Programmatic Specificity: Demands the Australian Occupy Movement Needs to Make

Last year the world witnessed the eruption of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US, which was in turn inspired by the breathtaking events of the Arab Spring. The Occupy concept was embraced by the disaffected citizens of Europe, who protested in the streets against the unfettered power of the financial system and the way in which, fuelled by greed and deregulation, it had plunged the world into economic chaos. Closer to home we saw Occupy Melbourne attempt to find a voice (and a space to protest) but ultimately floundering and voting itself into irrelevance with its wishy-washy statement of demands.

Occupy was never going to take off in Australia as it did in the US because the middle class is much less under threat here, our media is dominated by corporate interests, and most mainstream Australians are apathetic and not politically engaged. This is despite the fact that the GFC caused significant hardship in Australia to a degree often minimised by the mainstream media, and that entrenched disadvantage – fuelled by government failure to maintain critical infrastructure, services and welfare payments for the unemployed – is rife.

Yet warning signs that Australia is not (if it ever was) the land of the fair go are everywhere. Research tells us that wealth inequality is on the increase. In recent years profits as a percentage of GDP have been at their highest since 1959-60, while the wage share of GDP has been trending down and is more than 9 per cent lower than in the mid-seventies. The airwaves of the once-fearless ABC are choked up with conservative voices calling for ‘strong surpluses’, more privatisation, smaller government and lowered wages. We have a two-tiered education system with funding having increased to non-government wealthy schools at the expense of struggling government schools. The linking of Gillard’s ambition with mining company lobbying power to unseat Kevin Rudd alerted Australians to corporate influence over the very make-up of government.

Our health system entrenches disadvantage and creates rorts; those without private insurance wait for years for hip replacement operations, disadvantaged people face social exclusion because of the lack of free dental care, and high income earners are pressured to buy private health insurance that doesn’t cover the exorbitant fees of greedy specialists. The discourse of welfare by even the ALP has changed markedly in recent years, devolving into an unsettling dog whistling by Gillard (and Abbott) with dole payments now hardly enough to cover rent and falling ever-further behind the pension in value. A chorus of corporate and even financial industry identities is currently complaining loudly to a complacent media about the strictures caused by business-stifling penalty rates earned by low-paid retail and hospitality staff.  Neoliberal ideas have created social chaos and widespread suffering in the US, and they will do so here if allowed to dominate.

The Australian Occupy movement has to tailor its message to this environment. It has to understand and communicate that things will get worse if we don’t act. It has to make very specific demands about changing the conditions that are allowing corporate power and wealth inequality to increase. It needs to monitor and publicise the trends in the balance of power between corporations and people.

Deregulation of financial bodies simply means rule by the psychopathic, who will continue to accumulate money and assets at the expense of the majority, and the sycophantic parliamentarians and journalists who benefit from representing their interests: this is a simple truth of human nature and the realities of living in large and complex societies. The Occupy movement here needs to warn Australians that multinationals don’t care about the suffering and poverty their actions can unleash, and they don’t give a flying if the middle class disappears altogether as it’s rapidly doing in the US.

Here’s a wish list of specific demands that I would love to see the Occupy Melbourne movement present to the federal government, and agitate for in a range of ways:

Stop the stealthy corporate takeover of Australian politics. Corporations should no longer be able to fund political parties. Instead parties should receive funds from the public purse depending on the number of members they have. It is a furphy to argue that taxpayers should not fund political parties. Through pricing of goods and commodities, consumers already pay for this kind of company expense, just as they indirectly pay for advertising.

Legislate to reduce and control executive pay. The wrongs and dangers of uncontrolled executive pay are too many to go into here. What is most disturbing is the self-perpetuating nature of a culture in which corporate heavyweights increasingly award ridiculous rates to each other through company boards. The government needs to enact strong legislation to reduce and control executive pay rather than relying on shareholders to do their work for them.

In the UK, a non-government High Pay Commission has been formed. It argues that unbridled executive pay is damaging the UK economy and calls for reform of the tax system to end  this rorting.

Drastically limit corporate lobbying. While Kevin Rudd introduced legislative reform to lobbying practices, there were many loopholes, including the ability to use in-house lobbyists rather than discrete lobbying firms. Lobbying by corporations, and paying for access to politicians, is essentially undemocratic because it erodes the principle of ‘one vote one value’ and is simply another way that corporations misuse their financial resources to wield power.

Change the structure of the corporation. Corporations should no longer have the status of ‘persons’. It’s an accident that they ever did. There should be a legal requirement that they take the wellbeing of the community, their workers and the environment into account in all activities, and this requirement should take precedence over the legal requirement that they make profits for shareholders.

Change the rules so that individual superannuants control the way their institutions vote at the AGMs of the companies in which they invest. At the moment outrageous salary rorts and megalomanic CEOs remain in place partly because these institutional shareholders are part of the cosy corporate culture, and they vote for remuneration packages at AGMs.

Change the voting system so that smaller parties have power commensurate with their popularity. The New Zealand system, the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system, looks pretty good to me.

Make the halting and reversing of wealth inequality a government priority. Figures released by the ABS in 2011 show that  in 2009-10, the wealthiest 20 per cent of households in Australia owned 62 per cent of the total net wealth of all households, up from 59 per cent in 2003-04; the poorest quintile owned less than 1 per cent. A 2011 study commissioned by the ACTU found that Australia is much more unequal than people believe it to be, and that Australians are strongly  in favour of a more equal distribution of wealth. Meanwhile, acclaimed UK research has revealed that the greater a country’s wealth inequality the more misery all of its citizens experience, not just the poor ones.

Wealth accumulates over a lifetime, and according to Mike Stektee, writing in the Australian, we need to tax it more highly if we are to reduce growing wealth inequality.

This includes stopping negative gearing for existing housing, ending superannuation concessions for the wealthy, and taxing capital gains more heavily. Reducing wealth and income inequality must be government priorities and the impact on wealth and income inequality must be one of the criteria for judging every policy decision.

Change the laws to break up media monopolies. At present Rupert Murdoch’s News owns 70 per cent of the capital city press and has substantial holdings online. Murdoch is known for using his media assets to pursue his corporate agenda, but regardless of modus operandi and political affiliations, a functional democracy is simply not possible with one company dominating one form of media.

Enforce the ABC charter and reinstate editorial policies and practices that enshrine impartiality and news values. In the last decade or so the ABC has lost its nerve. It now acts as a PR arm of parliament, perpetuating the vacuous ‘she said, he said’ style of journalism, and puts so-called balance before news values and true impartiality. True impartiality involves knowing you will never get the absolute truth but trying anyway, consulting the most highly qualified and objective sources in the attempt. Instead the ABC sees itself as airing a range of views, regardless of their reliability, and quoting people not for the strength of their viewpoint but for their so-called prominence. At the same time it takes the neoliberal consensus as a given and is far too reliant on the discredited, agenda-driven Murdoch press as a source of spokespeople, news stories and angles. In practice this results in an unbalanced airing of extreme right-wing views, with business groups and corporate-funded right-wing think-tanks such as the IPA getting much more of an airing than do extreme left views. This also creates poor news values; eg, opposition comments regularly heading radio news bulletins regardless of the newsworthiness of the comments, a business leader calling for deregulation and lower wages being allowed to bang on without being challenged or having to provide supporting evidence.

Drastically increase funding to public education.  A meritocracy and an informed citizenry start with an excellent education system. Australia should immediately adopt a model based on Finland’s system. As this blogger states, ‘Finland improved its public education system not by privatizing its schools or constantly testing its students, but by strengthening the education profession and investing in teacher preparation and support.’ This includes universal free education to a very high standard. Teachers have greater standing in the community because they are highly qualified (a Masters degree is the minimum) and carefully selected. Funding to private schools needs to be drastically reduced if not abolished.

Review all trade agreements and revoke any terms that do not advance Australia’s interests and undermine democratic control of domestic policy. The 2004 Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement was heavily skewed in favour of the US. According to commentator Kenneth Davidson, such agreements give US corporations the chance to push for the weakening and dismantling of regulations and regulating bodies they don’t like: ‘the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, local-content rules for the media, labelling of GE food, regulation of foreign investment and government purchasing policies that support local employment’. While John Howard trumpeted the supposed benefits of this agreement, the trade outcomes for Australia of the agreement were ultimately negative. The agreement included, among other things, extensive clauses relating to the operation of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, (PBS), as well as greater protection for the owners of drug patents.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), is designed to replace a number of individual bilateral agreements with an agreement that includes Australia, the US, NZ, Chile, Singapore, Brunei, Peru and Vietnam. While it is yet to be finalised, some provisions proposed by the US relating to the enforcement of patents and copyrights have aroused substantial controversy for their ability to undermine domestic laws.

Listening, Not Whispering: Film Review of Buck

Just as Marley and Me set off a rash of books about the healing powers of dogs and cats a few years ago, so memoirs about horses and their owners are now enjoying their day in the sun. These kinds of narratives allow us to consider our reliance on the animal world and our own animal natures while ignoring our collective brutality towards less-favoured species.

Buck is a an award-winning documentary that reflects this trend. It tells the story of Wyoming horse whisperer Buck Brannaman, who overcame a childhood of physical abuse to become an acclaimed horse trainer. It's a gentle yet well-paced film that has already garnered an impressive swag of awards, from the Audience Award at Sundance in 2011 to Best Documentary at the 2011 Rockport Film Festival. It made the Oscar shortlist last year, a feather in the cap of first-time director Cindy Meehl.

Brannaman believes that horses have people problems rather than the other way around, and that learning how to work with horses can heal other aspects of life. His work is in the tradition of the 'natural horsemanship' promoted by his mentor Ray Hunt, himself trained by the legendary Tom Dorrance. Both of these men replaced the cruel practices endemic in horse training with patience, compassion and a focus on the psychology behind horse behaviour. Brannaman now travels to ranches across the US in which he teaches horse owners humane methods of training often fractious animals. The main character in the 1998 film Horse Whisperer, directed by Robert Redford, was partly based on him.

The film is unashamedly feelgood without being sentimental or manipulative. It's one of those films that focuses on the nobler aspect of human (and non-human) nature and inspires an optimism and renewed faith in the human spirit. The bond between Buck, his own horses and those he trains is portrayed as primeval and interdependent. The American heartland is depicted as a place of wide open spaces where down-to-earth people interact closely with the animals on which their livelihoods depend. Much of the film consists of Buck working his transformations in a series of ranch corrals.

There is no narrator. Instead Buck's character and background are revealed through voiceover by, and interviews with, himself, ranch owners, horse trainers, his wife and daughter, and his feisty foster mother. Robert Redford also sings his praises. The film is interspersed with archival footage from his childhood performances and his early horse training career. Skillful editing gradually reveals the torment of Buck's early life as a child rope trick star, whose tyrannical father pressured him to perform and beat him and his brother without mercy. Shots of sweeping rural landscapes set the scene, positioning Buck as a true cowboy in the best American tradition.

This early childhood suffering appears to have been a crucible in which was forged a deep wisdom and self-knowledge. Buck believes in training horses as one would a child: assuming that the child is never being deliberately difficult, and not letting one's own emotions affect the treatment of the animal. His power to change horse behaviour seems almost magical: in one scene he shows the enthralled spectators how something as supposedly simple as the way the handler pulls on a rope will affect the horse's reactions.

The quality of the film stock isn't great but the shots of horse training and horse riding are impressive. Buck believes that when handled well a horse becomes an extension of the human. He describes the result as a dance, and there are great scenes of such choreography in action.

Buck has a droll, understated sense of humour. Shots of him reflecting on life while he vacuums his enormous trailer, and interacting with his own horses, show a man who knows that an overinflated ego would be lethal to his craft. He has close relationships with his wife and the daughter who sometimes accompanies him on his travels and wants to follow in his footsteps. Yet he is also revealed as a restless soul whose dedication to his craft means that he is on the move to a series of ranches for 40 weeks of the year, perhaps unconsciously repeating his early deprivation.

There is enough here to satisfy both the cynical and the romantic. It's not all sweetness and light - a palomino colt who has suffered brain damage at birth poses a challenge to Buck's skills that may prove insurmountable. Towards the end of the movie, Buck's highly talented daughter competes in a ranch roping competition. As I saw a terrified baby bull being rounded up in the ring, I found myself wishing that the compassion of enlightened American horse lovers could extend to the nation's cattle.

Evil at Work: Archives Reveal Extent of Murdoch's Control of Australian Politics

For a short time, during the height of the News of the World scandal, Australians were exposed not only to the extent of Murdoch's media power in Australia but the fact that his entire modus operandi was to abuse such power.

Murdoch owns 70 per cent of the capital city print media here. In Britain he owns around 36 per cent of the newspaper market as well as 39 per cent of Sky News, which provides television and radio news to millions each week. After the scandal broke, the Brits were gnashing their teeth about allowing him this much power, and politicians such as David Cameron were fessing up to their sins in having kowtowed to him, and promising to reform.

Meanwhile in Australia it was business as usual, with a predictably muted debate about our Murdocracy. But at least for a short while there was a domestic focus on Murdoch's underhand tactics and some questioning of the extent of his power.

Now the Australian media is back in Murdoch land again where his version of reality defines the entire debate, to the extent that it now dominates the style and substance of ABC news; here's one example of the trash that now regularly appears on the ABC's opinion website, The Drum. This is what the Guardian thinks of Murdoch's influence on our climate change debate. Exiled Australian journalist John Pilger is a critic of Murdoch's power in Australia; in this article he exposes how Murdoch's newspapers have distorted the struggles of our Indigenous peoples.

Yet every now and then the veil of faux democracy is torn aside and the puppet master is revealed. A November article in the Age newspaper reveals that in early 1976, Rupert Murdoch colluded with then prime minister Malcolm Fraser to reveal a scandal about ALP election funding that was intended to oust the independently minded Gough Whitlam from the ALP leadership. Murdoch had supported Fraser in the recent election and was calling in favours: in a breathtaking and possibly illegal breach of propriety, Fraser used ASIO and the attorny-general's department to assist Murdoch to obtain information about the funding debacle.

Ultimately Murdoch failed in his attempt to oust Whitlam from the leadership, although let's not forget the influence he must already have had on the election result.

It's also highly significant that Murdoch was in favour of Bob Hawke's aspirations to lead the ALP, and tipped him off about the story (this information was revealed in a longer feature article that appeared in the hard copy of The Age on the same day as the news report). Eventually Hawke became leader and the ALP won government in 1983.