Paul Kelly, editor-in-large at The Australian, may have changed the water he drinks, because he has lately adopted a more critical position on Rudd and his government. The following three articles are telling on Kelly’s defection from the Rudd media apologetics club. First is IR reform:
The global crisis means everything has changed: the budget goes into deficit, fiscal stimulus replaces fiscal restraint, the Reserve Bank does a volte-face and begins to slash interest rates, and the Government guarantees deposits as Rudd declares the crisis is “sweeping across the world”.
But standing immovable is Labor’s support for greater trade union power, more costly restrictions on employers, a greater role for the revamped industrial relations commission, an effective end to individual statutory contracts, a revival of arbitration, and a sharp weakening of direct employer and non-union employee bargaining.
Kelly is incredibly scathing of Rudd’s IR reforms.
….the new right-of-entry provisions for unions are extraordinary and unacceptable in a democracy.
So credit where credit is due. Second is climate change and the media:
THE Poznan climate change conference guarantees the public will be fed the usual diet of myths and lies by an Australian media opposed to the Garnaut report…
While stilling supporting an emissions trading scheme, Kelly follows Garnaut in moderating his view on the ETS, including when it should start and what the targets should be. Equally damning on Rudd and vindicating of Howard:
Myth two is that the existing framework based on Kyoto and the Bali road map can solve the problem. It can’t.This is one of Garnaut’s central conclusions. It is conspicuously ignored or denied by Australia’s media as a device to discredit Australia’s efforts.
So at least it is a shift in opinion and recognition of the media’s complete baseless bias on the issue. Once again credit to Kelly. The third article deals with Rudd’s push for a ‘bill of rights.’ It is once again scathing of a Rudd proposal and calls out Rudd for his insincerity in setting up a panel too look at the issue. It makes for pretty scary reading:
McClelland’s panel and his slanted terms of reference suggest it is fanciful to believe that the status quo is an option…
Rudd and McClelland are playing with fire. They are playing with the authority and integrity of Australia’s High Court. McClelland’s statement this week was shallow, unconvincing and misleading…
…he (McClelland) called for a legislated charter of rights, attacked the founding fathers for bigotry over not including such measures in the Constitution, dismissed any notion of common law safeguards, mocked the idea of a democratically elected government being sufficient to safeguard rights, warned that majority law-making had the potential to be “just as hard and oppressive as any totalitarian regime” (yes, this man is now Australia’s Attorney-General) and declared that inadequate health, education and employment conditions in country regions were also issues “of fundamental human rights”.
The special interests that will dominate submissions to the panel will have one answer: legislate a charter of rights…
…the “charter of rights” culture that almost totally infects Australia’s legal system, from university tuition to the High Court. This corrosive culture cannot conceive that representative democracy is the best means of guaranteeing human rights. Distrust of elected government, hostility to executive authority and ignorance about the vast array of measures in Australian governance that safeguard human rights typifies the legal culture.
If only Kelly had done his job during the last election.