Howard's hatred of Greens:
Interview with Senator Kerry Nettle

During his recent short visit to Australia, US President 
George Bush addressed the Australian Parliament. During his 
speech the Speaker attempted to have Greens Senators Kerry Nettle 
and Bob Brown thrown out of the Chambers and in a later debate 
Kerry was called a "Nazi". Behind this attempt to silence the 
Greens there lies far more than just the desire to bend the knee 
for Bush. Kerry explains to Jules Andrews from The 
Guardian.

Jules Andrews: You were recently called a "Nazi" in 
Parliament, which is a bit rich coming from a member of John 
Howard's Government.

Kerry Nettle: When George Brandis gave his speech there 
was a lot of confusion as to what his point was, there was a lot 
of shock.

The debate in Parliament was on the issue of our demonstration in 
Parliament during George Bush's visit. George Brandis was the 
first speaker on that issue, so you must presume that in his 
diatribe against us where he used the word "Nazi" he was putting 
the Government's case against the Greens.

What I've come to realise is that this attack underlines how 
angry the Government is with the Greens and with our stance on a 
lot of issues, but most particularly Australia's relationship 
with the USA.

It also gives us a sense of how desperately the Government wants 
to get rid of dissenting voices.

JA: Can you give us your impression of George Bush and his 
speech to Parliament?

KN: I have heard his speech described as an "off the 
shelf" speech, cut and pasted from different speeches he has used 
throughout this overseas tour in this region.

And I think that that's true, there was nothing unexpected, it 
was a pretty standard off-the-shelf speech with a few 
Australianisms thrown in to make people more comfortable.

JA: What actually happened with the Speaker trying to 
eject you and Bob [Brown] from the House. Were you actually 
ejected?

KN: Well, first he tried Bob, and then me.

At the point when George was talking about terrorism Bob stood 
up, indicated that the family of Mamdouh Habib — who is being 
held prisoner illegally by the US at Guantanamo Bay — was in the 
chamber, and said something like "when you respect international 
laws then the world will respect you".

The Speaker then sent the Sergeant of Arms around to ask Bob to 
leave the chamber, Bob said "no" and the Sergeant went away.

The premise under which Bob said "no" has become the subject of 
the debate, because there was no vote on whether Bob should be 
kicked out, no division, which is the procedure according to the 
Standing Orders.

It happened all again when I spoke.

JA: So what was your comment to George Bush?

KN: When he started talking about the Free Trade Agreement 
I called out that we mustn't sell out Australian farmers, 
cultural industries or Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and I also 
said that George mustn't use the same bully-boy tactics in trade 
as he uses in security.

JA: ALP Members originally threatened to stand and turn 
their backs, or walk out, but in the end none of them made any 
physical or verbal demonstration during Bush's speech, other than 
refusing to stand and applaud at the end. Were your actions 
supported by Labor Members outside the Chamber?

KN: From some of them yes, from others certainly not.

Telstra: the environment trade-off

JA: The full sale of Telstra has been defeated again in 
the Senate with all opposition forces — Labor, Democrats, Greens 
and the four independents — voting as a bloc against it. Were 
they all voting against it for the right reasons?

KN: There has just been an Inquiry into the services that 
Telstra provides and to everyone who saw that report it was 
blatantly clear that telecommunication services in regional areas 
or even in outer metropolitan areas are not up to the same 
standard as inner city areas.

And nobody is convinced when the Government says a privatised 
Telstra can meet its community service obligations — they are 
even having trouble keeping their own Members in line on the 
issue.

So, I think it was a genuine dismissal of the legislation, 
however I don't think that necessarily means it will be dismissed 
again that when the Government puts it to the vote again in three 
months time.

JA: There are Independents and Democrats who have 
indicated they are willing to negotiate.

KN: Oh there will be intense negotiations on this issue, 
the four Independents in particular.

Andrew Murray of the Democrats has made the comment that he would 
be more convinced of the full privatisation of Telstra if money 
went into environmental outcomes.

Part of our response to that is we've had the National Heritage 
Trust, which was where the money went for the environment out of 
the last sale of Telstra, being an absolute and dismal failure.

In fact this government has put money through a range of 
different funds and projects, like $1 billion into greenhouse gas 
emissions, and yet on all environmental indicators we are still 
going backwards.

So the answer to the "money for environmental outcomes" argument 
is that money is not enough to solve environmental problems. To 
achieve real progress we will need to introduce tough laws with 
teeth, because it doesn't matter what deals are struck or how 
much money is thrown into environmental initiatives if those 
initiatives cannot be enforced legally.

JA: So although the Government set up the National 
Heritage Trust, it didn't fulfil the spirit of the enviromental 
promises it made during the last Telstra sell-off?

KN: Well, the Government's spirit was "we want to sell 
this off, what do we have to give you to vote for it?", rather 
than "we want to improve the environment and we need this money 
to do it". To say they haven't met the spirit is perhaps being 
too generous as to what their actual spirit was!

JA: Well, the Government's attitude towards the 
environment was again demonstrated when you introduced a Bill on 
the Kyoto Protocol a couple of weeks ago.

KN: There was a Greens/Labor Bill about the ratification 
of the Kyoto Protocol that was debated in Parliament, during the 
one-and-a-half hours per week that we get to debate non-
government legislation.

JA: Only one-and-half hours a week?

KN: Yep, and the Government chose to put on enough 
speakers to fill that entire space so we never got the 
opportunity to put it to a vote.

So the Bill has been introduced, but the Government is stalling 
because they don't want the Senate passing a piece of legislation 
saying we should ratify the Kyoto Protocol that they would then 
have to embarrass themselves by blocking in the Lower House.

Right to block supply

JA: That week we also saw the Greens voting with the 
Government.

KN: It was a motion put forward by the Democrats to 
propose that the Senate not have the capacity to block supply.

JA: So the Democrats are proposing a Bill to diminish 
their own power in the Senate?

KN: Yes!

The issue of blocking supply is always contentious.

The role of the Senate is to provide brakes, checks and reviews 
on the Government of the day, and that requires having the 
capacity to amend or block government legislation as needed.

The power to block supply is the ultimate check that the Senate 
has on the excesses and the power of the executive government, 
and we believe that is an appropriate power for the Senate to 
have.

We have subsequently had advice from the Clerk of the Senate that 
it is very difficult to define within legislation what is or 
isn't a "supply" Bill, because almost every single piece of 
legislation that goes through the Parliament relates to the 
spending or gathering of revenue.

This then leaves open the capacity for the Government to turn 
every piece of legislation into a money Bill. For example, the 
ASIO Bill could have been about increasing ASIO's powers, as it 
was, but also attached extra finances along with those powers.

So then it becomes a "money bill" and could get through without 
being blocked by the Senate.

JA: The Liberal Party voted against this Bill by the 
Democrats, but it has put forward its own proposals for Senate 
reforms, which are aimed at removing most of the Senate's powers.

KN: Well, I'm very wary of describing Howard's Senate 
proposals as "reforms" . They are a reactionary response to the 
Government of the day not having absolute power to get their 
entire legislative program through without any need to discuss 
debate or compromise with anyone.

Howard is saying, "I, with 43 percent of the vote want 100 
percent of the power, therefore I will remove the capacity of the 
Senate to make any changes to my legislation".

And it's important to point out that 98 percent of the 
Government's legislation does get through the Senate, primarily 
with the support of both the major parties.

There have only been about seven pieces that have been blocked at 
this stage, including: increasing co-payments for pensioners on 
the PBS; changes to the Disability Support Pension; changes to 
unfair dismissal laws — which affect in particular the right of 
casual workers to access unfair dismissal procedures; plus the 
changes to bulk-billing and higher education.

These are the sorts of things that the Senate has stopped the 
Government from doing. This is the responsible role the Senate is 
currently playing on behalf of those people who elected us.

Proportional representation

KN: The issue that the Greens are raising now is 
proportional representation.

The Senate is far more representative of how people vote in each 
State, for example we have 12 Senators elected from NSW, which 
allows for a plethora of different views within this NSW 
electorate to be represented.

That's not the case in the House of Representatives where in each 
Seat a Member is elected most often with less than 50 percent of 
the vote, but is the sole representative. There is far less 
capacity for those voters to have their views expressed in 
Parliament.

In fact, the morning after an election, the majority of people in 
the majority of electorates wake up to find someone they didn't 
vote for representing them in Parliament.

So, what we've proposed, what we think would be true democratic 
reform of the electoral system, the way to make sure the voters 
have the power and not the Prime Minister, is to bring in 
proportional representation.

JA: How could that be done in Australia?

KN: I think we first need to have the debate — Do we make 
a change? — and then have the public discussion and inquiry into 
how those changes will take place.

That's the way the process occurred in New Zealand, which brought 
in mixed member proportional representation that they now have 
there.

To put it into an historical context, when the Constitution was 
written the nation's founders couldn't decide whether they wanted 
to have proportional representation in either or both of the two 
houses so they left it open. It was explicitly left open.

So Australia's very first election was actually held with the 
mixture of proportional representation in Tasmania, because it 
had already been introduced into their state system there, and 
single-member electorates on the mainland.

So there's no Constitutional change that would be required to 
bring proportional representation into the House of 
Representatives.