Daily Archives: June 6, 2020

Lifetime city resident

seeks statues removal

I read Jeff Schapiros column, Desecration as an argument for preservation, and am angered by how tone-deaf some people can be.

Ive lived in Richmond my whole life, as have my parents. My father grew up beside the statue of Robert E. Lee in the house his father built on Monument Avenue. It angers me as a Richmond native who has benefited from the past evils imposed on our black citizens that these statues still are standing. They must come down even though they never have looked more beautiful and relevant than they do now covered in graffiti.

As for context, how long has it been since the commission on context met? We have seen no action. Was their report all platitudes? But we dont need context. We know the context. The enslaved were again enslaved by different means in the Reconstruction of the South.

My black friends do not drive down Monument Avenue because it is insulting that we celebrate the men who would enslave them.

As the daughter of a World War II veteran, I was raised to celebrate the United States of America and our Constitution. These statues celebrate those who wanted to divide these United States.

We will not forget Civil War history just because statues are removed. We can go to museums to remember the painful history of Reconstruction. As for recent statues mentioned in Schapiros column, does our citizenry know where they are standing? They need to be moved to a place of prominence on Monument Avenue so all citizens can appreciate the beauty of our grand avenue.

We need to celebrate the suffragist and civil rights leaders who changed this city for the better, not the ones who tried to drive us apart. Send these statues to the American Civil War Museum if they even want them.

Find a protected space

to display monuments

Many of us had hoped that the Confederate monument issue could be resolved with a win-win solution of adding historical context to existing statues while erecting new pieces celebrating African American heritage and progress.

That might have turned a very negative problem into a unique and illuminating avenue of historical education for all Richmonders and visitors.

Instead, it appears now the monuments will be stripped, forever altering the aesthetic of one of the nations most beautiful boulevards.

So be it. I do hope, however, that the statues will find a new and secure resting place, where they still can be viewed and experienced by those who so choose. If at all possible, they should be collected as a group in an enclosed environment that will better protect them from vandalism when emotions once again run high, as they almost certainly will.

Statues empty pedestals will be powerful symbols

People are marching in Richmond today who have never held a placard in their lives. And it seems that finally the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that looms over Monument Avenue will be removed from its pedestal and put in storage.

I have dreams about who could replace him on Monument Avenue Richmonders worthy of that spot. Anyone whos drunk more than two beers with me over the past half-decade has been subjected to my rant about the discredit done to our city with every year that passes before a statue of singer-songwriter DAngelo is erected.

Of course, more important than symbolic change are the changes in policy that protesters are advocating. The reform and eventual abolition of our carceral system and our police are lodestars that should guide our course.

But symbols are not nothing. Symbols are our ideas and our values made concrete. And in the heat of early June in the city of Richmond, they cast long shadows.

I met a sculptor once who constructed monuments to failure. He fashioned bent and broken obelisks, towers left half-complete. He wanted to memorialize his failures and ours to look at them clearly and to show that they are as integral to who we are as our successes.

The statues of Confederates on Monument Avenue have long been symbols of the victory and persistence of their cause in our city and our nation.

Someday we will raise new symbols in their place. But for a few days or more, empty pedestals can be monuments to their failure. The world they wanted to build still lingers in our streets and our halls of justice. But for now, let those empty pedestals hold space, let them hold the promise of a better city being born.

Money for statue removal better spent elsewhere

It pains me to see Gov. Ralph Northam and Mayor Levar Stoney decree that the Confederate monuments must be taken down. History cant be swept under a rug. Putting contextual plaques with each monument would educate and remind us all of our sordid past and to not forget it.

Just as the Holocaust should never be forgotten, so, too, the time when our country fought over enslavement of African Americans should never be forgotten. With our budget deficit ballooning because of COVID-19, people out of work and now so many businesses destroyed, is this really the best way we can spend our much-needed tax money? The removal, relocating and replacing of these monuments will cost millions of dollars. This money could be so much better used in rebuilding the mainly minority-owned damaged stores, supporting our city schools that are failing and help those who are unemployed.

Will moving statue bring out armed protesters?

I support the removal of the statues of the Confederates on Monument Avenue. Recently, I was unsure how I felt or what would be the best way to go. However, the events of this past week and the words and actions of President Donald Trump make it clear to me that these statues have no place in our society and must go.

Just talking about this might bring armed white protesters out in mass. What will the police do?

Removing statue a step toward racial justice

I was present at the University of Virginias Cabell Hall on a cold evening in 1963 when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged us students to lead the Old Dominion toward a new future of racial justice. Since that time, I have served as an administrator at two of the commonwealths universities, witnessed several hard-won civil rights advances and gratefully contributed to a few steps forward. But I have never been more proud of Virginia than when I heard Gov. Ralph Northam announce that he would take the statue of Robert E. Lee down from its perch on Monument Avenue.

Some will denounce Northams decision as pure symbolism offering few tangible benefits. Those making that argument, however, will have to disown the logic adopted by Virginias white citizens who built the statue in 1890.

Devotees of the Lost Cause myth understood the value of symbolism, and that is exactly the reason they erected the statue. They sought to affirm white supremacy and intimidate African Americans. For far too long, the monument did its job.

Northam understands the power of symbolism, and that is the reason that the statue must go. It will signal the determination of the majority of Virginians to move toward racial justice, and that provides overwhelming justification for the removal. Place the statue in the American Civil War Museum at Historic Tredegar as the centerpiece of an exhibit on the Lost Cause, one of the many false steps on Virginias 400-year path toward a more perfect commonwealth.

Removing monuments

will affect tourism

I agree with correspondent Berk Jones Letter to the Editor, Preserve and protect Civil War monuments. Richmond no longer deserves to house the Confederate monuments on Monument Avenue. After they leave, watch the tourist dollars and jobs leave with them.

Replace monuments with statues to common soldier

Once again the Confederate statues along Monument Avenue have become the focal point of protests. A commission was appointed to review how best to proceed on the question of the role these monuments should play in the future of Richmond.

I wholeheartedly agree with the commissions recommendation to remove the Jefferson Davis monument and to add context to the Lee, Jackson and Stuart monuments. However, if at the end of the day, these monuments must also be removed, they should be replaced with monuments honoring the bravery and sacrifice of both Confederate and Union soldiers who fought and died in the Civil War.

Surely, we can all agree that the sacrifices of the common soldier are worth remembering. We cannot escape the fact that Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. That fact, along with many others, helps make this city unique. It appears Richmond is at a crossroads on these issues. The city can choose to embrace its history (both good and bad) and tell its story in a responsible and holistic manner, or the city can choose to erase and run away from that history. I hope we choose the former.

Replacement plan needed before statue is removed

Per Gov. Ralph Northam, it appears that Richmonds Monument Avenue will be no more. I think this is a major mistake without a plan to replace these monuments with others of notable Virginians, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Madison, John Marshall, etc.

Without a plan by the state of Virginia and the city of Richmond to replace these monuments, both local property values and tourism will take a major hit. I, for one, am very happy I do not live in the city of Richmond now.

Graffiti transforms, completes Lee monument

Every once in a while, a person comes across a photo that makes the world stand still. I had such an experience this week when I saw the picture of the Robert E. Lee Monument covered in graffiti. Im a longtime Richmonder who at one time lived on Monument Avenue, right in the shadow of Lee. I have mixed feelings about the plans to remove the statue. But the way that monument looks now its almost like it was missing something all along and we just didnt realize it. Now its as though its finally complete, a work of art, a testament to the American experience. A doorway to a brighter tomorrow? Whatever we do with the monuments, maybe we dont wash that paint off.

Monuments draw tourists who help keep city afloat

City leaders should provide some forward-thinking in the statue removal rush. Think back to 1949. After Frank Sprague used Richmond to develop the streetcar system in 1888, Richmond leaders burned all the streetcars in a massive pile in 1949.

Just think of the massive tourist dollars that would have been flowing into the city since it was the site of the first commercial streetcar system in the country had that decision been different. Had it not been for Richmond, the Boston system might not have existed. Those tourist dollars are gone for good.

Now, examine the monuments in the capital of the Confederacy with a ride down beautiful Monument Avenue. We cannot change history, only put it in proper context. What will city leaders tell restaurateurs and hoteliers when these tourist dollars disappear as well? What else does Richmond have? Are city officials satisfied to just raise taxes to cover even basic services?

Id prefer to have the tourist dollars filling that tax gap.

Grayson (Ranny) Robertson.

Transform Monument Ave. into more inclusive space

Something must be done with Monument Avenue.

Since the 1890s, its Confederate monuments have presented a whitewashed version of history that has contributed to white supremacy in Richmond and across the South. In 2020, many still feel the effects of this exclusion, and it is time we address these issues.

While I firmly believe that these monuments present an ideologically tinged version of the past, I cannot support their removal. By moving these statues, I believe we would miss a golden opportunity to foster continued dialogue and historic consciousness in our city.

I propose Richmond reframe Monument Avenue in order to create a different space that emphasizes diversity and tells the painful history of oppression in this city. Through the addition of more diverse public art and context, we could transform the avenue into an inclusive space that addresses racial justice concerns.

This first step would be to desacralize the Confederate monuments by adding desperately needed context about white supremacy, the Jim Crow era and the Lost Cause. Second, we need more monuments celebrating the achievements of black Virginians and other racial minorities. Finally, the city should designate a space along the avenue for more ephemeral public art such as temporary monuments or installations. Providing an additional way to nonviolently speak out, this would allow for democratic expression about contemporary or historic issues and injustices.

Repurposed, Confederate monuments would serve as vivid examples of past attitudes and oppression that we now decry. They would help remind us of our complicated and painful past something that we must never forget.

Indeed, what better way to repudiate the negative legacies of our Confederate and white supremacist past than by repurposing its most impressive monuments to bear perpetual witness to its wrongs?

Move statues to places

that give them context

Thank you to Evan Reid for his Letter to the Editor, Richmond must remove Confederate monuments. He said it all about the removal of the Confederate statues: We will. We shall. We must. Amen to that.

To those who claim that the removal of the statues is erasing history, think of it this way: The statues will be relocated not removed to a more appropriate venue of remembrance, like a museum or cemetery where Confederate soldiers are buried; or, in the case of the Robert E. Lee statue, to the generals birthplace. I feel these venues are the best context for these symbols, not on public land. Furthermore, I feel these historical, well-trafficked locations will do a much better job keeping the sentiment that you cherish alive.

History is not getting erased, just relocated.

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Letters to the Editor, June 5, 2020 | Letters to the Editor | richmond.com - Richmond.com

Ben Kothe / BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

As America reckons with historic protests against police brutality, violent law enforcement retaliation, and eerie curfews, Black activists and strategists are closely watching Joe Biden.

The nationwide protests that began after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis police custody offer Biden a chance to signal to Americans how things might change under his administration, if he wins the presidency in November. Its a pivotal moment for the campaign that could help Biden bring younger, skeptical voters into his coalition. And the moment is giving him airtime to break through in a way he hasnt been able to in months, as people look for coherent national leadership while coping with two immense crises at the same time.

Criminal justice activists and Democratic strategists who spoke to BuzzFeed News said this is a critical moment for Biden to build real enthusiasm with young people and maintain his support with Black voters, and to move past his record of work in the late 80s and 90s on legislation that expanded police powers and resulted in the mass incarceration of Black people in America.

This is a make-or-break moment for Joe Biden. He can rise to the level of leadership and meet the moment and truly be an alternative to Trump and inspire and build trust and inspiration in this moment, Aimee Allison, the founder of She the People, a political network of women of color, told BuzzFeed News.

He cant dismiss how younger people, and not just young Black people who largely didnt vote for him in the primary he doesnt have those voters on lock for younger voters in general, a majority of whom are people of color, this is an important critical issue, she added. Theres an opportunity for him to talk about this and set a new standard and new intention for this country thats in this moment.

On Tuesday, nearly a week after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police and days after he made short and unspecific remarks, Biden gave the first signs that the mass protests are pushing him to consider more concrete and progressive police reforms than hes embraced before in his decadeslong career.

The country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us. Leadership that can bring us together. Leadership that can recognize the pain and deep grief of communities that have had a knee on their neck for too long, Biden said in his Tuesday address, which was broadcast live by most major television networks.

He outlined four specific policies hes backing now which go further than his original criminal justice reform plan: a national use of force standard, greater accountability for police officers accused of misconduct, an end to the militarization of police forces, and a national ban on chokeholds.

Democratic activists and strategists see this kind of detailed approach to change as key for actually getting people out of their homes to vote, especially if voting this November is complicated by people contending with multiple national crises, including a pandemic.

The question around turnout for Joe Biden isnt whether Black people are trying to decide between him and Donald Trump, said one strategist who previously worked for a rival presidential candidate and asked to speak on background so they could speak candidly. This is about if its raining on Election Day somewhere around this country its going to be raining and there will be 50-mile-per-hour winds. Are they going to be willing to mussy up their hair, and miss dinner, and be late to pick up their kids, and be late to work to vote for Joe Biden? Thats the question! Its about inspiring people enough to want to do that.

Its also not lost on strategists that Black Democrats were largely responsible for handing Biden the partys presidential nomination in the first place. This is a time for Democrats to make sure voters of color arent turned off in the lead-up to November, advocates said.

"Many of these folks are asking what is the point of voting since politicians all seem to perpetuate a broken system We need them to see voting as meaningful, and for them to see voting as meaningful they need to, I think, have a real choice, Chiraag Bains, the director of legal strategies at Demos, told BuzzFeed News. That means not just returning to the pre-Trump period, he said, because things were broken then."

Bains is also a member of a unity task force on criminal justice reform composed of allies of both Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders with the goal of devising policy for the Democratic Partys platform.

Bains said hes hopeful the group will be able to come up with recommendations that include systemic change like clearer accountability standards for police forces and ending mandatory minimums, and that although the group is not directly forming the campaigns policies, those recommendations could inform how a Biden presidency handles criminal justice reform.

If all we end up with is more police training, or a new task force in the new administration, then we will not have fixed anything, he said.

We, the broader public, need to be demanding specifics from anyone who is asking for our vote, Bains added.

Thousands of protesters march over the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, June 4.

Another member of the task force, Stacey Walker, said the mass public outcry against police brutality could make broader reforms more politically feasible than they have been in the past.

We know that we are at a global moment where extraordinary reform not only seems reasonable, but it is necessary if we ever hope to be a peaceful and functioning society, he said.

He said hes encouraged that some of the ideas being discussed by reform advocates are now getting more attention, particularly ideas that would change the way police forces function, like replacing most police with unarmed community relations officers who work to prevent people from reaching crisis points.

Another important initiative thats being floated is the idea of making negotiations with police bargaining units public, he said, also raising making body cameras mandatory and granting police citizen review committees with more power so theres an actual consequence of negative review from these independent bodies.

This issue has captured the eyes of the world, and I dont think anyone will accept half measures, said Walker.

Activists said that while Bidens rhetoric is a nice gesture and the more detailed proposals this week were appreciated, they want to see his campaign solidify plans that have been informed by the work that many have been pushing toward since the 2013 protests after George Zimmermans acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin and the Ferguson, Missouri, protests in August 2014 after Michael Browns death.

I dont think protesters, especially people on the ground, give a shit about platitudes and speeches right now. They dont care, the strategist who worked for a rival campaign told BuzzFeed News in a phone call after Bidens initial, short remarks on the protests last Friday. I think what theyre looking for, actually, is the opposite of the speeches. They want to know when this happens, because this will inevitably happen again when this happens and he is president what is that change going to look like?

The most important thing that Biden can offer is some sort of reassurance that when this happens again that it wont just be on them, that it wont just be on them to carry it, the strategist added.

Activists said theyre not asking for Biden to come up with new solutions detailed proposals for police reform already exist, for example, in the Movement for Black Lives platform and former presidential candidate Julin Castros plan, which eight youth-led activist groups including March for Our Lives and the Sunrise Movement asked Biden to adopt into his policy platform in a recent letter.

I think its really important that hes now taking action towards those words that we were so heartened to hear [on Friday], said Daud Mumin, a student leader for March for Our Lives in Utah. But, he added, the group wants Biden to adopt Castros police reform plan in its entirety because Every single part in that bill plays towards racial justice, Black liberation.

Soon after Bidens address on Tuesday, Castro publicly endorsed Biden for the first time. Biden responded in a tweet saying he was grateful for Castros support. Some activists and reporters took that to mean that Castro was being brought onto the campaign as an adviser in some official capacity and that he would hold some sway over how the campaign deals with criminal justice issues.

On Wednesday, Castro told BuzzFeed News that though he is endorsing Biden, he hasnt been asked to join the campaign in any official capacity and had not yet spoken to Biden directly about criminal justice reform, though their teams have been in touch.

I have no formal role. I have not been asked to do anything specifically, so Ill just say generally that what I've been encouraged by is the vice presidents specificity on policy reforms, he said.

Castros in-depth police reform platform goes much further than Biden has gone to this point, including measures like ending protections for violent police officers under qualified immunity, setting up a database of decertified and fired police officers, and federally banning stop-and-frisk and racial profiling.

There are a whole range of policies that we should implement at the local level and the national level to reduce the use of excessive force and ensure that no matter who you are, youre treated the same by police, Castro said.

The Biden campaign did not respond to questions about Castros role on the campaign moving forward.

Bidens past, though, has worried some of the Democrats hoping for a push for police reform.

One major issue for some is Bidens involvement in the 1994 Crime Bill, and whether hes willing to acknowledge his part in the way policing currently works. The crime bill has loomed over Bidens career for many activists and younger voters who think that he hasnt come to terms with the bills intended and unintended consequences on Black communities.

Biden has often championed his role in crafting and enacting the bill, which perpetuated over-policing in communities of color and the mass incarceration of Black people. The law resulted in more funding for states to build prisons, funding to encourage an increase in drug-related arrests, and funding for 100,000 new police officers. It also included measures like the Violence Against Women Act, which Biden and Democrats take pride in.

Biden has long defended the 1994 law and has argued as recently as last month that Hillary Clinton was wrong to lament the crime bills effects on the Black community in 2015. What happened was, it wasnt the crime bill. It was the drug legislation. It was the institution of mandatory minimums, Biden told Breakfast Club host Charlamagne tha God. Biden, though, had cosponsored the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which created sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine, and backed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which strengthened prison sentences for drug possession. Biden called the 1988 law a "big mistake" last year and said it "should be eliminated."

Activists have grown weary of Bidens unwillingness to talk about the 1994 law in a critical way and say that doing so would be the first step in acknowledging his implicit role in over-policing which they say contributed to more interactions with the police and increased the likelihood of police shootings.

Theres no way to avoid being accountable to the fact that you made a decision that led to these types of unintended consequences, the Democratic strategist told BuzzFeed News. Hyper-policing and over-policing in Black communities is the reason why these sorts of things are happening, and the crime bill was specifically and uniquely responsible for an increase in policing.

Jennifer Epps-Addison, co-executive director for the Center for Popular Democracy, which endorsed Bernie Sanders in the primaries, said the only way for Biden to really make amends is to build specific solutions to the problems the 1994 law caused into his platform.

An apology is not restitution, she said.

Demonstrators lay down on Pennsylvania Avenue during a protest against police brutality in Washington, DC, June 3.

Activists, though, acknowledge how different the conversation around police reform is now then it was even four years ago.

Its sort of incredible to think how far weve come and how far we have to go, said Epps-Addison. She referenced the repeated Black Lives Matter protests at Hillary Clinton and Sanders campaign events in 2016, and how long it took for Clinton to actually explicitly say, Black lives matter.

But, she said, Black activists have seen this cycle of protests, platitudes, and then minimal or nonexistent systemic change before. Reform advocates and community organizers say they will continue scrutinizing whether there is substance behind the public statements Biden makes on police violence.

The Biden campaign did not directly respond to a question about which, if any, groups and individual advocates it is engaging with to inform its response to the current crisis after multiple deaths involving police officers and the underlying issues of criminal justice reform. They pointed to Bidens visit to a Black church in Maryland on Monday, where he spoke with local leaders.

Phil Agnew, a senior adviser to Bernie Sanders campaign and an activist who cofounded Dream Defenders after Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012, said hes hopeful the BidenSanders task force on reform could inform real policy shifts, especially if that means reversing the effects of the 1994 crime law. To me that is the best-case scenario and a really frankly comeback story that we love in American politics, he said.

But the task forces scope does seem limited in that it isnt directly shaping Bidens policy plans, said Epps-Addison, and because its missing a crucial perspective in this conversation: There is not a single formerly incarcerated person on that task force.

Agnew says he doesnt think Biden will engage with the most progressive criminal justice reform ideas, like the abolition of police forces and prisons. But he echoed Walker's sense that this national outpouring of support for police reform gives Democrats and Biden the room to start engaging with more radical ideas.

If he doesnt, it's the equivalent of not wanting to address sea-level rise and then it raining for 70 days straight, and everybody in the world is like, It's flooding everywhere. Maybe we should do something about it,' Agnew said. Its the perfect time to come out and say, 'Its the time to make some real change.'

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Black People Are Tired Of Inaction Against Police Brutality. Theyre Watching Biden To See If Hell Turn The Tide. - BuzzFeed News

Usually, it's brand new prime ministers still high as kites on the dopamine surge of winning an election whose thoughts stray to reforming the Federation.

Think of Kevin Rudd in 2007, who announced a new era of "Cooperative Federalism" with wall-to-wall Labor state governments, spiked with the threat that if the states didn't fix the hospital system within two years, he'd step in and run the bloody things himself.

Or Tony Abbott, who strode into Government in 2013 taking a whipper-snipper to the COAG system and then commissioned a "Reform Of The Federation" White Paper canvassing, among other things, a total retreat by the Commonwealth from the vexed areas of health and education.

Given that Mr Abbott had descanted at length in his bookBattlelinesabout the necessity of the Commonwealth seizing more power in these areas, not less, and had gone so far as drafting a Constitutional amendment to that effect, this was among the more neck-snapping of his famed policy reversals.

It came, however, to naught; the White Paper died a lonely death somewhere in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Mr Abbott himself was gone by late 2015.

The Grail of Federation Reform was duly snatched up by the next new PM, Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Turnbull's contribution to the field was to announce rather suddenly, while conducting a doorstop interview at the Penrith Panthers Rugby League Academy on March 30, 2016 that he was contemplating redrawing the federal system to allow the states to levy their own income tax.

"The Federation must work better and right at the heart of the problems in the Federation is the fact that the states do not raise enough of the revenue that they spend," he declared.

"In other words, they're not accountable enough in the way a government should be."

With the rampant big cat of the Panthers' clubhouse decal providing a transfixing backdrop, Mr Turnbull delivered a crunchy tutorial on vertical fiscal imbalance, as the Member for Lindsay, Fiona Scott, nodded impassively.

(Ms Scott, who at a doorstop three years earlier in the same postcode had kept a similar neutral expression as Tony Abbott enthused about her "sex appeal", has learned many skills over her career in politics, not least of which is never to betray alarm.)

This was a Wednesday. Mr Turnbull was due to meet with the premiers at COAG on Friday, and had learned during his train ride to Penrith that his secret tax reform plan was beginning to leak.

Which is why the Panthers were witnessing the birth of a new federalism on their home ground.

"Now we've got to recognise that that is the core problem, many people have suggested we should address it. There hasn't been a serious effort to do so for many years for over 40 years," Mr Turnbull expostulated.

This was true. The short history is this: states levied their own income taxes until 1942, whereupon the exigencies of World War II made it a good idea to consolidate income tax in the Commonwealth's coffers.

Well a good idea from the Commonwealth's perspective, anyway. The Government argued that this would be a wartime measure only, but the states' suspicions that this was a permanent hustle were duly confirmed post-Armistice.

To compensate, the Commonwealth legislated a series of grants; the beginning of the begging routine which still plagues us today.

And in June of 1971, Prime Minister Billy McMahon chucked in payroll tax as a sweetener.

The last "serious effort" to revisit the idea of the states getting back a slice of income tax was made by Malcolm Fraser, who passed legislation to this effect in 1977.

But it was never used, thanks to a lethal and populist negative campaign run by NSW opposition leader and premier-to-be Neville Wran, who dubbed the scheme "double taxation".

The closest the idea came to formal revisitation in the following decades was with Bob Hawke's "New Federalism" in the early 1990s, but this review did not enjoy the warm support of Paul Keating and was repurposed when Keating seized the leadership in 1992 and established COAG instead.

Mr Turnbull setting forth the idea of income tax rearrangement in Penrith did not mention the role his mentor and business partner had in squishing that same idea 40 years earlier.

Or his own, for that matter; as Laurie Oakes extracted considerable enjoyment from reporting, Mr Turnbull himself as a correspondent for the Nation Review had written several columns pillorying the prospect of having the states levy income tax.

The states were not merely being sold a pup, wrote the young columnist of Mr Fraser's "New Federalism" plan: they were being saddled with "a large, extremely hungry and undoubtedly treacherous hound".

In any event, Mr Turnbull's 2016 vision of a new federalism lasted nowhere near as long as the Fraser tilt he'd disparaged 40 years earlier.

At the COAG meeting two days after the Panthers press conference, the premiers were cold on the idea and Mr Turnbull huffily retracted his offer.

What do these attempts have in common? What caused these men to sail into the treacherous waters of federal reform, despite ample evidence of their predecessors' wreckage?

A rational assessment of the bleeding-obvious flaws at the heart of the federal model, for starters. An awareness (and who could be unaware, really?) of how much Australians hate the stupid bickering between state and federal governments.

And a rush of optimism in the heart of each respective protagonist that he of all prime ministers might just be the one to fix it.

(The choice of pronoun is intentional. While Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison have all had a go at Federation Reno, our only female PM left the federation alone, satisfying herself with a significant practical enhancement the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the satisfaction of being the only prime minister, in a decade of hot air about a carbon price, to actually legislate one.)

The problem is much as Mr Turnbull described it. For all that the states are required according to the Constitution to provide, they do not raise enough revenue themselves.

What they provide (emergency services, schools, hospitals) is getting more expensive, especially in a time of national crisis, but their revenue-raising opportunities are shrinking.

The disparity is shocking: While the states and territories deliver nearly half of the operating expenditure of the entire government sector, the Commonwealth raises more than 80 per cent of the tax.

How has this inequality been rectified in the past? Through begging, bribery, and above all those funding agreements that tend to increase in complexity and number over the passage of time, and need to be renegotiated regularly at vast cost and inefficiency.

The temptation for federal governments to attach ideologically-driven conditions to these payments is nearly irresistible, as is the temptation to dive into what are ordinarily state government responsibilities.

(See: Sending Commonwealth funded chaplains into public schools. Or the $500million "Commuter Car Park Fund" that inexplicably sees the Commonwealth funding car parks, right now, in urban commuter belts. For all the political heat that was generated by the "sports rorts", virtually none arose from the sensible question of what a Commonwealth Government was doing building toilet blocks at shooting ranges in the first place.)

Nobody disputes that the Commonwealth is obliged to top up the revenue of the states so they can keep the lights on.

Here's the queasy equilibrium at the heart of all this: All governments would like more money, but no government likes to wear the opprobrium of raising it.

The last prime minister to buck this behavioural model was John Howard, who in 1998 took the crazy-brave idea of a goods and services tax to a federal election.

His decision (which horrified colleagues at the time) violated three separate conventions of politics.

One he was breaking his own one-time vow that a GST would "never, ever" again form part of Coalition policy.

Two he was proposing a new tax. A great big new one, to adopt subsequent parlance.

Three the revenue from the proposed GST flowed entirely to the states, meaning that the states would receive a new revenue stream from a tax for which another tier of government would cop the blame.

In political terms: The deal of the century.

The GST is 20 years old on Wednesday three weeks from now (fortunately, there is less confusion about its impact on a birthday cake than there once was).

It is the last significant retooling of the federal/state tax balance we've had. It's also arguably the last time COAG was seriously useful.

Enter Scott Morrison. Australia's 30th Prime Minister.

When elected a year ago, he was not one of these brand-new PMs elected on the promise of throwing open the windows of the Federation and letting a little fresh air in.

He wasn't pimping "New Federalism" or "Cooperative Federalism" or "Federalism 2.0" or "I Can't Believe It's Not Federalism". Nor was he overburdened with ambition for the sorting-out of vertical fiscal imbalance.

In fact, he had promised to do very little apart from implement his previously-announced schedule of personal income tax cuts, and not proceed with anything Bill Shorten was proposing.

If expectations were a vocal register, Scott Morrison would be Barry White. Hell he wasn't even expected to win.

When catastrophe in the form of bushfires first hit Australia after his re-election, Mr Morrison was found badly wanting.

Holidaying in Hawaii (a fact that his office tried awkwardly to avoid disclosing), the PM wasn't even in the country as it burned and when he did return, it was to deal cack-handedly with traumatised survivors.

It wasn't good. The Essential poll, which tracks public attitudes to the Prime Minister on indicators like "good in a crisis", reported in January this year that his crisis management approval rating had dived to 32 per cent.

When catastrophe struck a second time in the form of the COVID-19 virus, Mr Morrison was ready. He convened a National Cabinet of state and territory leaders, meeting regularly online and listening to health experts.

The proximate and universal nature of the peril at hand did away with all the uproar that would have accompanied the establishment of such a council had it been attempted in less troubled times.

On Friday a week ago, the PM announced that the National Cabinet would be kept for good, and COAG the vaguely unpleasant acronym denoting the Council Of Australian Governments abolished for ever.

But that's not all.

Arguments about money will henceforth be conducted between the treasurers, in a body to be known as the Council on Federal Financial Relations.

The National Cabinet will meet once a fortnight while the COVID-19 crisis persists, and once a month thereafter, remotely.

And once a year, the treasurers plus the leaders plus representatives of the Australian Local Government Association will meet in person, calling themselves the National Federation Reform Council (the grandness of which title did not allay the outrage of Australia's mayors at being relegated from their regular COAG spot to a once-a-year outing).

The experience of the National Cabinet, in recent months, has been a positive one.

The COAG structure (otherwise known as "where good ideas go to die") had, since its heyday driving competition reform in the 1990s, become a sclerotic nightmare.

Staging the meetings in Canberra created a performative element, in which premiers would arrive with posses of bureaucrats, staging pre- and post-meeting press conferences of sufficient bravado to justify the airfare. Or even better flounce out halfway through.

COAG was like a wood-chipper into which problems were fed like logs, the resultant pulp shaped into communiques of impenetrable bureaucratese. No-one has in the 10 days since its abolition mourned COAG at any length.

The National Cabinet has had the operating advantage of genuine crisis. And its outward appearance of leaders putting aside their differences in order to get important things done has been significantly restorative for the PM.

According to the Essential poll, Mr Morrison's "good in a crisis" rating has recovered spectacularly from 32 per cent in January to 66 per cent now.

It's the most profound turnaround, says Essential's Peter Lewis, since Kevin Rudd rocketed just as fast in the other direction a decade ago.

This surge of approval has survived two late-Friday visits to the federal bad news dumpster which the PM was careful to keep separate from his "father of the nation" press conferences; one a $60 billion blunder in the projected size of the JobKeeper scheme, the second a $710 million admission that the long-contested Robodebt programme was indeed unfair.

"What would normally be toxic and divisive millstones have been mostly waved through by a public that appears to be warming to this new look of collaborative, centrist leadership," says Lewis.

A year on from his re-election, Scott Morrison is now better placed than any prime minister since Kevin Rudd to effect change. He has a clear parliamentary majority and high personal approval ratings.

He has a good working relationship with state and territory leaders that is based not on the laboured choreography of bureaucrats but on recent shared trust and achievement.

He has the galvanising force of genuine crisis at his back. He has no internal opponents of plausible note. No Abbott, no Turnbull; even Alan Jones has vacated the scene.

He is unconstrained by grandiose election promises or it must be said personal ideology. He is perfectly placed to do something.

"I will do such things what they are yet I know not. But they shall be the terrors of the earth!" Shakespeare has King Lear pledge, as he stumbles about in a tempest.

And for all that the National Cabinet is new and full of potential, and the idea of funding issues being addressed directly by the treasurers is interesting, the million-dollar question is not what structure the decision-making bodies adopt, it's what the Prime Minister will attempt to do.

Rather presciently, the most ambitious of the state treasurers NSW's Dominic Perrottet commissioned a review of federal/state financial relations last year, well before bushfires and COVID-19 wrecked his books.

He pinched former Telstra chief David Thodey probably the nation's most thoughtful and gifted corporate leader to chair it, with a distinguished panel featuring former New Zealand PM Bill English, former Australian deputy PM John Anderson, constitutional expert Anne Twomey, former mandarin Jane Halton, and the economist John Freebairn.

The final report NSW Review of Federal Financial Relations is complete and will be released within weeks.

As foreshadowed by Mr Perrottet, it will recommend replacing stamp duty with a broad-cased land tax, and an overhaul of payroll tax, whose workhorse role in state budgets has been decimated by COVID-19-related waivers and at any rate is a profoundly inefficient and unpopular tax.

Other recommendations likely to excite comment are the ABC understands the trial of a congestion charge zone around the Sydney CBD, and a plan for distance pricing eventually to replace the existing motor vehicle registration, licencing, insurance and stamp duty systems..

But for the federation, two recommendations are particularly notable.

One is the proposal that the treasurers revisit together the scope and rate of the GST.

John Howard's original plan for the GST was a comprehensive charge, generating enough income to allow the states to abolish stamp duty entirely.

The compromise model, negotiated item by item with the Australian Democrats, carved out food, health and education; the states held onto stamp duty on property but abolished in on shares, along with a range of other taxes.

Prior to COVID-19, it was estimated that the exemptions to the GST in 2019-20 totalled $27.4 billion in lost revenue.

The other proposal from the review is you guessed it the revisitation of income tax.

Mr Thodey's proposal is for an opt-in system by which a state would not levy income tax directly, but be eligible for a share of the income tax paid by its residents. Revenue neutral for the taxpayer, this share would operate as an untied grant.

Mr Morrison already has a review of industrial relations on the boil; he's used the warmer-than-usual relationship between the Government, employers and ACTU leader Sally McManus as an opening to pursue progress in what's historically been a field every bit as seized-up as COAG.

He also has an energy and climate review lobbing before the end of the year, and no-one needs reminding how particularly sulphurous that policy bilge-pit has been for the Coalition and for Australian governments more broadly for the last decade.

A leader's influence is only ever as big as the amount of personal political capital he or she is prepared to blow on it.

Scott Morrison has a lot of political capital right now. Where will he spend it? We'll know soon enough.

See original here:

In hoping to reform the Federation, Morrison has sailed into treacherous waters - ABC News

This story was originally published on Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.

The US isn't the only country with a broken criminal justice system that works to criminalise and destroy the lives of black and brown families. Dylan Asafo puts forward two ways NZ could lead in dismantling systems of white supremacy.

OPINION: If you were to imagine a society without racial oppression, what would it look like?

In many community organising spaces within the US, these are the sorts of questions often posed in meetings of activists and change-makers coming together to seek justice for their communities.

Attendees then break up into groups, discuss the society and world they want to live in and draw pictures and write stories of the systems they want to dismantle and build to make that world possible.

While it may seem like a silly and stupid exercise to take part in, the point is to get activists to imagine a life for their communities beyond their current realities of racial violence and systemic inequality.

Opportunities to imagine their society or the world in this way not only provide collective healing and joy, but they also remind change-makers that they always need to be brave and ambitious in their pursuits for liberation, especially in times when it seems like every step forward will be followed by two steps back.

READ MORE:* Tiriti o Waitangi: Education and conversation essential to New Zealand becoming one * NZ's prisons a 'colonial eyesore' that should be abolished, expert says* Once Were Warriors 25 years on: Children still fighting family removal, Mori more than most* Youth climate group excited their climate law brought to life

One of the main inspirations for this type of exercise is the book Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination by Robin D. G. Kelley, in which Kelley draws on the work of intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora to observe that:

''[T]he catalyst for political engagement has rarely been misery, poverty, or oppression. People are drawn to social movement because of hope: their dreams of a new world radically different from the one they inherited.Our imagination may be the most revolutionary tool available to us.''

Right now, Aotearoa is being shaken by news of the protests taking place in response to the polices killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While there are no doubt a lot of New Zealanders being critical of these protesters, there are many of us standing and protesting in solidarity with the protestors and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

In needing to be careful not to co-opt, de-centre and misappropriate the black struggle, for many peoples of colour in Aotearoa this solidarity comes from having a deep understanding of the pain, exhaustion and anger that comes from constantly having your humanity denied by the white supremacist state.

It comes from appreciating the life and joy that black culture gives us and the world, too often without any acknowledgement, compensation and any sense of reciprocity in everyday acts of appropriation.

Lawrence Smith/Stuff

Protesters gathered in Auckland's Aotea Square earlier this week to voice their disgust at the murder of George Floyd in the US by a Minnesota police officer.

It comes from generations of failed promises of a so-called democracy that ensures equality and justice for all, regardless of race, colour, creed, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and disability status.

And perhaps more specifically, it comes from experiencing a broken criminal justice system that works to criminalise and destroy the lives of black and brown families.

Our criminal justice system, especially our policing structures and prison institutions, have always been designed to oppress Mori, as well as other groups of colour. Our nations history tells us how police and prisons were key tools of colonisation in enabling the mass theft of Mori land and the installation of the white supremacist system of capitalism to promote the socioeconomic domination of white settlers.

And our nations present tells us of the reality of violent neo-colonisation by police and prisons, in which 66 percent of those shot by police in the last 10 years were either Mori or Pacific, and 51 percent of the prison population are Mori and 12 percent are of Pacific descent.

Therefore, in this time of global revolution, the need for us to imagine an Aotearoa without racial oppression feels greater than ever.

In undertaking this task of radical imagination and freedom dreaming, it is critical that all of us in Aotearoa take the opportunity to learn (or re-learn) the following two lessons that Mori, black and other peoples of colour have been trying to teach the world for years:

Lesson One: Abolish police

As the baseless Armed Response Trial and recent unnecessary police shootings of only Mori and Pasifika people have made clear, our policing structures and practices deliberately target Mori and Pasifika communities.

But the problem with police isnt just a few bad racist cops or an illogical trial programme with racist American origins and purposes. The problem is the entire structure, which has a deep and pervasive culture of white supremacy and toxic masculinity.

Martin De Ruyter/Stuff

A New Zealand police car pictured attenting a scene in the Nelson area recently.

Unfortunately, this isnt a culture that is recent and easy to improve - its one that has been built and reinforced for centuries to the point it has become permanent.

As prison abolition group People Against Prisons Aotearoa (PAPA) argue in expressing their long-term demands for police abolition:

''The issues with the New Zealand Police, however, cannot be merely addressed through reform. Contrary to popular sentiment, the New Zealand Police does not engage in these violent and racist practices because of a couple of bad apples.

''As outlined in the Policing Act 2008, the functions of the New Zealand Police include 'keeping the peace', 'maintaining public safety', 'law enforcement', and 'crime prevention'.

''The police serves to maintain a capitalist social order and its racist, colonial dimensions. When it is keeping the peace, it is engaging in class war. When it is maintaining public safety, it is maintaining the safety of the privileged few at the expense of criminalised populations who are deemed unworthy of saving.''

To put it another way, one cannot expect to renovate and live comfortably in a house that has rotten foundations. Thankfully for us, policing structures are not the only way we can keep people safe, and we are perfectly capable of reimagining and building new systems to prevent and address harm.

In Aotearoa, were blessed to have a rich body of indigenous wisdom and knowledge in tikanga Mori that can guide our imagining of an Aotearoa where police arent disproportionately targeting Mori and Pasifika daily.

Were also fortunate to have Te Tiriti o Waitangi in our country, as well as brilliant Mori scholars, like Professors Moana Jackson and Margaret Mutu, working hard to build a Tiriti-based constitution that will help our nations leaders find ways to discuss, plan and implement these new systems that will keep all of our communities safe.

Getty-Images

'I've been angry': UFC star Israel Adesanya joined a packed protest march in Auckland earlier this week.

Furthermore, Aotearoa can only gain from learning from the transformative ideas of black and indigenous police abolitionists in the US such as peace circles. Of course, this will involve sharing our own ideas for alternatives to police in continuing our relationship of solidarity in our efforts to dismantle white supremacy as a global enterprise.

Lesson Two: Abolish our prison system

Abolishing the police must be done alongside abolishing our prison system.

While we have all been led to believe that prisons are the only way to keep dangerous people away from society, we must unlearn this lie. The prisons of today dont merely keep dangerous people away they systematically seek to destroy families of colour for generations as they have in Aotearoa since colonisation.

Like police, there is no prison reform possible that can completely eliminate the innate inhumanity and racism of prisons. The rotting house must be dismantled, and a new system needs to be built.

While figuring out the particulars of a new system will not be easy, several scholars and groups have already done incredible work in imagining an Aotearoa without prisons with tikanga Mori and Te Tiriti at the centre.

This includes the work of Mori thinkers (such as Professors Jackson and Tracey McIntosh), activist groups (such as PAPA and Just Speak) and advisory groups (such as Te Uep Hpai i te Ora The Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group).

The need for people in Aotearoa to take prison abolition seriously is best captured by Professor McIntosh, who poignantly argues:

''New Zealand must show global leadership in this area. Prison abolition brings a broad range of perspectives, from the radical direct-action activist to those operating from a faith-based perspective.

"Many big social upheavals seemed overly idealistic before they happened; the end of slavery, votes for women, same sex marriage, but now theyre the norm....We have to get away from the idea that locking people up is acceptable. A new prison is estimated to cost $1.5 billion. If we spent that money on health or education, what outcome would we get? We would expect it to make a positive difference. If you ask people if they expect a larger prison to make a positive difference, they cant really say yes.''

Here, McIntosh makes clear the unique role we in Aotearoa can potentially have in leading the way for black, indigenous and other groups of colour in the US and beyond for prison abolition.

While any social justice-minded lawyer will tell you that New Zealands current legal and political systems are fundamentally flawed, our potential to lead the world in abolition comes from having a more progressive government (at the moment) and somewhat weaker barriers to radical constitutional change than in the US.

Of course, these two lessons propose radical out-there ideas that have and will continue to encounter strong opposition from New Zealanders (politicians and community members alike) who subscribe to and benefit from the white supremacist structures of police and prisons.

But for many of us, especially people of colour in Aotearoa, we know that we owe it to our ancestors and the generations who will come after us to be bold, courageous and revolutionary.

Therefore, as we imagine, dream, protest and fight for a better Aotearoa, and face barriers to change that seems impossible to overcome, let us always be inspired by the words of legendary black American activist, Angela Davis:

''You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.''

*The author holds a Master of Laws from Harvard University, specialising in Critical Race Theory and minority rights.

This story was originally published on Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.

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How NZ can lead the way in dismantling systems of white supremacy - Stuff.co.nz