Peter A Clarke

Michael Bachelard is a nice enough scribe.  I knew him when we both worked in Canberra in the mid nineties, him as the ACT Politics main man for the Canberra Times and me as the long (or it felt like that) suffering Chief of Staff for the Deputy Chief Minister.   For his sins he covered ACT local government politics. He specialised in “analysis” pieces on who was who in the ACT zoo.  He tried earnestly to make  that sandpit sound interesting and relevant.  He sometimes succeeded in that difficult task.  At the time ACT politics had moved out of its feral beginnings and was just mildly  eccentric. Michael, like most journos in Canberra, was in thrall with the new broom approach of opposition leader and later Chief Minister Kate Carnell. Like Keating before her in the federal sphere she was the toast of the press until she finally crashed and burned over the financing of Bruce Stadium.  For a long time her charisma and networking had the local press lauding her,  hinting at her ability to turn water into wine and, most importantly, ignoring her often glaring weaknesses.  She deserved to crash well before then but that is another story for another time. 

Back to Michael.  Like his earlier coverage of Kate I believe he has acquired a major case of Stockholm syndrome with Bill Shorten.  The coverage in the most recent Weekend Australian under the heading Right on target to boot out Labor veterans is at best a nauseating pap piece. At worst, and more accurately, it is a partisan piece which is an inappropriate use of the press to advance one person over another in a factional brawl.  Bachelard has left the stands and is down on the field as a runner. 

After quotes like “Shorten, 38, is a star. Even his sworn enemies concede the Australian Workers Union secretary has talent and will make a contribution in Canberra.” its time Bachelard told News Limited to keep that weeks salary and submit a invoice to Bill. 

How is Bill a star?  Crunching numbers is hardly a star quality.  What has he actually done?  Who are these sworn enemies and what did they actually say.  Lots of assertions and not many facts.  It is lazy sloppy journalism and typical of the hagiography that Bachelard engages in when he goes starry eyed over a political operator.  No doubt Bill can be charming.  But when Bachelard went from short pants at the Canberra Times to wearing big peoples clothes at the Australian one would have thought he would have sort of looked beyond the cliches and political hackery which are Bills strong suits. 

It is worth reading (or listening to) the most recent Background Briefing and get an idea of some of the real problems with the ALP, one of which is loading up the front bench with union hacks and political operators.  Not that it is a new problem.  Kim Beazley Snr once famously declared:

When I joined the Labor Party as a boy, the branches were filled with the cream of the working class.  When I leave it, it has been replaced by the dregs of the middle class.

(The Dictionary of Australian Quotations, Mandarin, 1992).

It is even truer now.  And Bill ain’t in the cream category, unless it is linked to the word “puff.”

This day in 1945 773 British Avro Lancaster bombers dropped 2,500 tons of bombs onto Dresden’s city centre.  It left 135,000 dead and the capital of Saxony, nicknamed the Florence on the Elbe, a smoking ruin.  In a war full of excesses in the name of strategic or tactical advantage, the shelling of Monte Casino, the bombing of Cleves to mention but a few, the bombing of Dresden stands out. The critisism of Harris was so strong that he moved to South Africa after the war.

I think Harris got a bad wrap.  World War II, like World War I and the wars of the preceding half centures were total wars between the people.  It wasn’t a war involving small armies marching till they met each other, engaged in a day or two long battle and then maneuvered again until one side sought an armistace.  Sherman’s march to the sea during the US Civil War was aimted at breaking the South’s economy and will to fight . As his army marched through Georgia he burnt plantations and did whatever he could to “make Georgia howl.” It worked.  In the later stages of 1864 and 1865 desertions in the Confederate armies were endemic as soldiers rushed back to their homes.  What Harris did was a logical next step from what had been done before and he did it with the knowledge and blessing of his political masters. 

International jurisprudence has sought to make total war a thing of the past.  There has been enough lip service but no real test.  We haven’t had a war involving major powers on either side and big enough stakes to see whether they will exercise restraint when the chips are down.  Wars are about winning and to win you need to fight and to fight you need to kill.  If attacking your opponents cities and cowing their populace is what is required then that will probably happen. 

Interestingly city bombing didn’t work on morale in World War II as expected.  If anything it strengthened resolve until the overall war situation got really bad and then it pushed morale into free fall.  What it did do well was  dislocating industry and soak up huge resources in anti aircraft defences. 

Lleyton Hewitt’s claim of invasion of privacy is no more.  Down at the Downing Centre local court Hewitt settled and the invasion of privacy case is no more.

That doesn’t mean there is no good reason for a test case.  It is just a matter of time.

That Australia does not have a right to privacy is an inexplicable gap in our law.  Who would have thought Lleyton Hewitt would want to remedy this situation.  The Sydney Morning Herald reports a fascinating test case in the Dowing Centre Local Court.  Even if he wins in a claim for invasion of privacy it sets no precedent if that is where matters end.  But if it goes on appeal and works its way to the Supreme Court then we might be seeing new law.  That is a long way off and there has been way too many false dawns in this area of law. 

And about time this issue was properly tested. The High Court skirted the issue in ABC v Lenah Meats but decided that wasn’t the case.  Its time for a common law right to privacy.  The legislature has been hopeless in protecting what most of the rest of the world regards as a fairly basic right.  At the moment any claim of invasion of privacy is prosecuted as a mixed trespass and nuisance claim. 

 C’mon!

All of the adulation in the press about Wee willy Shorten taking on a seat and ultimately leadership of the Parliamentary wing of the ALP is nauseating.  The guy is connected and gets plenty of coverage but what has he actually done?  What does he believe in?  The  Daily Flute had an opening salvo against him last Friday.  And fair enough. 

I had dealings with Shorten at Monash and found him to be a less than impressive machine operator straight out of central casting.  Said all the things right wing wannabees said and pulled all the undergrad tricks in the eternal but ultimately unproductive factional fights Uni labor politics is famous for.  But the thing is that Bill, of Xavier heritage and blue blood tradition, believed in a lot of not very much but power.  His soundings in the press has been a lift from US management books.  At least his MBA has been put to goodish use.  He markets himself as a Tony Blair/Bill Clinton for Australia, the new brand of social democrat who will outmaneuvre the conservatives by being friends of the middle class while keeping a foot in the working class camp. 

An empty suit who knows how to hustle the contacts. 

It was always a treat to catch the Munsters.  As I was growing up it was classic Saturday morning fare.  It was just great slapstick non message comedy.  Not as good as the Three stooges but great fun. 

So it is sad to read that Grandpa Munster has died at age 82. 

Vale Al Lewis.  From a better era in television. 

Nothing like 3 hours in a plane from Zagreb to Paris, 8 hours in Paris, another 12 hours from Paris to Singapore and another 6 hours from Singapore to home to make yesterday a total blur.  I sorta remember getting home and then it was time for a fall down, get up, fall down, have a shower, fall down and get up in the wee hours today.

So back in the saddle in chambers and ready to contribute to the legal world of Melbourne.

Cheers all and keep watching the blog.