Governance Stripped Bare

A Finer Balance

2012-02-15T20:47:00.000-08:00

The street ended with our house, and a new road began with our neighbour. The local historical society would tell you that the strip of a dozen houses that ran parallel to a reserve, used to be a dairy farm. So what used to be a patch of grass used for grazing is today, a delicately balanced spectrum of ethnic and cultural diversity resonating with a fragile but certain peace. One end of the spectrum identified with the victims of persecution from various sources, whilst the other end of the spectrum saw those that arrived here in less desperate a fashion, but also very much in search of something they might just have found here in Australia. A Sudanese family is at number 61 and a Romanian resides at number 49. The Dutch widower sits purposefully between the Italians and the Greeks, while the Asians are dispersed randomly along the strip. A Sri Lankan family punctuated the sequence, with the Germans adding a comma, the Russians an apostrophe. The Ukrainians who recently moved in next door to the South African in number 55 completed the chaos. As for the trio of Christian fundamentalists who everyone eye suspiciously - they made for a silent post-script to what was already a dangerous cocktail.

Some relationships thrash individuals restless while others meaningfully define communities. One of the more intense relationships keeping the strip on the edge of its congeniality is that which involves Dorin, the middle-aged agoraphobic Romanian, his violin and the South African pensioner Mr Kempis. I would often mow Mr K’s front lawn and in return, he would keep me entertained with colourful and lengthy stories about another life in Johannesburg. The old man who adores his garden, spent endless hours working amongst his tulips and roses. He would complain of chest pains, yet you wouldn’t ever find him without a cigarette between his lips. An interesting contrast, certainly, between the love and patient care he showered upon his plants and the nonchalant approach he took to his health. It was in and amongst his reflections on a distant home in South Africa, that I would become familiar with his contempt for his neighbour’s violin playing. Dorin practiced his music every afternoon without fail. I happened to be there one Saturday when the sounds of this music carried into Mr K’s front yard. I watched as the old man stopped in mid sentence and began muttering something about wanting to go over and pour liquid concrete into a sound box. I must say that I thought Dorin’s music was quite pleasant, but then I hadn’t served as a sound technician in a Durban Concert hall for twenty odd years.

While I took care of Mr. K’s front lawn, Emilio, the Italian who lives with his mother at number 65, helped Mr. K with his hedges. Emilio and his family have been in the country for over twenty years. Emilio’s father built their house before he passed away a few years ago. A cement worker by day and a Casanova by night, Emilio often did odd jobs for the residents of the strip... “I like to be of use. Earn my place, you know?” Wednesday night saw Emilio on the ground floor of their home entertaining his guests whilst his mother would be upstairs watching Mcleod’s daughters on Channel 9. The show reminded her of her youth, she once told me. She and her four sisters grew up on a vineyard that their father owned in Italy. A passionate soccer fan, Emilio used to feed dreams of playing for Australia before “women and bastard knee pains” took over. There was a third passion for Emilio, outside women and soccer. In no certain terms, this concerned a complete and utter repulsion for the Christians sharing a house next door. Apparently they “want to save (his) soul from the devil. Well I’ve got news for them. They’re two lives and 34 years, too bloody late”. A few late night espresso sessions had given me an insight into a carefully detailed plan to “cement up all their windows and doors while they’re asleep so that they’ll keep their ‘soul saving’ words of wisdom to themselves”. The blueprints gave me some direction to the origins of Mr. K’s ‘cement in the sound box’ idea.

Coming from the other end of the street, I can’t say that I would find all the members of the shared house to be entirely dislikable. I often played chess with the Turkish Adel who was very keen that I made an approach on the Ukrainian girl from across the road. I had told him about how she and I had been doing the ‘eye-contact, smile’ thing ever since she had moved in a few months ago, and he wouldn’t let me forget it…“What are you waiting for exactly? There’s a Turkish proverb…‘patience is bitter, but it bears sweet fruit’…well, that’s bullshit”. His keenness for me to “heat the stove” (as he put it) with the Ukrainian, made me question Adel’s place amongst the pure and pious. Apparently he had turned up to church with a friend one Sunday morning during his first week in the country and found a group of young people in search of a roommate. He knew what he was in for but felt that he didn’t have much choice…“if beggars were choosers they would die - at least in Istanbul”. He’d “be the Pope, if they wanted (him) to be, ” and so he “play(s) their game”. According to Adel, “We are what we are, as well as what people assume we are…if their assumptions fit our cause”.

In this delicate balance that nurtures peace, you come to realise that there is a common fabric that held all these people together. The space that they shared as well as the events that occasionally brought them together to share a common predicament. These might include a power failure that ran the length of the strip, or the fire that was lit in the reserve the other night. It might even touch the commonly sustained distrust of the fundamentalists in number 57. As for what these people all think of the country they might call home? From my discussions with some of the residents over the years, identifying with a national identity is far from their concerns. The message was saliently clear in Mr K’s thoughts on the matter….“Well, see boy that question is a little confusing. I’ve been all over the place over the years, so I don’t really see myself as anything of the sort (Australian or South African). I am just who I am, who I will be till I die. A father. A brother. A friend. I do like it here, this country…(he turned and shifted his gaze towards Dorin’s flat)…well, mostly”.

It's Friday night and Tissa is still in jail.

2012-02-13T04:28:00.000-08:00

It was just after 5pm and I was heading home for the weekend when a thought occurred to me. I was sitting there on that street bench on Swanston Street and I asked myself… ‘What would I do if I saw Michelle Grattan being escorted away in handcuffs by a cordon of policemen? They were taking her to a waiting police van. What would I do and what would the people around me do if we were told then and there that Michelle Grattan, The Age newspaper's Political Editor, was headed to the Supreme Court of Australia. It wasn’t some elaborate joke and those men with her were members of the Australian Federal Police. It wasn’t a Friday night prank being played on her by her colleagues. No, she was going to be charged, tried and sentenced to 20 years of hard labour. What for we would ask? The answer: for creating disharmony in Australia with her articles each week. Michelle Grattan we would be told, had been committing crimes against the state and she would be imprisoned as a message to all journalists. This was no joke but everyone from the arresting officer to the judge of the Supreme Court of Australia was in on it. What would I say and what would the people standing beside me say? How would we react?

The tram came along then and I got on. Friday night for me was dinner in front of the television with my partner, sipping a glass of wine. As I sat there, planning my weekend, all solid two days of it, my thoughts wandered back to Michelle. Michelle Grattan, winner of numerous media awards, considered one of the most influential journalists of our time. Would it really be that unreal? What if Kevin Rudd did in fact turn around tomorrow, backed by the Trade Unions, the various Labor factions and other special interest groups he decided, that it would be in the interests of the nation that Michelle Grattan be silenced. Let’s say, for sake of argument, that it was her relentless coverage of the Rudd Government’s mishandling of the asylum seeker situation in Indonesia that did it. “She needs to go Kevin’, Stephen Smith, Foreign Affairs Minister may have turned to the PM and muttered whilst walking through the back corridors of Parliament House. “The polls aren’t looking good for us, she’s not helping. No one will notice that she’s gone.”

Would we not notice? Tired, stressed city workers would have watched a woman being quietly taken away by the official looking people and into the back of a marked police van. We would have shrugged our shoulders and headed home for the evening, surely. Some of us may have phoned a friend over the weekend and talked about it. “Did I tell you that I saw Michelle Grattan being taken away? --- No, not sure what she’s being charged with but it’s all pretty bizarre I reckon…. ----- Who do you think The Age will replace her with? Surely not Catherine Deveny?” Or maybe I am being too cynical.

Perhaps the arrest would in truth kick start a series of protests led by groups like Amnesty International, the International Federation of Journalists. Media groups, newspapers, radio and TV would all band together perhaps, the way they did post Tsunami. Leading writers and Editors alike would speak at rallies organised on the steps of Parliament. Julian Burnside would be there, Malcolm Fraser too. The Social Alternative would be there handing out the Green Left weekly. Maybe foreign politicians would weigh in as well. Barack Obama might slip in a line at his daily press conference. “In every corner of the globe, there are journalists in jail or being actively harassed: from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, Burma to Uzbekistan, Cuba to Eritrea. Emblematic examples of this distressing reality are figures like Michelle Grattan in Australia", he might say.

Fortunately, I can go to sleep knowing that I wouldn’t have to worry about our Michelle’s well being over the weekend. Michelle would perhaps, like me, be sitting at home with a bottle of nice wine, thinking about who and what she’s going to pursue next week. The same however, cannot be said for Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam, his friends call him Tissa. A Tamil Sri Lankan journalist who on the 31st of August this year, was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor for doing what Michelle does: writing articles for the papers and telling it how it is. One fine day in May, Tissa was walked away by Police officers in front of all to watch. It may not have been Swanston Street, but it was a main street and it was done by the books. He has been languishing in jail for 166 days to the day. If he completes his sentence, rather, if he survives his sentence, he would have been in jail for more than 7,000 days. This is man who should have learnt his lesson from once losing his job because he tried to defend the notion of ‘labour rights’. Tissanayagm is in jail to serve 20 years of hard labour and it isn’t a joke. It’s serious and not a hypothetical. You can read about him here. The mob at Amnesty International usually seem to know what they’re talking about:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/sri-lanka-jails-journalist-20-years-exercising-right-freedom-expression-20090901

Sri Lanka: Let's talk about it

2012-02-11T19:55:00.000-08:00

A huge proportion of those detained at Christmas Island have come via Indonesia. It makes sense that the Prime Minister wants to talk to his friends in Indonesian about it. He knows that Turnbull and the rest of Australia will watch him as he does so. However the business of ‘boat people’ coming to Australia via Indonesia should not be considered a new challenge for Australia: it has been a trend for over decades. Since the surge of Vietnamese migration during the 70s and 80s – the original ‘boat people’, we have witnessed thousands of desperate people try and get to Australia. Most of the makeshift vessels they have used to get here have come via Indonesia. So yes, it makes sense that the PM is getting onto the Indonesians, but it appears that this policy response has a gaping hole in it: Sri Lanka.

In the PM’s own words…“this challenge, arising from Sri Lanka and the civil war which unfolded in Sri Lanka over the last 12 months - which has been violent and bloody - is causing an outflow of people from Sri Lanka right across the world. This is a problem for everybody. Therefore, that's why we're dealing so closely with our friends in Indonesia on these challenges”.

As a leader in the region, it is time that the Australian government took seriously the need to address the elephant in the room – the crisis in Sri Lanka. According to Amnesty International left more than 20,000 people dead and more than 250,000 people without homes. Australia has a strong claim to having key talks with the country where all these seemingly new ‘boat people’ are coming from, because it is not like Australia has not being doing anything about it. Over the years Australia has poured millions of tax payer dollars towards aid programs in Sri Lanka. According to the 2009/2010 budget report from AusAid, Australian taxpayers will have increased their contribution to Sri Lanka by almost a third, growing from 27 million AUD to 35 million dollars in three years. So it is not like we are not putting the money where the mouth is – we are just not opening our mouths to talk about it.

If the Prime Minister of Australia is serious about his commitment to keeping both a hardline approach to this crisis, as well as a ‘humane’ approach, he needs to be serious about engaging the 'right' people in the conversation, which is harder than you would think but not necessarily impossible. Indonesia is only a part of the problem; Sri Lanka is where it lives.

NGOs & Trade Unions in SL

2012-02-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

The following was a short piece that I wrote whilst volunteering at Oxfam Aus.

The unions and local non-government organizations in Sri Lanka have traditionally considered one another as competitors for limited funds. Recently however, the two groups have come together to form a coalition that has advocated and campaigned for the labour rights of garment workers.

The Multifibre Agreement (MFA) is the name given to the preferential access to European markets that Sri Lankan based producers of ready-made garments have enjoyed for many years. This agreement is now slowly being phased out with an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 garment workers to lose their jobs. Already, over the last two years, an estimated 50 garment factories in Sri Lanka have been closed with more than 10,000 workers left stranded. Of the workers who lost jobs, many did not receive any form of redundancy packages or compensation.

The garment industry in Sri Lanka is one where the concept of a basic living wage is frequently used within the discussion of labour rights without any figures ever having been set for measure. It was only after research was conducted by an Oxfam supported coalition going by the name of ALaRM (Apparel industry Labour Rights Movement), and involving 850 garment workers, that two separate figures were established – one figure for the free trade zones, and another figure for all the other zones. “With this figure, we could start a campaign” says Britto Fernando, a member of the coalition.

AlaRM, an alliance of 6 trade unions working in the government trade, and 5 NGOs, has been able to establish itself as an effective and credible voice for garment workers in Sri Lanka. The alliance, which began with some skepticism, has moved forward with help from Oxfam as its key facilitator, and has been able to sustain its progress via the establishment of a ‘common program’. The program has involved all of its members in a joint and equitable decision making process, deciding how the common funds provided by Oxfam, would be most effectively used.

In keeping to the objectives of the common program, the coalition recently launched a MFA campaign where employers, buyers and various other important stakeholders “…came and sat together for the first time. Even the government got involved, research documents were prepared”, but while the NGO’s, employers and Trade unions did not sign any joint statements or agreements, “we are happy that we got some concentration on these important issues” comments Britto Fernando. Britto who is a member of the coalition and has been a campaigner for over 23 years, feels that in Oxfam’s role as a facilitator/advisor, Oxfam has been able to educate many new and veteran campaigners on the relevant issues, such as labour rights. “After 20 years, I now know the trades act. …We were fighters on the street and we didn’t know the subject, Oxfam and its workers knew the subject and now we do also”.

While the trend of employers being unaccountable continues, since its conception, ALaRM has begun to organise garment workers located in both the urban and outer rural areas and raise their awareness of labor rights. Furthermore, AlaRM has been able to establish knowledge of how many garment factories are operating in Sri Lanka. “If a factory is closed, we now can know how many workers have lost their jobs, and how many are in need of statutory funds, employers providence funds, monetary compensation or assistance.”

A choice made to be a vegetarian.

2012-02-02T01:53:00.000-08:00

Webbed feet and tiny feathers protruded from a sack of pale white skin. There was another one not very far off. They were small and huddled into themselves. Two tiny carcasses were lying side by side in the shade of a tree in my parent’s backyard. There was something about the image that burned itself into my mind. How had it happened? I couldn’t see any broken shells around the bodies of the hatchlings. Had they fallen out of their nest, forced out? I imagine they would have died by the impact of hitting the ground. Were they birds? The web feet and furriness where wings would have grown, suggested so. Their skin hadn’t developed. A fly was buzzing around one of the carcasses.

Whilst working for Maxine Morand, Mount Waverley’s State Parliamentarian, I had watched as hundreds of anti-abortion letters and campaign leaflets poured in. Some locals were clearly upset about Maxine’s decision to champion a Bill which recommended the removal of abortion from the Victorian Crimes Act.

Prior to this, under Section 65 of the Victorian Crimes Act (1958), a woman who has an abortion is liable to between five and ten years imprisonment, while a medical practitioner who provides an abortion can be jailed for up to five years.
I remember attending an Afternoon tea meeting with local constituents. One of the issues raised was about brochures some of those present at the tea had received. The brochures which had been anonymously published and mailed, contained graphic images of dead and bloody foetuses. One local, who only minutes before had been trying to convince me to come to her Church on Saturday afternoon, raised the point that while it was probably inappropriate to bombard people’s private letter boxes with materials depicting such horrific images, she could understand ‘their point’. Maxine refused to accept this saying that it was simply inappropriate and disgusting.
Seeing these two carcasses now, I think back to that afternoon tea meeting, the anti-abortion campaign and those confronting images on those brochures.

I didn’t know, but I assumed Maxine’s concern was for the fact that those images had been forced upon unsuspecting private individuals and their families. Individuals and their family members who after a long day, may have preferred not to come home to a pamphlet with dominantly placed images of the remains of an aborted birth. A pregnant mother who at the age of thirty-four waits anxiously for the life growing within her to be born alive and healthy; a group of primary school kids who had been asked to go and get the mail; a woman who only a few months ago had tragically experienced a late term miscarriage.
I turned and looked for a shovel. By coincidence, leaning against the wall of the house happened to be a shovel with a blade just perfect for the job. I picked it up and dug a hole in the ground, deep enough not to be disturbed. The next bit was tricky.
In and amidst my ongoing identity crisis, I had fleeting considered the possibility of going back to uni and studying medicine. Not a chance now. The images of the carcasses were confronting, to say the least. I lifted the handle of the shovel and gently wedged it underneath the carcass. Picking it up with the blade, I carried it across and then dropped it gently into its grave. The second carcass slipped off the shovel’s blade. I tried again. This time it rolled up against the edge of the shovel. This wasn’t going to be a very dignified funeral.
With weeks to go to before the electorate chooses whether or not to support Maxine or her opposition - who would have voted against the law reform Bill, I think of those campaigners. Had they been affected by the images of the bloody foetuses just as I had been affected by the carcasses I had just been burying? Did those images and what they symbolised confirm or strengthen their religious and spiritual beliefs? In direct mailing hundreds of homes in the electorate with brochures containing such graphic images were they hoping to stun families into supporting their cause?
After placing the second carcass into the grave, I paused for a moment to reflect on what I was doing. Carcasses like these, older and much larger were being sold in quantities at the local butchers. They hung from ceilings and they lined shop windows. I had happily eaten them after they had been cooked as a curry, deep friend or grilled, for lunch and dinner.
I have always personally supported abortion and for a range of reasons. At the same time, the images of those foetuses and their frightening similarity to the remains of the two hatchlings I had just buried had moved me somehow. As one questions their faith and spiritual beliefs, I imagined it was natural for me to question my convictions about issues such as abortion.

One issue associated with abortion that I would struggle to re-consider my position on however, is that business of not being able to choose one way or another, without fear of persecution and subsequent incarceration. I hope that it would always be my belief that a law that criminalises a woman and her doctor for choosing the path of abortion is seen as an institutionalised human rights violation.

The law of criminalising an individual after they act on the painful decision to put an end to the life/cells/whatever you want to call it…growing within them, decisions “they don’t make them casually…” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCifpbfQlOM), seems like the laws that allow a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country"...risks death and seeks refuge, only to find themselves and their families, incarcerated indeffinetely.
So it’s a belief in the right to choose, amongst other things, which underpins my commitment to the decriminalisation of abortion. It is for this reason (amongst others) that I would I choose Maxine Morand to be my representative in the State Parliament, just as I would choose to be vegetarian from here on.

Dealing with the crime: a need to look back.

2012-01-05T22:24:00.000-08:00

Caught up with an old friend for lunch today, it had been awhile since I had seen her last. She had been experiencing a lot of personal hardship over the past year or two. Her partner had been having an affair with a close friend. The affair wasn't a one of act. Rather, it had been a systematic, and sustained betrayal of trust which took place over the course of an entire year. It had been planned, designed and executed in such a way that my friend shouldn't have found out - but ofcourse she did. While I had experienced my share of trouble in relationships in the past, what she had described to me in absolute detail was nothing like I had ever come close to experiencing or could possibly fathom. That said, I had spent the past twenty-four hours processing dozens of surveys that students had filled in following their field trip to a medium security prison.

As part of a course field-trip for Accounting and Finance students at the University are encouraged to visit a prison that housed a number of inmates that had been sentenced for ‘white-collar’ crimes. In the case of the prisoners that these fifty odd Accounting & Finance students had come across, white-collar crime included crimes such as tax evasion, fraud and other forms of corrupt behaviour. Corruption in these cases being where a senior accountant or manager had abused his position of privilege for his private benefit.

Students picked up on the fact that dishonesty and manipulation seemed to be underlying behaviour patterns at the very core of actions that were driven by greed. It was in the experience of many of these students, that 'you did not need to be stupid to do the crimes' these prisoners had committed. All you had to be was determined, greedy and dishonest. Many of the prisoners had been committing crimes for years. When their actions had finally caught up with them, some prisoners has wondered what had taken them (the Banks, auditors etc), so long to find out. Thus many of the inmates knew what they were doing, knew they could get away with it and knew that they would be caught.
Catching up with my friend and finding out about how her life had been over the past year or two, was very much an insight into the mess that some of the prisoners had left behind. White collar crime has the potential to destroy trust. In the case of my friend, the fact that her partner had been dishonest went without saying. But equally disheartening was the fact that a close friend had meticulously violated only everything sacred in friendship: respect, trust and loyalty.

Strength of character and determination had allowed my friend to move on with her life, and not let her suffering bring down all that she had achieved for herself over the years. Sadly this is not the same for those companies, businesses, and even entire countries where white collar crime has its toll. Many organisations fall apart when those supervising and managing the financial systems undo all the hard work of others due to a wanton desire for personal benefits at whatever cost. A national example is that of Soeharto’s Indonesia. The 1997 financial crisis that made a mess of East Asian countries left Indonesia in a worse state than most. Nepotism, core corruption and a lack of accountability had led to what was essentially the underdevelopment of what could have otherwise been an economically strong and market leading country.
My friend had learnt a lot from her experiences. She chose not to play ‘victim’, she didn’t want to come across as someone who had suffered at the hands of others, though she clearly had. She realised that she had to learn from her experiences and move on. Many prisoners that the students had come across had made mistakes and were ready to move on. They knew that they couldn’t go back to what they had before, but would make the most of what was offered to them in the future. A number of students were quite concerned about some prisoners however, due to the fact that these prisoners appeared like they had not done anything wrong. The prisoners felt that somehow the system had let them down, and they were the victims. Some of the prisoners for instance felt that they simply had not known the truth about certain laws, that tax evasion wasn’t really that big a deal, that they couldn't really hurt anyone else with what they were doing. They argued that 'insider trading' for instance, was just something that happens, doesn't it? One international student from China raised an interesting point with:
“I asked them if they were worried about the guards attacking them. And one prisoner responded that if they followed the rules and did the right thing, that the guards would leave them alone. My only question then was why they couldn’t figure this out before they committed crimes”.
According to most students, they felt they could tell when a prisoner was not remorseful for their actions. It came across in the way they dodged questions about whether they were sorry for what they had done. It was clear when they would avoid any reference to the people they had hurt whilst committing their crimes.

Meeting with my friend and listening to her move on with her life was a relief for me. Especially when I remembered that the wreckage and financial ruin that white collar crime leaves in its tracks, can take years to recover from. We often hear for instance, about Soeharto and the way he ruled Indonesia ‘with an iron fist’, but we don’t often hear about the thousands who had died during the mass poverty that gripped the country during the financial crisis. You will hear about the technical details associated with the collapse of Enron, but you don’t hear about the individual employees of Enron who had, in the thousands, lost their jobs, health care and life savings.

One thing that my friend still didn’t understand is how those who had hurt her had yet to even acknowledge what they had done to her. They had either created even more lies, and had tried to once again manipulate their way out of facing the truth. Perhaps it was a matter of keeping the focus on themselves; deflecting attention from the annoying finer details of the past. In the experience of one student: ‘you’re not sure if the penal system would ever actually teach them to learn from their mistakes, but you hope that they would at least own up to them’.

NGER, TRI & GRI

2012-01-02T21:35:00.000-08:00

Based in Amsterdam, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is very different to both the NGER Act as well as the TRI. Whilst both the NGER Scheme and TRI are national based reporting mechanism, the GRI is globally focused with a network that covers much of the world. Whilst still focussed on the importance of ‘Corporate Accountability’, the GRI operates by a very different method with a very different set of objectives.

Similar to the NGER scheme in recognising that environment performance is globally interlinked and interdependent, the GRI was set up so that sustainability reports based on the GRI framework could be used to benchmark organisational performance with respect to laws, norms, codes, performance standards and voluntary initiatives. The global focus is a key strength of the GRI in that performance of key environmental issues and the management of those can be mapped on a global scale over time. Important to note also is that the GRI does not limit itself to any one particular environment focus – i.e. release of chemicals, production and use of energy, or emission of greenhouse gases.

The fact that GRI uses ‘guidelines’ as opposed to legislated requirements is also a key point of difference between the TRI, NGER Act and the GRI. Guidelines which have been formed as a result of widespread consultation and dialogue amongst a number of entities presents a unique advantage of the GRI. In some reporting frameworks, it is the agenda of certain groups – e.g. a government and its political motivations that influence the reporting of outcomes. In that sense, the GRI ensures greater transparency and accountability from organisations for the benefit of the environment.

Whilst the GRI reporting framework is broadly relevant to all organisations regardless of size, sector, or location, its ‘Sustainability Reporting Guidelines’ has a limitation in capturing the context and circumstances of specific industries and sectors in a way that a National reporting framework does not. For instance, in terms of reporting the GRI suggests ‘what issues to report on’ and how to match performance against a globally selected range of ‘indicators’. Whether these bear relevance for all entities is a challenge that faces the GRI. That said, GRI – Australia, by nurturing a more regional specific focus of the GRI, has the potential to address this problem. Another limitation that comes with the number of stakeholders is the ease with which a consensus may actually be achieved with equitable results.

While there are many positive aspects of the GRI scheme compared to the TRI and NGER scheme, it is clear that there are many benefits that source from having a nationally focused mechanism supported by legislation as well as local law enforcement agencies. Whether the effectiveness of GRI will win political support to influence and shape future national schemes and reporting frameworks is yet to be seen. However, with the evolution of focal points such as GRI – Australia, this may become a reality sooner than later.

A memo from Pt. Pedro...

2011-03-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

Three days have passed and it has felt like three years - each day bringing with it individual histories, people who books can be written about, poems written for.

The night we arrived, dad went and looked for fish to bring home. He was told to come in the morning, it would be fresh off the boat. The next morning, the community wakes up to the reality of a minor diplomatic crisis brewing between the the government of India in its relationship with Sri Lanka. The local fishing community had been at war with India that night. In a nut shell, the local fishing community, by way of 30 or so speed boats, had finally had enough of Indian fishing boats coming into their waters, destroying their nets, destroying sea vegetation important to sustaining sea life, and decided to take on the South Indian fishing industry, by way of hijacking a dozen or so Indian trawlers. A little 'war at sea'. More on this to come. Meanwhile, here's what somebody else wrote (http://www.hindu.com/2011/02/17/stories/2011021759751100.htm) So that was day 1.

This story like other stories illustrates some large truths, and countless threads of attached smaller truths about the experience of life here, and some universal truths about lives in disadvantaged communities in general. The fact that I am able to send you this email from here, is a sign of amazing progress where advanced access to communication is concerned, but could I possibly describe the cost and suffering that has come with this sort of progress? I am not sure I have the words, there are others who can do that much more effectively. Yes, seven years ago, to get access to a functioning land-line here in this village, would have been a miracle. Today, to hear my aunties utter the words 'broadband internet access', is mind blowing, in a village which feels like it its otherwise stuck in the 1970s, economically, socially, politically. There have been some positive signs of-course. The militia (L.T.T.E) has more or less gone, and that is truly a blessing. The army soldiers generally leave the village people alone to their affairs, that too is a blessing. The soldiers are everywhere of course - checkpoints within every 100 meters along the coast line. Caste division, forced or otherwise, still here. Extreme poverty, still here. Desperation, still here. The uncanny ability of people to make fun of and joke about their tragedies, unbelievable, still here. But the tension in this country is still intense, and still here. Freedom of speech? Hasn't arrived. Freedom of movement and association? It's there, hiding quietly in and around the alleyways where its out of sight.

I remember the joy of being able to ride a bike through the town and into the distant coastal areas with a cousin at dusk. Can't do that anymore, people still disappear, people with money mostly (which shouldn't be a problem for me - I don't have any). Whole communities have disappeared (IDP camps are still holding people). Then again, as my mentor in life once said - a proper abduction might do me some good.

As for my distant cousin, I look into his face and see the emotional scars of a broken individual, a returned asylum seeker, whose life in Malaysia over the last two years, reminds me of the novel - Shantaram. In that sense, some of the stories you hear here, are simply unbelievable. As in, you literally can't believe them. They are that tragic and haunting, and almost unearthly. The world can't be that savage, surely. Particularly horrific are the experiences of local school teachers. They are the kind of stories that between the lines shout out to the alien listener: "If you're not going to do anything about what I tell you, piss off and don't come back till you do, otherwise you are just a tourist, sightseeing disaster and tragedy, but without the marginal benefits". Don't get me wrong - it's not a matter of sitting and listening to people talk about themselves. It is the watching of how people live, observing this little world, noticing the small details, and just opening your eyes and seeing the few obvious truths, and the countless numbers of little truths.

The Tamil language, the poetry of the way language is used by people here, you could call it romantic. Particularly those who were young and hopeful prior to the onset of the war, and then thirty years later, find themselves old and feeble at its end, friends dead, family dead or absent, they are left with little but memories of a life that has passed them by. Their kids on the other hand, face that horrible and heart wrenching vast divide between aspiration and opportunity. And their attitudes, can almost lead you astray. In asking a friend about his experience of being taken by the army and being brutally beaten up, and asking if he has any lingering resentment towards the army.... without blinking an eye-lid, shoots back, "I have bit of an issue with anyone who holds a gun to my head' using his thumb and extender forefinger to create the image of a gun, and in that response says it all - he knows what I'm getting at, and refuses to be baited into that sort of conversation, yet tells me what I want to know. The fact that the war has ended here, really means nothing whatsoever, fear still exists, either of war returning in one way or another which it might when human rights don't exist, and the fact that heavily armed men stand at street corners coupled with the memories of a thirty year war, speak volumes. The uniforms of the armed men or their ethnicity hold a superficial currency of value only to those from the often harmfully reckless international diaspora community. There is potential for progress, and hope is probably the only thing going for people here. It's the same everywhere else I suppose.

There a couple of questions I suppose i cringe when people ask me... one of them being, so what do you do back home? Where do you work? Trying to explain micro-finance and no interest loans to these people, i fail miserably. I struggle to complete my sentences, chocking back laughter at the image of televisions and fridges being considered essential items in a world so far from here. Thankfully my dad's with me, to translate into more eloquent Tamil, the much larger and broader history of predatory lending in Australia, the welfare state, social disadvantage in Australia - but the punchline doesn't change i guess, or rather the obvious is what it is... Australia is a much richer country, and the poor in Australia are ridiculously rich compared to 'you lot'.

To come across as pathetically dramatic - it is difficult to sleep at night, knowing what is out there, beyond the corrugated iron fencing of our home, what has happened and what is still happening. The knowledge that there is good work being done, is the only sleeping pill. In and amidst the trash that can sometimes be 'international development', 'aid work', 'community development' sponsored by foreign donors, there are sparks of inspiration, there is good work being day every day. So to my friends in the international development context, keep going...sometimes it does work, and people on the ground here and in the thick of it, feel that what you do helps. To my friends who are interested in wanting to make a difference, at some level, somewhere, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Make sure your heart's in it, and your choice is one of true conviction. I speak from the experience of someone who when we wakes up to it, feels that he's probably in this business because he grew up in it, grew up around it, and sadly has a sense of: i should be here because it's the right thing to do, rather than actually wanting to be here. It's horrible to confess this to you, but sometimes i wonder, if I actually genuinely "give a shit". if I look close and hard at my actions, choices, reactions and responses, I wonder if I do actually care...whether i have been so de-sensitized to people's suffering that i no longer care, and i suspect i don't. It's hard for me to come to terms with this, given the frightening nature of suffering and poverty, whether that's in narre warren on point pedro. You need to be in the business because you WANT to be here, not because you think you should, or because it's a job that pays - often it doesn't really pay much at all.

In the words of a teacher who watches as his students faint in class because they haven't eaten, "You just cant 'not be here'. You come here initially because teaching is a respectable profession, but the nature of the job, relationship with your students, the realisation that you are their home outside of home, a family they may not have, and at some point it ceases being your work...and it becomes your life, and there is nothing else." (very very shit translation).

The costs & benefits of hosting a white elephant.

2010-09-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

A junior writer for one of the local ethnic newspapers here in Melbourne, recently asked me to comment on the 19th Commonwealth Games (CWG). If that was the only question, my answer would have been fairly straightforward: why are we still doing this to ourselves? This being burdening a major sports event on a society and economy that may not be ready to meet the challenge of unrealistic expectations of the bubble-wrapped west courtesy of a relentlessly sensation seeking media, pardon the cliché. Ourselves being the masses who all pay something to watch athletes who, as Christopher Judd recently mentioned upon getting his second Brownlow medal, are “put up on pedestals” and engage in what is at its core a “make believe….self indulgent past time”.

Why are countries, linked to these games only by their shared history under British Imperial subordination and servitude, committed to an event that celebrates that very period of our history? There’s no scarcity of emotionally loaded arguments available that the CWG mark a shared history that may pave the way for a shared future. But the business of a shared future argument is true for the world as a whole and in her battle against global issues such as Climate Change. This would be an argument for the Olympics perhaps, but the CWG? If it was an opportunity for those former colonies to come together and say, “The English have everything to blame for the basket case democracies and corrupt dictatorships that we are today, but let us together move forward”. But this isn’t the CWG. The CWG doesn’t officially open, or close for that matter, until the Queen or one of her representatives say so.
(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cwgarticleshow/6639706.cms).

It’s at this point that I should perhaps disclose my bias on the matter. You see, I am one of those people who see ‘Australia day’ as ‘Invasion day’. A day not for celebration but for reflection, and silent hope that there would be a way that this second generation migrant might be able to make amends for the indigenous blood that was spilled on the altar of colonial exploration courtesy of the British Empire. To somehow work towards repairing the damage that almost destroyed our indigenous Australians, for the sake of a home curt by sea with beauties rich and rare. Or whatever else it is that those boat people came here for, the ones from 1788 as well as the ones that came the other week. On a side note, I should clarify that the conditions of arrival are significantly different: the former came and pillaged, the later - women, children and the elderly, languish in reprimand. But that was the British Empire, and that’s how the commonwealth was brought together.

This piece will not explore the problems recognised with colonisation and British Imperialism and all the baggage that came with it. Many commentators are out there who will do that job better than this writer could ever. What I am more interested in is my friend’s second question that followed: Should India have been given the Commonwealth Games?

An argument often put forward in favour of a developing country (or any country) for hosting a major sporting event – is the promised economic gains that such an event would bring to the community. A country with millions living in poverty, such as India, has subscribed to the script that says: “your investment in this event will mean your people will be better off”. That is a very tall order given that the budget of the games has risen to approximately Rs 10,000 crore (official figures) and an independent estimate of Rs 30,000 crore. That’s the investment. The immediate objective being the completion of a succesful (whatever that means) 12 day sports event, and the broader goal being to address the socio-economic desires of a country which is home to 40% of the world’s most starved people, of whom we find that 46% of children and 55% of women are malnourished. So let’s unpack this a little by conducting a quick assessment of things that can be measured quantitatively and things that can’t be measured quantitatively.

The stuff that can be quantitatively measured:

The economic gains due to the Delhi games are to come in the form of: significant investments and related returns in terms of infrastructure and industrial growth. There will apparently be employment creation, and growth of the sports industry. 'Successful holding of the games will supposedly boost Delhi and India’s ‘prestige’ and the trickle-down effect of this is meant to be the growth potential of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

1.Significant investments

I haven’t been able to access the finer details as yet, but I assume any infrastructure developed would primarily focus on sporting complexes and associated administrative buildings, and in Delhi? Perhaps this also involves the refurbishment of existing buildings. Who will access these buildings once the games are over? The silent dilapidated stadiums built for the 1982 Asian games beg the question. Who will be able to afford access? Will there be a cheap Tuesday deal for instance when local schools might be able to let their kids run around the oval? Dr Ambitabh Kundu, Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, described the Commonwealth games as a “very powerful tool to exclude the marginalised section of the society” and perhaps it begins with the question of access.

What costs will be associated with the up-keep of these buildings? If it is roads, train stations and a series of other sites that will also be developed, that could be promising…for those specific roads and train stations. Let’s be clear – we’re not talking about a nation-wide development framework here. We’re not even talking about a Delhi-wide infrastructure plan. We’re talking about cleaning up and adding to the immediate vicinity of the games. ‘Beautification’ projects in and around the key sites has cost the government hundreds of crores (ten million rupees). It has been reported that the “streetscaping of just one street, Lodhi Road, is estimated to cost Rs 1855 crore.”

2. Industrial growth: tourism

I’m sure most people have got the memo by now – there aren’t many people turning up in Delhi. The diplomatic offices of most countries participating in the games have consistently communicated the serious risks associated with travelling to Delhi. Here in Australia, PM Julia Gillard has openly spoken about her concerns for Australians travelling to Delhi. Due to this and other factors, thousands of tickets are yet to be sold for the games – bottom line? People aren’t showing up.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/29/3025464.htm

But surely there’s more to the tourism pull than just the games? Surely the hype surrounding the Delhi games will promote broader tourism in India? Atleast, that’s what the Indian government banked on - we assume. Only one slight concern with that theory: What will be the effect, marginal or absolute, if news on India reaching broadsheet newspapers is heavily flavoured with each and every incident that has gone wrong and might go wrong attached to these games? These might include but are not limited to terrorist acts on Taiwanese tourists and associated memories of Mumbai 2008, bridges collapsing, images of un-kept hotel rooms and bathrooms. These and other images to comes, does not sound promising when set against the backdrop of an expected boom in tourism growth in India. India might have to wait awhile, perhaps not very long - but a growth due to the CWG? I doubt it.

3. Employment creation

The proposition that unemployment will reduce as a result of the Commonwealth Games is not difficult to support - you flush that amount of money into private construction contracts, games and event management, you should see some locals employed. But the question is at what cost and who will ultimately benefit either in the short or long term? Labour laws are India are not enforced. Work choice? Literally or otherwise, there is no such thing in India. You have a choice to either work or not work - not much of a choice. If you choose not to work, there’s a queue of people waiting for the opportunity. In bringing the games to Delhi one would feel that this would mean a much needed injection of supply for the highly inelastic market that exists for hard labour. That labour is not hard to find in India is a well known fact. That the ILO and other local and global NGOs have been campaigning to improve labour standards in India, perhaps not so well known. The CWG, associated expectations and all, have been taking India one nice big step backwards in that department, and all for the prestige.

To borrow a term being thrown around – ‘standards’, the standards of working conditions are appalling. They are conditions that we here in Australia, would protect our pets from. Interesting to note then, that with the pressure being applied from all corners including the media, the expectations of international sporting bodies, the children of Delhi have pitched into help to fill the void between where things are at, and where they need to be according to ‘standards’. Child labour isn’t new to India and ILO reports will confirm how vast the problem is in India. To borrow the words of Anna Meares, Australian cyclist, ‘this is a reflection of the world we live in’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314976/COMMONWEALTH-GAMES-2010-Child-labourers-pictured-working-construction-sites.html

4. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

If there’s one way in which countries such as Sri Lanka can justify the multi-billion dollar industry that was the war over a three decade period, it is the underpinning idea that sporadic attacks on key infrastructure and civil unrest cost the Sri Lanka economy in terms of the absence of FDI. Now that the military war has come to an end, Sri Lanka is today ripe for such investment and growth. This is not the case for India. At least, the so-called prestige of Delhi has been dragged through the mud as a result of the city’s engagement in the Commonwealth Games courtesy of the associated press. There is no hiding from the fact that a major sports event will bring every bed and toilet of the country under the spotlight, literally, as was the case highlighted in recent so-called ‘media leaks’ concerning the construction of accommodation in the Olympic village in Delhi. But what hurts more than all of those superficial side notes, is the high threat of a terrorist attack - its been made so loud and clear that Osama Bin Laden has put his travel plans to India on-hold. This is not to say India’s economy isn’t growing by the hour – it is. China can detain a Rio Tinto executive without any reasonable explanation, and China will continue to do business with Rio Tinto let alone millions of other companies, and they will want to do business with her. The economy of the China and India are growing exponentially and FDI has a lot to do with this. But to argue that the commonwealth games will boost that growth is a non-sequitur for the reasons discussed above.

Professor Kundu suggests generously that “the benefit of holding Commonwealth games [goes to] politicians, private players, and elite class.” I have my doubts about whether there are in fact any genuine, let alone sustainable economic benefits of the Delhi Commonwealth Games that is worthy of the investment made to date.

The stuff that can’t be quantitatively measured:

It is in the opinion of this writer, that the 19th Commonwealth Games has taken India back to the horrible time of India’s State of Emergency during 1975-1977. You can read the illustrated version of that period in award winning novels by Rushdie (Midnight’s Children) and Mistry (A Fine Balance). There is certainly an emergency here, but in the west we have been distracted by a running side show fed by images of dirty toilets and filthy beds that has hit the front pages of Western tabloids. The underside which we don’t get to see requires a little more effort and more importantly, a want to know. The idea that any of the following actually matters.

Housing and displacement

Public campaigns in the lead up to the games have seen slogans coined such as ‘slum-free-city’. If you were a parent of a family living in a slum, maybe you would look upon this a suggestion that the slum was going to be developed such that it would no longer qualify as a ‘slum’. Sadly not the case, as our world stood by and watched the judicial, executive and official displacement of thousands upon thousands of locals forced out of their homes. When one thinks of internally displaced persons (IDP), you might think of the many IDP camps in Sudan or Sri Lanka. Civil wars and ethnic conflict had some role to play there. The CWG and 'international expectations' has been the key player where Delhi's IDPs are concerned.

The state government of New Delhi has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court to deport beggars to their states of origin. This follows on the systematic arrests and arbitrarily detention of beggars and homeless people under the Bombay Prevention of Beggary Act, 1959 as well as the established, “no-tolerance” zones by the rather ironically titled Department of Social Welfare.

Conservative estimates suggest that in excess of 100,000 people have become internally displaced as a result of the games. The City of Melbourne is home to just under 90,000 people.

Costs to democracy

India in her diversity, complex social and traditional networks, overwhelming size and population, has been considered to be an amazing feat of democracy, but on training wheels. That training then has certainly been put on the back burner where planning for the CWG have been concerned. In and amidst budget blowouts, ad hoc planning, design and implementation of large scale projects, democratic institutional frameworks in place have been simply bypassed. The director of ‘Hazards Centre’, a professional support group and resource outfit, Dunu Roy argues that the decision making process in planning the Games was undemocratic in nature. According to Roy “much of the planning has not been done within the democratic institutional framework”.

The challenges of adhering to democratic principles and procedures is a challenge not unknown to any democracy including well established democracies such as Australia, the UK and the US of A. We are well practiced in it. When challenges associated with being democratic and fair get in the way, we take a page out of Richard Branson's book: "Screw it, let's just do it". Some of our countries were founded that way, and we here in Australia celebrate it every year on January 26th. However, the point is that we’re looking at Delhi, and the broader context of a nation that is tipped to be very soon the most powerful nation in the world ahead or behind China. The point here is that for the purpose of hosting a 12 day event, the capital city of this nation has gloriously and quite publicly side stepped democratic process - for the sake of games. The point is that this city, the second largest in population in India (after Mumbai) and arguably most diverse in terms of the language and faith of its people, has brushed off due process in accepting the offer to host these games, and mis-handle the pressure that comes with such a task.

Entrenched corruption

Transparent and democratic process some might argue is often a second order consideration after India’s first order of business: corruption. This may appear a harsh criticism but appropriate in a country that according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index ranks 84 on a scale where Australia is ranked 8. The absence of transparency in the awarding of private contracts and the nature with which allocated funds have been dispersed over the period of preparation for these games has only further entrenched India’s culture of corruption.

So I don’t think it was ever a question of whether Delhi should have got the Commonwealth Games. But did its society and people deserve to be inflicted with such a tragedy? Did India and all that it promises to offer the world, deserve this bizarre fiasco? Whether it deserved or not, it is now prostituting its culture and paying out of its own pocket for the privilege. Its government, its leadership has nothing else to do but smile and embrace so-called 'international standards' shadowed by hypocrisy and devoid of any familiarity with the uniqueness that is genuine culture, context and place.

Where the rest of us are concerned, maybe we will see the games being cancelled as some pundits suggest. Maybe a terrorist group comprised of young men with nothing to lose, will orchestrate a repeat of Mumbai 2008. Maybe a wing of a newly built stadium will collapse mid games. Maybe we will, from a safe distance, see the business of Delhi hosting the Commonwealth Games for what it really is: a white elephant that came and went, leaving a tragic mess on the carpet of India.

Another day in their shoes

2010-05-16T04:19:00.001-07:00

Meeting Sarah for the first time was refreshing: energetic, curious, unexpected and an immediate connection. Meeting Sarah for the second time was re-assuring: calm, reflective, encouraging and genuine. Meeting Sarah for the third time made it all dangerously addictive: amazingly witty, hilarious, inspiring and boldly charming. Meeting Shankar for the first, second and third time was no short of deeply troubling in every respect – embrace it while you can.

Who would have thought a game of football on a cold winter’s evening in Melbourne would lead to a meeting of two of generation Y’s most congenial minds and potentially the most amazing electrifying team set to co-host Australia’s newest radio program.

The Australian Development Review’s up and coming online podcasting/radio feature has everything to hope for. Two wildly loquacious, mildly insane, and deeply hilarious talking heads will present theADR’s fortnightly segment, aired by 3cr Community Radio (855AM) and hosted by ‘The Australian Development Review: theadr.com.au’.

First stop: a meeting with Adam Fforde: principal fellow of the Melbourne Asia Centre and professorial fellow at Victoria University. Fforde's latest book ‘Coping with facts – a skeptics’ guide to development’ was released in 2009.

‘A key assumption in development literature, Adam Fforde argues, is that development is a predictable process with knowable solutions. As a result, the literature is characterized by a combination of great certainty and great differences of opinion.

It is no surprise then, that students and practitioners confronting the mass of competing assertions about development “truths” become confused and frustrated. Coping with Facts offers guidance for the perplexed through a penetrating critique of development studies literature. Rather than presenting a general examination of modern development practice, Fforde develops coping strategies that help readers evaluate the contending solutions to problems of development.

Fforde cements his analysis with detailed case studies of development projects in Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam where he spent over 10 years. Those eager to chart a constructive career in development theory and practice as well as students looking for an introduction to this vast field will want this book as a navigational aid for their journey’.

Sarah and her budding co-host of the newly established program: ‘Another day in their shoes’, whilst reviewing Fforde’s book, will also journey into the intricate memoirs of the life and times of the ageing academic/writer/world traveler cum muso. The program will also feature some of Adam’s recorded music as an amateur bass player for an over 40s men’s jazz band based in Melbourne.

Only at ‘Another day in their Shoes’: 3cr Radio 855AM, and theADR.com.au

Changing times...

2010-04-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

Reforming the UN Security Council: A role for developing countries

When it comes to global security and peace, there is no forum more relevant to individual nation states than the United Nations Security Council. Amidst many criticisms over the years, there have been a number of questions raised about the effectiveness of the Council and in particular its ability to meet its own mandate: ‘maintain and nurture global peace and security’.

Since the UN Security Council was formed in 1945, there have been a series of attempts on the part of member countries to reform the process by which the five permanent members of the Council perform their duties. A number of these reforms have included references to three key aspects:

• broadly changing how the Council works
• modifying the right of veto
• revising the composition of the membership

(globalpolicy.org)

Of the three aspects above, one particular aspect that both critics as well as supporters of the UN Security Council agree to be of particularly high importance, is the need to revise what has increasingly become an outdated composition of membership. This was highlighted in the outcome of the 2009 Copenhagen Summit when individual nation states collectively failed to come to a binding agreement on how to share responsibility for addressing climate change.

The current state of play

At present, the five permanent members include: China, The Russian Federation, The United Kingdom, France and the United States of America. The membership of the Council was established more than sixty years ago following the conclusion of World War II. Amidst many changes to the world since then, of relevance to the composition aspect of Security Council reform is the growth of developing countries.

A large number of developing countries have grown significantly in the role that they play in global forums. India for example, previously characterised principally by its mass poverty, has now become a global super power with its rapidly growing economy (Khator, 2010). The same could be said of a number of Latin American countries including Brazil, Peru and Chile. A number of African nations that were previously thrown into the global basket of failed states, are becoming crucial to what one commentator suggested is the ‘new world order’. Certainly these changes were clear to those who observed the 2009 Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change (Crossette, 2009).

The Copenhagen Summit

The reality that developing nations, though not always united, were nonetheless able to command a large majority at the Copenhagen Summit, demonstrates that a number of key developing countries have been able to, and may continue to, increasingly exert their influence in sometimes ‘obstructionist or even self-defeating ways’ (Crossette, 2009). As commented by the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown in an interview with The Guardian, "some leading developing countries currently refuse to countenance this [a legally binding treaty]…that is why we did not secure an agreement that the political accord struck in Copenhagen should lead to a legally binding outcome” (Crossette, 2009).

Whilst Gordon Brown’s assertions were certainly in touch with reality, the questions need to be raised: Why would developing countries stand in the way of a global agreement to collectively share the responsibility of addressing climate change? What would they gain? What would they have to lose? One suggestion is that the opposition of developing countries to making any binding agreement at Copenhagen can be directly linked to concerns that their interests (those of developing countries) are being ignored in light of the interests of the developed world. The validity of this assertion can be confirmed by the fact that developing countries have been and continue to be denied permanent places in seats of power, such as permanent memberships with the Security Council. Forums such as the Security Council, like the Copenhagen summit, are where important global issues are raised and addressed (DMR, 2009). Forums where, if possible, a collective consensus, a ‘binding agreement’ is a positive result with the interests of all being considered.

The ‘Walk Out’

Four days prior to the conclusion of the Copenhagen summit, a number of developing countries represented at the Summit, staged a ‘walk out’ which thereby effectively brought the entire forum to a stand-still. Led by a number of African countries, the walk out ensured the suspension of negotiations. A number of arguments have been put forward in order to explain the ‘mass exit’ by developing countries. One common suggestion repeatedly raised is that the concerns of developing countries were not given sufficient priority (Times Online, 2009).

Many leaders of developing countries were particularly concerned that under a new agreement, developed countries would effectively carry relatively less of the burden in cutting carbon emissions, than developing countries. This was further echoed in the statement of Prime Minister Gordon Brown who acknowledged that “an agreement on 50% reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80% reductions by developed countries” had not been reached (BBC, 2009).

Regardless of whether the actions of the developing countries could be explained and justified away, it was evidently clear to all the 192 countries represented at the UN sponsored forum that the view of the developing world does matter. The view of developed world is instrumentally relevant and ignoring it comes at the peril of all interests involved. If meaningful conversations are to be had on issues such as Climate Change which require multilateral cooperation, then the view of developing countries needs to be not only be included, but listened to and respected.

The shortcomings of the Copenhagen summit and the lessons taken from the forum, has great relevance for the future of the UN Security Council. For one, it raises the question of what implications continued exclusion of the developed world in the core membership of the Security Council, will have on matters concerning the Council’s mandate for nurturing and furthering the cause of global peace and security.

Connecting Climate Change to Global Security

A 2009 report produced by a UN intergovernmental panel on Climate Change released statistics that supported the suggestion that “civil unrest may also increase because of weather-related events”. According to this particular report, "Four billion people are vulnerable now and 500m are now at extreme risk. Weather-related disasters ... bring hunger, disease, poverty and lost livelihoods. They pose a threat to social and political stability" (The Guardian, 2009).

This report amidst many others draws a clear need, now more than ever before, for the United Nations Security Council, to recognise that firstly, security and environmental sustainability come hand in hand. Secondly, that a solution to address climate change, necessarily involves the active participation of developing countries.

As Gordon Brown commented, “never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries” (BBC, 2009). In order to ensure this, re-drawing the composition of the UN Security Council to include developing countries such as India, is a necessary step. In the global fight against issues threatening social and political stability such as climate change, it is necessary that forums such as the United Nations Security Council realise that developing countries need to be given a genuine role and their views carefully considered. The ability of the Security Council to nurture peace and security would otherwise be only as promising as the 2009 Copenhagen Summit’s ability to address Climate Change.

*Veto power: The United Nations Security Council 'power of veto' refers to the veto power wielded solely by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States). Veto power is exercised when any permanent member casts a "negative" vote on a 'substantive' draft resolution - wiki.

Crimes and their punishment

2009-10-12T23:57:00.001-07:00

Been reading ‘Crime and Punishment’ recently...mean, nasty, and first published in 1866. It was in and amongst my half baked reflections on Dostoevsky's work, that I found my thoughts wandering back to a newspaper article I came across some years ago. And it does seem like awhile ago now, a little piece that went into detail about how a Portugese prison had been over run by its inmates. I remembered one commentator writing of his hope that the event would “herald a new time in the prison taking it from an autocratic, punitive system to a democratic rehabilitative system". If we could be allowed to suspend the contextual importance of the statement, to a question that is implicitly raised...what is a prison for? What is its place in the justice system? How does it serve society? Prisons are widely accepted as institutions where an individual is both punished and rehabilitated for a crime that he or she has committed. It is a correctional facility in which an individual is physically confined, and deprived of a range of personal freedoms.

A question for consideration... What if a person who after commiting a murder, forgets that it ever happened. They trip over and hit their head on the corner of a table, or some other mishap befalls upon them that causes a severe head injury to the extent that he develops amnesia whereby he forgets all about the crime that he committed. What could one judge as an appropriate punishment? Would a period of incarceration, punitive in its purpose or rehabilitative serve appropriately? Essentially the dilemma, if indeed there is one, is: what happens in the case of the individual who cannot remember breaking the law, in the case of murder, taking the like of another? A little abstract and confusing, but bear with me...

If one accepts that prisons also exist to protect society from those who, in some way, have proven themselves incapable of living in that society, then arguably a jail term is eminently suitable? If you accept that asylums are for those of unstable mental disposition, and both a danger to themselves and others of more conventional brain capacity, then you have a choice: prison or asylum. If you accept that murder is either committed by those with such a lack of socialisation as to loose control of their behaviour or by those with such a lack of mental persuasion as to consider another's life as a less valuable then their own, then the choice remains if you have both incarceration institutions at your disposal. I suppose that all you must then decide is if the murder is (not was) still a pre-meditated act of evil and in need of public society justification and protection…

In either case, the individual involved, the murderer, has still committed a crime and are they therefore suitable to assist or partake in making that choice? Either way their liberty must be removed. It matters not what the building is called, you would think.

Williams, (a morning not too long ago)…raised an important point in ths conversation, namely the suggestion that what happens to that individual after incarceration is a totally different question. It matters not what the building is called – rather the disposition of the justice/education system and how much it believes in forgiveness being a sign of great strength - rather than great weakness... I'll keep thinking about it, but if you have any thoughts in the meantime, feel free to share them with me.

“If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be punishment-as well as the prison." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 19

untitled.

2009-10-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

Surrealism is the love triangle between experience, perception, and ‘self’. We perceive and we experience, the two come hand in hand. ‘Self’ barges in, and adds another dimension. What could have otherwise been a simple relationship, is now something much more complex, and resonates with the sounds of something outside the realm of objective reality. ‘Self’ brings to experiencing and perceiving, a history, values, clouded memories of past experiences, regret, hope and joy. The ‘self’, its ability to perceive and experience, is often obscured by nostalgia, anxieties, inhibited desires. Surrealism is in this context, also the void that lies between the nature of our inner voice, and our faculties to reason, and be impartial. It epitomises the nature in which we perceive the moment in its many and different shapes, sizes, and angles. What we see, will certainly not be the same as what any other sees. What we see, will only be an abstract version, one of many, of reality.

I was listening to some jazz music one evening, not so long ago. The music presented me with a goulash of sounds, perfectly chaotic and theatrical. Voices came and went. They entered, were enriched by the accompanying instrumentalists, and left. The music was calm in parts, festive in others. The musicians improvised and moved with one another freely. The pianist called out to the saxophonist, who would respond with fervour. One song would burst open with a trumpet solo, whilst another seduced the listener with the arousing voice of the female lead vocalist, who would open gently before she took to an undulating string of nonsense words and utterances - they call this scatting. You could call it w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r. The music reached my within, and fed it with expression. Artists have a habit of doing that, providing our sub-conscious with a voice. They paint, write, sing out what we might have at that moment, or at some other, have felt and experienced.

Such are good paintings, well written books, rehearsed solo musical performances, all entities that are far from homogenous. Like love, friendships, relationships, each interpretation, each experience, is one that could never be reproduced, at least not identically. Yet the artist captures our thoughts, our imagination, and finds empathy in our emotions in a myriad of ways. They might find a connection with a passage of our lives, or even just a fleeting moment. Perhaps they will draw to the surface of our consciousness an anxiety, or an insecurity that we discreetly nurture within us. In doing so, they echo some of our abstract, surreal versions of reality.

Perhaps then, it is offered in art, a method of capturing objectively, the excitement of one present moment that may shout out the idealised, romantic happiness of Armstrong’s ‘What a wonderful world’, while the next may come silently, and with a sense of desperate isolation with Friedrich’s painting ‘The wanderer above the Sea of Fog’.

The world we live in is one where the individual is almost constantly buffeted by wave after wave of diverging emotions and moods. It is a world where we are often dragged, involuntarily, by tides of life altering moments, into the sea of experience. We are drowned, and then resuscitated by intoxicating moments of joy. While we think the going is steady, we can very easily be led adrift once again, to find ourselves swimming in the misery of regret, stranded out in the middle of the ocean, alone with only bitter-sweet memories. It is in this world where nothing is for certain, that we recognise the importance of artists who have the ability to pluck a moment, be it a feeling, a thought, a dream, regret or desire, from out of the surrealist realm that is life, in its constant state of flux, and present it to us, in a multitude of forms that we can empathetically appreciate. Perhaps it is in this context, where our experiences, in hindsight, are all of a surreal nature, that we can understand Martel, the French Canadian writer’s, call to arms… ‘If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams’…

Political Correctness gone not quite far enough.

2009-10-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

Hey Hey it’s Saturday suffered a serious set-back when it decided to re-introduce ‘Jackson Jive’, a comedy skit that was first aired some twenty years ago. As an item on mainstream TV, it was controversial then and even more so today. A guest on the show, Harry Connick Junior was publicly enraged by the act. Many viewers of the show including many other members of the public have felt that it’s political correctness gone too far. This was ‘Hey Hey its Saturday’, a national favourite TV show many of us grew up watching. Surely it couldn’t put a foot wrong?

A question I want to raise is: what exactly is political correctness? What underpins the notion? Is it an emotive concept or is it an academic term rooted in intellect? Is it a matter of being ‘polite’, or being ‘sensitive’? Or is it an aspiration that concerns the way in which we conduct ourselves in a society where one recognises disparities amongst racial, social and ethnic groups? Is it an acknowledgement of the fact that while today’s society is one that has changed significantly from yesterday’s society, we still have a long way to go before we ‘get it right’?

Political correctness for this writer means much of the above, and more. It means accepting that while we can celebrate social harmony in some parts of the world, we recognise that inequality and prejudice continues to play an active role in reliving some of the horrors of history: ethnic cleansing, holocausts, and lynching to name a few. In Australia, we’ve said ‘sorry’ to the Aboriginal people. We have named capital cities and towns with traditional indigenous names. We protect native lands (to some point), and we recognise aboriginal people as being the traditional owners of the land. But what does all that mean? What does it mean to simply no longer call an Indigenous Australian, an ‘abo’, or ‘darkie’? What does it mean to acknowledge the Wirundjeri people before an official ceremony? In Australia, the poverty afflicting indigenous people due to broken social policies and welfare systems is comparable to many developing countries. What does political correctness mean, when we still have problems to address, if not next door, the street around the corner? Can we have a saturation of political correctness when we have still got such a long way to go? History plagues the present day and it always will. The sad reality is that in some corners, not too far away, our history is someone else's present day.

One must feel some empathy for the producers of Hey hey its Saturday. They could not have made a more tragic choice in deciding to hold a skit that featured men who had painted themselves black – to represent the Jackson 5; and one man painted white to represent Michael Jackson. The judge on the panel was no less than Harry Connick Junior, a musician who grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. For those who don’t know where that is, it is in the Deep South of the U.S. In fact you could hardly get more South than New Orleans. America’s history of racism in the south is known to most. The confederate flag of the South is more or less synonymous with groups such as the Klu Klux Klan, and other racist symbols.

Harry Connick Junior grew up in a society that was torn by racism, and all sorts of other prejudices. Maybe you can see where I am going with this. In reflecting on the many failures of the presidency of George Bush Junior, one particular crisis mismanagement stands out amongst the rest – the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans. Those who glimpsed at the papers at the time, would remember the sense of hopelessness one felt for what was a city characterised by poverty and racial inequality. In the aftermath of the Tsunami, a disaster many Australians would be more familiar with, we witnessed an unprecedented flow of aid and support to a region that many of us were personally familiar with. What many of us also came to realise was that the region was stricken with widespread poverty and under-development. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina – New Orleans, captured similar images of a city in the developed West, the powerful US no less, and was an example of a public policy disgrace.

• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/warnings-went-ignored-as-bush-slashed-flood-defence-budget-to-pay-for-wars-505500.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/politics/13bush.html

Harry Connick Junior wasn’t pleased with how his government handled the crisis. He contributed more than 30,000.00 dollars to Obama’s political campaign. If that wasn’t enough, he and his daughter also sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to the African-American on his birthday in 2008. Harry Connick Junior wanted change. New Orleans was where his father, Harry Connick Senior, was a District Attorney and his mother a Civil Court Judge. Both of them were known to have been strong advocates for civil rights movements in New Orleans. When the Bush administration ignored the city’s cry for help, Harry C. Junior was not surprised when many pundits pointed to race as being the reason why rescue operations and aid delivery were a delayed reaction.

Then comes a show like Hey Hey its Saturday, and invites him to judge an act that uses colour and race as its point of humour. Harry Connick Junior, as demonstrated by numerous interviews that he has done in the past, most notably with Michael Parkinson, is very intelligent and clearly articulate. The fact that the ‘Jackson Jive’ was comprised of people from different ethnicities did not make a difference in the slightest. Harry Connick Junior, would in fact feel that those ethnic communities, who Anand Deva(Jackson Jive) would belong to, would be more concerned. Deva’s Indian community has watched as numerous Indian students have been assaulted in great numbers here in Australia due to nothing else but their appearance. For example, there has been an incident reported of an academic who was brutally murdered by a young man who thought the victim ‘looked Indian’. People like Deva, let alone the rest of the Australian community, should be alert to humour that utilises colour of skin as the punch line, pardon the pun.

The business of saying that ‘political correctness’ has gone too far, or should be tempered, is for a society that does not experience racial prejudices. It is for a world that does not still have deep wounds marked by a history of racial violence and race fuelled injustice. We live in a world and society where many of us feel that ‘we’re ok’, disregarding who exactly is captured by the description ‘we’. Individuals like Harry Connick Junior, who are driven to put their money/actions where their mouth is, often go on a journey that leads them to finding out how much of a problem racism and social prejudice in its many shapes and forms, is still hurting humanity today.

If sensitivity and nurturing ‘political correctness’ is the way we teach our children to act and lead by example, so be it. If we’re kept on the edge, and constantly re-assess our words and actions, by wanting to be politically correct, so be it. If we are paranoid stricken, in the desire to ensure that we are doing the best that we can to promote racial and social equality, such that people are not harmed by prejudice, then so be it. If we lose one or two ‘innocent’ comedy skits in the process, we should be fortunate that that’s all we lose.

Telling stories

2009-09-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

Key note speeches at the Academy Awards speak often about the power of cinema. Accolades are paid to the craftsmanship of the actors and actresses on screen. What is often left in the shadows of the A- list celebrity status is the sheer audacity of a screen-writer to tell a story. There is the commitment of a production crew, to put a film together over a number of months, to send that story on its journey. Finally there’s the organisation behind those films, delivering that story to an audience via the mechanism of a Festival. In the City of Monash, this organisation is ‘Roll Play Productions’.

The 2009 Monash Youth Film Festival marked 6 years since the first Film Festival in 2004. Held in a small Community Centre in Glen Waverley and using a pull-down Projector Screen, it was a small event. This year, following on from the previous two years, the Festival took place on a much grander scale at Century City Walk - Village Cinemas in Glen Waverley.

If you were one of the few hundred people that attended, you would have enjoyed a rich collection of films which spared no category: documentaries, drama, horror, science-fiction, romance and even a Japanese film with subtitles. Matt Pastor’s film which focused on a young girl’s battle to get over her checkered past, took first place in a field of films that addressed issues from Global Warming, Mental Health, to a number of broader issues that affect young people living in a neighbourhood renewal area.

Given the podium to open the Festival, the Mayor of Monash managed to refrain from political-speak. There was one off-the cuff humorous self reflection, where the Mayor compared salesmen to politicians. Giving him the benefit of the doubt given the context of the comment, one could take the Mayor's dip into memory lane as underpinning a message of encouragement for budding young film makers. Commit to your hopes and aspirations for film making, alas you end up a Politician. The Monash Youth Film Festival, like other local Film Festivals, unfailingly gives young people the opportunity to tell a story. Occasionally, in the case of one lucky film screened by the Festival in 2008, the story goes further and gets to be told to a wider audience at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in Paris. In the end, one can only hope these stories are heard.

Fitzgerald Revisited - A lesson for Victoria

2009-08-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

According to a Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) developed by Transparency International, Australia is ranked 9 in the world, while our trans-Tasman neighbor New Zealand wins first place on a scale where Somalia finishes last (www.transparency.org). The higher you are on the scale, the more confidence people of that country have in the transparency and accountability of their public sector. ‘Corruption’ is a term that one would not often think of in the context of Australia, with our democratic processes, freedom of speech, and well entrenched status in the ‘developed world’. When we do hear of ‘corruption’ and Australia in the same context, it is usually in relation to Governance focused strategies that the Australian Government’s aid agency adopts in its approach to development in the Asia Pacific region. Many of us consider corruption and misconduct in the public sector as issues that plague other countries, not us. Despite the fact that our closest neighbours in the region, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, rank 151 and 126 on the CPI respectively (out of a total of 181), many of us feel that “we’re okay”. References to corruption in Australia have, however, made appearances in the transcripts of debates that have taken place in various state and federal parliaments over many years. The kinds of mechanisms set up to address corruption and misconduct in the public sector differ across the states, and some have even the raised the question of why Australia is yet to establish a National anti-corruption commission.

It was in 1998 that Rob Hulls the Member of Parliament for the electorate of Niddrie in Victoria, at the time in opposition, addressed the General Assembly in Parliament and spoke boldly of a need for “action be taken to stop such corruption becoming entrenched in Victoria”. The corruption he was referring to in his speech was that uncovered by the Fitzgerald Enquiry almost ten years prior in Queensland. While as a nation, Australians find much reason to often look outward where corruption and transparency are concerned, ten years on, one can only ask, has ‘action’ been taken? A year after Rob Hulls put forward a well intentioned motion for the Government of Victoria to learn from the Fitzgerald report and its discoveries in order to safeguard Victoria and Victorians from similar experiences, the Bracks Government (now Brumby Government) was elected into power. Ten years on, the same government continues to hold power in Parliament, and Rob Hulls has since risen to the post of Attorney General. A question then we can quietly ask, is has Rob Hulls the Attorney General and the Government of Victoria delivered on putting into practice the very motion Rob Hulls, a member of the opposition, put forward those many years ago?

Almost exactly twenty years since the Fitzgerald Inquiry which resulted with senior public officials and politicians being charged with crimes of misconduct and corruption, Tony Fitzgerald made a rare public appearance earlier this year at Griffith University to launch the ‘Tony Fitzgerald Lecture and Scholarship Program’. Making headlines in the Queensland papers and even some of the Victorian based broadsheet newspapers; Fitzgerald took the opportunity to make the point that while “matters are much better than they were” it would be a “mistake to take that for granted”.

Fitzgerald’s speech made the claim that “neither side of politics [in Queensland] is interested in these issues (corruption and misconduct in the public sector) except for short-term political advantage as each enjoys or plots impatiently for its turn at the privileges and opportunities which accompany power”. Not to suggest any link between these sentiments by Fitzgerald and those of Robert Hulls in opposition 10 years ago, many commentators would argue that Fitzgerald’s reflections should not to be limited to Queensland. In his concluding statements, Fitzgerald reminds us that ‘greed, power and opportunity in combination provide an almost irresistible temptation for many which can only be countered by the near-certainty of exposure and severe punishment”.

Queensland, some might argue, has learnt from the aftermath of the Fitzgerald inquiry, at least as far as the state has demonstrated by the institutional and legislative amendments and changes that have taken place. The same could be said of New South Wales and Western Australia. These states have all established anti-corruption mechanisms. The role of an anticorruption commission includes proactive investigations, reactive complaint management, corruption/misconduct prevention, and implementation of education initiatives. The activities of the core integrity bodies do not rely heavily on whistle blowers, members of the public who come forward. The prevention and education functions are a strong feature of the Crime and Misconduct Commission in Queensland, the Corruption and Crime Commission in Western Australia and the ICAC in New South Wales. A report published by the Australian Institute of Criminology put forward findings that in terms of the causes of corruption, the most common factors that can be associated with the incidence of corruption are the following:

• norms and values of politicians and public servants
• lack of control, supervision, auditing
• Interrelationships – business, politics, state.

Victoria does not resource the functions of investigation, prevention and education to anywhere near the extent that we should. In 2007 one particular parliamentary debate was inspired by a motion put forward by a Victorian parliamentarian, a representative of the Australian Greens Party, calling on the Attorney-General ‘to send a reference to the Victorian Law Reform Commission to examine the most appropriate legal model for an anticorruption commission for Victoria’. The motion that may have potentially led to establishing Victoria’s first anti-corruption commission fell on deaf ears on the side of the Government. The view of government leaders at the time was that the existing mechanisms to address corruption and misconduct in the public sector, i.e. the Ombudsman, Office of Police Integrity, were sufficient measures to address corruption and misconduct in the public sector. Ironically it was less than a week after the debate was introduced in Parliament that the Deputy Ombudsman delivered a presentation to the Centre for International Corporate Governance Research, which cast some dark overcasts on the Ombudsman’s capacity to investigate and minimise corruption in Victoria.

According to the data produced by the Ombudsman’s office for that financial year, the Ombudsman received over 3,600 complaints from the public and approximately 11,000 telephone enquiries. This, according to the Deputy Ombudsman, was a fifteen per cent increase in complaints dealt with by the office compared to the previous year. For each year for five years prior to 2007, the number of complaints had increased by approximately fifteen per cent. In the words of the Deputy Ombudsman “this has been a significant workload for a small office with less than fifty staff.” Whilst this comment suggests an apparent capacity and resourcing issue, the question of whether the Ombudsman’s office could tackle corruption issues even if better resourced, needs to be raised.

In the same presentation, the Deputy Ombudsman went on to mention that “conflict of interest issues have come up with increasing frequency over the past 12 months. Complaints of a conflict of interest have identified public sector managers who have chosen to ignore clear conflicts and act partially with their own interest in mind”. It is important to note, that while it may not be explicitly expressed in the Annual reports or strategic plans, in Victoria the Ombudsman takes on the responsibility of addressing issues from sexual harassment in the public sector workplace, to administrative issues that plague the relationship between private citizens and public sector agencies. Investigating corruption and misconduct by public officials has a place in there as well, and as suggested by the Deputy Ombudsman, incidences of ‘conflict of interest’ are only increasing.

“We have also found that there can be a lack of effective audit and accountability mechanisms within government agencies. This may contribute to managers ignoring conflicts of interest, as the likelihood of being held accountable is minimal. This view is supported by evidence from recent investigations which showed that when the next level of management became aware of the conflicts, they effectively covered up the issues. On several occasions when senior officers learned of a serious conflict of interest, they condoned the improper behaviour, ignored it or attempted to justify it”. It is useful to note that one of the core functions of the anticorruption commissions and integrity agencies in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia is “to build very strong relationships with administrative agencies to strengthen their internal ethics”.

In setting up an institution, a clear mandate with relevant jurisdiction and powers needs to be put in place. While the mandate develops the focus and the expertise for the organisation in its function, legal powers of the institution give it the power to act on meeting the mandate. The major difference between the legislative frameworks of the anti-corruption commissions established in Queensland, Western Australian and New South Wales, and that of Victoria’s Ombudsman is that there is every indication from Annual reports, strategic documents and other publications, to suggest that the Ombudsman is essentially a complaints mechanism. The Whistleblowers Act of 2001 supports that cause, whilst the Ombudsman Act with its ‘own motion powers’ granted to the Ombudsman, is broad to the point that it is almost misleading. There is no clear mandate for the Ombudsman to specifically address issues concerning corruption and misconduct in the public sector, and this can have practical consequences for legal interpretations of what is essentially an extremely broad Ombudsman Act.
The legislation that supports the work of the anticorruption commissions of other states, namely investigations concerning high-level and systemic misconduct, allows the use of covert surveillance and intelligence systems. The Ombudsman, despite its ‘own motion powers’, is mostly reactive to individual complaints. The Ombudsman does not, as far as the private citizen can tell, have the legal capacity to run covert operations or intelligence services that would assist in investigating and minimising corruption and misconduct in the multitude of the forms that they come in. What perception does that create? What confidence can an ordinary public servant have, in the powers of an Ombudsman? More importantly, what deterrence would it provide for those in the position to not abuse their positions of power and privilege?

Since 2007, there have been two major developments of note that have taken place from within the Ombudsman’s Office. Firstly, in 2008 a separation of powers took place which led to the forming of an independent Office of Police Integrity. The move was based upon the realisation that a significant number of complaints had been received by the Ombudsman’s office in regards to Police affairs over a number of preceding years and in order to strengthen productive capacity, needed to introduce a specialist agency. This paper will not go into much detail into the workings of the Office of Police Integrity except to say that it is not dissimilar to those found in other states and that its focus is limited to the affairs of the Victorian Police force and its members. Earlier in 2009, following a report produced by the Ombudsman’s office that responded to issues of corruption and a lack of transparency in the activities of a particular Local Government Association, an Inspector for Municipalities was introduced by the Brumby Government.

In the words of the Deputy Ombudsman in 2007, “we are concerned about the misconception that merely having policies, procedures and protocols in place suffices in dealing with conflicts of interest”; a very relevant note for a policy maker who is faced with the challenge of interpreting existing legislation, addressing strategic plans and scripting a-political policy advice. There is the imagination of what can be achieved with what is already in place, and the concerning gap that is realised when one find out what is being done elsewhere.

For a state that prides itself in developing initiatives that leads international best practice, Victoria is significantly behind on the matter of addressing corruption and misconduct when other states seem to have learnt quickly and effectively from the past. From the manner in which the Ombudsman’s office seems to evolve, in Victoria one reacts to corruption, selectively, as opposed to proactively setting up the right institutions. Given the spirit of Rob Hull’s motion to clean up Victoria’s act back in 1998, one can only feel that Tony Fitzgerald has once again come out and uncovered a seemingly timeless truth. To repeat a quote, “neither side of politics is interested in these issues (corruption and misconduct in the public sector) except for short-term political advantage as each enjoys or plots impatiently for its turn at the privileges and opportunities which accompany power”.

I had been here before - a personal reflection.

2009-08-25T19:00:00.001-07:00

It happened last night. I finally grew up.

ABC's Foreign Correspondent screened a piece on victims of acid attacks in Bangladesh. The stories were intense to say the least. To say a bit more, I couldn’t sleep and kept Felicity up. I kept my mother up, by calling her just before midnight and asking her about her experiences with the issue. She had nothing to add, well nothing more damning than what Sally Sara – ABC’s reporter conveyed. My practical reaction was to go and have a look at the state of my bicycle. It requires a little bit of repair. My resolve: I'm going to ride the 30kms into work each morning, and do the return trip - three days a week (I only work in the city three days a week). I'll donate the sixty dollars a month I usually give to Connex, to the Acid Survivors Foundation in Bangladesh. Ok, so that's the putting the money where the mouth is bit. Then there's that other bit – the emotional response bit, which is just a personal thing I do more often than I do the meaningful response thing.

There was the story of a four year old boy who doesn't have a tongue, gums or palate. When he was a baby, his aunty poured acid down his throat because she was jealous that her sister had given birth to a boy and she hadn't. Another little girl stood quietly in the corner, couldn't say a word, not yet anyway. Her father had done similar, because she had been born a girl. I suppose the difference is that the father of the girl had gone to the practical lengths of using a pipette to drop the acids into the cavities of her body.

As many of my friends, I have often reflected on my interests in Development and Human Rights issues. I have thought hard and long about the academic issues, the intellectual platforms taken to by giants such as Sen and others. Reflections on 'career progression' and various stages of professional development: a job in itself. Then there also have been the emotional dramas that have unfolded in my mind, about the inability to understand what it is that I want to do, in specific terms, and how it is that I want to get there. I suppose it is only part of the journey, and a necessary walk that one takes, voluntarily or forced, tripping along and getting lost, but ending up somewhere, sometimes hoping for just anywhere.

More recently I have looked at the areas of Governance, anti-corruption, accountability. In Bangladesh, there are laws in place, combating issues concerning Acid attacks. In Bangladesh, the police are very aware of the issues and are taking initiatives to account for the stock of acid in the country. In Bangladesh, there are corrupt officials and a broken judicial system. Just like Pakistan, Rwanda and Cambodia - other countries where acid attacks take place.

I have been shell shocked before, my travels to Sri Lanka etc. I have been right up to the very tip of the country and have lived in villages where the Telecommunications Centre is a house with a landline. And so I hope I use this recent experience to motivate my journey down that path that I wish to travel, to make a difference. It's that question of faith I think. Faith in the decisions I make about my own interests, my own goals. Faith in the idea that we can make a difference – the way Monira Rahman, the director of ASF, has made a difference. Faith, in the idea that I do really care enough, to want, to make a difference as opposed to thinking that it's what I should do, because it’s the 'right thing' to do, 'right way' to react to seeing a woman with a disfigured face. That continuing to pursue a path in development and advocacy of human rights is the ‘right way’ to react after realising that it was the outcome of acid being thrown on her face and body by her own father and brothers. This, after she had just returned home, battered and bruised by the physical abuse she had endured at the hands of her husband and in-laws.

Looking back over this blog post, I recall writing similarly at various points over the last few years. Those silent moments at the end of a particularly moving film, article or book where the world is a dodgy place, with lots of dodgy people. The promising aftermath, where for a few minutes, one assures himself, that he will become the next Monira Rahman and face the challenges of the big bad world. I’m being sceptical and it is unhelpful. If my close friend and mentor in life Mark Williams were standing beside me, he would make a suggestion or two: that firstly, I shouldn't use that knowledge as a point of defeat. The knowledge that I have been here before, listening to the quiet truth whisper the suggestion that in a day or two I may in fact forget Monira Rahman and her acid survivors. Rather, that I should use this time and space, as one of reflection; reflection of where I have been, and where I am, and not necessarily where I want to be, which can be a cloudy realm of dreams and drifting hope. The simpler and more transparent truth could be that I stand today less helpless in resource and capability, than I was before. I have at my fingers tips, more choices and options than I did ever before. The rest is left to the imagination and one's will, and where those together might take me. I only hope that it's somewhere I haven't already been.

A bad case of indigestion

2009-07-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning suffering from the same indigestion/heart burn I had last night. I'm not sure which is more painful. The fire in my chest, or swallowing tablespoons of disgusting, pink stuff that's supposed to put the fire out. Fine thing that. Well, I suppose it works a little, but I just assume my father's got my interests at heart when he hands me a dark coloured bottle with pink liquid in it. Anyway. What's done is done. The crap is well into the system by now. It'll feel at home with alot of other crap in there. My diet is horrible. Reasonably healthy one day, binge eating the next. My body isn't taking to it to well. I need to get fit. Need to get healthy.

Spent a good couple of hours cyber-surfing today. Found some incredible songs. Some old Beetles music and discovered a great group called 'Mint Royale' (?). Uploaded it onto my mp3 player and i'm ready to over-listen to them now. Bad habbit of mine. Runs across the board in all aspects of my life actually. This inability to consume something...or someone, in moderation. No...self...control. You would think, that if I enjoy something, I would respect it? Give it some space? Let it grow? Nurture it slowly, work towards sustaining it, making it a permanent feature of my life. No. Doesn't work out that way. I work at it, till I destroy all the magic it had at the beginning.

So I should probably head of to sleep. Apparently I need to go shopping for a suit tommorow. Brilliant. I thought the other one I had is decent enough. Suits - these things are useless! I wear them maybe two, three times a year at most! I don't intend on working in a job where i'll need a suit to wear to work. One suit is therefore practically enough right? But no. Plants yesterday, suits tommorow, does it stop. It's true - the world is becoming one big market, filled with all sorts of odds and ends, outside of the bare essentials.

I'm watching this show movie on a commercial free channel at the momment - well, when i'm not typing away at this keyboard. It's about a guy who lives in Albania, and drives a truck around delivering packages. His girl friend and others around him want to leave the country and go abroad in hope of expanding their choices in life. He seems content however, to stick around. He seems to have embraced his circumstances, his society, his place in it and is content with his life as it is. He spends his days, meeting odd people, giving lifts to old ladies he finds walking along dusty country roads carrying heavy burdens, hanging out with his beautiful girl friend, whilst all those close to him want to leave it all behind for a future in a world they don't even know, haven't seen, are unfamiliar with. Perhaps that's it. Not only is he content with what he has, perhaps, being all that he knows, it beats the alternative- throwing himself into that which he doesn't know.

Maybe I too should get off this fence i'm sitting on and make a few calls once in awhile, instead of letting it all slide.

Reaching out

2009-07-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

I had seen her before.I had seen her before we had shared that bench together that afternoon. Her music had swum out of the late evening shadows, many evenings ago, plucking me from my path home from work, only to re-place me within a dilapidated public auditorium. I had stood in the isles of that sparingly populated hall, watching her caress the fingerboard of her violin with one hand; weave an invisible tapestry with her bow in the other.

Her music that evening reminded me of an older man I had met whilst on a train journey across India some years ago. With passion and vigour, this fellow passenger had used his hands to accompany the few words of English that he knew, while watching me closely. Perhaps he had been waiting for me to show him that I had understood, and of course I hadn’t. He was determined to say something to me. It was as though he wanted so much to tell me, a stranger to him, something close and very personal to him. Something I wouldn’t now, ever know. And so listening to the music of the young violinist, that evening not too long ago, was much the same. I was there, in the moment, wanting and waiting, but it never came.

A tram going the other way had come and gone a few minutes before mine had arrived. The woman who had been sitting next to me, left with it, leaving the violinist with her violin case next to her on one side, and me with my desire to reach out to her, on the other.I noticed her glancing at her watch.

“Do you have the time?” I had asked.“It’s almost six.” She had said, as she turned towards me. “But I could be wrong.”

I laughed. It had been a hollow, empty laugh. Forced.That evening that had passed not so long ago; she had spoken to me by plucking the strings of her violin and interchanging long notes with short ones. Hearing her voice then, was now something else. I turned to look at her once more, only to find her eyes searching my face. And that was when she smiled.She smiled. It was a loud invitation for a conversation, and an invitation that I turned down. So she was smiling, and I was struggling.I was struggling but I didn’t understand why.

I had spoken to strangers before. In fact I had often searched for them, and on finding them, I would stop and listen for an echo of their strangeness in the stories they had to tell. It was a way in which I would try to make sense of the same strangeness in my life, by reaching out for it in others. I had often spoken to strangers in the circumstances that had called for it. That is, circumstances that had brought on the birth and death, of relationships seeded by conversation.

There was Lara whose fiancé had left her. Beneath her act of apparent indifference to life, came a story thick with difference, love and affection. I had awoken to her sobbing late one night, and had sat up with her till morning. In broken sentences she described the feelings that she still had for the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with. I was taken back that night to the stranger I had come across in Madras, who I simply hadn’t understood. It was only years later, amongst a series of encounters that I met another stranger, who helped me understand. It was through this stranger that I would finally feel Lara’s pain, and understand the loneliness that my affair with her would never have filled.

It was during the interval of a play one evening when Isabelle and I had shared a table. Two cups of coffee and the decision to miss the second half of Twelfth-Night had been the foreplay to one of those deep and meaningful conversations. The ones which tend to involve one individual’s personality, undressing, and standing naked in front of another. The conversation concluded with a long moment where I hadn’t an idea of what would come next. Love or at least some poorer version of it is what came, ending tragically three years, two states and one affair later.

Despite many of my previous attempts at chasing after what I had yet to experience, I hadn’t spoken to the young violinist that afternoon, just as I hadn’t spoken to the stranger in Madras, and just as I had and yet hadn’t spoken to Lara in her once unfamiliar, misery filled loneliness. I had wanted to speak to the young woman, who had seized my imagination with her music. I had wanted to reach out to her through her music and her strangeness. But the tram had come, and I had got on.

I got on with my curiosity un-fed. I got on, heavy with regret. I got on, with the certain knowledge that the slender fingers of time, were reaching out for me ahead, and before long, she would be just another memory.

A-political Peace & Reconcilliation

2009-06-10T04:36:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine contacted me today, asking if I would cover an event at Parliament House next week, for Sri Lanka week. The friend, very close to me, is the Editor of a leading ethnic newspaper in Australia. An Editor’s job as many in the journalism fraternity would appreciate, is one of constant dead-lines, time poor news cycles, stress. Stress often impairs one's judgement - it makes sense that he would call me occasionally to do a write up. I asked him if he wanted me to take a political angle on the event. No. This coverage would be a strictly a-political review, in the spirit of peace and reconciliation.A thought occurred to me a number of hours later: if by chance I managed to get past the throng of a thousand or so Tamil protestors on the steps of Parliament House that day, what exactly would I cover? How would I report on the event, maintaining an a-political position; reflective of the newspapers editorial commitment to staying clear of political alignments of any kind? I would need to create a sense of feel good, warm and fuzziness. It’s a community newspaper.

The number of civilian deaths over the recent months has risen to an alarming 20,000 (reported by Amnesty International). A large number of civilians remain in refugee camps, something close to 250,000. To give you an idea of what we're talking about, reflect on images of refugee camps we're more familiar with - those in Darfur, Sudan. Just a quick side note: Sudan has oil - China's interested. Sri Lanka has Tea - the British used to be interested.

The largest Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Darfur has a population of 90,000 IDP. In Sri Lanka, there are currently about 4 major zones that have been established to house refugees in tents which most people wouldn’t leave their pets in. Each zone accommodates on average up to 60,000 IDP. But these are all just numbers, and if you've watched the news even just a little bit lately, you'll know well, that numbers alongside its close cousin ‘facts’, are among the many casualties in the war in Sri Lanka. So back to a-political reporting on events starring the Sri Lankan High Commissioner, the Victorian Parliament and its desire to support tourism in Sri Lanka, doing the ‘good-will’ thing: yes, it’s all do-able. But about those protestors…

Spoke to one of them the other day, a protestor. Poor fellow was in a lot of anguish. He was confused. Problem this fellow had was that he didn't know where to focus his anger – had a sudden crisis of identity, this fellow did. This was his predicament: he is a Tamil (the kind that lives in Australia for the past 20 years, goes to watch the cricket in summer, and occasionally tunes into the odd Dateline episode, sets up a facebook group to support the cause, you know, 'the cause' ). As a Tamil, he had no qualms about being irate at the SL government for massacring thousands of Tamil civilians, and rightly so. But as a Tamil, he also had that other problem that wouldn't go away. The one which whispered horrible things...confusing things. ‘What were thousands of Tamil civilians doing, caught in the heat of the cross fire? They lived there of-course, but then there was the small matter of civilians being used as human shields, or not so small as those Amnesty International reports suggested. In the height of his stress, he recalls an SBS documentary aired in the late 90s, which interviewed a fellow named Daya Somasunderam, one of the authors of 'The Broken Palmyra'. A psychiatrist, Somasundaram had openly commented on the condition of his patients, being treated in a hospital in the North. S. had expressed that what was particularly traumatic for his patients, was the realisation that "being attacked by 'the other' side is one thing, being tortured by the people meant to be representing their interests, is something else". The fact that Somasunderam is still alive after that interview, is quite a phenomena in a country where silencing dissent is common place. But that doesn't help our fellow who remains confused. Maybe I'll bump into him at the protests next week - where i'm sure he will be in good company.

Being a-political and celebrating 'tourism' in a country where bodies are being rushed to the morgue, blood still being mopped up from the soil of an earth no bigger in land mass than Victoria, any sort of celebration and being ‘a-political’ for the sake of looking positively into a country’s doubtful future, is an interesting prospect for some one - brave enough for the task.

A response to 'Girl soldiers robbed of their childhood'

2009-06-10T04:33:00.000-07:00

14 years old, he described her as, when referring to former child solider ‘Christine’ who Matt Wade came across in war-torn northern Sri Lanka. Northern Sri Lanka, it’s where according to Amnesty International, almost 60, 000 Tamil civilians, women and children, are currently caught in the cross fire between Rebel forces and Sri Lankan government soldiers. If you think about it that’s almost the entire population of the City of Melbourne. More than 4,000 people have been killed over the recent weeks, a toll more than equal to that of September 11. So “Christine” is 14 Wade says - my niece is almost 12 and currently away on a school camp.

Reading Wade’s article ‘Girl soldiers robbed of their childhood (TheAge 05/05)’ further confirmed the concerns held by many Sri Lankan expatriates about the use of children in the armed conflict. This includes Tamils and Sinhalese, a community not so divided here in Melbourne as some would think. If it’s one thing that should be sacred to us all, whatever race or religion, it is the need to protect the innocence of the child. As a student researching child labour in developing countries, it jogged my memory back to another report that I had read published by UNICEF.

It had been written by a fellow named Allan Rock, a UN Special Advisor on Children and Armed Conflict, who like Wade, had at the time just visited Sri Lanka. In 2006, Allan Rock travelled to the east of Sri Lanka on a fact finding mission. What Rock found was shocking. “Strong and credible evidence” that certain arms of the Sri Lankan government security forces were participating in the forced recruitment of children by the L.T.T.E’s rogue splinter ‘Karuna’ faction. Forget the evidence, does this make sense? It does when you remember the old adage: ‘an enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine’. Mr Rock’s UN mission met with the parents of many of the abducted children from the Batticaloa district and discovered “eye-witness” evidence that linked several abductions, similar to those that Matt Wade refers to in his article, to certain government units. Based on the discoveries, the UN mission concluded that some government security forces are actively participating in the recruitment of children for front line warfare.

There are also unconfirmed reports that in the border areas there is underage recruitment to the army itself. Worth investigating by the likes of Wade but I suppose one has to be mindful that unlike the L.T.T.E, the government can decide how a child's age is recorded. So it shall be done and so it shall be written.

So what does this mean for children like “Christine”? For a child in war-torn Sri Lanka, when the so-called ‘freedom fighters’ are abducting you one side, and the Government security forces are helping a rogue splinter group do the same, I guess this means that you’re stuck between two very hard places.

A missive into the wildnerness of cyber space.

2009-06-10T04:14:00.000-07:00

I visited UTHR's website today, and discovered to great joy that 'Broken Palmyra' is available on-line(www.uthr.org). It has been a few years since I visited that book. Forced to read it as a kid, and then coming back to it again and again over the years. I feel like I learn something new each time I do. When the film on Rajani Thirangama came out a few years ago, I discovered Chapter 5 - No more tears sister. But today, in the middle of this wet, cold evening in Melbourne, I came across the book's foreword, written by Dr. Brian Seneviratne. Upon reading his foreword, I just needed to call a friend, to clarify something for me - what could possibly move a man like Seneviratne (i was awestruck by his foreword), to reach his current position. What had happened to him? My friend didn't know, or even if he did he didn't let on. Perhaps Professor Daya Somasundaram's 'Scarred Minds: The Psychological Impact of War on Sri Lankan Tamils'. New Delhi: Sage Publications 1998, might help. And perhaps it wouldn't. Either way it's a road ahead.

Obama's inaugguration speech...the other one.

2009-04-04T22:02:00.000-07:00

As we lie awake those early hours, wrapped in each other’s arms
Oblivious to our eyes and beyond those closed blinds, the grey of morning fades away, slipping into the ether
As sunlight peers in and between those meandering clouds,
A renaissance...awakening.

Hush and listen, watch and see...it is an overture of movement,
An insurgence of colour, warmth and light
Beginning with a gentle rush of wind
It swirls in a dance...a rustle of dry leaves caught in its prance

In the thick of our garden, beyond those frosted windows
The pollen prepares for its journey, a mate it hopes to find
Butterfly wings flirt with flower tips, and in the lingering breeze those branches of our silver birch…whispering, gently “Spring is on her way!
Before the day is done, she will have arrived. "