Archives for March 2008

The rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne has given us decades of civic enmity and jealousy; hours of round-the-BBQ discussion about the supposed coarseness of Sydneysiders as compared with the supposed cultured refinement of Melburnians; and then, of course, there is Canberra, the “compromise capital” which lies pretty much equidistant between the two.

I’m not going to revisit the debate about which city is best - although you can, of course - other than to say that many of your comments on the Lucky City chime with an interesting piece from the economist Tim Harcourt.

In it, he talks about the “Sydney paradox”: the curious fact that the city continues to top the polls as a tourist destination, as it did earlier in the month, but is dropping down the league tables when it comes to places to live. The most recent poll suggested 20% of the people who live here are considering leaving town. It’s almost as if there are two distinct places: “Global Sydney” and “Local Sydney”.

But it’s his comments about people leaving town and heading westward that caught my eye, and may ultimately force us to rethink Australia’s great geographic rivalry. In the future, the battle will no longer be so much between Sydney and Melbourne as east against west.

Tim Harcourt calls this the “Gilly Effect”, a reference to Australia’s retiring cricket legend, Adam Gilchrist, who began his career in his native New South Wales but found much more success when he moved to Perth and started to play for Western Australia. Tens of thousands have followed his lead.

The “Gilly Effect” is borne out by a swathe of recently-released statistics. They show that Western Australia has clocked the fastest population growth of any state in Australia - 2.3% compared with a rather lackluster 1.1% for New South Wales. Western Australia also has the highest birthrate of any state in mainland Australia, with 1.98 births per woman. Despite its geographic remoteness, the population of Perth, its capital, is expected to grow by 43% by 2031.

Much of this is explained, of course, by the resources boom and the manpower needs of companies like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. As trade links with China and India strengthen, Perth is also well placed to benefit from its obvious geographic advantages over rivals like Sydney and Melbourne. No wonder, then, that a Western Australian, resources magnate Andrew Forrest, has just become Australia’s richest man - the first time in more than 20 years that a member of the Sydney-based Packer family has not sat atop the rich list.

To sustain the boom, Western Australia’s government is already targeting members of what demographers call “the creative class”, the nation’s and the world’s smartest workers, to help fuel its growth. State officials recently visited seven Indian cities in seven days in the hope of attracting the cream of the new immigrants.

As the population of Western Australia grows, so too will its political influence and, ultimately, its number of parliamentary representatives. Perhaps Kevin Rudd, the master of the symbolic gesture, was mindful of this long-term trend when he decided to convene his first Cabinet meeting of the year not in Canberra but Perth. The Mandarin-speaking leader understands both the domestic political geography and shift in geopolitics, as he recalibrates Australian foreign policy to reflect the rise of China and, to a lesser extent, India.

I’d love to hear what else explains the lure of the west? Are you thinking of becoming part of the eastern exodus? Have you moved already? Has Perth got what it takes to rival Sydney or Melbourne?

There have been times - admittedly, usually on long-haul flights - when I’ve thought it would be great if we could swivel Australia 180 degrees, so that Sydney was on the west coast rather than the east. Flights home would be a lot cheaper, the time difference with London wouldn’t be so anti-social and we could watch the sun set over the ocean. Even without such a mighty tectonic shift, perhaps something similar is already underway.

PS I’m heading west myself – Sri Lanka to get married. See you after the honeymoon.

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Published in the 1930s, The Strange Death of Liberal England was a political history authored by the fabulously named George Dangerfield, whick took as its subject the spectacular collapse of the British Liberal Party in the early part of the 20th Century.

After 1922, the party which had produced some of Britain’s most illustrious prime ministers - Palmerston, Gladstone, Asquith and Lloyd George – never formed government again. By the end of the century, the Liberal Party had ceased to exist – though half of its name and a good many of its former members went to make up the modern-day Liberal Democrats.

Might a book one day be written entitled The Strange Death of Liberal Australia, focussing on the demise of a once-great party which dominated post-war politics and produced the country’s two longest serving prime ministers - Robert Menzies and John Howard.

For the first time since Federation, Labor not only occupies the Lodge in Canberra, but controls ever state and territory government. By contrast, the Liberal Party’s highest office holder in the land rejoices in the title of Lord Mayor of Brisbane.

While Kevin Rudd enjoys the highest approval ratings since pollsters started measuring such things, Brendan Nelson, the new Liberal leader, suffers from the worst – he even slumped from 9% down to 7%, which is close to political flat-lining.

Some of the party’s headline acts – former Treasurer Peter Costello and former Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer – have retreated to the leather-bound comfort of the backbenches to consider their retirement options – Canberra’s answer to I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.

John Howard, meanwhile, has undertaken a morale-boosting trip to the US, popping up at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington to receive the Irving Kristol Award – a glass bauble which celebrates one of the founding fathers of the neo-conservative movement. At the black-tie event, he was applauded by Paul Wolfowitz and "Scooter" Libby, two fellow ideological battlers whose time in office also came to an abrupt and unwelcome end.

Nelson, a former doctor with a penchant for loud music and even louder motorbikes, has come up with a possible remedy. This week he said he would stake his leadership on a merger between the Liberal Party and its former coalition party, the rural-based Nationals. But he softened his stance as soon as senior figures expressed misgivings, in a manner which once again undercut his personal authority.

No wonder then that newspaper cartoons which dwell on Dr Nelson’s plight commonly feature Malcolm Turnbull wielding a dagger. But the Liberals’ post-election drama does not quite rise to the level of Shakespeare. To many, it resembles a pantomime – with the stage-struck Dr Nelson fearful of ever looking behind him.

In the absence of John Howard and without the firm smack of leadership of, say, Peter Costello, the party seems ideological adrift and bereft of new thinking. Since the election it has ditched its opposition both to Kyoto and even backed away from its controversial WorkChoices labour reforms. Fashioning a new conservative agenda – along with a leader to animate it – is proving difficult. Right now, its strategy appears based on managerialism: the hope that if the economy goes belly-up then voters will turn again to the Liberal Party to turn things around.

Of course, it is always well to remember Mark Twain at moments like this. The Liberal Party is not riven with a hotly-contested ideological issue, like Europe for the British Tories or immigration for the American Republicans, which has the potential to cleave it in two. On the upside, it can also look to states like New South Wales, in which the Labor government appears to be in a perpetual state of crisis, to mount its comeback. In Malcolm Turnbull, it has a leader-in-waiting who might well have the political skill and policy vision to revive his party. Brendan Nelson might even rediscover the kind of recuperative dexterity that he learned all those years back at medical school. The economy might indeed go belly-up. And could not much of the above have been written about the Labor Party under, say, Simon Crean, who led the party in the wake of its 2001 defeat.

The Strange Death of Liberal Australia? Like all political obituaries written in advance of the true moment of bereavement, it may well be exaggerated.

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My first major Australian assignment was to cover the memorial service for the "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin. Held at the "Crocoseum" at Australia Zoo in Queensland, it featured a "True Blue" soundtrack from balladeer John Williamson and music from a choir wearing tight khaki shorts. Zookeepers stood at the side of the arena, cradling Irwin’s beloved animals in their arms.

The made-for-television service started with a video-taped message from Russell Crowe, and included eulogies from the unlikely triumvirate of Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake and John Howard. But the most heartrending tributes came from members of the Irwin family.

Steve’s father, Bob, asked that the world grieve not for his son but the animals he had left behind – creatures which had ‘lost the best friend they ever had.’ But it was Steve’s then eight-year-old daughter, Bindi, who stole the show. Displaying a poise and self-certainty that belied her young age, Bindi said that whenever she looked at a crocodile she would always think of her dad.

The service was very moving – especially its intricately-choreographed finale, when Irwin’s "ute" (pick-up truck) was loaded up with camping gear and his favourite surf board, then driven slowly from the arena. With that, zoo employees spelt out his catchphrase, "Crikey", in cheery yellow flowers. There was hardly a dry eye in the house – there was no shortage of Crocoseum tears.

It did not take long for sympathy to turn to unease. To some early critics, the slickly-produced service which was broadcast live on the Discovery Channel raised nagging questions about whether its global audience had been party to a nifty piece of global rebranding – that amidst all the heartfelt grieving it had also managed to signal that the Irwin family was still very much in business.

Then came more loudly-voiced criticisms that Terri Irwin, Steve’s widow, had thrust Bindi into the spotlight at too early an age – even though Terri has argued that her daughter thrives by appearing on television and on stage, just like her dad.

In the absence of its world famous breadwinner, the Irwin family has a zoo to keep running, animals to feed and conservation work, Steve Irwin’s main and enduring legacy, to maintain. But the production of a Bindi fitness tape, action doll and range of clothing has left more than a few people thinking "crikey".

Now, there is open talk of a rift within the Irwin family. Bob Irwin has resigned from Australia Zoo, which he himself founded, saying that he plans to "continue Steve’s dream" through other means. Reportedly, the over-commercialisation of the zoo, which has allegedly impinged on its conservation work, is one of his main complaints. Crocs no longer rule, seems to be the message, and have been overtaken by money.

As if to emphasise that point, Terri Irwin is now at the centre of a complex legal row over millions of dollars owed by creditors to Australia Zoo.

Perhaps the latest Irwin saga offers us a modern-day parable about how quickly the press can switch from sympathy mode to carping mode? Perhaps it says something about the potentially destructive power of modern-day celebrity? Perhaps we’re witnessing a new variant on that old Aussie staple: the "small poppy syndrome" - cutting down Bindi even before she gets the chance to grow tall. Perhaps there’s a subtle anti-Americanism at work, since Terri hails from Oregon. Or perhaps we should all just mind our own business.

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