Raising Hell: Issue 48: Experiences May Vary
"Since the Freedom of Information Act, I'm afraid to say things like that." - Henry Kissinger, 10 March 1975 about his joke: "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer"
How about that South Australian election, huh?
A single hour-ish of viewing that culminated with Antony Green, defacto flame keeper of Australian democracy, calling the election for Labor in roughly fifteen minutes. By the end of the night it was clear South Australians had come for the Libs with baseball bats. The first term Lib government looked more like a palate cleanser after 16 years of straight Labor rule than a dawn of a new political era and
Many of those watching interstate, who remembered South Australia exists for all of five minutes, quickly began to congratulate the 1.6m people of this state for delivering a shellacking. At home, Labor celebrated a crushing win while the Liberals immediately went into meltdown. I’m not going to dissect what happened, mostly because I didn’t follow the campaign too closely. Besides, Tom Richardson at InDaily has done a pretty good job of it already, especially compared to other commentators out there who have taken the line being peddled from the conservative arm of the party - that sidelining the Tories within their ranks cost them the election victory - and run with it.
This kind of thinking is never very useful. It only makes sense when you ignore how the Toreis themselves had been attempting to white-ant the party’s moderate leadership for the entire term of the election in a familiar pattern that has played out across the English speaking world. The right faction of any grouping is prepared to burn it all down if they sense control slipping — and then afterwards they’ll tell you all about how you did this to yourself to ensure they get to rebuild the world in their image.
Needless to say the Liberal moderates in South Australia didn’t really offer much to love over their first term in government. The party that trumpeted their use of campaigning software supplied from the Koch brothers spent a lot of time virtue signaling about the free market, loved the blockchain and increased penalties for possession in a state where weed people treat weed as if it’s free. Throw in a series of corruption scandals and the destruction of the ICAC, there just wasn’t much for South Australians to vote for.
In the meantime, the hangovers from Labor’s election night party have now worn off and the new Premier is getting down to business. It is still early days but the new administration is already sending a few signals to show what it is about. One of Peter Malinauskas’s first acts has been to make a very public statement that he rejected a teacher’s union call for an early end to the school term to give staff to recover from pandemic fatigue. It is something of a tradition for newly-minted Labor leaders to strongly reject a union demand to publicly signal they “won’t be controlled by the unions” or some other nonsense. Meanwhile, the new cabinet has split the energy and climate change portfolio’s, with Tom Koutsantonis serving as Minister for Energy and Mining — a decision which seems significant.
Probably the most interesting thing about all this has been the reaction from those outside the state. On the one hand people who are appalled at the behaviour of the federal government have looked to South Australia as foreshadowing of what’s in store when the election is finally called. On the other hand, those with some nous locally have been quick to point out that, actually, South Australians also have their own concerns, considerations and circumstances. To be fair though the reality is probably a little of both. The federal Coalition brand is toxic right now but the idea South Australians were striking a blow against the Morrison government by striking the Marshall government seems a stretch. And even if true, that kind of reasoning can be dangerous. If a political opposition decides they have a win stitched up, they can ease up on their campaigning while the incumbent can double down over fears of a political loss.
Then again, South Australia has a way for being a proving ground. Marketing departments across the country routinely test run their latest on the people of this fair state knowing that if it works here, it’ll work everywhere. The same may prove true for this political moment.
For the Fortnight: March 17 to March 29
Reporting In
Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …
‘‘Wollongong urged to take swift action if Nazi claims against local identity are proven” (The Guardian, 24 March 2022).
“Indigenous elders in WA say ‘gag clause’ denies them a say in industrial developments on their land” (The Guardian, 24 March 2022).
“Environmental policies are taking a back seat in the SA election. Should voters be worried?” (The Guardian, 18 March 2022).
Projects
Cracking COVIDSafe - An examination of the machine that made the COVIDSafe app, a piece of software made by people who wanted to hack the pandemic (complete).
Laramba’s Water - Laramba is a remote Indigenous Community in the Northern Territory which has been drinking uranium-contaminated water since 2008. We tried to find out what why (on-going).
‘High levels of uranium in drinking water of NT community’ (NITV, 31 July 2020).
‘Company remains shtum on plans to filter Laramba's contaminated water supply’ (NITV, 21 October 2020).
‘‘It makes us sick’: remote NT community wants answers about uranium in its water supply’ (The Guardian, 18 October 2021).
You Hate To See It
A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…
Dubstepping On Up
Goldman Sachs, the great vampire squid, came for your homes and now its CEO, David Solomon, is about to pump his blood funnel into your youth culture. A lover of dubstep, DJ D-Sol — Solomon’s stage name — will be taking the stage at this year’s Lollapalooza’s lineup in Chicago. The 60-year-old banker who who made $35m last year has pledged to donate his profits to charity.
From Small Things, Big Changes, No
To local news now where Qantas has announced a new scheme to allow frequent flyers to “go green”. How, you ask? Well, certainly not by reducing how much they fly, which would arguably be good for the environment if bad for Qantas’ bottom line. They’re instead creating a “Green Tier” that will gift regulars 10,000 points or “50 status credits” when they make ecologically sound choices. What kind of choices? Well, little things like offsetting the emissions of the Fly Carbon Neutral program — where passengers chose to pay extra to support the company’s many “environmental projects across Australia and the world” — and booking “an eco-accredited hotel through Qantas Hotels in Australia”. Members will manage their account with an app upon their totally, 100% environmentally safe smartphone to avoid having to carry around a piece of plastic. “We know that points influence behaviour,” Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce told the scribes at Executive Traveller magazine. “We also know that small changes by many, can have a big impact.”
Cooking With Gas
Just a few months ago, oil and gas prices were staring down their inevitable end but with prices for oil and gas spiking, the companies that drill, extract and process the stuff are finding themselves a new lease on life. Around the same time Santos was bragging in the South Australian press that it had found a “major” new oil discovery off the coast of Western Australia — 46km off the existing “Dorado” oil field — it’s reps were telling a hearing in Canberra that the money it is pumping into the Beetaloo Basin meant it had to export it’s gas because Australia is just too dang small. This isn’t to say Santos were the only ones playing it fast and loose — WA’s Woodside energy were sprung trying to bury a report by the CSIRO that found the gas it was extracting would not, in point of fact, “prolong coal, displace renewables and increase emissions in Asia without a global carbon price” and not lower emissions like the company claimed.
Think The Unthinkable
Buy hey, it’s not like anything’s wrong with simultaneous heatwaves in both the Arctic and Antarctic at the same time or an ice sheet the size of Rome collapsed a few days ago. It’s all gravy, baybee.
A Hillsong To Die On
The fix is in and Pastor Brian Houston, founder and senior pastor of Hillsong Church, is out after an emergency staff meeting last week whereupon it seems to have been agreed that he had “breached the moral code of the church” over his behaviour towards two women. When asked about this incident, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison sought to distance himself from the longtime friend, saying “I haven’t been at Hillsong now for about 15 years”. Unfortunately for the PM, the internet remembers.
Failing Upward
Where we recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…
We here at Raising Hell just want to give a brief shout out to SA Labor over the weekend. In a relatively fractured political environment their win was a surprise to anyone who distrust polls. As the television cameras lingered at the Labor election night party, we couldn’t help but be moved by the genuine joy people were experiencing. Of course, rumour has it Covid-19 ripped through those in attendance on that night making for an auspicious start to the new government. We assume it’s only up from here.
Good Reads, Good Times
To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight…
Credit to the Russian media where credit’s due: when the state you live under sheds all pretense and simply bans critical reporting of its activities, master the art of negative space.
Paul Daley at The Guardian has this fun feature on the life and times of Bob Sredersas, a Lithuanian migrant who donated a choice collection of artworks to the Wollongong Gallery — and who may have collaborated with the Nazis in carrying out genocide during World War II.
Here’s a frankly depressing analysis about the breakdown of US politics and institutions where the myth of election fraud is used to cover a deeper desire for one party rule among chunks of the American polity.
A while again, Ukrainian twitter feeds reported the story of Konstantin Olmezoz, a Ukrainian mathematician and poet who ended his life on March 20 after getting picked up by the FSB. His last words were translated here.
Before You Go (Go)…
Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that is burying toxic waste under playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! You can securely make contact through Signal or through encrypted message Wickr Me on my account: rorok1990. Alternatively you can send us your hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, leaving a review or by just telling a friend about Raising Hell!