Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Disaster brings out our best - and worst

The scale of the catastrophe in the countries affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami is almost incomprehensible. But one aspect of it might put it into some sort of perspective.

In Sri Lanka, a commuter train running between Colombo and Galle was washed off its tracks killing some 1500 passengers. This was by far the worst rail disaster in history; no previous death toll has even come close to it.

In normal circumstances it would have made headlines around the world followed by scores of sympathetic features and editorials. In the context of the Boxing Day tragedy it barely rated a footnote.

It is hardly surprising that the world was caught by flat-footed and that the initial response was both slow and inadequate. But it is pleasing to report that Australia has behaved better than most on both government and private levels.

We were the first country to get relief planes in the air and our promises of official aid, though initially modest, have grown as the demands have become clearer.

John Howard has seized the opportunity to re-establish Australia's credentials in the neighbourhood and has done so in a measured and tactful way.

Corporate Australia was at first more reluctant to open its moth-filled wallet, but has since been shamed by the generosity of the Lonely Planet group into making a serious contribution. And the people, as usual, have been magnificent and munificent.

Money, for the moment at least, is no problem, although once again the inadequacy of the machinery needed to turn it into tangible relief on the ground has been sadly demonstrated.

Australia's response has, of course, not been perfect: there have been the usual examples of selfishness, though to be fair they have generally been more crass than vicious. The tourists who still intend to holiday in Phuket, believing that the hard-working Thais should have the mess cleaned up for them in a week or so will presumably be disillusioned pretty quickly. And the man who was furious at not being immediately repatriated at public expense "because my holiday is already ruined" could be accused of insensitivity. Those who say that it doesn't matter much to them because they are only there for the beer and the bar girls are probably incorrigible.

But the only real nastiness came from our religious leaders. The Anglican Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen, said the waves were caused by God's anger with human immorality: "Disasters are part of his warning that judgement is coming," Jensen ranted. And in a rare example of religious harmony, the chief executive of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Amjad Mehboob, concurred: it could not have happened unless it was God's will.

In other words, their God(s) were quite happy to knock off a couple of hundred thousand innocent people, about half of them children, and cause untold misery to millions more, just to let the rest of us know that we are under surveillance.

Given the record of war and destruction unleashed by Jensen's and Mehboob's co-religionists, it is tempting to reply with a secular quote from the satirist Tom Lehrer: "What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man."

But if we must get metaphysical, then Shakespeare, as always, said it best: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."

But before we get too gloomy, Howard and his fellow ministers would like to bring us some good news: the Australian-American Free Trade Agreement came into force on January 1.

We were probably preoccupied with booze and fireworks at the time, but midnight on Friday was a time for extra rejoicing. The great marketplace of the USA is now open for our exports: well, up to a point. Actually practically none of the benefits are immediate and most of them are so circumscribed with terms and conditions that they are hardly benefits at all, but hey, it's still a wonderful achievement: all the economic rationalists agree.

And what about the bargains for the punters at home, with all the reductions on the price of American imports? Tariffs on clothing and textiles down by 7.5percent; on carpets and footwear by 5 percent and the same on those great American cars. There are going to be some real cheapies around, right?

Well no, actually. Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, one of the more enthusiastic spruikers for the FTA, says that prices on clothing and footwear actually have nothing much to do with tariffs (then why bother to cut them and lose the revenue?) and that the motor vehicle industry is already very, very competitive so don't get your hopes up.

A spokeswoman for Holden even suggested that the 5 percent cut could easily be swallowed up in currency movements (although for some reason currency movements in the other direction never seem to bring prices down either). So presumably the American manufacturers will simply add the tariff reductions to their own profit sheets with no benefit whatsoever to the Australian consumer, and Australian jobs will continue to disappear.

This, of course, is exactly what critics of the deal warned against all those months ago. Bloody party poopers.