Ant reported earlier on Andrew Bolt’s ejaculative response to John Howard’s Irving Kristol lecture in the USA. Since then Bolta has added a few updates to his text, closing his second update with this sentence.

Missing him already.

Get a room, you two.

I’ve been having a read of the full text of Howard’s speech and it’s quite interesting to see how much hubris and arrogance this man has despite spending eleven years in office telling us he has none of either. Oh, and he’s still a dickhead.

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I’ve long banged on about how infuriating it is for our government (and opposition) to try and force “Australian values” on prospective immigrants. I’ve also agreed before with John Roskam and today I’m agreeing with him again after another excellent piece in The Age.

THE problem with the Howard Government’s new citizenship test is not the requirement that applicants must learn English… Of more concern is the obligation on candidates for citizenship to uphold “Australian values”. The problem is that these are impossible to define. No one, ever, should be required to commit to something as subjective and vague as “Australian values”. The only obligation that is reasonable to impose on new citizens is the responsibility to obey the law — nothing more and nothing less.

While we like to believe that “a fair go” and “mateship” are part of our national culture — and perhaps they are — these sentiments can’t be turned into a set of administrative rules. Yet this is exactly what the Government is suggesting should happen.

A fortnight ago, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Kevin Andrews spelt out some of what he believed were part of the country’s values. They included freedom of speech, freedom of religion, support for parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, equality of men and women, tolerance, compassion for those in need, and peacefulness.

The first thing to notice is that there’s nothing uniquely Australian about many of these values. They exist in any liberal democratic country.

But insisting that immigrants hold unmeasurable and undefinable “values” before they enter the country, that many natives fail to hold themselves, makes for an awesome dog whistle to those Australians who hold other values: xenophobia and racism.

The fug of confusion about the citizenship values test grows every day, driven largely by those who are responsible for it. How about this choice quote from the honourable parliamentary secretary for immigration, Andrew Robb:

Some history is important — the fact the country is 200 years old not 2000 years old is relevant in terms of the character of the nation…

200 years old, hey? That’ll be news to a certain percentage of the population.

Robb doesn’t believe in tests that simply encourage rote learning but he wants the test to ensure that people understand events that have shaped Australia’s “character”, such as Gallipoli.

Q) Do you understand how Gallipoli shaped Australia’s character?
A) Yes (you’re in)/ No (you’re out)

And the Man of Steel seems to have a strange definition of mateship:

A concept of treating people according to how you find them and not according to the colour of their skin.

Wrong, Johnny! Everyone knows mateship is all about Gallipoli, going to the pub with the blokes, and standing up for your mates no matter how wrong they are. What you’re talking about sounds much more like egalitarianism — but that’s a really big word, innit? Sounds too intellectual.

Aussie values are so superior to everyone else’s that we’re soon going to demand people sign up to them in order to get a tourist visa. There are the quintessential Aussie values like mateship, a fair go, low interest rates, relaxedness and comfortableness; but there are some other less obvious Aussie values like a respect for the sanctity of human life and for human rights. Or at least I’d hope that those would make it onto any self-respecting Aussie values checklist.

Some would argue that these represent our Way Of Life™.

You see, here in Australia we don’t sentence criminals to the death penalty no matter how terrible the crime. We don’t believe that the State has the right to take any life in retaliation for any crime. In Australia we don’t believe in torture, no matter how important the information potentially being held. We believe in fundamental human rights, including the right to freedom from State-sanctioned murder and inhuman interrogation.

But our leaders’ resolve crumbles in the face of that faceless threat: terrorism.

Our morally flexible Prime Minister calls for the death of Bali bombers yet appeals for clemency for Australian drug smugglers in Indonesia on the grounds that Australia is opposed to the death penalty.

Our morally flexible Prime Minister calls for the “coercive” use of sleep deprivation as long as it doesn’t cross the invisible and undefinable line into torture. This may or may not be related to the fact that this “coercion” has already been used on Australian citizens in American detention camps with Australia’s knowledge and implied consent.

Our fear of terrorism has created a social environment where our morally flexible Prime Minister (and others) can make statements like these with no discernible public backlash. The arguments of Howard and Amnesty International member Philip Ruddock recently seem to be: torture is okay if it’s used against terrorists, and then it’s “coercion”, not torture.

Oh, and speaking of Amnesty International, Phil:

Is sleep deprivation a form of torture?
Amnesty International calls on the USA and all governments to prohibit the use of sleep deprivation and any other forms of torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as interrogation techniques.

It’s been noted many times before that if we let the terrorists (citizens of Terroristan, population: unknown) affect our Way Of Life™ they’ve won. If, in order to defend ourselves against the terrorists we begin to allow abuses of human rights that we formerly defended, we are fundamentally changing our Way Of Life™. Join the dots.

People like Andrew Bolt, upon reading this argument, would call me an “apologist” for the terrorists. They would say that my weakness in standing up to the forces of evil is what will let the terrorists win. But seriously, if in order to win we lower ourselves to the level of those we oppose, is our victory worth it?

From time-to-time during Howard’s reign there have been periods when my hatred of John Howard dulls. I mean, who can maintain the rage when the most prominent thing he’s said in two months is “I’ll donate $2000 to every motorist who converts to LPG”? But it’s times like these when the old feelings return. I’m ashamed of my country’s leadership.

People like Andrew Bolt, upon reading the above paragraph, would bemoan the “hate-riddled left and its politics of shame”. Andrew Bolt can fuck off.

Prime Minister John Howard has demonstrated the unquestionably superior nature of quintessential Australian values in his reaction to the Australian soldiers in Iraq who posted internet videos of themselves pointing guns at other soldiers dressed as Arabs. For your convenience I’ve isolated Aussie John’s Aussie values:

Tolerance
He is tolerant of Australian soldiers’ gunplay bringing the defence force’s professionalism into disrepute, along with the soldiers’ aggressive racism bringing Australia into disrepute.

A fair go
He wants a fair go for the soldiers, calling for everyone to lay off the lads because they were just “letting off a bit of steam”.

Mateship
He feels mateship for these soldiers because they’re white, male, English speaking Australians fighting his dodgy war.

“She’ll be right, mate”
He believes that she will, in fact, be right, saying that “the military is quite capable of dealing with this without a whole lot of gratuitous advice from me or other people in the political arena”.

Respect for traditions
He notes that soldiers have always let off steam through time (presumably an acceptable tradition) but the only difference now is that there are video cameras and YouTube.

Heard Andrew Robb on ABC774 with Jon Faine this morning (ahh, uni holidays and lazy weekday mornings in bed). He was talking about the government’s new proposed citizenship test and the possible questions that might be on such a test. When asked how one tests for an understanding of “a fair go” Robb got all confused and blustery, starting to waffle on about how it’s a “quintessential” Australian quality and it’s all to do with tolerance and stuff. You know, it’s the vibe, it’s Mabo. Robb said that, you know, it’s all about how Australians volunteer to fight bushfires.

“Yes, but how do you test for this understanding of a fair go?” repeated Faine.

Apparently (if I interpreted Andrew Robb’s ramblings correctly) you just put “volunteering to fight a bushfire” as one of the options in a multiple choice question about “a fair go”. “But I don’t want the test to become like Trivial Pursuit,” qualified our Parliamentary representative.

Genius.

I realise I’ve been spending a lot of time laying into Kim Beazley recently and some readers may mistakenly believe I hold more positive feelings towards the Man Of Steel.

Wrong.

The jingoistic, xenophobic, tickbox race to the bottom continues. Prime Minister John Howard says that the Government plans to toughen up migration requirements, but they will not be difficult for “fair dinkum” migrants. Along with having to wait four years instead of three to apply (just in the nick of time, Billybob), citizenship applicants will have to pass an English test to be an Aussie.

Says Howard:

“I mean the great unifying thing about this country is language, I mean our culture, the culture of any country is heavily defined by its language.

“Because along with the language comes the literature and the cultural history bound up with it.”

“It won’t become more difficult if you’re fair dinkum and most people who come to this country are fair dinkum about becoming part of the community,”

But as the recent history-in-schools debate has shown, only the Liberal-approved literature and culture will come in the bundle. It’s not fair dinkum to question the official version of the past. It’s definitely not fair dinkum to have any sort of “black armband” view of history.

So, there’s another useless and loaded term to add to our list of citizenship requirements. You must respect hard work, have mateship and be fair dinkum. Basically, don’t be different to us, even though there’s no single description of “us” and many Australians don’t possess those qualities anyway (whatever they are).

Billybob, being too lazy to actually log in and write a proper post (he’s probably forgotten his password), has raised some interesting questions in this comment. As a native Londoner who’s only been an Australian for a couple of years his observations of this country are valuable. I also think they would make for some useful debate fodder so here are two of the points:

Can someone please explain what the Aussie work ethic is?
My belief is that this statement is based on the 1950s immigrants from the Med., who to quote Starship, ‘built this city’. It is not based on the current 25-40 year olds that I come across, who all seem to be in Marketing and work a 25-hour week. Added to this, the ‘true’ hard workers of this tax paying generation all seem to be ‘new’ immigrants, (last 15 years or so). Regardless of whether they have ticked a declaration to work hard, speak English and pour beer onto their onions on the BBQ, these are now the people many Australians rely on to get through their daily life. I for one require my local 7-11 to be open when I fall out of my taxi at three in the morning after falling in love with the barmaid.

Where is middle Australia?
I know who they are in theory, but I look through the real estate prices and think is middle Australia really where people think it is. Look at the number of restaurants and bars there are. They all seem to be full, even on a Tuesday night… Booking is not an option.

Get thee to comments and let’s get to the bottom of this stuff.

After being reported missing yesterday Kim Beazley has been sighted on the opinion pages of The Age. Accusing Amanda Vanstone of distracting attention from work visa issues by calling him a racist, Kim does the same, distracting attention from his being called a racist by focusing on work visa issues. Apparently it’s a race to the bottom in the brave new world of WorkChoices — and I can’t much argue with that.

So some ticks for Kim’s efforts to turn the debate around and have it on his terms, but some crosses for his continued oversimplification of the IR debate with lines such as this:

And in the end, this is not about xenophobia or rogue bosses — this is all about the Prime Minister’s wages race to the bottom. Labor will halt the race to the bottom by ripping up the mechanism that allows it — Australian Workplace Agreements.

And Kim even found the space in his article for an opportunistic plug for his pathetic and xenophobic values pledge policy:

But I am strongly of the view that workers who come to Australia should understand the Aussie work ethic, and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

It’s one of the reasons I want these workers to sign up to these values when they come to Australia.

But most offensive is Kim’s ongoing pursuit of mediocrity, with his continued pitching of all policy to “middle Australia.” The article was bookended with claims that John Howard and WorkChoices are “delivering a one-two punch to middle Australia.” Can’t really argue with that, but I’d like to think that a Labor government would govern for all Australians, not just the middle, with a vision for greatness, not ordinariness.

Amanda Vanstone called Kim Beazley racist today and after the Bomber’s comments this week I wasn’t falling over myself to disagree with her. However, I do think that both sides of politics are a bit too keen to throw accusations and smears such as racism back and forth at each other. All day today Labor MPs were screeching “pot, kettle, black” at Mandy while John Howard refused to specifically distance himself from her comments, saying only that “this country is not a racist country.” However, the purpose of this post is not to wade into the murky waters of what constitutes racism and who are its practitioners.

My point is where the hell was Kim today? He’d been branded a racist person with racist policies and he couldn’t haul his arse out the front of Parly House for a quick retaliatory doorstop. At least, I don’t think he did. There was no sign of an interview on either SBS or ABC news tonight so I think my assumption is safe. He found the time yesterday to speak out in support of his stupid immigration values test policy but couldn’t be bothered defending his character today.

Kim Beazley’s gotta go.

Sorry, Kim Beazley, I’ve had enough. You’ve been opposition leader for the better part of a decade and I thought you’d have got your act together by now. Fair enough, you still feel bitter about having the win snatched from your waiting paws in 2001 but isn’t it time to move on? You’ve been leader this time around for over 18 months and we still don’t know what you stand for. John Howard’s advice on the weekend to state Liberal opposition leaders was this: “You’ve got to develop, over a longer period of time, an alternative policy, an alternative story as to how you want the state governed.” Good advice, Kim.

I’m a fairly keen political observer and all that comes to my mind when I try to think of your policies is: abolish AWAs, set up some sort of ISP porn filter, and boost politician superannuation to pre-Latham levels. Oh, and of course your latest split-second brainwave: put an Australian values checkbox on immigration forms.

That has got to be the lowest of the low, Kim. Instead of developing proper, considered and grown-up national security policy you put on your racist hat and populist pants and try to out-Howard John Howard.

You’re an embarrassment, Kim. Almost every single one of your policy announcements seems, at best, ill-considered and, at worst, totally reactive. It’s hard to think of anything you’ve said of any substance that wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the Government, the unions, or somebody within your own party. And worse is the distinct impression that I get of you being somewhat disinterested and lacking passion in the job. I know you started shouting more in Question Time earlier this year but it’s quite obvious that your increased volume is nothing more than an attempt to prove that you are in possession of “ticker”.

You see, Kim, I really want to vote for Labor. I desperately want to vote for Labor. It would take something very, very big to make me vote Liberal. But, Kim, you’re doing everything you can to make me cross to the dark side.

It’s time to go, Kim, before it’s too late. Quit now so that your successor has half a chance to establish themselves before the ‘07 election.

Say what you like about Mark Latham, but at least he had a vision for the nation and the entire electorate knew exactly what he stood for. And we knew he believed in it himself.

UPDATE (6.55pm): SBS News has just reported that about 3.5 million tourists arrive each year on electronic visas and don’t fill out any visa paperwork on the plane or upon arrival. So, Kim, did your homework then?

On September 11 the slippery argument of whether Australia is safer or not after five years of “war on terror” was always going to pop up. John Howard says yes, we are safer and has called on Muslims to learn English, integrate, and denounce terrorism. Kim Beazley says no, we’re not safer and has called for tourists and immigrants to sign up to Australian values (”respect for each other, mateship, fairness, freedom and respect for our laws”), along with the teaching of Australian values to immigrant children in schools.

You see, if only all of them Muslims would become more like Steve Irwin everything would be okay and you could throw your fridge magnet out. Steve Irwin was so Australian he even died like an Australian. Does anybody else find this populist and xenophobic attitude offensive that “if only they were more like us, instead of more like them” our Way Of Life™ wouldn’t be threatened?

And what is this Way Of Life™ anyway?

But back to the point, and the superiority of Australians and Australian values. All Muslims should became Australian (because, you know, Muslim is a nationality, not a religion) because no Australian’s ever done anything contrary to our Way Of Life™ before.