Australia's welcome to the Great White Fleet helped to forge a strong bond

By Donald C. Winter, Secretary of the US Navy

In the United States, as we honour the 100th anniversary of the Great White Fleet, Americans are learning about the US Navy's historic achievement in sending a fleet of 16 battleships around the world. They are also learning about Theodore Roosevelt's role as godfather of this mission, and about the many positive consequences of his audacious idea. Given that the US Fleet's reception in Australia was considered one of the highlights - if not the highlight - of the world tour, many Australians might be interested to know more about Theodore Roosevelt's historic contributions to the US-Australia relationship.

Roosevelt, before becoming US president in 1902, was assistant secretary of the navy. Roosevelt was at the time already a famous naval historian, having written the definitive work on the War of 1812. He was a passionate believer in the value of a navy in defending a nation's interests, exemplified in a speech at the US Naval War College on June 2, 1897, where Roosevelt noted that "far from being in any way a provocation to war, an adequate and highly trained navy is the best guaranty against war".

As president, Roosevelt put his ideas into action. He pushed Congress relentlessly to build up the navy, convinced America's role in the world would largely depend on its ability to defend its interests using naval power. In 1907, he conceived the idea of sending the fleet on a round-the-world cruise. Those battleships - whose hulls were painted white - became known as the Great White Fleet.

One of the important objectives of the world tour was to develop relationships with other navies. It was envisaged as a diplomatic outreach to foreign lands, particularly countries such as Australia and Japan, where US Navy ships had seldom gone before.

The Great White Fleet's engagement with Australia - which included port visits to Sydney, Melbourne and Albany in August and September 1908 - was particularly successful. The reception its sailors and marines received was so overwhelming that they came back to the United States with a deep and abiding affection for the Australian people.

Australians opened up their arms and their hearts to their American guests - even commemorating the event on Australian postage stamps. One recent author wrote that Australia's interest in the visit of the American fleet of battleships was so intense that half the population of Sydney "remained awake the entire night, and thousands upon thousands of them long before night was over were on their way to the hilltops outside the city limits, where they massed seemingly in unbroken lines to view the spectacle. Estimates of the number of spectators vary from 500,000 to 650,000."

This experience in diplomatic outreach to Australia set the stage for a century of closer ties and warm relations between the United States and Australia. I have been told that the visit played a very significant role in persuading the Australian and British leadership that it was time for Australia to begin building a navy.

To the extent that America's Great White Fleet played a role in spurring the expansion of the Royal Australian Navy, I am pleased that we had such an impact. We believe that the RAN and the US Navy's global operations have served the interests of both of our nations - in war and in peace. Since the US Navy's historic visit to Australia, a series of significant events have expanded our ties and deepened our relationship, particularly between our two navies. Additional bonds of friendship were forged between us during the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942, and they continued to strengthen as the war progressed in the Pacific.

We have learned that we can always count on the Aussies, and the Aussies can always count on us. This has proved true during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

On behalf of the US Navy, I would like to thank the Australian people for the extraordinary hospitality you showed us 100 years ago, and which you have continued to show us over these many years. We enjoy a unique relationship with the RAN, and it is one we cherish. May the bonds of friendship between our Navies and our Nations always be strong and based on mutual respect.

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NSW: The State of corruption

In 1998 the lid was lifted on the corrupt world of NSW railways, revealing that supplying prostitutes could win you a contract, fake medical certificates signed by a dead doctor would get you a day off work, and you could claim overtime while playing golf. Ten years later it seems little has changed in RailCorp and the stench of corruption is slowly engulfing the NSW public sector.

In past 12 months the Independent Commission Against Corruption has held inquiries into three State Government agencies - the Roads and Traffic Authority, RailCorp and the Department of Housing; the NSW Fire Brigades has joined the list this week. The commission has begun investigating claims that the former brigade project managers Christian Sanhueza and Clive Taylor awarded $6 million in contracts between 2005 and 2007, using fake tenders to give contracts to shelf companies controlled by Mr Sanhueza. Contracts were then sub-contracted to cheaper building firms, allegedly netting the pair almost $2.5 million.

Ken Phillips, the director of the work reform unit at the Institute of Public Affairs, said the NSW public service was "rotten to the core". "The governments in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland are pretty clean governments but NSW has never got over the rum rebellion," Mr Phillips said. "NSW is very tribal and you have a mates culture in NSW that does not belong in any other state, which leads to an acceptance of sanctified corruption."

The fire brigade allegations are the latest to tarnish the public service and follow ICAC uncovering $22 million in fraudulent RailCorp contracts being awarded, including $3 million in kickbacks to rail staff, in one of the biggest investigations in the commission's history. The inquiry, the seventh corruption investigation of the NSW railways since 1992, also revealed a welding manager defrauded RailCorp of $4.28 million and a contracts officer helped herself to $650,000. They were among eight people recommended for prosecution. RailCorp was also under the corruption spotlight last year when it was discovered that an engineer, Said Marcos, awarded air-conditioning contracts to his mates, landing himself at least $710,000.

But the problems are not confined to the railways. In January this year, the commission investigated a state housing official, Douglas Norris, who took bribes to let people jump the public housing waiting list. He also allowed homes to be used by drug dealers. It emerged that Mr Norris operated a bribes-for-accommodation scheme with alleged drug dealers and other housing tenants who acted as middlemen. Tenants paid between $500 and $700 for a bedsit or between $1500 and $1700 for a two- or three-bedroom flat.

And last year a Roads and Traffic Authority registry manager, Paul McPherson, was investigated by the commission after he provided at least 100 motorists the answers to their L-plate licence tests and gave advance warning of the route of their driving tests. False email records were also created to allow migrant New Zealanders to obtain NSW drivers' licences as part of the scam.

At least 12 public servants or contractors are facing criminal charges for their roles in various corrupt activities, and so widespread is the problem in RailCorp that the massive bureaucracy is struggling to implement the internal reforms required to fix its problems. In a parliamentary inquiry into ICAC last month, the commissioner, Jerrold Cripps, said RailCorp had "flooded" the commission with work yet the Government was often extremely slow or had failed to implement the recommendations handed down by the commission. "The perception is that we keep exposing it and nothing happens," Mr Cripps told the inquiry.

The former Liberal premier Nick Greiner established the anti-corruption commission 20 years ago to stop the "half-hearted and cosmetic approaches to preventing public-sector corruption". At the time Mr Greiner said: "We have seen a minister of the Crown jailed for bribery; an inquiry into a second, and indeed a third, former minister for alleged corruption; the former chief stipendiary magistrate jailed for perverting the course of justice; a former commissioner of police in the courts on a criminal charge [and] . a disturbing number of dismissals, retirements and convictions of senior police officers for offences involving corrupt conduct."

Yesterday Mr Greiner said the commission appeared to be doing a good job but both sides of politics often "hid behind" its investigations rather than addressing potentially damaging problems.

The Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, said the corruption allegations in the public service would continue as long as the Government failed to be transparent and allowed "people to operate in the shadows". "It unfairly sullies the name of every public servant and unfairly casts a shadow over the whole of the NSW public service," Mr O'Farrell said.

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Climate awareness really goes awry! 'Too cold' for global warming torch relay

Who says that Mother Nature doesn't have a sense of humor? First we have an August 14 report from the Lithgow Mercury in Australia announcing a Climate Torch relay to draw attention to the importance of global warming:

The Olympic torch relay might not have made it to our part of the world but tomorrow Lithgow will share in another torch relay of global importance. And you are invited to take part.

An organisation called GetUp! has arranged a Climate Torch relay from Hassans Walls lookout to Queen Elizabeth Park as part of a nation-wide campaign to focus even more attention on the impact and urgency of global warming. A spokesman said that through GetUp! the community has an opportunity to show the nation's leaders how important the issue is to the man and woman in the street. "By taking part in this Australia wide campaign the people of Lithgow can show the rest of the country that we are prepared to stand up - and walk -for what we believe in," she said.

Anyone who can't make it to Hassans Walls for the start is welcome to join in anywhere along the route to the park.

The Climate Torch was designed by the same people who designed the Olympic Torch. "It is solar and wind powered, just in case the pollies need a hint, and people power will get it to its final destination in Canberra," she said.

Climate events coordinator Richie Merzien said Lithgow had been chosen to be part of the relay because of its unique environmental significance.

So how effective was this relay in stressing the importance of global warming? You can get an idea of how it turned out by reading the August 19 headline of the same Lithgow Mercury: "Too cold for global warming relay." Here is their report on actual relay field conditions as written by Len Ashworth:

Climate change may be THE hot international issue of the moment but enthusiasm for the cause clearly wanes on a freezing Friday afternoon when the campaign moves to a mountain top where the wind chill factor is below zero.

This was perhaps the predictably disappointing outcome when the GetUp! climate change lobby group organised an enviro torch relay from Hassans Walls Lookout to Queen Elizabeth Park to focus public attention on the issue.

Ironically, global warming would probably have been welcomed by the handful of hardy souls who turned up to lend their support to the campaign on one of the coldest Lithgow days of this or any other year.

It is unknown if Al Gore was one of those carrying the global warming relay torch in the freezing weather.

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Dark green barbarians

By Craig Emerson (Craig Emerson is the Minister for Small Business in the Rudd Government)

When we look around the world and find that prosperity is rising strongly in some countries but not in others, seekers of the secret formula for success ask why. Lots of temporary causes come into play: oil discoveries, tourism fads such as safari experiences and even countries setting themselves up as tax havens. But these passing influences don't really tell us what overall government policy approaches will give a country its best chance of success in the prosperity stakes.

Since about 1990 a new body of economic thinking has attributed rising prosperity to the development and application of new ideas. These new growth theorists point out that if the history of the human race were represented by the length of a football field, then living standards were basically unchanged for the entire length of the field other than the last 5cm before the far goal line. But over that last few centimetres, living standards have increased astronomically.

This period of rapidly improving living standards began with the Enlightenment in Europe in the 18th century. New ideas were encouraged and a critical mass of thinkers and inventors was achieved. Enlightenment thinkers repudiated the mysticism and superstition of pre-Enlightenment Europe, advocating instead personal freedom, open, competitive markets and scientific endeavour.

David Hume, one of the Enlightenment figures, and a close friend of Adam Smith, summed up with his statement that a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. Isaac Newton understood the cumulative power of ideas when he said: "If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." James Watt's steam engine ushered in the Industrial Revolution and the rest, as they say, is history.

Deadly diseases were conquered and life expectancy increased. Yes it was a blood-stained 5cm, fouled by slavery, the exploitation of child labour, two world wars, state-sponsored mass starvation and genocide. Yet through the period living standards rose inexorably.

But now mysticism and superstition are making a comeback. Their revival began in the '80s with attacks on economic rationalism. Rational economic thinking was condemned in favour of economic irrationalism: ongoing protectionism, deficit financing by printing money, maintaining airlines and banks in public ownership and expanding the role of the state in the commercial world through clever devices such as WA Inc and the Tricontinental merchant bank.

By the '90s, economic irrationalists had declared competition as the new heresy, attacking the Keating government's National Competition Policy which is estimated to have increased household incomes by $3500 per annum. Twenty-first century mysticism and superstition is finding expression in the big environmental debates. Deep green extremists yearn for a return to a pre-industrial society, before the Enlightenment when faith and dogma prevailed over rational thinking and evidence-based science. In this gentle agrarian society (absent environmentally destructive hard-hoofed farm animals), human beings are tolerated, as long as they leave no carbon footprint. These deep-green crusaders have declared their opposition to coalmining even if emerging technologies were to reduce its emissions to zero, since coal is regarded as an ugly reminder of an industrial society.

Governments of Europe and the US have draped a green cloak of respectability over their farm-subsidising biofuels policies that divert massive amounts of food grain into the production of ethanol. In the name of saving the Earth from ecological disaster, these brutal policies have been responsible for an estimated 70 per cent of the sharp increases in world food prices over the past few years, plunging an extra 100 million people into poverty.

Recycling, we are told, is a good way to do our bit saving the environment. Anyone questioning the environmental benefits of recycling is branded a heretic. In some cities, up to 80 per cent of glass collected for recycling actually ends up in landfill because the cost of separating the different colours of glass is too high. But we feel good.

As director-general of the Queensland environment department in the early '90s I inquired into the life-cycle benefits of container deposit legislation. Glass bottles destined for reuse need to be many times the thickness of those that are melted down or disposed of in landfill. We discovered that by the time account was taken of the energy and water costs of collecting, transporting and washing the bottles, reuse of bottles was bad for the environment. We dared not release the results of the study for fear of being howled down as environmental vandals.

Recycling of some materials makes good environmental sense but of others it does not. Recycling proposals should be evaluated on the basis of good scientific evidence and not pursued simply because they make us feel good.

Consumer magazines such as Choice have begun to expose as greenwash the claims companies make about their products in an attempt to cash in on environmental ignorance. A bottle of air freshener is claimed to be biodegradable, but only the cardboard packet is. Products are promoted as being CFC-free, a true but irrelevant claim since all CFCs were banned in the late '90s. Some items are said to be made from renewable forest products, as if some species of trees are non-renewable.

Free-range chickens and organic fruit are good. But watch out for the next innovation: free-range fruit. Can you imagine the advertisement featuring dancing fruit trees all singing in harmony: "give me land, lots of land 'neath the starry skies above, don't fence me in." And remember, when you're told a product is 90 per cent fat-free, they're really telling you it's 10 per cent pure fat. The message is clear: irrationality sells and any questioning of spurious environmental claims is an act of heresy. It's time for an Australian Enlightenment, where once again reason and facts prevail over mysticism and ignorance.

Criticised for changing his mind on monetary policy during the Depression, John Maynard Keynes retorted: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

An Australian Enlightenment would demand the best available facts as a basis for public debate and public policy making. It would find no place for hired guns: any business consultancies that are willing to distort the facts to suit the requirements of their commercial clients and to promote them on the basis of the result of computer modelling. In computer modelling the enduring truth applies: garbage in, garbage out.

Self-serving consultants who change their assumptions to suit their clients do a great disservice to any endeavour to raise evidence-based policy over policy based on faith and superstition. One of the Enlightenment figures enthused that an army cannot defeat a good idea.

An Australian Enlightenment would restore ideas to the place they have occupied over the last 5cm of the football field: creating prosperity and raising living standards, including those of the most vulnerable in our society.

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