COSTELLO CHANNELS DOWNER

Peter Costello's throwaway reference to Kevin Rudd's fluency in Chinese is more revealing than his empty contribution to the Chinalco - Rio discussion.

Peter Costello's piece in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald on Chinalco's bid for a substantial stake in Rio Tinto raised some interesting points.

Strangely, he avoided what many regard as the biggest issue of the bid - whether Chinalco, as an enterprise wholly owned by the Chinese government will be a conventional investor seeking conventional returns, or a stooge serving the Chinese hunger for secure and well priced resources.

It's a classic oversight from a man with a history of blindspots. Costello managed to serve at the top of John Howard's government for more than a decade without a plainly argued analysis on issues like the Iraq War, children overboard, mandatory detention etc etc. It's like certain parts of the man's brain have been removed. Paul Keating's description of Costello as "all tip and no iceberg" nailed him.

I found something else in the article more objectionable than this omission though. Costello writes, "The ultimate decision on whether this proposal will be allowed under Australia's foreign ownership laws must be made by the Treasurer. Our Chinese-speaking Prime Minister will undoubtedly favour the proposal."

The Liberal Party's disgust at Kevin Rudd's fluency in Mandarin has been festering since Rudd was the Shadow Foreign Affairs spokesman. Downer could not disguise his contempt for the idea that his opposite could converse with the Chinese in their language. Now, once again, perhaps one of the most truly impressive things about Rudd is turned against him in an appeal to the most shameful of Australian failures - our monolingual and monocultural superstructure in a raucous multilingual and multicultural nation and region.

The implication of Costello's line is that Kevin Rudd's Chinese language skill distinguishes him from the rest Australia's monolingual white mass and somehow compromises his capacity to make decisions in Australia's best interests when engaging China. It's a line that would have flowed smoothly from the mouth of Pauline Hansen and her cohorts.

Kevin Rudd's knowledge of China and the Chinese language are great assets to Australia and a great example to future generations. Impugning him for this special talent is the work of the most base political operatives.

Also see - If you don't speak English, don't speak at all

HICKS AND MOTI

The Hicks and Moti cases reveal a very different level of enthusiasm in Alexander Downer for seeing legal cases promptly brought to justice.

David Hicks must watch with envy, the Australian government’s pursuit of Solomon Islands’ Attorney General Julian Moti. If only Alexander Downer was as committed to bringing him to justice, irrespective of the diplomatic implications, he must think.

Australia is pursuing Moti on charges of child sexual abuse that have been heard and dropped in Vanuatu. The case looks fragile (See David Marr and Marian Wilkinson’s piece here) but Australia’s pursuit of Moti has created major tension across the Pacific.

The pursuit of Moti is in stark contrast to the government’s limp efforts to bring Hicks to trial. And the Foreign Minister is at his imperious best when criticising the Pacific nations that have helped Moti elude Australian courts. A very different tone indeed to that used in relation to the US government and the Hicks case.

It seems that the Foreign Minister’s righteousness and moral outrage are a function of his measurement of the relative world power of the nation in question and his own prejudices rather than the substance of the legal or moral offense in question.