Authoriarianism and the "Left"

[Psyber]

This came from The Spectator this week.
It uses the modern convention of "Right" for conservative and "Left" for socialist - the latter translated as "liberal" for the US reader - but suggests authoritarianism is the purvey of the "left" not of conservatism.. [Which is something I said on this forum a while ago.]

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine ... irit.thtml

Snippet 1:

What Goldberg very effectively does is to remove from the charge sheet the one possible reason any thinking person could have for not wanting to be right-wing: viz, that being on the right automatically makes you a closet fascist/Nazi scumbag. By accumulating a mass of historical evidence so extensive it borders on the wearisome, Goldberg comprehensively demonstrates that both Nazism and fascism were phenomena of the Left, not of the Right.

Snippet 2:

But then, he argues, the problem with liberals is that they’ve always been so convinced of their moral righteousness that they never feel the need to analyse their position too deeply. Conservatives are continually agonising among themselves about precisely what the role of government should be — ‘where to draw the line between freedom and virtue’. For leftists, the dogma is settled: ‘Government should do good where it can, whenever it can, period.’

[Gozu]

More culture wars rubbish from the Right and one of it's notorious mouthpieces in The Spectator.

[redandblack]

A very disappointing effort, Psyber. I expect something a bit better than that from you.

Perhaps you could quote a bit of Piers Ackerman or someone similar to prove you're right.

Just read the 2 snippets you've quoted again. You don't think there's a slight chance the language used comes straight out of the conservative textbooks on how to denigrate those nasty 'liberals'?

Hitler and Mussolini left-wingers

Lift your game, mate.

[redden whites]

The Spectator......Oh dear

[Psyber]

A very disappointing effort, Psyber. I expect something a bit better than that from you.
Perhaps you could quote a bit of Piers Ackerman or someone similar to prove you're right.
Just read the 2 snippets you've quoted again. You don't think there's a slight chance the language used comes straight out of the conservative textbooks on how to denigrate those nasty 'liberals'?
Hitler and Mussolini left-wingers
Lift your game, mate.

Thats why I prefer the older use of "right wing" to mean authoritarian as you can then speak of "right wing" conservatives and "right wing" socialists.
I pointed out in my first post that this article had used the modern variation of "right" and "left", which confuses the situation.

In my preferred terms Hitler's party was a "right wing" socialist group. It was called the "National Socialist German Workers' Party".
In the article's terms they called it "left wing" because it was socialist, and Mussolini's regime "left", too, because the country was called the "Italian Social Republic".
This language shift then makes it hard to distiguish the four main variants - liberal socialism, liberal conservatism, authoritarian socialism, and authoritarian conservatism.
So, when I declare myself as "conservative", the more socialistically inclined decide I am authoritarian by definition.
I put this up as an example of that problem of language, which I have discussed here before.
Posting the reference does not mean I am agreeing with everything in the article.

As I've said in other posts, socialism is not the antithesis of authoritarianism - they sometimes go together, and conservatism too can be liberal or authoritarian.
The modern use of the terms "left" and "right" tends to imply all conservatism is authoritarian and all socialism is liberal [that is, non-authoritarian].

In truth, socialists and conservatives, alike, can think they are pure goodness and light and would never impose anything people didn't want on them - unless it were for there own good of course...
That's why I like liberal conservatism, which is "left wing " in the older use of the term, but the modern variation of the terms calls all conservatism "right wing".
Perhaps the terms "left" and "right" should be dumped totally in the interest of clarity and the polysyballic terms in my line 5 used instead...

My "[Which is something I said on this forum a while ago.]" was a bit clumsy.
I should have been more explicit about what I had said earlier, but I was trying to be brief.
I hope this further comment makes what I was trying to say clear.

[redandblack]

I can live with some of that Psyber.

I'll put your quoting of the 'Spectator' to defend your position as an excusable aberration, just this once

[Ronnie]

I've always thought that the left is the natural home of those with a strong authoritarian streak.
Who else believes in big government, big bureaucracy, and an ever growing list of rules and regulations which intrude into everyday life. We are being regulated to death.
The 'left' is the natural home of the authoritarian busy body, and if it can't be done then a bit of judicial activism comes in handy.

[Gozu]

The former Howard Government continues to be exposed (from Crikey):

Liberal mates milked millions from Howard's ad bonanza

The Australian National Audit Office released its audit of the Howard Government’s advertising processes last week. In the dry and understated way of auditors, it is absolutely savage. It makes the famous Regional Partnerships report that went off like a bomb during the 2007 election campaign look like a model of best practice.

But what is even more damning is what isn’t explicit in the report: that several senior Liberal Party mates were given millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money with no evidence they would provide value for money and no way of checking afterward whether they had provided it.

When I first wrote about the Howard Government’s micro-management of advertising, I talked about the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications, the all-powerful body of backbenchers and Prime Ministerial advisers chaired by the Special Minister of State that controlled even the most innocuous advertising to ensure it served the Government’s political interests. While there is discussion of problems within the bureaucracy’s own processes like not signing contracts until long after work has begun, it is the MCGC that the audit report focuses on.

In the Commonwealth, you can’t use taxpayers’ money without appropriate authority and you can’t spend it without making sure taxpayers are getting the best value for money. There are laws, regulations, guidelines, Chief Executive Instructions and other paraphernalia by the truckload for this to ensure that these requirements are complied with. And no one is supposed to be able to get around them.

But the ANAO report, which focuses on three advertising campaigns – the "alert not alarmed" fridge magnet one, a private health insurance campaign and the infamous Workchoices campaign – is a long litany of how these requirements were ignored by the Howard Government. It is a detailed 200 page answer to anyone who would ever try to claim that the Howard Government was a competent financial manager or observed the basics of accountability and transparency.

The key issue is that the MCGC had no authority to spend money on advertising. That lay with individual ministers and the bureaucrats with delegated powers to spend money. But the MCGC made many decisions about advertising campaigns, often overriding advice from bureaucrats. As any public servant who worked under the Howard Government will tell you, the MCGC’s word was final. If it didn’t like the ad campaign a department had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing because it didn’t suit the Government’s political agenda, the campaign was binned. If it wanted a campaign that served the Government politically, it got one, no questions asked.

In effect, MCGC was therefore spending money with no authorisation. The ANAO obtained explicit advice from the Australian Government Solicitor that this was the case. This was disputed by former special minister of state Gary Nairn, who argued that the MCGC was an "advisory committee" only and that public servants didn’t have to take its advice – a statement that anyone who dealt with it would regard as laughable. Nairn also argues that because the relevant portfolio ministers attended each meeting of the MCGC, that in effect ensured the decision was being made by someone with authorisation to do so.

The ANAO, very politely and indirectly, questions Nairn's version of events. "As part of its analysis," the report says in a footnote, "the ANAO examined the complete records of 63 of the 66 MCGC meetings held in respect of the campaigns that were part of this audit and extracts of the records of the remaining three meetings. The ANAO found no evidence that portfolio Ministers attended MCGC meetings."

The problem with this process was that, when bureaucrats and Ministers on the advice of bureaucrats make major expenditure decisions, they have to demonstrate they are obtaining value for money, that the selection process was rigorous and that, in short, they weren’t giving millions of dollars to mates in the private sector. When the MCGC made decisions, no such requirements were observed.

When it came to the Workchoices advertising campaigns, which cost more than $120m, MCGC ensured the Liberal Party’s closest friends in the advertising industry got in on the action. None of the tenders for the Workchoices campaigns were put to the market – they were either offered by invitation or given directly to a firm without tendering. Only one of the eight major contracts was the subject of a proper assessment as is required under the web of accountability requirements.

On 13 July 2005, MCGC selected Jackson Wells Morris as its public relations consultant after inviting it and three other firms to tender for the contract, without any input or assessment from officials. At that stage, former Howard adviser Grahame Morris was still part of JWM. The then-Department of Employment and Workplace Relations later claimed in its annual report that JWM had won through an open tender process, a claim it has been forced to retract. The value of this contract was more than $815,000.

On 9 August 2005, MCGC selected Dewey & Horton as its advertising consultant after a select tender process to four firms picked by MCGC. There was no assessment by officials of the tenders or pitches to the Committee. Dewey & Horton is headed by Ted Horton, a long-time Liberal Party advertising guru, part of what the Liberal called "the Team" that led the party’s election campaigns. The value of this contract was nearly $5.9m.

In September 2005, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations was startled to receive an invoice for advertising work by Brandmark. Without consulting the Department, Dewey & Horton had subcontracted work to Brandmark, which is not normally permitted under Commonwealth contracts without prior arrangement. The Department was ordered by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to pay the invoice for nearly $50,000.

Brandmark was headed by Mark Pearson, another long-time Liberal ad man and member of "the Team". Pearson’s firm has scored big with the Howard Government’s GST advertising contracts.

Jackson Wells Morris also subcontracted work, to another Liberal Party figure, IR hardliner Warren Stooke, and to one other firm, worth more than $130,000. On that occasion, DEWR was aware of the subcontracting, although the ANAO concludes that the Department "took no steps to ensure that contractual requirement for the engagement of subcontractors were observed."

For the Workchoices campaign, no evaluation strategy was in place to check whether the taxpayer got any value from the expenditure the Government was making on their behalf. DEWR only had "tracking research" which, as the ANAO tartly notes, "is no substitute for effective evaluation."

In short, a junior minister, a bunch of backbenchers and Tony Nutt from the Prime Minister’s Office simply doled out the cash without any recorded evidence or independent assessment, and left the bureaucrats to pay the bills.

Lindsay Tanner and John Faulkner got rid of the MCGC when they got into government and handed control of advertising back to the Department of Finance instead of PM&C. They also put in place arrangements for the Auditor-General to vet ad campaigns to determine if they are partisan. On accountability, this Government is light years ahead of its appalling predecessor. - Bernard Keane

[Psyber]

The former Howard Government continues to be exposed (from Crikey):
Liberal mates milked millions from Howard's ad bonanza

And you don't think the Labor Party rewards those businesses that donate to their party funds, by spending what they do spend with them rather than others?
Politics is about power and influence. Don't kid yourself only one group does it, and the other group are all white knights fighting for thr light on the hill...
[I don't like the fact that it is so either.]

[Gozu]

No, Labor are not cleanskins but in the dodgy/un-democratic stakes the Libs and their National's mates take the cake every time. Regional Rorts anyone? Just the other day the Liberal Party combined with that Family First clown to vote down the Government's Electoral Reform Bill. It would've returned the donation disclosure threshold from $10,900 back to $1,000 (changed by Honest John). The Coalition continue to be morally bankrupt in Opposition as the enemies of accountability and transparency.

Thankfully the authoritarian party have had another one of their disgraceful policies overturned by the Labor government. The Howard government refused to allow foreign aid to be spent on anything to do with terminating pregnancies. Who knows how many women this sick policy injured or killed.

[mick]

Did anyone read Laurie Oakes' article on Peter Garrett. Basically it reflected on the former defiant "old" rocker in his recent midnight oil guise in comparison to the colourless party line towing boring federal minister. His price for entering main stream politics. The article basically says that political reality distates that politicians resembe to colourless, calculating mannikins a la Rudd and Howard. RIP Peter Garrett.
The Liberal party used to allow dissent from the party line without severe punishment, unlike the ALP where it would in probability lead to no preselection or expulsion from the party (eg. Norm Foster in SA in the 80s). Is this still the case? I have never liked Peter Garrett but I must say I felt some sympathy for him, he must feel like a man in a straight jacket, perhaps it explains his less than stellar performance as environment minister.

[redden whites]

The Liberal party used to allow dissent from the party line without severe punishment, unlike the ALP where it would in probability lead to no preselection or expulsion from the party (eg. Norm Foster in SA in the 80s). Is this still the case?

Well it was clearly not the case I would have thought in July 2000 when Peter Lewis was expelled from the Liberal party while an elected sitting member which put the Liberals very own government in minority power.

[mick]

The Liberal party used to allow dissent from the party line without severe punishment, unlike the ALP where it would in probability lead to no preselection or expulsion from the party (eg. Norm Foster in SA in the 80s). Is this still the case?

Well it was clearly not the case I would have thought in July 2000 when Peter Lewis was expelled from the Liberal party while an elected sitting member which put the Liberals very own government in minority power.

I think any political party would be happy not to have that guy in their party. His performance as speaker was interesting to say the least. I don't think you can compare this incident with the Norm Foster incident. There were also the two labour members (names escape me but were in the Legislative council) expelled in the 90s for crossing the floor over the sale of ETSA to clear the state bank debt.

[am Bays]

The former Howard Government continues to be exposed (from Crikey):

Liberal mates milked millions from Howard's ad bonanza

The Australian National Audit Office released its audit of the Howard Government’s advertising processes last week. In the dry and understated way of auditors, it is absolutely savage. It makes the famous Regional Partnerships report that went off like a bomb during the 2007 election campaign look like a model of best practice.

But what is even more damning is what isn’t explicit in the report: that several senior Liberal Party mates were given millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money with no evidence they would provide value for money and no way of checking afterward whether they had provided it.

When I first wrote about the Howard Government’s micro-management of advertising, I talked about the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications, the all-powerful body of backbenchers and Prime Ministerial advisers chaired by the Special Minister of State that controlled even the most innocuous advertising to ensure it served the Government’s political interests. While there is discussion of problems within the bureaucracy’s own processes like not signing contracts until long after work has begun, it is the MCGC that the audit report focuses on.

In the Commonwealth, you can’t use taxpayers’ money without appropriate authority and you can’t spend it without making sure taxpayers are getting the best value for money. There are laws, regulations, guidelines, Chief Executive Instructions and other paraphernalia by the truckload for this to ensure that these requirements are complied with. And no one is supposed to be able to get around them.

But the ANAO report, which focuses on three advertising campaigns – the "alert not alarmed" fridge magnet one, a private health insurance campaign and the infamous Workchoices campaign – is a long litany of how these requirements were ignored by the Howard Government. It is a detailed 200 page answer to anyone who would ever try to claim that the Howard Government was a competent financial manager or observed the basics of accountability and transparency.

The key issue is that the MCGC had no authority to spend money on advertising. That lay with individual ministers and the bureaucrats with delegated powers to spend money. But the MCGC made many decisions about advertising campaigns, often overriding advice from bureaucrats. As any public servant who worked under the Howard Government will tell you, the MCGC’s word was final. If it didn’t like the ad campaign a department had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing because it didn’t suit the Government’s political agenda, the campaign was binned. If it wanted a campaign that served the Government politically, it got one, no questions asked.

In effect, MCGC was therefore spending money with no authorisation. The ANAO obtained explicit advice from the Australian Government Solicitor that this was the case. This was disputed by former special minister of state Gary Nairn, who argued that the MCGC was an "advisory committee" only and that public servants didn’t have to take its advice – a statement that anyone who dealt with it would regard as laughable. Nairn also argues that because the relevant portfolio ministers attended each meeting of the MCGC, that in effect ensured the decision was being made by someone with authorisation to do so.

The ANAO, very politely and indirectly, questions Nairn's version of events. "As part of its analysis," the report says in a footnote, "the ANAO examined the complete records of 63 of the 66 MCGC meetings held in respect of the campaigns that were part of this audit and extracts of the records of the remaining three meetings. The ANAO found no evidence that portfolio Ministers attended MCGC meetings."

The problem with this process was that, when bureaucrats and Ministers on the advice of bureaucrats make major expenditure decisions, they have to demonstrate they are obtaining value for money, that the selection process was rigorous and that, in short, they weren’t giving millions of dollars to mates in the private sector. When the MCGC made decisions, no such requirements were observed.

When it came to the Workchoices advertising campaigns, which cost more than $120m, MCGC ensured the Liberal Party’s closest friends in the advertising industry got in on the action. None of the tenders for the Workchoices campaigns were put to the market – they were either offered by invitation or given directly to a firm without tendering. Only one of the eight major contracts was the subject of a proper assessment as is required under the web of accountability requirements.

On 13 July 2005, MCGC selected Jackson Wells Morris as its public relations consultant after inviting it and three other firms to tender for the contract, without any input or assessment from officials. At that stage, former Howard adviser Grahame Morris was still part of JWM. The then-Department of Employment and Workplace Relations later claimed in its annual report that JWM had won through an open tender process, a claim it has been forced to retract. The value of this contract was more than $815,000.

On 9 August 2005, MCGC selected Dewey & Horton as its advertising consultant after a select tender process to four firms picked by MCGC. There was no assessment by officials of the tenders or pitches to the Committee. Dewey & Horton is headed by Ted Horton, a long-time Liberal Party advertising guru, part of what the Liberal called "the Team" that led the party’s election campaigns. The value of this contract was nearly $5.9m.

In September 2005, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations was startled to receive an invoice for advertising work by Brandmark. Without consulting the Department, Dewey & Horton had subcontracted work to Brandmark, which is not normally permitted under Commonwealth contracts without prior arrangement. The Department was ordered by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to pay the invoice for nearly $50,000.

Brandmark was headed by Mark Pearson, another long-time Liberal ad man and member of "the Team". Pearson’s firm has scored big with the Howard Government’s GST advertising contracts.

Jackson Wells Morris also subcontracted work, to another Liberal Party figure, IR hardliner Warren Stooke, and to one other firm, worth more than $130,000. On that occasion, DEWR was aware of the subcontracting, although the ANAO concludes that the Department "took no steps to ensure that contractual requirement for the engagement of subcontractors were observed."

For the Workchoices campaign, no evaluation strategy was in place to check whether the taxpayer got any value from the expenditure the Government was making on their behalf. DEWR only had "tracking research" which, as the ANAO tartly notes, "is no substitute for effective evaluation."

In short, a junior minister, a bunch of backbenchers and Tony Nutt from the Prime Minister’s Office simply doled out the cash without any recorded evidence or independent assessment, and left the bureaucrats to pay the bills.

Lindsay Tanner and John Faulkner got rid of the MCGC when they got into government and handed control of advertising back to the Department of Finance instead of PM&C. They also put in place arrangements for the Auditor-General to vet ad campaigns to determine if they are partisan. On accountability, this Government is light years ahead of its appalling predecessor. - Bernard Keane

How is Hawkey's mate Singo travelling these days....