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2.SBS The Observer Effect – 8 September 2013

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For edited health comments from Warren Mundine (transcript below) for CLICK HERE

For  full Warren Mundine inteview CLICK HERE SBS on demand

Ellen Fanning: … ‘the great national failure’ … what will you do with the Indigenous Council – what will he do with it?

Warren Mundine: Well, the interesting thing is that we are not going to do much differently, because there is just so much stuff that people have done over the years, we are gunna look at “Why has it failed and why hasn’t it worked?” First thing we are gunna do is an audit for want of a better word, a review, look at what has been done over the last 30 or 40 years. I’ve got to report back to the Prime Minister by February. A couple of things are missing from indigenous affairs – we tend to go on process. We tend to spend a lot of money for very limited outcomes and we’ve got to change that.

EF: And do you take the axe to things that don’t work? You have a clear idea, saying, “That’s not measuring up, off you go?”

WM: Look, to be honest we’ve avoided that kind of conversation because as soon as it gets out that you are going to axe a program you get resistance, fighting and brawling.

EF: How hard is it …

WM: What we want to bring people – and this is the important part – what we want to do is bring them on a journey, so that we, so that they explain to us how they operate and why this has happened and we understand that then they understand that we want outcomes in this area and then we start moving forward. It is not about axing programs or XX programs it is about results and that’s what we are focusing on.

EF: And would it ever be about sending the military back into indigenous communities as you have done under the intervention?

 WM: Not as far as I am concerned. Actually the military does have a place – one of the ideas we are looking at is how do we get surgery and medical stuff into indigenous communities? And I just had a sit there one day with a cup of tea as you normally do and I said, well, you know … in the tsunami of Indonesia, you know at Sumatra and the Indian Ocean. And I said the military has got to train for emergency services and war situations – they’ve got to go in there and set up a hospital, do surgery and move it on.

 EF: So can you see field hospitals in indigenous communities?

 WM: I … reckon that is something we could place. One, the Military could be trained for state emergency operations in communities and setting these things up. The Aboriginal community medical services could tap in to that. We’ve got to get innovative, we’ve got to think differently and it is not about cutting programs or bringing new programs in. It is about focusing on the outcomes and then  putting in place how we do that outcome

In an opinion piece on Labor’s loss in today’s The Australian, the new head of the Coalition government’s indigenous advisory committee writes that Labor has lost both him and his working-class friends from Sydney’s western suburbs unless it embraces massive change.

“Last year I decided not to renew my ALP and AWU membership. Occasionally on social media people call me a traitor for leaving the party. In fact, I feel that it is the Labor Party under its current administration that has betrayed me; and my father; and the people I grew up with,” he says.

“This was our party and over 20 years the faceless men, spin doctors and false messiahs have driven it into a brick wall. Labor is now in need of fundamental structural reform.”

In an interview

Mr Mundine, who admits he voted Liberal for the first time on Saturday and was at Tony Abbott’s victory event on Saturday night, said the party needed to better reflect the communities it represented. He said candidates should be elected by a vote of rank-and-file members who were registered on the electoral rolls in that electorate to make branch stacking more difficult.

“The relevant national or state executive council should only be able to override a rank-and-file vote in exceptional circumstances — no more candidates parachuted in by party headquarters,” he says.

Secondly, the party power base needed to embrace a genuine federation. Currently the relevant state secretary officiates candidate elections at both the national and state level.

“Candidate elections in federal electorates should be officiated by the national secretary, not the state secretary. This broadens the power base and provides balance. It also makes it harder for one powerful state executive to gain disproportionate national power”.

Mr Mundine argues that while union voting entitlement at state and national conferences needs to be reduced, removing it altogether is unrealistic.

“In the end, the real problem is that Labor has become all talk and no substance. It has abandoned its core constituents after having lifted their aspirations. Political success requires substance and sticking to your values, not populism and looking after your mates.

“It requires well thought out policy based on both principles and pragmatism that is delivered, not just written on a glossy media release or tweeted on the run.

“That was the approach of four of Australia’s most successful leaders — Menzies, Hawke, Keating and Howard. It is also the approach of Tony Abbott.

“Saturday’s election and the six years before it left me seriously wondering if the Labor Party might become a spent force in Australian politics.

“I hope not. But it will need to reacquaint itself with its heartland and implement some serious reforms,” he says.