Club Politique by Che Tibby

On the scale of interesting Australian politics, the kerfuffle between Howard and Costello in the past few days is right up there. One of the opinions I quickly formed after arrival in Melbourne was that resident Parliamentary comedian Peter Costello simply wasn't leadership material.

Besides the inevitable need to get him coaching to prevent his tendency to smirk on TV, he just never had the spark you imagine in a potential PM. Other than that it was also apparent that Tony Abbott, the current Minister of Health, was subtly placed to be the next leader. My gut feeling was always that Costello may one day inherent the mantle, but a putsch was never going to be too far away.

The big news this week happened when Howard, in what has widely been described as a fit of 'hubris', stated that he would be happy to step up against Beazley in the next election. Of course, the next election is over two years away, and Costello would by that time have been deputy leader for a very long time. A very long time indeed.

Taking into account that the question of leadership is always the one used to needle Costello whenever a journalist wants to aggravate the man, the announcement by Howard that he's planning to stick around and fight, all a few days before the presentation of the budget is probably a colossal blunder by Howard. One of the few the wily old fox has made in the past few years.

Of course, bluster and hot air has ensued, I've never regretted not having access to Australian TV the way I have since the weekend, but the feeling of 'trouble' in the print media is palpable. Of course, there is something of a frenzy on around the issue, but objective writers like Misha Schubert are pointing pretty clearly to a major rift forming in the Coalition. Then you've also got Beazley pointing out (at the bottom of this article), that Costello and Howard really hate one another. Whether this is indeed true is beyond my access to information, but interesting all the same. Forgiveness if you need to log in to access some of these articles, but if you do, it's free (just time consuming).

There's a few factors that complicate the issue. The most important is that the budget is the time when Costello really gets to strut his stuff and demonstrate his potential. A stint as Treasurer seems to be key to a Party that sells itself on economic management, so this is his time, only to have to rug pulled out from under him by a PM who not only states publicly that he's not giving up the mantle despite Costello's many years of patience, but also that this is his 16th budget (thereby stealing the limelight from Costello once again). To return to the article in the Australian linked above, Steve Lewis states very clearly,

Don't be bluffed by shades of public mutual affection. The Howard-Costello relationship has survived for so long largely due to a mutual convenience that hides a more spiteful appraisal of each other. Sometimes the disdain is barely concealed, particularly when the wine has been flowing and the hour is late.

In all likelihood, the clincher in this situation will be Costello gathering enough numbers to challenge Howard, something that's been in the offing for years. Naturally, he's going to come up against Howard's teflon record, any other leader lying like a rug for so many years would have been put out years ago, but 'the people' seem to love the guy. He's like the Casanova of the political world, he can say and do whatever the hell he likes, and they still let him get away with it.

The next factor is the last election campaign. Labor tried pretty hard to land any kind of punch on the Coalition by pointing out that a vote for Howard is effectively a vote for a much less popular leader, Costello. No one was too worried it seems. More important is the larger number of backbenchers, and the small amounts of disaffection over things like asylum seekers and tax reform. If Costello could translate that disaffection into support, he might just have a chance, but it remains a long-shot.

Which suggests that Tony Abbott, known around Canberra as 'the mad monk' (i'll explain in future), is more likely to be Howard's successor.

PS. My first retraction!! I'm so proud. It seems that Whinny may have had a case for Labour to answer. Mind you, it would have been good to see such ardor from Opposition the face of immigration from other oppressive regimes, such as Apartheid South Africa, but hey. So, my apologies, I jumped the gun and shot the foot out of my mouth.

As part of the drive to construct a fortress of solitude, even though I'm sure as hell no Superman, I've invested a little time in TradeMe. You've got to love a great deal, such as a classic 70s recliner and footstool for the BuyNow price of $20. Some geezer had been asking questions and faffing about, so I bought it right out from under him. Heh heh... sucker.

Thing is, I've found a place to live in Wellington Central for a price well and above what I was paying in Melbourne, but it's a huuuuge room with a view. There's a deck on the house with more than enough space for a BBQ, the place is a mansion, and how the hell could I say no? Plus, on par with the sifting as a lifestyle option, it's right over the road from the mates I'm staying with now, so I'll be able to make a habit of inviting myself over for dinner.

As for the room, there's space for my library, my desk, my computer work station, my bed, and most importantly, my big TV. Hence the need for the recliner. I'm already having fantasies about parking myself, making sure the cord from the Xbox enables me to easily reach the beer fridge, and quietly killing time till the public sector employs me.

At which point I'll move the sifting to the days of the weekend where I'm not out harassing the sea life.

Speaking of which, went for a dive in the bay the other day, my gear had turned up from Melbourne, and I immediately hauled it out and got over to a dive club. I must say, if you want to get dive certified, do it overseas. Sorry local guys, but it's incredibly expensive here. I even feel better about what I thought were the hugely inflated prices in Cairns. Turns out to not be too bad. I spent more getting hammered on red wine after watching the Fits than I lost on my mask/snorkel purchase.

I digress. It was only a dive in the bay, maybe next time I'll get out to the South Coast, but interesting all the same. Got down to about 5m, saw a few crayfish nurseries, some fish, swam around kelp beds, etc etc. The main difference was that the water was cold. Very cold. So cold I thought my landing gear had entirely retracted never to be seen again cold. But sweet as, once the inital panic had abated we were all there again. Phew.

Anyhow, the room. The chair is just fantastic. Next on the hit list is a decent desk (has to be 2m long), a filing cabinet (but you can get those everywhere for less than $15 usually), a bookshelf (the most difficult item, I need at least 2m by 2m of shelf space for the thesis books etc., and bookshelves are always expensive), a chest of drawers for me grundies, and either a wardrobe or some kind of rack to hand the shirts on.

But the chair... I'm planning on charging people to sit in it, there were two on offer and I'm thinking of going back for the other one if it doesn't sell by tomorrow. So, so comfy. The only downside was almost having to step out some old lady on the way back from Upper Hutt.

On the way back from the purchase, I'd stopped on the side of the road, and was consulting a map. A mate lives in Upper Hutt, and I'd arranged to pop in a say gidday. But, needed to do a quick check so I didn't wander round for hours looking for a place I visited once three years ago. I kinda knew where it was, but no point making a dick of myself.

As I poured over the map there was a REALLY REALLY loud knock on the drivers side window. Having lived in the 'big city' for a few years now I'm understandably jumpy about people coming right up to my car when I'm parked in a strange street. Myself, to avoid drama, I usually approach a parked car from the front, and walk to the passenger side to knock. It's just common courtesy after all.

But this lady must have walked into my blind spot, crept along the side of the car, and then banged on the window while her face was pressed against the glass. Freaking jesus!! I thought I was being carjacked by that broad from Misery!

It turns out she was being civic-minded, and just asked if I needed directions (she'd seen me stop and open the map). I suppose it's good to have been in a small town where people still do that kind of thing for one another, but who's going to buy me some new undies after the shock?

While it would have been nice to be able to write a good children's story about sprightly pony named Whinny, stalwart defender of the realm, I got about a sentence in and then really couldn't be stuffed. The problem is, just when I thought that the star of the story really was a one-trick pony, he pulls out a second trick! A trick that is pretty much exactly the same as the first trick, and a well-worn trick all the same, but still different enough to make me think twice.

And 'Whinny the Two-trick Pony' doesn't really have the same sting.

Ah well. But, I still thought that you've got to admire the guy for his perseverance, after it, all can't be easy trotting the same crap out year, after year, after year. Mind you, it might make him a little like a maths teacher, the one who uses the same lesson plan for decades. Picture him there, double-breasted suit cast aside, resplendent in sandals, knee-high socks, walk shorts and polo shirt, desparately trying to make the numbers add up while the real world rushes past outside the window.

Whinny, the word on 'da street' is this: the only 'yellow peril' you and your constituency face is incontinence. Oh, and 'vitamised' food.

So get yourself a pin-striped nappy, look up the word 'xenophobe' in the dictionary, and leave the nice friendly small-businessmen alone. You've dragged that one out so often the bottom has worn out. And as for the new threat from SADDAM HUSSEIN, I expect the information for this one will be presented in something suiting your contribution to New Zealand politics over the past few years. A pork barrel perhaps?

Anyhow, on the non-aggrevating side, was having chat with a fellow blogger over a feed of Korean BBQ the other day that got me thinking about the issue of immigration and this whole idea of cross-cultural divides. Essentially, what we were talking about triggered a thought about something a reader emailed to me regarding some of my comments on multiculturalism in Australia. Anne said in response:

Re: "It's the old, 'Con is a Greek but his kids will be Aussies' approach. And the statistics support the method, the third generation children of migrants are essentially monolingual Anglophonic Ockers."
I don't know if it's quite that simple, or that quick - what about the ethnic-based groups like "Oakleigh Wogs"? Or the support for local soccer teams because they are 'Macedonian' or 'Serbian' or 'Croatian'?. In the recent dust-up at a Sydney soccer match a 22 year old was arrested. I bet he's at least 3rd generation, and while probably monolingual I bet he identifies with another country as well as being an Ocker.

Anne is dead right. There's an interesting book by two Australian academics named Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis who talk about this exact issue. A Place in the Sun talks in practical terms about the issue of 'hyridity', the way that all cultures are really just big amalgams of lots of other cultures, and how migrants bring their native identities with them.

This topic is really a can of worms for everyone, but in a nutshell the book used a bunch of examples of how migrants considered unassimilable because they were 'wogs' have forged new identities in Australia that aren't evident anywhere else. A story they used was of talking to John Pasquarelli, one of those One Nation nutters, who was getting stuck into the local wogs for having big plaster lions and Classical statues outside their houses. What Mary and Bill pointed out was that this type of thing is (apparently) unique to the 'wog diaspora'.

John's response was something like, “well, it's f**ked anyhow”. Top bloke.

The tricky thing is, when you grow up in a place your parents migrated to, you're always going to end up with this kind of bastardised identity confused by the culture clash. I have cousins who grew up in NSW but experienced the same kind of hyridity (Kiwi crossed Aussie), and spoke to a few Australian Maori.

What is fascinating about hybridity is that often the people most opposed to 'alien' immigration are the ones who feel most threatened, usually they're precious about some kind of mythic 'pure' background. And all this when their culture is little more than an amalgam of a whole lot of other cultures. Or, they are the ones without the social skills cultural flexibility needs.

Look, I'm the first to admit that I make cultural gaffes all the time. But, I do it because I'm happy to step way outside my comfort zone and learn from the overstep. Occasionally you make yourself look like a racist, but you're not a racist if what you're doing is genuinely trying to broaden your horizon. Mind you, some people are just racists who like the idea of foreign 'food', but lets not quibble.

It's far too late for many of Whinny's target audience. But many of the immigrants who come to New Zealand are genuinely trying to fit into our society, and the close-minded scaremongering of ponies like him are contributing nothing to our mutual future, while migrants are, and pushing progress offshore is doing no one any favours.

Was chatting with a mate a few days back and we both agreed. The product of the Destiny Church may be a couple of good things.

When you see the discussion blogs and the newspapers reporting around election time, there seems to be a bit of a panic on among liberal progressives (LPs, or what I like to call the old 'Left'. If you're still a dyed in the wool socialist you might need to update your street cred, and we're talking about more than an ipod here). The source of this panic is the apparent willingness of voters world-wide to let things like Christian morality and values define how and why they think.

Sure it's not always that simple, some people are anti the things Christians like to harp on about because they've thought through the issues and made a judgement. But, it seems that more and more these days people are letting their leaders make the big decisions and then just towing the line. So when Dubya says, the terrorists are in our country, they'll do anything to 'get ya', people believe him. Now I say 'it seems more and more' because I really don't things have changed all that much.

The ANZAC weekend has given us a great example of how, even way back when, people were following along with the things they believed, and the way the things they believed were more often than not told to them by self-interested or just plain crazy leaders. 'Our young men' as the media was loving calling them went to war because they believed they had to. You can guess that many of these blokes had absolutely no idea what in the hell was happening in Europe, but they went over there and died to defend the myths of the British Empire.

Liberal progressives, when they see the Destiny Church potentially panning out for the life of Brian, tend to become concerned that people aren't actually thinking for themselves but are being fed limited and potentially bigoted information about our society. Even worse, through access to the ballot box these people have the potential to influence the progress of New Zealand society as a whole. Concerning? Sure, but only if you are opposed to the type of morality people like Brian represent.

And that I see as a limitation on the behalf of the LPs. They're too jumpy when bumped. Actually, IMHO, this type of easily identifiable morality is a good thing, because it's completely predictable. Let's look at it on face value, when you get a bunch of Christians politicised, they're not going to talk about fiscal policy, the arts, the debate over public funding of athletes and its relative worth to society as a whole. You can't see Brian sitting down with Janette and talking Green perspectives. You can't see a Destiny march demanding more military spending and reconciliation with Howard.

But, if you listen carefully and then edit out the unimportant filler words in between you'll get something like “blah blah homosexuals blah not me mate blah. Blah blah blah abortion blah rights of children blah. Blah blah blah family values blah blah.” Or something to that effect. Where it becomes a problem is the point at which all this programmed rhetoric gets to parliament and can't be reasoned with, but that's another issue.

What me and the conversation buddy agreed was that this type of programming is worlds better than no moral programming at all. And for some of the types of people who get involved in evangelistic churches, that's a very, very good thing. Frankly, would you rather have a National Front member with no qualms, or an ex-kinderfascist who's been convinced that looking after family, staying out of the lawman's way and going to church on Sunday is a good thing?

The gang member example is an extreme one, but there's plenty of people out there who just want moral guidance, and places like churches are more than happy to hand that stuff out willy-nilly. The nugget of this problem seems to be that secular LPs seem to find this stuff troubling, or even frightening, because the Church-going community has opposing views to their own.

What I wonder though, is it democratic to resist this type of programmed morality when it is so actively consumed by the public? One of the things about our imperfect democracy is that at its core it is nothing more than a shouting match. People get elected because they say things loud enough to get a big audience that subsequently votes for them.

LPs can't compete in the audiences of places like Destiny, and end up being ignored. A bit like trying to sell John Farnham to Helen Clarke. But, if the Destiny audience is there, and listening, what right do LPs have to deny the validity of their choice to be moral drones? If the leaders of these drones get power, then LPs have no alternative but to continue to try and win back enough of an audience by whatever means necessary.

It all boils down to this, Destiny and their ilk are predictable, so if you're losing audience to them, maybe it's because 'the people' actually want that type of society. Sure, as a LP myself I see moral drones as needing of a desperate slap into the 21st Century, but you can't force people to think what you want them to. Instead, accommodate their medieval politics, and get on with the business of making their arguments obsolete.

Elitist? Probably, but I'd like to think it's more 'avant garde', and the drones will catch up in their own good time.

Overslept