Category: History

‘Your’ ABC bad mouthing Australia. It must be ANZAC day. UPDATE

Posted by Chief Blogger – 24 April, 2010

So who does the ABC turn to for an essay on ANZAC day?  None other than a drunk and ALP hack Bob Ellis:

It gave …us a century of bloodstained hypocrisy, ending hopefully soon….

You know how it goes with the left. Pander to the loony crowd that work in the ABC. Their lives are miserable and it reflects on how they view the world. Ellis then makes this absurd suggestion:

…we would do as well to celebrate with marches and brass bands and bugles and flags the Myall Creek Massacre…

The fact that the perpetrators of the event were found guilt and hanged seems lost on Ellis. Maybe he does not know the details. Like most on the left, he is sloppy with his history so it would not surprise me.

The underlying issue seems to be that Ellis thinks that Australia’s participation in WWI was unnecessary. Australia was compelled to fight. Militaristic Germany possessed fortified harbours in the Pacific, threatened our supply routes and a loss for Britain would have placed Australia on the bargaining table. Further, even though Gallipoli was a defeat, in the context of the entire war it was a strategic victory. The best part of the Ottoman army was wiped out during the battle, destroying any hopes the Ottomans had of fending off the allied push through Palestine and into Syria.

Regardless, it does not take away from the sacrifice of others during the conflict. Something Ellis is determined to do. Just read some the ridiculous comments to the article. Ellis attracts flies.

Ellis then gives the typical kick in the head treatment to Christianity. Charming. I’d like my $1 back from the ABC.

UPDATE

Some of Bob’s mates?

VANDALS attacked a war memorial on the eve of Anzac Day, throwing rubbish around the site and snapping a flagpole.

Who would have thought?

Posted by Chief Blogger – 9 February, 2010

Finally someone in the ALP fesses up to what they have known all along but been too insecure to admit:

Last night Mr Swan credited the Coalition with helping create a ”most remarkable run” in economic success. ”For those who may not know, who have somehow escaped being told several times already, we are now in the 19th year of uninterrupted economic expansion in Australia.

”Later this year we will begin the 20th year,” he told guests who included Mr Hawke, Mr Howard, Mr Keating and Mr Costello.

”This long run of prosperity … follows more than a quarter century of economic difficulty for Australians. The expansion of the world economy played a part, particularly the strength of the Asian regional economy.

”But decisions made in Canberra played a role too. I think of financial market deregulation, some of which began when John Howard was treasurer…

”We think of the continuation of financial sector reforms carried out by Peter Costello and John Howard when they were in office, in particular the prudential regulation that safeguarded our banking system during the global financial crisis. We honour John and Peter for that.”

Some though continue to be full of pride and just plain ignorance:

His words stand in contrast to those of the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who last year described the Howard decade as ”indolent, perhaps not always opposing the great transformation reforms engineered by Labor during its 13 years in office but barely adding to that reform agenda”.

What a clown…

“There were no stolen generations” continued – update

Posted by Chief Blogger – 1 February, 2010

Keith Windschuttle is now accusing one of the chief proponents of the ‘stolen generations’ – Robert Manne – of distorting political history for contemporary political gain. Essentially the issue revolves around an attempt by Chief Protector of Aborigines in the Northern Territory, Dr Cecil Cook, in the 1930s to institute racist Aboriginal policies across the Commonwealth. The attempts were rejected by the then Lyons government but it appears Manne – who is well known for championing left-wing pet causes – may have deliberately distorted the political record.

On September 19 1933, the Lyons Cabinet considered but failed to approve Cook’s proposal. It recommended an opinion be sought from the Secretary of the Department of the Interior. At the time, the Secretary was not J. A. Carrodus, a departmental officer who Manne wrongly elevated in status to bolster his case, but Herbert Brown, who advised his Minister: “My own view is that half-castes who have been given certain rights and enjoy the franchise, should have the same privileges in respect to selecting their husbands or wives, as are enjoyed by other citizens of the Commonwealth.” Perkins agreed and based his August 1934 statement on this advice….

In failing to mention these three critical responses, while pretending the government gave “full endorsement” to the very opposite approach, Manne falsified Australian political history on an issue that he, more than almost any other academic commentator in the country, had the opportunity, the interest and the ability to investigate thoroughly and report honestly. If Manne can get away with behaviour of this kind, it would mean Australian universities no longer demand any standard of truthfulness from their academic staff.

I would think it highly unlikely that an academic inquiry be launched against Manne. It seems that the political left are pretty good at protecting their own, aka the Fabrication of Aboriginal History – Tasmania.

UPDATE

Recent interview on ABC’s Counterpoint.

“There were no stolen generations”

Posted by Chief Blogger – 16 January, 2010

…so argues Keith Windschuttle in the Quadrant and his latest book: The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume Three, The Stolen Generations 1881–2008.  By the strength of his Quadrant article, it seems the intellectual climate on the issue will begin to turn. Some observations made by KW.

- Not one Federal Court ruling has upheld the idea of a generation of Aboriginal children having been forcibly removed from their parents for the purpose of destroying the Aboriginal race,

- The High Court ruled in 1997 that there was no Aboriginal genocide,

- The figure of 50,000 children having been ‘stolen’, as argued by the PM and others, is a work of fiction. Archival evidence shows that just over 8,000 children were removed from their parents between 1910 to 1970 – some voluntarly  – for a range of legitimate child welfare reasons, or reasons that were also given for removing white children from their parent(s) at the time.

 - Very few infants were ever removed from their parents, the majority being teenagers who later returned to their parents after education and workplace training, while full blooded Aboriginals were mostly left alone by government officials,

Most children affected had been orphaned, abandoned, des­titute, neglected or subject to various forms of domestic violence, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.

- In other cases parents regularly accompanied their children to Aboriginal settlements or children were placed with Aboriginal foster parents,

- During the period of the so-called ‘genocide’ the Aboriginal population actually increased 68 per cent,

 - The Joseph Lyons Commonwealth government in 1933 rejected proposals to regulate the marriage of Aboriginal half-castes,

- There is no evidence that Aboriginal activists thought there was an Aboriginal genocide during the 1960s and ’70s and…

A greater mystery is that some of the best-known of an earlier generation of Aboriginal activists had been in an even better position to see what was going on. In the 1940s and 1950s, William Ferguson, Walter Page and Pearl Gibbs actually served as directors of the Aborigines Welfare Board of New South Wales, one of the very organisations then committing the purported genocide. Yet they never realised what was happening. Of all people, they were the ones who should have identified it first. How could they possibly have missed it? If the Stolen Generations story was true, then at that very time, right across Australia, in all states and territories, scores of white welfare officials, backed by parliamentarians and senior public ser­vants, were forcibly removing Aboriginal children to put an end to Aboriginality. How did these hundreds of white people, for a period of more than sixty years, maintain the discipline needed to keep the whole thing so quiet that Aboriginal activists like Ferguson, Page and Gibbs were oblivious to its existence? Why did no one leak the truth? A conspiracy on this scale must have been the best-kept secret in Australian history. On these grounds alone, the inherent implausibil­ity of Read’s thesis should always have been self-evident.

Merry Christmas – the only way the ABC knows how

Posted by Chief Blogger – 24 December, 2009

…by bad mouthing Australia. It has been a while since I have read such an ill-informed piece of diatribe as the ABC’s Stephen Long’s piece about Australia’s ‘dumb luck’.

…the Treasurer, the Treasury and the Reserve Bank were set up for success by a wave of pure, dumb luck: a litany of lucky breaks and historical accidents that allowed Australia to – by and large – avoid the financial crisis.

This is the Donald Horne thesis about Australia as the ‘lucky country’. All our economic successes are down to luck. This thesis has been widely discredited in economic history circles, yet the left keep rolling it out as a way of undermining national pride – which they hate.

The main problems with this thesis are that it completely ignores the high level of scientific, engineering and managerial skill and innovation required to run massive mining and agricultural operations and the political skill required to forge trading links with other countries to sell those products.

Secondly, there are many other countries in the world that have similar factor endowments as Australia yet remain complete basket cases - South and Central America ring a bell (Chile and Costa Rica possible exceptions)? So much for it all being about luck. Success requires laws and institutions that ensure property rights, etc… Readers should note that unlike in Argentina, no Australian Federal, State or Colonial government has ever defaulted on its debt and no Australian in the last 100 years has lost their bank deposit, despite the absence of a US style FDIC deposit insurance scheme. So that says something positive about our financial dealings that the ABC would like to ignore.

Thirdly, it is hypocritical and cynical of the political left to keep harping on about Australia’s economic luck. It implies that politicians and government are mostly inept. Yet the political left want more government control and regulation. So where does that leave them on the role of government? Stuck, that’s where.

The substance of Stephen Long’s article seems to be based on what-if scenarios not on historical and current economic realities. Living in this type of fantasy land is unsurprising given that Santa is just round the corner. If the facts don’t fit the thesis, just make the facts up.

More quality ABC programming

Posted by Chief Blogger – 8 October, 2009

This time from Foreign Correspondent covering the Italian PM, by Emma Alberici:

ALBERICI: Italy has a history of defending freedom throughout the world, and yet now there seems to be a bit of contradiction in the way it’s attacking its media at home, just over the mere fact that people dare to ask questions.

Ummm, ahhhh, errrr, like in WWII or the Napoleonic Wars, or in Ethiopia, or etc…

A look into the future

Posted by Chief Blogger – 12 September, 2009

A damning article of ‘New’ Labour’s socialism in the UK from the Spectator. A small window into Australia’s future if Rudd and his cronies stay in office for just as long as Blair and Brown have:

The bleak truth for UK plc is that after 12 years of stupefying Labour incompetence, the worst is yet to come. Britain is once again on the slide towards the margins of economic influence and military clout. We have the worst public finances of any comparable western economy. The British Chambers of Commerce warned this week that the UK faces a ‘grim’ economic future, with a high risk of a relapse. Unemployment is not just spreading but setting like concrete for years to come. And our shabbily treated troops, once a match for the world’s best, will soon be driven humiliatingly out of Afghanistan.

This is not the slow, managed decline of an empire looking for a role. It is a sudden, embarrassing discovery that we don’t count on the world stage any more. Thanks to our lumbering Prime Minister, we have been given the unwelcome gift to see ourselves as others see us. And it ain’t pretty.

Worse than 1979 argues Kavanagh. Then this interesting comment:

If Britain is just another victim of a worldwide crisis, why are our high-street banks effectively bust, with liabilities running into trillions? If we’re all in the same boat, how is it that Australia, for instance, can boast that all four of its major banks still have double-A credit rating, and have not needed a dollar of taxpayer support?

So socialist Britain is broke, but Howard’s ’neo-liberal’ and ‘extreme’ capitalist Australia isn’t. Gee, which side is history on? Certainly not Rudd’s

Yep, Rudd really isn’t that smart

Posted by Chief Blogger – 11 September, 2009

Rudd’s recent accusation that the other side of politics dropped the ball on reform, and of being ‘indolent’, has been rebutted from Howard ‘Stirred from his sick bed’:

His analysis of the economic reform process in Australia since 1980 was partisan, inaccurate and lacked any semblance of objectivity.

Which is to be expected from Rudd, a PM that seems to have been asleep over the last 30 years.

LET’S start with some facts. As the 1980s began Australia needed five major economic reforms to ensure success in a rapidly globalising world economy.

They were financial deregulation (LIB/ALP), fundamental taxation reform (LIB), dismantling of high tariff protection (ALP), privatisation of government-owned commercial bodies (ALP/LIB) and a freer labour market (LIB).

My notations above.

The blueprint for financial reform came from the Campbell inquiry, set up by me, as treasurer. The reform process here started with the Fraser government, through the introduction of a tender system for the sale of Treasury notes and Treasury bonds, described by the former Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane, in his 2006 Boyer lectures, as “second only in importance to the float of the Australian dollar in 1983″.

The Fraser government also began the politically difficult task of deregulating interest rates, by removing all interest-rate ceilings on bank deposits.

Howard notes that Treasury – i.e. the public sector world that Rudd comes from – opposed these initial financial reforms. Howard also points out that something happened to the ALP when they went into opposition. They basically turned their backs on the Hawke/Keating economic legacy by opposing continued financial deregulation, tax reform and the privatisationagenda. (Hint to left-wingers in the Coalition that turn their back on the Howard legacy). Rudd is a product of the ALP’s strange days in opposition.

Labor negativity in opposition was not confined to the five major reforms I have cited. It also tried to thwart the fiscal consolidation process, commenced in Peter Costello’s first budget in 1996.

The ALP basically opposed anything and everything. But of course today when the Coalition try to make amendments to government legislation they are mostly de-rided by the Canberra press gallery. And compare the achievements of the last governments with Rudd’s. What exactly has he achieved? Money spent on classrooms schools don’t want, billions sent to China to make ceiling insulation, back to the future employment legislation a couple of essays and a number of incomprehensible and ill-informed speeches.

‘A victory for democracy’

Posted by Chief Blogger – 5 September, 2009

Readers may recall a Yes Prime Minister episode entitled ‘A victory for Democracy’ in which Jim Hacker does battle with the civil service to ensure the continuation of democracy on the island of St George (a fictitious island). The civil service do their best to stop Jim Hacker intervening in the affair to defeat a group of Marxist agitators intent on overthrowing the democratic government. The Foreign Office have drawn up their own policy position and they are intent on ignoring the will of government. The position on St George’s can best be summed up be these classic lines:

…every support, short of help.

I was reminded of this episode when reading a Paul Kelly article on the East Timor intervention, with reference to the great mandarin and apologist for corrupt regimes, former civil servant Hugh White:

Defence Department deputy secretary Hugh White, the leading strategist, defined what he believed were Australia’s objectives. They were: having East Timor remain part of Indonesia; ensuring ties with Jakarta were put before the fate of East Timor; retaining Australia’s military ties with Indonesia; and avoiding any Australian Defence Force deployment, if possible.

In other words, ‘every support, short of help.’ Another case of Canberra civil servants pretending to be politicians. However:

These were White’s principles guiding the Defence Department; each of them was trashed before the end of the year, proof of the violation of policy orthodoxy that Howard and Downer would entertain.

The whole Paul Kelly article is worth a read. I disagree though with one point; that the success of the mission was only due to Indonesia deciding not to challenge the intervention. As if the ADF did nothing at all to contribute to the mission’s success – it just happened by itself. This is typical left-wing historical defeatist revisionism at work.

The story of East Timor’s independence is pretty remarkable for the speed in which it took place and the people Howard and Downer convinced (Habibie, Clinton) or pushed out of the way (Hugh White) to make it happen.

The great pretender

Posted by Chief Blogger – 1 September, 2009

Rudd likes to pretend to be a great intellectual, but in most cases he is way off the mark. From Greg Melleuish:

The history wars to which Rudd refers long predate the prime ministership of John Howard. They came to public prominence because the agenda of the black-armband brigade was taken up by Paul Keating as part of his “big picture”. Their willingness to use history for political purposes provided useful ammunition for Keating on matters such as indigenous affairs, the republic and multiculturalism. Howard was essentially reacting to what he saw as the extreme nature of Keating and his ideological supporters. Rather than going beyond this division, Rudd’s approach indicates that he is intent on entrenching it. He seems to think that historical inquiry consists of a constant cycle of celebration and condemnation.

This is not the purpose of studying history. Historians seek to understand the past, to gain an appreciation of how and why people acted in the way they did…his speech encourages the unhelpful idea that the real purpose of history is serve moral and political concerns.