemy number one. I'm fretful of unleashing another anti-Kidman tirade, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

PS: I am happy to stand corrected on the vital role played by structural engineers in finding a design solution to the shells of the Sydney Opera House. I thought my source for Jorn Utzon's orange peel eureka moment was a good one, but, still, the fault is mine.

PPS: Please keep your reviews coming in on the film Australia, which seems to be incredibly polarising.

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