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Deadly Intransigence
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Posted:Jan 14, 2011 10:03 am
Last Updated:Jul 4, 2011 6:12 am
2820 Views
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Was it right for the Tucson sheriff to blast both sides of politics in the aftermath of the Giffords Shooting? It is tempting to say that, in hindsight, it was probably a mistake, one the sheriff is likely to have to live with at the next election. However, the very fact that the media is concentrating so much effort and attention on this issue would suggest that the rising rhetorical flourishes were already causing some concern.
It would be all too easy to sit back here in Australia and say, “Only in America.” The problem with this is that it ignores an ominous trend on both sides of politics in this country; the seemingly fervent desire to cast our issues as existential extensions of similar debates in the US. Whether reading The Monthly or Quadrant, the premier tomes of the Left and Right respectively, there are always a number of articles, quite often the majority, that take well worn American attitudes and attempt to mould them to fit our consciousness. If it were the outward bound fringes of the Left and Right, then that would be one thing. But many of the contributors to Monthly and Quadrant are the intellectual core of their respective sides- and this intellectual bankruptcy should concern all of us.
We are a sovereign nation, with our own constitution, constitutional law and constitutional interpretations. The constitution of Australia is as unlike the United States’ document as one can possibly get. Our constitutional arrangements are far less codified and tradition plays a far greater role in determining our understanding of the Constitution than it does in the United States. For example, whilst we hold Freedom of Speech to be a central and dominant factor in our understanding of the democratic process, we are far more likely to agree that there are some types of speech that should be banned, or at least controlled, than would be the case in the United States. It is against this background that we should be discussing our political requirements, not just plugging for some tired argument imported from the United States and their much trumpeted First Amendment.
One major reason is that even most Americans are not quite sure what the First Amendment actually means. It is not freedom of speech, though this is covered; it is freedom of expression. We simply don’t have a cultural basis that says every utterance, suggestion, display or wink, regardless of its consequences, has a place in the public sphere. We accept wearing a t-shirt that says ‘Fuck all Coons’ or ‘Fuck all Faggots’ is not acceptable and does not help the political discourse. We accept that Aboriginals and Gays do have some right not to be confronted with that sort of thing. At the same time, it would be impossible for any government to legislate to prevent people from arguing that Aboriginals or Gays (or whomever) should be free of all criticism. The Australian concept of Freedom of Speech is meant to lift the political debate above the realm of name calling and puerility so that symbolism does not become a substitute for action. Or at least that is the theory. As flawed as the practice may be, it is difficult to see how substituting the Australian view for the American one actually increases the likelihood that political discourse would be improved.
The other thing that we should bless our socks for is the fact that we don’t have a Second Amendment style constitutional guarantee to weapons ownership. I personally don’t have a lot of problems with the idea that somebody is allowed to own a gun; a pistol or hunting rifle or shotgun, for example. I could even be convinced that semi-automatic rifles are okay if there were proper safeguards such as storing them at a rifle range in a secure lock-up, etc, etc. But you lose me when you suggest that military style assault rifles, sniper rifles and grenade launchers are an everyday necessity. Because the sorts of people that want these weapons are the same sorts of people, on the Left and the Right, who want the government to be afraid of them. Which, in my opinion, is the very opposite of what government is meant to be.
In a democracy, the government should reflect the aspirations of the people that voted them into power. It should not reflect the aspirations of the people with the grenade launchers, assault rifles and sniper rifles of those whose side lost the election. It seems pathetically childish that a failure to convince the majority of your position then entitles you to hold their elected representatives to hostage in order to get your agenda enacted. If your side lost, then it is beholden on you to wait for the next election and do a better job of explaining why your representatives should be given the chance to govern.
Which brings us back to the Giffords shooting. On a strictly reasonable measure, the rhetoric employed by American politicians and the gimmicks they employ, as weird as we might find them, are culturally relevant. For the vast majority of Americans, the use of crosshairs to denote targeting was a relatively harmless gimmick, no more sinister than the idea of bringing a gun to a knife fight as expressed by Obama the previous year. One could go back in time and find similar rhetoric used by US politicians from the earliest days of the Republic; a gun can be a useful metaphor on a number of levels. The problem is not what the politicians are saying; it is what their supporters are saying.
There is a growing intransigence in the Left and Right. It is being fed by the idea that those we should most admire, and emulate, are those who do not compromise their principles. The art of compromise, and its attendant release of pressure, is disappearing and it is leading to a sharpening of the rhetoric on both sides. One only has to log on to the various news and political websites to see that the extremists are off the leash and are demanding to be listened to. When Sarah Palin uses cross hairs to ‘target’ an opponent, there are some who suggest that the idea of shooting these people is a good one; and it is these who feed the delusions of the likes of Loughner. Loughner may actually believe that he struck a blow for Palin; but he was encouraged to this belief not by the media or even Palin, but by people on the web who pushed the rhetoric just that little bit further than it needed to go. Loughner’s delusions tapped into this rhetoric and found the justification for his actions.
It would be foolish to believe that the political rhetoric and gimmickry of both sides had nothing to do with the Giffords shooting. Yet it would be equally foolish to believe that the rhetoric was the only factor, even the paranoid and hateful stuff that passes for political debate on some websites. These, in themselves, are merely symptoms of the greater problem. As Justice Scalia pointed out a few months ago, the political deadlock in the US has reached such proportions that it is now affecting the running of the country. It won’t be solved soon; it is likely that there will be more tragedies like the one in Tucson before things get the shake-up they need.
As an aside-
Is it just me or does the media seem a little disappointed in the apparent stoicism in the face of catastrophe demonstrated by the Queenslanders caught up in the flood? Given the level of drama attached to each development in the situation, and the relish that many outlets are reporting the incidences of looting, one might be forgiven for thinking that what the media really want is a situation like the New Orleans Superdome, post Hurricane Katrina. Or a good riot. Or dramatic scenes of panic buying with people pushing through the doors of supermarkets and fighting over the last can of baked beans. For all the mention of panic buying, there does seem to be little enough actual footage of it. The only vision I have seen is of people patiently waiting in line to get in and out of the supermarket with no evidence of hoarding- no trolleys loaded down with the store’s entire supply of baked beans for instance.
Of course the thing that is often forgotten about the situation at the New Orleans Superdome was that it was a media beat up. Perhaps what the Australian journalists need is a little more imagination and simply create the scandal they are looking for.
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Melee Points
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Posted:Jan 6, 2011 10:35 am
Last Updated:May 24, 2024 5:28 pm
2307 Views
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Many years ago, most Australians would have been introduced to the alcohol culture through the traditional sharing of a beer (or shandy) with their parents. From there it was likely that the would graduate further by ‘breaking the law’ and sneaking into the pubs and clubs while , but with the clear consequence that being a sixteen or seventeen year old smart arse in a pub full of grown men would be an invitation to a physical encounter outside, more than likely followed by a quick trip down to the cop shop until your parents came to collect you. It may seem like something of a romanticisation of the past, but it seems pretty obvious that what this taught the young who would soon be adults was what was, and what was not, acceptable drinking behaviour.
Then along came a group of journalists with nothing better to do. First they went after the pubs and clubs that were actively corrupting our innocent youth by tempting them into illicit acts. The media push hit a nerve with concerned parents and concerned politicians and before you knew what was happening there was a steady growth in the punishments handed out to establishments, staff, patrons and the themselves. Not to be left out, the medical community jumped onboard and began a campaign about the effects of alcohol on growing bodies and banging the drum to say that parents who really loved their would not give them alcohol. So that rite of passage quickly disappeared from many homes.
But this is a society in which alcohol plays an important role in social gatherings. To be an adult in this country, especially in certain sections of the culture, is to knock back a few drinks with your mates. Alcohol is still a feature of the life of many teens; but instead of learning a culture of acceptable drinking habits in slow degrees, now they learn it through peer pressure where the goal is to drink as much as possible. Their behaviour and consumption is not moderated by the examples of adults around them- they learn in a vacuum.
So it should come as no surprise that when they are old enough to get into the clubs and pubs they have no idea of how to behave, how to moderate their consumption or how alcohol affects them. Yet the spiralling violence in our entertainment precincts illicit nothing but gasps of dismay and bewilderment and the response has invariably been more attempts at control and limitation. It does not take Einstein to realise that the controls and limitations imposed in the last two decades are precisely responsible for where we are now.
The problem in Perth is compounded by a few more factors that probably don’t occur anywhere else. Firstly, our nightclub zones are being steadily squeezed into a single zone. The NIMBY brigade has been out and about for two decades closing down pubs and clubs in the suburbs with endless complaints about noise, behaviour, etc. It always surprises me that people move into these areas knowing that that venue is there, and then spend the next few years trying to get rid of it. The end result has been that the Northbridge area has become saturated with patrons. On top of this, the police suggestion that the crowds on the footpaths be thinned out by closing the roads was roundly criticised by restaurateurs and cafe owners convinced that the drop off in their business was caused by this, not the fact that people had the perception that going to a cafe or restaurant in Northbridge was something of a death wish. The same people add to the congestion by putting out a gaggle of tables on the footpaths.
Another factor was the decision to kick the smokers out onto the street. Run all the campaigns you want to, but smoking will always be perceived as cool. It is an act of rebellion. So when the smokers head out for their next coffin nail, the hangers on will go with them. Suddenly the one or two smokers will become a crowd of inebriated loiterers, with a small group seeking the opportunity to impress their peers. All it takes is one tanked-up boofhead trying to impress for things to degenerate into a street melee.
Is it possible to undo the damage? No. None of these actions could really be argued against for the simple reason that they actually make sense. Smoking is bad and secondary smoking is bad so the idea of banning cigarette smoking from nightclubs and pubs makes sense. Similarly, alcohol does negatively impact ’s health to a far greater degree than adults so putting measures in place to limit drinking also makes sense. The problem is not that they don’t make sense but that they make sense on a very limited basis and the ancillary consequences were simply not taken into account, if they occurred to anyone at all. You simply cannot argue that allowing smokers back inside to ease the pressures that lead to violence is a good idea because there is a whole army of people who will paint you as a monster for exposing people to tobacco. You can’t argue against strictly enforcing alcohol laws in regard to juveniles because there is another army of people who will paint you as a monster for trying to harm the development of innocent youth.
However, given the mistakes of the past, it might be useful to look at some of the suggestions being made to fix the current problem a little more closely before accepting them. The problem with regulation is that it invariably leads to more regulation to fix the problems caused by the regulations in the first place. Someone, somewhere, thought that it would be a good idea to regulate a minimum drinking age- now we have regulations on top of regulations trying to ensure that the first regulation works.
Perhaps instead of adding on another layer of regulation, we might step back a bit and try a few structural adjustments. The suggestion by the WA police that the streets in and around Northbridge be closed is a good example of this. Another might be to designate a few more areas for entertainment precincts- the current alternatives of Subiaco, Claremont and Fremantle are probably even more crowded than Northbridge. An area like the Gosnells CBD has few residents and plenty of spaces that could be converted into pubs and nightclubs. Though hardly fashionable at the moment, it should be noted that for much of their history Northbridge and even Subiaco were working class suburbs.
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Odd Id
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Posted:Jan 6, 2011 10:31 am
Last Updated:May 24, 2024 5:28 pm
1781 Views
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Looky lou.
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Westward? Whoa!
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Posted:Jan 5, 2011 9:49 am
Last Updated:Jan 6, 2011 10:33 am
2045 Views
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We are constantly being told that this will be the Pacific Century; the slow transition of power from America and Europe to China. Projecting certain indicators into the future, but only certain indicators, it would seem that there is some truth to this idea. In reality, it may be more beneficial to talk of the Indian Ocean Century, for the Indian Ocean Rim is likely to play a far more important role by the end of the century than the nations on the Pacific Ocean Rim.
While it is conceivable that the Chinese experiment may yet go forward all the way to 2050 with unprecedented levels of growth, there is a looming crisis in demography that may unhinge the dreams of the Communist Party and its boosters at home and abroad. In that year, it is estimated that the Chinese population will reach the impressive total of 1.4billion people, up from the current 1.3 billion. This will be a measure of the success of the One- Policy. But while the one policy has worked and is working to slow the almost stratospheric rise of the Chinese population, it did not alter misogynistic cultural attitudes that held that boys were far and away more preferable to girls; one result is that by 2030 as many as 1 in 4 Chinese men in their late thirties will never have been married. The proportions for peasants, facing poor prospects of luring a bride away from the richer city dwellers, are expected to be much higher. But the real damage lays in the fact that the Chinese economic miracle is underwritten by a pool of cheap labour and a government unburdened by the social welfare programmes of the West. There is certainly no old age pension in China, forcing families to take responsibility for their parents and grandparents. This at a time when nearly 40% of the population is expected to be 65 or older- a staggering burden for people earning @$2000 a year.
The prospects are no better in Japan or South Korea, the other economic powerhouses of East Asia. Japan’s population has declined by 10% in the last decade as its median age has risen from 46 to 52. South Korea is also in the early stages of population decline. Though it has been a long held belief that poorer countries have high population growth rates, recent evidence suggests that many regions of the world are experiencing low fertility rates that will inevitably lead to future population decline. It is now estimated that over fifty percent of the world’s population live in societies where fertility rates are well below replacement levels, including Latin America, Europe, Russia and the Middle East.
It has long been a popular myth that the population explosion of the 20th century, where the global population quadrupled from 1.5 billion in 1901 to 6.5 billion in 2001, was because of a massive increase in fertility rates. Statistics suggest that while there was a small increase, the real cause was that people stopped dying in droves from disease. The population increase was not a fertility explosion but a health explosion; global life expectancy in 1901 was a mere 30years- by 2001 it was 65 years. The only significant areas of population growth outside of the Indian Ocean Rim will be the United States and Brazil.
It is difficult to project the long term consequences of these demographic changes, other than that the economically significant population centres will be in those nations surrounding the Indian Ocean. Many of these projections do not take into account the significant impact that HIV and AIDS is having in Sub-Saharan Africa and is likely to have in South Asia. The projections for education opportunities for these populations are no better in 2050 than they are today; it is fully expected that nearly 1 in 5 new Indian workers even then will have never attended school at any level- the levels in Muslim Bangladesh and Pakistan, where women and girls do not attend school in large numbers, are likely to be even worse.
While there is expected to be widespread decline in Europe, it nevertheless has a standard of living that will attract migrants. The significant question here is whether they will be able to integrate the levels of immigration required to ensure a prosperous future. No such prospect will be had in China; its standards of living are likely to get worse as find themselves carrying the whole burden of their parents and grandparents care on meagre wages. Whilst wages can be expected to grow in an era of declining workforces, the big questions will be how these increasing wages will affect the attractiveness of China for foreign manufacturers; and whether they can grow fast enough to offset the increased cost pressure?
But if the Pacific Century is being sold on the shoddy assumption that China’s economic and political rise is going to continue without respite or setback, then the same assumptions would suggest that the real future actually sits on the Indian Ocean Rim. The apparent transition from the American century to a Chinese century may in fact be viewed by history as nothing more than a transitory stop on the road to an Indian Century.
This, of course, assumes that the United States is in a terminal decline. As noted, demography is on the side of the Americans thanks not only to the attractiveness of the country for immigrants, but more significantly on a high fertility rate. The population of the US is expected to increase by 20% by 2050. While the population is expected to age, the increase is by no means comparable to that being experienced by Japan or Europe, for example. Of greater significance is the size of the United States economy, which alone accounts for 25% of the world’s gross domestic product.
The figures for the economic preponderance of the United States are staggering. New York City, alone, has a larger GDP than the entire Australian economy. If the United States broke up tomorrow into its 50 states, 8 states would be in the world’s top 25 economies and 22 states would be in the top 50. Indeed, if Australia became the 51st State of the Union, it would be only fourth in the list of economic ranks, behind California, Texas and New York. Broken up into its own states, the first appearance by an Australian state in the ranks of the United States would be New South Wales at 11: Victoria would be at 15, Queensland at 17 and Western Australia at 23. America’s lowest ranked state by GDP would change from Vermont to Tasmania.
The United States faces significant structural hurdles; a poor education system outside of the universities, a woefully iniquitous taxation system and a decline in infrastructure. While many commentators point to the current political gridlock in terms of its uniqueness, the fact is that the United States has been locked in these periods of fervent partisanship quite often- it is the very nature of the democratic system. But the remarkable thing about American history is how often the right man comes along at precisely the right moment to steady the ship and put America back on track. Washington, Lincoln, Teddy and Franklyn Roosevelt, Reagan, etc. (Even though his Presidency ended in opprobrium, Nixon deserves to be remembered for his record also. When you think of his major achievements, and compare him with his contemporaries on both sides of the aisle, it is clear that only Nixon could have achieved what he did. Perhaps it will take a few generations for the Americans to realise just how remarkable a president Nixon was.) Of course the right man in the new century may very well be a woman.
It is becoming ever clearer that Australia’s business, political and cultural elites are transfixed by the idea of the inexorable rise of China. These elites, conditioned to the idea that the nation stretches no further west than Canberra, are obviously averse to looking that little bit further to the potentialities of the Indian Ocean Rim lest they have to acknowledge the existence of the rest of Australia in between. If China were in any way a sure bet, such a specific focus would be understandable. The rise of the Indian Ocean Rim may be a host of potentialities, but they are no more fanciful than any of the ideas attached to China.
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Impressions
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Posted:Dec 27, 2010 1:24 pm
Last Updated:May 24, 2024 5:28 pm
2112 Views
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One of the problems with the current crop of articles looking to address the future place of China in the world is a rather simplistic view of how wars begin. A few decades of the rhetoric of the peace movements have us convinced that all wars begin by design and that they are fought because of the greed of men. There are more than enough examples throughout history of this path to war to make it seem true; but this is not the whole story. While such paths can be traumatic enough, the true tragedy of war is just how often it begins by accident: a miscalculation or a misunderstanding and thousands or millions die.
One such example is World War One. Putting aside the machinations of the Austro-Hungarians and the Serbs, the rest of the Great Powers had no desire for war, and certainly not over the Balkans. The First and Second Balkan Wars had provided more than enough excuse for the Great Powers to intervene in that region, with the dread consequences of general warfare to follow. Britain, France and Germany had acted together through diplomacy to restrain the Austro-Hungarians and Russians from intervening- not that either Empire had much interest in doing so. The threat of intervention by one nation or the other was due largely to the idea of the other side intervening first. John Keegan, writing in his book The First World War, makes a good case for the idea that had the Austrians attacked in the first days after the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand that not even Russia would have greatly objected. The problem arose from the Austrians deciding to wait and see if they had the support of the Germans. It was this appearance of cold calculation, Keegan argues, that led to the Russians acting, forcing the Germans to react and so-on.
There have been two great eras of globalisation. We are living through the second, when the theory of worldwide trade is predicted to make future wars less likely. Similar thoughts were widely expressed in the years of the other great era of globalisation- the two decades leading up to World War One. Time and again the leading economic and business thinkers of the time told their audiences around the world that war was almost impossible and that even if it did begin, the spectre of bankruptcy would ensure that it was neither very long nor very destructive. Such arguments are being repeated today, with the added spice that there are significant social upheavals that require much greater attention. Obviously such speakers have never heard of the Suffragettes or Labour Parties.
The primary argument against a Third World War is that China is not seeking world domination, unlike the German Empire in the lead up to World War One. The mistake here is to assume that Germany was, in fact, seeking world domination. It accepted that Britain would retain its massive empire and naval predominance- all it wanted was for its holdings and military to more accurately reflect its rising status as a world power. Britain would be allowed its empire, but why should decrepit old France have such fantastical holdings when, by any measure, it was inferior to Germany? Why should Germany not have a navy strong enough to keep any enemy out of the Baltic? Why should Germany not dominate its region; Central Europe? China mounts similar arguments today: why should decrepit old Europe still have such say in international affairs? Why should it not have a navy to keep its enemies out of the Yellow and South China Seas? Why should China not be pre-eminent in its own region; East Asia?
The nations of its region are mindful of another historical parallel: just as Germany wanted its lands and populations back at the start of World War Two, China wants to make sure that its lands and peoples are returned to the motherland. Taiwan and the Spratley Islands are but the two most obvious examples of the claims China has made based on historical ownership. Chinese claims for lost historical territories put it at odds with South Korea, Japan, India and most of the members of the Association of South East Asian Nations. How, precisely, is China going to get these areas back without resorting to armed conflict at some point? It is this dynamic that leads to war; perhaps even World War. China has steadfastly refused to give up any claim, despite its stated willingness to negotiate. What this really means is that China would much rather have its neighbours give up the lands it claims without having to resort to war; what nation wouldn’t.
War is not going to come to East Asia because anybody particularly wants it. It is not likely to come because one nation sets out to attack another according to some sort of timetable. Like World War One, war will come to East Asia because of miscalculation and misunderstandings. It may very well be that Australia’s greatest contribution can come through diplomacy and reminding the nations careening towards World War Three that they can stop that slide into war. That does not mean we should not plan for war or prepare for war or decide whose side we intend to be on.
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Noice
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Posted:Dec 27, 2010 1:22 pm
Last Updated:May 24, 2024 5:28 pm
1737 Views
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Vewy noice.
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Economic Hearts
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Posted:Dec 25, 2010 10:20 pm
Last Updated:May 24, 2024 5:28 pm
1881 Views
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In the discussion over Australia’s relatively good performance in overcoming the stresses of the Global Financial Crisis, much of the credit has gone to either the Rudd Government’s stimulus package or to the Howard Government’s good financial management in the previous decade. Some credit should go to China’s own economic performance and its effect on our resources rich economy, though this is generally overlooked by our political commentators. The one thing overlooked by the media generally, and this applies as much to the business commentators as the political commentators, has been the role played by the general public; and in this the credit should go to the Hawke Government.
The 1987 “recession we had to have” had a profound effect on the discussion of economic issues in this country. The notion that we ‘had to have’ a recession elevated economic discussions to a level of importance in the public discourse that had not really existed before. Part of this was due to the pain inflicted by the recession; that the rest of the world also went through the same recession and apparently learned nothing would suggest that this was only part of the answer. Another factor was the superannuation scheme; suddenly the long-term health of the economy had personal long term consequences. Compulsory voting also played its part; even those on the far left had to have an awareness of the economic basics to sell their arguments for a better social dividend to the electorate. The Hawke government was the most important factor, though not through anything it did; much of its response was the same as many another nation. The key difference was that Hawke’s government was a Leftist government.
The Coalition was in some disarray at the time and failed to use the fact that the government had sent Australia into recession as a political bludgeon. Since it could offer nothing more as a solution than what the government was already doing, it failed to capitalise on selling itself as an alternative government. This meant that there was an awareness built in the general public that some economic facts were non-negotiable. Balanced or surplus budgets and low government debt were very important; sensible regulation and an independent Reserve Bank.
This is not to say that every Australian could give an economics lecture at university; they would struggle to pass a high-school level economics exam. This is a very basic, and supremely unsophisticated, level of economic knowledge we are talking about. But it is far in advance of anything to be had in the West as a whole. A great many elections around the world are decided on ‘economic management’, to be sure. But the difference here is that Australians have a given measure of what constitutes effective economic management. It may not be sophisticated and it may not be adventurous, but it is effective.
It is this common view of effective economic management that has probably undermined the success of the Labor Government in avoiding the GFC. There may be a general relief that unemployment did not go higher, but there may also be a general belief that spending your way out of a recession and building up massive debt is not effective economic management. Experts can argue all they like that the proportion of government debt is still historically low, but they are arguing against a dual psychological aversion; one to government debt and one to the idea that billions of dollars are not significant amounts of money.
This might not have been such a negative were it not for the fact that so many of the government’s programmes were so atrociously run. If people are already leery about the government going into debt, they certainly won’t be happy about that debt being made worse by poor administration. Unfortunately for the Gillard Government, it seems that the news is about to get a whole lot worse in terms of the effectiveness of its economic management. News this last week from their own Auditor shows that the first stage of a programme to deliver owner-housing to Indigenous populations in the Northern Territory has been an economic embarrassment; $7.5 million to build a few dozen houses but $10million spent in administrating the programme and a further $15million on other costs- or in other words a few dozen houses costing $1.5million each. The National Broadband Network is sounding increasingly dodgy and there are a string of programmes being investigated with reports due out throughout the course of what is looking like an increasingly tough political year for Labor anyway.
Their best defence, as their response to the Building the Education Revolution debacle proved, is to try and sell as many as these as possible as an investment into the future of the country. Unfortunately they have a tendency to deny there is a problem until the facts are so obvious that their denials look worse than incompetent- they look positively criminal.
The coalition needs to keep its message a lot simpler than it has been. Nobody, other than economists, knows or cares if the economic theory being tried was postulated by Keynes, Hayek or Bob the Builder. But if they are already concerned by government debt, than the message needs to be no more complicated than that debt is bad and that the more there is, then the measures to correct it will be that much harsher.
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Merry Xmas
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Posted:Dec 25, 2010 10:19 pm
Last Updated:Jan 19, 2011 5:00 pm
2461 Views
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Better late than never.
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Just a thought
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Posted:Dec 5, 2010 12:02 pm
Last Updated:Feb 27, 2015 9:04 am
2775 Views
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One of the things I have been waiting for in the Australian fruit and vege industry has been the appearance of branded produce. Widespread in the US and appearing increasingly in the UK and Europe, it is simply where a company puts its name on a package of produce. You may have heard of Chiquita and Dole Bananas. Well it can be as simple as that or it can be a spread of SKU’s or it can be anything in between. There is one company, Perfection Fresh, operating in several Australian states that is doing a bit of this and that and introducing a few new lines that are not common in Australia; Baby Capsicums, etc.
In WA, the Sweeter Banana Company is trying to own the packaged banana market but seems to have lost out to a swathe of locals bagging up Eastern States bananas. This is a real shame because SBC really put the effort in to launch this line in WA and, being a local company, deserves more success. The flipside is that they have been so successful that they simply can’t cater for the local market; it says something about some people that rather than jump onboard a success story, some banana growers are so jealous of SBC’s success that they will sell their bananas at a low margin rather than participate in the programme.
A similar scheme operates in Queensland; the increasingly popular eco-banana. Surrounded by dozens of growers using chemicals to grow bananas, the soil and water were never going to be sufficiently contaminate free to gain organic certification. After nearly two decades of no chemical farming, the difference between eco-banana farms and organic farms is negligible. Rather than give up on that hard work, the farms involved simply decided to market themselves as pesticide free, using the distinctive red, green or blue waxes to mark their produce for retailers. So successful has this business been that they were able to retail their bananas at $20 per kilo and still find buyers during the aftermath of the cyclone that devastated the Queensland banana industry and left Australians paying $10/kilo for normal bananas a few years ago.
Now, given the success of these three and the plethora of salads manufacturers that have revolutionised that segment of the industry, it is surprising that there are so few other examples. Even in these examples, only one goes beyond the single line and, to be truthful, the single variety. I had the opportunity to speak with some of the people from SBC soon after their market dominance was first challenged and I mentioned that they could preserve some of their profitability by diversifying into some of the other varieties, perhaps marketing them for specific purposes. Having just picked up an award for having the biggest range of bananas in Perth, I was more than able to testify to the fact that there was a demand for apple, red Dakar, lady fingers and several other varieties. I did, however, suggest they avoid one of the mistakes made by Coles when they tried something similar- they marketed a rather sizeable banana as the ‘Lady’s banana’ with a picture on the packaging that subliminally suggested one of the uses for it that appear on some of the more interesting pornography websites (Of course Coles is becoming increasingly notorious for some of the double entendres that appear on its in-house labels). But they balked at the idea, unwilling to see that they had not yet secured their position in the market. It is hard to fault them; they are still able to sell their entire stock without too much trouble, just not the margins they used to enjoy. One does wonder how they will go when the Philippines is finally able to sell us bananas.
But we have local successes and an international example and no small amount of opportunity. At the same time as there is a cooking revolution sweeping the country, there is also a lot of pressure on the supermarket duopoly and the fast food giants. It is a small window and won’t last.
One of the problems is the retailers themselves. I am forever amazed that the industry in Australia generally, and certainly in WA, is so focussed on price point marketing. The inevitable answer to any setback, regardless of what that setback may be, is to push down the prices and screw everything else. Perth has, finally, accepted that it is 2010 and that late night trade five nights a week is a good idea. It has completely screwed the local IGAs but this always struck me as inevitable. The previous system gave these stores an advantage that was never going to last and which they completely screwed up. It was inevitable that Coles and Woolworths were going to be allowed to extend their trading hours eventually and the decade that IGA and their like enjoyed should have been used to cement a market position that would have been resistant to the eventual ending of this arrangement. Instead, they put their prices up, knowing they had a captive market, and screwed the customer to the point that when the arrangements ended, everybody went straight off to the majors. The answer from every IGA has been to find produce and put it out cheap. Except the quality isn’t there. One IGA I visited really thought that, because they were 99c each, it was perfectly okay to put out the wrinkliest, shrunken and plain rotten rockmelons (cantaloupes)- so rotten were they that the juice had leaked through the display and onto the floor to form a sticky puddle. So you could imagine how difficult it would be to try and push them to go with a premium product whose main feature was that it was a premium product.
Another issue, and probably an even greater issue than the retailers, is the growers. I can’t speak to the rest of the world, but there is nobody more obstinate, thick and obtuse than the average West Australian produce grower. For every one grower that I respect for their drive and determination, there are three that are such wankers I cannot be in the same room with them; and a lot more for whom I would cross the road to avoid speaking to. I usually go to the example of the Tasmanian potato farmers whenever I talk about what dickheads growers can be. In the 1990s, Coles tried to get a range of premium potato varieties into their store and approached a group of Tasmanian farmers to set up a pilot programme. After spending a small fortune setting it up, Coles got the big shaft when these farmers signed contracts with a fast food giant to grow ‘chipping’ potatoes. When that giant ended their contracts with the farmers in favour of the Kiwis, they went back to Coles and demanded that it pick up where it had left off a decade before! A similar thing happened to both Coles and Woolworths when they financed opening cabbage and cauliflower farms around Albany in the far south of the state; the growers took the cash and then sold much of their produce on the export markets. Almost every example of something that would ultimately be good for growers that I have had experience with has ultimately been undermined by the growers themselves.
The one aspect that most people would think would be a problem is probably the least problematic- the actual customer. One problem that Perfection Fresh has with its supplies is that its pack sizes are too large. 20 trevisio lettuce is probably 12 too many. Having said that, there is demand out there. A lot of unmet demand. It never ceases to amaze me just how popular premium lines are in even the most un-premium stores. Yet, as I have said time and time again, retailers inevitably cater to the lowest common denominator and the whole premium market is left to a select few specialist retailers that absolutely clean up. The irony is that every owner, manager and specialist looks at these premium specialists and marvel at how well they do and then totally miss the entire point when they try to emulate that success.
All of this inevitably comes to mind whenever I hear somebody suggesting we ban fast food adverts because of the obesity epidemic. The WA government runs a campaign based on the 5 veg and 2 fruits balanced diet but never really pushes the actual produce itself; as a representative of the entire state it would probably be unethical to single out any one segment. Except, of course, the adverts are so bland that nobody remembers the bloody things so you are left wondering exactly what has been achieved after spending a crap load of money. Why not pick out a few things and actually push those to get people interested in eating fresh rather than hooning down to the local burger joint? When you think about it, having a stir-fry involves more than just buying and preparing a bit of cabbage so pushing cabbage wouldn’t mean the rest of the industry misses out. Plus you could keep the campaign fresh by making new adverts for other lines every year. I was not privy to the initial discussions on the campaign but I would not mind betting that any sort of initiative in this direction was inevitably sunk by the grower groups.
The other thing about these promotions is that inevitably include a package of recipes only one of which most people would seriously consider serving up to their families. My favourites, in this regard, are the Potato Marketing Board; they seem to think that most people eat potatoes without meat all the time. A few years back they included a meal planner with a recipe for potatoes every night where potatoes were the major element of the meal- and with no meat. In a country where the average consumer eats their body weight in meat every month, it seems something of an oversight to say the least.
I just don’t accept the premise that the only answer to the obesity problem is to ban fast food adverts. It’s not the fault of MacDonald’s or KFC that produce growers and retailers are so locked into their respective paradigms that trying to do something good for them, and the consumer, is simply a waste of time. Just because the fast food companies have their stuff together and can actually get their heads out of their arses long enough to get a viable promotional campaign up does not mean they should be targeted for government censure ultimately because the other side could not collectively find their own arses if you gave them detailed descriptions on how it was done.
As an aside-
Given the almost genetic weakness of Australian cricket against off-spin bowling, I am constantly surprised by the total lack of respect that off-spin is afforded in this country. Listening to the commentary on the Ashes Series on ABC radio and Channel 9 and Foxtel on the TV, one can be forgiven for thinking that off-spin bowling is the province of the lazy and weak and is not really part of the game. This despite the fact that many of Australia’s most embarrassing moments have come at the hands of the practitioners of this maligned art. Leg-spin, by contrast, is afforded almost holy status and its practitioners lionised, even though we have only had three truly great leg-spinners- the rest would be lucky to get a game in a state side if it weren’t for the mythical status attached to their art.
Ian Chappell once said that the key to Australian success over the years has been to pick the best eleven players and then name one of them as captain. Looking over the Australian team at the moment, and especially the spinners, you are left with the conclusion that the objective of having a leg-spinner in the team is very important. A spinner is a good thing to have; does it really matter if they are a leg-spinner? Why not cast the talent net just that little wider and look at the up and coming off spinners? Because, given the bias against off-spinners even at club level, anyone sticking out enough to be considered an up and comer must be at least competent.
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Lady Lady
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Posted:Dec 5, 2010 12:01 pm
Last Updated:May 24, 2024 5:28 pm
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I don't like a man with too many muscles...
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