Fri, 25 Jun 2004
I’m inclined to think that I’ve worn out the “newly conservative” explanation for blogging under the “neo-con” tag, but I haven’t come upon a replacement yet, and I can’t resist commenting on this. The Senate Select Committee on the Free Trade Agreement has an interesting membership. It’s designed, depending on your level of cynicism, either to more accurately represent the membership in the senate, or to give the Labor MPs an excuse for doing what they want, independent of what the JSCT committee says (which is whatever the government says, as it has a simple majority from the coalition parties).
There are thus two Liberal senators, a National senator (ie, three government senators), three Labor senators, a Democrat senator, and… a One Nation senator.
Sat, 22 May 2004
Pick the prominant third-way thinker who said this:
America rejects the ethic of sink or swim. America rejects social Darwinism, because strength is not the same as worth. Our greatest failures as a nation have come when we lost sight of our compassionate ideals – in slavery, in segregation, and in every wrong that has denied the value and dignity of life. Our greatest strength as a nation is that we bravely face our flaws and do our best to make things right. Our greatest successes as a nation have come when we broadened the circle of protection and inclusion. And this work is not finished. We will press on until every person shares in the promise of our country.
Thu, 13 May 2004
Martin points to an Economist review of a anti-corporate film that tries to make the case that corporations are “pyschopathic” by their very nature. It’s presented as “asking the question”, but I can’t see how you’d get a different film if you’d started off with the answer.
Wed, 12 May 2004
Heh. The Gnu Hunter scoffed at my attempt to draw a distinction between the price and cost of email delivery; so I’m pleased to find I’m in good company on that issue: here’s Thomas Sowell doing a similar job on the costs of medical care. Also of interest is Brookes News, which has some interesting economics articles (among other things).
Wed, 28 Apr 2004
Here’s the story:
Australia’s inflation rate lowest in 4 years
CANBERRA, April 28 (Xinhuanet) – Australia’s annual inflation rate slowed to 2 percent, the lowest since December 1999, official figures released on Wednesday show.
The news.com story’s headline is Living costs rise slowest in 4 years, the Herald Sun says Inflation at four-year low, Yahoo News’ take is Australia’s Costello Says Inflation Remains Low.
What’s the ABC’s headline?
Costello welcomes inflation rise
Heh. Advantage: Gnu Hunter.
Wed, 14 Apr 2004
The Daily Ablution complained to the BBC about a poll they ran that concluded US is bigger threat than terror. Well, that was the headline, anyway; the real conclusion was that the US and globalisation combined were a bigger threat than terror, at least given the online poll they did. Apart from being an online poll, there were other methodology problems that were worth criticising and that make the conclusion fairly tenuous. But whatever. The BBC guys who did the the survey were kind enough to respond to his complaints, not just once by email, but again in the comments of that blog entry:
While it is interesting to speculate on methodological issues - most of which are irrelevant - wouldn’t it be more useful to consider the meaning of the results. […]
The fact is, people from around the world - including a large number from North America - were more likely to list the power of the USA and global corporations as among the world’s biggest problems than global warming, wars or terrorism, communicable diseases such as AIDS, or hunger, or lack of sanitation. Isn’t that interesting. But what does this mean? Where has it come from? What do people who disagree feel would be an appropriate response?
The responses tended to be like:
Jeremy. No, it’s not worth addressing. To paraphrase: a fatuous survey has ludicrous results, but the results are so interesting (ie they confirm all my prejudices) that as to how they were actually compiled and whether they are remotely worthwhile… well that’s just nit-picking, isn’t it?
Personally, I think that’s stupid. A large number of people really do think the US and globalisation are serious dangers, and unless those of us who disagree are planning on exterminating all of them (did I miss a memo?) working out how to understand how they tick, and ideally work out a way of convincing them that they’re wrong is surely valuable. Maybe the poll’s wrong or it draws to broad a conclusion. So what? It was a sincere attempt, and the people who ran it seem to be interested in listening to people’s thoughts (although apparently they’re not so interested in criticism of the methodology. tsk).
Anyway, I think the real issue is that unlike the other threats – war, terrorism, hunger, climate change, corruption – the US and globalisation aren’t harmful in and of themselves; they’re not dangers, so much as powers. It’s a similar thing to saying “science” is a threat. It’s not naturally a danger, but you might feel threatened by it anyway because it gives more power to people you don’t trust, whether by providing dangerous weapons that might be used to kill you or your friends, or persuasive arguments that you worry might be used to trick you into doing things that are dangerous.
There are a reasonable similarities between this treatment of “science” and “globalisation”: both have been decried as unqualified boogeymen at the same time as people are reaping their benefits by being better fed, better entertained, better educated, and generally leading fuller and richer lives. Maybe Nike, Microsoft and McDonalds are evil, but the Internet, Greenpeace, and Linux are equal beneficiaries of globalisation. Maybe you’re not happy that globalisation means you get to watch crap Hollywood movies all around the world, but it’s also what lets you watch Bollywood movies. You might be sick of pop-trash like Britney, but without globalisation there wouldn’t be a “world music” genre, by definition.
You don’t have to go back many decades to find people seriously concerned about the horrible things science can create; and people’s hearts still flutter when thinking about things like cloning and genetic modifications. But that’s kind-of the point: it’s not science itself you should be worrying about; it might make various catastrophes possible, but it also provides the tools to understand, predict and prevent catastrophes. Thinking about the risks and minimising them is the correct approach; not giving up and wishing we didn’t know anything about anything, or have to have anything to do with people who live over the horizon. Sure globalisation provides lots of possibilities to do harm, but it also provides the possibilities to avoid or diminish the risks it creates. McDonalds might put your favourite hometown restaurant out of business, but the Internet lets you email the chef to get a copy of one of his recipes from the other side of the world, so his meals can live on. Fluid labour markets might mean you have to leave your family and friends in order to work at the job your best at, but global markets also make it at least affordable if not outright cheap to visit them back at home, or to keep in touch with them.
Which is to say, I think the people responding to the poll are making the same mistake about globalisation that luddites have made about science. It’s something to talk about and think about, but the soundbite itself doesn’t have any real truth to it, that I can see.
Sat, 10 Apr 2004
The world’s an odd place. In this year’s State of the Union, and as one of his election platforms, President Bush has supported the push to reserve marriage in the US for straight folk. Various sensible folks were naturally outraged at this, just as other various sensible folks have been concerned to various degrees by some of Prime Minister Howard’s thoughts on the same subject.
I find it pretty interesting to contrast these sorts of takes with this little bit of banter I noticed the other day:
President Bush opened his 10-minute remarks to the gathering with a reference to what he referred to as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “favorite show” on television. Those anticipating an “Apprentice” punch line – the Donald, after all, was only a few yards away – guessed wrong.
“Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” Bush said, generating a roomful of laughter. “My Cabinet could take some pointers from watching that show. In fact, I’m going to have the Fab Five do a makeover on [Attorney General John] Ashcroft.”
When even the folks you think of as your most dangerous enemies think you have something of great value to offer them, and can find joy and pleasure when talking about you, you can’t be far off winning.
Sun, 29 Feb 2004
Cats and dogs, stewing together
Eating cats and dogs is now illegal in SA. Conscientious objector Kris Hanna had this to say:
It plays upon unfounded fears about people from our own cultures who have different eating habits to our own.
I wonder if he meant “It plays upon unfounded fears about people from other cultures who, in actual fact, have similar eating habits to our own.”
Fri, 30 Jan 2004
So, here’s the lede:
Howard blasts ‘sloppy’ Latham
Prime Minister John Howard has launched a scathing attack on Federal Opposition leader Mark Latham, saying he is sloppy with the truth and he wants to expose him.
But the Labor Party is unfazed by Mr Howard’s criticism.
At the time of writing, that’s what’s visible on the ABC’s main page. What are the immediate conclusions you can draw from that? One is that Howard is attacking. Another is that he wants to expose Mark Latham, but presumably hasn’t yet. The Labor party, meanwhile, are reacting to this attack with calm aplomb. What attributes do you thus associate with whom? Howard gets “divisive” and “ineffectual”. Labor/Latham get “victim” and “stoic”. Note also that Howard makes claims, while the Labor party is unfazed.
Note also the complete lack of information. What’s Latham being sloppy about? Is Howard right to make those accusations? Or is Labor right to be unconcerned? Let’s look at the story. Or perhaps I should say, the “story”:
Mr Howard accused Mr Latham of being “sloppy with the truth” in his speech he delivered yesterday at the ALP National Conference.
“This man, when you go below the glib generalisations, hasn’t got a grip on some of the basic facts,” he said.
Mr Howard says Mr Latham’s address was full of mistakes on issues such as the economy and unemployment, and that Mr Latham “doesn’t tell it as it is”.
Okay, great. We already knew Howard was criticising Latham. Were they just general issues about the economy and unemployment? Because there’s a lot there that we don’t understand well, and there’s a lot of room for legitimate differences of opinion. But if you want details, you won’t find them in the ABC story, which ends with some more, unrelated criticism from Howard, also devoid of any specifics:
“He has an interesting put and take attitude to the past, whenever something’s embarrassing about something he said in the past such as his attacks on George Bush or his attacks on female journalists he says, look this election is about the future, yet when it suits him he likes to talk a lot about aspects of his own past,” he said.
and some replies that are equally voided of any substance:
ALP president Carmen Lawrence said that was “a bit rich”, coming from Mr Howard.
“My God, he should look at a mirror someday, really that’s amazing, that’s desperate, let me tell you,” she said.
Mr Latham also brushed off the criticism.
Also, yay for ALP bigwigs that sound like a primary schoolkid who’s been insulted, and can’t think of an original comeback. Next thing she’ll be doing Peewee Herman impressions: “I know you are, but what am I?”
So, left completely uninformed by the ABC, let’s try ninemsn, which is running the same story. Their lede?
Latham sloppy with truth: PM
Opposition Leader Mark Latham is sloppy with the truth and has a dangerous tendency to blame his staff, Prime Minister John Howard says.
What’s your impression from that? Seems fairly straightforward to me: Latham is bad, if you can believe what Howard says. Can we believe what Howard says? Let’s see what that is:
Mr Latham had said 370,000 Australians were long-term unemployed.
But the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for December found the figure was 117,200 - the lowest since September 1990, Mr Howard said.
Mr Latham had made a totally erroneous claim on ABC radio on Friday morning that the government’s proposed Medicare safety net would cost billions, Mr Howard said.
The real cost was $250-to-$260 million over four years, Mr Howard said.
“This man, when you go below the glib generalisations, hasn’t got a grip on some of the basic facts,” Mr Howard said.
Also justified, with a couple of examples, is the claim he blames staffers too much. It’s disappointing that that the rule of three wasn’t followed: if you’re going to make a general claim, you should always offer three examples: one’s happenstance, two’s a coincidence, three’s a trend, and four is just gloating.
The Sydney Morning Herald is running the same AAP story as ninemsn; News Ltd appears not to have picked up on it at all yet.
Bias in the ABC’s news reporting is forgivable, but having their headline story contain nothing but fluff, when even the AAP can do better, is utterly disgraceful.
Oh, an addendum. If we look at the ABC's "offbeat" stories, we have this lovely one demonising the US State Dept for changing a typeface. Yeesh.
There are only three exceptions to the draconian new typographical rules: telegrams, treaty materials prepared by the State Department's legal affairs office and documents drawn up for the president's signature, it said.
The memorandum offered no explanation for the exceptions, leaving foreign service officers to speculate as to whether the White House, US treaty partners and telegram readers are not yet able to handle the change.
We've got "draconian rules", exceptions for the president, lack of explanations, and important sections of the government too incompetent to deal with even a minor change like this.
This one's from the "Agence France-Presse"; along with a fair chunk of the ABC's reporting on America.
Mon, 22 Dec 2003
Ben and David have been having a little cross-blog discussion about Saddam being found in a hole, and how much America sucks.
In his followup, Ben writes:
But no, I dont believe the Americans should get a break. The US is unquestionably a superpower and with that superpower status comes a responsibility to lead like it or not, people and nations around the world look to politically and culturally strong nations like the United States for leadership.
In a similar vein, Ben’s also said in the past (in relation to his Pot. Kettle. Black post):
<bjf> well, if i were aiming to be a reputable media outlet, i’d feel more strongly obligated to be less biased politically
Hopefully Ben won’t mind that quote being pulled from IRC and stuck on the web for all to see, especially given it’s not terribly different in intent to the quote above. Basically, the viewpoint is that people in positions of power should be held to a higher level of responsibility and accountability than others – usually the speaker.
Personally, I don’t think this makes sense. It’s obvious hypocrisy – holding others to standards to which you don’t hold yourself is the definition of the word afterall – for a start, but even moreso it’s just a bad philosophy.
For one, no one’s going to care about your standards if you don’t live up to them yourself, and if you’re not powerful by regular means, you’ve got no other leverage than persuasion. America doesn’t need anyone’s support to destroy its enemies, however much it might like that support but Australia does.
For another, it’s liable to degenerate into arguments about who’s powerful: find a right-wing columnist, and they’ll tell you they’re a voice in the wilderness barely heard amidst the chirruping of the left-wing media. Ask a left-winger the same thing, and they’ll tell you that their principled dissent is under constant attack by the conservative forces and their propaganda machines. There seems to be very strong evidence of an “underdog bias” when evaluating your own ideology’s position, and the natural result of that and the adoption of Ben’s principle above is that everyone refuses to hold themselves to high standards, but expects everyone else to do so. That’s not healthy.
And finally, if you don’t get some practice holding yourself to high standards when you’re not doing an important job, you’re probably not going to be able to when you are doing something that involves a lot of power. That can happen without you doing anything – “Linux hacker” wasn’t a very important or powerful position in the early 1990s, but it’s a lot moreso now – so it’s best to be prepared as soon as you can be.
(Is this one of the divisive issues between “left” and “right”? That right-wingers expect everyone to act responsibly at all times, and left-wingers only expect certain elites to act responsibly? Do left-wingers ever accept responsibility themselves as a matter of course, or do they only thrust it upon others, or have it thrust upon them? Are right-wingers any better in practice?)
Sat, 06 Dec 2003
Isn’t it?. Where’s Media Watch when you need it? On Christmas Holidays, of course.
Sun, 30 Nov 2003
Feh. Listening to Sky News tonight report on Bush’s visit to Baghdad airport. What did the Iraqis think? “Some were indifferent, others were angry.” Apparently not one actively approved. Meanwhile the ABC’s current take on it is to headline a story that says:
The American media has given a generally favourable response to US President George W Bush’s surprise visit to Iraq.
with CNN unhappy about Bush’s surprise visit to Iraq. Hey, guess what: who got seats on the plane isn’t news. How it’s affected the soldiers, the terrorists, and the people of Iraq, that’s what the news is, not which news agency is having a hissy fit today – least of all when it’s the one that refused to report atrocities when Saddam was in power. Meanwhile, we’ve got another story today, this one about an anti-terror demonstration in Baghdad. The ABC titles that one Hundreds protest against violence in Baghdad – because hey, it’s important to blur the line between terrorists who use violence against civilians, and soldiers, who use violence against terrorists. And what’s their lead?
A US soldier has been killed in a mortar attack on a base in northern Iraq as hundreds of Iraqis marched through the centre of Baghdad to protest against the violence plaguing the country’s reconstruction.
Yeesh.
And now that we’ve had time to digest the news, what’s the “analysis” of Bush’s visit? Well, the ABC’s got the answer to that, too: Bush’s Iraq visit a pre-election PR stunt: analysis. And hey, all you’ve got to do to get an unbiassed analysis of a political event is to quote a selection of editorials from the world’s newspapers. But hey, at least it gives you an excuse to make your summary both long, and exclusively downbeat.
Many newspapers in the Middle East, especially in the Gulf, carried no commentary on the visit which took place as Muslims in the region were still celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holidays which follow the holy month of Ramadan.
How much of a disappointment must that’ve been for the author? All that story needed was inflamed Islamists spouting their usual anti-American bile to make it clear that that idiot Bush’s pathetic domestic political stunts were going to kill us all.
Bloody. Morons.
I’m inclined to think bitching about things being “an election stunt” is stupid too. If there hadn’t been an election due for years yet, would it have still been worth doing? If it inspired the troops, if it cowed the terrorists, if it strengthened the US/Iraq alliance, if any of those things happened, it was in America’s national interest. If none of them did, it was a waste of time, money and effort. What does an upcoming election mean? Absolutely nothing more or less than that the American people get to judge him – on whether it was useful, or whether it wasn’t – or more accurately, get to act on that judgement.
In other words, election stunts are exactly what we want – let’s have our leaders making grand gestures and doing tremendous things that justifiably impress us all the time, not just once every few years.
Portraying it as just an election stunt is pure propaganda, designed to avoid us realising that it might have usefully furthered our activities in the War on Terror and to diminish Bush in the reader’s eyes. Worse, they do this specifically by being misleading on important issues, upon which we rely on them. Worse, that people and organisations we rely on and respect, like CNN, the ABC and the New York Times, act this way actively defeats the achievements Bush makes – sure, maybe the terrorists get a little bit upset that Bush can appear amongst his supporters in Baghdad and that Saddam can’t, but hey, no need for that sourpuss face when respected news agencies the world over are there to run your propaganda for you.
And what’s with news stories that don’t have a byline, and barely even a wire-service attribution? How does that do anything but inhibit accountability?
From the ABC website:
World
Bush draws fire on steel move White House changes story again Bush cans steel import duties
That's right, the only world news relevant to Australia is that Bush is evil. The one that really drew my attention was the middle one though. What sort of headline is that? What story are we talking about? What information does that convey except "The Bush government suxx0rs but we can't say that outright because the bias would be too obvious". Let's have a look what it's actually about, shall we?
For the second time in days, the White House has changed its story about a mid-air encounter that was one of the most vivid anecdotes about US President George W Bush's surprise trip to Baghdad.
Yes, that's right, we're still going on about the visit to Baghdad. Why, for heaven's sake?? Yes, great, it was a cool little morale booster, and it was a nice bit of excitement for America on Thanksgiving Day. But, you know, we're not America -- this is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation -- and this foreign, domestic, partisan nonsense just isn't all that interesting to anyone who's not looking for an excuse to criticise Bush (or to criticise the ABC's grossly poor reporting).
The article also goes on to say that the photograph of President Bush holding a turkey was of a display turkey, rather than one for eating. Somehow we're meant to extrapolate something important from this, presumably that Bush is all fake, and didn't actually do anything to help the troops. White Glenn debunks that, if anyone can be bothered caring.
And just quickly, let's look at the other stories. They're about steel tarrifs, which are evil, just like all tarrifs. Australia was almost affected, but we did a deal and got exempted. Yay for the Howard government. Meanwhile the Europeans got annoyed, and threatened to retalliate. Now the tarrifs are going away, which is what we all want. Yay! So what's the ABC's take? Bush draws fire on steel move. Yes, that's right -- let's focus on the criticism, even though this is a Good Thing for Australia. Notice:
"I am disappointed that the President won't be renewing the tariffs just as they've begun to work," Republican Senator George Voinovich of Ohio said.
"The Bush administration deserves credit for doing something that the previous administration never did, despite pleas from steel companies and steel unions, and that's come to steel's rescue," he added.
See, even his friends (fellow Republicans) hate him, even though they have to add on little riders to make sure they don't get disendorsed. Who else hates him?
Ohio representative Ted Strickland said: "We have a President who capitulated in the face of the European threat."
Interesting, don't you think, that Ted's an "Ohio representative", while George is a "Republican Senator [..] of Ohio"? I wonder which party Ted belongs to. Why, yes, he's a Democrat. Is it remotely possible that Ted's comments could have been influenced by his party membership and that maybe it would be useful for readers to be told that up front?
There's more slant: critics "lashed out" at the changes, supporters merely "praised" them or "expressed satisfaction". Of the direct quotes in the article, Greg's above is the only one that is ina ny way supportive, while there are quotes from Daniel DiMicco, and Leo Gerard supporting Ted's take.
Where can we go to get an honest, forthright and unprejudiced take on world events? Obviously not the ABC.
Ah. The wire service most of those stories are from is the "AFP", also known as Agence France-Presse. Yay, our State-run broadcaster is passing on barely attributed propaganda from our enemies.
Fri, 10 Oct 2003
Cypher was a fun movie, twisty and a little noir, with some suspense and revulsion and action and sexual tension and everything. The only problem with it was a strange mis-step in the script: a couple of scenes were about incredibly boring lectures at conferences, and while they at least weren’t so out of touch to try setting it at a Linux conference, one of their topics was enthralling enough to make me wish they could’ve drawn out that scene just a little longer.
Ah, central banks and monetary policy, so thrilling.
Also intriguing is this article on experimental economics. This is the theory that was behind the “market in terror” that got shot down by knee-jerk ignoramuses not too long ago.
IN ONE EXPERIMENT they create minimarkets, with real cash rewards, that allow employees to bet on future sales and revenue. So far these internal futures markets have done a better job of forecasting than polls of top executives. The disruptive implications for the corporate pecking order, and not only at Hewlett-Packard, arent lost on anyone.
In other news, did you know that Governor Schwarzenegger has an economics degree and an honorary doctorate?
An Open Letter to Paul Krugman
Read it. Bookmark it. Read it again, beforehand, next time you choose to argue about something.
Sun, 28 Sep 2003
Quoth the Belmont Club:
The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Therefore the ‘rational’ American response to the initiation of terrorist WMD attack would be all out retaliation from the outset.
Thu, 04 Sep 2003
Martin writes, among other things:
What it ought to confirm is that before dealing with large amounts of money or running for government you damn well should understand the detail, or consult someone who does.
Arguments about whether One Nation is unaccountable to its members or has wacky policies are beside the point.
Obviously, I don’t think this is the case. If it weren’t for the wacky membership policies and unaccountability, there wouldn’t be a problem here: the 1000 Queenslanders in the One Nation Support Group would have been members, and no fraud would have been committed.
Unfortunately the sentencing statement doesn’t go into any details on this, but the previous case that prompted the current one did. The following is from the appeal a couple of years ago to the Supreme Court of Queensland, Sharples v O’Shea and Hanson. It’s about Terry Sharples who campaigned for election under the One Nation banner. He failed to get elected, but achieved over 4% of the vote, and as such was entitled to recover $1 in expenses for each vote he received, or rather, since he was endorsed as a candidate for a party, it was entitled to that money. He had thought he had had an agreement with the party to have 75% of his expenses reimbursed, and having not recieved it after a falling out with the party leadership before the election tried to recover his costs.
[5] […] Mr Sharples believed he had joined Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. He had paid a $40 membership fee, and $250 candidate party nomination fees. He had received a membership card dated 4 June 1998 showing him as a member of the Gold Coast branch of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
[6] Yet those who controlled the party disputed Mr Sharples’ claim. On 17 February 1999 he received written notice of a forthcoming annual general meeting of the party, to be held in Sydney on 28 February 1999. He attended the meeting and showed his membership card, but was refused admittance. Mr Ettridge then told him, as Her Honour found, that it was “just a piece of paper with (his) name on it”, and that he had never been “a member of the party Pauline Hanson’s One Nation”.
I can’t help but note as an aside here, that the court’s rulings had those quotations punctuated exactly as above: with the commas and periods outside the quotes. W00t. Today quotations, tomorrow spaces after full stops!
Anyway, had the above and similar idiocy not occurred, there would likely have been no actionable problems with the party’s registration; although there may have been a good case for Mr Sharples to sue One Nation for breach of contract to recover his costs that way. That’s not to say there would have been no problems – the judge also mentions that the initial constitution submitted to the electoral commission was that of the federal One Nation party, and had to be changed after the fact. No doubt there was more bungling involved too, further confusing matters, and getting the party leadership more addicted to opportunistically reinterpreting ambiguities in their favour.
And none of that’s any good, it’s dishonest, double dealing, and, in spite of what I wrote earlier, letting people pay membership fees, then telling them they’re not members and have no right to enter a meeting is defrauding your supporters and members. And that deserves restitution and punishment.
It’s not fair to claim that Hanson simply misunderstood what was required – had that been the case, she could and should have fixed the problems when they were brought to her attention. But it’s also not fair to claim that this raises major doubts about the political process: One Nation was a legitimate political party, legitimately registered as such under the Federal rules. Hanson and Etteridge’s crimes were not that they received money, nor that they wanted to have autocratic control over their party: it was that they either defrauded their members when they tried to join, or (more accurately, IMO) opportunistically repudiated their memberships when it became convenient, and they violated a rule in the electoral act put in place to ensure registered political parties have a reasonable amount of support. Since One Nation did have a reasonable amount of support at the time – as evidenced by the election of eleven of its candidates – it’s hard for me, at least, to consider that a violation in principle rather than a technical violation.
For contast, a deliberately fraudulent attempt to manipulate the party registrations might include registering the “Liberal Party” and running candidates under that name, hoping to distract voters who are aiming for the “Liberal Party of Australia”. That, certainly, would confound my faith in the electoral process. Having people who agreed with One Nation’s policies running under the banner of One Nation, though, certainly doesn’t; although the converse – ie, not allowing them to run as a party – might.
Martin also says:
One Nation’s fraud brought them non-monetary benefits which they can’t repay. We can’t go back now and re-run the election with One Nation not registered.
Basically, I find such claims patently ridiculous. The votes One Nation candidates received due to One Nation’s policies are theirs by rights – claiming them a benefit doled out by a government bureacracy is nonsense. Had One Nation candidates received less votes because the electoral forms did not list their party affiliation, that would have been a wrong done to both the candidates and to potential One Nation voters.
Anyway, all that’s as may be. The focus of my previous remarks haven’t been whether Ms Hanson did anything wrong, but rather at the length of the sentence. Martin quotes me and replies:
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see a lot of point getting worked up when a thief pays back everything they stole. If you’re going to slap someone on the wrists, do it to the people who can and do remedy the harm they cause.
I think it’s just you.
Giving back ill-gotten gains when somebody is caught or about to be caught does not undo the crime. There are at least three reasons: Hanson had the benefit of the money in the interim, the fraud was wrong in itself regardless of whether it was profitable, and there must be a disincentive to people “trying it on”. It’s right and normal for criminals to do more than just repay the money. In passing sentence Wolfe CJ did consider their attempt to repay, among other mitigating circumstances, which is also entirely reasonable.
And certainly it is right and normal for people to do more than pay back what they stole. But we have a whole range of such punishments, from adding on interest and costs, through community service and weekend detention before we get to putting people in jail for three to five years. Perhaps “a slap on the wrist” is too weak, but compared to three years’ jail, more senible terms (like six months in jail, or a few years’ community service) certainly seem like nothing more than that.
(Blog war! Blog war!)
Tue, 02 Sep 2003
Articles on the Hanson verdict tend to fall into two camps: one says she was a bit silly, but didn’t do anything particularly bad, and three years is ridiculous; the other says she was found guilty of defrauding the state of $500,000 – what sentence would you hand out? It’s a bit difficult to work out from the reports which of these is a more accurate view; either’s quite plausible in the absence of any facts.
Mediawatch demonstrates its usual lack of faith in the public by blaming the outrage not on the result itself, but rather on the public’s ignorance. On the upside, it also has a link to the Judge’s Sentence. That includes the following comments:
I accept that Ms Hanson immediately threw her weight into and stood behind every effot to raise money from her supporters to pay back the electoral funding and that that has been done. […] The money has been paid back from those people so the tax payers are not out of pocket in that respect.
[…]
The advantage you received for yourselves has not been suggested by the learnered Crown Prosecutor to be an advantage which benefited you personally, financially. The benefit was that you continued to control the allocation, both of you, of the electoral funding and how the Party was run […].
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see a lot of point getting worked up when a thief pays back everything they stole. If you’re going to slap someone on the wrists, do it to the people who can and do remedy the harm they cause.
The jury, in their verdicts, has found that both of you knew that it was a list of members of the support movement, a body incorporated under the Associations Act, the Pauline Hanson Support Movement, which changed its name ultimately to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Members Inc. […] Whether or not those electors believed they were members of the party, the jury has found that you knew they were not and accordingly the party, through its registration became entitled to the benefits to which I have referred.
It appears, then, that the only entity that was defrauded here was the government. The supporters/members of the party knew or should have known what they were getting into, and the public presumably knew what they were doing when they were voting for (or against) One Nation. Which means One Nation was at least a real, reasonably popular, political party. That’s not enough to get funding from the government, but it’s probably the most important part. All of which leaves me in the “what was the big deal?” camp.
Certainly, you can criticise One Nation for having an unaccountable executive. You can criticise Debian for the same thing, if you like: one of the key groups enshrined in the Debian constitution is the Technical Committee, which has a number of reserve powers such as the ability to override anyone’s decision, or act in place of the Project Leader; it’s also impossible to appoint or remove anyone from the Technical Committee without the ctte’s assent. Ensuring groups stay true to their founding principles is a difficult problem – but their are wrong ways of solving it, and removing accountability is probably one of them.
The personality cult and the policies of One Nation do have overtones of Nazi-ism, but personally, I’m happier that One Nation was defeated at the ballot box, rather than in the courts. And once they are, let’s make them clean up whatever mistakes they’ve made, and get them back where they belong: serving us fish and chips, not looking for a come back tour.
Mon, 01 Sep 2003
Laborite Ben thinks IT workers would benefit from collective bargaining, and thus should be forced to partake in it for their own good:
I wonder if things will get nearly as bad for IT people and if (or when) it happens, whether IT specialists will consider taking membership of a professional societies more seriously.
The biggest hurdle to this, I think, even if salaries, conditions and hiring practices get really bad, is an ideological one. If Slashdot is any indicator, your average IT worker would have to be screwed pretty hard before considering joining a union. Collective bargaining only really works if the majority of workers are being represented by the entity doing the bargaining. I could just imagine the econo-fundies screaming blue murder at the mere suggestion that the Government make membership of the ACS (ACM, etc) mandatory for IT grads.
The obvious problem with this is that clearly not everyone does benefit from collective bargaining – if they did, you wouldn’t need to use fines and jails to force it upon people, you could simply persuade them to be a part of it. The people that don’t benefit are the ones who aren’t highly skilled enough to be worth high salaries, but are desperate enough for a job that they’ll take whatever salary they can get. While the market itself is a positive sum game – informed voluntary trade requires both parties to benefit for it to happen at all, by definition – applying force to it, and restricting people’s options is at best a zero-sum game.
This is just considering potential employees, too. Potential employers are impacted by compulsory unions too: they’re prevented from hiring cheaper, but equally effective workers increasing their costs, and they’re prevented from responding to the market, ie to consumer preferences with regard to their products, by restructuring their workforce. And as the guys paying the employers who pay the employees who pay the unions, the end consumers have to put up with higher prices and less responsive industries too.
Which isn’t to say unionism is all bad. Unions can have a better sense of what reasonable rates are across an industry than an individual does, and make sure that individual can make an informed choice on whether he should take a pay cut, or offer his services to another company. Providing educational opportunities, and recommendations on what skills the market is likely to want in the future is a valuable service unions can offer too. But none of that is incompatible with a free labour market, and none of it requires the use of force by the government and police, or the mob violence of strikes and picket lines to back it up.
Personally, I joined the ACM while I was in uni, and the access to the digital library and some of the publications were quite interesting. I haven’t renewed for a while, though, because lately I don’t have much use for that level of academic discourse. I’m sure if that changes, they’ll start receiving membership fees from me again.
(The key economic principle for mutually beneficial trade is comparative advantage. It’s somewhat difficult to find good introductions to the concept on the web, disappointingly. As comparative advantage changes, what should be done locally, and what should be done overseas changes too.)
Fri, 29 Aug 2003
“I want to thank the Australian people who supported our cause when they demonstrated against the policies of George Bush. Say thank you to all of them,” Sawad said.
Fri, 22 Aug 2003
There’s certainly something wrong here.
John Howard's reaction to Pauline Hanson's sentence:
"Like many other Australians, on the face of it, it does seem [to me] a very long unconditional sentence for what she's alleged to have done," [Howard] said.
Peter Beattie's response to that:
Mr Beattie says politicians should stop commenting on the sentence.
"I have never seen so many gutless wimps in my life, running around like scalded cats trying to position themselves for political gain," he said.
"I just simply say to everybody, and I've noticed it at a federal level and I see it at a state level, I just say to all of them, have some respect for the courts."
How dare politicians launch personal attacks and silence debate like that? I blame John Ashcroft.