Talking Hats

This is Kim Beazley, the leader of the federal opposition in Australia. He's just addressed a union meetiong of "sparkies", or electricians at a rally in Sydney. He is absolutely in his element. He is genuinely popular at these events, and answers or engages with the so-called "rank and file". They're handsome some of the lads, in their Energy Australia uniforms. And they're wound up. Journalists tend to like Beazley, he never leaves you short of a quote. Talk under wet cement. The new industrial relations "reforms" have left every employed person in the country unsettled in one way or another. They are billed as the biggest change in labour relations in 100 years. The campaign is an absolutely natural fit for Beazley to campaign on, fundamental to what the labour movement is all about.

He was on television tonight, talking about the new child custody laws. In the ten years that they have been in power the conservatives, led by Prime Minsiter John Howard, have passed the unpopular 10% tax the GST, gone to war in Iraq, taken a tough stand on illegal immigrants, implemented new terror laws, including controversial sedition laws and also passed welfare to work legislation. Yet family law and reform of the Family Court has been all too difficult.

The coverage has largely focussed on the idea that the government has succumbed to pressure from father's groups. There is a strange disconnect here, because the legislation is nothing like what fathers were looking for. The Prime Minister John Howard won a lot of hearts and minds back in 2000 when he announced an inquiry and said he was attracted to notion of joint custody. After endless committees, hearings, draft reports and real reports and draft legislation and national consulation tours, the final draft legislation has been released and the original notions of fairness before the law for both parents and the right of a child to know both parents subverted to large degree. It will be difficult to get the court to change its ways. A lot of blokes out there will never forgive the Labour Party for creating the Family Court; for which some regard the adjectives despised dysfunctional and discredited as appropriate. The former Chief Justice of the court Alastair Nicholson has poked head of the court,

With the police seeking something like 16 men from the Block on rape charges, the drunken shouts have taken on a more sinister, sordid, dangerous and drunken air. You can't pretend there was anything nice or Roussean or even victim-like in this appalling scene. There are a lot of outer-towners at the moment. There are few houses left standing down there now One young man passes by as neighbours stand outside discussing the heat. Drunk as a lord, he proudly announces it is his birthday. We congratulate him. He deliberately kicks over garbage bins as he veers towards the pub. Earlier I took the kids down to the local Thai restaurant down on Cleveland Street. "White cunts," a group shout at us from their car. It was my daughter's last night here before heading off to the country to see her mother for the school holidays. The boy is relieved to see the back of his sister for a while. He'll be flying up for Christmas.

People now want to talk about their perplexity and outrage over the Iraq war. Here's the latest excepts from the biggest story in the world:

"A suicide bomb attack on a Baghdad bus killed 30 people and wounded at least 18 others on Thursday, police said. The bus was leaving the busy Nahda bus station in the city centre for the Shi'ite city of Nassiriya when the bomber detonated himself, they said."

"In a rare concession to critics of the Iraq war, United States President George Bush agreed on Wednesday that "mistakes have been made" but said US-led reconstruction and security efforts were making solid progress."Reconstruction has not always gone as well as we had hoped, primarily because of the security challenges on the ground," he said in formal remarks on Iraq ahead of the war-torn country's crucial elections on December 15."

"THE Howard Government should have known AWB was paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein after prices paid for Australian wheat shipments skyrocketed ahead of the Iraq war, the Opposition claimed yesterday... "