Worrying honesty about Leftist hypocrisy





Labor frontbencher Peter Garrett [above] has been rocked by his second embarrassing gaffe in a week. Mr Garrett told high-profile Sydney radio identity Steve Price a Rudd Labor government would ditch its "me too" promises once it won power. "Once we get in we will change it all", Mr Garrett told Price at Melbourne airport yesterday. Mr Garrett later claimed his words were intended as a joke. "This was a short, casual conversation which was jocular in nature," Mr Garrett said.

Mr Price's question was prompted by yesterday's Herald Sun front-page which outlined 22 major Government policies in which Mr Rudd had either directly copied or had backed without question. Treasurer Peter Costello seized on Mr Garrett's conversation at the airport, arguing that it proved Labor's tactic of adopting similar policies to the Government was a "pretence". "I think Peter Garrett, in a moment of candour and truth, has really exploded Kevin Rudd's pretence," Mr Costello told Sky News. "Labor has no intention of actually implementing these things. "As Peter Garrett said: 'Once we get in, we will just change it all.' In other words, Labor is saying one thing but it intends to do a very different thing if it gets elected."

Mr Price said later he was certain Mr Garrett's response to his airport question was not spoken as a joke. "He wasn't laughing, it wasn't a joke," Mr Price said last night. He said his recollection of the conversation was that he tackled Mr Garrett directly on the question of Labor's "me too" policies. "I went up and introduced myself to him (Peter Garrett) . . . I had a copy of the Herald Sun in my hand," Mr Price told Southern Cross Radio yesterday. "He said that the "me too' tag will not matter if Labor wins the election because, quote, 'once we get in we'll just change it all'."

Mr Price said he was so surprised by Mr Garrett's frank admission that once the MP had left, he asked TV presenter Richard Wilkins, who was also present, if he had heard correctly. "And he (Mr Wilkins) said 'sure did, he said it all right'," Mr Price said.

But Mr Wilkins, Channel 9's entertainment presenter, said he thought the MP had responded with a "throwaway line" something like "we'll change that when we get in". Mr Wilkins said he was stunned the chat had been recounted on radio and catapulted into the election debate. "Something of that nature was said. It was very much said tongue-in-cheek . . . He didn't mean it to be taken verbatim," Mr Wilkins said. "In hindsight, Peter probably would have chosen his words differently had he known it was going to blow up like this."

Earlier this week, Mr Garrett backtracked on comments about a post-Kyoto protocol after saying Labor would not insist on major polluting nations such as China and India having binding targets. Labor leader Kevin Rudd over-ruled his environment spokesman, insisting that his government would not enter into an agreement which was not binding on all countries.

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Good conservative economic policies promised: Let's hope this does not get "all changed" too

LABOR'S aspiring treasurer, Wayne Swan, has outlined a tough conservative plan to run tight budgets and keep cutting tariffs, setting himself on a potential collision course with colleagues and unions if elected. In an interview with the Herald, Mr Swan said that as treasurer he would not intervene to freeze tariffs to protect industries suffering from the rampaging dollar, such as car makers. "We're not going back, we're going forward," he said. "We won't be going back to a tariff wall."

And he vowed to be "tough" with colleagues wanting to spend heavily to implement their agendas after a decade in the political wilderness. He said he would turn down his cabinet colleagues: "I'm absolutely prepared for it. I make no apologies for the fact that I will be tough. Keeping spending under control is critical." Labor would be ready to deliver its inaugural budget on time in May, he said. There would be two clear priorities for a first Labor budget: "We have a big agenda - with climate change and education there is a degree of urgency."

Spending on less urgent items would need to be cut. Labor, which has listed $3 billion in planned budget cuts already, would announce a second round of spending cuts before the election on November 24. Mr Swan attached less urgency to Labor's proposed national anti-poverty summit, which he endorsed in his 2005 book, Postcodes: The Splintering of a Nation. Yesterday he promised only a "social inclusion agenda". Where the Treasurer, Peter Costello, has criticised some executive pay packets as excessive and issued demands that the banks not raise their retail lending rates, Mr Swan adopted a laissez-faire stance on both issues. He said executive pay "is entirely a matter for the shareholders of the companies concerned". On bank lending rates, he said: "I'm not in the business of giving the banks advice one way or another."

On the sensitive issue of industry protection, Mr Swan said the dollar, at its highest in 23 years against the US currency, made it tough for some manufacturers. "We're dedicated to working with the sector to make sure we maximise our opportunities as we go up the value-added chain. "We'll be at the table with them, but we're not going back, we're going forward."

With fresh fears in world financial markets of a US recession, he said he remained an optimist on the economy. He had faith in Australia's regulators and "first class" Reserve Bank to steer the economy through difficult times. He rejected Mr Costello's prediction in a Herald interview last week that a "huge tsunami" would hit world markets when China floated its currency.

Labor's ambitious agenda on education and training, health, climate change and infrastructure would need to be balanced against the need to control inflation in an economy running out of spare resources. "This conjunction of an economy operating at the limits of its capacity and a new government with new priorities has several implications for the role of Treasury within government," Mr Swan said. Under Labor, the Department of Treasury would be re-engaged as a vital source of advice on "a new wave of micro-economic reform" aimed at enhancing the supply side of the economy and lifting workforce participation towards New Zealand levels of 70 per cent, from 65 per cent now.

Treasury would be consulted on all substantial new spending measures within the cabinet decision-making process. "The Treasury is the most talented group, I think, of individuals located in one central agency that you can point to in the federal bureaucracy," Mr Swan said. Labor was in regular phone contact with Treasury officials, he said, after a meeting with the Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, and several division heads before the start of the campaign.

Mr Swan promised to unveil more budget savings before the election to offset its growing list of spending promises. "We're acutely aware of the need to be responsible in our approach to spending," he said. "The search for savings always goes on." He accused the Government of "dereliction of duty" in failing to invest in measures to expand the capacity of the economy, which had led to higher inflation than otherwise would have been the case. "I don't believe that they have provided the back up to the Reserve Bank that the Reserve Bank has required," he said.

On industrial relations, he promised to be merciless with rogue unionists: "We'll deal with thuggish behaviour . if and when it rears its ugly head." Mr Swan said Labor's industrial relations would be based firmly on enterprise bargaining, with pattern bargaining strictly forbidden.

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Rudd's conservative claim a 'con'

This story was written a few days ago but now seems prophetic

The story of Frank Abagnale jnr, immortalised in the movie Catch Me If You Can is an incredible tale of a con artist who successfully impersonated an airline pilot, doctor, lawyer and history professor, cashing phoney cheques all along the way. It was quite the swindle and not dissimilar to that being perpetrated by Labor leader Kevin Rudd, who has suddenly begun pretending to champion the economic conservative cause.

Within just weeks of his election to the leadership of the Labor Party, Rudd had already proven himself a spin-over-substance man, cutting a TV commercial claiming that a number of people had declared him as an economic conservative, which was a badge he wore with pride. Before that ad, I'd never heard Kevin Rudd described by anyone as an economic conservative and, in perhaps the biggest con of all, not even he himself had claimed to be one until he declared it on TV.

In fact there doesn't appear to be any evidence Kevin Rudd has ever claimed he was an economic conservative in the more than 300 speeches he's made in the Parliament - not even one mention in his maiden speech - which is usually used as an opportunity for new MPs to state what they believe in, what drives them and what their philosophies are. So much for him wearing the description as a "badge of pride". Over his years as a member of parliament, Rudd has continued to prove he is anything but economically conservative.

In 1999 he claimed tax reform would destroy jobs, growth and be "fundamentally unjust". And ever since he has consistently opposed measures to improve our economy, balance the budget and pay off Labor's $96 billion of debt, which has meant we can provide better services, lower taxes and record jobs growth. Only now, when Australia has become one of the strongest developed economies in the world, has Kevin Rudd has suddenly decided he wants in - attempting to con the Australian public that he now supports everything he has opposed since the day of his election to Parliament.

Becoming an economic conservative involves more than just saying a glib line in a TV commercial. Just saying it doesn't make it true - otherwise I'd be booking ads tomorrow claiming that "many people have described me as looking like Brad Pitt". We are no longer in the phoney election campaign; this time it's the real thing and two weeks in, the only policy Rudd can hold up as bearing any semblance to economic conservatism is a tax policy shamelessly plagiarised from the Coalition and cheaply rebadged as his own.

If he were prime minister who would he copy? Who would he impersonate? Unlike Frank Abagnale jnr, if the inexperienced, union-controlled Kevin Rudd were to become prime minister he would actually have to perform that role every single minute of every day - the only difference being, however, that the cheques he would be cashing in would be paid by us.

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Activist judiciary a looming menace for Australia

FRANKLY, there may be more to fear from Labor's lady lawyers than from the union blokes who run the Labor Party. Astute Labor lawyers in a future Rudd government, women such as Julia Gillard, Nicola Roxon and Penny Wong, will surely have their eyes on the real prize: leaving a legacy that will outlast a term or two in government. That legacy may be an activist judiciary. A Rudd government may come and go, but the judges it appoints are there to stay.

To be sure, appointing judges is the right of every government, and the decision rests ultimately with the prime minister. The Howard Government has stacked the High Court with stodgy conservative judges. You know the type. Judges who have that old-fashioned view about democracy under which politicians and the people make the laws and judges implement them. Under a Rudd government, Labor's lady lawyers may champion the need to fashion an entirely different system of justice by appointing judges who have little time for such democratic traditions, preferring a more adventurous role for judges. Whether a prime minister Kevin Rudd could withstand that push remains to be seen.

It's not such a zany prediction given the legal shenanigans in Victoria. Last week, Labor Attorney-General Rob Hulls announced that human rights advocate Lex Lasry will take up a seat on the state's Supreme Court and former ALP member and ACTU assistant secretary Iain Ross will head to the County Court. Hulls, who has apparently appointed more than half of the state's 214 judges since he became A-G in 1999, has been busily revolutionising the Victorian judiciary. Hulls says the judiciary must be more representative. But this representative revolution is not about returning power to the people. Quite the opposite. Hulls has been choosing judges that represent a certain Labor view of the world. Going by the more prominent appointments, we're talking about installing progressive judges who have staked out their preference for ambiguous human rights and international law. Outlandish?

Consider Chris Maxwell. Since 2005, the former civil libertarian president of Liberty Victoria, has presided over the Victorian Court of Appeal. Maxwell is rather keen on bringing nebulous notions of human rights and international law into his courtroom wherever possible. A future Ansett administration? Throw out your copy of the Corporations Law. According to Maxwell, the demise of Ansett demonstrated that "quintessential corporate law issues such as insolvency ... can throw up human rights issues". He has spoken about how his court will "encourage practitioners to develop human-rights based arguments".

Why? Well, let's just say that judges who draw upon international laws invariably use them to reach courtroom decisions that have more to do with their own grand personal preferences than the tedious rule of law and pesky domestic laws. Take former academic Marcia Neave, appointed to the Victorian Court of Appeal in 2006. As head of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, she advocated the courtroom as a change agent, suggesting that if you're looking for a quick way to change the law, go looking for a judge.

And Hulls has made sure there are plenty of judges ready and willing to serve as judicial law-makers. Judges such as Kevin Bell, appointed to the Victorian Supreme Court, who has demanded that judges be given "the necessary tools - you have to introduce a bill of rights". Happily for Bell, Victoria has just such a tool: its Charter of Rights. So let's not beat around the bush. Hulls has appointed those who share his human rights view of the world.

Now, prima facie, human rights are fine notions. But they are deliberately framed in airy language to disarm debate, to put them beyond reproach. Yet their vague nature means they can be twisted this way and that, depending on whether the result a judge wants is this or that. There is little predictability or certainty. The rule of law becomes no obstacle for significant social change.

Social change is a fine thing, too. But it comes down to who should be changing society: elected politicians or unelected judges. Hulls appears to prefer the latter. Call me old-fashioned but this is a fundamental change to the way we make laws. The whole purpose of elections is you get to choose politicians to represent you. If we don't like the laws, out goes the government. Why bother voting for politicians if unaccountable judges, appointed for life, get to make laws under the guise of international human rights law.

At the moment, this postmodern version of democracy is largely confined to the poor punters in Victoria. We need to hear from Rudd that this is not a precursor of similar change at a federal level under the ALP. Rudd says he is an economic conservative. He appears to be a social conservative, last week rejecting the idea of gay marriage. But where is he on the judiciary's role? There are plenty of Labor lawyers only too eager to push for more activist-minded judges.

Mention judicial activism and the usual refrain is that this is a meaningless term used by those who don't like the decisions of some judges. That's poppycock. It is a valid term if properly defined. Academic Greg Craven summed it up rather nicely a few years ago when he described judicial activists as those who believe "parliaments are untrustworthy, executives nasty and the people unreliable".

There will be plenty of opportunities for a judicial makeover, with HC justice Michael Kirby and Chief Justice Murray Gleeson soon to retire. If Labor is really impatient, they could simply legislate to increase the number of HC justices from seven to nine. There were murmurs about that before the 2004 election. And Labor has done it before.

As The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia records, when one of the founding HC justices died in 1912, Labor attorney-general Billy Hughes quickly legislated to increase the HC by an additional two judges, allowing the government to make three appointments in the last few months of office.

Who might we see as our leading judges? Rumours swirling around include human rights silk Julian Burnside as a possible future chief justice of the Federal Court and Labor lawyer George Williams scoring a seat on the High Court. Some wags are even saying that Labor's favourite Sydney silk, Bret Walker, is quietly boasting that he has been assured a seat on the High Court. And here's the irony. In government, Labor may end up appointing judges who have nothing but disdain for politicians and parliament and, yes, the people. Let's hear from Rudd that this is not on the cards.

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THERE MAY BE NO POST-KYOTO DEAL AT ALL

Global cooling should be much more in evidence by then, anyway. So that will be a good excuse

THERE's one of two things happening out there on climate change. Either the Coalition and Labor are combining to pull the wool over our eyes on what we want from a Kyoto II global agreement - or they are positioning Australia yet again to walk out on a global deal. If you've been listening casually to this week's claims and counter-claims on climate change, you might well think that both sides have pledged that they will not sign up to any post-Kyoto agreement unless it requires developing countries to cut emissions. But it's not so simple. Listen closely to what they're saying, and it's far more vague than that.

Mr Rudd says Labor will insist on "commitments" by developing countries as part of Kyoto II. Mr Howard says developing countries must be "part of the agreement" so it "applies in an appropriate way to all the world's major emitters". A bit vague? Let's try their ministers. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Kyoto II must "include obligations by developing countries". Fran Kelly on Tuesday on the ABC tried to get him to specify those obligations. "You have to take into consideration a number of factors here, but if everybody makes a reasonably equitable contribution to addressing the issue of greenhouse gas emissions - developing countries argue for a differentiated commitment - but if they all make a commitment nevertheless, then we should be able to get the balance right."

What did that mean? Kelly pressed on, and Downer kept fluttering away. "Well, there will be different approaches," he said. "The central point here is the challenge to get them to make a contribution ... We would not agree to an agreement where developing countries didn't make any contribution."

Why are they all so vague? Because they all know that the key developing countries are not going to agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions for years, until they are approaching the levels the Western countries are at.

Look at the panel accompanying our news report. The US in 2004 pumped 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for each of its 300 million people. Australia pumped out 19.4 tonnes - yet China produced only 3.6 tonnes per head, Indonesia 1.4 tonnes (excluding forest fires), India one tonne and Bangladesh just 270 kilograms. Does anyone (apart from The Australian and the odd ABC interviewer) seriously think that China, India and Bangladesh are going to agree to reduce their emissions from these levels?

That's why their "commitments" will be token things. China's President Hu Jintao made that clear when he visited Australia for the recent APEC summit. China, he pointed out, has made commitments to reduce its energy intensity (the amount of energy used for each unit of output) by 20 per cent, to increase its use of renewable energy, to increase forest coverage to 20 per cent of its land mass, and so on.

That's all good if it happens. But as Professor Ross Garnaut has pointed out, China is growing so fast that it could reduce its energy intensity by 40 per cent by 2020 and its emissions would still more than double. Keep listening carefully, and hope that Howard and Rudd stay vague. Otherwise there will be no Kyoto II at all.

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