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http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/malaysia-finds-its-own-solutions-20110918-1kfvb.html
Malaysia finds its own solutions
September 19, 2011
THE promise by its Prime Minister, Najib Razak, to rescind Malaysia's draconian Internal Security Act marks a bold step in political maturity for the country - depending, of course, on what is put in its place. The law allows detention without trial for renewable two-year periods. Introduced in 1960 in the face of an armed revolutionary challenge from the underground communist party, it has remained in force long after the communist leader Chin Peng emerged from the jungle to renounce his struggle, on Beijing's orders.
Even before then, it was wielded against politicians who seriously challenged or divided the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, based on the United Malays National Organisation, or against critics who grew uncomfortably close to exposing corruption at a high level. The enforcer has been the huge special branch of the Royal Malaysian Police, more powerful than the trunk, which has not diminished in size since the communist threat disappeared. It now operates as a political police, charged with maintaining the dominance of UMNO and ethnic Malay supremacy indefinitely.
Najib needs to consolidate his leadership, assumed after the Barisan's majority was sharply cut by the opposition coalition under the former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in 2009. Despite a new and dubious sodomy case against Anwar, the standing of Najib and his government seems low. His pledge on Malaysia's independence day last Thursday to abolish the ISA is a bold gamble, helped by the mantle of his late father Abdul Razak, the prime minister who steered Malaysia out of the race riots of 1969. It will be watched nervously by Singapore, which has a similar security law - just as shamelessly misused.
For the opposition, Najib would best show his sincerity by lifting the security law well before the early election he is thought to be considering. They are also withholding complete approval until seeing two replacement pieces of legislation Najib has foreshadowed, to counter subversion, terrorism and crime. These will take constitutional rights and freedoms into account and provide for a ''substantially shorter'' duration of police custody, with further detention only by court order except in terrorism cases.
Various other obsolete emergency and restricted residence laws are also being lifted. But there is only a cautious modification of the severe 1984 Printing Presses and Publications Act, which requires annual renewal of publishing licences. Newspapers and magazines will now depend on licences issued ''until and unless revoked'' by the Home Ministry. Najib needs praise and encouragement to keep going further, to make Malaysia the vibrant and creative country of its potential.
Decision time on Labor's future
THE ALP is showing its age. For 120 years, Labor has fought the good fight for equality and social reform. But today the party looks like a relic of another century, and seems incapable of providing the sort of leadership the country desires. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, says internal reform is needed to connect better with voters. She has endorsed proposals for US-style primaries to choose candidates, and other measures aimed at giving members - and even non-members - more say. Laudable as these measures are, they fall short of the radical reforms needed to resuscitate the labour movement's political and industrial wings. And, sincere though Ms Gillard may be, it is far from clear that she is in any position to deliver the necessary change.
The party's structural flaw is the disproportionate power wielded by the trade union movement. In the past 30 years, union membership has fallen from
50 to about 20 per cent of the Australian workforce. Yet in the same period, through the operation of organised factions, union leaders' power in the party has grown.
Obviously, Labor is the party of organised labour - even though some unions have flirted with the Greens of late. And despite their dwindling power in broader society, unions represent a bedrock of political support on which a broader party ought to be able to be built. At present though, their stranglehold on Labor's processes has turned them from a foundation into the whole structure, and union and factional careerism is killing off Labor's chance of broadening its support into the wider community by crowding out the new voices the party needs to hear.
The Prime Minister rightly identifies the changes under way in our political culture, with the rise of single-issue parties and independents, and internet-based activist groups such as GetUp. She correctly endorses some of the reform proposals of the Faulkner-Carr-Bracks review designed to stem the exodus of members from the party. But she knows the unions' comfortable apparatchiks will not be evicted (they appointed her). Nor will the party be dragged into the 21st century - not on her watch, anyway. Unable to fight and win the necessary, wide-ranging reforms, she has chosen to tinker at the margins. Voters saw at this year's state ALP conference how the union-dominated party machine fended off real reforms with sops. Ms Gillard's efforts look worrying similar - worrying, that is, if you believe, as we do, that a dynamic Labor Party has an important role to play in a healthy democracy.
Malaysia finds its own solutions
September 19, 2011
THE promise by its Prime Minister, Najib Razak, to rescind Malaysia's draconian Internal Security Act marks a bold step in political maturity for the country - depending, of course, on what is put in its place. The law allows detention without trial for renewable two-year periods. Introduced in 1960 in the face of an armed revolutionary challenge from the underground communist party, it has remained in force long after the communist leader Chin Peng emerged from the jungle to renounce his struggle, on Beijing's orders.
Even before then, it was wielded against politicians who seriously challenged or divided the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, based on the United Malays National Organisation, or against critics who grew uncomfortably close to exposing corruption at a high level. The enforcer has been the huge special branch of the Royal Malaysian Police, more powerful than the trunk, which has not diminished in size since the communist threat disappeared. It now operates as a political police, charged with maintaining the dominance of UMNO and ethnic Malay supremacy indefinitely.
Najib needs to consolidate his leadership, assumed after the Barisan's majority was sharply cut by the opposition coalition under the former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in 2009. Despite a new and dubious sodomy case against Anwar, the standing of Najib and his government seems low. His pledge on Malaysia's independence day last Thursday to abolish the ISA is a bold gamble, helped by the mantle of his late father Abdul Razak, the prime minister who steered Malaysia out of the race riots of 1969. It will be watched nervously by Singapore, which has a similar security law - just as shamelessly misused.
For the opposition, Najib would best show his sincerity by lifting the security law well before the early election he is thought to be considering. They are also withholding complete approval until seeing two replacement pieces of legislation Najib has foreshadowed, to counter subversion, terrorism and crime. These will take constitutional rights and freedoms into account and provide for a ''substantially shorter'' duration of police custody, with further detention only by court order except in terrorism cases.
Various other obsolete emergency and restricted residence laws are also being lifted. But there is only a cautious modification of the severe 1984 Printing Presses and Publications Act, which requires annual renewal of publishing licences. Newspapers and magazines will now depend on licences issued ''until and unless revoked'' by the Home Ministry. Najib needs praise and encouragement to keep going further, to make Malaysia the vibrant and creative country of its potential.
Decision time on Labor's future
THE ALP is showing its age. For 120 years, Labor has fought the good fight for equality and social reform. But today the party looks like a relic of another century, and seems incapable of providing the sort of leadership the country desires. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, says internal reform is needed to connect better with voters. She has endorsed proposals for US-style primaries to choose candidates, and other measures aimed at giving members - and even non-members - more say. Laudable as these measures are, they fall short of the radical reforms needed to resuscitate the labour movement's political and industrial wings. And, sincere though Ms Gillard may be, it is far from clear that she is in any position to deliver the necessary change.
The party's structural flaw is the disproportionate power wielded by the trade union movement. In the past 30 years, union membership has fallen from
50 to about 20 per cent of the Australian workforce. Yet in the same period, through the operation of organised factions, union leaders' power in the party has grown.
Obviously, Labor is the party of organised labour - even though some unions have flirted with the Greens of late. And despite their dwindling power in broader society, unions represent a bedrock of political support on which a broader party ought to be able to be built. At present though, their stranglehold on Labor's processes has turned them from a foundation into the whole structure, and union and factional careerism is killing off Labor's chance of broadening its support into the wider community by crowding out the new voices the party needs to hear.
The Prime Minister rightly identifies the changes under way in our political culture, with the rise of single-issue parties and independents, and internet-based activist groups such as GetUp. She correctly endorses some of the reform proposals of the Faulkner-Carr-Bracks review designed to stem the exodus of members from the party. But she knows the unions' comfortable apparatchiks will not be evicted (they appointed her). Nor will the party be dragged into the 21st century - not on her watch, anyway. Unable to fight and win the necessary, wide-ranging reforms, she has chosen to tinker at the margins. Voters saw at this year's state ALP conference how the union-dominated party machine fended off real reforms with sops. Ms Gillard's efforts look worrying similar - worrying, that is, if you believe, as we do, that a dynamic Labor Party has an important role to play in a healthy democracy.
