NSW Labor, the coalition & the New England interest

The current electoral climate in NSW is very difficult for those of us who want to bring about real change.

Yesterday I was talking to a died in the wool Labor voter. I said casually that I was thinking of voting Labor, something that would actually be a first. She replied that our votes would cancel out.

The problem I have and the reason I was thinking of voting Labor lies in the fact as I see it that the decline in NSW Labor, the certain success of the opposition, at this election means that the coalition is under no real pressure to look at new things that might bring about change. All the opposition has to do is keep its nose clean, to go with the safe.

Further, the likely scale of victory combined with fixed four year terms means that it may be eight years before the political system opens up again.

Pretty obviously I have a vested interest in New England issues. Quite obviously, too, a fair bit of my writing has focused in one way or another on things that I think are important to New England's longer term future.

This is hard sometimes because New England does not exist in a formal sense. I constantly have to define and explain what I am talking about. Nobody doubts that education is important in NSW, but education in New England? Does it have an importance beyond the local that is not covered by education in NSW?

I argue yes. However, if someone denies the very validity of my concept of New England, then they are not going to listen to my arguments about New England education. My arguments have no meaning to them. If my arguments have no meaning to a large enough group, no political party is going to listen.

During the long period of Labor rule in NSW I gave the Government the courtesy of sometimes painstakingly examining the way their policies affected New England. This was not a party political examination, but a professional one.

I am now going to do the same to the opposition, starting with the National Party.

Why the National Party? Surely I should focus on the Liberals as the major coalition party?

Well, so far as New England is concerned, the Nationals are the biggest coalition party. Further, in the now polarised electoral climate, I am not sure how many of the New England independents will survive other than Richard Torbay. Beyond this, the swing now on looks so big that it seems likely that the Liberals will have a clear majority in their own right. The coalition will survive, but with the Nats in a much weakened position.

Now surely this makes the Libs more important? Well, yes and no.

I am focused not on this election but the one after when the the Nats are likely to come back into the balancing position.  The Libs will continue to be dominated out of Sydney as Labor was. Once the Nats get the balance of power back, Nat policies and approaches will then come back into prominence. I think that is the time when the chances of gaining a New England focus will be greatest.

Of course, I may be wrong. It may be that new Hunter Valley Liberal MPs will have a New England focus and take up the cause. Alternatively, new Hunter independents might do likewise. I just don't think based on the evidence that I have seen to this point that this is likely. After all, New England doesn't exist.

My personal view is that we must try to make New England needs an issue at this election not because it will have any impact now, but to lay the base for the following election when the political climate will have changed.

What do you think?     

Hot, hostile & frustrated

It's hot, very hot. I was meant to be going to Newcastle today for a new state meeting, but we deferred it to next week because of the heatwave.  Just too hot for people to travel in comfort.

We have to move house in the next few weeks and are looking for a new rental place.

We stumbled across our present place by accident. It is a big, rambling Federation style building. It feels like a New England house, a station homestead.

We knew when we moved in that it would only be for a short period, eighteen months. The owners had bought it to redevelop, and only wanted to rent while they worked out their plans and had them approved.

It was fascinating watching the Sydney siders walking round the place when we were renting. We looked and said, let's get it. They looked and said it's not modern enough, paint is peeling, there are not enough mod-cons.

The house sits on a hill with 280 degree views over sea and suburbs. It's height means that it gets good ventilation. The garden is large and great for entertainment.

We knew when we moved in that the house would spoil us. For the life of me, I still cannot understand the negative reactions that so many had to the house in the first place.

Now as we drive from rental property to rental property - we must have looked at forty houses so far - I see over-priced house after over-priced house. There is, I guess, a Sydney life style thing at work. Suburb is very important. Then, too, so are public spaces and things like multiple bathrooms.

By contrast, we want three reasonable size bedrooms, a decent kitchen, space for a home office, plus space for books and papers. That's all.

I have formed the jaundiced opinion that Sydney people, at least Eastern Suburbs Sydney people, don't read, nor do they entertain much at home.

I accept that  I am not typical. I grew up in an academic household in a university city. Partially as a consequence, I am now an obsessive writer who loves his books and papers around him. The very smell of a book, the feel, is quite sensuous.

This slimmed down metro life style is really not for me. If I am on holidays, then a modern apartment is a good thing. If I have to live there, it is not.

Sorry for the gripe. But it is very hot, I am tired, and I am tired of looking for a new place to live. It also explains, in part, my present inefficiency in responding to emails and comments.

No doubt things will get better, but I am still pissed off.

I sometimes get asked why I don't go back to New England if I am so annoyed about Sydney. Well, part of the reason is family. Another significant part is that New England as, at best, a branch office economy simply does not offer the type of of opportunities that would enable me to utilise my skills. The jobs aren't there.

New England & the archives

I do love feedback, although it can be distracting. Two posts linked to New England's history:

• NSW Cabinet Records
• Sources for New England Records

Belshaw's World - technology: never a dull moment

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on 26 January 2011. 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, here for 2011.

Just because I could, I have added a photo of Helen in Copenhagen.  I make no apologies for this indulgence!

Last week, we saw eldest off on her journey to Copenhagen via London. She will be studying at the Copenhagen Business School for the next six months.

This will be her first time away from home for an extended period, and her father will miss her.

Her mother tracked the plane to London via computer. Then, after Helen arrived in London, we spoke to her via Skype video link up. Each day since, we have had a video chat.

The idea of a video phone was one of the staples of science fiction. Today, we take Skype almost for granted. Yet the first attempt to introduce a video phone actually failed.

Cast your mind back to the distant days of the 1980s. Then the Japanese telco NTT trialled a video phone. The test was a complete failure.

The barrier was a cultural one. Japanese women, the target group, happily chatted by phone for extended periods. However, once they started using the video phone, they would only call their friends when fully made up. This was just too much of an effort for normal day to day life!

Technology gives, but it also takes away.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the New England countryside was quite heavily populated, with a hierarchy of stations, farms, localities, villages and towns.

This was a populated world in which people moved and chatted across a local landscape. Local life centred on individual communities within a relatively easy day’s ride.

The internal combustion engine changed all this. It made things like shopping at bigger centres easier. More importantly, the spread of cars and lorries actually wiped out entire local industries.

On the farm, crops like oats that had fed the horses ceased. In the town, activities such as buggy building and repair, blacksmithing, all declined. Extra jobs were created servicing the new motor vehicles, but they were not sufficient to offset the jobs lost.

The end result was a progressively depopulated country side.

A fair bit of my professional work over the last thirty years has involved new technology in one form or another. I am not a technologist. My focus has been on the business, management and policy implications of the technology.

During that time I have learned two main things.

The first is that the application, the acceptance, of new technology, is generally slower in the short term than the enthusiasts expect. However, once a new technology takes, its growth is usually faster than people expect.

In the words of an old dance step – slow, slow, quick, quick, quick.

The second thing I have learned is that, like the internal combustion engine, the economic and social affects of the technology can rarely be foreseen. Our technology moulds us in ways we often barely understand.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a view that the pace of technological change was accelerating. The time taken for knowledge to double was shortening all the time. Technological and organisational life cycles were constantly shortening.

These views became deeply embedded in management theory and writing. Organisations must become flexible, responsive, able to adapt to a world of constant and accelerating change.

At one level, the popular nostrum was correct. Information was doubling in ever shorter time horizons. Applied technology measured by things such as patents was also accelerating.

At a second level, the popular nostrum was dangerously misleading. While we were getting better at specific applications, the rate of new technological discovery was actually in decline. Worse, the side-effects were starting to become clear.

As early as 1987, writers such as UNE’s Perry Morrison were warning of the dangers of growing systemic complexity. With complexity came increased dangers of failure, of unforseen results.

To give you a simple example of what I mean, consider the problems both Airbus and Boeing have had with their latest offerings. The A380 is flying, but Boeing’s alternative offering has yet to enter service.

Perry had a special focus on complex defence and aerospace systems, but his arguments also apply to organisations.

In the defence arena, people often talk about communications, command and control. These are central to the operations of complex defence systems.

The same terminology applies in management. Instead of organisations becoming more flexible, the new technology has been used to centralise and control. Flexibility has been replaced by command and control.

This divergence between language and reality is not unusual. But that’s the subject of another column!

Bogged down in writing

Still bogged down in my writing. It's frustrating. I seem, am, all over the place. A post om my personal blog, We need a management revolution, deals with one aspect of my current thinking.

It would be much easer if we had  our own Government. I could then focus on New England issues, dealing with broader questions as they affect New England. I guess that I try to do this anyway, but its hard when we don't formally exist.

Formal boundaries are deeply embedded in current thought. They affect every aspect of life.

Those of us from the North have at least a feeling as to what we are, although we way disagree on boundaries. Those outside don't see us, don't accept that our concerns outside the local or narrow regional are legitimate. How can you have legitimate concerns if you don't exist? If you don't appear as a recognised line on a map?

You will see that I am a little depressed at present!

NEA blog performance January 2011

The attached graph shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over January. After the earlier upward trend, you can see how traffic went down and then stagnated!

The most popular posts in January were:

• Results from Wednesday's forum on overcoming division  260 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Re-imagining Newcastle 238 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Overcoming division 218 page views
• Wednesday Forum: improving public transport 204 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Leveraging Newcastle's inclusion in the Lonely Planet global top ten cities  193 page views
• Tamworth Floods November 2008 179 page views
• Moree flood evacuation centre 293 page views
• Water Wars - the Darling floods 285 page views
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 77 page views
• Explanation for a pause in posting 50 page views

Excluding search engines, the main referrals to the site came from:

• www.facebook.com 22 visits
• belshaw.blogspot.com 20 visits
• http://www.mediahunter.com.au 6 visits
• http://clarencevalleytoday.blogspot.com/ 5 visits
• http://commonwealthrepublic.blogspot.com/ 4 visits

Bogged down

I have really been bogged down in a New England story post I have been writing on the death of Gordon Trickett. Tomorrow?

Round the New England blogging traps 22 - flood focus

Over a month since my last blog round-up. A lot has been happening.

In What can we do you for?, Archives Outside asked for suggestions for 2011. I responded:

I would like to see:
1. More information on particular records systems. For example, a description of cabinet records. I found them very fragmentary.
2. More Hunter Valley & North Coast material. That would help me in the writing I am now doing.

I followed this up with New England & Archives Outside.

This is a very good blog for those interested in local or regional history. Why not visit and make your own suggestions?

In my own historical blogging, my recent posts have been:

• Discovering Aboriginal New England
• Environment and the distribution of Aboriginal languages in NSW 
• Round the history blogs 10 - a melange

On Clarence Valley Today, Mark continues his photos of life in Grafton and surrounds.

I have chosen this photo of the recent floods from When Sweet Turns To Sour not because its either especially pretty or spectacular, but for Mark's point. The damage to the sugar industry will be substantial.

While New England's floods were not as spectacular as those in Queensland, there has still been a fair bit of damage.

Media reports, I can't give links, carried comments from Richard Torbay, State member for the Northern Tablelands, querying why New England flood victims are getting less assistance than those in Queensland or Victoria.

I must admit I hadn't realised that there was a difference.

The waters flowed on and on.

The next photo from Mark shows flood foam at Yamba. I have to agree with him. I think that you must have rocks in your head to swim in this stuff!

In the midst of the rain, North Coast Voices (Is there "Something Rotten in the State of Windsor?") is keeping an eye on the Parliamentary inquiry into the Murray-Darling water proposals. Their concern in this case appears to be a possibly selective release of public submissions to the inquiry. I actually doubt this, but haven't checked it.

This is one of those difficult issues that potentially sets the eastern and western sides of New England against each other. Not, mind you, that NCV actually recognised my concept of New England. NCV and its sister blog A Clarence Valley Protest are totally one eyed and would, I think, deny the concept of a broader New England interest.

There is nothing wrong with this. Malcolm Turnbull's original grab for Clarence water to feed Brisbane's perceived water shortages was simply silly and needed opposing. If locals do not react, then they are going to be rolled over. However, it can impede discussion on broader issues.

During the Clarence floods, NCV provided a number of information reports on local conditions. This is indicative of a broader trend. This was a flood in which the new media came into its own as a source of information.

Staying with NCV for the moment, in Excuses used for not reading blogs, Clarencegirl wrote: 

It has happened so often now that I am moved to comment on the number of times someone (usually a journalist) tells me that they are aware of a particular post on North Coast Voices BUT….

A list of the normal excuses followed.

I really loved the cartoon CG included; this came from Savage Chickens. It really captured one element of blogging.

Moving south to Coffs Harbour and a somewhat different political perspective to NCV, Hugh Saddleton's Coffs Outlook had a very funny post. I won't repeat it all, but here are a few quotes:

IT’S been a tough week for us Aussies.Another public holiday, more beer to consume and more Poms to bowl out in the cricket.But spare a though for those Poms as they head for a double dip recession, thanks to 13 years of socialism.And after the terrorist attacks of 2007 they are starting to feel the pinch in relation to more threats.My spy in Whitehall tells me they have even raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” The next step is “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.”  And the last time the English went to a “A Bit Cross” was during the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out.....

But back to God’s Country – Australia.Last week as we headed for another day off we raised our security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be alright, Mate.” Three more escalation levels remain: “Crikey!” “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend” and “The barbie is cancelled.”   And throughout history, no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

Look, I know its not politically correct, the French could get very peeved, but it is funny.

Stating with Coffs Outlook, 2009 Coffs Coast flood victims should be exempt from Gillard’s new flood levy begins:

Coffs Coast residents who were denied one-off flood payments in 2009 should not be slugged with the Gillard Government’s new flood levy, Federal Member for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker and State Member for Coffs Harbour Andrew Fraser said today.

This is not especially sensible, political special pleading, but it does play to something that is creating problems for the Government's flood proposals. Many people in New England who at personal or community level have suffered from similar problems without the same time of support do feel some what aggrieved.

This is not an attack on the levy, by the way. If you want to know my personal views, see Flood levy's, public policy & the Australian spirit and then Further musings on the flood levy.

Moving inland up the mountain road, Gordon Smith in lookANDsee has returned to local themes.

While I enjoyed Gordon's photos of Sydney, it is nice to have him back, so to speak. This photo shows an Eastern Grey Kangaroo having a snack outside his sunroom.

Returning to floods, a tweet from Paul Barratt suggests that "quite obvious Tony Abbott still hasn't figured Tony Windsor out. He never will." He followed this with "Re-reading your message, penny drops. TA will never understand TW coz will always be looking for an angle when there isn't one." and then "Also, TA simply doesn't understand the "Independent" part of Country Independents. Doesn't understand "Country" either."

The trigger for all this was a story by Michael Bachelard and Natalie in the Melbourne Age: Independent lashes Abbott on flood levy. I suspect that Paul is right.

Staying with the floods, in Brisbane’s Man-made Flood Peak! Ian Mott is critical of water releases from the Wivenhoe Dam, while Peter Rohde looks at specific aspects of the flood in Brisbane in Brisbane Floods, Brisbane Floods 2, Clean up – day 1 and Clean up – day 2.

I sometimes get asked why I include blogs not based in New England in this round-up. Well, like me, more New Englanders now live outside than inside New England. I include them. Paul Barratt is from Armidale and has continuing connections; Ian Mott is from the Northern Rivers; while Peter Rohde was Dux at Armidale High.

We have many different views, but are all part of the New England story.

Belshaw's World - UNE bridges regional-international gap

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on 19 January 2011. 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, here for 2011.

I learned from last Wednesday’s Express that Professor John Pigrim had died. By coincidence, I was re- reading the commentaries to the 1977 Atlas of New England that he edited along with David Lea and Lesley Greenwood.

You cannot properly understand the history of an area without understanding its geography. For that reason, I am presently trying to increase my understanding of the geography of the broader New England.

I have a reasonably good base knowledge. However, it’s just not good enough for my present purposes.

Based on my reading of the various essays, I wrote two short pieces, one on the importance of micro-environments, the other on micro-environments and Aboriginal language and population distribution.

I had been planning to email John to show the continuing influence of the work of him and his colleagues. Instead, I will record my appreciation here.

At the time I first studied at UNE, the Geography Department was developing into one of Australia’s leading if not the leading geography department.

I only did one year of geography. I had intended to major in geography, but I found that history and economics interested me more. Even so, I was aware of the Department’s influence.

The Department’s work combined a regional, national and international focus.

The University was then very interested in its broader region, so geographers combined with other disciplines to study various aspects of the geography, geology, history, economics and life of Northern New South Wales.

There was a strong interest in applied geography, the use of geographical concepts and tools to meet immediate needs. This translated, among other things, into a series of studies for local councils on local issues.

This interest in applied geography carried into the broader arena.

Led by Ted Chapman, UNE was managing rural development programs around Cheng Mai in Thailand. As a twenty year old, I stayed with Ted in Cheng Mai.

During the day, he took brother David and I around some of the villages to show us the work. Walking along the banks demarcating the paddy fields, he explained what they were trying to achieve.

Towards the end, we sat under the shade of a tree in a village. Ted introduced us to the village headman who brought us a drink while we talked. That night, thirteen Armidale people sat down to dinner at Ted’s place.

In addition to its applied work in New England and elsewhere, the Department worked on a number of theoretical and conceptual topics concerned with the development of geography as a discipline.

Things change.

Years later, I was involved in a conversation with some of the then University heavies. The place was going through one of its periodic upheavals.

UNE they, said, can’t be the old university; we have to put the past aside and build our international links.

I threw a spanner in the works by asking when the University had ceased to have an international focus. They really had no idea of past work.

Speaking from my experience as a policy adviser and management consultant, I suggested that one of the best ways of moving in new directions was to select and emphasise those elements in the organisation’s history that supported new directions.

Instead of presenting UNE as an entity in trouble, that had to go international, they should focus on the fact that UNE had always had an international reach.

The Geography Department demonstrated this. It showed that it was quite possible to be both intensely regional in some work streams, international in others. There was no conflict between the two.

I know that I sound a bit like a broken record on this one, but I am very conscious of it at the moment.

The research and writing that I have been doing has brought me back in contact with past work done at NEUC, UNE and at the Teacher’s College/Armidale College of Advanced Education.

The contribution made not just to Northern NSW, the broader New England, but to Australian life and thought is really quite remarkable.

This can be hard for individual staff members, academic or otherwise, to see. It really only become apparent when you stand back and look at patterns over time. Then it stands out.

During the three years I have been writing this column, John Pigrim emailed me a number of times with specific suggestions. They were always helpful.

I would like to think that the work done by he and his colleagues will be remembered.

Keneally wins crap of the week award

In a post this morning on my personal blog, Flood levy's, public policy & the Australian spirit, I explored some of the issues associated with the Rudd Government's flood levy.

Essentially, I wasn't opposed but thought that it had been badly presented. Then, in Keneally wants changes to flood levy I read this:

  NSW Premier Kristina Keneally wants changes to the national flood levy, saying it should take into account the high cost of living in Sydney.

I am sorry, Kristina, but costs are high in Sydney because it is a big city and because people want to live there. Why should others subsidise this? Even more specifically, if you want to get costs down in Western Sydney, change your development rules.

I actually like Kristina. She wouldn't remember me unless I gave her the context, but I have watched her and think that she is both nice and capable. She has just inherited a mess.

On this point, and since I have just put the boot in, I note that Granny Herald seems to like photos of her where the stress shows. Surely this must be a coincidence ?!