Wednesday Forum: the regional development deal

You will find the deal struck between the two New England independents here: Agreement between the Australian Labor Party and the Independent Members. The PDF version in the Australian may be easier to read.

I set out my initial reactions in Country independents, regional development and spin. I wasn't being negative in a general sense, simply expressing my concern about the way the regional development numbers were presented. I don't think $10 billion is in fact $10 billion in the way it has been written up.

In an earlier post, I said in part:

Finally, we would like both Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott to apply a key test to any specific initiatives that might be considered:

Will the proposal have any real longer term impact on New England development, or is it just a band-aid? We have seen too many of the second, too few of the first.

In asking this question, we would also like both MPs consider broader New England needs.

There are many shared problems across the North that would benefit from being addressed in an integrated way, instead of the fragmented and itsy approach that has applied.

Taking the regional development proposals in the agreement (annex B) and looking at it just from a New England perspective, do you thing it meets these tests? What do you like/dislike about the proposals? 

Paul Barratt speaks

Like me, Paul Barratt is one of those New Englanders whose personal connections are deeply entwined with the North. We link and interlink in just so many ways. Both of us had to leave New England, in Paul's case  for a very distinguished career in the Commonwealth Public Service.

I mention this because Paul has just completed a series of posts directly relevant to New England concerns. In date order, they are:

• Saturday, September 4, 2010 Tony Windsor’s gone to Tamworth
• Sunday, September 5, 2010 Which way will the country independents jump?
• Monday, September 6 2010 Over-governed, yes, but not in the way you think
• Monday, September 6 2010 Country independents didn’t invent pork

One of the things that I struggle to get across sometimes is that New England has its own political and intellectual traditions that are not the exactly same as those holding elsewhere in Australia. We think and care in slightly different ways.

Both Paul and I in our own ways represent those traditions. Now, in our writing, we try to get this across, to preserve and develop something that we believe is of value.

You won't find the names, the events, the traditions that we value, in today's conventional history books. That history is written by others who, for reasons of locale or fashion, do not share our concerns. We write in part to redress this.

I think that's important. Once we lose our past, we are truly lost.       

Just a moan

For reasons I won't bore you with, I really don't feel like a serious post today. I am just serioused out! I also have this week's newspaper column to do, and my mind is a blank.

Each day I write a thousand or so words, sometimes more. Normally it's easy. Then you get funny days like today when the actual act of writing becomes hard.

It's not that I don't have things to say. Coming back from Newcastle Saturday I wrote down lots of ideas. I just don't feel like doing anything about them.

I am also very depressed about my main present writing project, a history of New England. After four years direct work, two years reasonably intensive work, I am (by my own count) eight months behind schedule. One of my blogging colleagues, Legal Eagle, has just submitted her 100,000 word PhD thesis in law. Reading her Facebook page, her sense of relief is palpable. I wish I could share it.

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seems worthwhile? How do you handle it? 

Round the New England blogging traps 17 - politics & pastoral

I quote from the University of Newcastle's Coal River Working Party blog:

We are nothing without our history, and our records, lay testament to who we are as a people.  All these things could become real if we wish them to be. Dreams are always dashed when someone say’s ‘its too expensive’ and the result invariably is we don’t do anything exciting.

I have to agree.

Staying on history, I see from Headlines from Armidale in Old news from Armidale and New England that, on 5 April 1988, cricketers from Newcastle defeated those from Armidale. No further information is given!

The surveyors trying to map New New England and especially the very rugged eastern escarpment faced a tremendously difficult job. This photo shows  Werrikimbe NP: surveyor’s blaze. 

nellibellingen has carried a range of historical posts. At the moment I haven't quite worked out how Lynne's various blogs fit together. Her BLOG IT ALL - THAT'S NEWS TO ME does provide something of a guide, but I'm still confused. I will write a proper story when I have!

Turning to more current events, in Bailed Up! Now into our 14th day of political uncertainty North Coast Voices calls on the independents to make up their mind. The blog's perspective is certainly less sympathetic than mine! I quote:

Now we are approaching a political climate in which supposedly considered judgement is beginning to give way to highway robbery as the three remaining unaligned seasoned independent MPs hold the nation and the two main parliamentary parties to ransom.

By contrast, in Tony Windsor’s gone to Tamworth, Paul Barratt writes:

The (very) Independent Member for New England has gone home to Tamworth to ponder the decision he should make about who should have the opportunity to form the next government.

I do not envy him the decision he has to make, but I know that it will be a conscientious one and, whichever way it goes, I expect that he will receive strong support from the local communities.

Another New England blogger, Dermott Banana, in Devil Calling, has a different take on that phone call made by Liberal senator Bill Heffernan to independent Ron Oakeshott. The photo from DB shows Mrs Oakeshott and two of their kids.

The post begins:

Last weekend, while the whole country wondered what the independent MHRs would do, Rob Oakeshott was driving to a ceremony in Lismore to commemorate the Sandakan Death March. His wife was in the car with him, and she answered his mobile phone. The caller said in a gruff voice he was the devil.

As we now know, the caller was Liberal Senator (and complete douchebag) Bill Heffernan. His defence for such inappropriate behaviour to Sara-Jane Oakeshott? He thought he was actually talking to one of the Oakeshott children. Yeah. Right. Coz that makes his behaviour more acceptable in some weird universe, does it?

In fairness, Messrs Oakeshott and Heffernan are meant to be friends, but it was still a dumb thing to do because the call seems to have been misunderstood. I understand from friends in the New England electorate that something of a phone campaign is going on to try to force the independents to side with Mr Abbott.

In National Wattle Day on Snippets and Sentiments, Gaye reports on National Wattle Day (1 September). Interestingly, my own family asked why some of our political leaders were wearing wattle. Here I quote from Gaye: 

In 1988 the Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha) was made Australia's official floral emblem, and in 1992 the Commonwealth Government formally designated 1st September as National Wattle Day. It's also largely the source of our green and gold colours.

The celebratory day was chosen by our earlier generations to be an occasion "primarily to inspire and stimulate an Australian national sentiment". It was felt this could be accomplished by embracing such sentiment in a native flower, and uniting as a people on the day to do it honour.

The Wattle had been selected as the most suitable of our native flora because of its accessibility, occurring throughout the length and breadth of our continent.

I love the wattle. Given that my family did not understand, maybe we should be paying more attention.!

Pip Wilson's Wilson's Blogmanac has still not been updated. Bellingen based Pip was bashed up in one of those random incidents. The last I heard was some weeks ago when he was being moved from intensive care. I hope that he is okay.

After a gap since July, Bolting Bear has begun reporting again. BB is, I think, a medical student at UNE who also happens to be Muslim. Brisbane, as the name says, is the story of a trip to Brisbane. I like BB because he provides another entry point into the changing mosaic that is modern New England.

It has been a little while since I mentioned A Woodsrunner's Diary. This blog continues its eclectic mix of living history and historical trekking items. Primitive Skills. Stalking., for example, shows you how to get real close to a wallaby (kangaroo?).

Finally, Sharyn's The woman on the mountain has some good wallaby photos.   

Belshaw's World - time to repeat the new state question

I generally avoid commenting on current events in this column, but this time I am going to break that rule.

Since the election, all sorts of emails have been flying around Northern New South Wales discussing just what the country independents might do. I will talk about these in a moment. But first, I want to make a few general comments about the position that the three country independents finds themselves in.

New England has its own constitutional tradition, one that Mr Windsor most certainly represents.

Part of that tradition is effective representation by the MP for his or her electorate. Country voters expect things from their MPs in a way that city folk do not. They are ours regardless of party, and we expect them to remember that.

Part of the tradition, too, is that once elected, MPs become members of parliament and are expected observe the traditions and values of parliament.

This may have been much tarnished by party politics, but it remains true. Parliament is our first protection against oppression by the executive, whether that oppression is expressed via the divine right of kings or the modern equivalent, the “national interest” as defined by the ruling party.

Let me illustrate by a past example.

In 1961, the Menzies Government had a majority of one. Implementing the Government’s two airline policy, the then Minister for Civil Aviation told East-West Airlines that they must merge with Ansett. When the airline stated this, the Minister denied it.

New England member David Drummond knew that the airline’s story was true. What was he to do? If he denounced the minister, he risked bringing the Government down.

White and shaking, he rose in the house to denounce the minister. As he spoke, the empty house filled. With his known reputation for honesty, no-one doubted his word. The government survived, but the attempt to force the merger was destroyed.

Drummond was acting partly in the interests of his electorate. More, though, he was acting in the interests of parliament, in the right of parliament to have honesty from executive government.

Everything I have seen suggests that Mr Windsor is acting in the same way. He has articulated a set of principles and is attempting to comply with them regardless of immediate partisan positions. The electorate’s belief that he would do this was a key reason for his large majority.

Now everybody wants something from him. If he sides with Labor one set of electors will be upset, another if he sides with the Coalition. Both groups will be upset if he cannot deliver tangible benefits for the electorate.

In a sense, I am no different. I, too, want things from Mr Windsor and his colleagues, although they are a little different from the various wish-lists that have appeared in other places.

Even including the population growth along the coast, the broader New England has been in structural decline for many decades. No one has addressed this.

Taking this into account and chatting among the growing number of new state supporters across New England, we would like Mr Windsor and his colleagues to do three things.

First, we would like him to support the holding of a new constitutional convention to look at the distribution of state and commonwealth powers, as well as ways of facilitating subdivision within the existing Federation. Regardless of individual views, there appears to be general agreement that the current system no longer works.

Secondly, we would like him to support the holding of another new state plebiscite within Northern New South Wales. We new staters want this. However, there is another issue that extends beyond the fight for self-government.

Regardless of individual views on statehood, there can be no doubt that the very existence of the New England New State Movement forced governments to consider broader New England needs in a way that has not happened since the Movement collapsed after 1967. We need this pressure again.

Finally, we would like both Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott to apply a key test to any specific initiatives that might be considered:

Will the proposal have any real longer term impact on New England development, or is it just a band-aid? We have seen too many of the second, too few of the first.

In asking this question, we would also like both MPs consider broader New England needs.

There are many shared problems across the North that would benefit from being addressed in an integrated way, instead of the fragmented and itsy approach that has applied.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 1 September 2010. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010

Our advice to Mr Windsor

My main post today, Politics, policies and principles, is on my personal blog. It is based in part on this week's Armidale Express column; this will come up later.

In both the post and the column, I have used the words "our" and "we". Yes, they are my views, but they also reflect the feedback and discussion through this blog and the email traffic flowing from blog posts and column.

This is quite exciting. The feedback challenges my ideas, adds to them. Slowly but surely, we are creating another view, one that focuses on New England interests. Not just New England interests alone, but New England interests as part of the mix.

In the post, I refer to the views expressed by Mr Walladge on the ABC's The Drum. Compare those views with the feeling that many of us had that the hung parliament provided an opportunity for new views. I quote one line:

But the flexibility that allows our major parties to bend over backwards to accommodate the views of bigots and lunatics and the politically fraudulent goes far too far.

Of course there will be special pleading, in Mr Katter's case a degree of eccentricity (I actually love this), confusion over issues. But compare this to Mr Walladge's spleen!

I have no idea how all this will work out. I do not think that we can necessarily expect Mr Windsor to accept the approach I suggested. He has many things to consider. I do know that if we are going to make progress, we have to break or at least manage the Walladge position.

We are involved in a fight over ideas. We have to challenge many of the conventional ideas, put forward argued alternatives, stop the lock-in imposed by presently dominant mind-sets. I find that exciting.         

Richmond River Historical Society Museum wins national award

Congratulations to the Richmond River Historical Society on winning the ABC's Radio National's national 2010 Regional Museum Award. The citation reads:

The Richmond River Historical Society & Regional Museum, in Lismore, New South Wales, has been selected from this year's nominees as the winning entry. The Museum, entirely community-run by volunteers, was judged to have the best performance against the range of competition criteria. We were impressed with the inclusive approach taken to local history, incorporating Bundjalung Aboriginal history alongside pastoralist settlement, the rich maritime history of the Richmond River, and more recent changes. The Museum and Historical Society (supported by the Lismore City Council since 1936) demonstrates an impressive care of resources and imaginative development of its facilities.

In addition to maintaining a research centre, huge archival records and a permanent collection of 25,000 items (including paintings), the Historical Society has a strong commitment to publication and develops changing displays to engage visitors and a broad public. The close links with local tourism show a vital commitment to promoting the economy, history and identity of this region of north-western NSW. The Historical Society and museum is clearly demonstrating the importance of community service today as the front line for consolidating the value of historical resources, education programs and a strong cultural future.

As it happened, only yesterday was I able to buy a second hand copy of Louise Daley's Men and a River: a history of the Richmond River District 1828-1895, a book whose publication was subsidised by the Society.  

Congratulations, too, to the other New England museums that made the commended list - Port Macquarie Museum, Land of the Beardies History House & Research Centre, Quirindi Heritage Museum and the Australian Museum of Clothing & Textiles.

Belshaw's World - blank screens, spam and Captain Thunderbolt

Those of you who write on a regular basis will know what it’s like to have a blank screen day, one of those days when the words just won’t flow. To add to my woes, I have been suffering from a spam attack.

I woke up this morning with the need to write this column looming over me, and then had to spend three quarters of an hour going through deleting spam comments.

I am not quite sure why certain Chinese sex sites have decided that my blogs are a suitable place to lodge comments with links, but they have. The same applies to various purveyors of get rich quick schemes.

I don’t actually mind a bit of shameless self-promotion, so long as the promotion is in some ways linked to the original story. However, the link between various Asian beauties all described in Chinese and the question of whether or not Australia is a Christian country is, at best, uncertain!

My blog stats allow me to monitor the most popular posts on my various blogs.

Over the last month, by far the most popular post on my personal blog has been a post I wrote back in November 2008, Sunday Essay – the importance of quiet time in a crowded world, followed by a post from February 2008, Report of the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board, year ended 30 June 1940.

The two most popular posts on my New England blog in the same period were again older posts, Margaret Olley's New England connection and The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring.

I mention this because the spammers appear to be reasonably good at targeting some of the more popular posts, leading to the type of silly result that I referred to earlier.

The question of what people like to read always interests me, as it does most writers. After all, we all want to be read!

I write for two quite different audiences.

The first is that small group of regular readers, whether of this column or the blogs. I know many of this group because of comments or other feedback. Here I just try to be interesting, although my tendency to ride-off after my own hobby-horses sometimes detracts.

The second audience is that which comes to my writing through search engines. This is far larger, over 80 per cent of blog traffic.

People use all sorts of search terms to find the sites. Most come in, scan and then leave. They appear in the stats as one page view, 0 seconds.

I used to get a bit of a complex about this. Surely my writing was good enough to hold them for just a second?

The reality is that people coming in through search are looking for specific things. They can tell almost instantly whether or not the post in question has anything for them.

Far more satisfying are that very small number who stay and look.

Monday this week, for example, I had a visitor from Sydney who came in searching on Kempsey New England. That visitor stayed for almost fifteen minutes, with fifteen different page views.

Most satisfying of all are those who provide a personal response to stories.

A story I wrote on the search for Captain Thunderbolt drew a comment from David Donaldson. Now I had no idea who David was. I had to look him up.

It turns out that David, the first Director of the Sydney Film Festival, was a personal friend of director Cecil Holmes and had been driving the search for the lost film. In turn, this led me into further research and writing.

I have no idea whether or not a copy of the full 35m film can be found. I would like to think so, although I don’t feel confident. However, I had a lot of fun going through stills, looking at the shorts, identifying people and locations.

I never know with this type of thing just where I might end up.

To find a film still showing Aunt Kay (Kathleen Vickers nee Drummond) and Mrs Roy Blake (wife of the Express editor) that I could match with a photo of extras from the family collection is obviously satisfying.

Just as satisfying is the feeling that I can now put the movie into a better context.

Well, I seem to have come some distance from the issue of spam. Still, I now have a full screen. Time to finish this meander!

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 25 August 2010. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010

Wednesday Forum: reforming the Federation

The last Wednesday Forum, Wednesday Forum: New England's greatest needs, generated some very good ideas, including a remarkably good comment from Greg from Newcastle. I will pick up some of the other ideas in later posts. Here I just want to focus on Greg. He wrote:

I think that we all recognize that our federal system of government is not working well. Some even believe that it is in the emergency ward on life support. We all want change in the way that government in Australia is delivered but we have no clear idea of what it should look like. We are too blinkered by the paradigms of the 20th Century.

Although it is my region that I am primarily concerned with, my wish list is not just relevant to, Newcastle, New England or even NSW, but for the whole of Australia, regional Australia especially.

To a large extent our problems are rooted in the same cause. That cause is a dominant central government which is now, to all intents and purposes, more a unitary rather than a federal government. It has total fiscal hegemony over lower levels of government raising more than 80% of all taxes. Yet it is the states and local councils which are the primary providers of government services, but without the independent means to deliver. They are financially coupled to the chariot wheels of Canberra which has formed an expensive double bureaucracy.

How can Canberra make and implement good policy decisions for Newcastle, Armidale, Port Macquarie or any of the other cities and towns of New England? Of course it cannot because it's policies are, of necessity one size fits all. Australia is too vast and it's communities too diverse and widely spread. Only states, regions and communities can best make those policy decisions at a local or regional level.

So my wish list is not specific to New England, but it is essential for New England to prosper and achieve it's potential. REAL power must be devolved back to lower levels of government (both state and local). The Commonwealth must observe it's proper powers under sec 51 of the constitution instead of forever making incursions into areas which were never intended to be part of it's domain.

In practice this means that the Commonwealth must reduce it's fiscal dominance and thereby it's undue influence over states, regions and communities to allow local people to make policy decisions as appropriate for them and their communities. In other words, it must pass a great deal of it's taxing powers back to lower tiers of government and exit policy making for regional domestic matters.

We need a new constitutional convention where we can debate and decide what our federation should look like, the number of states, their boundaries and the responsibilities and taxing powers of each tier of government. At the moment our federation is moving ever closer to a unitary system and the results are obvious - choking capitals and failing regions. Our way of life is under threat.

The independents find themselves in a unique position in Australian political history. It is within their power to force a constitutional convention where we can renew and reshape our federation to breath new life into it for the challenges of the 21st Century.

This is what I would like to see from the New England independents. It would be the greatest of tragedies if they squandered this opportunity to help shape New England and indeed Australia for the better.

Will history remember them as visionaries with great purpose? Or simply as political grand standers who had 15 minutes of fame? The ball is in their court.

Wow! You don't have to agree with all Greg's points to recognise that he has mounted a powerful argument, so powerful that I have picked it up in my Armidale Express column to be published today.  You see, even if you disagree with him, Greg has captured something that many Australians' feel: our Federation is not working properly, nor are current approaches likely to fix this.

Do you support the idea, as I do, of a new constitutional convention focused on our Federation? What do you believe should be included to ensure that the Federation properly represents all parts of Australia?

Blog visits take off

I will bring up the next Wednesday forum later today. For the moment, I just want to look at the blog stats for August.

The graphic shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to end August. Both have been on an upward trend since the start of the year. However, the jump in August was quite remarkable!

Turning now to the most popular posts, the top ten over August were:

•  Margaret Olley's New England connection 164 page views
•  The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 154 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 116 page views
• New England Story - the making of Captain Thunderbolt 71 page views
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 66 page views
• New England's Kamilaroi people - web search August 08 62 page views
• Elections, Aborigines & the need for change 59 page views
• Armidale Kempsey Road Bullock Drays 1920s 51 page views
• Hunter Valley 1st New State lunch 51 page views
• Coalition wipe-out in the North? 50 page views

The post numbers actually measure those who came in via search engines or links. In addition, there are regular visitors who come direct to the blog. My stats here do not allow proper tracking, but average daily returns appear to be about twelve.