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Erring on the side of kindness

The Byron Shire Echo Volume 38 #25 • November 29, 2023

The best democracy money can buy

ast week, The Juice Media published a YouTube video, ‘Honest Government Ad | How to rig elections’. It pointed out how little difference there is with the two major parties: Labor and the LiberalNationals coalition. The lack of difference on the following don’t appear to be in contention: both parties support tax cuts for the rich, the endless spending on armaments (i.e. nuke subs), outlawing peaceful protests, screwing refugees and whistleblowers, giving their mates plum jobs and ‘doing whatever Santos tells us to do’. Juice Media made the point that excluding other political voices appears, by far, the overriding bond that both parties share. Another point was that the Labor and the Liberal-Nationals coalition allegiances to large tax-dodging corporations provides them with the war chest to keep the corporate media manipulation/ charade/hypnosis/clown show operational. And in control. It takes a lot of cash to say ‘look over there’ while cheerfully destroying the joint. Anyway, Juice Media’s source was recommendations from the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters around the ‘Conduct of the 2022 federal election and other matters’. They examined the interim report, which appears to be somewhat different from the final report, which was released last week. According to the final report, some of the committee recommendations around preserving the two party oligarchy were dropped, and instead more transparency is proposed.

It’s enough to make the average entitled political tyrant MP choke over their Dom Perignon Rose Gold Methuselah.

Final recommendations The final recommendations include ‘real time’ disclosure requirements for donations to political parties and candidates; lowering the donation disclosure threshold to $1,000; amending the definition of ‘gift’ in the Electoral Act; introducing donation caps for federal election donations; and the introduction of measures to govern truth in political advertising. Would such recommendations, if enacted, instil more confidence in the political process? UK comedian David Mitchell makes the point that one way to reform politics is paying politicians ‘a lot more’, while making sure they ‘can’t do anything else, and that includes after they retire’. This, he says, would ensure the unfair influence of lobbyists is massively reduced. Yet he admits it’s an unpopular manifesto that will never be put into action. Whether political donations are in the public interest is the key. With the election of the independent Teal candidates in 2022, it proved that when enough individuals donate to a political cause, it paves the way for political reform. Pointing out the inherent corruption of politicians being paid for favours just doesn’t seem as effective, does it? After all, corruption exists, and will always permeate, throughout all levels of society, from low-level public servants to national leaders. Hans Lovejoy, editor

here is one thing we can all do in these wretched times of powerlessness and overwhelming sorrow. Give. When I was in Dharamshala in northern India, where the Dali Lama governs in exile, I was often confronted by beggars on my way to class or meditation. Children with twisted limbs, mothers with sick infant on breast, the elderly only able to crawl. To give or not to give, this was the dilemma. Seasoned travellers swore by dicta that to give was just to perpetuate the industry which was run by criminal elements who staged or maimed for their own benefit. I was learning about giving to your enemies as a lesson on compassion one day, when I realised that the begging quandary was a problem I should seek to learn from. I went to a cafe for lunch, and found myself sitting next to a monk who was disabled as a result of frostbite occasioned on his crossing from Tibet. We got to talking, as you do, and I asked for his opinion on the beggars. Essentially, should I give to the beggars or not? Well, he said, do you have money? Yes, I answered. Well, he said, then you should give. Mmm. I said, ‘If I give to every beggar every day then I soon won’t have any money’. And he said, ‘Well that may be true… and it may come to pass… in which case, you will not have a dilemma any more’. I was stunned at this deceptively simple but deeply challenging solution. Just give until you can’t give any more and go from there. I must have looked somewhat surprised. ‘Giving is the noble expression of the benevolence of the mighty,’ he said. And he gave a Dali Lama type of chuckle. From that moment, I gave to every beggar on the street at Dharmshala, and of course I did not go broke, as I was only there for a month. Interestingly ‘my beggars’, the regulars, soon protected me from others, and my daily sojourn included what I came to view as my coin dropping zig zag road toll.

ȚPŕ ƐĲĕ ŔĶĎ țǯǦƆǼ Ʊĕ Ʊĕſĕ ŕĶŕƐĲ şƖƐ şĪ ǩǦ şĪ ƐĲĕ ſĶĈĲĕƆƐ ĈşƖŕƐſĶĕƆ Īşſ īĶưĶŕīǼ ŕşƱ Ʊĕ ëſĕ ǨǭƐĲǼ ĎĕƆżĶƐĕ ćĕĶŕī ƐĲĕ ǧǨƐĲȑſĶĈĲĕƆƐ ĈşƖŕƐſƷ Ķŕ ƐĲĕ ƱşſōĎțȁ David Heilpern After a while, they just waited for me to come to them. It was a powerful and poignant lesson for me that I have carried comfortably for years. If you have, you should give. It is an act of compassion, of loving kindness, that helps the giver and the recipient in deep and lasting ways. Even if karma is just a myth, I would continue to give – not for a better deal in the hereafter, but for a better world in the present. Jesus had it right, it is harder for a rich person to get to heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of the needle. And I reckon this is true of Australia as a nation – the starting point is that giving is good. How sad the grim reality is. In any discussion of foreign aid, it is worth remembering that there are many who are against our government giving anything as they struggle with day-to-day expenses. I get this. Yet there is a mythical framework to this distaste – when you ask the naysayers what proportion of GDP we give, it is characteristically overestimated at five per cent to 15 per cent rather than the reality. Not only that, but the biggest givers individually to foreign aid projects or disaster funds, proportionately as well as in total, are those in the lower socioeconomic brackets. Not only that, but the poor volunteer their time in much greater numbers than the well-off. Jesus had something to say about that too when a poor widow donated two small coins. With foreign government aid, the common international benchmark is 0.7 per cent of national income. In the ’50s and ’60s, Australia sat at about 0.5 per cent. Then the Fraser years saw a rapid decline to 0.33 per

cent. In the Hawke/Keating years, things got worse, Rudd/Gillard aimed for 0.5 per cent but never got there, and ever since we have been bumping along the bottom, now at less than 0.2 per cent and not forecast to improve for years yet. In the mid ’90s, we were ninth out of 30 of the richest countries for giving, now we are 27th, despite being the 12th-richest country in the world. So for the moment, giving is all I can do in the absence of lying down before tanks in Gaza or Ukraine. I feel so deeply angry and ashamed that Israel is killing so many civilians. I just cannot watch it any more without wanting to throw something through the television and yell ‘well if you want to curb antisemitism, perhaps you could start by not killing children’. If a Hamas operative was hiding under a building surrounded by Israeli hostages, as opposed to Palestinian human shields, would you bomb them? And we all know the answer is ‘no’, so what does that say about you? So I give. I normally try to find a direct personal connection to funnel funds and shy away from the big charities, but this time that is not possible. Médecins Sans Frontières is a great option, especially after reading how four of those doctors were bombed to death recently in a Gaza operating theatre. Amnesty International is a medium-term choice for promoting lasting peace and human rights. And UNICEF has a specific campaign for the children of Gaza. I speak, I write, I give. I know it’s not much, but it’s the best I can do. Q David Heilern is a former magistrate, and is now Dean of Law at SCU.

The Byron Shire Echo Volume 38 #25 November 29, 2023 Established 1986 • 24,500 copies every week

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The Echo acknowledges the people of the Bundjalung nation as the traditional custodians of this land and extends respect to elders past, present and future. Disclaimer: The Echo is committed to providing a voice for our whole community. The views of advertisers, letter writers, and opinion writers are not necessarily those of the owners or staff of this publication.

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