Simon Copland

Originally published in SBS, 26 June, 2014

Al Gore described it as “an extraordinary moment in which Australia, the US and the rest of the world is finally beginning to confront the climate crisis in a meaningful way.”

In what was one of the strangest moments in recent Australian political history, yesterday the former Vice President of the United States stood next to Palmer United Party leader, mining magnate and coal baron, Clive Palmer as he announced his party’s position on the Government’s carbon price repeal.

Extraordinary was definitely the word to describe it, but certainly not for the reason Gore, nor many other climate campaigners argued.

In yesterday’s announcement, Al Gore thanked Palmer for his ‘outstanding statement’. If voting ‘not to dismantle’ some of our key climate policies is now considered ‘outstanding’, then we really could be in trouble.

It’s worth acknowledging that yes, Palmer made some positive announcements in his press conference. The PUP leader announced he would block the abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), the $10 billion loan facility created to assist clean energy technology projects. He also said his party would block any changes from the Government to the Renewable Energy Target (RET), which mandates that 20 per cent of Australia’s energy must come from renewable sources by 2020. Both of these policies have made an important contribution to putting Australia on the path to a low-carbon future. On top of this Palmer has vowed to oppose the abolition of the Climate Change Authority (CCA) and to block Tony Abbott’s Direct Action bills – a policy that is a complete dud for our climate.

But the good news unfortunately ends there.

While Palmer has pledged to support these important policies, at the same he has pledged to vote for the repeal of the carbon price – meaning its likely death in the coming weeks. This is where the story gets a little confusing and in many ways, all the more extraordinary. In his announcement, Palmer said that to replace the current carbon price, he would introduce legislation to implement an emissions trading scheme (ETS) in its place (it’s not quite certain whether the passage of this bill will be a requirement of Palmer’s support for the carbon price repeal).

Whilst this sounds promising, it unfortunately amounts to nothing. The legislation Palmer has vowed to introduce would specify that Australia’s ETS would have to be linked with Australia’s main trading partners – the United States, China, Japan and Korea. Until those countries join the European Union in implementing an ETS of their own, Australia’s ETS would have a price of zero dollars. Given this scenario is extremely unlikely any time in the future, this policy announcement is therefore one of smoke and mirrors. Palmer has announced his intention to take on climate change, when the reality is that what he introduces will never actually do anything to reduce pollution.

This is why it is so confusing that Gore stood next to Palmer during this announcement. This announcement is not a huge win. All Palmer has done is to commit not to destroy some of our key climate policies. On the other side of the ledger he has rekindled the discussion that kicks Australia’s climate responsibilities down the road. He has actively supported an international role, in which once again, Australia takes a step back, hoping wishfully that one day other countries will take action so we can do the same.

But Gore’s willingness to stand next to Palmer potentially highlights the somewhat depressing nature of institutional climate politics in Australia. Even in the face of growing evidence that we need to tackle our carbon emissions faster than ever before, somehow ‘not dismantling’ all of our current policies is now considered a major victory. Palmer has managed to pull off a magician’s trick – effectively doing nothing – whilst at the same time getting support from one of the world’s best known climate politicians in doing so.

This highlights the dearth of any real leadership on climate change from our politicians. The majority of our federal politicians are once again refusing to take the lead we desperately need on the issue, leaving it up to us as a community to take the sort of action we need to reduce our pollution.

In yesterday’s announcement, Al Gore thanked Palmer for his ‘outstanding statement’. If voting ‘not to dismantle’ some of our key climate policies is now considered ‘outstanding’, then we really could be in trouble.

Whilst Palmer’s announcement was in some ways extraordinary, it was definitely not outstanding, and he does not deserve much congratulations for it.

This article was originally published on SBS News. Click here to view the original. © All rights reserved.

Originally published in SBS News on 19 June, 2014. 

The decision today from the High Court to overrule the Government’s school chaplaincy program has the potential to be one of the best policy outcomes for LGBTIQ youth in Australia for years.

Today, the High Court ruled that the funding provisions that financed the chaplaincy program were unconstitutional. The decision will mean that the Federal Government will no longer be able to pay the providers of the program directly.

This however doesn’t necessarily mean the death of the program in its entirety. It could still potentially survive with the Federal Government funding it through state and territory grants. Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews has already said he is still weighing up whether the Government will try and continue the program.Despite reassurances this week from prominent LGBTIQ activists that we can, and should, work within the program, it is up to LGBTIQ activists to ensure this ruling means the death of the program once and for all.

The ruling comes after the release of a survey of students and parents about the chaplaincy program from the LGBTIQ-advocacy group All-Out, which highlighted disturbing evidence about its implementation.

Highlighted by Senator Louise Pratt in Parliament during the week, the survey found that a large majority of parents and LGBTIQ students had reported negative stories of their experiences of the chaplaincy program. Evidence was given of chaplains telling students they should ‘pray the gay away’, advising students to sleep with a member of the opposite sex to ‘correct’ their same-sex attraction and even one story in which a chaplain told a student they needed to leave home because they had homosexual parents.

These findings are highly worrying, but ones we should not be surprised about. Many of the organisations involved in the chaplaincy program are reported to have connections to homophobic campaigns and organisations. This includes the three major chaplain providers in Australia – Access Ministries, the Scripture Union Queensland and GenR8 Ministries – who have ties to the ‘Lausanne Evangelical Conference’, aninternational anti-gay movement. The program has slowly become dominated by “evangelical missionaries”, with evidence presented that key organisations involved have actively used it as an opportunity to preach to school children.

It is for this reason that it is surprising that some gay activists have come out as champions for the program.Prominent activist Rodney Croome for example recently pointed to evidence that young LGBTIQ people from faith backgrounds are “more likely than others to feel bad about their same sex attraction, more likely to have experienced social exclusion and were more likely to report self harm and suicidal thoughts.” He argued that if proper training occurs then “no-one is better placed to reconnect these young people to their families, friends and faith than a school chaplain.”

This argument however fails to capture how destructive this program is.

Even if you take away the obvious homophobic treatment of some students (which is technically not allowed as part of the program) the chaplaincy program is not suitable for our school. Chaplaincy programs do not provide the level of training that should be required of anyone who is working in schools – let alone people who are effectively acting as school counsellors. This is probably best highlighted by the very example that Croome gives. In his piece Croome discussed recent training that occurred in Launceston and Burnie, in which chaplains were trained in the needs of LGBTIQ young people. Whilst this was a nice initiative, it is simply not good enough. Training like this is not some ‘extra curriculum activity’ that those who care about the issue can participate in if they want. Dealing with the complex needs of LGBTIQ students should be considered core to the work of anybody working in a school. Not preaching homophobic views should be considered a core part of the job description of anyone working in any school.

While those preaching these views have technically broken the rules of the program, it should have been clear from day one that this was going to happen. With the radically conservative nature of the groups who are running it, the chaplaincy program has become one of untrained evangelicals masquerading as mental health professionals in our schools. This can only be destructive for our students – LGBTQI or not.

This is where now becomes a critical point in time. The High Court decision gives us an opportunity not just to see the end of this program, but also to outline a better way to provide the services our kids need in our schools. It is now time for us to demand that the Federal and State Governments end this program for good. It is time to insist that funds are instead shifted to provide trained, professional and secular counsellors to support our students.

The evidence of treatment of LGBTQI students by school chaplains released this week should shock us. The idea that state-funded programs are going in to telling students to ‘pray the gay away’ is shameful. But now we have the best opportunity available to us to see this sort of ideology banished from our education system. It is up to us to take it and demand an end to this program for good.

This article was originally published on SBS News. Click here to view the original. © All rights reserved. 

Originally published in The Guardian on 18 June, 2014. 

It’s famous for its fishnet stockings, quirky names, brutal mentality and a film starring Drew Barrymore. Sweeping across the country, roller derby is becoming an unstoppable phenomenon.

Revitalised on the back of third-wave feminism, roller derby, a contact sport on skates that is created, owned and managed by women, is a direct challenge to the male domination of sport. A sport that says women can be just as aggressive, just as competitive and just as entertaining. And a sport that demands women get top billing – just as men do everywhere else.

However, recently men’s leagues have started to pop up around the country. And in doing so they have opened an important debate about how we tackle male domination and sexism in sport.

Men have always played a role in roller derby, usually through supporting the female players as officials or referees. In recent years that has started to change. Men have decided they want to play. The Men’s Roller Derby Association was established in 2007, with teams starting in Australia soon after. This culminated in March this year with the first Men’s Roller Derby World Cup being held in Birmingham in the UK, where the Australian teamThe Wizards of Aus took fifth place.

For many, this development has been unwelcome. Skater Joan of Darkwrote in a blog post:

“ … men get top billing in EVERYTHING. With very, very few exceptions, it’s all about the men when it comes to popular sports. So part of me feels like, just one! Couldn’t they leave us with just one without trying to come in and take over?”

That reaction is not uncommon. There are many women’s leagues that still don’t allow men to play, fed by concerns men will push women off the centre stage, in sponsorship, TV coverage and news reports. The filmThis Is How I Roll documents the challenges faced by male team The New York Shock Exchange while trying to establish themselves. Most male players have similar stories.

But that view is changing. Skater I.V. Anarchy (Emma Burnell) a coach for the Wizards of Aus, explains:

“How can you challenge the dominant paradigm and then in the same breath try to exclude men from playing? If roller derby as a collective is going to band together and lock arms and say ‘we’re here to empower women only’ you’ve just alienated half of the population and achieved the exact same thing male dominated sports do already.”

This argument is now winning out. In their latest rule set change The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) removed all references to gender and men’s teams are gaining more acceptance around the world. As Burnell argues:

“I love the saying, ‘derby for all’. And when I say derby for all I mean anyone who wants to put on some skates and learn how to play the game regardless of gender, or orientation, should be able to play the game.”

H.P. Shovecraft, who played in the Wizards of Aus, describes this as the “powerful transformative nature of the game”. He discusses his own experience:

“I was a sad, boring, overweight public servant. I had never experienced what it was like to feel powerful. I’ll get out on track and I’ll feel in control and that I have power. Something that I never really felt that I’ve had before.”

Most roller derby players will tell you that ‘derby isn’t a sport, it’s a lifestyle’. It consumes people’s lives and creates its own society. And it’s here that things become complicated.

The acceptance of men’s roller derby presumes an ideal: everyone should have access to all forms of sport. Gender doesn’t matter. But you cannot push aside an ongoing history of female oppression. We still live in a male-dominated world, particularly in mainstream sport. And given how strong this power dynamic is it is naive to think that roller derby is not at least partially susceptible to it, particularly as it becomes more mainstream.

Many could argue we are already seeing this dynamic play out. Men are taking up more of the derby space each year. The Men’s World Cup received significant press, while locally, many female leagues are now asking to train with male teams, often leaving equivalent female teams behind. Questions have to be asked whether women are being pushed out of the game and being excluded from yet another sporting competition.

Perhaps what is required is respect of the gender politics in which roller derby is engaged. Men’s roller derby is an opportunity for men to move into a woman’s space – at the invite, essentially, of women. And in doing so men who play roller derby have the opportunity to show the rest of the world how men can be willing to play on women’s terms, accept women as key leaders and allow themselves to play second fiddle to the women’s game.

As roller derby moves from niche into the mainstream and accepts men into its leagues, it needs to maintain the existing gender politics or else fall into the same sexist pitfalls as other sports. Done successfully, it may herald a revolution in sport for gender equality. And the players in men’s derby are essential to that process.

Originally published in Junkee.com on 16 June 2014. 

You may have noticed the #FightfortheReef hashtag all over your Twitter and Facebook feeds today.

People from around the country — and the world — are whipping up energy and anger about the future of the Great Barrier Reef, and the timing is crucial. Here’s why.

Why Are We Talking About It Now?

The Thunderclap social media storm at 2.30pm AEST today was organised to coincide with the annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee of the UN agency UNESCO, which began in Doha, Qatar on June 15, and runs until June 25.

At the meeting, UNESCO will be voting on whether to further pressure the Australian and Queensland Governments into improving their management and protection of the Great Barrier Reef. The proposed resolution expresses particular concern about the approval of the dredging and associated dumping of three million cubic metres of sediment at Abbot Point — part of a planned expansion of a coal port in the region, which is close to the Whitsundays.

In the past, the World Heritage Committee has expressed deep concern over the Government’s treatment of the Reef, and in May this year UNESCO issued another threat to downgrade the Reef’s World Heritage listing to ‘World Heritage In Danger’. If UNESCO voted in favour of this, it would be a massive international shame job on the Australian and Queensland Government’s treatment of the Reef.

What’s Going On With The Great Barrier Reef?

If you were to listen to the Australian Government, they’d tell you that the major problems facing the Reef stem from nutrient run-off from farmland and the associated blooms of crown-of-thorn starfish. It’s these issues that form the basis of their ‘Reef 2050’ policy.

These are undoubtedly critical problems, but focusing on them ignores a much larger threat, one that has raised the alarm of hundreds of scientists, community members, business owners, and now UNESCO: Australia’s coal export industry.

Fossil fuel companies have plans to build four new megaports on the coast of the Great Barrier Reef, at Townsville, Abbot Point, Dugeon Point (near Mackay), and the Fitzroy Delta (near Rockhampton). This on top of the already massive port at Gladstone, which is slated for an expansion. Of gravest concern are plans for the Abbot Point mega port which, if developed, would be the largest coal port in the world.

To build these ports, dredging and dumping occurs to allow larger ships to enter the waters. Massive machines will dig up seabed and rock, and then dump it across the Reef. This sediment can drift for kilometres, destroying water quality and landing on seagrass beds and coral. In total, current proposals would result in 100 million tonnes of dredge spoil being dumped into the waters of the Reef. Three million cubic metres of dredge spoil will be dumped near Abbot Point alone, right next door to the famous Whitsunday Islands. It’s no wonder therefore that 240 of Australia’s leading scientists oppose the plans.

And that’s not even the half of it. Remember when the industrial coal ship, the Shen Neh 1, shipwrecked itself on the Reef? It ‘pulverised’ a 3km radius of coral, leaving a ‘dead zone’ around its wreck. The planned megaports will increase the number of ships crossing the Reef from 4,0000 to 7,000 – that’s an extra 3,000 accidents waiting to happen.

And then there’s the other half of this debate: climate change. These ports are being expanded largely for the purpose of exporting more coal; The Abbot Point plans, for example, are designed to feed new coal mines in the Galilee Basin. There are proposals there for nine new coal mines, five of which would be larger than any coal mine in operation in Australia at the moment. Just two of these mines would emit six times the annual carbon pollution of the UK.

The impact of global warming on the Reef is pretty clear. Climate science has shown that reefs are highly vulnerable to rising water temperatures that come with a warming planet. Increased ocean acidity, which occurs due to the absorption of carbon in the water, also makes it difficult for animals and coral to make the shells required for their survival. This is why international experts have warned that the Reef’s future is bleak unless we cut emissions soon.

If these plans go ahead though, that opportunity will be blown clear out of the water.

Why Is The UNESCO Meeting So Important?

Unfortunately, one meeting can’t stop these plans from going ahead; UNESCO simply doesn’t have that power. The resolution is only about pressuring the Australian Government — but at the same time, we know that pressure can have an impact.

No government likes being chastened by world leaders over the treatment of their natural wonders, particularly one as important and renowned as the Great Barrier Reef. And that’s what this amounts to: an international shaming of both the Queensland and Federal Governments, over their slow progress dealing with the problems the Reef faces. That sort of embarrassment can go a long way to change Government positions. When the Everglades National Park was given an ‘in danger’ listing, for instance, increased awareness of the issue forced the US Government to increase funds for restoration (although work still needs to be done).

But this particular meeting is even more important than that. UNESCO doesn’t just have influence in the political world — they have sway in the financial world as well. Just recently, two major banks in Europe, Deutsche Bank and HSBC, publicly ruled out providing for the construction of Abbot Point, citing UNESCO’s concerns over the development as their key reason. These projects need money to back them up; losing support of the banks will make things a whole lot harder.

What Can I Do?

The Australian Government and the fossil fuel industry are likely applying pressure to the World Heritage Committee, to change their position in Doha over coming weeks. The Government doesn’t want this shame job to continue, and the industry is desperate for these proposals to go ahead. So the #FightForTheReef Thunderclap’s been organised by the World Wildlife Foundation to show UNESCO that we have their back.

To find out more and join in, head to their campaign page and use the #FightForTheReef hashtag.
Read more at http://junkee.com/junk-explained-whys-everyone-tweeting-about-the-great-barrier-reef-today/36170#gbmFDbXS2YbHySLc.99

Originally published in SBS News on 13 June, 2014. 

Speaking at the Sydney Institute on Wednesday Treasurer Joe Hockey attacked budget opponents by arguing they were drifting into ‘1970s class warfare lines’. Hockey took his aim at those who wanted governments to deliver ‘equality of outcomes’, which he said only an ‘old style socialist government’ could achieve. He offered this alternative:

“In our view it is the responsibility of government to provide equality of opportunity with a fair and comprehensive support system for those who are most vulnerable. After that it is up to individuals in the community to accept personal responsibility for their lives and their destiny.”

Let’s ignore whether equality of outcome or opportunity is what our society should be aiming for. Even if we agreed on Mr Hockey’s stated aims of a society with equality of opportunity, then one thing is clear: only a class war will deliver it to us.

Any real class war would not just challenge the authority and power of the wealthiest in the world, but also of our politicians.

Recent decades have seen an increase in the wealth, power and influence of the rich in our society. As ALP MP Andrew Leigh has pointed out for example, “since 1975, real wages for the bottom 10th have risen 15 per cent, while wages for the top 10th have risen 59 per cent.” This is a global problem. A recent Oxfam report has shown that the wealthiest 80 people in our society now have the same wealth as the poorest other half of the world. The divide between rich and poor is growing every day.

It is this very growing disparity in wealth that is halting the very equality of opportunity Joe Hockey is so keen on. Research has shown for example that greater inequality in a society amplifies a number of social problems – including physical and mental illness, violence, low maths and literacy rates, drug and alcohol abuse, imprisonment rates and much more. As Richard Wilkinson explains:

“Greater income inequality seems to amplify and intensify the effects of social status differentiation – bigger material differences creating bigger social distances.”

This is where this comes up directly against Mr Hockey’s ‘equality of opportunity’ agenda. Equality of any form is fundamentally unachievable when so few have so much power.  With power concentrated in the hands of so few it has basically become impossible for others to gain any access to it – both materially and politically. This is particularly true when we see the real form of class warfare that is going on – an ongoing war from the wealthy against the poor. This is one designed to ensure the entrenchment of power of those at the top – both for the wealthy and our political class. It is this class war that the budget is part of.

This highlights why Mr Hockey, and even many ALP MPs, are so concerned about class warfare rhetoric. Any real class war would not just challenge the authority and power of the wealthiest in the world, but also of our politicians.

In turn this highlights exactly why a proper class war is exactly what we should be fighting for – whether we’re progressive or conservative. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of so few has not just undermined our ideals of equality, but our democracy as well. And it is only a class war that will restore those values.

To do so we have to take on the wealth and power of the rich in our society. No one in these power positions will ever give them up, meaning that our only option is take that power from them.

This requires a mass working class movement – one that has an economic basis at its heart. We saw this through the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the United States – a movement whose purpose was about challenging the power of the 1%. The Indignados Movementin Spain took on a similar vain – and with great success. It has been estimated that at least one fifth of the Spanish population has taken part in those protests,and they’ve had recent success in the European Elections. We can only hope that we’re starting see a similar thing happening here in relation to the budget – as we become more painfully aware of how it is a victory for the Australian 1%. Yet we must ensure we frame this around class and don’t fall into the trap of simply fighting for a slightly better version of the current system.

It is an inconvenient fact for all of our politicians, no matter their stripe, that our class system is holding back any form of equality within our society. But that highlights the even more inconvenient truth for the rest of us in the community. The vast majority of our politicians – in particular in our major parties – have little to no interest in challenging this system. Their authority and their power relies upon it just as much as those who are the wealthiest in our community. Challenging this is essential for all of us in our society. It is the only way to achieve equality Mr Hockey is talking about, and more importantly to take back our democracy.

This article was originally published on SBS News. Click here to view the original. © All rights reserved.

Originally published in the University of Sydney Environment Blog on 10 June, 2014. 

Stanford Divests

In early May this year, Stanford, one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, made a huge announcement for our climate. After pressure from campaign group Fossil Free Stanford, the university announced that is was divesting its $18.7 billion endowment from the coal industry. University President, John Hennessy, directly cited sustainability concerns when making the announcement:

“Stanford has a responsibility as a global citizen to promote sustainability for our planet, and we work intensively to do so through our research, our educational programs and our campus operations. The university’s review has concluded that coal is one of the most carbon-intensive methods of energy generation and that other sources can be readily substituted for it. Moving away from coal in the investment context is a small, but constructive, step while work continues, at Stanford and elsewhere, to develop broadly viable sustainable energy solutions for the future.”

In many ways Hennessy is correct that Stanford’s decision is a ‘small step’. Whilst their endowment is huge, the amount of money the University would have invested in coal was probably minimal. Their decision is unlikely to shut down any plants or mines in the near future. Despite all of that though, Stanford’s announcement was huge – one of the most important for our climate all year. Well, that and the unveiling of Obama’s historic rules to reduce coal pollution by 30%.

If it’s wrong to wreck the climate then it’s wrong to profit from the wreckage

That is the motto of a new movement that is sweeping across the world – fossil fuel divestment.

Divestment as a campaign tactic entered into mainstream consciousness in the 1980s. At the time, anti-apartheid activists took aim at companies that were doing business in South Africa. They called on universities, churches, governments and more to divest from businesses operating in the conflicted nation. If apartheid was wrong, then profiting from apartheid was wrong as well. And the idea caught on quickly – creating moral and financial pressure that many credit with playing a role in the downfall of the regime.

Now, activists are taking that energy into a new, and in many ways, larger campaign. We’re taking that energy to target a unique, and potentially larger and stronger target. And Universities can play a leading role.

The theory is simple. The power that fossil fuel companies have to pollute our planet is dependent on organisations that are willing to prop them up financially, politically, and morally. Encouraging these organisations to remove their support is no easy task, particularly when the idea that the mining industry is essential for the survival of our nation dominates Australia’s political discourse. It was just last month that Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he could think of few things more damaging to our future than leaving coal in the ground.

Divestment is about challenging that very idea. It is about moral leaders standing up saying ‘enough is enough. The pollution of our planet has to stop’. As some of the great moral leaders, universities have a unique opportunity. Stanford’s announcement wasn’t huge because of the financial impacts, but because of the moral impacts. It was recognition from one of the world’s most respected institutions that the fossil fuel industry must stop their radical plans to continue burning fossil fuels. Universities have the opportunity to take away the social license that allows the fossil industry to survive, a social license that gives them the political and financial capital they need.

University Divestment in Australia

While 12 North American universities have publicly committed to divest, the push for university divestment is still in its early stages in Australia. Nevertheless, with 18 campaigns nationally, student referendums on divestment next semester, open letters from academics at over 10 campuses and meetings with vice-chancellors in the pipeline, there is no lack of momentum and drive.

Early push back from the prestigious Group of Eight Universities like the University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne has made one thing abundantly clear: it is up to students, staff and alumni to make sure their universities are climate leaders, not climate laggards. Campus campaigns look fit to rise to the challenge, with pressure mounting and only set to increase as more and more students join the fight to end university investment in climate destruction.

Find out more and get involved at: http://gofossilfree.org/australia/

Originally published in SBS News on 9 June, 2014. 

As the fall-out from the Coalition’s budget continues much of the focus remains on “broken promises”.

This frame was set early in the game. In his budget reply for example, Bill Shorten described the budget as one“of broken promises built on lies”. Labor MP Jason Clare went further, calling budget night the “the night of the long noses”. Former Deputy Chief of Staff to Julia Gillard, Tom Bentley, has made the issue a key critique of the government, arguing that “Abbott deserves to be punished relentlessly for his broken promises.” It’s not just Labor members either – progressive organisation GetUp for example have actively campaigned on Abbott’s broken promises as the main argument against his budget.

This argument forms a larger base of critique against Abbott’s administration. Ranging from the changes to their position on Gonski, the government’s performance on job creation, and even to Abbott’s pledge to spend his first week in office in Arnhem Land, arguments over “broken promises” have been effectively used as a way to paint the Prime Minister as deceptive and a liar.

Focusing on “broken promises” seems to have clouded our judgement – participating in short term obstructionism and political game playing rather than looking at how to create a progressive future.

With his focus on the “great carbon tax lie” in opposition, in many ways Abbott deserves this attention. Yet, at the same time, the government’s “broken promises” are sideshow that detractors should be wary of using too often.

Focusing almost solely on broken promises forgets that we need to make the substantive case against the policies Abbott is implementing. Whilst campaigns on the budget for example have effectively created a picture of a leader who said one thing before the election and another after, they often fail to articulate why these changes are a bad thing. Our arguments fail to make a case for the value – positive of negative – of the policies and programs that the government is cutting or implementing, in turn ignoring any sort of policy, political or ideological argument for them to be kept, improved, or changed in some other way. We’ve focused on political game playing instead of providing any actual analysis of what’s happening in the real world.

It’s no wonder then so many are getting so ideologically confused. Critiques of the increase to the fuel excise and the deficit tax for example, have often missed the point that if implemented properly they represent potentially environmentally friendly and progressive forms of taxation respectively. In the past, many have campaigned against Abbott’s refusal to provide industry assistance for large companies, arguing this goes against his promise of creating one million jobs within five years. But in doing so we forgot about the ideological issues many of us should have with a government shelling out millions of tax payer dollars for large corporations.

Focusing on “broken promises” seems to have clouded our judgement – participating in short term obstructionism and political game playing rather than looking at how to create a progressive future.

Whilst this may seem worth it if we are able to dislodge Abbott from the Prime Ministership, we must be careful. This is the sort of short-term obstructionism that Abbott used in his time in opposition, and the result should send a warning. Instead of building a strong base for his government, Abbott put people off him before he was even elected, leading him to become one of the most unpopular new Prime Minister’s in recent Australian history. If your whole reason for being in government is that the other person broke some promises then you are starting off on a very weak base. Without doing the work of articulating real alternatives, it is very likely the left is heading in the same direction. That makes it not only difficult to repeal Abbott’s policies, but also to progress any form of progressive alternative.

It’s important to keep governments accountable for what they’ve said and done in office. But it is far more important to build an ideological and policy base for an alternative form of government. In all the joy of attacking Abbott for his broken promises many on the left have forgotten this. It may lead to some short-term gain, but the long-term pain could be real.

This article was originally published on SBS News. Click here to view the original. © All rights reserved. 

Originally published in Junkee.com on 6 June, 2014. 

Jason Derulo’s latest hit (featuring 2 Chainz), ’Talk Dirty’, continues to make a splash. The song, released in January this year, peaked at number one on the Australian charts and recently Derulo performed a ‘racy’ version of it at the Billboard Music Awards — some have even questioned whether his performance was just a bit too dirty.

There’s nothing better than a good song about sex, but as an aficionado of dirty music, Talk Dirty is disappointing. The song is about Derulo sleeping with women all over the world. There are language barriers between them, but that doesn’t matter, because their bodies speak for themselves.

The song is laced with both racist and sexist stereotypes. Derulo exoticises foreign women through the lyrics and film clip, placing them into a range of offensive stereotypes. The worst bit comes at the start and the end of the song, when an Asian woman struggles to say Derulo’s name (which for some reason happens at the start of all his songs) and then proclaims “I don’t understand” at the end. The song portrays an ‘unsettling power disparity’, in which Derulo is offered a ‘sexual buffet’. It works on the assumption that foreign women want to sleep with him just because he’s famous – obviously, they don’t have a say in this at all. Add in lines such as “Sold our arenas, you can suck my penis” — from 2 Chainz, of course — and ‘Talk Dirty’ loses any sense of sexiness and actually gets a bit creepy.

So, to make up for Derulo’s failure, here are some tips — how to write a good dirty song, and how to avoid the pitfalls of the awful dirty music we’ve all heard.

1) Don’t Condone Rape Or Sexual Abuse

You’d think this would be an obvious rule, but apparently not. Rape and sexual abuse is still something that many artists are happy to dabble in (lyrically).

Just take a look at Robin Thicke’s hit song song from last year ‘Blurred Lines’. ‘Blurred Lines’ is about the apparent ‘murkiness’ that exists when it comes to consent. Thicke sings, “I know you want it, you’re a good girl”. Then comes the classy line, “I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two”. This is a song about anally raping a woman, a woman who actually wants the sex, but is too much a ‘good girl’ to say yes. Thicke has actually admitted to this, saying that he was trying to do everything ‘that is completely derogatory to women’. While Thicke says it was an attempt at turn this degradation on its head, it simply comes across as condoning rape rather than challenging it.

If you thought that was bad, how about a song about raping slaves? Well, that’s what the Rolling Stones’ ‘Brown Sugar’, seems to be about. Read these lyrics:

Old coast slave ship bound for cotton fields

Sold in a market down in New Orleans

Scarred old slaver knows he’s doing alright

Hear him with the women just around midnight

Brown sugar, how come you taste so good?

Brown sugar, just like a young girl should

It’s difficult to know what Jagger was thinking when he wrote this, and he has since said that he would probably not write a song like it again. But even if it was designed as a repudiation of rape and slavery (it’s hard to tell), the song is unmistakably about a white slave owner who is lusting after a black woman, which makes it problematic either way.

Here’s a pro tip, if you’re going to write a song repudiating rape, you probably shouldn’t do it with an upbeat rock tempo.

2) Don’t Be Racist, Sexist, Or Homophobic

Tip number two flows on nicely from tip number one. Again it’s a basic one, but one that gets broken all the time in the music industry. Rap and hip-hop music in the United States, for example, has had well-documented problems with sexism and homophobia. British artist Lily Allen courted controversy this year, due to the racist undertones of the ‘Hard Out Here’ film clip.

And while of course this all needs to be challenged, in many ways it is even more important when it comes to sex. Sex and power go hand in hand, and stereotypes around race, queerness and sex are still prominent in sexual discourse. Try to bear that in mind when you’re writing your sexy new jam.

One of the important things here is that men need to recognise that they actually have a greater responsibility here. We live in a world dominated by men and it is therefore up to men to take much greater care in avoiding that sort of degradation, particularly when they are singing about women.

3) Try To Avoid The Stereotypes

It’s an unfortunate reality that in the music industry, stereotypes still dominate. Men are dominant, women are passive. Men are there to be pleased, and women are only there to do the pleasing. The stereotypes are not only oppressive, they’re also just not particularly sexy. It’s best to avoid them at all costs.

There are some amazing artists who have done a great job at turning these sorts of stereotypes around. For example, in their songs ‘Two Guys (For Every Girl)’ and ‘My Neck, My Back’, Peaches and Khia respectively have turned around the masculine/feminine and dominant/passive stereotypes. Peaches sings about a woman who refuses to have sex with a man unless he’s willing to do it with another guy at the same time, whilst Khia sings about a man going down on her. These songs both empower women and dramatically flip around our ideas of what sex is about: they’re also pretty damn sexy.

4) Actually Be Sexy

This is probably the most difficult rule to enforce, but it’s also the most important. Dirty music isn’t good unless it’s actually sexy. Of course that’s extremely hard to judge — sexiness is different for different people. But at the same time, you can pick out an un-sexy dirty song from a mile away.

Take Wynter Gordon’s ‘Dirty Talk‘ for example. There’s nothing substantively wrong with Gordon’s song. It isn’t racist, sexist or homophobic and it doesn’t include any rape. It’s quite catchy, too, but it really fails the sexy test. In the song, Gordon proclaims that she isn’t an angel and that she likes it when you dirty talk to her. So far, so good. But then all she does is proceed to list ‘dirty words’, some of which aren’t even that dirty (‘champagne’? Really?). It’s a pretty basic rule really – singing a list, no matter what the words are, just isn’t sexy at all.

Another way people often miss the sexy mark is through the overuse of euphemisms in their music — to the point where you don’t even know what they’re talking about. There are plenty of these songs around – ones that are so subtle that you hardly know it’s about sex. Of course, that doesn’t mean these songs are all bad, but I reckon if you want to make a dirty song sometimes you have to be a bit more direct. And of course, on the other side, euphemisms don’t necessarily stop a song from being sexy. Just look at Ginuwine’s ‘Pony‘. The lyric, “If you’re horny, let’s do it, ride it, my pony” says it all, really. It’s not exactly subtle, but it’s definitely sexy.

So how do you judge this? Well, the best sort of dirty song is the kind that you know that you could have sex to. The kind that makes you turned on just from reading the lyrics. If that doesn’t happen, maybe you should be re-thinking your approach.

The Rules!

Well there are the four rules. In the end they can probably all be condensed into one simple rule: ‘Don’t be a jerk’. Don’t have racism, sexism or queerphobia in your music. Don’t sing positively about rape or any form of domestic violence. And actually make your songs sexy. Talk about the sex rather than trying to be coy about it, and if you’re going to use innuendo, then make it at least somewhat clear what you’re talking about.

So much of our dirty music misses the mark, but I reckon we can do better.
Read more at http://junkee.com/how-to-write-a-dirty-song/35594#lQqIrJO0H5cjjdCF.99

Originally published in SBS News, 5 May, 2014. Article written in conjunction with El Gibbs. 

With the NDIS being rolled out, it has become clear that the program will mean the privatisation of the entire state disability sector.

The ACT Government has already announced a shift of all Government provided services to the private sector by 2017, whilst similar moves are happening in NSW. This has lead to Unions NSW calling the NDIS “the largest (and most complex) privatisation in NSW history.”

Whilst we cheer about the rollout of this massive amount of funds for people with a disability, these moves should be raising alarm bells.

Current disability funding is simply not meeting the needs of people with disabilities. Disability funding has long been at the bottom of the social safety net, with many people unable to get their basic needs met. Basic needs like regular showers, independent housing and accessible transport. You know, that kind of fancy stuff.

We make education and health services available no matter where people live. Undeniably, there is less service provision in regional, rural and remote areas, but everyone contributes to make sure there is some. As a system such as telecommunications has shown, the market has created great services in city, but only mandated universal service obligations have ensured regional areas have been serviced at all.

The NDIS is intended to replace this broken and fragmented system, with a single national scheme that is focused on what people with disabilities actually need, not the specifics of their disability. People with a disability will receive individualised funding for a specific set of supports tailored to what they need. For some people this includes mobility aids, such as wheelchairs, while for others, support will be available for activities that encourage community participation.

In doing so, the NDIS has been developed as a consumer-based system of care. Under the program people with a disability will be able to shop for their care, creating a free market for disability services.

The roll out of this market is already happening around the country. There are currently trials of the NDIS going on around Australia, with everyone to be included by 2018-20. NSW and Victoria are testing the full rollout, while other areas are focusing on children and young people. This year, the ACT will begin their trial in July, as will the NT and WA. As part of this state and territory governments are actively planning to hand over all disability support to the Federal government.

In both NSW and the ACT, full privatisation of state disability services have been announced, with all current public servants to be “supported” to move over to the non-government sector. Similar announcements should be expected around the country, as disability services are fully privatised. This privatisation should leave everyone extremely concerned.

Moving services onto a free market will lead to a downshift in their quality and the conditions of workers in the sector.

For-profit companies do not have the same social requirement as the Government to provide adequate services to all in need. With a profit motive, service provision quickly becomes about what is most efficient, rather than focusing on the actual needs of the consumer. This can lead to real downfalls in service provision, as people in rural and remote regions, from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds, or those with complex needs, are left out in the cold as the provision of their services is not profitable enough. The primary incentive for companies is to make money, meaning the commitment to services and human rights that should form the basis of the scheme gets left behind.

Whilst non-government organisations have similar social responsibilities as governments, we cannot rely on them to manage the entirety of our social services. Non-government organisations face similar problems to corporations – due to their size and capacity they can often focus resources in major city centres, rather than in regional or outer urban areas. This is exacerbated by the fact that service tenders are often won by the larger charities. Whilst these charities can often provide services to those with the simplest needs, they often lack the specialisation of smaller organisations, who whilst they may deliver better support, are unable to get their foot in the door.

Companies and NGOs are also unable to provide the same service-security as government operators. Without the social requirement to provide services, companies and NGOs can often move or close up shop at the drop of a hat. This can leave people stuck without a service they desperately rely on.

The privatisation shift also has negative impacts for workers. No longer provided with the base-line of pay and conditions available in the public sector, workers are left the mechanisms of the free-market. This leads to significantly reduced pay, conditions and employment security. This is particularly relevant with the NDIS,where experts have raised concerns that prices for service providers allowed in the scheme are simply too low. In turn this results in a thinning out of the disability sector – as those with skills in the area seek better jobs. This hurts people with a disability as service options become fewer and more far between.

It is these same concerns that have left progressives – the very people who have become the main backers of the NDIS – to fight against the privatisation of other social services. Other social services, such as health or education, are not delivered in the same way the NDIS is structured. People don’t have individual health budgets that they can use to shop around for the services they need, nor do an individual education budget. We all contribute so these services are available to everyone. We have long resisted voucher systems in health and education, arguing they compound existing inequities by benefiting middle and high income families and undermining social cohesion.

This is particularly relevant given Australia’s geography. We make education and health services available no matter where people live. Undeniably, there is less service provision in regional, rural and remote areas, but everyone contributes to make sure there is some. As a system such as telecommunications has shown, the market has created great services in city, but only mandated universal service obligations have ensured regional areas have been serviced at all.

So why is the NDIS so different?

Here, the need for a more flexible, responsive support system is being sold as individual consumer choice in a market. But social services are not intended to be a marketplace. Social supports developed because of market failure.

There’s no doubt that this model has been developed as people with disabilities often have very negative experiences of state services. But maybe these problems were because disability support was always at the bottom of the funding pile for decades, leaving people with crumbs instead of equal access to services.

The individual nature of self-directed funding is a policy goal for many people with disabilities. This allows people to make decisions about their lives in the same way that able-bodied people do, rather than having to do what a service provider says. People with disabilities want the same rights to make mistakes, have some fun and figure things out as everyone else. But this is possible without privatisation of state disability services or the creation of a market based social support system.

More importantly, state disability services have a broader role than just delivering support. The social model of disability, that underpins much disability activism, requires society to change. Transport and the built environment must be accessible, discrimination fought and institutions need to open their doors to people with disabilities. With no presence in disability at all, where will the incentive to change other areas of state service provision come from?

The NDIS represents the largest investment in disability services in Australia’s history. It is a massive, and needed, shift in disability funding. But as the program is being rolled out the implications of it are now finally being felt. People with a disability should be deeply concerned about what the privatisation of disability services means, whilst everyone should be concerned if this represents a precursor to similar moves in other sectors in the future.

This article was originally published on SBS News. Click here to view the original. © All rights reserved.

Originally published at Left Flank, 1 June, 2014

GUEST POST BY SIMON COPLAND

Eight months in and the Abbott government seems to already be at the point of no return. After the disaster of the budget, the government has hit a new low in polling — one that, given the political “skills” displayed, seems very difficult reverse. As I’ve predicted in the past, the Government has become beatable.

The situation is part of a relatively extraordinary, although entirely predictable, turnaround for a Government that waltzed into office in September last year. As Left Flank has already pointed out, the Coalition has limped from crisis to crisis, as highlighted by its Gonski backflips, internal fighting over Paid Parental Leave, the departure of Holden and Toyota, the job cuts at QANTAS, the spying scandal with Indonesia, and its ongoing struggles with asylum seeker policy. There’s no doubt the budget process, starting with the release of the Commission of Audit Report, the failure of the lead-up communications strategy, in particular around the debt tax, and now the bungling of its rollout, has added to these problems. The Right is now clearly in crisis mode, with Abbott in particular looking weaker every day.

As Abbott stumbles there is a real question of how the Left should react. What should we do to capitalise on the crisis of the Right?

For many, the answer has been simple — go for the jugular. Many are now using every means possibly available to them — whether it’s calling for a vote of no-confidence or pushing for a #libspill to get rid of Abbott as soon as they can. We’ve now gotten to that fun point where we’re actively predicting Abbott’s impending doom — Bob Ellis, for example, actively predicting a new Liberal leader within coming days.

Of course, this desire is understandable. Part of this push is due to a visceral hatred of Abbott within Left ranks — a hatred that is probably well deserved. It is understandable that we all want to see the man, and the Government he leads, gone as soon as possible. But the strategy is fundamentally poor, and we need to figure out a better one.

The lack of an alternative

The biggest issue the Left faces at the moment is the lack of a clear alternative if and when the Abbott Government falls. Whilst many in the Left have quickly mobilised around opposition to Abbott’s policies, eight months on from the defeat of the Rudd government, the crisis of the movement — the crisis of where to go next — is alive and well.

This is best highlighted by two alternatives to Abbott’s leadership provided by many in the Left.

The first of these is a return to an ALP government. Strangely enough this approach is not being framed with any excitement about the prospect of a Bill Shorten prime ministership (apart from a small flurry during his budget reply speech), but rather through nostalgia for the Gillard years. For example, a meme is currently floating around with a picture of Gillard and the caption “Miss me yet?” Many in the Left are looking back on the Gillard years as a positive, hoping to recapture that energy if Abbott is toppled. As I’ve argued in the past though this represents a significant memory failure regarding Gillard’s record:

It is a record filled with locking up innocent asylum seekers, watering down the  mining tax, approving coal mines, cutting payments to single parents (policy passed on the same day as the misogyny speech!), extending the Northern Territory intervention, cutting aid funding, cutting higher education funding etc etc. The list goes on and on. In policy area after policy area Julia Gillard actively took Australia further to the Right.

Very little of that has actually changed within the modern ALP. The ALP is still the neoliberal party it became in the 1980s and has been ever since. That is not changing at the moment and seems particularly unlikely to change with Shorten as its leader.

The other route many on the Left take is to gleefully talk about a #libspill. Many have focused their attention on Abbott as the sole problem, hoping beyond hope that if he disappears everything will get better. Much of this comes from an infatuation with Malcolm Turnbull. Ever since he lost the leadership over the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and then came out in favour of same-sex marriage, Turnbull has become a favourite of some on the Left. It is a very weird kind of love. Malcolm Turnbull is in no way a progressive leader — he is a right-wing neoliberal champion just like the rest of his colleagues.

So here is the problem. The realistic alternatives we have at the moment are not real alternatives at all. A Bill Shorten prime ministership would just give us a “…labor government who are far more adept to implementing neoliberal policy & brutalising refugees without the PR gaffes.” The same can be said for Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull would not actually represent much of a progressive break from this Abbott Government, but would simply bring it a more popular figure-head.

And this becomes all the more difficult when we take into account how the left would react to these changes. The current evidence — the nostalgia for the Gillard years and the ongoing swooning over Turnbull — would suggest that a shift to either would see the left dampen its attack on these right wing policies. There is plenty of evidence of this from the Labor years — an unwillingness of many to attack the policies of the Government in the way we should have. In many ways we let the ALP have a free-ride, entrenching their right-wing agenda with it.

Whilst the alternatives we have to Abbott therefore are better in some policy areas, at the moment, in many ways, they are significantly worse. The willingness to let either the ALP or Turnbull have a relative free-ride — at least compared to Abbott — will remove our chance to capitalise on both the crisis of the right and the crisis of politics. And in doing so we will continue the propping up of the political class (through our new desire to support its leaders), further entrenching the rightward swing we are seeing in our society.

We need time

So what is the Left to do? There are a number of things that we should start with, and should start with soon.

First, we need to accept the situation we are in, and that we need to take time to rebuild. It has been a strange sense of irony that many in the Left have started using much of Abbott’s tactics to bring this government down — for example calling in a vote of no confidence in the Government, or arguing for parties to block the budget in order to force a new election. We even see people screaming for an ‘election now!’

Yet, these approaches are fraught with problems. They are about playing the very sort of political games that Abbott was so adept at — tearing down a government using whatever tactics available to him. And we only have to look at the evidence of how Abbott has succeeded to see what sort of result that will bring us. These are the very games that many in our community hate so much — games that have rightly led to a hatred of the political class.

So what do we do instead? I think Tim Hollo explains it best:

We’ve had years of a creeping shift to the Right, aided by Labor often, but really   driven by the Liberals, years when we’ve been able to pretend to ourselves that we were still the egalitarian society we believed we were, long after it had been eroded beyond recognition. The bubble has now been burst.

That gives us the opportunity to really fight back. Not just to use right-wing tactics to kick out a government we oppose, but to actually do the hard yards of rebuilding a caring society, a daring society, a sharing society.

Tony Abbott provides us with an opportunity that if we capitalise on could lead to a significant shift. Not only is he exposing the crisis within the Right, but he is also exposing the crisis within the political class. He is laying it out for us all to see, and giving us the chance to turn things around. But instead of doing so we’re just playing his very games — with the only options we’re providing being ones that would further entrench both a right-wing agenda and the authority of the political class.

Instead what we should be doing is using this opportunity to rebuild a Left and an anti-politics movement. That is a difficult approach. It means accepting our lot for now — accepting that Abbott will be Prime Minister for now and dealing with it. But it also means recognising that we can use that to our advantage — highlighting the failures of the Right and the entire political class to shift people towards an alternative — to fighting for a society that’s focused on people rather than the elite.

The Right are already doing this — initially through the growth of the Katter Australia Party, but now through the Palmer United Party. Whilst the Left are insistent that Palmer only succeeded because of the money he spends on elections, another part of it has to be that the message he is selling — one of anti-politics — is working. Recent evidence out of Europe — the success of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain — suggests the Left has the capacity to do that too. It’s about creating a genuinely populist, left-wing alternative, which does not focus within the rules of the current system and the political class. It’s about articulating a new system.

The outline of that social system still doesn’t exist in Australia, but we now have an opportunity to start that discussion. Instead however we’re spending our time talking about votes of no confidence and demanding an “election now!” It may be fun in the short term, but it will not help us in the long run.

Simon Copland is a freelance writer and climate campaigner. He is a regular columnist for the Sydney Star Observer and blogs at The Moonbat

– See more at: http://left-flank.org/2014/06/01/left-tony-abbotts-inevitable-downfall/#sthash.08uqYzUm.dpuf