Howard Lives In La La Land

Feature, By jimjazz, 22nd April, 2008

I want to say at the outset that I am a Howard convert. In the nineties I believed that economic prosperity would be the panacea for Australia’s problems. I welcomed Howard’s arrival as Prime Minister in 1996 as I stood before a cathode tube television set dressed for Mardi Gras in my Paddington Terrace.

Twelve years on, and not only am I filled with utter relief that he has gone, but I also wince when subjected to his forthright denial about his own political demise. I could not believe my ears as I listened to Howard clamber back on the lame duck horse of Liberal policy recently on ABC radio and claim some vindication of his record listing his “achievements”.

Yes, I am a Howard convert; a converted foe.

Quite apart from his position on the rights of fine, upstanding members of the GLBT community desiring to have their relationships recognised before the law, Howard has placed Australia on a long range course for destruction. Am I engaging in hyperbole? I think not.

He has unremittingly driven Australia towards environmental and social catastrophe. The blinkered belief that economic supremacy is the solution to a modern, sustainable society is just plain wrong.

I could fill this story with endless statistics to support my opinion and those of you who agree would see them as vindication for my position and those who didn’t would conclude I was misinterpreting them.

So, fuck stats. Let’s keep this abstract. This is my opinion.

In Howard’s Australia we came to believe that financial gain was the primary objective of a healthy society. As such, government policy supported business models and trade agreements that placed the economy at the head of the queue.

Where was the consideration for the environment that must sustain that economy? Today, we are staring down the barrel of the Murray Darling River System collapsing. Why? Because water allocations for agricultural business like rice and cotton are sucking the system dry. There is even a ludicrous notion that they will open the barrages at the mouth of the river and allow salt water to fill the lake system near Goolwa in South Australia.

Can I just scream now? We would rather allow the river to collapse than the businesses it supports? Is that it? Does this make any sense?

Howard was a climate sceptic until it was no longer politically expedient for him to be so. When he bleats about his record of achievements, I ask at what cost? Where in all of this does the recognition that a reliable supply of fresh water, nutrient rich soils and air free of pollutants fit into his economic model? Sure, keep pulling the ore and coal out of the ground in vast quantities but with areas like the Liverpool Plains – the food bowl of Australia – in northern NSW under threat from mining because of economic imperatives, would we rather sell the coal to the Chinese than have enough food to feed ourselves.

In the 2004 election, the Old Growth Forests became one of the wedge issues that secured Howard his fourth term – well, that and a suck hole called Mark Latham. Here is a fascinating issue. Let’s save the livelihoods of the loggers at the expense of the trees! And when they’ve all gone because you’ve chopped them all down, what happens to their bloody livelihood then? Did I miss something here?

This is where humanity is more stupid than our oversized frontal lobe would suggest. We will, despite confronting evidence to the contrary, continue extracting finite resources to drive our economic juggernaut with no, I repeat, no thought about what to do when they expire.

Howard was a short term-ist relic of Thatcherism and Reaganism. He believed utterly in the free market. But what he continues to deny is that the free market is greedy. It’s like an addiction – gradual, progressive, pervasive.

The current global economic chaos is unravelling the banking system. It will start impacting on not only whether you can afford sequins for your next party, but whether you may also be selling off old sequin outfits in an old fashioned garage sale because eBay is no longer functioning and we no longer have continual, reliable energy supply to drive our lifestyle.

As the system convulses under the weight of greed fuelled debt, your job, your way of life is at risk.

And if you think I rail too wildly, start doing your own research. While you lie back and enjoy the fruits of your employed success – your plasma, your toaster, your cappuccino machine, bear in mind that because of the profligate, wilful pursuit of endless economic prosperity based on finite resources, you are on a one way trip to Armageddon.

Howard’s legacy will be remembered for the insatiable rape of Australia’s resources to feed our consumptive addiction. His gall to stand up to defend that legacy less than six months after losing power carries with it a comprehensive lack of understanding about the social, environmental and economic challenges that Australia faces.

Perhaps if Howard saw the value in a diverse social order reflective of changing attitudes, especially in the last 30 years, he would grasp that a healthy society is about the creation and building of a community; and I mean the tangible creation of the needs of a community.

Fundamentally, we must shift from a consumer driven, idle, TV dinner world into one that respects authentic choices that don’t hurt others – like marrying the one you love, and values the development of economic opportunities that respect the environment upon which we all depend for our very lives.

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