It has been reported that one in three terminations of pregnancy at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide is performed on students from abroad.
The emphasis of experts and authorities quoted in these reports is on the need for improved sexual and reproductive health education and information for international students, and nobody will quibble with such calls. However, it should also be obvious to anyone whose critical faculties have not been overborne by misogynist ressentiment, and whose capacity for compassion has not been vitiated by religoius fanaticism, that the last thing the young women in these difficult circumstances need is for the Criminal Law to intrude in their cases.
Meanwhile, Tegan Leach and Sergie Brennan are still waiting for Anna Bligh to grow some vertebrae.
If Mike Rann is really “not worried about possible effects on the Holden car plant at Elizabeth in Adelaide” if General Motors goes into bankruptcy in the United States, he’s either developed a sudden case of free-market purity, he is completely incompetent in his job, or he is indulging in lily-gilding.
Robert Gottliebsen explains a bit more here about Holden’s short-term situation. Apparently Holden is structured as an unlisted public company (which GM of course owns in its entirety), and is currently cash-flow positive, so there’s no reason to think that GM new owners – the United Auto Workers and the US government – would have any reason to shut it down immediately.
Continue reading ‘GM bankruptcy watch’
In a move that will undoubtedly go down well with their constituents, the South Australian government is going to sue the “upstream states” in the High Court to force trade in Murray-Darling Basin water to be de-restricted. Mike Rann’s statement to the states that they want the High Court to invalidate Victoria’s 4% cap on water trading , which prevents more than 4% of the water in a particular irrigation system being sold out of that system in any one year.
John Quiggin’s view is that the restrictions are undesirable, and mainly benefit irrigation companies at the expense of the river and farmers themselves. I’m not sure that’s the whole story; if water is traded out of an irrigation district, the burden of maintaining the infrastructure will be shared amongst fewer farmers, and ultimately render those districts financially unsustainable. Frankly, I suspect that such districts are probably unsustainable anyway, but the Victorian government hasn’t been brave enough to bite that particular bullet yet. In any case, John also speculates that the basis of the challenge will be section 92 of the Constitution, which states:
On the imposition of uniform duties of customs, trade, commerce, and intercourse among the States, whether by means of internal carriage or ocean navigation, shall be absolutely free.
Continue reading ‘SA to challenge Victoria’s water trading rules in High Court’
Lance Armstrong is a hell of a cyclist. But the anticipation surrounding his ride in the Tour Down Under in Adelaide is just bizarre. He’s not here to win. He’s here for a glorified training ride.
Lance Armstrong is a rider who was (and may still be) perfectly suited to the Tour de France. He excels in two disciplines. He was exceptional at long time trials, an individual race against the clock, and mountain climbing – particularly the extremely long but not ultra-steep climbs of the Tour. The overall winner of the Tour de France must be amongst the best in both of these disciplines. Armstrong trained exclusively for the Tour, practising the climbs and the time trial courses again and again until he knew them perfectly. And he had a team featuring many of the best riders in the field, who rode not for their own glory but purely to support Armstrong.
In other races – indeed, in flatter stages on the Tour – Armstrong just rode with the bunch; his particular gifts didn’t help him when the road was flat and he’s riding with other cyclists. Indeed, for many one-day races, he acted as water bottle-fetcher – domestique – for his teammates. Throughout the period where he won the Tour, the only other races of note that he won were the Dauphine Libere – a traditional Tour warm-up featuring a mountainous course, and the Tour de Georgia – the closest thing he had to a home race, one featuring a couple of challenging climbs, and one in which he might be expected to put in a particular effort.
Continue reading ‘The most-publicized training ride in history’
Petrol prices are plummeting. This must be the cue for an Australian car manufacturer to announce they’re going to build a small, fuel-efficient car in Australia. Yes, Holden is going to build its first smaller cars in Australia since the Camira of the 1980s. Both Holden and Ford’s domestic assembly operations are now going to have a crack at competing in the most competitive segment of the world car market – the small car segment.
The actual vehicle doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, either; it’s the replacement for the Daewoo Lacetti and the Chevrolet Cobalt in Asian and US markets. American-designed small cars have, historically, been sub-standard, something that most definitely applies to the current Chevy Cobalt which I had the misfortune to rent when last in the USA. By contrast, Ford’s upcoming domestically-produced small car, the Focus, is a Ford of Europe adaptation of a highly-rated Mazda design. History may not be destiny, but I know which car has the better small-car design heritage behind it…
Regardless of the merits of the specific vehicle, one still wonders just how much government money it’s taking for Australian-built small cars, churned out at a rate of maybe 40,000 a year if they’re lucky, to be competitive with factories in Asia who produce cars on a far, far larger scale. Enough to pay for a lot of homeless shelters, I’ll venture.
Bruce Hawker’s ruminations about bringing in Ministers from outside Parliament reminded me of a couple of things – how forgettable the 2020 Summit proved to be (and not because of the goodwill and expertise a lot of participants brought to it – but because the manipulation of its discussions demonstrated it was basically a stunt) and the fact that Bob Hawke – another summit fan – also called for non-MPs to be appointed to Cabinet in his 1979 Boyer Lectures. [Hawkey, of course, wasn't at that stage a parliamentarian himself.]
On a practical level, it rarely works well. Continue reading ‘Despairing of democracy’
As Lord Downer of Cyprus Alexander Downer prepares to dump on the electors of Mayo less than eight months after they re-elected him, reasonable observers might wonder who exactly is treating the voters with contempt:
“I think they’re treating the people of Mayo with contempt if they’re not prepared to run a candidate when they’re the Government of Australia.”
Except on Planet Janet, there’s probably little interest around about Dolly’s musings, presumably concocted over a cigar or two while dreaming about his Hummer. But there is still some interest around about whether Labor should run a candidate in the Mayo by-election that will result from Downer’s resignation from Parliament.
Tim Watts at Tree of Knowledge thinks not, noting Antony Green’s summary of all the times the Libs eschewed the chance to run in by-elections they couldn’t win while in Government. The Poll Bludger suggests the ALP should:
No doubt their decision will be soundly based on research, but if I were them I’d go for it: the electorate that almost put John Schumann in parliament seems an unlikely candidate for an emissions trading scheme backlash, and a relatively good result would help shake the Gippsland monkey off the government’s back.
The media cycle being what it is, I suspect Gippsland’s now ancient history. I’m not sure if The Poll Bludger’s ever been to the Adelaide Hills, but it’s certainly not fertile territory for Labor. Antony Green’s already got a page up on the by-election contest, and he observes: Continue reading ‘No Mayo with that, please, it doesn’t go with my latte’
Ross Garnaut will be speaking in mainland capital cities next week about the Garnaut Report. Sydney and Perth are already booked out, but if you’re in Melbourne, Brisbane or Adelaide you can still register. Adelaide’s Tuesday, Melbourne is Wednesday and Brisbane’s Friday. I’ve booked myself a spot for the Brisbane gig.
Details here.
Crikey editorialises:
Beyond the continuing drama of Belinda Neal’s Night of the Iguanas, one other story has hogged the talkback airwaves and tabloid pages this week:
The woman, 28, who moved from Geelong to Adelaide three months ago, was refused bail in the Elizabeth Magistrates Court. She was charged with five counts of criminal neglect, two of acting to endanger life and three of acting in a way likely to cause harm.
The alleged offences took place between February 1 and Monday, when police raided two houses in Adelaide and found up to 21 children living in filth and squalor.
You know the one we mean.
Yeah, it’s all about the kiddies. Mal Brough emotes. And Brendan Nelson’s veins are popping. Crikey tries to take the high moral ground and claim this story – which punches all the buttons (TM !!!!) about the neglect of the children – is more worthy of loud denunciation or on the other hand, more… tabloid crud, but what’s their point? Why are the kiddies neglected? Why isn’t there an intervention into ADELAIDE? Etc. We all know that’s where the weird murders are. Bleh blah. Lordy, let’s not have any actual structural analysis of why such situations might arise. It’s all the individual pathology, stupid. Raise your eyes – just for a second – don’t blink too hard – from the important issue of why Belinda Neal hasn’t yet been burnt as a witch.
There might be a view that we – in the independent blogosphere – might be able to do a little better than this (without the huge financial and human resources that the MSM can leverage) but – based on some hard facts – you – the ejumacated readership of teh independent blogs would rather read about and comment on the SERIOUS ISSUES OF THE DAY. As stipulated by the said MSM. Maybe I’m wrong? (I’m not actually, and I could cite stat after stat to show that)… but….
You tell us. Continue reading ‘Read it and weep’
Published in Adelaide,
Brisbane,
Climate change,
Economics,
Elections,
Energy,
Environment,
Melbourne,
Perth,
Politics,
Sociology and
Sydney .
Some of the tensions in Rudd’s governance and indeed in his Cabinet over climate change issues are discussed by Brian in this post. Brian’s thoughts could usefully be read together with Shaun Carney’s column in yesterday’s Age [via Gary Sauer-Thompson at Public Opinion]:
The central tension for contemporary Labor is the need to weave together its disparate supporting tribes and Rudd’s car plan, which co-opts concern about climate change to underpin the ALP’s more traditional working class base, tells us how he wants to do it. When Labor was last in power, under Paul Keating, it managed to hold on to most of its white-collar support base but lost office when parts of its blue-collar base, pummelled by the effects of economic deregulation, concluded it had lost touch. Since then, the white-collar left has coalesced more solidly around the Greens – an effect that has been turbo-charged by the death of the more moderate Democrats. This has two consequences, both of which make it harder for Labor to hold on to power.
Continue reading ‘Holding the tribes together in the climate change age’
Ross Gittins has a great piece in the Sydney Morning Herald today, making the obvious point that:
… households earning $150,000 or more – starting at almost twice the median – are in the top 15 per cent of households.
The top 15 per cent aren’t rich, but they’re certainly not battlers. They’re not even anywhere near the middle; they’re up near the top.
The average earnings of adult full-time employees are now $60,000. So someone on $150,000 is pulling in 2½ times average. And you’re asking the rest of us to feel sorry for you? You reckon the bottom 97 per cent of taxpayers should be paying you special benefits?
The carry-on we’ve seen from people pulling down a paltry $150,000 a year borders on the obscene when put beside the troubles of the people who really do have cause for complaint, single pensioners living it up on $270 a week. That’s a bit over $14,000 a year – less than a 10th of what the well-off whingers are getting.
But how can people living on two or three times the average income genuinely believe they’re middle-income strugglers?
He goes on to answer his own question, and in doing so, makes the point that people usually have a poor perception of what others’ incomes actually are, and that they tend to compare up rather than down. There are oodles of studies that make that point.
Continue reading ‘Don’t cry for the “pseudo-battlers”’
I have no idea what that means. [I think I'm channelling Letterman.]
The point of this post, of course, is to register and share my excitement that Adelaide’s favourite, The Audreys have a new album out, When the Flood Comes. Available now.
Continue reading ‘Audreys of the world unite!’
It’s hard to resist taking potshots at Brendan Nelson’s listening tour diary, and the GrodsCorp crew haven’t been resisting. I plead guilty too.
But there are some interesting questions raised by his Adelaide despatches. Part of Nelson’s aim on this tour is obviously to reinforce his image as “consultative”, and he’s making a virtue of personally writing up his peregrinations. He’s also obviously trying to embed his compassion thing, perhaps because the Liberal Party is so deficient in the “vision thing” department right now.
I started the day at the Adelaide Central Markets and saw my becoming good friend now, Ross Savos, who runs the Central Deli at the markets, and then went on to have the opportunity to speak to a number of the stallholders.
Yikes!
This guy used to make pronouncements about literacy and standards when he was Education Minister. On one hand, maybe we should be grateful that a pollie is actually writing this thing in his own words (unless his staffers are sub-literate). On the other… ? And, then, there’s this:
Continue reading ‘Not from the benevolence of the baker…’
I’ve mentioned this before, but the renovations to the blog and something that’s on tomorrow night have got me thinking about it again. From time to time, I’ve been inviting people to events I think LP folks would find interesting via the blog’s Facebook group – most recently, the Anna Haebich book launch and this week, a forum tomorrow night featuring John Quiggin on the way forward for the labour movement. Just because of where I live, these events have had a tendency to be in Brisbane! I’d be really keen to see people use LP and the Facebook interface to promote things on all over the shop that would appeal to people this blog appeals to. So I’d encourage people to let me know of anything that might fall into that category.
I also think that it might be a spiffy idea to run some of our own – I’m thinking more forums with speakers and discussion than grogblogs – not everyone’s into the latter, but those who are could of course combine the socialising with a bit of politicising. What do folks think? I’d be very keen to have some feedback, ideas, suggestions.
Incidentally, if you’re on Facebook, please consider joining the blog’s group. And feel free to add me as a friend!
I’m normally a fairly quick reader. But it took me about two weeks before I went to Adelaide to read my way through Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s magnum opus – A Secular Age. It’s a whopping 880 odd pages, but it repays careful and considered reading. It’s a very important book indeed – with the potential to completely reframe how sociologists see secularity and secularisation, how we understand the long term contributions of Latin Christianity to our contemporary culture and ideas, and indeed how we think about politics in the West. I’ll have to set aside the pleasure of writing a review until after the election’s done and dusted, but I was forwarded an email today (thanks Michael!) pointing to a dedicated blog about the book and the issues it raises hosted by the Social Science Research Council.
I think that’s a great initiative, and Taylor himself has been blogging there. I’d suggest a look at the introductory post to get some idea of the context (and for links to reviews) and a read of Robert Bellah’s post. The comments threads can be a tad academic, but one of the beauties of Taylor’s work is how accessibly and clearly he writes – perhaps something of an irony for a scholar who cut his teeth on a groundbreaking reintrepretation of Hegel. The blog is well worth a look both as an example of good practice in the dissemination and discussion of academic work, and also for anyone concerned with the very crucial issues around the intersection of history, religion, culture and politics. That’s all of us, right?
Crossposted at LP in exile, where readers may leave comments during LP’s server woes!
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