Author Archive for Mark

The truth of polls and the epistemology of politics

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 4 days ago
in Elections, Media, Polls, Queensland, Sociology, State/Territory Elections and Victoria
. 13 Comments

The Poll Bludger has the numbers on the latest Nielsen poll for Victoria. Labor leads on the 2PP 55-45.

The Age trumpets this result as Victorian Labor “defying the national trend”. No doubt other papers are saying the same - I haven’t looked.

I’ve been arguing for a while that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that there is a national trend against Labor, and that in fact thinking about disparate polls in seven different jurisdictions with differing political histories, cultures and current circumstances as constituting a trend makes little sense. My contention for a long time has been that elections are unrepeatable and singular events and that epistemologically we can know much less about electoral behaviour and find grounds for prediction with much less certainty than we think. Political behaviour follows few laws and a lot of conclusions reached after the fact are questionable.

But there is a sort of reflexivity feedback loop built into the way we think about politics and the way polls are reported. Particularly at state level - where polls are few and far between - one poll which struggles to form a series can have a large impact on perceptions, and thus the interpretations of the public and the press and the morale of politicians and “momentum”.

Continue reading ‘The truth of polls and the epistemology of politics’

Spend, spend, spend! It’s your patriotic duty… or something

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 4 days ago
in Disasters, Economics, Markets, Sociology and USA
. 90 Comments

The stock market has lost 51% of its value since its peak, a decline we’re told now exceeds the destruction of value seen in 1987. On the ABC News tonight, Alan Kohler grimly pointed to an index (tradeable, I think, but don’t quote me on that) of future sentiment which is apparently dire, and which apparently depressed that reified hive mind “the markets” even further. On Lateline Business, a British fellow in a very smart three piece pin stripe suit bemoaned the fact that all rationality in terms of valuation had departed from equities market, and what was left was “pure human sentiment” which apparently “isn’t pretty”. I think John Maynard Keynes might have had something to say about all that.

The stock market’s fall may also have had something to do with evidence of a growing deflation in consumer prices in America, or so opinionators opined. Well, I guess we don’t have the “inflation dragon” to kick around anymore.

And we’ve had another outpouring of deficit aversion, bipartisanship at last (!), in response to Glenn Steven’s expression of the belief that the government had a responsibility to “borrow to invest”.

And, yet, we’ve had a piece of prime silliness - to put alongside all these other signs of the times - in Crikey’s editorial:

There’s not a lot politicians can do. The Government handing money to low income earners who’ll have virtually no choice but to spend it makes sense, but there’s only a limited number of times a $10b heart-starter can be administered to the economy. Even the Opposition has been doing its bit lately, prefacing virtually every statement on the economy with the mantra that Australia is best-placed to weather these difficulties.

And there’s not much businesses can do without demand. It’s actually up to us consumers to realise Australia’s economic fate is in our hands, and act accordingly.

Righteo. Continue reading ‘Spend, spend, spend! It’s your patriotic duty… or something’

Stormy weather!

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 4 days ago
in Brisbane, Climate change, Disasters, Government, Life, Photography and Sociology
. 26 Comments

I’m no climatologist, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen storms with as much force as we’ve now experienced in Brisbane and South East Queensland three times in four days, most recently about an hour ago, and with another one also accompanied by severe hail and dangerous winds apparently on the way yet again later on tonight.

Here are some images licenced under Creative Commons from flickr. Two aren’t actually of the most recent storms, but for those who aren’t used to a classic Brisbane storm, they might provide a bit of a lightning flash of illumination. Over at Circulating Library, there are also some contemporary photos to look at. Taking photos might be a tad risky, actually, as one of the two deaths from the storms has been a young man who unwisely tried to photograph a stormwater drain at Chermside on Sunday night. Via Stilgherrian, you can also have a squizzy at archived radar images of last night’s storms here. When I checked at around 5pm it was impossible to get on to the BOM site to check tonight’s storms on their way, and the site also couldn’t cope with the traffic just after the ABC weather at the end of the news.

courtesy of Garry’

courtesy of supernicko

courtesy of Michael Henderson

Continue reading ‘Stormy weather!’

Let’s ban postmodernism!

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 5 days ago
in Culture, Film, TV, Video etc and Politics
. 357 Comments

I think it was klaus k who once suggested on this blog that we should completely eschew the word “postmodernism”, so vacuous and meaningless has it become. That seems a proposal worth reviving when you read an astonishing take on the ABC’s decision to reallocate resources away from specialist Radio National programs, particularly the Religion Report.

The questions facing mankind are, essentially, the same as they have always been: the age-old questions about what is good, true and beautiful. How do we identify those characteristics in our own and others’ behaviour? How do we achieve them in our lives?

Inevitably, we will never answer them validly if - confusing the medium with the message, to put it in Marshall McLuhan’s discredited formula - we confuse the garments for the person, the cover for the book.

Apparently, the ABC’s remit is to pose (or answer?) eternal questions, and any management decision about Radio National demonstrates “relativism” and that “they hate religion”.

I’m actually not a huge fan of Stephen Crittenden’s, but there can be no doubt that discussing programming decisions in this fashion is, well, just demented. Continue reading ‘Let’s ban postmodernism!’

Social networks, online media and politics

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 5 days ago
in Activism, Blogging, Elections, Foreign Elections, Media, Sociology and The Web
. 0 Comments

There are a couple of very interesting contributions today about the Obama experience online and where it goes to from here - from my QUT colleagues Axel Bruns at Gatewatching and Barry Saunders at ABC Opinion. Saunders also has some acerbic comments about Stephen Conroy and the “inane internet censorship proposal”, which certainly seems completely contradictory for a party ostensibly attempting to harness the power of online participation, among its many other demerits.

Breaking news: Dick Cheney indicted

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 6 days ago
in Crime, Politics and USA
. 36 Comments

From Crooks & Liars:

Not much info in the piece because the information is not public yet, but a DA has indicted Cheney and Alberto Gonzalez and a few others on charges that are related to corruption in the private prison system following an inmate’s death. And not surprisingly, there’s some profiteering involved.

While there’s a lot of sentiment around regarding war crimes prosecutions for the Bushies, that’s always been completely outside the bounds of possibility. But the extent of dodginess of some of their dealings domestically does make it probable that facts will be uncovered, allegations made and indictments issued. However, it’s also highly likely that George W. Bush will use his power of presidential pardon on leaving office to spare his apparatchiks. Nevertheless, it may well be that much of the routine criminality that appears to be part of the modus operandi of the Republican military-industrial complex will be exposed and on the public record.

Update: More on the indictment from Discourse.net here and here.

“Letting the market rip”

Published
by
Mark
1 week, 6 days ago
in Education, Media, Parenting and Policy
. 112 Comments

I’ve been wondering when someone would wake up to the fact that the implosion of ABC Learning likely poses a political problem for the Liberals. Bernard Keane has:

It was the idea of making money from looking after children that so many people found objectionable, and the fact that they had no choice but to participate due to the lack of child care choice in their area. It was almost like WorkChoices for the under-fives. And there was the suspicion that ABC Learning cut corners and offered lower quality care — a view reinforced when it tried to stop the Victorian Government from inspecting its centres and argued its directors weren’t legally responsible for the children in the company’s care, when figures emerged of the company driving down the wages and working conditions of its staff, and when stories emerged of poor quality care.

That’s all now linked to the Coalition. Not just because of the subsidies model that massively expanded under John Howard, but because of the company’s willingness to embrace the Coalition, with Sallyanne Atkinson as chair and Larry Anthony on the board. ABC Learning has now become emblematic of the Howard Government’s approach to childcare, and Eddie Groves will come to be identified with the era just as surely as Alan Bond and Christopher Skase represented the Hawke years.

For those of us in Brisbane who remember Sallyanne Atkinson as both Liberal Lord Mayor and perenially unsuccessful federal candidate, her protestations about her own financial position and avoidance of responsibility repeatedly made in the Courier-Mail have been an all too familiar, and quite predictable tale. Particularly damaging, and revealing, are her comments expressing puzzlement about how ABC could lose money - being a “government supported business”. Keane is quite correct to say that the sorry tale of ABC Learning will redound on the Coalition. But I also think he doesn’t quite understand the paradigm shift in public thinking he himself describes - and I note that bloggers and commenters here at LP were questioning the validity of the market childcare model a long time ago - when he writes: Continue reading ‘“Letting the market rip”’

Truthiness versus Truth II: Now with graphs!

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks ago
in Foreign Elections, Sociology and USA
. 6 Comments

More on the instant revisionism from the Republican Noise Machine in the wake of Barack Obama and the Democrats’ victory - this time scatterplot and red state blue state rich state poor state make a graphic point about the claims that the Republicans’ loss was somehow artefactual. It’s worth adding that the problem of the under-representation of Democratic votes in terms of seats adduced also goes to the horrendous architecture of the American political system - entrenched and partisan gerrymandering in many states, the two party monopoly, disenfranchisement and appallingly conducted elections, and all the other factors which distort popular will and poorly represent it.

Continue reading ‘Truthiness versus Truth II: Now with graphs!’

Expectations about unemployment

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks ago
in Economics, Markets, Polls and Sociology
. 17 Comments

Andrew Norton has posted on some interesting findings from Roy Morgan’s employment perceptions survey. Basically, there’s something of a disjunction - with 70% of respondents believing unemployment will rise over the next year (the highest since the last recession, and the third highest since the survey began in 1975) while 80% think their own job is secure (the same number as last year’s survey). 63% believe they could easily find another job.

These sorts of surveys demonstrate one of the weaknesses of opinion polling - we’re left to speculate on the reasons. It really would be extremely helpful if polling groups were to supplement such research with qualitative forms of enquiry such as focus groups, or qualitative aspects to the survey instrument.

But since we have to speculate, my guess would be that one or more of the following factors might be in operation:

Continue reading ‘Expectations about unemployment’

CPD Common Ground Forum on Climate Change: Sydney

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks, 1 day ago
in Activism, Climate change, Notices and Sydney
. 10 Comments

Just a quick plug for an event being held under the auspices of the Centre for Policy Development on Wednesday 26th November at the Customs House in Sydney:

Ahead of the release of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme White Paper in December, the need for optimism and constructive discussion about climate change is stronger than ever.

The Centre for Policy Development brings you a Common Ground discussion on climate change with the topic ‘Australia should lead, not follow’.

Join keynote speakers Bob Carr (former Premier, NSW), Pru Goward (NSW Shadow Minister for Climate Change) and a diverse panel of voices: Fiona Wain (Environment Business Australia), Steve Hatfield-Dodds (former CSIRO, now Department of Climate Change), Andrew Bartlett (former Democrats) and Imam Afroz Ali (from the ‘Australian Religious Response to Climate Change’ initiative).

The Common Ground series is designed to move away from stereotyped clashes, and explore areas of common ground which can be articulated to a common purpose. Personally, I’ve got zero time for Bob Carr, but some of the other speakers sound interesting, and I hope that the discussion will be productive. And there are drinks afterwards! You can register via the link above, and I’d be fascinated to hear from any Sydney folks who go along.

Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett.

The polls, Malcolm Turnbull and the economy

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks, 1 day ago
in Economics, Media and Polls
. 10 Comments

There’s a Galaxy and a Nielsen poll out this morning, both of which show Labor with a 55-45 lead on 2PP, and Kevin Rudd on better numbers than he enjoyed a year ago - and these are some of the last polls (Essential Research follows tonight) before the first anniversary of Labor’s election.

This is quite interesting:

Coalition attacks on almost every aspect of the Government’s response to the crisis have had no impact.

Possum on Malcolm Turnbull:

These ratings trends differ slightly from Newspoll (conveniently seen over at the Polling Charts page) with Nielsen suggesting that Turnbull is failing to convince those that were initially undecided about his leadership to the point of slowly alienating them, while Newspoll is continuing to show slight growth in Turnbull’s satisfaction.

Intuitively, I suspect Nielsen is right about Turnbull. We might be a better barometer here than might be expected, unrepresentative sample that we no doubt are. If you cast your mind back to the reaction of LP commenters when Malcolm became opposition leader, a lot of us were prepared to cautiously welcome his election, having in mind his performance in the past and his social progressivism.

Continue reading ‘The polls, Malcolm Turnbull and the economy’

Lazy Sunday!

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks, 2 days ago
in Life and Miscellaneous
. 32 Comments

Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!

G20 Summit: A new Bretton Woods?

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks, 2 days ago
in Economics, International, Media, Sociology and USA
. 60 Comments

The G20 Summit has come and gone, and if today’s coverage in the Australian press is any indication, the most important of the tea leaves to be read is whether George W. Bush snubbed Kevin Rudd over the “Kirribilli leak”. Yep, a non-story that has burbled along for weeks, now diverted into intra-press gallery trading of accusations and a tedious talking point for the opposition - that’s the most important aspect of the events in Washington according to our “quality” media. As far as I can work out, if Bush is indeed upset that his ignorance of the function and nature of the G20 was revealed to the world, that just confirms what a lot of folks have always known about W - that’s he’s at best unengaged, at worst ignorant. But I suppose our fearless journos aren’t allowed to draw that conclusion lest a global diplomatic crisis add to our woes from the global financial crisis!

But, anyway, the lame duck President made his ritual obeisance to the virtues of American leadership and the glories of the free market. One imagines there’s some personal and political imperative there, but the reality of his governance is better disclosed in the fate of the TARP funds which Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was given by Congress - it appears that crony capitalism and socialism for the rich is the name of the game according to American blogs such as naked capitalism, Obsidian Wings, firedoglake and naked capitalism again.

But Bush will soon be fading into history, and Barack Obama sensibly declined to act at the summit without executive authority, so what emerged from the G20 is more in the nature of a directions statement for the way forward, as The Big Picture foresaw:

Hopefully, a long term agenda for regulatory cooperation and communication can be set with the next meeting’s agenda decided upon. Far better to talk then not, but no real decisions will come out of this meeting. There will be gnashing of teeth and venting of rage at the mess that excess securitization has created, and the international regulation of and accounting for such derivatives will probably be a focus.

Planet Money looks at what transpired, and links to the text of the communique here. Continue reading ‘G20 Summit: A new Bretton Woods?’

What are you reading? (Defender of the thesis edition!)

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks, 2 days ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Education, Life, Sociology and The Web
. 78 Comments

As those folks who are my friends on Facebook are no doubt aware, I successfully defended my PhD thesis at my final seminar on Thursday in the Humanities Program at QUT. That’s a milestone I’m really happy to have reached, and in a post-thesis universe, one thing I can do is make some more time for reading fiction! I was just thinking that it’s been ages since I wrote a science fiction post, and that in itself speaks volumes about the sorts of volumes that have been the staple of my reading diet over the semester just gone! I’ve been storing up some promising science fiction to read and have been finding Locus and blogs and online sf zines fabulous resources for both purchasing books and building up a sense of anticipation and excitement about them!

Anyway, all this prompted me to think that it’s about time that we had another thread about what we’re all reading, or indeed what we’re intending to read over the holidays. I’d also be interested in hearing from others how they pick new titles - recommendations, reviews, online, offline? Discussion doesn’t have to be limited to science fiction and/or speculative fiction, of course, but that’s what my piles of books to be read currently consist of!

The NSW government, the media and four year terms

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks, 3 days ago
in Elections, Media, NSW Government and Politics
. 37 Comments

The Sydney Daily Telegraph, a newspaper which likes to see itself as some sort of courageous voice of the people, has been losing readers hand over fist, and more recently, an editor. The paper is also running a campaign for the NSW government to sack itself. It’s impossible to read any article in the online version on state politics without intrusive links in the middle of the story directing readers to its petition, and a plethora of other anti-Rees widgets, rants and commentary.

But in the parallel world where the fixed four year term is decried as the fountain of all evil, it seems to me something odd is going on. Paul Kelly traces the constitutional change back to the Greiner regime, but downplays the fact that the movement towards fixed terms in the early 90s was part of a range of managerialist measures and an overarching approach to governance which argued - reasonably explicitly - that political accountability was an annoying obstacle to “reform”. This was an era when all manner of measures - privatisation, purchaser/provider splits, downsizing the public service, closing schools and hospitals and competition policy - were trumpeted by elites as necessary but largely rejected by public opinion.

Indeed, there’s a residue of this managerialist politics apparent in the Rees government’s fetishisation of the state’s AAA credit rating.

However, the managerialists of yesterday are the populists of today. But I’m completely puzzled by Paul Kelly’s logic here:

He means a device to enable an election to be held mid-term to save NSW from a truly disastrous government, such as the present administration. The point is that in a globalised world, guaranteed political tenure is a fatal flaw. The NSW experience shows that the fixed four-year term model is a fraud on the public interest.

We are losing the political culture that surrounds the Westminster model. Its flexibility, depicted as a problem, is a virtue. It means that pressure can mount on bad governments for an election and that strong governments, when they need a new mandate to confront a crisis, can seek that mandate.

The inability to procure an election in NSW at present does not help the people of NSW. It assists only the Labor machine that tries to run the state in its own interest.

Continue reading ‘The NSW government, the media and four year terms’