51. Carbon Tax

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the carbon tax – not yet rested in peace.

Now the politics of the carbon tax have always been odd. The political left that usually advocates regulation to fix market failures supports a market mechanism like carbon pricing to change behaviours and provide economic incentives to address climate change.

Conversely, the usually free-market right opposes the market mechanism of a price or tax on carbon and either prefers the otherwise hated government intervention of “direct action” – or simply thinks that all the science about climate change is wrong (while presumably all other science is right – although with budget cuts to the CSIRO, I could be wrong on that one).

But it appears there is more to carbon tax politics. Late last year Clive Palmer and Nick Xenophon seemed to be keeping a door open to an emissions trading scheme – which was where the carbon tax they voted out was supposed to lead us.

And then Tony Abbott weighed in with his now infamous answer as to what, as Minister responsible for the status of women, he has done for Australian women. What has he done for women – well he abolished the carbon tax.

Apparently it is a panacea for many ills, but on hearing this I was reminded of the famous Monty Python scene in the Life of Brian when the Jewish nationalists – who would no doubt now be called a terrorist organisation and we would be giving up our civil liberties to defeat them – were considering what the Romans had done for them. But unlike aqueducts, sanitation, roads, medicine, education, and law and order, the answer in modern Australia is simpler.

What has the government done for women: it abolished the carbon tax.

What’s it done for the economy: it abolished the carbon tax.

What’s it done to secure a sustainable revenue base for government: it abolished the carbon tax. Oops – own goal.

What has the government done for world peace: well, it abolished the carbon tax (and stopped the boats).

And what has the government done for vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians? Bugger the carbon tax - on the eve of Christmas, the government cut millions out of community support programs and gave us Scott Morrison as Minister!

Yeah, I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 20 January 2015 

50. Men

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about men – collectively, as a group.

As we know, to our horror, last week 2 masked men barged into a newspaper office in Paris and gunned down staff because they did not like the satirical content of the paper, while an accomplice attacked that bastion of Zionist imperialism, a local supermarket in Paris. Before Christmas we had our own terrorist holding a Sydney café at gunpoint – with tragic results, and then there was the unspeakable massacre of children in the Pakistani school. All conducted by men – as were the Boston marathon bombings, the London underground bombings, the Bali bombings, the World Trade Towers – the list goes on.

I know you are probably thinking that these crimes were not about them being men – but it makes as much sense as thinking about these as Islamic crimes. Obviously not all men condone or commit violent crime, but nor do all Muslims. And nor is such terrorism confined to Islam – anyone remember Timothy McVeigh or Anders Breivik? And yet we speak about Islamic terrorists, not “religious terrorists” or male terrorists.

Obviously there is a difference in that these recent crimes were perpetrated by people claiming it was in the service of Islam, a claim rejected by most Muslims. But equally obviously, there are fanatical women in Islam – and with all sorts of beliefs – but they are far less likely to use the gun or bomb (notwithstanding the current “manhunt” for Hayat Boumeddiene, whose position in the terrorist saga appears to be defined by her relationship [girlfriend] to the male terrorists). So, given that it is overwhelmingly men that perpetrate such atrocities – “Islamic” or otherwise, surely gender has some part in the explanation?

As songwriter Judy Small asked long ago in the wake of another massacre “why does gunman sound so familiar, while gun-woman doesn’t quite ring true”?

Of course you may think I am confusing correlation with cause. The fact that it is men mostly that commit violence does not make men or masculinity the cause – and it certainly does not mean that all men are to blame.

But I wonder if we take the same approach to Islam? Or do we really believe that there is something inherent in the content of Islam that drives such terrorism? About a billion Muslims would disagree, but I could also point to texts, rituals and beliefs about masculinity that show and create a disposition to violence.

And meanwhile, each week in Australia, another woman dies and more are made homeless as a result of domestic violence.

I am Greg, I am grumbling about overly-convenient categories.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 13 January 2015

7. The Cabinet

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about Tony Abbott’s new cabinet. Yes, I know it is predictable grumble, but I am not actually going to grumble about the embarrassment of having only one woman in Cabinet. Nor am I going to grumble about the stream of commentary and Twitter outrage at the notion of quotas or some mechanism to promote women. Apparently these are an attack on merit and individual rights, as if there are no social processes and power structures which disadvantage women or define merit in a gendered way. But I will leave that alone.

I am not even going to grumble about the fact that the Ministry is never appointed simply on merit as there is always a juggling of positions and balancing of numbers, between factions in the Labor Party or party wings in the Coalition, and between country and city representatives, between members of the Liberal and National parties, and between members of the upper and lower houses. If I did that, I would have to wonder why gender balance could not be included in that balancing process.

Alternatively I suppose, I could just accept that this was in fact a merits-based process and that there are just far fewer women than men with the skills to be a Cabinet Minister – but then I would have to spend my weekends painting picket fences and tinkering with the FJ Holden in the driveway. So I won’t go there either.

What I really want to grumble about is that in the lead up to the election, the Coalition’s Policy for Disability and Carers promised that there would be a “Minister for Disabilities and Carers”. Now apart from the problem of the name focussing on the disability and not the actual person living with a disability, I searched the new Ministry and there is no Minister for Disabilities and Carers. There is a someone with responsibility for the NDIS (Mitch Fifield, the Assistant Minister for Social Services), but that is not the same thing. I checked the fine print of the original policy statement, and it says that, and I quote “The Coaltion will put all policy and programmes for employment of people with disability under the Minister for Disabilities and Carers”. This is clearly beyond the NDIS (which thankfully will return to that name rather than the ill-fated Disability Care), but the title of the proposed minister is capitalised, suggesting a separate Minister – not subsuming the position in a broader portfolio.

Personally I am happy to be rid of portfolios where we had the Minister for A,B,C,D, E, and F, but having a dedicated voice at the cabinet table is important. And this Cabinet has no singular voice for disabilities – or for mental health for that matter as it is subsumed into health. But unless this is the first broken promise of the new government, we still wait for the appointment of a Minister for People with Disabilities and Carers – which would be a great recognition of the importance of the issues and of people living with disabilities. And who knows, we could even have a woman appointed as Minister.

But until then, I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-7/
First Broadcast: 17 September 2013