Issue 814

Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Budget Skewed to Military Spending

So once again paranoia rules, okay? Cabinet has decided, and Treasurer Peter Costello has announced (rather reluctantly, one suspects) that the budget priority this year is defence - more precisely the pursuit of the War Against Terror and the build up of Border Protection. Other less necessary programs such as health, education, welfare, child care, the environment, Aborigines - the lot in fact - will just have to suffer so that the boys can have new and updated toys.

A suspicious mind might almost see this as some kind of reward for their political cooperation over the whole dismal saga which began with the Tampa and is still going on in the senate inquiry into A Certain Maritime Incident, but there is no real need to be conspiratorial. For Howard, the maintenance of an atmosphere of fear and loathing, threat and terror, is simply good politics.

The longer he can portray himself as Iron John, the great War leader, the safer is his position within his own party. Should peace break out, he may once again be seen as superfluous, as was even his great namesake, Sir Winston Churchill, in the aftermath to World War II. Hence Costello’s lack of enthusiasm for the proposed military escalation.

Certainly, from a purely economic (or even commonsense) standpoint, it doesn’t make much sense. John W Howard’s contribution to George W Bush’s excellent adventure has so far involved just 150 ground troops and a certain amount of air support which (as far as we can make out through the fog of unnecessary censorship) has not yet gone anywhere near a war zone - not that the mighty Afghan Air Force would present much of a challenge if it did.

We also have a ship in the Arabian Gulf, waiting patiently for the restart of the war to rid the world of Saddam Hussein, which will probably begin as soon as Washington can convince the Israelis to scale down their own little caper sufficiently to allow the rest of the Arab world to abandon any thought of unifying around Iraq. But even then it is hard to see what, if any, additional contribution Australia could make which would go beyond a token presence to assure George W that yes, we really do still care.

As for border protection - well, it was always a myth, and in any case our walking dead Immigration Minister, Phillip Ruddock, has been telling us for months that the flood has been stemmed, the tide has turned, the hordes have been repulsed, and so forth. The decision to continue at the present level, let alone reinforce what the tabloids call our Wall of Steel, would suggest that either he is lying or that the whole operation was a fraud from the beginning or both.

I know where I am putting my money.

On the face of it the choice implied in the coming budget would seem the perfect case for a free parliamentary vote, in which members could use their own moral and ethical standards to decide whether they want to divert scarce budget dollars from humanitarian activities to fighting the Pentagon’s battles and turning back asylum seekers. But under the peculiar conventions of our parliament, such a choice is not considered to be a matter of conscience.

Conscience only applies when policy may involve a conflict with the edicts of the more conservative Christian churches; it is confined to such areas as capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion and homosexuality. Thus the proposed legislation on stem cell research, involving as it does the fate of unwanted human embryos, is a matter for individual MPs, guided by their own consciences and also by a ferocious and vindictive campaign led by the Vatican.

John Howard’s own conscience has led him to the totally illogical compromise whereby existing embryos may be used for research with the consent of the donor, but future ones may not; instead they are to be destroyed out of hand. Fortunately this silliness will be up for review before the supply runs out, but Howard has merely postponed a show down.

This must be one Costello is hoping Little Johhny can stick around for;as a Christian conservative, but one who is desperately trying to project a quassi-progressive, more or less rational image, Costello could really be caught in what Gough Whitlam once described as a conflict of disloyalties if he was forced to a choice.

Better, far better, to forget the whole confused notion of conscience votes and make party policy binding in every case. After all, if it’s good enough for declarations of war and the establishment of concentration camps for boat people, surely it’s good enough for scientific research. As long, of course, as said research is not used to benefit unmarried couples or (shudder) lesbians. Then Howard’s conscience really would have to step in.

Her name, incidentally, is Janette.