A Referendum To Recognise Indigenous Australians...

In a lot of ways it is pretty sad that Australia is about to embark on a process that might culminate in the long overdue recognition of our first peoples in the Constitution. Yet, perhaps it is a case of better late than never. Nevertheless, referendums are notoriously difficult to get done. In fact, since federation, Australia has only managed to pass eight out of forty-four.

The referendum reality is that to be successful there is a need for a majority of votes throughout the country and a majority of states to mark the YES box.

There is no doubt that our indigenous brothers and sisters hold a very unique place in our collective history as a nation. The Prime Minister does not really need to tell us that. In any event, it would seem that the governmental bureaucratic answer to formulating a referendum question needs an expert panel. This is a sure-fire way to either kill an idea altogether or produce a question that does not reach the outcome that started the process in the first place.

Hopefully, Ms. Gillard has her finger on the pulse and is right when she claims that there is bipartisan support for the move to get a referendum passed on recognising indigenous Australians.

It is expected that the 'expert' panel will do the consultation thing throughout 2011 and report back to parliament by the end of 2011. It will be interesting to see whether the government goes to a vote on the referendum as a stand-alone exercise or wait till the next federal election and provide an additional piece of paper for people to fill in when they are in the ballot box. On a personal note, a separate ballot would work for me as this would translate to an extra day's worth of income.

I am hopeful that if as a nation we can vote to give our indigenous brothers and sisters the right to vote as we did back in 1967, then we can surely get ourselves sufficiently organised to make it possible to recognise that the first peoples of our great nation were not the convicts and their masters that wended their way here in 1788.

The How Sad Files...

In some truly very sad news, Ruhut Sitompul can no longer afford to smoke cigars since becoming a member of the Democrat Party and entering parliament. All together now, ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, poor Ruhut!

It would seem, if The Jakarta Post is to be believed, that Ruhut is now scraping the bottom of the very deep cigar barrel he owns. As Ruhut describes it, he is almost running on cigar fumes as his only remaining cigars are gifts from former clients of his legal practice days.

However, I do not feel for Ruhut. He reckons that while working as a lawyer he was earning somewhere between USD 100,000 and USD 300,000 per month. Now, a man of his smarts must have surely socked some of that away in a shoe box that he now hides under his bed, right? I reckon the man can still afford to buy cigars. This latest "look at me" sound bite reeks of arrogance and a real lack of appreciation about how tough ordinary Indonesians are doing it on a daily basis.

Seriously, if Ruhut cannot afford to buy cigars then buy cigarettes. Ruhut, no one cares but you! If you are really poor, but still need to chomp on a cigar then buy local, buy the cigars that Indonesia produces. My guess is that your paltry parliamentarian salary will stretch far enough to buy locally produced cigars. I am pretty sure that Sampoerna makes a cigar. If not, then Gudang Garam makes one, right?

Indonesian parliamentarians might not be the best paid parliamentarians in the world but, in the big scheme of all things economic in Indonesia, they are far from being at the "poor" end of the Indonesian salary scale.

Ruhut, time to focus on the really important stuff, mate. Your lack of cigars is not that important to those Indonesians living on or below the poverty line, particularly those who choose to buy cigarettes in preference to feeding or educating their children.

Mr. Sitompul when you have something serious to say the feel free to pipe up and share your wisdom, but in the mean time...Ruhut, please deh!

SBY and a Third Term as President?

Oh dear!

Ruhut Sitompul seems to want to return to his comedic acting roots by suggesting that the Constitution should be amended so that the current two-term limit on presidents can be extended to three terms or more.

The problem I have with this is not amending the Constitution. In a democracy the amending of the Constitution is possibly. There are strict rules in place for how this is done. If they are followed, and this is truly the will of the Indonesian people then so be it.

However, how quickly we forget. Indonesia is only a little more than ten years removed from what was a period of guided democracy under Soekarno, Indonesia's first president, and the ruthless, iron-fisted dictatorship of Soeharto. Both of these periods saw the slaughter of untold numbers of Indonesians. The very power to do this came from the fact that power was quickly consolidated and no term limits forced political change to occur no matter how minimal.

Look, the term limit system is not perfect, one only has to look at Russia and how Vladimir Putin has manipulated the political term limits system to ensure that he remains a powerful force, but that does not make it right.

So, how should we view Ruhut's latest jaunt into controversy? The cynic, or conspiracy theorist, in me says that this is a far more elaborate, and cunning, plan than people and media are giving it credit for. At the moment, most people seem to think that this is just "crazy old Ruhut trying to make a name for himself and get into the papers and on TV."

To the contrary, this could just as easily be the Democrat Party testing the waters for a move to introduce a constitutional amendment to parliament in a move to change term limit laws. By getting Ruhut to put the suggestion out there in the public sphere allows Yudhoyono and the Democrat Party to put at arm's length the statements of Ruhut.

This might seem surprising to some, but it is easier enough to do as Ruhut has always been viewed as the one that might let his mouth get into gear before his brain does. This in, and of itself, is surprising because Ruhut is obviously not a stupid man, this idea aside, so it seems strange to write this off as the ramblings of a crazy old politician with nothing better to do.

Hence, the idea that this may in fact be the Democrat Party, on Yudhoyono's instructions, testing the waters. After all, power tends to corrupt, if you search the annals of Indonesian political media coverage you will uncover plenty of statements to the effect that Yudhoyono only wanted to serve the people of Indonesia and he only wanted to do that for one term. He is now on his second term.

There is no legal harm in SBY doing a constitutionally permitted second term. There is plenty of social harm though, in popularly electing to a second term, a president who talks the talk but cannot walk the walk on corruption, among other problems.

Hopefully, the Indonesian people will react negatively to the idea of SBY doing a third term as president and this little sideshow can be put to bed forever.

Indonesian Parliamentarians -- More Perks, Less Work...

Politicians will do and say just about anything to get into office. Cynical, maybe. Yet, a cursory bit of number crunching to get a basic overview of the performance of Indonesian parliamentarians since they were sworn into office in October last year is revealing in the most unflattering of ways. Simply, performance to date of these individuals elected to one of the highest forms of public service has been extraordinary for the lack of any performance.

Parliamentarians in the Indonesian system get to set their legislative workloads. Common sense would surely dictate that you set yourself a target that you can achieve. This target needs to be reasonable. It cannot be so low that there is no challenge in meeting it, and nor can it be so high as to be unrealistic and never met. The reality is that considerable thought went into selecting 70 Bills that the parliament assured constituents that they would be able to do. To date just seven have passed. There is little point in noting that some of these were nothing more than a rubber stamping exercise that required negligible effort from parliamentarians.

In contrast, the performance of parliamentarians in rewarding themselves for their shocking performance is now the stuff of legend. What is even more bizarre is that there seems to be no end to the gluttony. Some recent examples of expedited debate have seen parliamentarians get laptops and other white-goods. These 'bonuses' are on top of an allowance that is 60% of a parliamentarians salary for travel expenses. This money is supposedly to be used to get back to their electorates and meet the people who elected them to office. Needless to say, parliamentarians are spending their travel allowances but are not spending much time meeting constituents. It is not rocket science to work out why a parliamentarian would not want to meet a constituent struggling below the poverty line in a futile attempt to make ends meet.

It has really become a five-year feeding frenzy where members see how much they can conjure out of the State coffers. It is little wonder that Indonesians are feeling disenfranchised and resigned to the gluttony of their representatives.

The litany of woe continues with a recent spate of news noting that the parliamentarians were trying to get a vote happening to allocate themselves IDR 200 million to build "aspiration houses" in their electorates. An aspiration house is being sold as a "people's house", a place where local constituents can come to meet their local members. All up the aspirations of parliamentarians to further reward themselves was to cost the State IDR 112 billion. In reality, this is just another chunk of cash that would be whittled away (red. embezzled), or perhaps in more colloquial terms "pissed up against the wall".

What is truly funny in that most perverse kind of a way is that the 'aspiration' fund follows closely on the heels of a IDR 15 billion per member constituent development fund that had next to no oversight of any kind. Thankfully, that silliness was voted down. Although, it has seemingly been resurrected in this proposal albeit at a sizable reduction in the amount of cash being bandied about per member.

The first hurdle in making this allocation has been cleared. However, once this became publicly known there has been some pretty significant public backlash, and rightly so. Now, some parliamentarians are having a second thought about selling this slush fund to Indonesians. Currently, the discussion suggests that the plan might not get up at a plenary session. Well, if it does not happen, then perhaps members could use the 'spare' time to pass some legislation.

Then again, it is likely parliamentarians are day-dreaming about a new 36-floor parliamentary office building believed to be budgeted at some IDR 1.8 trillion. This is so clearly a waste of money that it is not funny, not even in a perverse kind of a way. The reality is that parliamentarian attendance records highlight that a good proportion of members are never in their offices nor the plenary sessions to do the parliamentary business that is expected of them.

As to the non-attendance of members, I nearly choked on my lunch when I read Muhammad Romahurmuziy, Secretary General of the United Development Party (PPP), say in no uncertain terms that parliamentarians are busy people and that sometimes they have to prioritize their time and representing their constituents is what falls to the wayside.

The Romahurmuziy reasoning is that parliamentarians were very busy professionals - lawyers, businessmen, sports people, and public figures (red. celebrities). For my mind, when one is elected to public office they remove themselves from any potential conflict of interest. For example, a business person who maintains control over their business whilst a parliamentarian and then votes on legislation or develops policy that impacts on that business is clearly in a position of conflict.

It truly is time that the parliamentarians elected to public office behave in a manner commensurate with the faith that the Indonesian populace has shown in them by electing them to office. It might be true that you get what you vote for, but most Indonesians would argue that they did not vote for this or these shenanigans.

Positive Economic News -- Indonesia...

The economic outlook and news associated with Indonesia for most of this year has been positive. In many respects, this is not surprising. How much one attributes this to SBY personally or good policy remains a subject of debate among some. There is little doubt that the figures are looking up compared to a few years ago. For the New York Times view on Indonesia and the future economic outlook, and where this graphic was lifted from, go here. It makes for interesting reading.

According to the NYT, Indonesia is Asia's new "Golden Child". This is high praise indeed. Yet, it might be putting the horse before the cart in the sense of being a little premature. Remembering that many thought the fundamentals of the Indonesian economy were pretty solid back in 1997 and 1998. History tells us that these fundamentals were not so solid after all. 

There is also the issue of corruption. SBY came to the presidency with an overwhelming mandate to fight corruption and rid Indonesia of this scourge. He has largely been unsuccessful. So, despite concerns about corruption and confusing local legislation, investors are returning in force, sort of. This is more an indication of businesses / investors recognising the huge upside potential of a market of some 250 million consumers, particularly where the vast majority of these are under 30s and a little more carefree on their consumptive ways.

It is always interesting, at least it was when I lived in Indonesia, to listen to people talking about financial crises, global meltdowns, and other tidbits of economic woe and mayhem. This was because walking the malls of the greater Jakarta metropolitan area, one would be forgiven if they could not fathom where the crisis was. Quite simply, people were still out and about, still shopping, still drinking coffee, still going to movies, pretty much living as they always had. The only concession might have been there were less people in these places, but they were not empty. 

It would also be remiss of me not to note that as soon as you walked out of the luxury of the malls you could see first hand what sort of destruction the financial crises had wreaked on the lower middle classes and the poor.

Nevertheless, the point is that it is not all that surprising that Indonesia has "rebounded" as strongly as it has.

Let's hope that the fundamentals are strong, the government is able to make some serious inroads into the battle against corruption, and the parliament can actually pull the collective fingers out and pass some legislation that will support the fight against corruption and convince investors that the risks they take are not with the applicable legislation.

My apologies to any readers who have more economic sense than me for any shortcomings in my cursory analysis!

You Get What You Vote For...

The beauty of a democracy is you get what you vote for.

And, if you get taken in by the charm offensive of candidates about how, once they are elected, they are going to serve your interests because you are the constituents and they serve only at your pleasure, blah, blah, blah (how cynical am I tonight?), then you could end up with this view on a regular number of plenary session days in the Indonesian Parliament.

If you want to read about the lazy Indonesian legislators, and their excuses for excessive absenteeism, then head over to The Jakarta Globe. The best excuses to date have been that parliamentarians work too hard and that they have permission letters from their parties to be absent. It sort of reminds me of the permission notes I write for my students when they want to leave class to go to the toilet.

But, if you just want to have a chuckle about the empty "people's house" then the picture is for you!

Celebrity Sex Tapes, the Pornography Law, and the Constitutional Court...

The Constitutional Court has accepted and will hear a petition by Farhat Abbas. Abbas is a lawyer and frequently in the news, quite often the subject of the gossip shows himself.

The petition is premised on an argument that the Pornography Law is not draconian enough, particularly that the Elucidations to the law undermine the true intent of the law and as such leave the law inconsistent. The primary focus of the petition is Article 4 and the exception provided for pornographic materials that are produced for reasons of personal use or interest.

It is pretty clear that judges worth their salt strictly interpreting this exception would seemingly have grounds to find that the celebrity sex tapes involving Nazriel 'Ariel' Irham, Luna Maya, and Cut Tari were for personal use and interest. The videos were stolen of a laptop and then uploaded to the internet without the express permission of the videographer or the 'actors' in the amateur films.

This so enraged Abbas that he was inspired to lodge the petition that in essence requests that the Constitutional Court strengthen the draconian nature of the Pornography Law by removing the exceptions from the Elucidations.

Unfortunately, and rather than sticking to the strict legal arguments, Abbas and his lawyer, Bahruddin, have decided that this is a moral issue because the sex depicted in the films is outside of the binds of marriage. The strict legal argument makes more sense and has more likelihood of success. Not to be deterred though, Bahruddin goes on to say, "in the context of pornography, there should be no exception, even for husband and wife. These are the seeds of the eventual destruction of morality."

The petitioners must be beside themselves with the prospect of more celebrity sex tapes to be made and disseminated in Indonesia. The reality is that the pornography law is not going to stop porn. Where there is a will there is a way, and people who want to film themselves will do so pornography law or not, exceptions or not.

It will be interesting to see how the Constitutional Court decides this petition because it gives rise to interesting questions of parliamentary intent and statutory interpretation. It would seem that on a very simple level, the intent of the parliament was to put in place significant restrictions on the production and distribution of pornography. However, it would also seem that the parliament did not have the intent to put in place an absolute ban on pornography, particularly where the offending material was never meant to see the public light of day.

Assisted Reproductive Treatment Bill

The Victorian Parliament in Australia seem to be debating some interesting legislation at the moment. After the post the other day on abortion and some subsequent surfing of the web, I have discovered that the Victorians are also looking to pass a bill that will provide reproduction assistance to lesbians, single women, and couples.

It seems the bill has become known as the lesbian fertility bill. However, the bill is clearly much more than that. Yet, it might seem to some to be an attack on the traditional family unit, as it is clear that lesbians and single women would have a right of access to fertility assistance and treatment.

The bill has passed the lower house with a reasonably comfortable vote of 47 - 34. The bill now goes to the upper house. The vote though highlights that the Liberal - National coalition all voted against the bill and so did four members of the government.

I wonder if the objection to the bill, by some members of parliament and the community, includes a belief that lesbian parents and single mothers would not make good parents or role models for their children? I need to search a little farther and wider to find out on this one.

Personally, I do not think that it matters whether you are lesbian, gay, or single when it comes to whether you will be a good parent. Let's face it there are plenty of examples of non-lesbian, non-gay, and non-single parents who are struggling to raise well-adjusted kids.

DPR warns the KPK

It appears the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR) has taken offence that the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has been arresting serving members of the DPR. The total is five at last count and seems destined to increase. Perhaps the should rename the DPR to the House of Rupiah.

The DPR is most concerned that the KPK is criminalizing legislators. Yes, if you are thinking that this sounds a little ridiculous, you're right! The legislators are criminalizing themselves by accepting bribes, by partaking in graft, and through generally stupid behaviour.

Commission III deals with legal affairs and in a closed-door meeting yesterday they had the KPK leadership in their sites for a "please explain". The Chair of Commission III, a former lawyer by the name of Trimedya Panjaitan, has demanded that the KPK if it is conducting supervision of legislators that it divulge how they are doing it and the methods that they use.

Panjaitan's rationale is that people have rights that must be protected. Indeed they do! However, provided the KPK follow the procedures set out in the law that governs them and their activities then everything is above board. This would include the surveillance of members of parliament. As I recall there is nothing in the law that requires the KPK to notify the DPR of any intent it has of conducting surveillance. If it did then this may well defeat the purpose of gathering intelligence and conducting the surveillance.

Perhaps the DPR's beef with the KPK is that the arrests have been highly visible affairs and with solid media coverage of the events. This is some what embarrassing and when you consider the arrests to date are the tip of the iceberg then it appears there is considerably greater levels of embarrassment to follow.

Panjaitan also seems some what aggrieved that the DPR is coughing up suspects but the executive is not. He has wondered out loud and on the record why it is only DPR members feeling the full force of the KPK while the executive gets off scott free. To me this says, Panjaitan knows about corruption in the executive or that the executive is smarter than the DPR or that there has been no corruption identified yet in the executive. Either way, the KPK will go after the executive if there is something to go after. But let's face it, the DPR is keeping the KPK pretty busy at the moment.

It seems unlikely that Commission III will have any luck in pressuring the KPK into back-tracking on investigations. Simply, the KPK will continue to garner increased public support whilever it is seen to be seriously tackling the corruption problems afflicting Indonesia. Therefore, there is no need to pander to the interests of some scared members of parliament.

As the saying goes if you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear.

Multiple Orgasms & The Australian Parliament

This gripping headline is not as gripping as it might seem! This is in spite of the fun that can be had with multiple orgasms in general. It appears there is a direct relationship between these multiple orgasms and genetically modified organisms. It appears that at least one of Australia's Federal politicians cannot quite tell the difference yet between a genetically modified organism and a genetically modified orgasm.

The mind boggles at the miracles of modern medicine and modern science. However, the ability to genetically modify an orgasm sounds just too good to be true. Think about it for a second or two, longer if you want! For those that have never had an orgasm, your problems are solved (if indeed it is a problem), you can now be genetically modified to orgasm till your heart is content. On the flip side, so to speak, presumably if you orgasm too often then you can get yourself genetically modified to orgasm on a less frequent basis.

Seriously folks the story is not really one of orgasms at all but organisms and whether or not the government should permit them to be genetically modified. Anyways, it would seem that the Liberal Member for La Trobe, Mr. Jason Wood, still has a little ways to go on working out what constitutes a genetically modified organism and a genetically modified orgasm!

Keep your eyes peeled and your legs crossed because there might just be a genetically modified orgasm coming your way!

Islamic Defenders Front

It is unlikely the government will step up to the plate and disband Front Pembela Islam. The reason this is unlikely is two-fold; the government does not want to be seen as being anti-Islam and secondly the government thinks the law is on its side.

It would seem that the Department of Law and Human Rights is of the opinion that because FPI is not an incorporated entity (berbadan hukum) then it is impossible to disband it. The Department then goes further to wash its hands of this by suggesting this is a simple law and order issue and therefore it is up to the law enforcement authorities to decide how to move forward. However, the Department does not consider the FPI and Hizbut Tahrir attacks to be crimes against humanity or genocide (rocket scientists one and all) but rather ordinary crimes.

Now, I do not think anyone was seriously considering that a crimes against humanity or genocide prosecution was on the cards here. However, it is clear some prosecutions need to take place because the criminal code prohibits assault of this kind!

Some members of Parliament will try and exploit this to extract more law and order reforms and also reform within the police force itself; good luck with that. That aside, the question is why are the police not doing what they are supposed to be doing? Is there a bigger and more sinister conspiracy of destabilization going on in the lead up to the General Election?

Some members of Parliament are suggesting that the AKKBB provoked the response by claiming that the AKKBB were proclaiming something that the Constitution already guarantees, freedom of religion. Perhaps someone ought to tell the Parliament that the government is looking to ban a sect on suspect legal grounds. Freedom of religion only works for one of the approved religions!

A particular party has gone as far as to say that it is clear that the AKKBB do not understand Islam or its teachings because any resolution of the Ahmadiyya question is an internal matter for Islam and will be resolved by the vested interests of the MUI. If I am not mistaken some major league Islamic scholars were party to the AKKBB declaration. I wonder who does not understand the true teachings of Islam?

The same party has said that it is too extreme a response to disband the FPI because it is individuals and not the organization that are to blame. So, I guess the idea of an FPI leader standing in front of a blood thirsty crowd and advocating violence and murder is not representative of the organization but merely the individual. I think that some re-thinking needs to be done on that one!

To suggest that it is individuals and not the organization is akin to suggesting that the Nazis or the Fascists as organizations were not evil just the people in them. When an organization advocates violence, mayhem, and murder, then it is the organization that is bad. I would go so far as to say that the organization is rotten to the core and needs to be disbanded. If people truly believe that the FPI represents the core values of Islam then there is merit in criticizing Islam as not being a religion of peace and tolerance as many claim.

One political party has gone as far as to say that FPI is in fact not anti-Pancasila and not anti-diversity, which means that they are in reverse pro-Pancasila and pro-diversity. I wonder how many people believe that after witnessing the most recent violence perpetrated by these thugs in robes?

If the President as the representative of the government is the person most likely to drive any response to this thuggery, then Indonesians should not expect much to change. The President's response to the violence is most aptly described as lame, maybe even weak, and here it is:

"I am deeply concerned with what happened yesterday afternoon, by the attack carried out by a certain organisation and certain people, the law has to be upheld against them."

I do not know about you, but this hardly inspires me with any confidence that there is to be a comprehensive response! FPI is a black mark on Indonesia and a black mark on Islam!