MICHAEL MULLINS’ TINY LETTER

Prime Minister Julia Gillard ruled it out last week, but there's no denying that the Federal Government would like to reduce tax concessions for the wealthy when they access their superannuation. Last year the concessions cost $30 billion in forgone revenue, and Treasuryestimates the figure will increase to $45 billion by 2015–16.

The concessions are designed to encourage more Australians to fund their own retirement, and not burden the public purse by taking the age pension. But in reality, it would be much more cost effective to remove the means test from the age pension and have the rich receive the same $712 per fortnight as the poor. 

Australia Institute research fellow David Richardson saysthat in his last six budgets, former treasurer Peter Costello took the cost of super tax concessions from 1.3 per cent of GDP to 3.3 per cent. Meanwhile, the cost of the age pension was at just over 2 per cent of GDP. In 2009, the Australia Institute produced a report titledThe great superannuation tax concession rort, which showed how the concessions redistribute scarce resources away from low-income earners towards the secure and privileged well-off. 

The scarce resources are required to fund important but expensive projects such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which will improve the lives of countless needy Australians. By contrast, the concessions secure the sometimes obscene lifestyles of wealthy Australians, who believe they are entitled to tax relief.

Business Council of Australia president Tony Shepherd told a round table meeting last Thursday: 'Philosophically, I object to the term 'concessions' ... We go to work, we get paid. The money is ours.'

Such an attitude belongs more to the USA, the land of the self-made man, and not to the Commonwealth of Australia, where we have always been more mindful of the common good. 

But it has to be noted that respectable self-made men in the US give generously to their favourite charities and foundations. In Australia, respectable citizens pay their taxes, and welfare and other public needs tend to be government funded. Philanthropy has never taken root. This was confirmed in an Australian Council for Educational Research survey reported in the media today.

The case for tax concessions for wealthy Australians would be more convincing if there was evidence of large-scale philanthropy here. If philanthropists funded welfare and other public service organisations, governments would not need to raise taxes for this purpose. If wealthy Australians would like tax relief, they should think about emulating the self-made men of the USA.

r community with disability, chronic illness or frailty due to old age. There is no 'tax justice' for these families, according to the Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick.

'The failure of our superannuation and taxation systems, alone, to recognise this contribution and provide a value for this unpaid work means that carers — mostly women — who have had long and repeated absences from paid employment, find they have negligible retirement savings and indeed, often retire in poverty.'

Unpaid carers include both parents and guardians of children as well as those who care for a family member or friend with disability, chronic illness or frailty due to older age. The first group are better provided for, although grandparents who spend many hours providing free childcare may beg to differ. It is the carers of those with lifelong chronic conditions who find themselves working as virtual slaves.

The report's recommendations include legislation to assist unpaid carers with mechanisms like carer assessments to determine their support needs, and carer cards securing access to services and entitlements which would allow them to participate in society on a more equal footing. There is also a call for reform to the current system of retirement income and savings, including the age pension and superannuation that is currently tied to paid work.

It is disingenuous to talk about 'tax justice for families', or to be providing a school kids bonus that does not require accountability, without also seeking to provide for those whose support needs fall outside established assistance mechanisms. It's time that voters showed signs that they are prepared to reward genuine leaders more than those whose handouts are politically calculated.

At lunchtime on Friday, Ned Kelly’s Requiem Mass was finally celebrated in St Patrick’s Church, Wangaratta, in north-eastern Victoria. The bushranger was sentenced to death by hanging in 1880 and denied the religious rites he requested. His bones were recently rediscovered and identified, and his family has been able to organise a belated funeral and reburial.

On Friday, commentators and bloggers took the opportunity to pass judgment on Kelly. One called him a ‘psychotic and dangerous’ criminal ‘with a pathological hatred of the police’. Another deplored the ‘dishonest folklore and revisionism’ that has made him a hero for many Australians.

But they missed the point, as did members of the public who directed abusive phone calls and emails to Monsignor John White, who presided at the Requiem Mass on Friday.

White explained: ‘The life that Ned lived is not the point today... We have a church of saints and sinners and we are not here to say which category Ned fell into.’

Coinciding with Ned Kelly’s Requiem Mass on Friday was quite a different ritual, the broadcast of Oprah Winfrey’s interview with cyclist and now self-confessed drug cheat Lance Armstrong. The interview was seen by many as a calculated bid on the part of Armstrong to harness the positive power of Winfrey’s brand to induce public judgment that he is morally fit to resume his sporting career.

As ethicist Julian Savulescu put it in the Fairfax press on Saturday: ‘Rather than excoriating Armstrong, wouldn't it be better to ask why everyone is cheating, and why the rules are failing?’ Savulescu does not share the Catholic religious world view of Monsignor White, but they are both urging us to look at the big picture. 

Ned Kelly killed three policemen, and that was a serious crime. But a reading of his Jerilderie Letter manifesto suggests his actions were a symptom of a system of British colonial rule that was stacked against Irish Catholics. In the same way, Armstrong’s behaviour is a product of what Savulescu calls an ‘ideology’ of zero-tolerance against performance enhancing drugs in sport, which he argues should be examined. Armstrong’s deplorable treatment of informers such as his former aide Emma O’Reilly is comparable with the way Kelly dealt with those who informed on him. 

There are arguments to both condemn both Kelly and Armstrong as psychotic criminals, but also to recognise their achievement as trailblazing reformers, though Armstrong is still a work in progress. However judgment of whether they are right or wrong is best left to their own soul-searching, when they face their God or ultimate reality. As the agnostic Armstrong has said: ‘If there was indeed some body or presence standing there to judge me, I hope I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life’.

A true life or a deceitful life might be inspiring, or discouraging, for us to think about, depending upon how we view the behaviour of the individual concerned. But it is not something we can know unless we are Ned Kelly's God or Lance Armstrong's body or presence. The business of the rest of us is to consider how best to reform the rules by which we live our lives, and play our games, in a civil society.

Decades ago, industry and government were slow to listen to the message of activists about the dangers of asbestos, and we are now paying the price. The effect of coal mining on the health of local communities is probably far less significant, but nevertheless overseas evidence suggests it could be serious and far-reaching. 

The Beyond Zero Emissions 2012 study Health and Social Harms of Coal Mining in Local Communities points to evidence of elevated mortality rates in Appalachian coal mining areas in the US. The authors stress the need to research the health effects of coal mining in the Hunter Valley and other regions. But instead governments appear to be granting mining licences indiscriminately and offering favourable treatment to the coal industry.

The study cites offshore evidence of excess deaths from lung cancer and chronic heart, respiratory and kidney disease related to living near coal mines. Its authors detail major expansion that is underway or planned in our coal mining industry, but point out that there is a 'glaring absence of local evidence to determine what impacts these projects will have on the health of surrounding communities'.

It seems governments do not want to know about the long-term health impacts of coal mining. Coal mining's short-term economic benefit is more attractive politically, and there is also strong lobbying from industry groups and others. Rod Campbell of the public interest advocacy group Economists at Largesuggests government actions go beyond cavalier and are more underhand. 

The Maules Creek community on whose behalf Moylan was acting approached Campbell's group to help make sense of the 2000 page environmental impact statement that was delivered just days before Christmas with only weeks to respond. He writes: 'Our assessment of the review is scathing. Gillespie Economics has overlooked the foreign ownership of the project and presented profits to overseas interests as benefits to the NSW community.' 

Moylan did the wrong thing in undermining public confidence in the share trading system, which in turn underpins the stability of our economy. His actions were fraudulent and supporting them would amount to affirming anarchy and rejecting the rule of law, even if governments and the coal industry don't appear to be acting with integrity and in the public interest.

He was, as he told the ABC, only making 'the announcement that ANZ should have made, that it wasn't going to be investing unethically' in Whitehaven's Maules Creek Coal Project. 

oking at our archive, I discovered this was a constant throughout the year.

Still current is the fallout of actions of 2DAY FM employees who appeared to have prompted the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, who was vulnerable to suicide. Also recent is the criticism that, while the media were empowering church sexual abuse victims by telling their stories, the victims and their stories were providing fodder for one of the year's biggest media events, so that media outlets were in effect capitalising on lives broken by the church. Earlier the BBC was exposed for suppressing coverage of the exploitative behaviour of one of its own, Jimmy Savile.

Back in January, we were reflecting on the film The Iron Lady,and Meryl Streep's determination not to make a plaything of Margaret Thatcher. Instead she would continue her own lifelong effort as an actor to 'defend the humanity of people that we've made into emblematic figures of one sort or another'. 

Also in January, we used Pope Benedict XVI's idea of a communications 'eco-system' to mute the shrill 'Stop the boats!' political rhetoric in order to allow space for a hearing of the hope and fears of both asylum seekers and the Australian people. The Pope had urged a balance between silence, words, images and sounds, which is more likely to give voice to the poor than cacophonic social and mass media. 

Another comment observed that the iconoclastic tone of much TV comedy 'lacks the values and moral centre needed to counter xenophobia' exists in the community. The same could be said for violent video games, but there was also the view that they are easily demonised when proper funding for mental health services is also needed. Another form of media was threatening to exploit vulnerable people — online gaming and betting apps.

In May we used the term 'Big Media' to suggest that large media corporations are just like 'Big Tobacco' in their relentless exploitation of captive small people for the end of shareholder profit, but that the National Broadband Network might provide diversity if the government followed recommendations from its Convergence Review rather than the wishes of the large media owners, as successive governments have for many years.

Some things never change, but we live in hope that they will, and that we will all live in a better world as a result. That is our hope for 2013.

As the culmination of such a moment of unspeakable sadness, the behaviour of the social and mass media lynch mob was no less shocking and shameful than that of the 2DAY FM 'shock jocks' themselves.

The proliferation of ill-considered opinion is an unfortunate consequence of the advancement of media technology in the 21st century. Comparatively lengthy production processes of the past had a moderating effect on intemperate opinion and its consequences.

In the context of the fast-moving royal prank crisis of the last few days, it would indeed be tragic if shame provoked the shock jocks to follow the lead of the nurse, in line with a fear expressed by beyondblue chairman Jeff Kennett.

While 2DAY FM has a very poor track record in reining in the excesses of its presenters, the station and its shamed employees are not entirely to blame. All parties bear responsibility, including the hospital itself, whose chief executive declared in his measured statement of defence: 'Our nurses are caring, professional people trained to look after patients, not to cope with journalistic trickery of this sort.' 

Trickery and magic has always been integral to the world of entertainment, which often contributes to the healing and wellbeing of those suffering ill-health as much as the care provided by some hospitals. This is perhaps what was on the mind of Prince Charles when he initially joked about the prank with reporters. Indeed professional jesters have always contributed to the good spirits of royal families.

That is one line of argument that is no more far fetched than suggestions that the presenters should have known that the nurse was vulnerable to self-harm and directed their trickery elsewhere. The point is that everybody is to blame and nobody is to blame. In some sense it is a variation on the theme of social sin, which Sandie Cornish wrote about in Eureka Streetlast week. 

When tragedy occurs, the best and only response is to let cool heads prevail, and take Prince Charles' approach to the fanatics of social and other media, allowing space for a sense of community perspective to emerge. NSW premier Barry O'Farrell went further with his simple but empathetic words surmising that the shock jocks must be feeling 'terrible'. 

'I think there are some people today who are suffering, not just the family of the nurse but those who in some way were involved with what appears to be the trigger for this tragedy.'

Peter Fitzsimons, who revisits the event in his new book The Unfinished Revolution, explains the cause as resentment towards the government, which was granting wealthy squatters use of large tracts of land for a pittance — 3000 acres for £10 — while the often dirt poor miners were having to pay 30 shillings to lease their 64 square feet mining plots. 

The squatters controlled the government and the miners had no influence. The former built large pastoral empires and became very wealthy. In 1839, a group got together to establish the Melbourne Club, which still exists as a meeting place for Australia's richest and most powerful men. Like James Packer. 

Packer has successfully lobbied the NSW Government to back his proposal for a $1 billion casino and hotel complex at Barangaroo, on the edge of Sydney Harbour, with no competitive tender. It fits the Government's Unsolicited Proposals policy, and has bipartisan support. 

Packer responded: 'I'm incredibly grateful to the Labor Party for not playing party politics and I'm incredibly grateful to Premier O'Farrell and the Liberal Party for doing what it has done.' He also has wide supportfrom other influential politicians and business people who possibly believe they can benefit from his investment's boost to the tourism sector.

But other voices including commentator Mike Carlton and former premier Kristina Keneally are concerned that ordinary people have been cut out. Carlton said: 'Barangaroo is public space, owned by the people of this state, who are entitled to the final say in what happens there. Yet before a sod has been turned, the normal checks and balances have been tossed overboard.'

Packer is funding much of the transformation of the industrial wasteland into a thriving modern urban hub. But in the end, it will belong to him and not the people, and its management will be geared towards increasing his personal wealth and influence, and not the common good. It amounts to a reversal of the enfranchisement of the people which was the achievement of the Eureka Stockade. 

Former Victorian premier Steve Bracks called Eureka 'a catalyst for the rapid evolution of democratic government in this country' and 'a national symbol of the right of the people to have a say in how they are governed'.

The policy is the most politically palatable of the measures recommended by the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers when it handed down its report in August. It promotes disincentives that will cause asylum seekers to decide against taking 'irregular maritime voyages', by ensuring that they gain 'no benefit by choosing not to seek protection through established mechanisms'.

Last week, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced conditions under which asylum seekers will be released into the community. These include a living allowance that is less than the dole and a ban on working for five years, even after they have been granted asylum.

The Sisters of St Joseph are one of the religious groups working with asylum seekers in the community. Their leader Sr Anne Derwin says life is already difficult for asylum seekers living in the community.

'No work rights, extremely limited available housing, language and cultural difficulties and an allowance of $219.20 a week without any concessions, means that quality of life is almost impossible without generous community support. Now the bridging visas with the constant threat of offshore transfer will exacerbate the distress already being felt by these most vulnerable people who seek only safety and a fair go.'

The fact is that if you treat people harshly, you will diminish them as human beings, and they will cease to value their own lives. Already they are prohibited from working. They will have difficulty sustaining relationships and it is unlikely they will feel that they can make a positive contribution to society, perhaps ever. This undermines the justification for the initial harsh treatment. 

One of the stated reason for the 'no advantage' policy is that dangerous maritime voyages put the asylum seekers' lives at risk, but surely no more than the 'no advantage' policy itself.

Last week we received a fine article on the child sexual abuse Royal Commission from a writer who had worked for a Catholic Church agency that deals with children. 

He told of how he’d been at a consultation that included presentations from the Church and from advocates representing victims of church-related sexual abuse. Afterwards he accidentally struck up what he called a ‘warm and constructive friendship’ with a victims’ rights advocate that led to some significant cooperation.

A few hours after sending the article, the writer wrote again to withdraw it. I was disappointed, but pleased that he subsequently gave me permission to quote from his email, in which he explained his decision:

I've been trying to figure my discomfort...
and it is something like this:
that any words we write at this time run the risk
of justifying ourselves as church people,
instead of undertaking our real task
which is to sit in silence and shame and confusion....
and repent

I believe that our writer made the correct call. It is, as he suggests, time to let the dignity of victims shine, and for the Church to set its dignity aside, without question, and accept the humiliation that has come its way. In other words, the Church needs to take its own advice about imitating the humility of Christ. It often preaches this using the text from St Paul’s letter to the Philippians:

‘In humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.’

The consensus is that Cardinal Pell failed in that regard during his media conference on church sexual abuse last Tuesday, particularly with assertions such as this: ‘We object to it being exaggerated, we object to being described as the “only cab on the rank”.’

I also failed last Monday when I argued in Eureka Street that the mistakes the BBC made in its mistaken identification of a former government official as a pedophile should cause us to apply ‘a degree of skepticism’ to all investigative reporting, including that of church sexual abuse.

Any hope that the Church has of being a credible witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ depends upon its ability to accept its current humiliation and give glory instead to the sexual abuse victims whom it has humiliated.

If there is anything amusing about the Iraq War, it is the reality-defying propaganda broadcasts of President Saddam Hussein’s information minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, otherwise known as ‘Comical Ali’. As the Americans were closing in on Baghdad in 2003, he extolled the invincibility of the Iraqi Army and the permanence of Saddam's rule.

Those paying close attention to media coverage of clergy sexual abuse might find Cardinal George Pell’s defence of the Church hard to swallow. He suggested to The Weekend Australian on Saturday that the Church has been unfairly vilified, and is no worse than other organisations. ‘Anti-Catholic prejudice is one of the few remaining prejudices ... among some circles’. 

Then in his Sunday Telegraph column yesterday, he wrote: ‘It is hard to name any other Australian organisation that has done more to produce a safe environment for young people [than the Church]’.

When you are being attacked by the media, it is natural to defend your turf, especially if you’re a Church leader and you firmly believe that the good the Church does far outweighs the evil. 

But in the context of a massive outpouring of public anger and emotion – not to mention an overwhelming body of evidence – it is surely better to approach sexual abuse in an empathetic manner before attempting to put facts on the table. Some kind of catharsis is needed as a precondition for reconciliation.

The author is the boy’s mother Patricia Feenan. She has already lauded the bishop for his decision to attend. ‘He's a brave man. Almost as brave as my son who will come up from Tasmania for it,’ she said. 

Listening to victims without prejudgement could and should become the order of the day for the Church, perhaps in a systematic fashion, as long as it does not interfere with state inquiries. In the process, it may become clear which claims justify the most attention.

Empathy is something media investigations do well in that the victims can feel the benefit of powerful public support and understanding. But it is important that the reports not jump to conclusions and take the place of the court system.

The lesson from yesterday’s news of the resignation of BBC Director-General George Entwistle is that investigative journalism is fallible. One of the most highly regarded media investigation teams in the English-speaking world got it wrong, with its mistaken identification of a former government official as a pedophile by the BBC's Newsnight team. 

The announcement that all investigative reporting on the BBC Newsnight program is suspended indefinitely is a signal that we should regard the judgments of all investigative reporting with a degree of skepticism, though there is still important value in the catharsis that its interviews often produce. We should also remember that the much derided Comical Ali was eventually vindicated for one of his improbable claims, which was his assertion that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.