I heard on PM this evening how well Labor is mismanaging two big issues at the same time. It is taking a hammering on the Murray-Darling and on the prosecution of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. And it only has itself to blame.
I don’t claim to understand either of these issues well but it is plain to me that the government understands them even less. Given that I have a job doing things other than running the country and that I don’t have a hundred thousand public servants to help me I think my lack of expertise might be forgiven. But the government’s cannot.
A report has come out and recommended, as we expected it would, drastic cuts to water allocations for irrigators in the Murray-Darling basin. Blind Freddy could see that too much water has been taken out of this system for too long. So much, in fact, that the mouth of the Murray has been closed to the sea until very recently. So much, in fact, that the Coorong, a ninety-mile long coastal lagoon became too saline because too little fresh water was coming into it. The whole lagoon “flipped” from a system teeming with life and great biodiversity to one in which only a handful of species could survive.
Ah well, it’s only the Coorong. Ah well, it’s only the Murray-Darling. I saw on the ABC a year or two ago that Coolabah trees, several centuries old, were dying. Not one or two, but whole stands of them. They’d survived all that this harsh continent could throw at them since the Renaissance, but they couldn’t survive the over-allocation of water from the rivers.
So who is arguing the case stated in the report? Well, none of our elected Labor representatives. All I’ve heard is that public servants are being sent to “consultation meetings” in towns like Deniliquin and Orange. These towns will be hit hard by the cuts to water allocations, unless they are heavily compensated in some other way. So the public servants are being crucified at these meetings by thousands of furious locals who believe, rightly enough, that Canberra is trashing their livelihoods.
And what did I hear from government ministers this evening? Did I hear anyone say “I know farmers are upset but I promise we’ll look after you”? No I did not. Did I hear anyone argue the case for the rivers and for the environment, and say something like “we don’t have a choice. We either take less water out or the rivers will die.”? No, nothing like that. Just pure waffle about “process” and “consultation” and “only the first stage.”
What crap. What’s the point of making so many people feel so threatened if you’re not even prepared to go into bat for the environment when it matters? Why not just give up on the rivers now and let farmers keep their allocations, or cut them by five per cent or something ridiculous? Sure, our grandchildren won’t understand why we let the country’s food bowl become a dustbowl but at least our Labor leaders won’t have to get off their arses and actually fight for something.
And Labor are doing the same conga of cowardice in relation to Afghanistan in general and toward the prosecution of three Australians soldiers in particular. The military prosecutor, Brigadier Lyn McDade, has been the subject of an on-line petition. This has been promoted by, among others, Alan Jones of Sydney radio. The one who changes his mind if the price is right. She has been the subject of some vicious abuse and the federal Opposition has been getting stuck right in. Their angle is pretty clear. “How dare anyone even suggest that Australian soldiers might have done the wrong thing!” How dare they indeed.
Now the Opposition is wrong to get involved in this. The case is being processed, as these things must be. And it’s the job of the Government to stand up for the prosecutor who is doing her job under some strain it would seem. The Government, if it had the slightest bit of fight in it, would be giving it to the opposition. “How dare you make this a political issue! How dare you get involved in a criminal prosecution! This is Australia not some banana republic! Let Brigadier McDade do her job and call off your attack dogs.”
But we don’t hear that. When the minister came onto to speak on PM I didn’t know whether I’d fall asleep or throw up. He had a point to make (and in fairness to him it reads better on the transcript than it sounded) but it took forever to make it.
My point (and I hope I haven’t taken too long to make it) is that I am sick to death of the gutlessness and lack of fight of our side of politics. It’s not just this Labor government, the Greens lack grunt as well. Why do we let the other side have all the good lines? All that crap about “our boys doing a tough job” and all the rest of it. Why do we hear all about the understandably angry farmers and not a word in favour of the rivers?
George Monbiot has written about this problem a bit recently and the other George, Orwell I think his name was, also went on about it in the second half of The Road to Wigan Pier, and elsewhere. Our side is gutless and verbose and led far too easily into the quagmire of detail. We need to step back and look at what we really want and remember some good phrases to sum up our cause.
After all, aren’t our causes good ones? And don’t we have some good arguments to support them?
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