A guest post by Mick:
Inspired by this thread and the Ruddsters Rampant Rollout I have a question for LP readers of all political persuasions:
In the upcoming election campaign what are the “dream” policies that you would love to hear your political party of choice put out there? More concisely, in the next term what do you want your government to do for you?
This question is pretty vague because I’d like you guys to throw your ideas down, I’m also really interested in hearing why you think that your dream policy should (or could) be delivered by the government? Think big and small, everything from fixing the potholes in your street to delivering on that old-fashioned world peace thing. What is it that you really really want from your government and how does it fit into your vision of Australia’s future?
Here is my attempt at getting the ball rolling:
In the upcoming election campaign I want to see the major parties argue over a detailed plan demonstrating how they are going to improve the research standards in Australia to ensure that we remain competitive against the US and Europe over the next 20 years. I don’t want to hear the Liberal Party’s ideologically driven rhetoric about privatisation. I don’t want to hear piecemeal Labor Party lines about creating an “Innovation Nation” without a considered plan. I want to see our government serious about creating an environment that will make the world’s industry leaders and the Australian public want to invest in Australian research instead of European or American research. I want to hear Kevin Rudd or John Howard say, “Anything they can do at MIT we will do better”, briefly followed by, “and this is how I’m going to make it happen…”.
Second that on research.
I’d also like to see a policy on our economy’s massive over-exposure to China, and how the government is moving to protect the Australian economy from a post-Beijing Olympics economic crunch (or worse).
It’s a good question, Anna, and I think I have exactly the wrong answer.
Governments can’t do anything; people can.
One of the noblest and stupidest things ever said by an Australian politician was said by Ben Chifley in 1949:
Sorry, Ben, it’s not the job of governments to dispense happiness. People have to find that for themselves. All you can reasonably ask of government is that it governs well and efficiently, and wastes as little of our money as possible. The more any government tries to improve the world, or the bit of it occupied by its constituency, the more dangerous it is.
Funny you should say that. Why? You’ll find out fairly soon. But it’s not just a question of research standards alone but about developing a whole innovation to commercialisation pipeline/culture in a country which lacks the VC funding and test marketing density of the US or EU and which couldn’t and shouldn’t go down quite the same dirigisment road of equivalently shaped and positioned OECD economies like Sweden and Israel.
Australia generates only 2% of the world’s knowledge. A fairly tasty 2% though – in key areas like the life sciences, minerals extraction and processing, environmental technologies and financial, professional and technical services. Plus we still have some really hot bands. The trick is working out how to leverage that tiny but very pointed edge into useful access to the bits of other 98% we could really use.
Where did my last comment on this thread go? Was it the mention of “really hot bands”. Clearly we need a new policy for spam filter research standards.
And clearly Rob needs a new schtick beyound just pointless snark.
Rob, I dunno, providing the right services could make the world a better place. I’m not having a go but maybe you are taking for granted some of the things that the government provides you?
I think that governments can at the very least give people opportunities, provide security, and a decent standard of living.
I think “really hot bands” is a really hot idea.
I want to see Peter Garrett announce that there will be an awesome band playing in every pub every weekend.
I’d like to see a really ambitious policy on renewable energy.
If Howard can offer $3000 for everyone to convert their cars to LPG, why cant we have really aggressive rebates or incentives to install domestic water capture and storage, waste water treatment and solar energy?
Aggressively assisting people to install these domestic systems has gotta be cheaper than providing mega infrastructure like more dams and more coal -powered electricity, and could knock the nuclear nonsense off the options list altogether.
California as the worlds fifth largest economy has shown it can go it alone and introduce legislation demanding environmental performance from companies, so why cant Australia?
Why is it that China’s richest man – an Aussie resident – has achieved his success using solar technology developed in Australia. The “Clever Country” couldnt see possibilities and so the opportunity has been taken offshore.
A really serious Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi effort to champion renewable energy as if it were an Olympic sport, that’s my wish.
Sighs. Have you ever thought of doing it for money, Nabakov? I’m sure you’d not be a great success.
Anna — sorry, that comment should have been addressed to Mick.
My point was really that there are no ‘dream’ policies other than letting people get on with it.
It was a throwaway line Mick in the context of a larger comment I made which I’m hoping will finally materialise here but certainly there’s nothing wrong with generating a global living out of one’s culture generators and wranglers. Whether it’s the BBC or ‘Hello Kitty’, export dollars are being raking in by organisations with comparatively low overheads and resource footprints.
The big difference between that 50 year old piece of political rhetoric that Rob quoted lemon in mouth and Howard’s “comfortable and relaxed” is that Ben had a better command of the mother tongue.
Following on from my previous comment, it’s estimated that the majority of the US’s exports now come from intellectual property in one form or another – whether its software, design, entertainment or franchises.
I getcha Rob, I was just in stoushing mode. I tend to agree that no one policy is ever going to make some of the big things happen, that’s for people to change themselves.
I do think that the government can help people “get on with it”, at least to some extent. The government can create an environment makes it easier for people to get the things done that they want to get done.
Which underlines my point, doesn’t it? It’s people’s ingenuity and entrepreneurial skill that is the key to a nation’s success, not government policy.
So you reckon Furtwangler would have emerged, been supported to develop his gift and then thrivied in a policy free zone like Somalia?
The same classic western culture I wager you’d purport to defend arose out of societies with very firm and clear policies about everything from education to central banking.
And surely by now Anna, you can haul my original comment out of moderation. It wasn’t that heavy.
No argument from me on the principle, but whether you can apply it to Arts Council grantees might be another matter…
What was your point again, Nabakov?
Nabs, let’s hope that comment lives up to the hype, eh?
By the way – as noted at the beginning of the post, it was written by Mick, not me.
I’d vote for the person who said:
I’m already voting for the party expressing my dream policies. If you’re voting for a party that doesn’t express the policy ideas you want to see, then perhaps instead of dreaming of the day that they will, you should reconsider your vote.
Getting back to the post
… my dream government would commission a discussion paper from a group of suitably informed citizens to propose a new, independent Australian foreign policy, free of all received wisdom about existing ’special relationships’ with other countries. The over-riding objectives to be (1) the protection of Australian national security in the long term, (2) regional stability and coming a distant (3), promotion of economic growth. We’ll never have a proper debate about foreign policy as long as both major parties refuse to consider the true value of the American alliance.
Thanks for the subtle re-direct Ken.
D’oh! Sorry you all look the same online.
If being wilfully non-comprehending is your best rebuttal, it doesn’t say much for your original arguement does it?
Here’s a fun list of “dream policies” furiously resisted by various interests at the time they were first seriously mooted.
Trial by jury
Representive parliaments
Abolition of slavery
No taxation without represention
The secret ballot
Food and drug standards
National Parks
Workplace health and safety standards
Universal suffrage
Fluoridation
No fault divorce
Seat belts
Pollution emission standards
All enacted by the Governments of the countries with the best quality of life now. Care to repeal any of ‘em Rob?
Not so much a policy but I’d like to see an end to voting along party lines and MPs actually being allowed to vote as their conscience dictates.
Great question.
Since my preferred option of getting rid of these bloody bosses isn’t on the table right now, I would suggest:
M. Candidate,
What is the most important single thing you think people could do to make themselves more powerful, and how do you plan to help them do that?
I’m with Kieran. There is a party out there that truly represents the hopes and dreams of the progressive constituent.
I’m pleading with others that identify as progressives not to vote for a conservative party.
I didn’t get your point about Furtwangler, Nabakov. I still don’t.
Yes, I’d repeal the statutes on no fault divorce and seat belts.
Most of the truly great reforms you list were reluctantly agreed to by government only after years or decades of lobbying from within the community. Trial by jury (remember King John and the barons at Runymede?), no taxation without representation (took a revolution in America to enshrine that principle), abolition of slavery (thanks to the tireless work of Christian evangelicals), universal suffrage and representative parliaments (again, governments had to be forced to agree by popular pressure. Governments never give power away if they’re not compelled to).
The rest is just good governance, which I said at the outset was the proper role of government.
I think you’re making my argument for me — thanks.
So you’re not just being deliberately obtuse Rob, you genuinely don’t see the disconnect between “governments should just get out of the way” and governments accepting, establishing and enforcing community aspirations, expectations and benchmarks?
No wonder you just can’t grasp my point about Furtie and the kind of Mittleuropa that made him possible.
I wish for a government that has an equality agenda. Not rob the rich to give to the poor, but an even distribution of Australia’s wealth. ( No Mr. Multinational, you will not go broke – your slaves will just be a lot less surly)
No cow-towing to institutions such as the IMF and the so called ‘World’ Bank.
A Government who will open the books on the Aust/US Free Trade Agreement and let us all see what it contains and have OUR government explain to us all, in simple, truthfull terms, its advantages and liabilities (hidden or otherwise).
A government who will then let us decide if it is in our interests.
We can all be given a big form with all the details and have a year to decide, Our decisions will be our government’s decision. All of it, part of it, or none of it.
A government with a philosophy of armed neutrality.
A government whos economic agenda has the welfare of its citizens as the number 1 priority. Not the welfare of undefinable, vague corporate entities.
A government that can steadfastly stand up for the autonomy and independence of Australia and its citizens.
A government with a policy of incrementally increasing personal and national self-sufficiency, starting with value adding of our resources. We should not be the world’s quarry. We should and can be one of the world’s greatest providers and our citizens and domestic/welfare infrastructure should be the beneficiaries.
A government for us, not themselves and their costly expediencies.
An honest government would be a good start.
I. H. R. A . The values of a Party soon to be announced in Canberra. Integrity, Honesty, Respect and Accountability.
Given that the government will be a social-democratic one, IMAO:
1) Do what the cricket team has done. Concentrate on a few specialty, highly competitive areas that will produce a pool of graduates who can successfully apply and win positions in the most prestigious and useful places in the world. Keep on promoting the stories of ‘Aussies making it here and abroad’ to encourage popular support for this program, and make sure you start them of in their careers by getting them to do useful research that benefits their home town
2) Secondary school students need to be drilled in:
i) Artithmetic. Do young school students still get the ‘Speed and Accuracy’ books?
ii) What nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions are and why they are important for expressing meaning in standard Engish. The ability to write and speak in Standard English. (Not the only form of English that should be taught, but all should learn at least what it is and how to use it).
iii) Critical thinking. The necessity and right of defying unjust or oppressive authority.
Did you notice the bit I slipped in at the end?
iv) People need to be in the habit of asking questions like
“More concisely, in the next term what do you want your government to do for you?”
How could we encourage the habit? Anna Winter, what has driven you to ask this question now?
Make the reasonable use of organised labour tactics legal again.
Shitcan the self righteous dirtbag running the fair pay commission and hand the function back to the arbitration commission.
Will that be too much to ask of any “liberal” government?
Otherwise, get ready to man the barricades. No matter how often the union movement ask me for cash this year, I will give it to them.
David, it wasn’t Anna it was me. I just got to thinking about it in the last few days and was pushed to actually write it after reading the “Lessons from political opponents thread”.
Oh and David, much of what you’ve written above is already being done by the government and is far from what is actually required to make Australia competitive in research. Australian’s already do occupy all sorts of positions in many of the world’s best unis. The reason they are there and not in Oz is that there is no infrastructure for research. Maybe I didn’t phrase that carefully enough in the post.
Whatever, this post is about making policy, not arguing about it.
Standard English, David, includes reading. The post.
It’s mick’s guest post.
No, I genuinely don’t, Nabakov. Governments do the right thing when they’re forced to. They never do so willingly. What they do willingly are the wrong things, like the current (bi-partisan) policy on Aboriginal self-determination, or WA Inc.
And your point about Furtwangler is preposterous. What made him possible was his own genius. It had nothing to do with any government, otherwise we would have had dozens of him.
Yes, let’s not make the post about what it’s intended to be about but ALL ABOUT ROB AND NABS’ STOUSH! Cool it, and let people discuss the question mick’s asked, please.
Apologies mick…I should have read that more carefully.
I should say that while I find Rob’s libertarian spirit refreshing, I think in the end our society gets a lot of good out of doing things communally.
OK mick, so if that much is standard that is good, where to from there?
How much money, in your opinion, would be required to establish the infrastructure you want? And how would the staff for it be trained?
And what are some advantages of this plan 1that we could use to sell the idea to Australians in general?
Rob’s far more of a conservative than a libertarian in what he’s saying, David, IMHO. But the point of this thread is not to discuss Rob’s views. He’s made his point that he doesn’t have any positive view of government. Point made – move on. Let’s please discuss mick’s questions.
Done, Kim.
In particular mick, can we plan for both, say, 3 world-famous projects that were so well funded that Australian graduates flocked home? If so, what other more “boring” (but extremely important) ‘bread and butter’ sort of infrastructure is also required?
Um David. This thread is about “dream policies”, not actual ones.
But just to give you an idea, it would cost billions to actually get up to scratch and it would require a huge amount of hard policy work to find a solution. To put it in perspective, Harvard’s trust has something like $24 billion just sitting around earning interest – that is a bit of a stand-out case however. In my field, the best funded individual institute has on the order of $300-400 million invested in it since around 2001. The total funding in Australia for my field (which is an area of science in which we are somewhat competitive) over the same period of time is on the order of $30 million. Again though, this isn’t really a fair comparison but is there to give you an idea about just how far off the game we are.
David, I guess the reason why I say it is a dream policy is that Australian science for the last 20 years or so has been all about funding niche fields. This is great, it keeps us in the game but will never get us on top. The goal should not be “to bring Australians home”, but should rather aim for being so good that people from all over the world will want to come here. This is the point where research begins to pay off and you start to generate real money from your research sector.
I would also like to a culture created where groups of people start meeting to see if they could come up with solutions and costings to infrastructure problems.
Social-democratic and farther-left politics in the English-speaking Western democracies tend to run up against President Bush Sr’s “Read My Lips – No New Taxes” pledge. Even though he broke his own pledge, he left behind a scene where almost no Government could ever conceive of going to an election and pledging more taxes.
So the only way you can change that is by finding out what people actually want spent and getting them to demand it. And then people also have to have an idea of what the resources and limits of the state actually are. When you have no power over it, it’s easy to think of the state as able to spend all it needs, but of course you can’t.
So even a government that is prepared to spend money on neglected infrastructure will have to do a juggling act.
But the more people get in the habit of thinking these problems through and then taking action, the more likely we are to see the spending needed.
Sounds good to me.
Oh right.
I did. Put up was what I thought (by my standards) a reasonably well argued point but it vanished. I’ll try recreating it. I will need though access to a three phase power outlet, the assistance of an audience member and 15 fluid ounces of wild boar fat in a pressure sealed container.
How about Glenmorangie for all, not just the rich?
Nabs, your comment has been taken out of the filter. It’s tops actually, right to the point of what David’s been asking about.
I dare you to go to the next ‘usual suspects’ rally with a sign that says that. :p
It’s got the right number of syllables for a chant!
My unachievable objective? Affordable childcare!
David, good point. One of the reason’s why I’m interested in people putting up their ideas is that most of the policy that we see is reactive and not pro-active (sheesh, that sounded really corny).
Serious point, btw.
Same-sex marriage!
Serious attention to structural poverty and inequality!
Look, Kim has the idea!
Now if some of the righties could tell us what they’d like from their government I’d be really happy.
Oh, there it is at last.
Vamping off it, I wanna see a government sports policy that doesn’t come over all GDR about picking winners. Or at least applies HECS to the AIS.
Also how about inflation adjusting R&D tax breaks?
And also Furtwangler spent most of his professional life on the taxpayers tit. Good thing some Government policies dreamt of higher things hey Rob?
It sounds corny because it’s the sort of rubbish we hear at our jobs when they want more skilled work from us for the same amount of money.
But it is, in itself, very important. I think things often happen politically because of slow-burning plans hatched over ten years or more, and being pro-active means thinking ahead, thinking abou what opposition your plans will come up against and how you’ll need to defeat it, or rethink if your opposition has a point.
Herk!
“Oh, there it is at last.”
Ban cat blogs.
Serious support, encouragement and education for the arts. Over the last decade it has withered on te vine and we are loosing and have lost a great deal. By art I mean the stuff that makes you think, speeks with a fresh voice, fires off concetions in indivdiuals that they didn’t know where there, not the stuff in the newspapers under “Entertainment”.
So did I, by mine, Nabakov.
Look, I’ve seen how governments work, State and Federal. People think Ministers make measured decisions based on a sober and reasoned appreciation of the arguments. They don’t. They get spooked by the media and go into knee-jerk damage control, with a permanent eye to their electoral advantage. Or they respond to what Prof Penington famously called ‘the squeaky wheel syndrome’ (which is a variant on the same theme). It’s an inherent, enduring condition.
Whether it’s a conservative or libertarian argument I don’t much care: but don’t expect governments of today to fix society’s problems. The potential for moral/communal consensus that made possible the abolition of the slave trade has long since broken down. There’s too much competition. It’s now beyond government’s ability to manage the social condition to desired outcomes through ‘dream policies’, whether the government be right or left.
Right, Rob and Nabs, the premise of this post is to discuss dream policy from a future government. It is not to discuss the role of government in philosophical terms.
If you want to do that,
GET
A
ROOM.
Put the Glenmorangie on my account!
But if not, please stay on topic.
OK, Kim, I’m out.
I’d like to see a huge overhaul of water management and water infrastructure management that took into proper account the research on climate change, the welfare of endangered species, and the Aboriginal people’s relationship to country.
I’d like to see that overhaul begin the with total outlawing of rice and cotton farming (with appropriate compensation), so that if old people have to go on feeling their hearts break while they watch their gardens die, at least they’ll know the water that could have kept them alive wasn’t being squandered elsewhere.
I’d like to see properly managed public health and education services, equitably delivered along secular lines.
I’d like to see arts funding increased on some kind of direct-equivalence basis to the funding of sport. I’m sure some formula could be worked out. (1 pair ballet slippers = 1 pair footy boots, and so on.) This policy would factor funding for instructive failure into arts grants, as is already the de facto case with sports.
I’d like to see compulsory registration, vaccination, microchipping and desexing (except for registered breeders) of all dogs and cats.
And I would also like free Laphroiag for all, please, if we’re getting into single malts.
Mark
Er, when exactly was the last time that an Australian government kowtowed to the World Bank (or the IMF for that matter)?
I’d like a policy that makes conditional funding impossible – stopping the kind bribrary that the Coalition i fond of – “you can have this year funding so long as you do x, y & z”. Not sure how to achieve that but it could legislated that funding bill must not be conditional.
Also funding for the arts – money for the arts should not be compared to sport – although I see why the idea is attractive. I think the pursuit of this issue would highlight a central policy framwork that removes the “market fundamentalism” (re Rudd) and returns us to the recognition that over comming the “tyranny of distance” is still an important role for Government.
That’s small m mark, Distinterested Observer, btw, not the Mark who blogs here. Just in case there’s a mixup.
Hmm, if you put it like that, it’s hard not to nod thoughtfully along. Look at the Iraq fuckup for starters.
However, I believe there is still a role for governments in delivering and managing some basic settings for a civilised society. Rule of law and all that.
Back to ‘dream policies’. I want a government strong and ruthless enough to publically hang dog owners who don’t clean up after their pets. Also re-introducing the stocks for people who LOUDLY discuss their personal life on their mobiles on public transport would be nice too.
I’d go the opposite way. No arts or sports funding at all. Don Bradman, Patrick White, Elizabeth Jolley, Rod Laver, Evonne Goolagong and Nick Cave all made their way to the top by their talent, wits and personal connections alone.
Nabs, how about a government that promises free ipods to those who don’t want to overhear said personal conversations in public places?
Only free once you get past all the built-in, non-fastforwardable community annoucements. T’will be worse than those ‘Piracy: It’s a crime’ clips on DVDs.
kim
thanks i’ll not capitalise from now on …
Sounds fair. I’m more interested in the delivery of the message that art is (at least) as important as sport than I am in funding increases as such.
Perhaps we ought to make playing sport (for artists) and practising an art form (for sportspeople) a pre-condition of funding in either category. Obvious poster children for the policy to date are novelist David Foster, who has a black belt in some martial art or other, and former Essendon captain James Hird, who once had ballet lessons.
I do just have to point out quietly, though, that Patrick White made it to the top partly because he had a lot of time to write because his pastoralist family was rolling in it and he didn’t have to support himself. People who are permanently knackered from a sixty-hour week tend not to finish novels much.
That’s hardly necesary, as Kim actually prefers to capitalise her username, unlike me. (not that I make a fuss if people do capitalise tigtog despite the aesthetic pain it causes to my delicate font-balancing sensibilities)
Kim was just heading off any possible confusion of mark/Mark at the pass.
besides adherence to the rule of law, no insane foreign wars and other niceties….a few low rent policies i’d like to see:
fully subsided exercise classes (community and private-run) for over 60’s. gentle exercise, weights-training, water-aerobics – whatever – will save the nation billions in direct health funding for such a pittance of a program.
more funding for children from a very young age in marginal situations – ie. they get picked up at 7am and taken to the nice childcare centre or before school care – fed, clothed, have decent care, access to medical and other services who regularly drop by, excellent carer/teacher-child ratios – and then drop them home at 6pm – full of a warm feed and then pick them up the next morning – again, saving the nation oodles in social services/criminal justice/corrective services cycle.
national standards in relation to charities whereby they can’t expend more than X percentage in “fundraising expenses” – ie I think QLD is the worst – which is why so many dodgy brother charities are registered there.
all private schools to offer scholarships and bursaries for a specific number of disadvantaged children as a requirement for commonwealth funding.
dental to be extended to medicare
more federal funding for public hospitals – and try to solve the problem of rotating shifts for doctors/nurses/police officers etc. – which impact on their health and their ability to provide high quality services.
increased state & federal funding for both short term and long-term respite places for disabled kids and adults
increased funding for long term mental health accommodation
Decrease funding for ministerial advisers and spin doctors and discretionary allowances like printing & posting etc.
No donations to political parties, and fund from the public purse directly as per their vote share. The actual amount of money they raise from donors is a pittance compared to the political influence donors receive for this money.
re-vamp FOI and ditch all ‘commercial in confidence” clauses in all govt contracts – and no fees for FOI requests
increase our foreign aid budget to OECD average and “un-tie” all aid.
thanks mick – i’ll be back tomorrow with rest of my first term legislative program
And a good thing too. Otherwise y’all would have to wade through my ‘Barbarella’ spinoff (‘The Black Queen’s Revenge’, etc, etc) shelfspace squatters to get to the latest critically acclaimed story of a young girl growing up in a country town where soil salinity is a major problem.
Look, I don’t really buy “I need space to write” arguement. If you really want to/have to do it, you’ll do it one way or another. Then if you’re really good and/or really lucky, one success will then buy the time and space to write more.
For example I very much dislike the work of JK Rowling and Dan Brown but I give ‘em full points for working bloody hard under trying circumstances to reap the rewards they now do.
Or take Thomas Pynchon who I admire greatly but not all at once. He got his groove on while working as a corporate flack for Boeing’s military division. His blurb for the BOMARC nuke-tipped anti-aircraft missile is a masterpiece of corporate copywriting.
Money may buy talent more time to blossom. But real talent will or will not blossom for reasons well beyond money.
PC, arbitrary banning certain bits of agriculture is a bit misguided in my view – rice and cotton don’t need to be maintained during dry years, they can be planted when there’s surplus water available. Making them pay full market whack for their water will be enough. Similarly, letting householders buy water at the same price the irrigators get it ensures that no grannies’ gardens will ever have to die again. I really do think the market can work here, provided appropriate caps on diversions are set taking into account environmental and cultural factors you mention.
On the arts funding front, I agree with increasing funding substantially. But what do we fund? Why is Opera Australia worth the money it gets, when 95% of what it does is just endless repeats of the 20 or so of opera’s greatest hits (wonderful works as many of them are), none of which say very much at all about contemporary Australia?
As far as my own dream policies go, I could list a whole bunch of R&D projects (how about $50 million a year extra for research of no commercial value but potentially answering “big questions” like the origin of the universe, or life), or any number of environmental policies, but let’s go for something economic. How about income tax cuts for low and middle income earners (and pension increases for the unwaged) paid for by a substantial inheritance tax? I don’t see why we should be entrenching wealth and privilege, as the baby boomers start to die off over the next 20 years or so.
Opera is amazingly costly to stage. It costs, to give an example I know about, over $2,000 just to move one harpsichord 3 kilometres in Adelaide and set it up onstage. If you stage a concert on a barge on the river, you have to buy 50 million bucks’ worth of insurance.
Most opera has huge casts, full orchestras, several conductors and assistants, elaborate costuming, astronomical venue costs, maestro dudes conducting, and everyone has to be paid.
Oh, but only if you take them literally. Most of said greatest hits are about jealousy, ambition, love, death, loyalty, hatred and/or forgiveness — all relevant to any time and place you care to name. Why else would 300 rural locals in remote SA have turned up to Co-Opera’s production of Die Fledermaus in the sand at the end of the Streaky Bay jetty and all had a fabulous time?
I’ll second Pav Cat’s point about good operas, and productions thereof, having a real blood and thunder and bodice-ripping appeal.
And a completely off the wall example here, watch that nasty cheapy proto-slasher pic “I Spit On Your Grave” with the sound off and a good version of Puccini’s ‘Manon Lescaut’ on instead. It’s pretty much the same bloody basic story and both versions culiminate with the same epic but shaken, stained and shivered aria “Sola, perduta, abbandonataâ€?. In ‘Grave’, though she’s listening to it as she mops men’s blood off in the bath.
Roman Polanski, if you’re reading this, I really think you should tackle Manon the way you did MacBeth and Tess.
Some actually do. No names, no pack drill. And not often. But there have been a few across the political spectrum who have made intelligent and farsighted decisions that have or will improve our quality of life in the long run.
You think a bunch of crims, corrupt minders and bully boy chancers scrambling around on the fringes of a vast strange land over 200 years ago created one of the most decent places in the world just through natural law and social darwinism?
The first three decisions taken by the fledging colony of Victoria legislature were to allocate funds for a library and a university and to formalise that Australian invention, the secret ballot, as the baseline for exercising the franchise.
And since then our pollies, both nationally and statewise, have actually fucked up far less than many of their international counterparts. Of course there’s much they could have got better but there’s a lot more they didn’t fuck up.
Anyway, if anyone thinks our pollies now are a load of crap and they could do better, then what’s stopping ‘em from proving that point?
PC: I would agree with most of that, but the pleasures of seeing an old opera performed are just as ephemeral as a sporting match. The creation of new work, by contrast, leaves a legacy for future generations and thus is, in my view, much more worthy of subsidy.
Which art form has had more to say about modern Australia – opera or pub rock?
I would like to see debates like this not filled to the brim with reflexive sucks on the teet on the state for solutions to everything. I would like to see the state largely removed from university reasearch and administration. More Maths, Science, and REAL Humanities, and less of the soft-Social Sciences (you know the ones that end in “Studies.”)
Testify PC!!!
Currently on top of my wish-list would be a HECS-style loan-repayment scheme for professional athletes who have benefited from publicly-funded training and development (ie, AIS or Olympic programs).
I haven’t decided yet whether the athlete’s liability to pay would be measured against sporting-income (which would include Uncle Toby’s endorsements) or any income regardless of its source.
I can tell you right now how that will happen. Charge undergraduates $60,000 per year, professors $300,000 per year and wait 100 years.
The Removal of all Howards picks on the ABC board,1 or 2 Royal Commisions into Howards war,and either childern overboard,or the boat that sunk drowning people,a total cleanout of the heads of the public service to remove Howards lackys,the removal of Bolt and Ackerman from Insiders.
Yer a woman with a plan, Kim.
Seriously though, a GST exemption for alcoholic drinks served over the bar rather than over the counter would vastly reduce the cost of living for lots of vulnerable people, as well as encourage social drinking. Who’ll step up to the plate?
Oh, and while I’m at it, I’d quite like a bit of Australia Council funding for my pub-rock inspired opera in five acts: provisionally titled Cheap Wine And A Three-Legged Goat.
1: legislation requiring that every new house in Australia be fitted with a water-tank and solar panels.
2: Halving the budget for the AIS, with that cash going into programs for gifted students.
3: An funding boost of at least 15% for Universities.
4: Free Kittens for everybody.
I want a lot more spent on public preschools and schools, even if we have to cut back on publicly funded rscientific research and higher ed to do it.* Lets show our kids we value them and their future by putting our money where our mouth is. And the empiric research shows that even in narrow economic terms this gives a much bigger payoff than other forms of government investment.
Oh, and Robert Merkel neesds to do some sums. An inheritance tax – even a big, politically infeasible one – would not pay for much of an income tax cut for anyone.
* as an aside people, it’s pointless to argue for spending money on something without nominating where the money’s coming from – ie what you’re going to spend less on, or who you’re going to tax extra. Opportunity cost rules.
Down to nit-picking here, really just for the pleasure of the argument:
Hm.
(1) I’ve been arguing all along for parity, funding-wise, so this would seem actually to support that.
(2) I’d argue that pleasure is not the only criterion for art, as indeed it isn’t for sport. We’d have to disentangle the participants from the observers, for a start.
Well, the performance of old work leaves a legacy for future generations, too — performance and revival ensure that the work stays in cultural memory. But I think you’ll find new work is far more generously supported in any case.
Recent newish Australian operas include Voss, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Batavia and Lindy, though I admit that, of these, only Lindy is ‘modern’ in the way I think you mean. The Doll might just squeeze in.
But this is really just the same question again — and if you’re thinking literally then it’s a fair question, but literal representation just isn’t how art works. Art is about mobilising feeling and thought in whoever is looking at it. If that happens ‘in modern Australia’, then whatever feeling and thought is mobilised will find its way into contemporary Australian life.
I mean, if Peter Costello watched the ABC’s recent modernised Macbeth then Ratty needs to watch his back. (Judy Brett did a wonderful analysis in her book on Menzies of the annotations and underlinings in Ming’s copy of Macbeth.)
I agree that modern Australia is just as much about love, death, jealousy etc as it is about whatever the pub rock content is these days (love, death, jealousy etc, surely), there’s not a lot to choose between them by that criterion.
If it’s about the music, well, you were making an argument a minute ago about the value of newness, so what’s worth more in cash-for-newness terms: endless variations on the theme of ‘twelve bars of 4/4 G, C, D’, or Baz Luhrmann’s La Boheme?
Nabs — ‘Sola, perduta, abbandonata’ is exactly what it is, yes. (I bet there’s one each of those in all the above-named Oz operas, too.) Did you ever see Carlos Saura’s Carmen?
Mick, hope this isn’t all too OT for you — I think it still qualifies under Policy, just.
Damn. I thought the whole spirit of the question was about liberating one’s mind from budgets and writing wishlists in an ideal world.
The Rudd plan to improve Australia’s Internet speeds is great, but I don’t see lack of speed as the worst problem but the lack of AFFORDABLE broadband in rural/remote areas… and in fact the OVERPRICEDNESS of Internet monopolies in rural/remote areas.
I want some kind of insurance that there will always be decent competition on the pricing or enforcement of maximum prices where there is going to be a Telstra (or any other) monopoly.
So I want an overhaul of universal service obligations that obligates specific minimum (broadband, ie no less than 200kbps) Internet speeds at specific maximum cost (helped by an improved and fairer set of rural/remote infrastructure subsidies).
Here goes. To name a few, I’d like to see:
Free compulsory energy audits for all medium to large businesses, with the requirement that all energy savings with a payback of 8 years or less be undertaken. And optional for those small ones and residences who would like to take it up, on the condition that all energy savings with a payback of 4 years or less be undertaken.
Minimum Energy Performance Standards introduced to ensure that all white goods with an energy star rating of 3 or less are removed from the Australian market.
Introduction of a feed-in law requiring all renewable energy generated in Australia to be given priority access to the energy grid, at a pre-determined price which takes into account its environmental benefits and its technological stage of development and which falls gradually over time.
A Just Transitions Fund, funded by a levy of $0.50 a tonne of coal mined in Australia, going to help retrain workers in communities currently dependent on coal, to seed new, clean industries in those communities, and to rehabilitate mined land.
And finally, to take a step away from my usual energy talk, I’d also like to see a commitment to introducing multiple member proportional representation to the Lower House, and greater transparency for preference arrangements.
Tim:
Total abolition of whitegoods would reduce their energy consumption to zero.
Those who wish for a refrigerator, freezer or stove would be allowed to have them, if the energy source was from heat generated by on-site use of that household’s sewerage.
For anything else, people would just have to use elbow grease. Go a long way toward reversing the national trend to obesity.
Users of tobacco, would naturally have to quit. Creating carbon purely for personal pleasure would be a thing of the past.
Electricity, petrol etc would be rationed (just like in wartime) & when a household reached their weekly/monthly/annual limit, *click* there is no more available to them.
Your ideas have merit, Tim, but don’t go far enough.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned taxes at all.
I’d like to see comprehensive tax reform – the removal of the overwhelming majority of tax deductions along with a great simplification of the system. No more tax returns for most people. Cut the Tax Act from a reputed 10 000 pages back to about 1000. No taxes but a lot less welfare for those under $25k. No bands, but a graduating function up to 50% tax for those on more than $250k. Nasty roving audits for those seeking to hide their incomes.
Can all rebates for solar etc – introduce carbon taxes at $20 a tonne (exports (but not plane flights) exempt), offsetting some tax elimination such as payroll taxes.
Privatise the rest of Telstra but set up a national communications infrastructure provider that everyone has to buy from.
Fund grassroots arts and sports well but not elite stuff. If they’re good enough and we want them they will be there.
Agree on federalism – states get health, feds get education. Or vice versa.
Real support for aborigines – jobs, education, housing, health.
Elect me:
I will..
Install steve at the pub as mine host at a Melb CBD pub with instructions to ban Nabs every second day only. Alternate days he will toss nabs double ofr nothing for the tab. The pub will have NO DOOF music policy. There will be a soundproofed rock / country bar and an equally sound proofed jazz bar. There wil be a bar with No music and wireless access for bloggers, with pole dancing and weekly Wrestlemania matches.
Bring the ABC into line by passing legislation in the first session to ensure the ABC keeps Virginia Trioli in Sydney (or if I have to water it down – simply keep her out of Melb). Force the ABC to set up two additional stereo FM music stations one programmed by Lucky Oceans the other by Andy Ford. (with large slabs programmed by Floppy and dogpossum)
Make share trading compulsary for all elected representatives but insist on them reading tips into Hansard prior to investment and then publishing quarterly results of each members share performance.
Insist AC/DC be domiciled in Oz and perform at least 10 concerts a year.
Insist Barnsey be domiciled outside Oz and not perform at all.
Strip Clive James, Germaine and Robert Hughes of Oz citizenship.
Force Objectivists to form a voluntary Objectivists Regulation Authority to oversee comments on blogs.
Ban any woman over 18 from wearing crop tops and hipsters.
Ban any man from wearing shorts to work.
Ban thongs. (and ban radio from playing Barnsey thinging any thongs)
Tim, why not just impose a carbon tax and be done with it? Same effect, a lot less administrative hassle.
Conscription to the armed forces and service overseas for any member of parliament not previously enlisted with veterans pension entitlements to replace any previous benefits.
Robert, there is simply no way that a carbon tax could have the same effect. It is a blunt instrument that will only encourage the most marginal action on the shortest timelines. Yes, it’s important, but it must be supplemented by other measures targeting specific outcomes.
Ah yes… (everything goes all wavy, like in a flashback at the movies…)
Under my hegemony, there will be a large national Project similar to the Snowy River project, with the same objectives of national benefit and employment creation, but without the same environmental destruction, and ongoing. The primary objective will be to make as far as possible every roof in Australia, commercial or private, a solar collection point.
My government will subsidise, heavily, the design, the manufacture and research into the design and manufacture of solar panels. the Research institutes – of which there will be more than one – will focus also on solving the problem of storage.
The subsidies will be designed to make the solar panels affordable. An export market will be created, both of the panels themselves and technology / consultancies. Inclusion of solar panels on new buildings will be compulsory, and the pricing will be designed to encourage people to put them on existing buildings.
The solar collection technology will be designed to plug into the national electricity grid. People who can’t imagine things being any way but what they are (I’m sure there were a lot of them in 1820) needn’t worry about losing all their white goods. But not only would they take electricity from the grid if they exceeded their solar panels’ capacity; their solar panels would feed back to the grid. Therefore, your energy bill would be very small, maybe even negative or zero.
We’d have a manufacturing industry again. We would spend the money to pay scientists, engineers, teachers and … apprentices. It would create jobs.
Picking winners? Sure. So sue me.
The reason people say that solar power cannot succeed is that there has never been the political will to spend the kind of money on it that people are willing to spend on R & D for mining, nuclear, the automotive industry etc.
Helen, I like it!
Symbolist poets of decadence and the Yellow Book Fin du siecle aesthetic to be the sole content of the English curriculum!
Dr Donnelly to be forced to read same, and write students’ notes…
One other grand plan I would embark on is getting the VFT back up and running on the Hume corridor between Melbourne Canberra and Sydney.
of course this would send Qantas broke, but you can’t make an omelette…
Pavlov’s Cat
Hmmm…I wonder how you could make that assessment? I would argue that from a social point of view, sport is extremely important for all children to participate in. I am not convinced it is the case for Art. Art is ultimately an elitist activity. We should encourage the very best and allow hoi polloi to watch The Simpsons.
Why? So the uncoordinated, the short-sighted, the gentle, the bookish, the dreamy and the bored-to-sobs can be publicly humiliated, openly bullied and/or bored to sobs on a weekly basis?
And sport, which is all about winning, isn’t?
Get real.
I’d like the federal government to consider a tax relief clause for artists( literary , visual , bullshit …) who come and reside or continue to reside in Australia.
This is an idea the Irish government has embraced and it appears to have had positive effects for many.
There were generous limits set about how much can be earnt after which the artist may be required to pay some tax and certain sources of income the artist receives from invested monies ( eg hotels, bars ,restaurants, farms ) aren’t tax free.
Both major parties should commit to more generous overall funding for education – from daycare to tertiary level. Funding can be sourced from a set percentage of GST ( through the negotiations conducted between state and federal governments)and maybe from long term bonds issued against HECS repayment funds or even by dipping into a tax on gambling.
Investment in improving our education at all levels will lead to us dealing with all manner of other problems more effectively.
Industry policy from both parties will unfortunately be a mish-mash trying to satisfy their backers. We would all benefit from a hands off approach with suitable tax incentives for those areas which need R and D.
Vote for me, and I will re-name the federal government the Feral Government. Politicians will be released into the wild, to fend for themselves in the great outdoors. They’ll return years later, wild-eyed, shaggy and lean, and with all sorts of parasites. That’ll learn ‘em.
The national anthem will be changed to either “Take the Skin-heads Bowling,” or else the theme from “Courageous Cat.” And the currency will be re-designed by George Herriman, Vaughn Bode and Ernie Bushmiller.
And I think everybody should be required to take a detailed, plainly-taught course in civics and basic law, so they have a clearer idea of the sorts of shenanigans governments get up to, and how they can better monitor and criticize them. And they should have to take it at an age when they’re genuinely equipped to understand what they’ve been taught.
w/r/t this whole “opera versus sport” thing, why not just athleticize opera (or the performing arts in general)? Brecht was on to something like this: it’s part of human nature for people to be interested in judging outcomes against standardized criteria; that’s what sport is all about. I mean, just set up an arts system where there are sometimes more head-to-head competitive environments, like maybe having “Australian Idol — Classical Version,” or regional state against state competitions amongst colleges and high schools, for the best production of Twelfth Night or the Henriad. Make the rules for judging consistent, more like sport.
And I like Doctor Cat’s idea of making artists play sports and making athletes do art. You forgot David Foster Wallace, who was a tennis prodigy. And Muhammad Ali, who was quite the poet and orator. Excelsior!
“Take the Skin-heads Bowling� would be the coolest Nat. Anthem. I vote for that.
“You forgot David Foster Wallace, who was a tennis prodigy.”
Nah. Speaking as a former tennis prodigy who survived a forced march through “Infinite Jest”, I can say DFW is just as clumsy and flatfooted about fluently rolling lawn tennis references crosscourt on the run as Smarty Anus.
Otherwise generally an excellent writer, ’specially when he puts tennis and ‘big’ novels to one side. ‘Lyndon’ is one of the most crystalline yet hallucinatory pieces of prose I have ever read.
But if you wanna enjoy a genuinely good and very funny conflation of sport and art, check out Dan Jenkin’s “Semi-Tough”. It’s MASH meets Gridiron.
Why has no Australian writer since Williamson with “The Club” attempted to do the same? At the very least, what with Warney texting his libido around and strangled coaches, there must be a great and darkly funny cricket novel out there. Not to mention all the tennis and swimming feral fathers.
Nice to see so many comments about art. Looking at them I think it kind of shows that making direct comparisons between art and sport are counterproductive to art. Why don’t we, for example make comparisons between education funding and sport, or defence and sport, health and sport – why does art get to grouped and funded akin to sport? I guess the idea is that sport and art can be regarded as recreation – and here is why I think the comparison is a bad idea. It speaks of the kind of tabloid definition of art, as entertainment. It is so much more it keeps communities alive when all else has been destroyed. I was lucky to have the experience of recording some visiting musicians from East Timor after the evacuations after the referendum. The songs that they played where the songs that kept their people going for decades – it was really, really important. One of the most powerful pieces of music I know was written by the French composer Messiaen in a prisoner of war camp in WWII. The was an odd selection of instruments but what resulted was a piece “Quartet for the End of Time” that speaks to the experience of war and transcends it. This stuff is deep and of great importance – we in Australia with are not yet really alive as a culture. People here don’t get it because its not been allowed to develop. We need a cultural life to be developed and nurtured over many generations before we can have art that tells us the things we need to know. This nurturing was happening in fits and starts but it pretty much was quashed when the LibNats started stacking the Australia Council Board and interfering with its operations to the extent that it is now the best definition of a right wing approach to art I know of.