This morning the Queensland Liberal-National Party’s latest television advertisement hit the airwaves, jostling for our attention with Amber Higlett’s early news show on Channel Nine. The ad can also be viewed here.
The ad features Laurence Springborg declaring his pride in presiding over the formation of “the LNP” as the first step towards “change in Queensland”. Said change will include things to do with schools, employment, housing and hospitals, and also making Queensland a place “where roads are planned for future growth”.
Two interesting things strike me about the advertisement.
Continue reading ‘Don’t mention the Nationals (or the Liberals, or the environment)’
The Federal Government is going to restore the ability of universities to levy a compulsory student services charge of up to $250 per student per annum.
However, according to Federal Youth Minister Kate Ellis, student organisations or unions will not be managing the funds and the services to be funded:
Ms Ellis said university administrations were better placed to manage services like health, childcare, counselling and club funding.
Continue reading ‘Taxation without representation is Federal Government policy on student services’
It’s time to tear your attention from the Real Clear Politics coverage of the donkey versus elephant race, and post whatever you will (as long as it sufficiently complies with the comments policy) about the Melbourne Cup - what your tips are, what you’ll be wearing, where you’ll be partying and how, the social and cultural significance of the race, memorable past Cup Day stories, why the Irish, the Poms and/or the Aotearoans will be making jokes at Australia’s expense from tomorrow afternoon onwards - whatever!
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald contains a report on the Young Liberals’ submission to the Senate Inquiry into Academic Freedom (which Mark has posted on here). The report begins:
ACADEMICS have accused the Young Liberals of a “witch-hunt” after two blacklists of Australian university lecturers accused of having a left-wing bias were presented to the Senate inquiry into academic freedom in Sydney yesterday.
The lists formed part of two submissions to the inquiry which allege systematic left-wing bias at Australian universities and high schools. They include the feminist and cultural theorists Catharine Lumby and Eva Cox, journalism lecturers Wendy Bacon and Peter Manning, and academics who are members of the Socialist Alternative party.
Continue reading ‘Illiberal students attack academic freedom - with more than a little help from their big mates’
Wednesday’s Age quotes the Australian Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, as strongly supporting the introduction of statutory paid maternity leave for Australian women, and paid parental leave in general.
Ms. Bryce is also reported by the ABC to be “optimistic about the future of the Murray-Darling Basin”.
Both of these issues are highly topical in Australia at the present time, and Australia’s public and major political actors are far from unanimous about them. Each of Ms. Bryce’s statements would be strongly contested from different points of the political compass. Not surprisingly, the Governor-General’s statements have therefore been seen by some as breaching the convention that Australia’s head of state should be “above politics” - an issue which invariably arises in debates about the form of an Australian republic.
Continue reading ‘The unconventional Ms. Bryce’
In fact, for Australian trade unions it became illegal under the former Howard government’s WorkChoices legislation, which prohibited union bargaining and industrial action on social and environmental issues.
Depressingly, the Rudd Government intends to maintain this prohibition.
In another concession to business, Ms Gillard said Labor would maintain a restriction introduced under Work Choices on the content of union bargaining claims. Bargaining claims would be wider than under the Howard government, including union issues such as training leave, but the issues must relate specifically to the employment relationship. Strikes over social causes such as the environment or management rights would be banned.
Continue reading ‘It’s not that easy being green under WorkChoices’
Barack Obama’s defeat of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination evoked a range of opinions about the extent to which sexism was a factor in Senator Clinton’s loss, and about if and when the US will ever elect a female president. The selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate has brought another angle to these debates. This is not surprising.
However, it would be a mistake to focus exclusively on whether Clinton and/or Palin as individuals have been hard done by due to sexism in American political culture and the wider socio-cultural milieu – important as these issues are - and neglect to discuss political-institutional factors affecting the level of women’s political representation in the US and other liberal democracies.
Some of these political-institutional factors are obviously gender-political in nature. However in this post I want to argue that a political-institutional factor that is not overtly gender-political in nature has also been quite significant in enhancing political opportunities for women in some countries and constraining them in others. This is the electoral system used to elect a country’s parliament or equivalent.
Continue reading ‘Electoral systems and gender equity’
To the best of my knowledge, there have been fewer pro-choice interventions in Australian State and Federal elections than there have been “pro-life” ones. The last one I recall (largely because I letterboxed for it) was Dr. Bertram Wainer’s candidacy for a Federal seat in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs in 1980. On that occasion there was a head to head contest in the seat on the issue of abortion rights between Dr. Wainer and a “pro-life” candidate, and the pro-choice side won out by a factor of 3 to 1, although it’s less clear what impact this had on the Labor/Liberal contest for the seat itself.
Since then there have been a couple of high-profile “pro-life” interventions in Federal elections, on both occasions aimed at removing right-wing Labor members (Michael Maher, Barry Cunningham) who were personally anti-abortion but who had displeased the “pro-life” crew by not being sufficiently rabid about it. The demise of Maher and Cunningham has, I believe, been a factor in the growth of the myth, in certain Labor circles, of the anti-abortion lobby as a terribly powerful electoral force.
The probable outcome of the current Parliamentary debate on Victoria’s abortion laws suggests that the myth is losing its sting. The bullying and vindictive behaviour by “pro-life” forces in connection with this debate suggests the possibility that, if the vote goes as we hope and expect it will, there may be punitive electoral interventions in the next Victorian State poll with the aim of removing supporters of the bill from State Parliament and restoring the intimidatory power of the myth. I believe pro-choice people could profitably consider how to organise to meet - indeed, to pre-empt - this threat, and destroy the myth for all time.
Continue reading ‘A pro-choice electoral intervention in the next Victorian State election?’
The OO, without the slightest hint of self-parody, has indulged itself in an orgy of hagiography for new Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, including the following offering from Paul Kelly:
Malcolm Turnbull is a natural leader: bold, clever and visionary… Turnbull fought a heroic campaign to win the republic. In the end he was damned by many republicans, none of whom made anything approaching Turnbull’s contribution and who made the absurd claim that Turnbull had been the architect of defeat (unlike those who actually supported the monarchy).
Students of 20th century history know that it is in the nature of personality cults to rewrite history. However, I cannot allow Kelly’s attempt to exonerate Turnbull’s misleadership of the Australian Republican Movement (admittedly, an organisation chockfull of followers eager to be misled) to go unanswered, not least because Turnbull’s “heroism” included, in November 1997, a gratuitous smear in the national media of a 19 year old Brisbane university student who had the temerity to run for election to the 1998 Constitutional Convention on an alternative republican ticket.
Continue reading ‘The heroism of Malcolm Turnbull’
The classic line-up of Fleetwood Mac, fronted by Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, broke in Australia when I was 16. Tusk, the third album recorded by the classic FM, was released almost exactly on my 20th birthday and of course I purchased a copy from the Brash’s outlet at Melbourne’s Northland shopping centre on the day of release. One of my favourite tracks on Tusk was “Storms”, written and sung by Stevie Nicks. However as I recall I didn’t quite think it was the best track on the album.
I “lost” my copy of Tusk, along with the rest of my vinyl record collection, during a house move in Sydney in the 1980s. Now, thanks to YouTube, I have renewed my acquaintance with “Storms” and indeed with much else recorded by Stevie and FM over the years.
Perhaps it’s a function of the difference between being 20 and being whatever age I am now (which can be deduced by anyone who knows when Fleetwood Mac broke in Australia), but I have now decided that “Storms” is the best song ever recorded by Fleetwood Mac and/or Stevie Nicks. Those who wish to venture an opinion on the matter are invited to listen to the song here.
The Victorian Parliament is preparing to debate legislation to decriminalise abortion, and the Federal Senate is soon to debate Guy Barnett’s regressive proposal to abolish Medicare funding for abortion performed after the fourteenth week of pregnancy.
In this context, the BBC World Service’s interview with Dr. Susan Wicklund is indeed timely. This interview should be required listening for all Victorian MPs and Federal Senators over the next few days.
Other perspectives from Susan Wicklund on the realities of abortion and of women’s reproductive choices can be found here.
P.S. The first minute or so of the audio is not the Susan Wicklund interview but the tail end of the news bulletin which preceded it.
The MSM is full of reports and commentaries praising Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard for taking on the teacher unions with their proposals for “a new national system of school transparency” based on publication of information and ranking of the performances of schools and those who work in them.
This proposal, and the prospect of a Federal Labor Government beating up on TEH TEACHER UNIONS, has attracted praise from Peter Hartcher, Michelle Grattan, the Opposition Organ and Terry Sweetman.
However, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has a different view. Its Improving School Leadership study finds that the kind of public reporting and ranking of school performance proposed by the Rudd government does not, on the evidence, improve school performances and may even be counterproductive.
Continue reading ‘OECD in league with communist teacher unions’
Mount St Michaels College, a Brisbane Catholic Girls School under the care of the Sisters of Charity, has adopted a novel approach to teaching mathematics.
It’s teaching the girls about punting on the races and at the casino.
This has sparked a moral panic from predictable quarters, as the linked article reports. However, if you’ll pardon the pun, I think the school is on a good thing and should stick to it.
Continue reading ‘Principled young women with a passion for punting?’
On Tuesday 5 August, Australian country music singer-songwriter Reg Lindsay passed on, and in the ensuing few days the papers have been carrying tributes to the man and his music.
The tributes have been wrong on one point of fact.
Continue reading ‘A man named Lindsay… errr, Denver… errr, Stewart’
Which politically correct lefty said that?
The answer is (drum roll) Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ms. Ali is once again touring Australia, lapping up right-wing adulation at her public appearances and in the media. It is to be hoped that, whilst she is in this country, her robust advocacy of the republican democratic principle of universal secular public education (with which I wholeheartedly agree) gets something like the attention which has been focused on some of her other opinions.
Update: The correct answer is that it’s actually Ms. Ali’s supporter Frits Bolkestein who made the statement quoted in the title of this post. Thanks Dr. Cat for the correction. However it is a position which Ms. Ali can be assumed to endorse on the basis of her opposition to Section 23 of the Dutch Constitution.
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