January 1, Byron Shire EchoCommentA refreshing change at the topVol January 1, THappy New YearThe old year slouches off, blackened with history, and an innocent new year arrives for the future to write on. And at the moment the future looks bright. From Baghdad to Bali, from whales to WorkChoices, the new
prime minister
has packed his rst ve weeks with promising symbolism if not yet actual achievement. Therefore, because there will undoubtedly come a time when we are all annoyed with inaction or wrong action on the part of Mr Rudd, it is well to give credit now where it is due and salute the return of decency to government. Politicians rely on our poor memories. That is why the former government was able to maintain a successful cycle of security scares and pork-barrelling for over a decade with no more than a slightly queasy feeling of dj vu in the general electorate. But to celebrate the return of decency requires us to remember at least a little of how it departed. So in case you are ever tempted to forget the sort of things John Howard did in ofce, close your eyes and chant, Children overboard, Iraq, AWB, Hicks, Kyoto sabotage, Pacic Solution, Kirribilli House ripoff, WorkChoices, dog whistles, Haneef along with your own preferred variations. It might seem that Kevin Rudd will have no trouble in shining by comparison, but we are entitled to hold him to a higher standard than the miserable performance of his predecessor. In particular we need to see him depoliticise the public service, give genuine assistance to indigenous people, remove cultural warriors aka right-wing bigots from the boards of the ABC, museums, galleries, etc, repeal the sedition laws and halt the slide into police state thinking, which is after all a prelude to police state being. And while it may have dampened a few Christmas barbecues, we should also thank the new Labor government for the cool weather and drenching rain over the holiday. If the old government could take credit for the minerals lying underneath the ground economic management, the new one should be allowed to claim responsibility for the weather above it. At least until the oods come.he most interesting political story of the holiday break came not from the news pages, where the election and its aftermath had finally succumbed to the demands of sport, but from the letters column of the Sydney Morning Herald. Last week a social worker from St Johns Church in Canberra revealed that on the morning of Boxing Day the Prime Minister, unannounced and accompanied only by a security guard, had arrived to help serve breakfast to the homeless of the national capital, of whom there are rather more than is generally supposed. Kevin Rudd talked to both workers and clients at some length, and then announced as the most serious of his new year resolutions his intention to do something about the plight of the homeless. A cynic commented that this would all have been more convincing if he had been engaged in similar activities before becoming Prime Minister but he had. During the hectic campaign, after the exhausted media retired for the weekend, Rudd regularly visited homeless centres in whichever city he found himself. As with St Johns the visits took place without any kind of publicity, and the fact that they had taken place only came out after polling day. They were acts of private charity and compassion which some observers have clearly found surprising and disconcerting in a man who has been seen as a ruthlessly efcient and single minded politician. Modern politicians, after all, are expected to be tough guys whose ambition has made genuine empathy with the victims of society a luxury they simply cannotafford. They need to be able to take the hard decisions, unmoved by pity or remorse they must tackle issues across the board and ignore unfortunate consequences and collateral damage.They dont look backwards and of course they never apologise. As John Howard pointed out, what is needed is ticker by which he meant not heart, but guts. A heart can be a weakness indeed, for Howard bleeding heart was a term of contempt and abuse. Another favouriteand Vivien Solon, or of the stories that leaked out of the detention centres about madness and mutilation, even among children. But mainly it was simply taken for granted the job of the ofcials was not to facilitate entry to Australia, but to keep as many people as possible out. Asylum seekers were treated as criminals because that was the way the politicians wanted the public to see them. Long time residents were deported on amorality is inseparable from public duty. But it would be great to get used to it, to feel happy, and even proud about it. In this sense Rudds visit to St Johns should be seen not as an aberration, but as the rst step in the long overdue normalisation of Australia. But having said that, lets not get too warm and fuzzy. You can take the turning-theother-cheek thing too far. The unions, and indeed Labor supporters across the board, were disappointed to hear Julia Gillard say that it might take more than two years to dismantle the uglier features of WorkChoices and to restore unfair dismissal laws there has since been some qualification, but it appears that many objectionable aspects of Howards obsession will be with us for a while yet. Among them is the Workplace Authority, which will continue until its replacement, Fair Work Australia, is ready to roll. This delay may be understandable, but leaving its present head in charge over the interim period is surely over the top. In the lead up to the election Barbara Bennett appeared in a series of government ads blatantly plugging WorkChoices. The ads were clearly political, and no-one really tried to pretend otherwise. By her actions Bennett declared herself a government partisan, vigorously defending the system Labor is pledged to abolish. Her continued presence in such a sensitive post is totally unacceptable. Rudd should look to the militant side of his Christianity and get rid of her. After all, even Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the temple when he got the chance.When there is a deliberate lack of humanity at the top, it trickles all the way down through the administration. by Mungo MacCalluminsult was do-gooder. Taken literally, Howards ideal was a tyrant with a heart of stone and a determination to do evil. He was certainly not one to follow the gospel teaching of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting the lonely. This namby-pamby stuff might be all right for those with nothing better to do, and of course it never hurt to be photographed hugging a war widow during an election campaign, but a real leader is simply above such trivial human concerns. And so, of course, is the government he heads. When there is a deliberate lack of humanity at the top, it trickles all the way down through the administration. The Australian immigration system has always prided itself on being tough-minded, but during the Howard years it attained unheard of depths of brutality. Occasionally they surfaced, as in the persecution of Cornelia Rau whim and visas refused without explanation. Compassion was a nonsense what was required was ever tighter security. And if this meant increased pain for the victims, that wasnt a bad thing it would send a message to other potential invaders. Down the road at Centrelink similar lessons were being learnt the job was not to provide benets, but to deny them wherever possible and police them ferociously when they were grudgingly given. No latitude, no mercy even if Centrelink made a mistake, it was deemed to be the clients fault. Better that a thousand innocent victims suffer than one guilty wretch escape. This savage doctrine prevailed across the board just how deeply engrained it has become is illustrated by the fact that we now feel slightly uneasy about a leader who openly sides with the marginalised and the oppressed and who believes that privateThe Byron Shire Echo established Nicholas ShandW OP E N NOFounding EditorPublisher David Lovejoy Editor Michael McDonald Photographer Jeff Dawson Advertising Manager Angela Cornell Accounts Manager Simon Haslam Production Manager Ziggi BrowningThe job of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Finley Peter Dunne - Echo Publications Pty Ltd Village Way, Stuart Street, Mullumbimby Phone Fax Byron Bay Jonson St. Phone Printer Horton Media Australia Ltd Reg. by Aust. Post Pub. No. NBFUnsolicited contributions are welcome but, given the volume of material we receive, not all submissions will be acknowledged. Email to is the preferred means of receipt.CATERING for weddings, birthday parties, festivals phone orders welcome 7.am til close 7 days Pier Arcade Lawson Street Byron Bay
