Beyond a short piece on candidates' policy promises in last week's Northcote Leader, I've seen little about 27-year-old Liberal candidate for Batman, Jonathan Peart. There's been nothing in my letterbox and he certainly hasn't been in the neighbourhood door-knocking. So I thought I'd see if I could get any more response from him than the complete silence I received from Martin Ferguson. After all, the Liberals polled nearly 26 per cent of the first-preference vote in Batman last time around.
After an email bounceback from an incorrect address on the Liberal Party website, I sent Jonathan two emails to the corrected address requesting an interview for YouDecide2007, explaining that it was a citizen journalism project focusing on the election from local perspectives. With no response, I thought I'd do a web search on the candidate, and finally came up with a mobile number since removed from a live business web page but still captured in a cached copy retained by Google. Sure enough, I got the voicemail of the candidate and left a message. When there was no response, I left another.
Two emails and two voicemails later, I figure Jonathan isn't going to play ball, which is a pity because I had some good questions to ask him, which I will discuss here anyway. What I'll also do is email him this story to see if he will offer any response on this site. The only problem with that is readers won't know if it is Jonathan answering or a party spin doctor – just like his entry in the local paper, really.
Therein lies the rub when politicians are able to avoid challenge and present themselves only in ways that are prefabricated and essentially closed to debate. Unless their failure to respond can be lifted to a higher level of visibility – for example on a website with significant traffic, or in a newspaper – challenges on policy are too often ignored.
I wanted to ask Jonathan about claiming credit for the Coalition for its forecast savings of 87 million tonnes of greenhouse gas each year by 2010. It sounds a lot, as large but inadequate numbers quoted by politicians often do, yet the Howard Government will not ratify Kyoto – this despite the increasing urgency for international action identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Would Jonathan concede that we may in fact be forced to make some economic concessions – even if not every country commits to them – to avoid dangerous two-degree global warming? In the Leader he states: 'The Howard Government will continue to pursue practical responses to climate change that do not recklessly jeopardise our economy'. What about avoiding economic activities that recklessly endanger the environment and thus the future of humankind?
Because Jonathan would not front up for a live interview (if only over the phone), I have no idea if his purported statement in the paper is his personal position, if he is aware of the Coalition's (poor) position on targets for carbon emissions, or if he supports nuclear power for Australia (as Howard does). When presented only with limited and tightly controlled information, voters in Batman have no way of knowing if they are being offered a credible politician who is at least across his party's policies, or merely a Liberal place-holder presenting a small target by, for example, not responding to interview requests.
Under 'creating a fair workplace', Jonathan's statement in the Leader cites the establishment of an infoline, a fairness test (introduced in May) and nine workplace ombudsman offices as examples of the protections available to workers under WorkChoices. Yet, under AWAs, conditions have declined. And despite the Government's efforts to monitor and police compliance with the laws, it is beyond dispute that the laws themselves have removed unfair dismissal protection from the majority of Australian workers.
Apart from asking his response to these facts, I wanted to go further, asking him what he thinks the destruction of job security might do to people paying off a huge mortgage at ever-increasing interest. Of course, Tony Abbott has suggested that if we don't like our jobs we can just quit and, as the PM has suggested, pick up a new job in our booming economy. But for workers locked in one-on-one negotiations with the boss, what does Jonathan think a huge mortgage, or even a high rent, might do to the individual's bargaining power when pitted against the business? The acceptance of lower conditions out of necessity appears inevitable.
Perhaps Jonathan might answer that it's an employees' market, but do we really want our fundamental workplace rights resting on economic contingencies? As Tim Colebatch argued in his recent essay in The Age, 'Reaping what we owe', WorkChoices' 'biggest impact will come when there is an economic downturn, when employers will have a new freedom to dump workers'.
Finally, I'd like to know what Jonathan makes of Mark Vaile criticising the Auditor-General for releasing a report suggesting that regional grants had been awarded for political purposes and with poor accountability. Given that the report includes factual findings by an independent officer of the Crown, why shouldn't it be released in time to inform voters' decisions in this election?
This last question is especially important because in essence Vaile was arguing that damaging, if factual, information that under current rules can be released before an election should really be released after an election. With Vaile's convoluted appeals to 'caretaker periods' thus reduced to their essential core, his argument rings too many bells about the Tampa, AWB, the Iraq war and the disgraceful treatment of Mohamed Haneef. What do you think, Jonathan? Are you prepared to venture beyond the minder's leash to make a statement about the abuse of secrecy in government? Perhaps after the election.
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