el gringo

new direction.

2006-02-01T10:47:00.000+11:00

repository.

beazley.

2005-11-04T11:15:00.000+11:00

on IR, terror laws, civil rights, government accountability ...

2005-10-21T11:02:00.000+10:00

hijabs in australian schools.

2005-08-26T14:08:00.000+10:00

Young ~~anti immigrant redneck~~ ~~cultural terrorist~~ Liberal bright spark, "Stick it to 'em" Sophie Panopoulos doesn't miss a chance to throw the boot in. She has put forward the highly original idea of a ban on the wearing of headscarves to school by Muslim girls. She obviously has her eyes on the immigration portfolio some time in the future.

The argument to justify this stance is wonderful -- hijabs should be banned because wearing them is "more an act of rebellion than anything" according to Sophie, who has obviously spoken to many Islamic schoolgirls on this topic. I am sure that is what it is all about -- young girls like to be subjected to unwanted scrutiny, just so they can feel bad.

However, I think that Sophie has met her match. Brendon Nelson says that he defends the right to wear 'religious dress' school. That is fine, even though I would have thought that this is a matter for the states and has nothing to do with good old Brendon (but maybe his state sponsored education did not cover the concept of federalism -- he seems to be trying to stick his fingers in everywhere these days). But nevertheless, I am happy admit that Brendon and I do agree on this.

Sophie must be seen to be un-Ostrayan, if she is to disagree with that embodiment of Australian ~~nationalism~~ spirit, Nelson (and his donkey). Brendon might just have to call for her deportation (or just some deportment?). I would be happy if she was to just fuck off. (And maybe read the bit in the Constitution about how the Commonwealth shall not prohibit the free exercise of any religion)

hallelujah.

2005-08-25T14:43:00.000+10:00

Three out of five Tests have been played, with the Ashes tied one all.

As Leonard Cohen said*;

“It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift ”

I will se what happens in the Fourth test, tonight at Headingly.

*Thanks, ANPD.

all you need to know about modelling.

2005-08-08T12:18:00.000+10:00

In a meeting this morning, a very successful Economics Professor* said to me;

“I've tried [econometric time series analysis] a few times but I've never been able to estimate anything useful.”

He is a very bright fellow, and is straight up about things. He has also declared that the parameter values that he is using in a particular model literally “are no more than guesses”.

* He does have a name, but I have a job.

this is what the labor party does, remember?

2005-07-28T09:08:00.000+10:00

We have two Senators — one from the governing Coalition — willing to block the impending assault on the rights of the worker.

We also have a High Court challenge by the unions to the government’s propaganda campaign.

And what is ‘Bomber’ Beazley, our fabulous ‘Leader’ of the Opposition, going on about?

Terrorism. And security. And how Howard has left the country in an unprepared state.

Get a grip. (Somehow) You are the Leader of the Labor Party.

And people wonder why the ALP is stuck in opposition, and haemorrhaging members…

five bullets in the back of the head.

2005-07-25T10:51:00.000+10:00

On Thursday, Tony Blair declared to his English constituency;

“We've just got to react calmly, get on with our business as normal.”

On Friday, an unarmed man was brought to the ground, and then shot five times, point blank, in the head. Because there was a suspicion he may be a suicide bomber. A main reason is because it’s summer in London, and he was wearing a parka. No one has openly suggested it was because his skin was not white.

Jean Charles de Menezes was a 27 year old Brazilian, working as an electrician and on his way to work. He was younger than I am.

The full story is still to come out. Police claim that they identified themselves, and that this unarmed man had attempted to flee, so they tackled and killed for fear that he was a suicide bomber with a bomb strapped to his torso.
There are so many questions remaining in all this is, why did he run? (Or did he even run?). Why were police so convinced that he was a bomber that they felt compelled to shoot him. The accounts of this violent manifestation of a city on edge differ greatly:
From the Times:

“[A] family member said that he [had recently been attacked and robbed in that area by a gang of young white men and thought the plain-clothes officers were muggers.
By far the most controversial claim comes from a number of witnesses who have cast doubt on police statements that they shouted a warning or identified themselves to the suspect before opening fire.
Lee Ruston, 32, who was on the platform, said that he did not hear any of the three shout “police” or anything like it. Mr Ruston, a construction company director, said that he saw two of the officers put on their blue baseball caps marked “police” but that the frightened electrician could not have seen that happen because he had his back to the officers and was running with his head down.
Mr Ruston remembers one of the Scotland Yard team screaming into a radio as they were running. Mr Ruston thought the man that they were chasing “looked Asian” as he tumbled on to a waiting Northern Line train.
Less than a minute later Mr Menezes was pinned to the floor of the carriage by two men while a third officer fired five shots into the base of his skull.
Again, Mr Ruston says that no verbal warning was given.”

The head of the Met has ‘apologised’ for the outcomes that result from the shoot-to-kill policy:

“To the family I can only express my deep regrets. What we have got to recognise is that people are taking incredibly fast-moving decisions in life threatening situations. There is no point in shooting in someone's chest because that is where the bomb is likely to be. There is no point in shooting anywhere else if they fall down and detonate it. The only way to deal with this is to shoot to the head.”

More on shoot-to-kill here.

This is frightening. Here we have the beginnings of a demise in civil society, with fear and suspicion and state control taking over, and individual rights and liberties steadily compromised under the umbrella of the fight against terror. All over the world, there are ongoing requests for more and more powers to detain without charge, for longer periods of time, with less reason. What is this supposed fight for, if not to maintain our civil society?

I agree with Tim Hames: “If al-Qaeda has created an atmosphere in which an ordinary person can have five bullets pumped into him by the police, and society shrugs its shoulders, then the terrorists have already won a modest victory.”

run machine.

2005-07-21T13:51:00.000+10:00

“[Mohammed Ali] says that the fight is won before you get in the ring, under the lights in the gym and on the streets, and I believe that as well. My preparation has been meticulous for this series. I had 12 rounds of boxing on Saturday; I’ve trained like a heavyweight fighter and now it’s business time. Australia versus England at Lord’s — it does not get better than that.”
Justin Langer, interviewed for the Times.

Everyone has been largely ignoring JL in the runup to the series. I wouldn't be so dismissive — he is a complete psycho, and a genuine run machine. Who has played a lot of cricket in England. And fantasises about beating the shit out of Steve Harmison.

*stop salivating with anticipation*

what does it take to get a new minister around here?

2005-07-21T11:58:00.000+10:00

The Palmer Report was released last week, documenting the failure of the Department of Immigration, Multiculurallism and Indigenous Affairs with regards to Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alverez Solon. The list of fuckups continues to grow, with the two Hwang children now released.
Palmer said in his report that:

“Old values and attitudes must be removed, and a new, enabling culture must be fostered”.

I say, how about starting with the Minister?*
As you would expect, Vanstone refuses to accept that she has done anything wrong:

“I don't know that a new minister would do better, frankly”.

Arrogance personified. Is this “ignor[ing] criticism”? Is she “unwilling to question [her]self”? Is she solely interested in “justifying and protecting the status quo”? These are all concerns that Palmer raised about the nature of DIMIA (see pages 164-165).

Palmer goes on — DIMIA is “deaf” to the concerns of others, and, “people seem unwilling to accept ownership of matters beyond their immediate responsibilities … there [is] no effective management oversight”. I really don't know whether he is talking about Vanstone or the department.

Can we have some sort of ministerial responsibility? If Vanstone was a decent Minister, she would recognise that there had been systemic failure of DIMIA under her control. Whether or not this failure is the result of policies and structures implemented under her control is not the issue here — she has allowed it to continue, and has overseen this ongoing "culture of denial and defensiveness" and has done nothing to fix it. We need someone who can fix it.

* I would be happy with a Royal Commission to start with. However, the Howard government actually rewards incompetence and mismanagement, having already promoted the former Secretary of DIMIA, rather than questioning it.

quote.

2005-07-21T11:44:00.000+10:00

I disagree with a lot of what he did. And I guess I do agree with some of it. I agree with of this (except the bit about not rubbishing the party). This is just a cracker of a quote:

I said "Tomorrow John" and he said "I know where your sympathies lie" and I said "I don't give a fuck. I have no sympathies any more. You're all a pack of shits and tomorrow I'm going bezerk". Well he went off his brain and in the end I said to him, I said "Howard. You're a cunt. You haven't got my support, you never will have and I'm not going to rubbish you or the party tomorrow but I feel a lot better having told you you're a cunt."

Jeff Kennett talking to Andrew Peacock about John Howard, from an intercepted car phone conversation, 23 March 1987.

Found via flute.

blogging in baghdad.

2005-07-13T14:14:00.000+10:00

This week’s Guardian Weekly (we only get it once a week here in Oz) supposedly contains an excerpt from a “Girl blog from Iraq”.* The blog, written by Riverbend, is worth reading to gain some an impression of what living under US occupation is like.

For example:

“Detentions and assassinations, along with intermittent electricity, have also been contributing to sleepless nights. We’re hearing about raids in many areas in the Karkh half of Baghdad in particular. On the television the talk about ‘terrorists’ being arrested, but there are dozens of people being rounded up for no particular reason. Almost every Iraqi family can give the name of a friend or relative who is in one of the many American prisons for no particular reason. They aren’t allowed to see lawyers or have visitors and stories of torture have become commonplace. Both Sunni and Shia clerics who are in opposition to the occupation are particularly prone to attacks by “Liwa il Theeb” or the special Iraqi forces Wolf Brigade. They are often tortured during interrogation and some of them are found dead.”

You may want to contrast this with Chrenkoff’s schlock about how good things are in Iraq. Of course, he is able to say how good things are in Iraq on the basis of his experiences ... with the Australian Liberal party, possibly in Brisbane (?).

Maybe it is worthwhile to recognise that not everything that goes on there (Iraq, not Brisbane) is terrible, and that there is hope for progressing beyond occupation. But if I am seeking commentary on the situation in Iraq I am always going to go to someone writing a blog from Baghdad over someone trawling media releases for anything that appears remotely responsive to positive spin. And her writing is so much more enjoyable.

Anyway, am going to keep on reading...

update: The Guardian entry is here. It is an extract from a forthcoming book. An introduction to the Chrenkoff blog can be found here.

* I say supposedly, because I have only heard about it being in the paper — someone may or may not have run off with my Guardian before I got to that bit.

only seven more sleeps.

2005-07-13T14:02:00.000+10:00

It was good to see that last night the Australians put the upstart English back in their box, prior to the Ashes series that begins on 21 July. Only seven more sleeps ‘til the first Test. Of course, this is only pyjama cricket and is of no real importance, save to the bank balances of those concerned.

A few of things to be said about this ~~cash cow~~ one day series*;

Gillespie bowled quite decently last night (though he shouldn’t have dropped that catch), and so the Australian selectors are faced with a quandary as to what fast bowlers to take into the first Test at Lord’s.

It is good to see Ponting and Gilchrist (he really shouldn’t have dropped that catch, either) back in form. Gilchrist’s ability to deal with the English pitches — the ball coming onto the bat a bit more slowly and with less bounce — could be quite important in allowing Australia to post bigger scores than the English. And then you add JL to the mix…

Steve Harmison has looked awesome so far (especially that spell at Bristol), but last night he was mauled by the Australians, coming away from the game with the second worst ever one day figures for England (apparently part time bowler Derek Randall’s gentle lobs got him the worst ones ever). Harmison is very good, and is not to discounted, but he is not the bee’s knees like Glen McGrath.

Kevin Pieterson has to play in the Tests (though please bat him at 6). He is great to watch and just makes the game exciting — you know something is going to happen when he is there. Sort of like whenever Chris Judd gets the ball for West Coast.

Where do you fit Mike Hussey into the Australian Test side? He is so untroubled by the English conditions and attack it is disturbing. If Hayden or Clarke don’t make runs in the first Test, I would bring him in straight away for either of them (and if any Victorians say anything along the lines of, “what about Brad Hodge?”, just laugh and say “who’s he?”). In fact I would seriously consider dropping Clarke right now.

And finally the new one day rules have got it wrong — they do confer an unfair advantage on the side that has won the toss, not that this had any real effect on the best of three series. This can be easily changed by making the teams name their twelve players, toss the coin and decide who’s batting first and then decide who’s playing.

* I have to say them here because I could ramble on about this all day and no one will listen to me in real life.

the degree factories.

2005-06-28T10:27:00.000+10:00

Last night on Four Corners, the ideologically blind Brendon Nelson was asked if there was any incentive for lecturers to “dumb down” courses in Australian universities.

A couple of lecturers had asserted that they had felt the various “pressures” and “temptations” to lower the standards for their courses. It has been well known for a long time that universities fall to these temptations and place their lecturers under pressure to accede to their demands. It is patent that they do, given that:
1. Australian universities are completely dependent upon full–fee paying international students (something in the order of 30-40% of their revenue -- I am unsure of that number). Easier entry requirements mean more students (in the short term), and more revenue. At the same time they require easier courses if they are going to pass. (Really, how can you have a business degree with no economics component?)
2. The increasing importance accorded to student review mechanisms mean that declining popularity of a course may lead to its demise.

I have seen both of these things happen.

The only incentive remaining for academics to maintain standards is that of academic integrity, which is certainly not unimportant. But I am sure it would be difficult to maintain standards, especially if you are teaching in a small university course that is pitched primarily at international students to garner revenue for the university. (And in this case the university overrides your marking anyway, so it is impossible to maintain standards).

Brendon Nelson’s *considered* response to the suggestion that there may be some perverse incentive to lower academic standards in Australian standards:

“Absolutely ridiculous. You show me these lecturers — that’s absolutely ridiculous”.

I agree. This is fucking ridiculous. You wonder if our Minister for Education got his degree off ebay from an Australian university starved of funds and willing to prostitute itself for whatever money it can find*.

*Actually no. He got his for free from a university that had sufficient funding at the time.

IR reviews

2005-06-22T11:11:00.000+10:00

Someone asked me ages ago to write about what I thought about the imminent IR 'reforms' and I still haven't got around to it. It is a subject that I feel that I know very little about and don't really feel confident talking about it. Still, I am slowly getting a clearer idea as to where things are going, and it is, well, scary.

However, a good overview of the changes and their potential effects are found here, in the form of a 'report card' on the government's IR reform process, produced by a range of IR and labour market academics. They feel that it is a good idea that "industrial relations policies should be informed and led by research and evidence". Reasonable.

They conclude that the reforms will:

Undermine people's rights at work

Deliver a flexibility that in most cases is one way, favouring employers

Do - at best - nothing to address work family issues

Have no direct impact on productivity

Disadvantage the individuals and groups already most marginalised in Australian society

In addition to the overview page there is a range of accompanying (draft) papers that are of interest. I am currently looking at the one on wage inequality by Peter Saunders (the 'good' one, not the 'evil' one). Keep you posted on that one.

The only thing that I can add at the moment is that any negative effects that are to be felt now are only going to be amplified in times of lower (or negative) economic growth. If these reforms are increasing the market power of the employer at the moment, with unemployment at one of its lowest levels for donkey's years, what is going to happen if/when things get a bit tighter? This extra leverage in the labour market will be fully utilised by employers and the consequences realised by employees in times of economic downturn and an excess supply of labour. You think that it is bad now, just wait.

On the upside, with the collection and concentration of control of the IR realm by the federal government, if a Labor government was to return to power (hah!), they would be able to institute their changes.
(Whatever such changes would be... how the fuck would I know what the ALP are thinking? They are such non-entity. Come on guys, we are talking about worker's rights here)

Thanks to Robert for pointing me towards the UNSW page. It is both interesting and useful.

on credibility.

2005-06-15T10:00:00.000+10:00

Who has more credibility? Politicians who are willing to go against the flow of their party to fight a matter of unconscionable immigration policy, or brown nosers who resort to labelling their colleagues “terrorists” for objecting to institutionalised human rights abuse in Australia?

Rool klassy, Soph.

Update: The daily flute (via Guido) is waiting for the Georgiou Four to be to be "packed off to a gulag", on the basis of the ASIO bill.

suppressing and internalising discussion.

2005-06-15T09:54:00.000+10:00

In the absence of any effective opposition from the ALP it is good that there is still some political exchange continuing on the subject of mandatory detention and immigration law.

It looks as though now the Georgiou bills will now be introduced on Monday next week, barring a spectacular backflip (which would not go unappreciated) from our PM. On the breakfast show on RN this morning, the Member for Pearce, Judy Moylan, said something along the lines of;

“Party room solidarity needs to be put aside in the interests of human rights”.

Nice idea. Only took eight years of government to for you to realise.

And, while he is letting the two private member’s bills be introduced to the House of Representatives, our wonderfully open-minded leader is not going to give these bills any precedence, therefore limiting Parliamentary time to Georgiou’s introductions of the two bills and not allowing them to be debated.

You could easily read this as Howard suppressing debate on human rights issues in Parliament.

Of course, another interesting bit of all this is that to allow the bills to be debated, the dissident Liberals (Georgiou, Moylan, Bruce Baird and Russell Broadbent) will have to cross the floor, something that has not been an issue for a long time, if at all, under the Howard regime. Am waiting.

graft.

2005-06-09T11:22:00.000+10:00

graft
/grahft/
noun . the acquisition of gain or advantage by dishonest, unfair, or shady means, especially through the abuse of one's position or influence in politics, business, etc.

On the front page of the Age* today, it was reported that an astonishing 16 out of the 27 ‘special sports grants’ awarded prior to the federal election last year went to the one seat of Mcewen, held by the Minister for Small Business and Tourism, Fran Bailey. The Liberals had only held the seat in the 2001 election by a slender 1.04 percent advantage, and so there was a considerable realistic chance that the ‘honourable’ member would not get re-elected.

The article also points out that another 6 of the grants went to another marginal Liberal seat, Makin, where Trish Draper (who we know is not averse to a good rort if she can find one) was re-elected.

Minister for Sports, Rod Kemp says that there is no problem, because over half of the total money awarded went to Labour seats — it is my thought that John Howard chucked $8 million at Whitten oval in Footscray (a non-marginal ALP seat) precisely so that this line of defence could be offered.

Apparently, a “dozen of the grants were for $10,000, regardless of the cost of the upgrade they were undertaking”. As Labor's regional development spokesman, Kelvin Thomson, said the pattern of grants had “all the hallmarks of election bribes”. Thomson goes on to say;

“One electorate gets more projects than the other 149 electorates around Australia combined, and 12 of the 16 projects just happen to be for the same amount. What an astonishing coincidence.If something like this were to happen in Papua New Guinea or the Solomons, the World Bank or the IMF would cry graft.”

Another coincidence is that Bailey had a favourable swing of 5.18 percent in the 2004 election. It works.

but he’s sooo beautiful — he must be innocent.

2005-06-08T11:40:00.000+10:00

I am now awaiting the cultural backlash following Russell Crowe being charged with assault in NYC, and facing up to seven years in jail.

I think that this means that we really should cancel all aid to the USA (manifested as the recently enacted FTA, over support of ongoing imperialism) and start boycotting America completely (no more watching the OC …)

Where is Howard on this one? What is Downer doing? What are Bolt and Ackerman saying?

Don’t worry Russell, I heard from a mate that I sort of know through work that someone’s cousin was sitting on the train to Lilydale and overheard this dodgy fellow talking about how someone had told him that it was the baggage handlers chucked the phone. You'll be right, mate.

obligatory corby post.

2005-06-07T15:15:00.000+10:00

I wasn’t going to post on the Corby case … but (and you knew that was coming) but when reading about it today, a couple of things came to mind. I can go on about this for a while, but I will try and keep things somewhat to a minimum.

I agree with Ken Parish that the initial evidence does sway me towards thinking that she’s guilty. Cited in support of this Troppo line is Federal Court Judge Ronald Sackville who says;

“having a large amount of a prohibited drug in a person's luggage is ordinarily enough to establish a prima facie case against an accused in any legal system.”

Despite this that we can’t really know because we haven’t heard the evidence ourselves, and I for one don’t know anything about criminal law in Indonesia (or Australia, for that matter) anyway.

Throughout all the bullshit being slung around, I have become aware of the case of Chika Honda and her three fellow Japanese tourists who were convicted in Australia for trafficking heroin 13 years ago. This case has a number of striking similarities with the Corby case, and was discussed by both Sushi Das and Guido. One of the things that struck me about this case was I had no idea of it whatsoever before I came across Guido’s post, yet this has been going on for 13 years, and there is still a campaign to have Chika Honda’s conviction overturned. We didn’t care about it at all then, despite the same protestations of innocence, claims of people being used as unwitting ‘mules’, and allegations of bias in the foreign court system that we have been shouting so loudly. Listen to the discussion on this morning’s Radio National if you want more information on this case.

Other interesting facets of this saga are the initial reaction and outrage (pretty girl, big tits, lets have hoax a terrorist attack on the Indonesian embassy, take our money back, I’m not going to Bali anymore …), and the ensuing reaction to the reaction, including Piers Ackerman and Andrew Bolt telling the rednecks to chill out (!) — which, despite the seriousness of the matter, is quite amusing.

The sheer amount of bollocks that has been spread around by the wider media has been covered extensively in the media. And then you have the sheer amount of bollocks that is being spread around on the sheer amount of bollocks that is in the wider media. Go to Liz Jackson’s Mediawatch for an exposition of the spineless and pandering News Limited written media shock jocks of Ackerman, Bolt and Kelly.

It must be recognised that this bollocks is by no means limited to News Limited. My own (comparatively mild) example of this, that struck me this morning, is the use of the Roy Morgan poll on the Corby case that was used in the Age.

On Saturday, they used the poll as a basis to claim that,

“Most Australians believe convicted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby is innocent”

They go on to say that a *massive* 51 percent of those polled thought Corby was not guilty.

Today (Tuesday) they come out with the question, “Corby: what do most believe?”, and answer their question with the statement that,

“Australians are far more ambivalent about the Corby verdict than her supporters and the media coverage have suggested to date… For all of the vociferous outcry on talkback radio and the vigorous campaigning in some sections of the media, the results suggest a healthy degree of public scepticism about the way in which Corby's plight has been portrayed.”

Using the same poll, they point out that only 17 percent think that Corby was definitely not guilty (which means that 34 percent think that she was probably not guilty). Nice cutting of the data, guys.

The same criticisms that Liz Jackson levels at the News Limited parrots apply here — the Age is willing to run with the hype when it suits them, but when it is recognised that the unsavoury public reaction to the Corby verdict is a direct function of the sheer bullshit that has been heaped on the public, then they are totally unwilling to admit any role that they have had themselves.

That is enough ranting for today.

the DSP offensive.

2005-06-06T11:21:00.000+10:00

The Australian Federation of Disability Organisations is initiating ‘Campaign Enable’, a targeted offensive seeking to achieve changes to policy relating to Disability Support Pensions (DSP) announced at the last budget. They are targeting marginal electorates that have a significant population of disabled people and unemployed people:

“Campaign ‘Enable’ is targeted at 16 electorates where the Government is likely to sit up and take notice of our concerns. In 14 electorates the number of people with disability and on the Disability Support Pension exceeds the number of votes needed for the seat to change hands, e.g the Government holds the seat of Bass in Tasmania by 2.6%, the number of people living in Bass in receipt of the Disability Support Pension is 6.9%. We have also included the seat of Deakin as there is only 1% between the number of people on DSP (4.0) and the margin (5.0%) The 16th target electorate is the Prime Minister’s seat. At the next election 16 seats will decide who wins Government. As the following table shows, the significant number of Australians with disability living in these electorates means that policies affecting people with disabilities will be one of the deciding issues in the 2007 election.

We believe the Government’s changes to the Disability Support Pension will force many people with a disability on to unemployment benefits – leaving them $44 a week worse off.”

A list of the targeted electorates and current members, electoral margins, and percentages of electorates that currently on DSP or unemployment benefits is to be found in the campaign kit. The reaction of the AFDO to the recent changes is found here.

the tiebout hypothesis.

2005-06-01T18:06:00.000+10:00

It is supposedly the 50th anniversary of what is referred to as the Tiebout hypothesis*. I was unaware of this hypothesis until today (a reflection upon tertiary education in this country?) but it is always good have learnt something that I probably should have already known about. (Even though, as usual with economics, it just seems like common sense).

The way I see it, governments are subject to a sort of competition (with each other) as suppliers of public goods. People will move elsewhere if they are not satisfied with the services they receive from their government for the taxes they pay, imposing a competitive pressure toward efficiency in the government sector. Specifically:

“Tiebout argued that individuals select the communities in which they live by carefully balancing the taxes they must pay against the level of public services they receive in return. Rather than waiting for annual elections or voting referenda to express their preferences (which are satisfied only if they are in a majority), people find more immediate solutions to restoring imbalances that may suddenly arise between taxes and services: they move. One result of the threat to move is that it imposes competition on governmental units and, theoretically, forces them to be more efficient in supplying goods and services out of taxes.” (more to be found here, link found via catallaxy).

This is probably most applicable at a local government level, although this immediately suggests to me that the restriction of migration removes most of this competitive pressure that is placed on national governments (even though we already know that restrictions on the movement of labour is uncompetitive). Further inefficiencies would result from any costs associated with relocation.

The other interesting thing about this is how this might be realised — catallaxy refers to a post about Christian fundamentalists mobilising to take over Alabama (or somewhere) when the;

“federal government forces sodomite marriages on our local communities.”

I didn’t realise that it was part of the Bush agenda to make married people sodomise each other. Whatever. I do think that it would be good if Christian fundamentalists went and hung out all together and stopped trying to impose their ideas on the rest of the world. Or maybe Tiebout thinks that we should try and move away from Christians.

* This was put to me by a learned colleague a bit prone to distraction. However, from what I see, the paper was not published until 1956. So maybe we will talk about it again next year. We were meant to be discussing the problems of (not) including behavioural components in the model which I am currently working on. Actually, you can see why we are both prone to distraction.

expectations.

2005-05-31T14:01:00.000+10:00

The most striking indicator of disparate nature of life along the Indigenous/non–Indigenous divide in Australia is the average life expectancy one has at birth. A male child born between 1997–1999 in Australia could expect to live about 76.3 years*. In 1999–2001 this male child could expect to live about 77 years.

If this child was Indigenous, then in 1997–1999, he had a life expectancy of only 55.6 years. By 1999–2001 this had increased to 56.3 years.

This is a difference of over twenty years in life expectancy, solely attributable to a person's Indigenous status.

Because I am not Indigenous, I am likely to live twenty years longer than someone who is.

I guess that this not new to most people, but I find it the most simple indicator of the problem here in Australia. I find it an incredibly stunning statistic — just so fundamental.

JWH admitted yesterday that the differences between Indigenous and non–indigenous health outcomes in Australia is:

“unacceptable, indeed quite appalling”

We agree on one thing, then. But what has he done about it in the 8 years he has been Prime Minister? I can't find anything.

* The years I have chosen here are ones that are fully comparable across both categories. Numbers are available from the Report on Government Services, and the difference in life expectancy is about the same for women.

quickly — very serious and very funny.

2005-05-20T16:51:00.000+10:00

Forum on ~~upcoming IR reform~~ imminent assault on the rights of the worker is on this Sunday at Brunswick Town Hall, 233 Sydney Rd Brunswick, put on by the Moreland City Council. Speakers will include The Hon. Dr Carmen Lawrence MP, Federal Member for Fremantle (*sigh*), and Martin Kingham, State Secretary, CFMEU Construction Division. For more information, phone Council on 9240 1222. Thanks to Pseph Cat for this.

This is how I like my fundamentalist — seriously funny. If you have not read about American anti–abortionist Neal Horsley, then go here, here and here to get the story. Go here to listen to the interview.

fine quote.

2005-05-12T09:45:00.000+10:00

“If we are getting restless under the taxonomy of a monocotyledonous wage doctrine and a cryptogamic theory of interest, with involute, loculicidal, tomentous and moniliform variants, what is the cytoplasm, centrosome, or karyokinetic process to which we may turn, and, in which we may find surcease from the metaphysics of normality and controlling principle?” Thorstein Veblen

Found this quote in: James K. Galbraith, “Can we please move on? A note on the Guerrien debate”, post-autistic economics review, issue no. 15, September 4, 2002, article 2.

more “incentive to work”.

2005-05-11T17:08:00.000+10:00

Costello said last night;

“… from July 1, 2006, a person capable of part-time work will no longer be entitled to a disability pension if they are capable of working more than 15 hours a week at award wages.”

Right. So this is a campaign to force people from the Disability Support Pension (DSP) into the labour force.

“The object of these changes is to protect the genuinely disabled but to encourage those capable of part-time work to look for it.”

So … those who are deemed to be capable of part time work are not “genuinely” disabled. Right.

Did the Treasurer know there has already been a pilot study to engage DSP recipients with Job Network Providers, to encourage them to find jobs?*

As the Productivity Commission noted,

“Participation was voluntary, so that the pilot program probably attracted people with lower inherent barriers to work. For example, participans in the pilot were less likely to be aged 59 or more years and to have been on DSP for 10 years or more than the general population of DSP recipients”. (emphasis added)

That is, we have a sample population that is biased towards positive outcomes in this study.

The PC goes on to summarise the outcomes of the pilot study;

“Of the 1100 people initially considered for the pilot, around 500 did not ultimately participate or subsequently exited (because they declined to participate further, often due to poor health, or were found to be not eligible or suitable). Of the stayers, 59 per cent remained unemployed (around 10 times the average unemployment rate), 38 per cent got jobs and the small remainder entered educational courses. Of the successful job seekers, most got casual jobs (42 per cent) or part-time jobs (34 per cent), with only 24 per cent getting full time non-casual jobs. This contrasts with the economy as a whole, where the respective employment shares in these work categories are 28 per cent, 11.8 per cent and 60.6 per cent respectively.”

Hardly a raging success, but this pilot was deemed sufficient justification to force people from the DSP into the labour force. Where they are, in all likelhood, going to be ten times more likely to be unemployed (and receiving Newstart) than the labour force as a whole.

If the same proportions observed in the pilot are realised following the implementation of this cut to DSP, 60 percent of those forced into the labour force will simply have their income cut by $76 dollars per fortnight (as they go from DSP to Newstart).

As Costello said today; “We see this as helping people to better their lives.”

Right.

* The pilot study was conducted by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and the interim report can be found here.

shafted.

2005-05-11T13:15:00.000+10:00

The disadvantage that results to the middle income earners (such as me) can be seen clearly in the graph above.

As taxable income increases, the difference between the two income tax schedules (tax paid under the new minus tax paid under the old) as a percentage of total tax paid under the new schedule (yellow line) can be seen to steadily decrease as taxable income increases, until around the $58k mark.

After that it is fun times. Now that is an 'incentive to work', if I have ever seen one. Maybe one day, if I work really hard and sell my soul to the devil I could be one of those rich people.

I have also included tax 'relief' as a percentage of (a) net income uner the new system, (b) gross income.

“incentive to work”.

2005-05-11T11:43:00.000+10:00

It was a prescient choice for me to wear my angry tie this morning. I am seriously pissed off and I haven’t even had the opportunity to sit down at look at the news clippings yet.

The presentation of the budget last night announced a range of massive tax cuts that will be introduced over the next few years. This was justified under the tired maxim that lower tax provides an incentive to work.

As Peter “it’s my go on the swing” Costello said in his speech;

“to improve incentives for people to move out of welfare into work, I am announcing a tax cut for low-income earners. The 17-cent tax rate which applies between $6000 and $21,600 will be cut to 15 cents in the dollar. This change will take effect on July 1.”

Knock yourself out. For someone on $20,000 a year, this equates to about an extra $280 — or $5.40 a week. The tax that this person pays is equal to about 1.6 percent of their post tax income.

Compare this to someone on $100,000, who is $3252 better off ($62.5/wk). This net benefits from this change is equal to around 4.6 per cent of this person’s post tax income.

And this is a “progressive” income tax system.

The difference in the post tax incomes under the different income tax schedules is shown above. Those that benefit the most are those with pre tax incomes over $58,000. (And this doesn’t incorporate changes to various taxers faced by companies that allow a lot of these higher income earners access to lower rates anyway).

If you are thinking about effective marginal tax rates you probably want to chuck the changes to Newstart in. The top taper rate for Newstart has been cut from 0.70 to 0.60 cents in the dollar, and the threshold where this kicks in is to be at $250 rather than $142. This is good, but a fairly minimal move in the right direction — the total increase in welfare expenditure is just under $4bn. Compare this to the $22bn of tax cuts focussed largely on the wealthy (look at my graph, again).

Now this rant maybe somewhat ideological — I am sort of into the idea of redistribution of income. I do have a bias towards the idea of equality of opportunity (from each according to his ability, to each according to his need … with a healthy dash of market–based incentive structure to ensure some efficiency in production and allocation of resources ... ). You can also consider it from a more economic perspective. This budget is promoting consumption, through delivering so much cash back into the hands of the consumers. This is likely to have an expansionary effect, which will translate to inflation as the economy is struggling to grow further, anyway. This profligacy is likely to deliver further upward pressure on interest rates.

If you are not going to give the money to those that need it (which I know will probably have a greater effect on consumption) at least save it in the form of a surplus, or invest it infrastructure and training to try and promote future possibilities for expansion.

Enough for now.

On an aside, how much did the Age pay Misha Schubert to regurgitate Peter Costello’s guff? Tow the line, baby. No critical thought going on there.

now we wait for gordon brown.

2005-05-06T14:49:00.000+10:00

And so … we have some semblace of sanity in the UK, with British voters rejecting Michael Howard’s (Lyndon Crosby) assertion that immigration was the source of all their problems.

This new brand of racism (supposedly a leftie fabrication) failed to fascinate the voters in the UK as well as it did in Australia, where it has been a (the?) driving force in federal politics for nearly a decade. This is good. (But why are the people I share my country with so blind?)

Howard has conceded defeat, albeit with a fairly good gain on the Labour Party. To be fair, he never had a hope, and it looks as though the previous Labour margin of 165 seats has been at least halved.

In no way am I pro Tory (but not particularly pro Tony, either), but maybe this will be a good thing. I hope that this reduced margin, coupled with the rise of the Liberal Democrats, will reintroduce a level of accountability that seemed so missing in Blair’s previous term.

The swing against Labour is at the moment 4.2 percent, with the Tories only increasing their share of the vote by 1.1 percent. The Liberal Democrats have increased their share by around 4.1 percent.

And Boris Johnson and George Galloway have both been reelected, to ensure some modicum of excitement.

This all seems fairly good.

The next question is: how long ‘til Gordon Brown kicks in?

Update: Larvatus Prodeo has a good rundown of election blogging and what's been happening.

bogan roots and football.

2005-05-06T11:34:00.000+10:00

Amidst all the shit going down over Captain Ben and Michael Gardiner refusing to say why they hang out with ~~dodgy cunts~~ ‘high-profile Northbridge identities” such as John Kizon, the West reported that former WCE centre half forward Karl Langdon, never renowned for being a particularly bright spark, felt;

“that there was nothing wrong with footballers associating with alleged crime figures and admitted he had had relationships with them during his football career.”

I do hope they were long and fulfilling relationships.

Not having to ever see Karl Langdon around town or in advertisements is one of the many good things about moving to Melbourne.

So, over the last year, or so, we have had;

Our captain and star ruckman refuse to cooperate with police questioning over a shooting and stabbing. What are you doing hanging out at Metro City anyway?

A star midfielder admitting dependence on prescription painkillers and convicted for falsifying a script.

This star midfielder also broke the captain’s arm by chucking him down the stairs at a seedy Perth watering hole (not the same one where people were getting stabbed and shot, but near where a whole bunch of women were abducted). This altercation was following an argument regarding the shagging of the captain’s little sister. Oops.

Another midfielder/utility player was cleared of beating the crap out of a bloke at the same pub.

Up and coming key position player being involved in a high-speed car chase in his HSV ute (very classy) across Perth, reaching speeds of 135 kph (surely it goes faster than that, Quentin), before crashing it and running away from the accident. I think he got done for drunken driving, resisting arrest and leaving the scene of an accident.

This all makes me proud to be a West Coast supporter and a Perth western suburbs bogan.

(We are on top of the table and undefeated)

cross media linkage.

2005-04-29T14:35:00.000+10:00

Following the newly betrothed (many congratulations) Northcote Knob’s comment* about problems with site registration at Hugh Martin’s blog, I came across the NY times link generator (via H.M.). Basically you go to their site and find their article, go to the generator and it presents the archived address for you. Here is a test of a current story and the archived link.

It would be good for the the Murdoch and Fairfax crew both adopt this. For the West to do this, they would actually have to develop a functioning website first.

* Which I generally agree with, but I figure, you do it once and it’s done.

no surprises.

2005-04-27T11:31:00.000+10:00

Four out of the five highest ranking officers implicated in the institutionalised torture at Abu Ghraib have been cleared of any criminal misconduct.

The story broke just over a year ago – we got the photos and the shocking stories, then the interviews and the documentaries. The military just lets it lay low for a while, and then exonerates its top brass.

No surprises here …

It is worth reading the Hersh article again, just to remember how horrible these cunts were/are.

call to squidbloggers.

2005-04-14T12:41:00.000+10:00

I am not sure what has been happening over there at squidlog -- they sort of seem to have gone a bit AWOL. I am not being critical ... I am just worried.

Anyway, I found the picture and a whole bunch of other great material at the wonderfully named National Resource Center for Cephalopods. I am glad that there are some people providing help to underprivileged Euprymna scalopes

I found the NRCC via the 'other' squidbloggers (I am not cheating, I swear).

BTW I am fully aware that I have been lax with posting -- I have much to do at the moment.

lovely.

2005-04-11T11:14:00.000+10:00

It was very enjoyable to watch West Coast defeat Freo on the weekend. From all over little Perth (aka Melbourne) a bunch of West Australians descended upon the East Brunswick hotel. A few hardcore West Coast fans — big props for Stash bringing his own West Coast bar mat to the pub (!) — and a veritable bandwagon of bourgeois Dockers fans all watched as West Coast cruised through the first three quarters, and then pressed the midfield button in the last quarter to finish it off.

Things are looking good at West Coast — three from three (including two away games), a midfield that looks as slick as any other in the competition, and a forward line that is beginning to take marks and kick goals.

note.

2005-04-08T10:33:00.000+10:00

A few things worth having a look at:

No surprises here, but how good is the Guardian’s Election 2005 Blog? Notable features include the pre election map, the folskonomic zeitgest, and, of course, the Blair watch project (go here to view the images).

Statistics from Harper’s Index that I found interesting:

Percentage of born-again U.S. Christians who have been divorced: 35

Percentage of other Americans who have been: 35

Chances that the divorce of a born-again Christian happened after he or she accepted Christ: 9 in 10

The Alfred Deakin series of lectures is coming up — here in Melbourne from April 29 to May 12. There looks to be a whole bunch of interesting topics, although not much economics.

tuning.

2005-04-07T17:31:00.000+10:00

I just found this link (via these sites) providing some tips for tweaking firefox.

rooster is a magpie.

2005-04-07T13:58:00.000+10:00

I was sitting by myself today, having lunch and trying to read the paper, when two fellows sat down at the table next to me. One of them obviously liked the sound of his own voice and began talking about the problems that his club were having – lack of skills, no confidence in his colleagues, crap leadership …

I recognised the voice straight away, before I looked up.

The conversation with his staffer had to progress further before I was sure that he was talking about Collingwood rather than the ALP.

This is just another reason not to like him, in addition to being loud and obnoxious and interrupting my lunchtime reading.

if i was in southpark …

2005-04-05T16:23:00.000+10:00

… this may be what I would look like.

Many apologies to the poor blogger who led me to this site — I can’t remember who you might be! Still, this is a fun way to waste time.

luther anyone?

2005-04-03T21:27:00.000+10:00

Is it just me that is seriously annoyed about the idolisation of the Pope? Remember he was not a deity incarnate – there is no need to worship. He was merely a representative elected by bunch of selective bunch of men who seek to maintain a dogmatic preeminence for themselves within the Catholic church. I am being annoyed for the sake of it, but you must remember that this was a man who refused to support the promotion of the use of condoms, despite the epidemic of Aids in Africa. This is not the action of a righteous man – this is a selfish attempt to maintain a conservative, closed-minded and ill-founded doctrine, at the expense of millions. Not that this has any direct relevance for me, but I think that his passing is actually an opportunity for the Catholic church to do some good (maybe include some recognition of the value of women, perhaps?).

I am not holding my breath.

thought and power.

2005-04-01T09:03:00.000+10:00

“[t]he ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are 25 or 30 years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good and evil.”

by John Maynard Keynes The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chapter 24.

disagreeing over division.

2005-03-31T09:35:00.000+10:00

I have just begun reading Raimond Gaita's Quarterly Essay (from last year, I know) entitled, Breach of Trust: Truth, Morality and Politics.

On page 3 he makes the statement that;

“Australia is not a country where large numbers of people are politically and morally incomprehensible to one another.”

My impression is the opposite - I find the majority of Australia politically and morally incomprehenible. I do not get how a lot of Australia thinks. I have no idea how they can reach the political conclusions they have.*

The only way in which I can see Gaita's statement can be
true is that I am not a member of a large group of Australians. Which is both disturbing and reassuring at the same time.

Anyway, we will see what Gaita has to say on the matter...

* I often think about this question when in large groups of people, or on public transport. And it just makes me think, WTF?? It is quite likely that (notwithstanding selective bias) fifty per cent of the people in the room/train/tram/pub/workplace actively cast their vote last october in suppport of John Howard.

logic.

2005-03-22T23:22:00.000+11:00

I like sjusju's take on the Abbott love child not being the product of Abbott's loving thing:

“since Tony has used the hypothetical argument that if he and his girlfriend had chosen abortion, the lovely Daniel would never have existed, and therefore abortion is "bad", now he has to stand by the equally hypothetical argument that if his girlfriend hadn't been playing the field, Daniel would also never have existed, and therefore cheating on your dorky Young Liberal boyfriend is therefore "good".”

open your eyes, put it in drive …

2005-03-22T12:48:00.000+11:00

“... get on the road and just go.
city lights,
turn to tree lines
and national park signs.
mountains approach,
with small winds in the road
and the air turns to falling snow.”

from ‘Dynamite Walls’ by Hayden.

I want to go bush.

wolfowitz (ii)

2005-03-21T17:10:00.000+11:00

The appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as President of the World Bank renders a prime instrument for the economic progress of underdeveloped and developing countries entirey devoid of what little credibility it ever had.

The always insightful Paul Krugman reminds us that;

“The advice that the World Bank gives is as important as the money it lends - but only if governments take that advice. And given the ideological rigidity the Pentagon showed in Iraq, they probably won't. If Mr. Wolfowitz says that some free-market policy will help economic growth, he'll be greeted with as much skepticism as if he declared that some country has weapons of mass destruction ... the Wolfowitz nomination turns the World Bank into the American Bank. Make that ugly American bank: rightly or not, developing countries will see Mr. Wolfowitz's selection as a sign that we're still trying to impose policies they believe have failed.”

As Clare Short, former UK International Development Secretary, says;

“It's as though they [the Americans] are trying to wreck our international systems.”

The Wolfowitz nomination is still to be confirmed by the Europeans. We can hope.

john quiggin

2005-03-17T17:44:00.000+11:00

That just made my day better.

In the vein of anonymity, I may or may not have been working away, when someone may or may not have come and invited me to sit in on a presentation on the economics of water in the Murray–Darling catchment that may or may not have been given by the one and only JQ.
The presentation may or may not have been essentially based upon on this paper, which I am now going to go home and read.

win-win.

2005-03-17T15:02:00.000+11:00

Racist Ross Lightfoot is in trouble, supposedly for smuggling cash into Iraq on a study tour.

According to News Ltd papers, Senator Lightfoot “used a taxpayer-funded "study'' tour to secretly spirit the money ($US20,000 in cash) into Iraq in January on behalf of Woodside Petroleum.”

What makes this case interesting is that Lightfoot and Woodside both deny it, but News Ltd. are still “standing by their story”.

Of course, the 'honest and trusting' John Howard is happy with how Racist Ross is dealing with it all.

I hate both News Ltd and Lightfoot, so I can’t really lose, although I do hope that Lightfoot is shown to be a stupid fucker once again. Whatever the case, I just have to kick back and wait for Mediawatch.

wolfowitz.

2005-03-17T13:59:00.000+11:00

Although neither of them really have any serious economic credentials, I would’ve been happy with Bono. But really – could you pick anyone worse than Paul Wolfowitz to be the President of the World Bank? Ok, maybe Cheney, but even that’s dubious. Read more here.

I can’t really say much about this - it just goes along with other absurdities of the Bush administration.

Just fits quite well with my day.

Thanks to the Northcote Knob for pointing this out to me via the blogosphere, and to Mikazooki by bringing it to my attention by other means.

points of interest.

2005-03-16T14:27:00.000+11:00

Two things that I have come across today which are worth posting. So, returning to the time honoured tradition of bullet points:

An extensive discussion on how a teacher on prac was hassled out of a government school because she was gay is found here. This includes comments from ‘Jane’ herself, describing her story of events. Be aware of any confusion with discrimination on the grounds of sexuality with concerns (justified or not) about paedophilia. The latter does not justify the former. Thanks to Nic White for pointing this thread out to me.

Somehow “Special” Minister of State, Eric Abetz (yes, the same fellow that deliberately misled John Howard whilst also misusing Senate resources) now wants to make bloggers put names to their sites and comments. Good luck.*

* Read more about Abetz at Robert Corr.

we really just needed some time together.

2005-03-16T14:12:00.000+11:00

Oh my goodness, John Anderson lying? Allegations that the “honourable” Deputy PM offered the independent Member for Tamworth, Tony Windsor, a diplomatic posting as an inducement not to run in the 2004 election just keep on simmering. Tony Windsor and two of his staffers testified last month to a Senate inquiry that this inducement was offered through a bussinessman named Greg Maguire.

“Even-more-honest-than-the-other John” revealed in the House of Reps yesterday that he didn’t ask his staffer, Wendy Anderson, to leave the room just because he wanted to see Mr Maguire’s “extensive collection of motorcycles”, as he had previously claimed.

Rather, as Mr. Maguire had earlier admitted before a Senate Inquiry, they did talk about the Member for Tamworth, Tony Windsor. Although there was no talking about inducements. Of course not, John.

As the fat man asked;

“Why didn't the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House then what he has told the House now, that he and Mr Maguire in fact discussed the political future of the Member for New England?”

Why? What else are you hiding? Were the motorbikes that good?

time for a career change.

2005-03-16T11:27:00.000+11:00

Yesterday an employer group filed for a pay increase in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. Not just any pay increase, a 30 per cent pay increase. Yes. By an employer.

The Consulting Surveyors Queensland Industrial Organisation of Employers filed for this increase, arguing that there are insufficient boundary surveyors in QLD because they don’t get paid enough. The supply of surveyors is diminishing – there are currently 800 registered surveyors, with 3 people entering and 12 people leaving the industry and each year. Assuming that demand is at least constant, this has to put upward pressure on wages.

And this comes after pay increases of up to 31 percent to electricity tradesmen were approved in QLD last month.

This is all good for my brother. He is the only one of my siblings who didn’t go to uni, is already earning the most out of all of us, and is a surveyor. Maybe he should move to QLD, and then he could come and visit me more often.

This is both concrete evidence of a labour market shortages, and complete vindication of the RBA’s recent decision to increase interest rates, so as to head off inflation in the medium term. Indeed, if this keeps going (and it is unlikely to suddenly stop – they don’t call it a wage-price spiral for nothing), the RBA will find it pretty damn hard to keep inflation in the target range of 2-3 per cent.* Quite probably, the RBA should have been highlighting the deficiencies in the labour market and moving on interest rates last year.

Whatever the case, Costello should be sweating, and my brother should be smiling.

* If this does happen, I am likely to face real wage decline, as my pay is not set to increase at more than two percent this year, and there is no shortage of public servants so I have limited bargaining power. Maybe I should become a sparky …

shafting the poor.

2005-03-10T17:45:00.000+11:00

As I said in a post ages ago, there are significant problems with the effective marginal tax rates faced by lower income groups in Australia. That is, the high level of effective marginal tax rates can be significant disincentive to finding or increasing employment, thus creating a poverty trap.

In the OECD report on tax levels imposed on wages in member countries, released yesterday;

“By contrast, the disincentive from marginal effective net tax rates was particularly high for single-earner families with two children on average wages in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States.”

With the Howard government pandering to the mortgage set (we won't raise interest rates, no we really won't), they passed the bill on to the lower income set. The increase of effective marginal tax rates faced by Australian single parents with two children on two thirds of average production wages was the highest in the world - 6.2 percentage points over the course of a year.

The table released by the OECD can be found here.

effective porkbarelling.

2005-03-10T15:42:00.000+11:00

Andrew Leigh shows a statistically significant positive relationship between government expenditure on the Roads to Recovery program and electoral swings towards the coalition in the 2004 election*. All he has done is regressed electoral swings with regards to road expenditure, and found a significant positive relationship, leading him to estimate the cost of a swinging voter at around $28,000.

This was obviously inspired by Monday's piece in the same paper, where Mark Davis pointed out that;

“The analysis of $1.2 billion in federal funds allocated to local councils during the first four years of the program shows that the electorates that gained the most include Transport Minister John Anderson's constituency of Gwydir in northern NSW, which received $41 million under the scheme.”

John “I didn't really offer him a diplomatic posting, because I am just an honest farmer and wouldn't do that sort of thing” Anderson, concerned about how there are so many stories flying around about his dubious character that it is impossible to keep up with all of them, came back hard on Tuesday, saying that;

“The Australian Financial Review's myopic approach to infrastructure spending plagues its pages.”

and;

“[E]very dollar spent by the government on the Roads to Recovery program generates $1.80 in benefits.”

And what are these benefits, John? Where did you pull that figure from?

It will be interesting to see how John Anderson reacts to Andrew Leigh's argument. Leigh acknowledges that the correlation between the two doesn't mean causality, and this may just be coincidental. There certainly some circumstantial factors involved here - the coalition generally has a stronger showing in regional seats that have greater distances involved and therefore need more roads. Nevertheless, as Leigh says;
“[T]he correlation suggests that the program was largely targeted towards coalition-held seats, and voters in these favoured seats responded by voting for John Howard in larger numbers than in 2001.”

Whatever the case, it is quite apparent that the process of allocating road funds has some questions hanging over it, and, as pointed out in the AFR's own response to Anderson's rant;

“[The Minister for Transport] protested too much in his cri de coeur ... yesterday, but he unwittingly demonstrated that the government's road spending programs - the $12 billion AusLink and the $2.7 billion Roads to Recovery - are still not transparent enough for taxpayers to have any confidence that their hard-earned money is being well spent.”

Mr Anderson, I think that you need a better reason for why coalition seats got consistently more money than simply saying that they are in the bush, and I would like to hear the justification for why your electorate got the most in the country. And while you are at it, I would like to see some justification for the returns on road investment that you are quoting.

*A longer article is published in today's Fin Review, but if you are not a subscriber, you can see Andrew Leigh's op-ed pieces (which are always worth reading) here.

murdoch and his lying bastards.

2005-03-09T15:35:00.000+11:00

Ok, I know this is sort of old news. And I know that Murdoch press deliberately misleading the general public is not really notable these days — you just expect it, don’t you.

Nevertheless, it is good to see that the Press Council upheld Bob Brown’s complaint that the mob at the Herald Sun are a ~~lying bunch of fucks~~ “a disgrace to the profession of journalism” and “manifestly wrong”.

I know that this still means nothing — the Press Council are a toothless self-regulatory body — but it is still good to have some semi-formal recognition that Murdoch and co are blatantly deceptive large scale mouthpieces for the Howard government.

Of course that is why JWH appointed Janet Albrechtsen to the board of the ABC. But that is another story.

The complaint is with regards to the representation of the Green policy in the Herald Sun, by Gerald McManus.

These claims are ludicrous, as evidenced in the Press Council adjudication on Bob Brown's claim. The adjudication is quite short and worth reading, but if you can’t be bothered, here are some of the claims:

“Sen. Brown said a number of claims made by the paper in the article or graphic were wrong, including:
- an alleged policy of a 33 per cent hike in company tax to at least 49 cents in the dollar (which did not reflect current Greens policy);
- suggestions that people would be forced to ride bicycles more often and eat less meat and business people to use alternatives such as rail, boat and teleconferencing (no coercion is advocated in the policies);
- existence of policies to keep out business immigrants, introduce taxes on family homes, drive farmers from their land and reduce infrastructure to 1995 levels (no such policies exists, Sen. Brown says); and
- a desire to cut the population by 2 million (Sen. Brown says there is no such policy and the claim is based on a Liberal Party paper)”.

This is pre-election “coverage” of a The Green’s party platform — outright misinformation, with no attempt to redress it. You are going to have to ride bikes and eat less meat if the Greens are elected? I love it.

As the judgement goes on to say:

“The claims made in the original article were seriously inaccurate and breached the Council's guiding principles of checking the accuracy of what is reported, taking prompt measures to counter the effects of harmfully inaccurate reporting, ensuring that the facts are not distorted, and being fair and balanced in reports on matters of public concern”.

As both Anon Lefty and the SMH argue, the scale of this deception and systematic misrepresentation is orders of magnitude greater than anything what the right argues about with regards to the ABC.

Anyway, this is still not over, as the Press Council's judgement is being appealed. And it won't matter what the outcome is anyway — we know that Murdoch readers won't hear about it.

(Note: if anyone has the actual graphic in which these claims were presented, I would like to see it/post it)

eagle.

2005-03-04T15:46:00.000+11:00

This is my favourite bit of Canberra. This huge American eagle imperiously perched over our country's capital city, overseeing the running of our nation. It makes me laugh every time.

Australian-American Memorial, Dept of Defence, Canberra.

“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favourite nation facilitates the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, infuses into one the enmities of the other, and betrays the former into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.... It also gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, who devote themselves to the favourite nation, facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country.”
(George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796 — I found the quote here)

democracy and revenue from the GST.

2005-03-01T16:25:00.000+11:00

Last night on Lateline you had the Beattie and Bracks tag team vehemently (and rightfully) objecting to the proposed imposition of restrictions on state expenditure of GST revenue being talked about by Costello. A couple of things about last night's interview:
(i) It wasn't really fair — there was no chance for Costello to defend himself against the prepared rantings of the terrible two, and Tony Jones just kept handing them free kick after free kick.
(ii) This is not say that it wasn’t enjoyable. I have no problem with them kicking Costello when he is defenceless. There is absolutely no question that he would do the same, and no one watches the show anyway except for boring political junkies like me, insomniacs, and shift-workers. And anyway, he is arrogant and power hungry.

Now this farce is all about Costello’s remarks on the Sunday program, where he says;

“The public is paying this GST revenue to state governments. They want to know that it's being properly applied in infrastructure and in health and in other areas of responsibility”

and;

“we are going to make significant efforts to heighten accountability of state governments”.

The thing is that is not your place to decide whether it has been spent “properly”. That is what state governments do, under our system of Federation. We elect them, scrutinise their policies and assess their performance. Not you.

Now. I am having problems actually finding what these accountability measures that Costello mentions are. The Oz, which usually has a good idea of what’s going on (read: Treasury briefings), speculates here. They talk about;

“An annual report on the state government budgets, compiled by the federal Treasury, that will detail how much the states are spending on key government services. This would be separate to the review of federal-state financial relations, which is included in the commonwealth's budget documents, and the Productivity Commission's annual benchmarking of the delivery of government services.”

These publications both include figures as to state expenditure, and the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services allows a comparison of expenditure and efficiency across a range of services at the state government level. Annual state budgets publicly detail estimates of how the states are to spend their money for that financial year and are easily available.

So ... let's make it clear — this is not about accountability. This new review is only for one purpose — it is a grab for power to try and direct state government expenditure.

As Jon Faine, who normally annoys the shit out of me, says;

“it is about whether you are trying now to control how they (the states) spend it (the GST money).”

Costello is trying to dictate priorities for state budgets, something that is well beyond his prerogative. State governments are elected on a policy platform that they present in the state elections. They are separate to the Federal government. And if the Federal government is trying to impose its’ will over the choices made by the state electorate then that is a blatant attempt to circumvent the democratic process.

(This is all totally ignoring the fact that if restrictions are imposed on the state expenditure of GST revenue, this is dishonouring the agreement in distribution of GST fundings made in 2000 — I don't have the time to get started on that. Read the Beattie and Bracks show for more on this argument, which is not unimportant, it is just that everyone is fairly used to the Howard government's deception and it is consequently fairly blase.)

good cricket.

2005-03-01T15:50:00.000+11:00

SBS are going to broad cast the Ashes.

I am not going to have to spend July and August down at the Rose, or some seedy, pokey-filled twenty four hour joint.

state of the gerrymander.

2005-02-28T17:24:00.000+11:00

Andrew Bartlett brought up the possibility of "one vote, one value" legislation finally getting through in the West, following the return of the Gallop government with a potentially favourable upper house.

Like everyone else, me included, he focusses on malapportioning in the lower house. It is actually worse in the upper house, as you can see below. There are over four times the number of voters for each upper house member in the northern metropolitan region than in the mining and pastoral region.

Lets hope that Gallop will do something about this.

quick notes on a monday morn.

2005-02-28T09:56:00.000+11:00

(1) Thank bloody goodness — no Colin, no canal.

(2) To go along with (1), Graham appears to have fallen to the desperate (doctor’s) housewives in Alfred Cove. Unfortunately, this augers the demise of his blog. I hope that he considers maintaining some commentary on WA politics instead of canning the whole thing. Graham, even though I disagree with you on almost everything, I think the blog was great, and your commitment to engaging with the electorate admirable.

(3) The Janet Albrechtsen discussion continues at crikey, although maybe she is learning to deal with her bias — to misquote her on ABC radio*; “[when] I've written about the ABC on some occasions … there have been problems of bias, and how facts are presented.”
Well, I guess this is a start …

(4) West Coast hammering Collingwood is one of my favourite things. I am awaiting the birth of Ashley Sampi's love child.

(5) And finally, I still think that JL has a place in the one-day side. But, how good is it having him playing for WA, belting 111 in a session against NSW to take WA to the top of the Sheffield Shield? I certainly heart you, Justin.

* Quote was sent to crikey by that loveable media tart, Greg Barns (now, I would find a spot for him on my ABC Board!). I can’t find a URL for the quote at the moment.

skanky ho.

2005-02-25T14:21:00.000+11:00

Latham was spot on in calling Janet Albrechtsen a

“skanky ho who will die in a ditch to defend the Liberal Party”.

And so she has been repaid by an invitation to join the board of the ABC.

I am just dumbfounded and disgusted. Even I really didn’t expect Howard’s cronyism to descend this low.

I find Bolt sort of funny, in his closed-mindedness, and am always wondering if he is just taking the piss in a Firth factor complete knobhead sort of way. In contrast, I find Albrechtsen totally abhorrent — in a lying, manipulative, uncritical and unthinking Howardian skanky ho ideologue sort of way. I stopped buying the Australian (well, one of the reasons) because of her one-eyed homage to Howard.

To actually stick to the issue, rather than just descending into abuse, I will refer to Graeme Thompson (secretary of the ABC section of the CPSU), who sums up some of the questions associated with this appointment;

“Staff and viewers are wondering why the Government doesn't appoint someone who actually knows something about broadcasting or program-making for once … Many also doubt the wisdom of appointing to the board someone who has consistently displayed antagonism towards the work that ABC staff perform. … These positions should be advertised and filled on merit. That way, ministers would have to publicly justify why they made their decision.”

Sounds reasonable to me, and if these principles were applied then Albrechtsen's name would not have been mentioned.

giant eel.

2005-02-23T11:32:00.000+11:00

One for the squidbloggers and any others fascinated by creatures of the deep.
Well this is not so deep, but it is interesting. I heard on the radio this morning that a giant (reports are ranging from around 3-4 metres) eel has been seen in regional Victoria, and there is supposedly a $A1000 bounty on its head. More to read here and here.

graham kierath.

2005-02-21T18:12:00.000+11:00

I found it quite funny that former WA Minister for Planning (and maybe health, too?) Graham Kierath has noted on his blog that people were googling for "dirt on Colin Barnett" and ending up at his blog. It is not really surprising, as there is some history of differences between Graham and his esteemed leader.

I sense that he is getting a bit annoyed with people who are making comments, because they are not from Alfred Cove. Or they are not Liberal supporters*. Well really, Mr. Kierath, this is about discourse - arguing for and justifying the policies upon which you are standing - not preaching to the converted the whole time.

At the same time, I have to give the good candidate some kudos for having his blog up there. I have some respect for the man that I didn't previously have.

*Keep it going, Robert.

denial is easy...

2005-02-18T17:43:00.000+11:00

And Bolt is an afficionado - this is pretty much all he does (I refuse to dignify this man with a link). I wouldn't normally waste my time with him, but it bothers me that people actually believe him.

Global warming is happening - average global temperatures are increasing. (Do you know what an average is, Mr. Bolt?)

Here are some figures I dragged down from the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

It is fairly obvious that global temperatures are currently increasing. This is what happens with global warming.

Update: Am on fire today, that is three graphs. That is really sad.

democracy in action.

2005-02-18T15:39:00.000+11:00

The political opinion of my friends and family in Perth is worth around half of those living in regional WA.

I read Robert Corr talking about the disproportionate influence of regional voters in WA this morning. This has pissed me off for quite a while, but I have never fully realised how completely screwed the allocation of seats in WA is.

You can see below that voters in the south west, agricultural and mining and pastoral regions have almost twice the electoral influence of voters in the metropolitan regions.

Here is the distribution for all electoral districts, classified by region, which sort of makes you realise how significant the difference in political influence is between the regional and the urban.

The ABC's Anthony Green, who explains how this has all come about about, describes this as “peculiar”. I find it astonishing that such a system has survived, and that people in Perth are willing to accept it.

roast hill.

2005-02-17T13:26:00.000+11:00

Don’t really expect much — you can do anything as a Minister in the Howard government, and get away with it — but it would be good if they make Hill squirm a bit more.

The question of whether the Minister of Defence lied about Australians interrogating prisoners in Iraq is down to semantics — was it an interview or an interrogation?

Whether Hill patently lied or not, it is certainly apparent that he sought to mislead us. Opposition spokesman on war, Robert McClelland (so that’s who’s wearing that hat) says it succinctly;

“We saw that the government attempted to cover up the full extent that Australia had contact with Iraqi prisoners…Clearly they did that because there was an election year on but in so doing they've put their political interests ahead of public accountability.”

Political interests before accountability — isn’t that the Howard government’s mission statement? Nothing new there.

related links
If you missed it on four corners, Rod Barton’s story about interviewing prisoners and chasing imaginary WMD’s (and then getting told what to write about them) is very interesting. An overview of it is here.

And crikey has an amusing run-down of yesterday's Senate estimates grilling of Hill. I just love the bit about Liberal Senator Ferguson playing solitaire on his laptop. Real classy. (South Australians have a disproportionate representation in the Senate anyway, so a bit of dead wood can't hurt).

blogcrastinations.

2005-02-16T12:02:00.000+11:00

Have just been scouring around for bits of interest to keep me distracted from work, and have come with a couple of things I felt I just had to post.

Tony Abbott admitting freely and openly that the wheels are falling off dental health;
- that the Howard government’s dental program (for which he is responsible) is a “nightmare”; and
- that the Keating government’s program (which was promptly scrapped upon the ascension of Howard) “did reduce waiting times … no doubt about that”.
Keating’s program was not only more effective in the provision of public dental services, but, as Tony Abbott himself says;

“the Keating government's program was less over four years than the Federal Government is putting towards dental services in a single year by the private health insurance rebate.”

Aah ... the beauty of the two tiered health system. Don't worry if it is more expensive and inefficient - deny access to some, simply because you can. (Thanks to Robert for pointing me here).

And thanks to the squid fanatics for showing me that people found a sea serpent at City Beach in Perth.

How cool. I miss City Beach – clean white sand, the crisp waves, large mysterious sea creatures. Don’t really get that in Melbourne.

And one more thing. I went and saw Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical last night. I thought it was pretty lame and vacuous. Desci disagrees, saying that it was;

“Worth every cent of the free ticket.”

Am glad that I didn’t pay for my ticket too, but I sort of feel shafted because I bought a program.

comparing mobile phone plans.

2005-02-15T16:55:00.000+11:00

Given my mobile phone predicament, I am looking into finding a new supplier of access to mobile phone networks. This is not very easy.

Mobile phone networks all essentially offer the same product*. The service telcos are selling you is simply access to a network that allows you to transmit digitally packaged information to other users of the network.

However, telcos go out of their way to "package" the services they offer in different ways, to preclude effective comparison of services between the market players. For instance, some companies sell you access in 30 second increments (that is, you pay for 30 seconds of network time, even if you talk for only 10 seconds) whereas others sell it to you in 1 second increments (I also found one company selling it you in 26 second increments). Contract lengths also vary as do the rates for different times of the day, rates to phones on different networks, flagfalls, and prices for texts and other, somewhat peripheral services.

Another device to included to deter effective comparison of the services offered is the inclusion of “credits” in the deal - that is you pay a minimum monthly access fee and then you receive a certain amount of “free” calls per month. Of course, the real value (how long you can talk for) of these “free” calls will with the call rates applied (that is, $10 of “free” call time at 10c per min, is worth the same as $20 of “free” call time at 20c per min).

And of course, this is not including the problems arising from the coupling of network access and the phone handsets!

The stated reason for this product differentiation is to allow people to find the plan that best suits them. Spare me.

It is to prevent effective comparison of an essentially homogeneous product that allows the telcos to charge an uncompetitive price well above their marginal costs. Now this is one of the reasons these babies are pulling in such nice profits.

So what do you do?

Well, Choice have a reasonable overview of how to initially approach the situation, although it gives you no idea about how to set about constructing a quantifiable comparison.

These guys have a “calculator” of some sort, where you need some data from previous bills and enter it in, and it can give you a list of plans that are good for you. But it doesn't actually allow to compare how much a bill under one plan will cost under another plan, and doesn't incorporate the value of handsets into the comparison. If you are keen/angry/anal/bored then you could use their "browse plans" thingo to create a dataset that you can then wack into Excel and then develop a set of equations to estimate costs, and then actually have a quantifiable ranking of the best plans suited to your consumption pattern**.

This all being said, I know that;
(a) This is a comparative static assessment and consumption patterns are likely to change so as to reflect consumer optimisation under different plans; and
(b) This is terribly boring, but I spent ages last night making up that spreadsheet and I wanted to write about because I think that it works, and the plan that I am choosing is not bloody vodafone (who I am not going to dignify with a link).
(c) I should probably get out more - that is why I am going to see Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical, at the Atheneaum theatre tonight.

* I know this is a slight simplification, as there are some substantial differences between services offered - for instance, there are different areas covered by different networks.

how much do i hate telcos?

2005-02-14T14:31:00.000+11:00

I hate vodafone. After repeatedly trying to get my phone reconnected, during which I never lost it (how calm and collected am I?), I sent them these queries*:

“My phone number is: 041xxxxxxx.

It was cut off on Friday 11 Feb.

Now, I was late in paying the bill due around 11 Jan. I usually receive a text or email to remind me of this. Things do slip your mind. So the first thing I was aware of with this, was that I couldn't make calls on Friday night.

So. I rang your shop on Saturday, and was told the quickest way I could deal with this was to go online, print the bill and then go to Australia Post. I tried to get online to pay this. I was on a different computer to normal, and didn't have my password stored on it. I rang up and the lady said she would text me the password. I didn't think this would be a problem, given that she worked for Vodafone I thought that she would be able to ensure that I get this information, so I could then get online, and eventually pay the bill.

How ignorant of me.

Needless to say, I never received the text.

Monday morning comes along, and I still have no means of logging in to pay the bill. So I ring up to try and sort this out, and the nice young man says, "yes you do have a category [something] bar on your phone, which is going to stop you receiving the text of your password."

He said that he would forward me to someone who would be able to remove the bar so that I could receive the text, so that I could log on, so that I could print the bill, so that I could go to Australia Post and pay it.

I waited on the phone (whilst writing this query for you) for around twenty minutes, after which my lunch break was fairly well completed. I then hung up.

Given the above, I have three questions:
1.) why would you so quickly cut off the phone of a customer has been with you for over two years, without any notice?
2.) why is that none of your staff seemed to have any inclination to help me?
3.) how on earth can I actually pay this bill, so that I can then wind up my account with vodafone and take my phone number elsewhere?”

I have not yet received a reply, although I am proud of myself for not losing it at anyone. Yet. And so I am still without a mobile phone connection. I have lost touch with the world. Sort of like going camping or going into hospital.

* I apologise for the self-indulgence. I just needed to vent my spleen.

trackin’ on back.

2005-02-11T13:45:00.000+11:00

Robert Corr is offering a free subscription to New Matilda. Given I am sucker for free stuff, especially reading material, I am succumbing to his unscrupulous promotion by including a trackback so that I have a faint hope of attaining this prize. Being new to the blogging game, I am a virgin trackbacker. Or at least I was. This is what I have foregone for the faint hope of a New Matilda subscription.

it's really not that hard.

2005-02-10T16:06:00.000+11:00

Tony Blair said today,

“I'm very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice. That's why I'm making this apology today.”

He was only apologising for wrongly imprisoning a few blokes, as opposed to stealing a generation's worth of children, but surely the Australian Prime Minister could take some inspiration — he could quote Blair verbatim, and that would be enough.

porkbarelling extras.

2005-02-10T13:18:00.000+11:00

A couple of things that I noticed in reading about the Jim Lloyd porkbarelling issue this morning.

(i) Dobell was marginal Liberal seat, prior to the 2004 election. The ALP needed a swing of just 0.4 per cent to unseat incumbent member Ken Ticehurst. Ticehurst was re-elected and the margin is now 5.9 per cent. Porkbarelling works.

(ii) In the SMH, the PM has said “I will take the appropriate action if it is needed”. I am not holding my breath.

(iii) Paragon of virtue, Wilson Tuckey has come out and defended the advice given to thw Wtong council, saying that it is “fair and honest” to advise someone to deliberately withold information from the government so as to get more money from them.

(iv) the quotes of the emails included in that post are largely taken from the Fin Rev, which had the best coverage of it. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the emails themselves, though.

Update: I also meant to point out that the Fin Rev also said that last year;

the dredging project had been judged a low priority by the local area consultative committee - supposedly the federal government's primary provider of independent advice on the regional partnerships scheme.

"There were many more projects in the pipeline that warranted consideration before that one did," the project officer of the Central Coast area consultative committee, John Presland, said.

code of conduct? what code of conduct? new story, same old line.

2005-02-10T11:34:00.000+11:00

Oh my goodness, once again we have a Howard government Minister who is being called to account for his actions blaming someone else.

Minister for Local Government, Jim Lloyd was hammered yesterday over the regional development slush fund used in the last election. I will try and keep this short(!).

Just before that fateful day in October, a $1.5m grant from the ‘regional partnerships’ scheme (aka “marginal seat slush fund”) was announced to for the dredging of the mouth of Tumbi Crk in the electorate of Dobell. Jim Lloyd, as a junior Minister in the Department of Transport and Regional Services was responsible for this ~~barrelling of pork~~ allocation of funds.
In November were heavy rains, which led to the mouth of the creek being cleared, which was noted by the Wyong Council, who were interested in redirecting some of this money. DTRS also were aware of this. Graeme Hallett, a special advisor to Minister Lloyd sent an email to DTRS, saying that;

“The commitment by the Howard government to the electors of Dobell, in partnership with Wyong Council, is non-negotiable. It is the position of [Dobell MP Ken] Ticehurst that the money should be delivered as agreed for the works in the schedule of the agreement under regional partnerships.”

DTRS proceeded to ask Wyong Council if they wanted to revise their plan (since they no longer needed to dredge the creek). Hallett then advised the council that;

“Any changes means less federal money, so the Wyong officials should keep their counsel on this if we want the total allocated by the Prime Minister for Tumbi Creek.”

(ie. As representative of Minister Lloyd, I am advising you to deceptively withold information from the DTRS so that you can get the money we scammed for you in the first place)

Wyong Council went back to the original idea of dredging the creek.

Yesterday, Kim Beazley brings all this up in Parliament accusing the special advisor to the Minister of “attempting to defraud the Commonwealth”. Lloyd responds by saying that there is nothing wrong at all, and this is all a result of;

“a poorly worded email. The staff member has been counselled ... it was stupidly worded.”

Apparently the email advising the Council to keep their counsel (!) was intended to

“inform council that the funds that were allocated for the dredging of Tumbi creek could only be used for the dredging of Tumbi creek.”

That's exactly what it sounds like to me.

cornelia rau (ii).

2005-02-08T16:42:00.000+11:00

The terms of reference for the inquiry into the incarceration and neglect of Cornelia Rau, have been released. No surprises here — the inquiry is to be conducted in private with findings reported publicly.

As Kerry *oh, Kerry* O’Brien argued last night;

If there has been a stuff-up or a series of stuff-ups, then there are people in whose interests it may be to cover this up. … [I]t's in the public interest that the public sees a transparent process that they can trust.

Amanda Vanstone is obviously one of these people with an interest — it is her department that has acted inhumanely and incompetently. And she is going to do her best to hide this from us.

There is not that much more I can add to the discussion regarding the disgraceful treatment of Cornelia Rau by DIMA. The run down of this affair is totally captured here. This includes a range of newspaper articles and accounts. (Thanks to Guido for pointing me there).

not citizen = not human.

2005-02-08T16:40:00.000+11:00

The two-tiered system of humanity so actively supported for so long in Australia is highlighted (again) by Cornelia Rau’s sister, Chris Rau, in her article in yesterday’s SMH:

“While she was an unnamed illegal immigrant, the only treatment [Cornelia Rau] received for mental illness was longer periods in lock-up as punishment for bad behaviour. From the information coming out of Baxter, the lock-ups led to a worsening of her condition and worse behaviour... As soon as she became an Australian resident she was whisked away to a teaching hospital, seen by consultant psychiatrists and medicated. During which leg of her flight from Baxter to Adelaide did she suddenly gain the basic human right to medical treatment?”

Sometimes I am ashamed to be Australian.

abort — friday morning rant.*

2005-02-04T11:46:00.000+11:00

Apparently, Australian women with unwanted pregnancies are “dumb”. Federal Liberal MP Alan Cadman’s is actually quoted as saying “I can't believe that women in this day and age are so dumb to get pregnant willy-nilly”.** There is no mention at all of male responsibility in this — in 21st century Australia, the government feels that men are absolved of any responsibility in getting women pregnant. This somewhat unsurprising, given that the debate is dominated by men. (Potential logical extensions of “the men are not responsible for conception” idea: (i) men should not pay child support, because it was the “stupid sheila” that got pregnant in the first place (ii) it was her fault she got raped, she was [stupid enough to go out] dressed like a tart …)

*Deep breath* Maintain some sense. This makes me seriously mad.

As pointed out in the Age, this is not even an informed argument that women are getting pregnant willy-nilly — there is no basis for arguing that there are too many late term abortions in Australia. There are no reliable statistics indicating that such an “epidemic” exists ***. Statistics that are out there generally do not differentiate between abortions and other procedures. (The procedures included are generally curettages. I am willing to admit I did not know what a curettage was this morning, but I do now. If you don’t, go here).

The interesting about thing about all this is that in the Age and Oz articles mentioned above, there are no women quoted being in support of this argument. Maybe it is not so surprising that women aren’t coming out and saying that it is a women’s sole responsibility to ensure contraception, and that women who accidentally get pregnant are “dumb”.

Amongst the pre-eminent misogynists this week are the mad monk, Ron Boswel (calling for better statistics), the dumb-ass, and Julian MacGauran (who wants to removing Medicare support for late term abortions). Boswell was supported by the ALP’s John Murphy.

There is so little coverage given to female political and public figures. You have to dig around in the AFR to find decent canvassing of what some female politicians are saying on the issue****. Minister for Family and Community Services, Kay Patterson has sought female colleagues’ opinions and says:

“their overwhelming response has been to leave [the laws] exactly as they are”.

Julia Gillard *sigh* says:

“I have stated my position very clearly and I am pro-choice. But understand this, the federal government’s only involvement in abortion is through Medicare, it does not have the power to decide if abortion should be legal or not; that power resides with the states. But if the federal government removes Medicare funding for abortion … poor women will end up in the hands of backyard abortionists — that’s the end point of this debate”.

Jenny Macklin (yes, she still is alive) says:

“you will be hearing from a lot of Labor women over the next few days”.

Well, yeah that’s threatening, Jenny. Get up and say something — you are the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. In the highest position held by a female politician at the moment, this your opportunity to stand up and actually do something.

Why does no one take any notice of this?

I think that Helen is absolutely right — this is a case of Australia taking a political agenda directly from the USA. This is not a policy ‘issue’. This is not a public debate. This an agenda that is being pushed incessantly by a small group of (male) conservatives with disproportionate access to the public sphere seeking to impose their religious concepts upon the rest of us.
There had been no argument within Australian politics for some time over this before the mad monk piped up last November. As Katherine Betts points out, this was not a stated part of the coalition agenda in the 2004 election, and there have been no opinion polls that she can find indicating any shift in opinion.

There is nothing to justify this push against a woman’s right to abortion at all. FUCK OFF, ALREADY. Stick to screwing over the rest of the country but stay away from my girlfriend, my sister, my friends and everyone else’s bodies.

* The absolute bollocks that I have read in today’s papers is astounding.

** If you google cadman & willy-nilly you come up with the good member’s website, where he is talking about how “the government needed to take steps to prevent people coming into Australia willy-nilly”. Don’t even start me on that one, baby.

*** If you were to accept, for a moment, the phrasing imposed by the ill-informed misogynists pushing this line! (thanks to > for pointing me there).

**** Can’t link to it here, because it is subscription, but it is the best coverage given today.

trade, cotton and the principle of hypocrisy.

2005-02-03T14:50:00.000+11:00

Last week, John Howard (rightly) got stuck into the EU for maintaining protectionist agricultural policies. It is true that, as JWH says;

the trade policy of the European Union, ... [has] denied access to ... agricultural exporters from some of the poorest countries in the world.

By all means criticise this, Mr Howard. I am a supporter of trade liberalisation, particularly as a means of aiding developing countries. But, if you are going to do this, and for the sake of the credibility of the argument with the developing countries, please apply the principle of free trade in a consistent manner.

What about the Americans? (Oh. That's right, European criticism of George Bush is "ridiculous").

As reported in USA Today, whilst US cotton producers were busy growing bumper crops, they were receiving roughly 1.5 times the market price per bale. This amounted to $US 2.7 bn in 2003.

This is important stuff - the issue of cotton is a major part of the Doha Development Agenda, and holds major opportunities for the economic expansion of a number of LDCs. And yet our Prime Minister, proudly batting for the liberalisation of trade, refuses to criticise the Americans for fighting tooth and fucking nail to protect their cotton growers from those who can produce at less cost and for greater communal benefit!

To quote our Prime Minister again, this denies "agricultural exporters from some of the poorest countries in the world". And we won't say anything about it because it is the Americans that are doing it.

rain.

2005-02-03T11:05:00.000+11:00

How terribly mundane to write about the weather, but it was seriously cranking last night in Melbournia. Sheets of rain pelting down on my roof, gutters overflowing, wind blowing me all over the street – nothing to do except snuggle up in bed with my sweetie-pie, and find other ways to distract ourselves.

This morning we awoke to carnage. I can see from my window at work the Yarra covering cycle paths, and I have received numerous stories from the crew at work about trees falling over, trains being delayed (like, forever), and a crane falling over at the MCG. I love it.

To keep track of further developments, go here.

bill and ben the (best) flowerpot men.

2005-02-01T13:44:00.000+11:00

I am struggling to publicly admit this, but, at home last night, ironing shirts and descending into the mundane cycle of working week once again, I watched … the Australian cricketing community pleasure itself on national television last night*. What a contrived, boring and unnecessary session of communal spanking off with that horrible slug from Collingwood running the show. Cricketers should not talk, and cricket does not need this rubbish.

That all being said, I am admitting this only to able to congratulate Damien Martyn and Justin Langer on finally being recognised as the best Test batsmen in the best side in the world.

I have watched these two for ages and had the joy of seeing them both hit centuries in Perth last year. They are essential to the team, and are both wonderful to watch — and I am glad to see the rest of Australia, albeit grudgingly, acknowledge this.

I am not biased in any way.

* To be honest, not even a cricket junkie like me could take it. It is a terrible show. I had to keep flicking across to Desperate Housewives (there is no point me talking about this — refer to the blogging galacticos at ausculture for more on this one).

tortoise

2005-01-24T18:58:00.000+11:00

Sorry - dropped off the map for a while. It was a strange weekend. I am not really into the idea of writing about the big N’s 30th on Saturday. There are two things that may be said:
(i) I don’t go well with cocktails.
(ii) I can’t say much as I don’t remember much. Well and truly a kick back to the teen years.

Friday night was awesome. Up there with my all time best of gigs (I smell a list there in future), and totally justifying the New Year policy of seeking more musical and cultural experiences here in Melbourne. Because we can. Now, I am not a music writer in any way, so I will try not to wax lyrical about what I saw. All I want to say is that I saw an absolutely stunning gig at the Corner.

Unfortunately we missed the first set played by support band Because of Ghosts. Via tania started as we got there, and they were enjoyable, but nothing all that much. Because of Ghosts played a second set, much to our enjoyment (I am listening to their EP at the moment — it is worth it). Little drummer dude was wonderful — driving the band with such a perfect sense of rhythm (as a percussionist should possess). I have never seen a percussionist stand there and clap a guitarist into time on stage before. Strict taskmaster, hey? These guys have a lovely sound, and I hope to see them again. Soon.

But the biggie of the night was the headline Tortoise. It is hard to actually say much about their performance, because there is no way that I can do it justice. I wasn’t really into Tortoise before Friday. I had only listened to their album, Standard, a couple of times before (I have now listened to it, and the preceding LP TNT quite a number of times).

So, in a sense I am jumping on the bandwagon. That being said, I am certainly glad I got to experience them, and you gotta get on the bandwagon at some stage. I am glad that I have found Tortoise. They produce a complete and thoroughly marvellous aural aesthetic with such an intense and methodical approach that is truly a joy to behold. And they just keep on going and going. So good.

It was one of those experiences that just leaves you standing there with a silly grin, shocked, happy, and not really knowing what to say.

2005-01-19T18:24:00.000+11:00

As everyone is going on and on about the ALP leadership situation, I will endeavour just to keep this short. Not much has changed today — Gillard and Rudd (who would fit nicely on a ticket together, in that order) are still neither in nor out. Beazley is still the only one in, although this is enough to constitute a split, as pointed out by Andrew Bartlett.

A good synopsis of the opinions going around in the sphere-o-blogs is presented with customary style by Jess @ ausculture. Big ticks for finding the article on Conroy — that is an excellent read. Latham was certainly right — if Conroy is a rooster, he sure is a cock.

Questions to ponder down at the pub tonight:
(i) If Beazley is to stand unopposed is that a sign of unity?
(ii) Or does it just show that there is a lack of alternatives?
(iii) Is this just a glass half full/empty type problem?

maybe things aren't as bad.

2005-01-18T17:58:00.000+11:00

I am trying to be optimistic here. Actuarial psephologist (amongst other things) Andrew Leigh has pointed out that, within hours of Latham's resignation from the ALP leadership, Labour has shortened from $3.00 to $2.55.

He equates this to an increase in the probability of an ALP victory at the next Federal election from 33 to 39 per cent. And this is for a party without a leader.

money on the fat man from freo.

2005-01-18T17:03:00.000+11:00

I don’t like it, but now that the pancreas has won and Latham has resigned, the ALP will return to Kim Beazley, because of his experience at losing. That is what the ALP seem to be good at these days: losing elections, losing support, losing their way.

This pisses me off in so many ways. Here are some of them:
(i.) We’ve been there, done this. What can Beazley offer that we haven’t seen before?
(ii.) Beazley played the seminal role in turning the ALP into the ill-defined mess that it is today, pandering to the right in such a manner that that the ALP gave up its ideological basis (yes, I am willing to argue that they still had such a basis under Hawke/Keating), which I think that is the root of the problem today. There is no ideological differentiation between the ALP and the Liberal party in Australia. Beazley is not going to re-establish this.* He is going to continue to try and battle with the Libs on their terms, and will lose every time.
(iii.) There is no viable alternative to the fat man. There is just no one there who can realistically lead the party. Please guys, prove me wrong.
(iv.) Oh Carmen, why did you have to get involved in the business with Penny Easton? You didn’t need to do that, and you could’ve been here for us when we needed you. Not that the NSW Right would let you in, anyway … but I can still imagine what could have been. You would have been a fine leader of this country, if you just could’ve told the truth.
(v.) I still will have to support Kim, because he is the only thing that is sort of standing in the way of honest John and his band of merry neo cons. How screwed is the left?

* Neither did Mark, but at least I had hopes when he began.

are you for real?

2005-01-17T16:56:00.000+11:00

I was having breakfast this morning, and was reading my beloved Guardian when I came across this story.

Basically, our revered Queen and delightful Charlie are the biggest recipients of farm subsidies in the UK due to the ridiculous amount of land they "own" (I'm sure they worked real hard for it).

This pisses me off on so many levels:
(i.) That they, in addition to all the other special treatment they get, receive agricultural subsidies to run farms that would not return a profit if it was in competition with the rest of the world (otherwise, why would they need to be subsidised?).
(ii.) I am not sure what they actually farm, but this protectionism is likely to be giving them an unfair advantage over farmers elsewhere in the world, making it harder for them to sell their product at a profit.
(iii.) This makes stuff more expensive in Britain (according to Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage).
(iii.) If you are going to subsidise an industry, surely it is to protect a workforce for some reason or another (not that I generally agree with this, although there are exceptions, but if you are going to do it, please give the money to those working the field, rather than our struggling royals)

THe good bit about this story is that the Guardian got access to this information through the British Freedom of Information Act. As former the UK Agriculture Minister said:

This is a great victory for the Guardian. When I was a minister I had a struggle to be allowed to see the individual figures, let alone be able to publish them. They will reveal that some 80% of the subsidy goes to 20% of the farmers.

FoI is a good thing. So is the Guardian.

poverty and tax: effective marginal tax rates.

2005-01-17T15:31:00.000+11:00

Effective marginal tax rates as a potential disincentive to work are certainly a problem, and have long been recognised as such, by both sides of the game. The problem is, as Gavin Wood points out, the question of the effects of tax arrangements on poverty (and housing) are frequently put in the too hard basket in the political arena. I feel that part of this problem is that people are only thinking about the initial effects of the tax system, and are not considering the interaction between the tax system and welfare regimes. This is where effective marginal tax rates come into play.

Gillian Beer defined effective marginal tax rates as “the percentage of [a] one dollar increase in private income that is lost to income tax and income tests on government cash benefits”. So, as someone on the dole earns more and more money, the benefits they are receiving decrease, as shown by the red line in the picture below.

This also affects the rate at which their total income (welfare payments plus earned income, shown by the blue line) increases. So when a Newstart recipient’s fortnightly earned income goes over $142, they only pocket 30 cents in every dollar they earn — an effective marginal tax rate of 70 per cent.

Here, the red line shows the relationship between welfare payments (w) and earned income (Y) — as earned income increases, payments can be seen to decrease. The blue line shows the relationship between earned income and total income (earned income plus payments).

Other payments (such as Family Tax Benefits and Rent Assistance which would increase the initial level of payments above $394.50) can lead to other reductions in welfare benefits.

Now, if you are in this position, then are you really going to go out and bust your ass, in a job that you find particularly uninspiring, that has little prospect of further development, when you are only going to pocket 30 cents for every dollar you earn? That, my friends, is called a poverty trap — there is very little incentive to go out and get off the dole. People in the situation are facing an effective marginal tax rate that is far greater than those in the upper brackets.

The main reasons for getting into this were that (i) these lads (whose blogs I enjoy reading) were arguing about the proposed LDP income tax system; (ii) I felt like working out what was happening here (I am bored) and (iii) I thought I should write something today, although I just have to hurry up and get this done, now.

The LDP propose some reforms to try and deal with problem of high effective marginal tax rates. This scheme is not radical — the idea has been around for ages in one form or another.

But it would be tough to get it to work, and there are a number of problems with the proposed system. Notably, there are no equivalence measures (ie. different payments for different family structures) that are described. They also provide no description of the rate at which they would withdraw benefits and the rate at which they would tax. The impression I get is that it is a linear (flat rate) which would lead to something looking like this:

In this figure, p represents the welfare payments received, and where the blue intersects with the horizontal (income) axis is the point where you receive no payments and pay no tax. The LDP set this at A$ 30 000.

I like the smooth transition from receipt of welfare to income payments (ie. negative welfare receipt), which does make for more acceptable effective marginal tax rates. However, this basic model is not progressive — it taxes everyone at the same amount.

I would prefer a model that looks a bit more like this:

Here the effective marginal tax rate is low for welfare recipients and steadily increasing as it progresses into negative welfare benefits (income tax). I have put two lines in there because you need to adjust the point at which the curve intersects the horizontal axis according to family structure (ie. move it to the right as the size of the family increases).

Anyway, I need to get on with stuff. This article looks as though it would be useful to read about effective marginal tax rates in Australia, if you want to know more (although it is a bit dated).

how very exciting.

2005-01-14T16:59:00.000+11:00

High drama with high speed car chases around my neighbourhood, into the city, ending on Flinder's Lane. This was followed by a gunman running past my work, highjacking a taxi before crashing it into a tram stop. How good is that?

I didn't see a bit of it unfold, although Collins St was awash with policemen when I went down to have a look.

[Only problem is I can't find the connection to get my photos off my camera, so I have to borrow from the Age.]

Australian spin — friday morning rant

2005-01-14T14:32:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I used the term Howardian spin without really saying what I meant. As it is an integral part of Australian political life these days, I think that it should be somewhat expanded upon.

Spin is often imparted through:
- Selective quotation
- Selective use of facts
- Non-denial denial
- Phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths
- Euphemisms to disguise or promote one's agenda

The Howard government often takes a slightly less subtle approach to their deception. They seem to lean towards outright deception along the lines of:
- “they did throw their children in the water”;
- “Saddam Hussein basically is Bin Laden”
- “they do have WMDs”;
- “I really didn’t talk to those ethanol people”; and
- “interest rates will rise under the ALP (yeah they will. they really will. no really, they really will)”.

This is what I mean by Howardian spin — blatant disregard for the truth in favour by telling an unquestioning audience exactly what they want to hear, ad nauseum. And the Australian people just swallow it, every single time, with any questioning steadily drowned out by the clamour of acceptance.

At the risk of just banging on, this is what I was getting at yesterday, with the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. He made no argument whatsoever in support of the work for the dole scheme. He just kept on repeating his mantra: don't knock work for the dole - it works.

As always, this leads to the question — how can Australians be so friggin’ uncritical and generally stupid?

work for the dole.

2005-01-13T14:14:00.000+11:00

Yesterday, there was an interesting article in the Age by Simon Castles decrying the work for the dole program. (Thanks to this fellow for pointing me in that direction - like your stuff).

Today, the Minister for Workplace Relations mounted a limp response to the criticisms that were levelled by Castles. It is not just the completely lame-ass nature of this reply that gets my goat, it is the blatant application of Howardian spin that is the norm these days. There is nothing of value here — there is no friggin' argument.

Dutton says that;

Castles states in his article, "what the long-term unemployed need is real training in real jobs, backed by intensive assistance tailored to them, as individuals". He is exactly right. That's why work for the dole works hand-in-glove with the Government's Job Network.

He doesn’t say how the systems are complementary, or how they have been successful. Not that he honestly can — the system does not provide effective support for long term unemployed. What he does do is go on and reel off some figures totally irrelevant to the argument about the “success” of the Job Network system. He says that;

[A] total of 625,000 job placements had been recorded in the past 12 months. This is a 50 per cent increase on the previous year.

Of course this means jack shit. This means that more people are going through the system, or that people are going through the system more times. In fact it can readily be taken to mean that the job network providers are shit at performing their task of matching prospective employers and employees. This could easily be a function of their incentive structure — I think that they get cash for finding people employment (ie. getting them off the unemployed list) not keeping them employed.*

Dutton then goes on and spouts some numbers regarding ‘commencements’ in work for the dole:

Since 1997 and including approved future projects, work for the dole has and will provide more than 330,000 work experience opportunities for job seekers. During 2003-04 there were more than 74,000 commencements in work for the dole, up 16 per cent on the previous year. In 2004-05 commencements are already up by 13 per cent compared with 2003-04 and on schedule to reach 85,000 commencements.

Again, this is not an indicator of the success or failure of the scheme. It is simply a set of numbers showing that the Howard government is pig headedly progressing with this program.

And that there are no numbers available that indicate that it has had any success.

An appropriate indicator would be more along the lines of looking at the effects of work for the dole on the spells of unemployment experienced by long term unemployed. This is what Jeff Borland and Yi-Ping Tseng tried to do last year in their paper, written at the instigation of the Department of Family and Community Services. They are very definite in their conclusions;

Participation in the Work for the Dole program is found to be associated with a large and significant adverse effect on the likelihood of exiting unemployment payments.

They pose three potential explanations for these outcomes:
- work for the dole may lead to a reduction in job search activities;
- can lead to a stigma effect; and
- it is experience not training, and has no siginificant effect on human capital.

Both Castles and the good Minister refer to this paper. Dutton says;

It is unfortunate that Castles attempts to lend weight to his criticism of work for the dole by citing research from the Melbourne Institute that found that participants in the program were 12 per cent less likely to find a job than unemployed people not in the scheme. That research looked at work for the dole during 1997 when it was a pilot program. Since then work for the dole has undergone major changes that have improved its effectiveness and links with other forms of employment assistance.

It is true that the paper refers 1997 data, because that was all that was made available to Borland and Tseng. Dutton makes no reference as to what “major” changes have been implemented, and provides no evidence at all of any change in effectiveness.

The program does not work, and there is no reason to suggest otherwise. There would be no reason to credit this article with response if it wasn't written by a Government Minister. This is all complete bollocks.

I just wish they would stop insulting our intelligence.

* Will have to look at this more at a later date. The Job Network system is certainly suspect, and we haven't even mentioned the Community Development Employment Projects yet.

working it all out.

2005-01-12T17:29:00.000+11:00

Okay and here we are. All one of us. Just because we wanted to make a stupid comment on another blog somewhere done by a guy I am pretty sure generally agrees with me, anyway. It's just preaching to the converted. Well I can't be bothered now -- 3 minutes to set up, my ass.

We'll see how this all goes, and then have a look at it tomorrow. Well I can and I will. And I am sure it will be beautiful.

I've guess you have to start somewhere. This game is terribly narcissistic.