Questions, questions, questions, but no answers

Strap yourselves in folks, it's a lengthy contribution for my first substantial post.

Let’s look at federal parliamentary question time for August 16, 2007. It was a day of charged issues, and a government desperately defending itself from a buoyant opposition. The big issues today were uranium exports to India, the US sub-prime mortgage collapse and what it means for Aussie battlers, local government issues in Queensland, workplace relations and that old chestnut, Iraq.

The Coalition government was on the back foot for most of the session, and not one government question was directed to an opposition member. Every opportunity the government had, they took that great Australian political tradition, the Dorothy Dix question, and ran with it.

Regarding uranium, the government performed pretty solidly, stressing their need for safeguards and necessary checks and balances to ensure India won’t use Australian uranium to develop nuclear weapons. Admirable stuff, and it’s the same line they used when approving uranium sales to China.

The real question here though, is India’s refusal to sign the UN Nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Neighbouring Pakistan has also failed to sign the NPT. As non-signatories, there’s a threat that India and Pakistan could become involved in a nuclear arms race, stemming from a long-time rivalry, and the disputed ownership of the Kashmir territory. Somewhat ironically, India also shares a border with China, a member of the nuclear club, and some Indian officials have perceived a threat from the Asian super-power. Things start getting a bit murky for the government when these factors, and India’s nuclear history come into the picture.

The issue received a lot of discussion in both houses of parliament, and the government stuck to their guns, so to speak. John Howard in the House of Reps and Helen Coonan in the Senate trotted out almost identical speeches in defence of uranium exports, saying that Australia would insist on safeguards, that Australia had the largest uranium reserves in the world and should take advantage of the fact. Throw in a line about nuclear power helping to reduce the impacts of climate change in one of the world’s emerging industrial powers, and the key messages are really starting to hit home.

In both houses of parliament, the government touted India’s “good non-proliferation record”. Unfortunately, in May 1998, India conducted a series of nuclear tests, and announced it had developed nuclear weaponry. Within a month, Pakistan announced that it had acquired nuclear capabilities as well. Since then, relations between the two countries have been relatively stable, if somewhat standoffish. But if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and it walks like a duck… chances are it’s a nuclear arms race trapped in a bad metaphor.

In the Senate, the government was critical of Labor’s use of Pakistani cricketer turned politician Imran Khan’s comments that uranium in India would lead to such a race. Maybe it’s a fair point, but Khan has been a member of the Pakistani parliament for more than five years, and the Prime Minister is known to enjoy more than a passing association with cricket. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw cricket balls.

Of course the biggest problem for the government was workplace relations. Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Julia Gillard went after the government, in particular IR Minister Joe Hockey. The thrust of Gillard’s argument was that Australian Workplace Agreements were going to be processed by “overseas backpackers”, who would be unfamiliar with the Australian industrial system of award wages, penalty overtimes rates and so on. Hockey danced around the question, and attacked ALP policy, while Gillard pushed for answers by asking a second, and then third revised version of her original question.

Hockey couldn’t give a substantial answer, but he said that Gillard should be happy with overseas workers, given the fine job foreign nurses and doctors do in Australian hospitals, no doubt a jibe at Gillard previous health portfolio.
Unable to get a straight answer, Gillard turned her attention to Prime Minister John Howard, quoting his commitment that AWAs would be monitored with “Australian commonsense”. Howard countered by saying that Australian values aren’t dependent on where someone is born. I’m not sure how that fits with the brand-new immigration test, but opposition members were pretty unhappy with Howard’s statement, and member for Calwell Maria Vamvakinou was ordered to leave the House for being disorderly.

Our last port of discussion was the ongoing Australian military presence in Iraq. Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Robert McClelland asked how Foreign Minister Alexander Downer could continue to say that Australia’s effort in Iraq was a success, given the loss of life, insurgent violence and so forth. Downer’s response was heavy with sarcasm, thanking McClelleand for his first question as Shadow Minister. Downer defended the government’s position on Iraq, insisting that to get out of Iraq with the job unfinished would be a far greater failure than the losses already incurred. Basically, he was saying that since there was a far worse failure possible, the current situation was a success. It seems like a pretty tenuous link, and it drew a lot of criticism from the opposition.

However, it’s in Downer’s response that a glimpse of PR practice comes into view.
In the previous days, McClelland released a media alert, outlining almost to the letter, the exact ammunition he was to use in question time against Downer. This seems akin to handing over your game plan to the opposition coach, and it certainly looks like bad politics.

Other observations I had from the session:
• Since each speaker has about seven minutes to address each question, there’s a premium on time, and being concise is absolutely critical.
• Be on message. The government’s steady line on the Indian uranium issue was a great example of political messaging. By picking a line, and staying the course in the face of criticism, the government not only looks and sounds united, but there’s an underlying sense of credibility and organisation. Of course, it helps when your messages contain logical advantages and sound reasoning. Which makes me wonder why they even tried to defend India’s nuclear proliferation stance…
• The government continually used its opportunities to pose friendly questions, rather than attacking the opposition directly. Instead, members launched into time consuming speeches, eating up valuable attacking time for the opposition. This chewed a lot of time, and helped the government avoid stronger questioning later in the session.

But of course, question produced a series of brutally funny lines. From Downer’s mocking of McClelland, to Joe Hockey’s attempt to dodge the backpacker question by saying that “they don’t wear back packs to work” the presence of former Labor Minister Gareth Evans in the gallery was the source of much mirth. Evans drew a backhanded compliment from Peter Costello, when Costello described Evans as, “the best Shadow Treasurer in a decade”.
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd welcomed Evans, making the thinly veiled observation that it was good to have “an experienced foreign minister” back in the chamber. However, the Prime Minister was to have the last laugh, turning Rudd’s jibe on it’s head, and commending the Opposition Leader for putting a premium on experience.

It was a minor victory in the scheme of things, but a reminder that today captured the key issues of the coming election campaign: economic management, where the US sub-prime collapse registered only one question in each House, while the opposition’s almost unblinking focus was on industrial relations, and to a lesser extent foreign policy. But perhaps the PM’s comment on experience will see that issue rise once again.

But for now, we’ll just sit and wait for an election date to be set, and watch the tension build.