An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
NB: If you want to watch the live streaming of the 2020 summit, you can do so via the ABC’s news page.
41 Responses to “Saturday Salon (Australia 2020 edition!)”
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Ahem…
Second
The NSW government can grab your home and sell it for a profit to developers…
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/state-can-sell-your-home/2008/04/18/1208025479556.html
How to win friends and influence people…
Indded, PK. But this incredible sludge in NSW can’t go on much longer without some kind of Feferal intervention, even if not a formal intervention. Sooner or later, one way or another, it will taint the Rudd Government. And Rudd knows that. He’s no fool. btw, Sartor has been reported to ICAC. Not that that will bring and end to it with the corrupt bastards of the NSW Labor right. Mind you, for those of you who don’t reside in NSW, the Libs have been, and will be, just as bad. On NSW Stateline last night, Sartor even accused Quentin Dempster of trying to create another Fitzgerald inquiry. Well, when it comes to Government and Opposition relationships with property developers in NSW, we sure need one.
Now, to do the post I logged on for, before being distracted by the doings of the NSW Right. Just watched the 20/20 opening on ABC 1. I take back all my cynicism, skepticism, sort of. At the very least this is brilliant politics by Labor and Rudd in particular. Scare the sh*t out of people and convince ‘em you’re the only major political party with the solutions. All Rudd has to do is take up a few of the suggestions and the Libs will be in the wilderness for 20 years, maybe longer. Suppose we’ll know by the end of the weekend or the end of the year at the latest.
btw, what’s Brendan DOING there? Thought he was a spoiler. I was mightily amused by Bumbles’ recent query as to whether Labor thought they were still going to be in office in 13 years. Well, Yep, Brendan, if Rudd or Julia are the PM. Yep. They sure will be.
btw, is Bob Brown or any of the Greens or Democrats at the conference. Saw plenty of Labor and ex-Lib/NP pollies, but none of them.
And isn’t it lovely to know we have a PM with an academic for a best mate?
Nelson’s there to “listen”, he’s said!
Btw, you can watch the live feed of the Summit stream via the ABC news page:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/
Yeah, tried, but I only get sound.
Probably wouldn’t work so well with dialup, I suspect.
I disagree with the Greens’ attitude of locking things in place so no future government can ever change them – values and beliefs change over time – if we’d had that attitude in 1901 we might still have the White Australia policy
Mark and all:
It was bad enough not being able to apply because, like thousands of other fellow Australians, I could not afford the trip down to Canberra and the stay there. At least, there was always the consolation that I was far far luckier than so many of my fellow Australians because I had internet access and could stir the possum from far away in The Other Australia.
Now, my computer has gone bung [This note is written on the computer of a friend in the district].
The good news is that Larvatus Prodeo will get peace-and-quiet from me for a few weeks
.
The bad news, for those who organized the 2020 Summit, is that that I will still be around long after every genius, poser, visionary, showpony and innovator has gone home.
Although the implementation of the Summit was stuffed up and is likely to come back and bite the Rudd government …. the basic conceopt was brilliant and I await news of all the proposals and ideas [whether accepted OR NOT].
When is the next Summit?
“Probably wouldn’t work so well with dialup, I suspect.”
Mark, we have supposed “broadband” and it was crap via the computer. ABC 2 is looking better and better as long as it can be kept out of the hands of the sports fiends.
I’m increasingly disgusted by the way the ABC keeps referring to Tin-Tin as Prime Minister. Don’t they realise this is only a distasteful interregnum caused, in the words of Henry the K referring to Allende in Chile, by “… the irresponsibility of voters”.
It was ok on my computer, joe2.
ABC news couldn’t have reported on it more cynically though. What’s with that?
[ABC news couldn’t have reported on it more cynically though. What’s with that?]
As did CH 7 with Mark Reilly, plus an appaling follow up focussing on the “Celebrity an Rich folk” angle. Bit odd, considering that Kerry Stokes was there
I suspect that’s one of the problems with having proprietors and CEOs (ie Stokes, Hartigan, Scott) there. The journos want to demonstrate “independence” despite their bosses being participants. But the only way they can think of to do this is to accentuate the cynical. I suppose “objective” reporting would just be too boring for them.
Off the 2020 topic –
http://www.fourthousand.com.au/stray/bloody-marys-markets/
This is such an excellent idea! The Empire Hotel is holding a market day in the public bar each Saturday with vintage fashion, comics and other nerdy goodnesses. And Bloody Marys! Noticed it out the bus window today – with (hopefully) a completed thesis chapter under my belt by next weekend, I’ll be popping in.
damnit, i wish i had a completed thesis chapter under my belt. when you say ‘completed’, do you mean ‘not needing further editing at all’?
hmm. sorry, whinging about study probably isn’t very interesting to anyone else.
The other news story that caught my eye in the SMH today was that Lynton Crosby (of infamous Crosby-Textor fame) is getting in deep merde in London, running a political dirty tricks campaign. It has been jokingly suggested he be deported, but we don’t want him back! Somebody should remind the poms that deportation as a punishment has been abolished.
Oh, and Footloose (crap 1984 film of Kevin Bacon attempting to dance) is still crap 25 years later. Kenny Loggins has a lot to answer for, and John Lithgow should be ashamed of himself. What kind of preacher/pastor lets his daughter run around with no bra and tight jeans?
Oh wait – bad memories surfacing. The day I was confirmed in the Anglican church around 13 was the last day I went other than funerals. Got caught with the deacons daughter in youth group playing booty explorer (her idea). My father and I agreed after a heated exchange (not the last) that it was best for everybody if I explored my own path and less of other peoples
Unlikely! I’m sure there’ll be supervisor driven editing at some point!
Footloose. Nuff said.
If you want cheering up, David, Annabel Crabb has been liveblogging (sorta) the 2020 summit:
http://blogs.smh.com.au/newsblog/archives/annabel_crabb/017957.html
She continues on in comments.
I don’t think I’m telling tales out of school to say that I’m aware of a knocked back proposal that bloggers should cover the thing live. You can speculate as to whether we’d have done as good a job as Annabel.
That is funny. My former employer used to do tiny versions of those summits yearly. Mostly it involved flying people somewhere expensive to spend the day bored witless, overdosing on iced water and mints, with an epic piss-up afterwards. A lot of variations on the above sentence were written on whiteboards by men with hangovers.
I’m trying to avoid being cynical, but I must confess I do find the mental image of economist speed dating rather quizzical:
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2008/04/2020-speed-dating-for-economists.html#links
The best thing about Footloose is the remix of the title track done by 2ManyDJs.
And in other weird images: someone on speed, eating dates and sticking to a budget: economised speed dating.
(Sorry)
The Summit is excellent politics, but as a forum for policy so far, I don’t think it looks so promising. Why does the ALP need an unrepresentative body telling it what it already believes (e.g. a republic)? Hugh Jackman playing Oprah? Clap your hands and sing along! A treaty, a bill of rights, a more progressive tax system? These are the big ideas? WTF?!
I was going to say in one of those academic bias hunters threads that the only politics lecturer I ever had who made a point to bash us with his personal views was a staunch conservative monarchist. I see he has a letter in the Oz this weekend calling the PM an “undomesticated animal.” Heh. Help, I was being oppressed!
Amanda, I have met 2 university academics.
Unsolicited polling of this random sample reveals that 100% of university lecturers are raving commos.
Anecdotes rock.
That’s very shrewd, Mark. The other possibility (no independence to demonstrate) is that they have been told to play up the populist angle of elite-hatin’.
Or that’s their instinct anyway, Dr Cat!
Mark @ #31: alas yes, quite possible. In some cases, already oft-demonstrated.
I just went to the ABC website after reading this post and had a listen to some of the audio, which on the whole seems more neutral and open.
I’m actually quite grateful there’s not too much commentary in the blogosphere, since those bloggers who are actually there (Nick G et al) are obviously otherwise occupied, and those of us who aren’t there really don’t know enough to say. But all this ‘It’s a shemozzle, it’s a waste of time, it’s a talkfest, it’s elitist, blah de blah de blah’ opinion-expressing from people who know little or nothing about it is really starting to get me down. I get enough of it from my 81-year-old father without reading more of it en blog!
I’m expecting there’ll be more commentary when the results come out. And those who were anti to begin with, I bet, will mock the specific ideas for being too detailed and the general ideas for not being detailed enough.
Will be very interesting if the pollies take up Julian Burnside’s idea of making it a criminal offence for pollies to lie. Any chance of making it retrospective if it is adopted? (That’s the anarchist in me. They’d all end up in the dock, I guess, but JWH would be among the first.)
Let chaos reign.
Yes, that’s right about the blog commentary, Dr Cat, I think. But as I said just now, I think something interesting in terms of reporting it and commenting on it might have occurred had the proposal for liveblogging each session been accepted.
Paul, I was at a dinner with Burnside in Sydney in May last year and chatted about his idea – I think it’s a bad one. I might get around to saying why at some point, but I’m off to the Search Foundation thingie shortly.
He’s a really lovely guy I might add.
I think it’s an intrinsically good idea, but that aside, it’s a multilayered move by Rudd.
Conservatives will naturally repulse from it as it’s essentially a progressive thing to do. It shatters the born-to-rule culture-set of the last decade, and rips away the all-too-comfy grip by conservative journos once on that. They’ve nothing to hold on to with this (or by this), and this is also somewhat evident in mainstream writers as well, whose once hot contact books have been replaced by the Australian citizen attending. Welcome to colour of the countryfolk – up close and personal!
The whole concept alters the national conversation, the way it sees itself, and I’d say has an effect reaching deep into the usually disconnected, or numb, suburban mind. Rudd is dead keen on resetting the suburban political compass and it would be tricky to declare it ineffective.
This is also a move to dissolve the Howardian vice which clamped the country for so long, politically – serving to reset the national agenda further and further out of reach of Liberals. Indeed, they do look old and tired, largely because of this intentional freshness Rudd is carefully injecting, from day one.
Conservative, and for that matter, mainstream, journos might benefit from a fresh approach themselves, as the more they hold on to past glories of mind and practise, the more they’ll be left behind. The cynicism showing is an early stage of losing that grip and not liking it at all.
Will be interested to hear, Mark. I guess I’m so sick of the lies in the Howard years I want it to stop.And one of the things I really like about the Rudd Government is their commitment to telling the truth. Thogh Ferguson’s equivocations the other night – what I bothered to losten to – were a bit of a worry.
Oh, well, love the idea of the summit! I do think more people need to be heard but it’s so wonderful to be rid of JWH. I’m busy recovering from his primeministership.
BTW, I think this site is wonderful.
Burnside is an lovely guy, yes. Hate to drop names, but I met him when he launched my book!
Indeed, I’ve also met him and my greatest regret is that he doesn’t specialise in criminal law. OTOH his cross examination of Alan Jones at the ABA hearing into cash for comment, per Chris Masters’ book “Jonestown” was sublime.
The lying politician bit is interesting in concept, but with utter lying dissembling bastards like Herr Howard, giving himself an out on most occasions, the excuse always was that it wasn’t quite a lie, was it? So I’d argue against the proposal on the basis of practicality and that the chances of the LNP producing a complete Rattus Howardius again is unlikely.
Burnside disagrees BTW that Howard could/should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and war crimes: democracy has won by removing Howard. (lying, scumbag, sorry assed, piece of historical aberrational disgusting filth: my words). I disagree with no prosecutions, but yes, Julian B is is a national treasure.
(Watching the gnashing of teeth by RWDB on leftist blogs when Burnside’s name is mentioned has always been great entertainment.)
OTOH, and on reflection, I’d agree for a law against those who lie for Jesus or other assorted deities in their attempts to denigrate evolution.