AUSTRALIA'S POLITICAL CULTURE WAR

How Australians see themselves has become a theme for the coming election

The small town of Taylors Arm, in the rolling farmlands of northern New South Wales, was once famous as the setting for "A Pub With No Beer", an Australian country song. The customers who flocked to the pub for Australia Day on January 26th were displaying a fashion that has not been much in evidence in the 50 years since the song was a hit: many were carrying an Australian flag, or had one stamped on their bodies. Until recently, the flag was rarely flaunted. Now, few politicians risk a television statement without being seen to be standing next to it.

As Australia's federal parliament came back this week from its lengthy summer break, the flag's rebirth has become a symbol of the so-called "culture wars" that are likely to reverberate through the general election later this year. John Howard, the prime minister, who will be seeking a fifth term for his conservative coalition government, has successfully stoked these wars to win four elections since 1996. But this time he is facing Kevin Rudd, who took over as leader of the opposition Labor Party in December and who has staked out a tough response to Mr Howard's cultural definition of Australia.

An opinion poll on February 6th gave Labor a 12-point lead over the government, after the distribution of second-preference votes, compared with the two points it had just before Mr Rudd's ascension. Voters also rated Mr Rudd 16 points ahead of Mr Howard in their approval rating (compared with an 18-point deficit for Kim Beazley, Mr Rudd's predecessor). Despite these good showings, however, Mr Rudd faces a big battle to persuade voters to buy his picture of themselves.

The culture war stems from a bid, by the Labor government defeated in 1996, to redraw Australia's national identity. Labor's picture of the country focused on multiculturalism, closer ties with Asia, breaking the constitutional link with the British monarchy and making amends for past wrongs to indigenous people.

Mr Howard robustly rejected all that. On Australia Day last year (the holiday marks the British settlement of Australia in 1788), he launched a campaign to revive the teaching of Australian history in schools and to recapture the "values, traditions and accomplishments of the old Australia". This was code for the old British, pre-multicultural Australia.

In a speech last October the prime minister lauded certain historians who had rebuffed "the black armband view of Australian history". To Mr Howard, this mournful version paints the country's story as "a litany of sexism, racism and class warfare" and is a product of the "posses of political correctness".

Mr Rudd countered in November with "Howard's Brutopia", an article in the MONTHLY, a centre-left journal. He called the prime minister's culture war a strategy drawn from the American Republican Party, designed to raise fears and then offer voters what appear to be old certainties: "tradition versus modernity, absolutism versus moral relativism, monoculture versus multiculture". All this, pronounces Mr Rudd, is a cover for "the values debate...that Howard is desperate not to have". He defines the debate he wants as a battle between treating people fairly and the "market fundamentalism" of Mr Howard's economic policies.

The unfurling of flags in Taylors Arm and elsewhere suggests that Mr Howard's brand of inward-looking Anglo nationalism may still be doing rather well. But, come the election, Mr Rudd has other things on his side: relative youth (at 49 he is 18 years Mr Howard's junior), stability and drive. He has made the running with climate change and education, two issues that register strongly with voters. On the other hand, Mr Howard has the advantage of incumbency, a successful record as a ruthless political strategist and an economy that is humming into its 16th year of uninterrupted growth.

The opinion poll identified a large corps of swing-voters. No doubt it will be they who decide which way the election goes, and perhaps the culture war too.

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Big money in being a top Greenie

Australian of the Year Tim Flannery is cashing in on his top gong while accusing industrial giants of running a smear campaign against him. The climate change crusader confirmed he was charging up to $US50,000 ($64,600) to deliver speeches to American corporations - making him Australia's all-time highest paid public speaker. "If it's investment banks and that sort of stuff, you charge them, you know," Professor Flannery said yesterday. He revealed he received $US50,000 for a speech last year - before he collected his award - and will soon be paid the same amount for stepping up to the microphone on an upcoming speaking tour of the US.

But he said he charged "much less" for speeches in Australia and often gave presentations for free. Professor Flannery said he intended to donate 10 per cent of his earnings to a yet-to-be-nominated environmental fund as demand for his services skyrocket. The scientist, explorer and best-selling author said he was fielding up to 20 speaking requests a day from around the world since being named Australian of the Year on January 26.

But he said the honour was soured by a campaign to "blacken his name" and discredit his views on global warming. "There is a real attempt to marginalise me and what I say," he said.

Professor Flannery, 51, stressed that he did not charge for any presentations directly related to his duties as Australian of the Year. And he said $US50,000 was at the extreme top end. But the $US50,000 price tag puts Professor Flannery ahead of other Australians including Paul Keating, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Ian Thorpe and Lleyton Hewitt. They are believed to charge up to $A35,000.

Yesterday Professor Flannery told the Australian Workers Union biannual meeting - in an appearance he did not charge for - that claims he wanted to shut down the coal industry were untrue. But he admitted he had some reservations about the viability of clean coal technology.

Greens leader Bob Brown meanwhile said the economic cost of pursuing so-called "clean coal" technology was comparable with shutting down the coal industry. He controversially proposed last week to ban coal exports and coal fired power generation, a move which would cost an estimated 20,000 jobs in Queensland and cripple the state's economy.

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Meddling with families rejected -- so far

[Queensland] Premier Peter Beattie has rejected a call to close a legal loophole allowing parents to smack their children, saying it would make him a hypocrite. Former Education Minister Dean Wells yesterday called for a legislative ban on parents smacking their children, saying as it was "unlawful to hit your next door neighbour with a stick, it ought to be unlawful to hit your kids with a stick". Mr Wells, the member for Murrumba, said corporal punishment of children was not linked with better behaviour.

But the Premier yesterday said although he respected Mr Wells' view, he did not share it. "I have to plead guilty, I'm not going to be a hypocrite," Mr Beattie said. "I have smacked my three children. It's about moderation. "It's not about crazy violence in any way but I think that any parent has the right, in my view within reason - provided there's no permanent damage or injury - to smack their child." Attorney-General Kerry Shine echoed the Premier, saying there were no plans to change or appeal the laws on domestic discipline.

The issue will be discussed at a public forum on children's rights today at Parliament House. The forum, presented by Just Rights Queensland and Concerned Psychologists Queensland, will also include Children's Commissioner Elizabeth Fraser. Ms Fraser will tell the forum that parents have responsibility for raising children and encouraging their involvement in society, including discouraging inappropriate behaviour.

Section 280 of the code states it is lawful for a parent or person in place of a parent to use "by way of correction, discipline, management or control, towards a child or pupil. . . such force as is reasonable under the circumstances". A group of 12 Queensland psychologists lobbied the State Government in 2005 to repeal the law, which dates back to 1899. Dr John Reddington, who represents Concerned Psychologists Queensland - a lobby group opposed to the physical punishment of children - said smacking should be banned, just like capital punishment and drink-driving. He said the practice had been outlawed in schools and in the case of foster parents, creating an "absurd situation". "The whole thing is an illegal mess and needs to be sorted out quite apart from the ethical consideration," Dr Reddington said.

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Do-gooder reproductive tyranny

A leading Queensland IVF doctor says couples are being forced into "reproductive tourism" because they were no longer able to control the gender of their babies in Australia. A Brisbane couple is this week in Los Angeles, spending $40,000 to ensure they fall pregnant with a girl after giving birth to three boys. The treatment was available in Australia until last year when it was banned by a ruling of the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Queensland Fertility Group director David Molloy yesterday called on the council to reconsider its decision before more couples chose "reproductive tourism". "Personally I am in favour of using IVF for gender selection," said Dr Molloy, who is also deputy chairman of the Australian IVF directors group. "Given that couples have been practising informal and unscientific gender-selection for centuries and we have a technique now that finally works, I think it would be reasonable to reconsider the ban."

The Brisbane couple - a 45-year-old businessman and his 37-year-old wife - now in Los Angeles have three young sons and are hoping to complete their family by using the hi-tech genetic process. The woman underwent treatment yesterday, with surgery to insert two of her fertilised female eggs at the Los Angeles clinic of Dr Jeffrey Steinberg, who has pioneered sex-selection technology.

"I've got three boys and I wouldn't swap any of them, but having a girl would be absolutely amazing," the woman told The Courier-Mail yesterday. "I have done my job for Australia - I've had three boys, can't I have one (girl) for me?" Her husband said that, while he would have been happy to have three sons, he wanted to give his wife the chance to have her dream of a daughter come true regardless of the cost. "We are probably above the average wage but it's still a lot of money - mind you, it's not about the money," he said. The woman said the couple had kept the treatment a secret from their friends and almost all of their family due to the controversy surrounding the issue of gender-selection.

Her husband said the couple had struggled with having to lie to Australian authorities when having their initial IVF treatment in Australia before flying to the US for a 10-day trip to have her eggs removed and fertilised in a laboratory, with the female embryos to be re-inserted three days later. The woman's Australian fertility treatment saw her last week produce four eggs, which were extracted in Los Angeles and then fertilised with her husband's sperm. After three days of growing in the lab, a cell was taken from each embryo for a test to determine the gender. Two of the woman's fertilised eggs were female, with those eggs re-inserted yesterday.

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