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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-11-29 Daily Xml
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PRESIDENT OBAMA

Mr SIBBONS (Mitchell) (12:07): I move:

That this house extend its warm congratulations to the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, on his historic second term victory.

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

Mr SIBBONS: Thank you, Mr Pengilly. This US election result is a great example of how positive, sensible, calm and dignified leadership will always win out over hysterical, negative campaigns based on fear and division and how sound considered policy aimed at strengthening and building up a society will triumph over the will of those whose only goal is to bring the house down, to spoil, to obstruct, to take a wrecking ball to the economy, destroying confidence and hope in its wake.

Likewise, we must never forget the need to be positive, to have a vision, to be constructive and creative, to be bold and courageous, to build on ideas and build up our state, figuratively and literally. That is what President Obama has been trying to achieve despite tough economic times and a very hostile Congress. Before President Obama was elected for a first term in 2008, the US economy was losing 800,000 jobs each month. Under his leadership, there have been 32 consecutive months of job growth and a total of 5.4 million new jobs in the US private sector.

Political commentators, including News Limited's Mark Kenny, have noted that a crucial element in President Obama's re-election is the support that he provided to the US auto industry in 2009. That year he decided to extend emergency loans to GM and Chrysler, a move that would prevent the collapse of a major US industry and save more than one million jobs. All outstanding loans have since been repaid to the federal government, auto sales are on the rise and America's so-called big three of the industry—GM, Chrysler and Ford—are back in the black for the first time in a very long time.

I thoroughly agree with Kenny, who said in a column just after the election that the Republicans were sunk by 'their blind adherence to small government free market dogma while American automotive jobs faced extinction during the Global Financial Crisis'. He went on to say:

In swing states like Ohio where hundreds of thousands of blue-collar jobs in the automotive and related sectors hung in the balance as the industry went close to collapsing in 2009, the President simply had a more convincing story to tell.

Indeed, the Democrats made sure of it by turning the presidential fight in the Buckeye State and in other manufacturing areas into a virtual referendum on Mr Obama's 2009 auto industry bailout.

Vice-President Joe Biden's pithy one-liner became a telling bumper-sticker: 'Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive'.

A crucial 18 electoral college votes were up for grabs in Ohio and it was when they turned Democratic blue around 11pm on election night, taking the President over the magic 270-vote mark, that Mr Obama secured his second term. In Ohio, as many as one in eight jobs is connected to the car industry.

In Michigan, it is estimated that one in five jobs is supported by the auto industry, either directly or indirectly. President Obama also won the state's 16 votes.

Along with keeping the car industry afloat, President Obama's first term contained many other worthy achievements. Probably the most important was passing historic universal healthcare reform—something five presidents have attempted but failed to achieve over a century of trying. The Affordable Care Act 2010 will see 32 million uninsured Americans covered from 2014.

President Obama also passed laws which tighten the regulations on large banks and other financial institutions in the wake of the GFC. He signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to boost the economy amid the largest recession since the Great Depression. 'Weeks after the stimulus went into effect, unemployment claims began to subside,' according to the Washington Monthly. 'Twelve months later,' says the same publication, 'the private sector began producing more jobs than it was losing.'

In matters of foreign policy, he has ended the war in Iraq, continued to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan and tightened sanctions on Iran in an effort to deter that country's nuclear proliferation. He is investing in community colleges to provide education and career training programs with the aim of ensuring that high-quality education is affordable and accessible to all who wish to continue their schooling. He fought and overcame a move to double the interest rate of student loans for more than seven million students and capped the loan repayment at 10 per cent of their income.

In terms of human rights, President Obama signed into law a fair pay act against pay discrimination, enacted policies that promote the hiring of people with disabilities, repealed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the armed forces, signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and reversed the Bush era torture policies. On the environment, the President has taken steps to reduce carbon pollution, including setting up fuel economy benchmarks designed to cut by half the amount of carbon pollution from cars.

His agenda for his second term is both ambitious and admirable: make education and training a national policy, build on the US manufacturing boom, boost American-made energy, reduce the deficits responsibly, end the war in Afghanistan and nation-build at home. These moves are proactive and positive; some of them have taken a deal of bravery and fortitude. They are all about looking 'forward', the term that became President Obama's most fitting slogan for the recent campaign. Look forward, moving forward and using forward thinking are the things we must all do if we are to encourage and support a brighter, more inclusive and prosperous future. The past is only really useful for the lessons it teaches us for today and tomorrow.

Against a backdrop of troubled economic times around the world over the past few years, the state Labor government has been working hard to keep our economy strong and people in work. We are working to deliver a more vibrant city and a safer, fairer, healthier, smarter and greener state with initiatives being introduced across a wide range of sectors. There is much more work to be done and progress to be made, but we are moving forward with positive strides, both big and small.

President Obama said in his victory speech that he felt the best was yet to come for America. I feel the same way about South Australia. As long as we have a government with the vision, courage and conviction to lead us there, we will do so. Of course, this is a great state today but, with each passing year, it can become an even better place to live, with a safer, fairer, healthier, smarter and greener future for our children and grandchildren.

It is up to those of us fortunate enough to be elected representatives to ensure we think of the future as we propose ideas, make decisions and pass laws. We will not always agree, but we can always be constructive with the state's best interest at heart. Such things are the mark of a healthy democracy—something we should all cherish. I will close my remarks today with President Obama's words on this very subject:

Democracy...can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions...it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy...These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty. We can never forget that as we speak people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter...

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:17): I must say at the outset that the election of Barack Obama was much more preferable to the alternative. I think that the alternative would have been a real risk to world peace, with an extreme right-wing gung-ho approach to international politics, and that it would not have been long before there was a major conflict, so in some ways it was a choice of the lesser of two evils.

There are some lessons that come out of this that Australia should take heed of. Firstly, I think Australia needs to be not so subservient to the United States; too often, we are keen to lick the boots of the Americans. They did a lot to help us during World War II, but since then in many ways they have lost direction, they have lost their moral compass, and they have engaged in some activities which I think are by any standard deplorable.

We followed them into Iraq, which was completely unjustifiable as a conflict. I think that what was done to the population of Iraq, with us clapping and participating to some extent with the British, was deplorable. We should never have been in there or been part of that exercise that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Another major issue is peace in the Middle East, and we are affected by all these things. The United States does not take an even-handed approach in the Middle East, and it is good to see that a small step is being taken now for Palestine at least to get observer status at the United Nations. It will not solve the problem in the Middle East, but the United States is opposed to even that small recognition and the Australian government was also opposed to it until the Labor caucus had a say in the matter.

We need to chart our own future. That should mean that we are much more independent in our foreign policy and our defence policy. Even if it means we have to pay more to be more independent, I think it is something we ought to do. We have seen the federal government cuddling up to Barack Obama and inviting the United States to have marines and so on here in Australia. I think that is a great mistake.

We have to be very careful that, under Barack Obama (even though he was a better choice than Mitt Romney), we are not seen to be anti-China or anti-Chinese. It is the logical conclusion that the United States wants to constrain China because it does not want China usurping its current position as the world's most powerful nation. So, I think Australia, and this affects us in South Australia as much as any other state of Australia, has to be careful that it is not seen as a tag-along group with the United States.

Whilst I welcome the election of Barack Obama, it was great in the sense that it was far better than the alternative, it also highlighted the significance of the female vote, the coloured vote and the Hispanic vote. I think it sent a very clear message to conservative parties that if men want to control what women do with their bodies then there will be a backlash. I think that was shown in this election. The women, Hispanics and Afro-Americans got Barack Obama across the line. It left what has traditionally been a conservative party (or the more conservative party), the Republicans, on the sideline because of their attitude and approach to women and on a whole range of other issues, including basic health care.

I welcome this election. It brought me some joy, in particular because it meant that the alternative did not get to that position where, I think, it would have put us all at an even greater risk than the current administration in the United States. I think it is important that we comment on these issues even though in South Australia we are very much a small part of the total picture.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:23): The motion before the house is:

That this house extend its warm congratulations to the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, on his historic second term victory.

I can indicate that the opposition supports this motion. I want to touch briefly on some of the comments made by the mover and also the member for Fisher. I do not endorse the comments made by the member for Fisher. The very reason the opposition is happy to support this motion is because the United States of America is one of Australia's closest, longest standing and most important allies. In a security sense, a cultural sense and an economic sense, the United States is tremendously important to Australia and South Australia.

There is a practice that sometimes occurs in this house where we have members becoming commentators or amateur psephologists on international election results. There is a place, I think, for this house to make statements supportive of our friends, by which I mean our allies and the nations that are our allies. To that extent, I support the sentiments of the motion. However, I do not know that it is helpful for us to engage in base partisan bickering amongst some of our closest allies. I do not think it is helpful to have the House of Assembly in the South Australian parliament including comments as extraordinarily derogatory as some of those that have been in the debate so far. I hope that members will refrain from that in the remainder of the debate.

I think the very things the member for Mitchell talked about that are among the attributes of the Obama administration—the soaring rhetoric, the jobs growth, the legislation supporting the hiring of people with disabilities and the 'looking forward and using forward thinking' approach—are certainly meritorious and I hope that one day we will see something similar from this Labor government.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (12:25): I have no particular objection to the motion that the member for Mitchell has put up. In democracies, you get what you deserve, I suppose would be the best way to put it. The Americans have elected Barack Obama for another four years. That is how democracy works. Their system is different from ours but I strongly object to some of the phrases by the member for Fisher in relation to the United States.

The United States is the greatest democracy in the world. It is the fountain of freedom. If we did not have the United States, this nation would quite likely be speaking German with a Japanese accent. Let's be realistic about it. We were deserted in World War II by the British and we relied on the United States. We have relied on the United States ever since, and we need to. There are only just over 20 million of us. The United States is always held up as going in with guns blazing and everything else but you want to do a bit of work on what the United States does around the world in feeding people, looking after the poor, going in where there have been disasters, etc.

A couple of years ago I was in Darwin in the middle of winter and the hospital ship, the Mercy,was in port. It is an enormous ship, a former oil tanker, I think, which is decked out as a fully-equipped hospital. It can go anywhere in the world and get there quickly, and indeed I think I am right in recalling that just after we were in Darwin, something happened in, I think, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka—I just cannot recall now—and it was there in no time.

The United States does an amazing job and it does not matter whether it is President Obama or if it had been president Romney, they would still be doing that. On the subject of Afghanistan and Iraq, they have lost at least 2,000 of their personnel in Afghanistan and do you know what they are doing there? They are allowing women to work. They are allowing women to go to school and allowing children to go to school. You forget all that. If you want to go round sabre-rattling against the United States, you will get an argument out of this bloke pretty quickly.

I visited there many years ago and the American people are about as much like us as they could possibly be. They talk a bit differently. If you go out into rural United States, or wherever, you could not get a more polite people, you could not get a kinder people, you could not get a more merciful people. They are an outstanding contributor to life on this planet, so for the member for Fisher to give them a bit of curry in here absolutely stinks. I think it is disgraceful and I tell you—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: I do—you've had your say and you got away with it. You let me have a say. The next time someone comes sniffing around Australia's borders like happened in the 1940s, I hope the United States are not far away. As for having troops in Australia, a couple of thousand marines in Darwin, I fully support it and I fully support the bases that the United States has here. It goes back a long time, and they are absolutely integral to our way of life. They have been in the past and they will be in future. You only need to talk to some of those United States personnel who are here: they love the place. They love to go home, of course, but they love being here.

While we have close to three billion people just to our north and there are 20 million of us, I know who I would rather have for a friend. Our relationship with Great Britain is one thing, but that all ended in the 1940s, in my view. We have a key ally in the United States which is absolutely foremost, so the member for Mitchell producing his motion is fine. I do not dispute that at all but I am not going to sit in this place and have the United States castigated with cheap political shots.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:30): I support this motion. The United States is an absolutely outstanding democracy and I would congratulate warmly any leader who is successful in a genuinely democratic process. I think it is very fair that we pass our congratulations on to Barack Obama for being re-elected. I would have had no hesitation in doing exactly the same if it had been Mitt Romney, by the way. Whoever is successful in a very good democratic process deserves our support and appreciation

I agree with one of the things that the member for Finniss said and that is that the United States is our most important ally. I think it is very important to recognise that. I would also like to share an opinion with the house as a person who spent all my high school years in the United States. It is important for members to recognise that the more or less conservative party in one country is not exactly the same as the more or less conservative party in another country.

In the United States we have Republicans, more conservative, we have Democrats, less conservative. Here we have Liberals, more conservative, Labor, less conservative. That does not mean that the Liberal policies and the Republican policies would be exactly the same as each other and it does not mean that the Labor Party policies and the Democratic Party policies would be exactly the same as each other. Every country is a bit different.

I think it is fair to say that the United States, on balance, is a more conservative nation than Australia is. It is an absolutely outstanding nation, not nearly as good as Australia, not even close, but let me say this: the United States is an outstanding nation and is our most important ally and one of our greatest friends. I have no hesitation in supporting the member for Mitchell in his motion to congratulate Barack Obama, but I also caution this house on just assuming that the policies of any four of those parties will automatically line up with each other.

Mr SIBBONS (Mitchell) (12:32): I certainly thank the members for Fisher, Morialta, Finniss and Stuart for their comments and opinions. I will just say one final thing. It is vital that Australia builds relationships with economies all around the world.

Motion carried.

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