Is it the Tasmanian Government or is it Gunns Ltd? Is Kevin Rudd’s backdown on Labor’s forest policy really going to save jobs? Go and read Out of Control by Richard Flanagan in The Monthly, hosted on the Tasmanian Times site.
Category Archives: Politics
Who’s Asleep on Climate Change?
It Could Happen to You
There is a timely reminder in the Age that the sort of treatment dished out to Dr Haneef is not just for non-citizens, go and read it here.
Via Public Opinion.
Dr Haneef
I was going to write something about the Dr Haneef case, but Ken at Road to Surfdom has said everything I want to say plus more in an excellent post. Please go and read it.
More here.
Festival of Ideas: Recommended Listening
Radio Adelaide have started broadcasting recordings of sessions from the Adelaide Festival of Ideas, and many are now available for download, all of the details are here.
I would like to make some recommendations based on session I attended, or have downloaded and listened to. I will update this as I listen to more of them, though I don’t expect to get through all of them, so don’t read anything into the absence of a session from my list. All broadcasts are on 101.5 FM in Adelaide. Also, all sessions are available on cd from Radio Adelaide. All downloads are in mp3 format.
Updated 12/7
- High and Dry: John Howard, Climate Change and the Selling of Australia’s future with Guy Pearse. A compelling account of the Howard government’s failure on the issue of climate change from a Liberal party insider. To be broadcast on Wednesday July 18 at 12 noon, or download it (17.0MB).
- Drought Proofing Australia: Heroic Fantasies and Sobering Realities with Peter Cullen. An account of Australia’s water situation from a top expert who is also an excellent speaker who tells it straight. Download it (15.9MB).
- The Joy MacLennan Oration – Beyond the Long Age of Forgetting with Simon Longstaff. I managed to completely overlook this one on the weekend so I’m glad it was available for download. Longstaff very eloquently pinpoints the substitution of institutional tradition for ethical thinking as a key problem in our society. Download it (16.6MB).
- Trading places with John Connell, John Buchanan, Tim Harcourt, Colleen Ryan. This one didn’t leap out at me, in fact I wasn’t entirely clear on what it would be about, but it turned out to be probably my favourite group session which I attended. The reason is that I felt that the speakers all has something different to contribute, but it all fit in well with the overall topic, which was essentially the future of trade. Download it (29.3MB).
- What to Eat: Personal Responsibility vs Social Responsibility with Marion Nestle. An excellent speaker on a topic which effects us all on a daily basis, giving the insight that comes with being at the forefront of the fight for good nutrition in the USA (listen for how she “hurt sugar’s feelings”). Very entertaining and informative. Download it. (15.8MB)
- Lifting the lid on whistle-blowing with Julian Morrow, Guy Pearse, Norman Swan, Marian Wilkinson, Paul Chadwick (PC). This one was full and I couldn’t get in but now I’ve had a chance to listen to it. A fascinating, and important topic with an impressive and diverse group of speakers … I probably should have realised that it would be popular. Download it. (31.8MB)
- Mumbo-Jumbo, Snake Oil and Other Delusions with Francis Wheen. I plan to soon write a post about some of the ideas in this one, which is an amusing summary of the main ideas of the speakers latest book about the resurgence of superstition at the expense of critical thinking. Download it. (16.6MB)
- Survival of the Fittest, Survival of the Richest or Survival of the Thinnest with Norman Swan. The ABC’s medical expert gives an interesting perspective on the factors affecting life expectancy. This has already been broadcast, so if you want to hear it you have to download it. (16.6MB)
- Troubling times: Dissent and democracy in Australia with Sarah Maddison. Details the approach of the Howard government to dealing with dissent and the implications for democracy. Recommended for anyone who’s views have been dismissed as those of a “Howard Hater”. To be broadcast on Sunday August 26 at 12 noon. Download it. (14.9MB)
Greens Fundraiser Film Night
Extraordinary Extradition
Peter Martin of the Canberra Times writes about the largely unreported story of an Australian who was extradited to the US and given a prison sentence for intellectual property theft. He also received a $700,000 fine despite the fact that he never made money out of his crime. Now, people can debate the impact of this sort of crime and the punishment it deserves, but for me the big issue is that an Australian can be extradited to another country and tried under their law for a crime committed in Australia. This, it seems, is one of the “benefits” of our Free Trade Agreement with the USA. Take note that this man had never even set foot on US soil, meanwhile the US Navy are trying to get custody of one of their sailors who was arrested in Australia for grooming an underage girl for sex over the internet (actually a police officer posing as a 14 year old).
Who Makes the Nazis?
Most of us don’t like the Nazis for what they did, but for others it’s more a matter of who they did it to.
Also worth reading:
– Nazi torturers on trial and “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
– Four Corners on torture and rendition from an Australian perspective. I’ve been disappointed that this story hasn’t caused more of a stir than it has, for the evidence of the Government turning a blind eye to rendition of an Australian citizen, but also because of the apparent dishonesty of both politicians and public servants in the light of the documents obtained by 4C. I am happy to see now that there may be some action being taken regarding this matter.
Of course with any mention of Nazi’s one has to be careful to avoid Godwin’s Law.
Keating in fine form
Former PM Paul Keating had plenty to say on Lateline last night, and as usual he wasn’t holding anything back.
On Workchoices:
The great lie of the Howard Government in respect of workplace changes, they are simply a set of arrangements to keep unions out of workplaces. They’ve got nothing to do with productivity and the quicker we move away from that kind of discriminatory structure to a truly trust based co operative sharing of work and workloads, then we get back to reasonable levels of productivity and again, reasonable rates of growth in real wages.
On Labor’s top advisors:
They’ll do him no good. Because in the end those kind of conservative tea-leaf-reading focus group driven polling types who I think led Kim into nothingness, he’s got his life to repent in leisure now at what they did to him. They’re back, they’re back. Gary Gray lost the ’96 election with me and then lost ’98. He’s been given Kim Beazley’s best seat in Western Australia.
The Labor Party is not going to profit from having these proven unsuccessful people around who are frightened of their own shadow and won’t get out of bed in the morning unless they’ve had a focus group report to tell them which side of bed to get out.
and
They don’t have the structure or the creativity or the passion or the belief to go and grab the prize. They don’t understand a victory.
and
I know it’s happening again, but the current Federal secretary is the author of “don’t fight them on interest rates” at the last election. You wouldn’t put much faith in him, would you?
On AWAs:
AWAs as they are now have to be scrapped because they have a bias against the right of an individual to talk to another individual about their wages. I mean, show me any democracy worth having Tony and I’ll show you one where people can meet freely and talk about conditions at work and be represented by a union. That’s the poison in the AWA. That’s the only point of the AWA. It’s got to go.
On Joe Hockey:
Silly what’s his name, the “Shrek” whoever he was on the television this morning. What’s his name?
On the economy & Peter Costello:
Everything in those national accounts yesterday, everything, that is the growth in the economy and the low unemployment, the reason the system is not blowing, the tinder box has not taken off is because of the float, because of the tariff changes and because of the IR changes, structural changes. That’s why they’re there. Not because of any superior management by Mr Costello. You know this pat line tonight about you wouldn’t put an L plater. God, he’s the greatest L plater of all time.
Full interview here
More Recommended Reading
Just catching up on reading through my links on my day off, there’s a few things I’d like to recommend:
- Phil at Spinopsys has posted an interesting video about the high cost of free parking.
- Tim Lambert has been exposing the lies about DDT for ages, but his recent posts on the matter have been particularly good as he follows the money to find out where the “Rachel Carson is responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans” claim so beloved of anti-environmentalists came from.
- John Quiggin has written an excellent review of Clive Hamilton’s new book. The review serves as a concise history of the Howard government’s approach to climate change. Via Blogocracy.
- Nexus 6 finds that the Oz are very carefully targeting their advertising.
- Mark Diesendorf will be in Adelaide speaking about “Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy” this Thursday.
- Greens MLC Mark Parnell wants the SA Government to stop BHP’s free ride.
- The Denialism bloggers have a couple of great posts about cranks, first there is the how to guide , and then a case study – someone who will be familiar to readers of this blog, Alexander Cockburn. Also, you may have missed this link in an update to an old post, so here it is again: the Cockburn vs Monbiot debate.
That’s it for now, but I’ll get around to writing something myself some time soon.