Hurting Your Own Cause

Marriage equality protester Ali Hogg caused a scene in Melbourne over the weekend when she confronted Tony Abbott at a cafe as he dined with a journalist.

Ms. Hogg, with the help of several supporters, shouted slogans at the Opposition Leader, accusing him of bigotry and homophobia.  The activists continued to chant outside the cafe's window after being forcibly removed by staff.

It does the gay marriage movement no favours when protesters act in this manner, ambushing targets and disrupting the lives of bystanders (Mr. Abbott was not the only patron present in the cafe).  Far from spreading sympathy for her cause, if anything Ms. Hogg will have hardened the hearts of anyone who was present over the weekend.

This incident betrays the immaturity and closed-mindedness of many gay marriage activists.  Those who speak out with the loudest voices, forming the public image of the movement, often seem to be those who have devoted the least effort to understanding any positions that may differ from their own.  In Ms. Hogg's opinion, anyone who disagrees with her must be a homophobic bigot.

You do not change minds and win hearts by bullying dissenters and rudely disrupting peoples' lives. Ms. Hogg is promoting a good, worthy cause, but her juvenile behaviour over the weekend could only ever have been counterproductive.

Milne's First Foray

Christine Milne has quickly dipped her toes into the already thriving business of blaming Tony Abbott for everything that ails the Labor government.

New Greens leader Christine Milne says Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is to blame for creating an environment where Labor feels it is locked into delivering a budget surplus in the May budget even though economic circumstances have changed.

Have the Liberals been keen to highlight the government's fiscal excesses over the last four years? Yes. That is the opposition's job, after all.

But the reason that Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan are so politically wedded to the delivery of a budget surplus in May is very simple. They promised it. Over and over again.

When the government's fiscal credibility was thrown into jeopardy by billions of wasted stimulus dollars, Labor told the electorate that it would prove itself.  The budget would be returned to surplus in 2012-13, and that would put the government's economic credentials beyond doubt.

The government will be judged by the measure of performance that Wayne Swan himself has repeatedly laid out. Tony Abbott did not promise the Australian people that Labor would deliver this surplus. Labor did.

Stale Tactics

Barack Obama, during his acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado:

"If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.  If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from."

You can expect to see this quote again during the general election campaign, and not without good reason. President Obama's own words could become a potent weapon against him.

'Guns For All Mankind'

Politico's James Hohmann is in St. Louis for the National Rifle Association Conference, at which both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich spoke yesterday.

Mr. Santorum, who recently suspended his presidential campaign, proudly announced that his sick daughter Bella is now a lifetime member of the gun group.  Bella Santorum is three years old.

Mr. Gingrich, still running, promised that he would submit a treaty to the United Nations seeking to make the right to bear arms, which is enshrined in America's second amendment, a universal human right.

"Far fewer women would be raped.  Far fewer children would be killed... and far fewer dictators would survive if people had the right to bear arms everywhere on the planet."

All of these assertions are simply wrong.  A plethora of studies have shown that higher gun ownership rates lead to higher levels of violent crime, whether one examines the developing world or even the United States itself.

Even were that not the case however, it is interesting to hear a United Nations sceptic such as Mr. Gingrich suggest that a UN decree would have a quantifiable effect on anything.  Are dictators going to start supplying their oppressed populaces with weapons, just because of Mr. Gingrich's petition?

That is of course assuming that his proposal would not be laughed out of the chamber.

The fealty with which conservative Americans in particular defend gun ownership is disappointing. Surely any concerns over the principle of individual liberty are in this case superseded by the moral imperative to limit loss of life due to violent crime.

These same individuals who call themselves 'pro-life' all too often offer enthusiastic support for the death penalty and respond with outrage to any effort to take deadly weapons off the streets.

Mr. Santorum's announcement that he had made his baby daughter a lifetime NRA member earned wild applause from yesterday's enthusiastic pro-gun audience, but for many others it would have been a deeply disturbing moment.

Mitt Romney also spoke at the conference, giving voice to a more moderate pro-gun stance.  His arguments on the issue seem positively mature, juxtaposed with the stubbornly unyielding position of many Republicans - but he is equally wrong.

There will be no lasting gun reform in the United States until conservatives are convinced of the moral imperative.  This argument will have to be made by one of their own - a popular, courageous conservative leader.

We may be waiting for quite some time.

Dr. Brown's Legacy

Dr. Bob Brown's retirement from politics leads one to reflect upon the contribution he has made to the Green movement in Australia.  He can undoubtedly look back upon his career with pride, having successfully created a genuine third force in the parliament.  His commitment to the cause of environmentalism has been unquestionable.

He leaves on a high note, having taken his party to a position of real power in the minority Gillard Government.  The defining policy of Ms. Gillard's tenure thus far, the carbon tax, is a direct result of the Greens' influence.  Bob Brown did, at least in this instance, completely out-negotiate the so-called 'great negotiator'.

But what of the Greens' fate now, in the aftermath of their founder's departure?  Dr. Brown was a savvy and talented politician.  His successor, Christine Milne, is not in the same class, and she struggles to present herself so endearingly to the public.  

Waiting in the wings are two ambitious Senators who represent the next stage in the Greens' evolution.  Sarah Hanson-Young and Lee Rhiannon are a different political breed to Dr. Brown and his former deputy - while environmentalism has been at the heart of the Greens' philosophy thus far, for this next generation of leaders it plays only a complementary role in a wider platform of economic socialism.

There is a real risk that Bob Brown's exit will presage the waning of his party's power, much in the same manner as Cheryl Kernot's departure doomed the Democrats.  

The Greens must now fight internally to remain the unthreatening environmental party that was exemplified by Dr. Brown's public image.  The extremism of Senators Hanson-Young and Rhiannon can only hurt the party's cause in the future.

Opposition Leader Obama

"We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonise their opponents instead of coming together.  It's the kind of partisanship where you're not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea - even if it's one you never agreed with.  That kind of politics is bad for our party, it's bad for our country."

Candidate Barack Obama said a lot of sensible things.  His rhetoric stressed the importance of a unified America - not red states and blue states, but united states.  His speeches decried the hyper-partisanship that had come to typify American politics.

Four years, it would seem, can make all the difference in the world.

President Barack Obama will soon seek re-election, and the most striking aspect of his second term agenda thus far is that it does not exist.

Mr. Obama, a sitting executive with a full term of experience, is not travelling the length and breadth of the nation spruiking the successes of his tenure thus far.  Nor is he providing an uplifting vision for the future.

No, the President seems to think that his time would be better spent savaging his political opponents.

Most recently, Mr. Obama launched a blistering attack on the House Republican budget, which was crafted in an effort to address the nation's snowballing debt crisis.

The national debt, which has expanded at an unprecedented rate under the current President, is driven in large part by an increasingly steep growth in entitlement spending.  The Congressional Budget Office predicts that by the middle of the century entitlements will consume all tax revenue, leaving aside no funds to provide other essential government services.

Mr. Obama has offered no comprehensive plan to address the national debt.  He has made no contribution to the debate over entitlement spending, beyond excoriating any plan put forward by Republicans.

This is not leadership.  It is not even 'leading from behind'.

Say what you will about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, they have at least displayed enough political courage to address the looming debt crisis in a meaningful way.  They are prepared to take potentially unpopular proposals to the American people and argue their case.

Meanwhile, the man who was elected in 2008 to lead the nation through the most troubled of times seems content merely to stand back and criticise.  To engage in the very hyper-partisan attacks that, not so long ago, he decried.

"Over time, our weather forecasts would become less accurate because we would not be able to afford to launch new satellites.  That means governors and mayors would have to wait longer to order evacuations in the event of a hurricane."

Is this really what we want from the President?  For him to travel across the country, spreading the generationally important message that his political opponents threaten the accuracy of weather forecasts?

No, Mr. Obama was elected to lead.  If the President truly believes that Republicans will take America down a path of 'social Darwinism', then he should present us with an alternative vision. Tell us how he will address the national debt without reforming entitlements.  How he will drive economic growth while raising the tax burden on business.

For President Obama to prove that he deserves a second term, he must cast aside the invective of recent weeks and meet Republican policies with his own, better ideas.

He can either claim the mantle of leadership, or he can shrink into a sad caricature of the partisanship he promised to sweep away four years ago.

Abbott and Homosexuality

A fascinating report in the Australian today reveals that one of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's sisters, Ms. Christine Forster, declared her homosexuality four years ago.

In 1992, Forster returned with her husband to Australia where they raised four children a stone's throw from her elderly parents on Sydney's north shore.  Her home served as a meeting place for gatherings of the extended family.  To outsiders it seemed a comfortable, conventional suburban existence, but in 2008 Forster made the agonising decision to come out as a gay woman.  She'd met Virginia Edwards when they were parents with sons the same age at the local parish school.  They forged a friendship then fell in love.

Mr. Abbott is of course a strident defender of traditional marriage, and he is a favourite target for ridicule over the issue of homosexuality.  His Q&A appearance during the last election campaign highlighted the awkwardness of this debate for Mr. Abbott in the public arena:

The questioner in this video openly accuses the Opposition Leader of harbouring fear and ignorance of homosexuals, and of denying them proper dignity and respect.  Host Tony Jones rather smugly suggests that if only Mr. Abbott 'got to know' some gay men, he could change his opinion.

We now know that the issue of homosexuality was much closer to home for this man than anyone realised at the time.  Questioned by the Australian's Kate Legge, Mr. Abbott recounts his own personal reaction to his sister's decision:

Abbott says he was "absolutely flabbergasted" by the end of Forster's longstanding marriage because he'd always thought it was "a fantastic partnership".  But his sister felt he understood the turbulent and distressing crisis she was going through.  He listened sympathetically.  He offered counsel when it was sought and he didn't make judgements.

"These things happen," Abbott tells me.  "The marriage ended.  For Chris it was replaced by something else that is marvellous.  She has regrets but she did something brave, authentic, something she felt had to be done.  I can respect that even if I can't in every sense understand it... I've come to the view over the years that the only side you can take is that which tries to maintain relationships.  Getting judgemental in ways which damage relationships does no one any good.

It is impossible to entirely comprehend the ordeal that Ms. Forster would have undergone as a result of her decision to come out, particularly within the context of an intensely Catholic family and community.  Mr. Abbott, his wife Margie and their three daughters were the first members of Christine's extended family to welcome her and her partner as a couple into their home.

The Opposition Leader has also worked hard for four years to keep his sister out of the public spotlight, despite the fact that his relationship with her could have helped to soften his image as an outdated social conservative.

In 2010 he persuaded a newspaper editor to drop a story about Forster's sexuality out of concern for his sister and her family.  Their welfare has dictated his response above any vanity for his own image.  Suffering insinuations that he remains quarantined from the breadth of humanity was a small price to shoulder.

This episode serves to highlight the deeper character of a man who is too broadly caricatured in the arena of public discourse.  It is reminiscent of an earlier controversy in 2005, which has largely been forgotten since Mr. Abbott assumed his party's leadership.

Abbott's girlfriend from university days had got pregnant in 1976 and they'd both assumed he was responsible.  They'd remained friends, stayed in touch and often wondered what would happen if the son they'd put up for adoption ever made contact. When he did, the then Liberal minister did not flinch.  He supported his former lover and welcomed the 'son' into his family.  Abbott's wife Margie was magnificent during the drama.  And when DNA tests later revealed Abbott was not in fact the father, he responded with sensitivity to this twist of fate.

Mr. Abbott to this very day suffers, at least among a significant portion of the public, from a lingering impression that he is a harsh man, lacking in those most basic human values of compassion and tolerance.  He is often caricatured as an unyielding right-wing dogmatist, and is frequently labelled (among other things) xenophobic, racist and homophobic.

Yet an objective appraisal of the evidence leads one to conclude that Tony Abbott is in fact a man of immense character.  Whatever one may think of his policies, or of his rhetorical style, Mr. Abbott is universally acclaimed by those who have known him as a fundamentally decent person.

All of this is not to say that he would necessarily make a good Prime Minister.  Policy, as much as character, would be the determining factor in that regard.  I personally disagree with Mr. Abbott on the issue of gay marriage, and I find it hard to even comprehend the reasoning behind his position on the matter.

But it becomes much more difficult to demonise the man when we are granted such insights into the realm of his personal life.