It was late at night when I finally spoke to the Liberal politician in the National Tally Room. The leaders had made their concession and victory speeches, but the result had been apparent as soon as the first results had come in from Queensland. He'd known well before then, of course. He'd seen the confidential polling from Crosby Textor in January that had predicted the electoral debacle that was taking place in front of him. "Annihilation," the Prime Minister had later warned, but back then, particularly to the young ones who'd been in since '96, this just seemed like another word.
Earlier that day, he'd heard from polling-booth captains in Sydney. They'd said voters were polite, but more than usual had declined the how-to-vote cards Liberal workers' were thrusting at them. He'd spent the past few hours trying to put a spin on the results and denying the obvious. Finally, eventually, John Howard had conceded and he could speak the truth.
The politician came off air, took a breath and sighed. We talked briefly, discussing who'd fallen ("Gary Nairn of course, but Mal Brough as well!"), and who in the new regime might be a winner ("Do you think Joel Fitzgibbon will get Defence? I hear John Faulkner wants it."). He paused, then gazed around the room. "You know, none of this really matters in the long run," he said.
I asked him what he meant. "All this," he said, gesturing around the room before continuing.
"We'll wake up in the morning and it still won't have rained enough in the countryside," he said melancholically. "The drought hasn't broken. But over in Bangladesh, it'll only take a couple of years before flooding from rising sea levels really hits. There won't be either enough food or land to go around."
He paused again, before glancing briefly back up at the results board overhead. There was still no good news there, so he carried on. "No matter what side of Parliament you're sitting on, the real problems this country faces will remain the same," he insisted, quietly but definitely. "It's security and the environment. These are the real problems. And there's nothing either side of politics can do to stop things getting worse."
"But that's not my problem any more," he said, easing himself off the bench and brushing his hands. He almost smiled as he walked away.
Kevin Rudd's decision to rush off to Bali is a sensible and important step towards recognising the problem of climate change. But we're kidding ourselves if we think that, just because there's a new government on Capital Hill, everything is going to change. We can argue about the predictions and science, quote government reports and inter-governmental panels ad nauseam, worrying about the extent and speed with which the climate is changing. Unfortunately, while the argument continues, Australia will remain utterly unprepared to deal with some of the most likely contingencies we'll have to face.
The new government is committed to commissioning a white paper on defence, which should be welcomed. Aside from a few "updates" which have done nothing to provide any proper rationale for our current full structure there's been no serious look at defence since 2000. But it's vital that this investigation doesn't confine itself to the military threats that Australia is likely to face over the next decade.
The majority of recent military deployments have been to combat other dangers - whether it's boat-people attempting to land their leaky ships on our shores or neighbouring countries where the rule of law is beginning to fall apart. This is an urgent need for a "whole of government" approach to be taken when we look at the security issues confronting our future.
Labor will be establishing some kind of homeland security structure, along with a coast guard. These are commendable decisions. Rudd will be slimming the public service, so there's little likelihood that massive new organisational structures will be established and resources that should be used to buy patrol boats will be instead transferred to the public service. Nevertheless, there's an urgent need for proper coordination if we are to avoid simply establishing additional self-perpetuating bureaucracies as a rapid, and easy, way of meeting election commitments.
If the new prime minister wants something to happen in a particular department, he'll intervene to make sure it does. He (obviously) has a clear interest in defence and foreign affairs issues. Nothing will happen in the security field without Rudd's say-so, but he has to be sold on a particular vision of the role that our forces (in the broadest sense) can play in defending Australia and projecting our interests overseas.
This means that if the military wants to protect its budget, it will have to show the new government it can deliver much more than the simple outcomes engraved in stone as official "mission statements".
The impact of environmental issues suggests not simply that there is a likelihood of increasing conflict in the modern world, but rather that there is an increasing need for flexibility across a range of "combat" environments. How would Australia react if we became the final destination for wave after wave of boat-people, crossing the seas not simply for prosperity but because they had nowhere to return to? Would these people be incarcerated forever on Christmas Island? Just up the range of potential threats on the combat spectrum might come the need to deploy paramilitary forces in the fragile states of the Pacific. Should Australia send police or troops?
The SAS began as the Long Range Desert Group to conduct reconnaissance and strike at Rommel's forces in the Western Desert in World War II. The need for that sort of structure has long gone. To retain its relevance, the unit needed to evolve; it did so and now the force is capable of meeting the needs of the politicians. This has guaranteed its funding and survival.
Inevitably, this new Government will have a new way of looking at things. It won't be enough to assume that resources will be channelled the way they have in the past. There is an urgent need for the armed forces to be responsive to the new requirements of a new government. If they do that, they'll flourish.
Nicholas Stuart is a Canberra writer.
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