Yes of course I should be working. Paperwork piled beside me like a poorly executed Andy Goldsworthy piece, a floor that could do with a vacuum, sink full of dishes, presents to wrap. Thankfully there’s always tomorrow. Such ill-discipline.
So I shall instead indulge myself with a waspish look at a piece printed in the MSM today. Back page of the front section of the SMH - SiT as it’s wittingly known - Stay in Touch. Quite what it is staying in touch with is unclear, though a peevish middle class whine springs to mind. I gather it is meant to be lightly informing & mildly distracting. And in keeping with its usual tone of annoying self satisfaction, it has today a piece by Paul Sheehan.
Entitled In roles not always best suited or served, it serves up another example of Sheehan’s ability to cherry pick the irrelevant from a moment of popular culture & draw conclusions baffling in their less than paper thin connection with the original incident. While at the same time, lecturing us as to the appropriate conclusion & therefore the moral we should have drawn ourselves. Continue reading ‘Restless natives & all that’
The Federal Government plans to extend a system where the welfare payments of parents in Aboriginal communities are quarantined if their children are not sent to school.
Senator Ellison says Indigenous parents subject to the intervention could have all of their welfare payments quarantined if their children are not enrolled or do not attend school, and the Commonwealth plans to use the scheme throughout Australia.
“Over the next 18 months we’ll be implementing it nationwide,” he said.
“What we’re learning in the Territory will be extremely important for our nationwide roll-out in relation to income management.”
Coalition members expressed delight at the decision, with one backbencher labelling it “a courageous decision which will show just who’s the boss.” Members then called for the extension of Federal control, raising suggestions brought to them by their constituents.
“We’d love to see the black fellas wearing like a plaque thingie round their neck - with their ID number on it, & other important details of use to the police force. Just something small, but gee it would save a lot of bother.” said the Member for Buggeraroo, Jim Northing.
Continue reading ‘Howard’s Vision for Welfare’
In a landmark decision, the High Court has today upheld the fundamental human right to vote, finding that the Howard Government had acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally in imposing a blanket ban denying prisoners the vote.
Last year’s legislative changes brought in by Howard’s government denied all prisoners the vote. The High Court has ruled this unlawful, while upholding the earlier principle of denying the right to vote to prisoners serving sentences longer than three years.
The court action was brought by Vickie Roach, an Aboriginal woman who is a prisoner at the Dame Phyllis Frost Prison in Melbourne.
Philip Lynch, Director of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre which ran the case, said, ‘In running this case, Vickie has stood up not just for the human rights of prisoners and Aboriginal Australians, but the interests of the entire community. She has done so with courage, integrity and commitment.’
As detailed before, Howard has introduced changes to the Electoral Act which will close the rolls within 24 hours of the poll being called, & only allow 72 hours for people to register change of address details. All of this spuriously argued for on the basis of protecting the integrity of the electoral roll - a claim the Government’s own officials have stated to be false and misleading.
But tonight, raise a glass for Vickie Roach - an Aboriginal woman who fought for a right we seem to have forgotten the importance of.
Cross-posted at Bernice Balconey’s Baloney
Yes my darlings - just when we thought we might have to do something about our rampant consumerism, carbon-soaked lives of empty e-bay moments, along comes relief. In the cheery, uncontestable voice of UN reason. Dear Yvo de Boer, no less than the head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, says we don’t have to in any way alter our tack-filled lives, oh no, we’ll just “pay” those poor struggling countries full of desperately grateful poor people to do it for us!!!
What a fabulous idea! The man’s a genius. We already dump our toxic wastes in their funny little countries, steal their water, chop down their forests, so why not “pay” them to not emit those nasty carbon fume thingies that the scientists have got themselves into such a tizz about, and you & I can continue to zoom about in our gorgeous new model Toyotas, relax in front of the new plasma screen, groove away listening to our Ipods & giggle with our Facebook mates on the Net, all courtesy of some nice little probably brown person somewhere else doing it all for us. God bless them.
And think - we’re going to “pay” them. Of course we will darling. Of course. Right after we’ve bought that lovely little 4 metre runabout we saw last week in the paper. Well you can’t expect us to go without…really!! What next - I suppose you’ll be suggesting we should worry about workers in some horrid little factory in China.
Cross-posted at Bernice Balconey’s Baloney
It would appear that the market rules OK ethos of life has just got that bit madder. Angus & Robertson, chain store to the Oz book buying public, busied itself last week sending out letters of demand to smaller publishers & distributors, attempting to extort monies for what it claims is, effectively, a failure to be profitable enough for A&R to bother with.
As anyone who has ever had anything to do with retail bookselling will tell you, one of life’s great bugbears is the enormous plethora of distributors you may deal with. For a conscientious bookseller of an independent ilk, this can run to thousands. I kid you not. & of course all of that paperwork, bill paying, handling, ordering etc etc takes time & therefore costs money.
This I would suspect is in equal part why A&R, owned as they are by Pacific Equity Partners, a private equity group, has decided to either blackmail monies out of smaller distributors to cover their admin costs, or just as happy to see publishers rush to the bigger distributors such as ADS or MDS, reducing the number of suppliers into A&R stores.
Continue reading ‘Just don’t shop at…’
Just recently released in Australia, Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA has been reviewed by Chalmers Johnson over at TomDispatch, cataloguing a sorry saga of incompetence, political meddling, corruption & remarkable stupidity. As Weiner remarks, the Agency came into existence in response to the ’surprise’ attack on Pearl Harbour, & revealed its decades-long failure on the morning of 9/11.
Reading it, you can’t help but reflect on the complete cock-up that the AFP has dished up, presumably ably assisted by our own intelligence (sic) bodies, as regards Mr Haneef. The incompetence is either indicative of a culture of poor procedures & poor training, the impact of political interference or a delightful combination of both. The cataloging of stupidity & ineptitude has largely been from NGOs such as the Law Council, or within the judiciary, & has had some reporting from our fearless media. But little substantive analysis. A lot of alert but not much aware.
The question I keep coming back to is, who will be able to write a similar history of the AFP & our intelligence agencies, & given the catch-all nature of anti-terrorism laws & the continual weakening of FIO access, whether it would even be possible. Howard’s response to criticism of this Buster Keaton-like farce, is to insist that the laws will be strengthened, enlarged. As Weiner shows, such a response will only further entrench political interference.
Reports emerged today from Britain that Prince William, heir to the British throne, aspires to becoming Governor-General of Australia. Political reaction from Australian political leaders seemed strangely unimpressed with the idea.
Prime Minster Howard was quoted as saying “Although I remain a supporter of our current constitutional arrangements, I do think the practice of having a person who is an Australian in every way, and a long term and permanent resident of this country, is a practice I would not like to see altered.”
What? Deprive David Flint of serious royal schmoozing time? “The appointment of Prince William would be very popular, and attract international attention. Unfortunately, the disgraceful, appalling behaviour of some of our leading politicians – all republican - has ensured that it won’t happen. Imagine how they would behave if they controlled the presidency.�
Indeed sir, indeed.
Cross-posted at Bernice Balconey’s Baloney
A week is, apparently, a lifetime in politics. It’s an eon in the market mindset.
Marj is set to leave Qantas, hand in hand with James Packer. Despite the entire board’s insistence that a failure by the APA bid would see the share price fall, instead it has risen. Geoff Dixon, as wedded to the APA buyout as Marj, is now the shining knight of a revitalised Qantas with a revised profit forecast and a new OMO bright vision of a corporate future full of vim and vigour.
Macquarie Equities aviation analyst Andrew Wilkinson released on Friday morning an upgrade of the 12 month price target for Qantas shares to $7.05. Note key words – Macquarie and $7.05. How odd- that’s $1.60 above the APA offer price. A $3.1 billion loss to shareholders had the bid succeeded.
Goodness gracious. All in the same week that the SMH revealed that James Packer had sold his 1 million Macquarie Bank shares in January & February. After the APA bid had begun, and after Marj had fiercely stated that it was wicked to suggest that Mr Packer had any conflict of interest & would most certainly not be withdrawing from the discussions about the bid.
Continue reading ‘If it’s too good to be true…’
Recent comments
Mark, Fine, Mark, Paul Burns, David Rubie, Mark [...]
Kevin Rennie, jrbarch, Mindy, Mark, Mark, Leon [...]
Mark, Ambigulous, Adrien, Katz, Paul Burns, Kingsley [...]
Mark, Adrien, Legal Eagle, Michael Sutcliffe, Mark, Tyro Rex [...]
Fine, Ambigulous, dylwah, murph the surf, wizofaus, David Rubie [...]
Adrien, Ambigulous, Adrien, Liam, Mark, Liam [...]
David Rubie, Paul Burns, Brian, David Irving (no relation), kymbos, kymbos [...]
Mindy, Admin!!! HELP!!!, FDB, David Rubie, FDB, David Rubie [...]
Ambigulous, suz, Colin, un ami des beaux arts, adrian, suz [...]
Bilko, Paul Burns, Dave Bath, Bilko, Nabakov, Adrien [...]
RobWindt, Pappinbarra Fox, Ai! Que Dolor!, Patrick B, peter jones, Paul Burns [...]
Mark, Adrien, Adrien, Kim, Adrien, smiley [...]