“Having brought the European version of the Eurovision Song Contest to the Middle East and North Africa, we are now delighted that viewers across Asia will enjoy one of the best established entertainment shows in the world,” said Eurovision TV’s Bettina Brinkmann.
Asia’s version will start in 2009, and involve competitors from Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Macao, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
I note that while Asia lets us play soccer against them, there’s no sign of letting us in to this contest. But it’d be so good for the contest! Just think, Asiavision 2010 rolls around…and from the Beijing Egg, Australia gives Asia…the Chaser crew…
Much as I like the bloke, the headline on one of several op/eds Paul Keating has in the papers today criticising Kevin Rudd’s Asian Union idea says it all really - “I got it right the first time”.
I found it interesting this week to see what some of my students in Political Communication at QUT - doing group presentations on political leadership and campaigns - made of PJK. Most of them were very young indeed when Paul Keating was PM, and landmarks such as his Redfern Speech, or for that matter, the famous hand on the Queen incident aren’t present in their recollection. Researching Keating from scratch, as it were, you turn up lots of stuff about his colourful rhetoric, but seemingly, you also come to the conclusion that the man isn’t happy with his place in history - which I think is probably right.
When I was thinking about this, I decided that his criticism of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd’s advisors last year probably related to this - because of his great hatred of John Howard, he was worried that Labor wouldn’t get over the line when Howard’s defeat looked so likely, and speculating in his mind how he might have fought such a campaign.
I’m still a little suspicious that PJK might have, in one way or another, contributed to the spate of criticism of Kevin Rudd early this week on the grounds of supposed policy drift. Continue reading ‘Keating v. Rudd’
What’s with the Iemma government? About the only time they seem to hit the national news apart from scandals and stories about the collapse of public services is when some new height of absurdity is reached in their apparently obsessive desire to fence everything off from anyone bar dignitaries. Yesterday, Morris Iemma unaccountably locked the public out of a ceremony to unveil a statue of a New Zealand soldier on Anzac Bridge. Today, the charges against the Chaser boys for their APEC stunt are dropped, and ABC tv news reports the government warning ominously that it might send the wrong message to people contemplating something similar for the inordinately expensive Popefest in July - where all the usual panoply of exclusion zones, special police powers, fenced off areas of the city, redirected roads and so on will be in place for what looks set to be a spectacular flop, at least as far as frustrated Sydneysiders are concerned it would seem.
Please enlighten a puzzled Queenslander. Is it that they only get the illusion of power in a state they’ve made ungovernable when they can erect fences and restrict civil liberties? Is this the reductio ad absurdum of Bob Carr’s law and order campaigns? A distraction from electricity privatisation? Would they be happier with the North Korean style of staging a public event? Puzzled minds want to know!
Police commissioner Andrew Scipione ordered an internal inquiry by the Professional Standards Command, which found there were real concerns that pin-backed name tags could be used as weapons against officers.
This is a bit strange. The SMH reported last week that “[t]he badges are made out of cotton and are attached to an officer’s blue riot overalls with velcro.” It’s hard to see how velcro could be used as a weapon, except perhaps as identification evidence.
But let’s give them Scipione the benefit of the doubt. He went on to say that “[i]n future, all police officers attending protests would be issued with cloth identification tags”, implying that some people still had pins, and these were the ones who took off their badges. Okay. Have a look at these photos:
The dark rectangle on the right of their chests is the velcro to which the identification patch is attached. These officers therefore can not be afraid of pin-pricks.
THE Sydney climate change declaration is a success for John Howard, a good outcome for APEC and an incremental step on the long journey to find global agreement on a post-2012 emissions policy.
The leaders’ declaration is exactly what the APEC forum was established to do - confront the big issues and strike a regional position to influence global outcomes. (Paul Kelly in The Australian)
CHINESE President Hu Jintao and George W.Bush have delivered a sweeping victory for John Howard on climate change, agreeing for the first time to accept global goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. (Dennis Shanahan and Cameron Stewart)
Here in Beijing where I’m currently visiting, the propaganda posters were taken down long ago. There’s less government advertising in the ether than there is in Australia (not that that says much). But the propaganda machine of the Chinese government lives on, and I’m squarely in the target sights. The only English-language channel broadcast in China, the China Central Television English service, CCTV-9 edges out Fox News as the most ridiculously biased “news” channel on Earth - though Fox News is at least entertaining. The mellifluous tones of Edwin Maher, formerly a long-serving ABC Melbourne weather presenter famous for his pointer collection, introduce the lamest puff pieces imaginable.
Every bulletin leads with a short piece about China’s leaders getting feted by some foreign dignitary. APEC, of course, has given all manner of opportunities for such, with leaders from Michael Jeffery (yep, our nonentity of a Governor-General), through John Howard, to Shinzo Abe getting a run. Every meeting is to lead to more harmonious relations, peace, and sustainable development. No word of criticism of foreign leaders passes the lips of the CCTV9 crew; everybody else is working to deepening China-Less Important Country ties, they’re all doing a bang-up job about it, and only the official line is run. It’s the electronic version of the Palace of Endless Tranquility in CCTV9-land. Then there will be a tepid rundown of politically uncontroversial bits of foreign news -Pavarotti’s death, an earthquake in Pakistan, and so on, presented in soporific style. Then there’s a story about children or animals, often pandas being shipped to some foreign location. Continue reading ‘CCTV-9 on the Sydney Declaration’
APEC is over and signs on the roads this morning cosily reminded drivers that clearways will remain in place for the removal of the “APEC fence” (which is apparently on lease for another three years). Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, in a pre-Beattie cover showing a floodlit Opera House, harks back to the Olympics and tells us that Sydney has once again “shown the world how it’s done”. Howard agrees about “the wonderful way in which our nation has been put on display” to the world.
I was in Sydney during the Olympics and the comparison is laughable. In September 2000, people went around with smiles on their faces. Co-operation and helpfulness were the order of the day. There was a celebratory atmosphere. There wasn’t a dividing fence or a water cannon, let alone snipers in the city. Continue reading ‘Sydney’s snipers’
This one broke on the weekend but it really should have some legs today. The key phrase? “North Shore accountant”.
Coppers putting the boot into a bunch of protesting Nimbin ferals and Resistance members is one thing, but heavy handed and overzealous policing applied to a gentle middle class aspirational burgher of the North Shore just crossing the street with his kids is another thing again, this strikes right at the heat of what Australia is in danger of turning into under the guise of the war on terror and national security.
If the NSW police and the APEC powers that be has a dose of smarts, something I seriously doubt, they’d drop all charges and apologise to Greg McLeay because this kind of thing is just not on - for Nimbin ferals and North Shore accounts alike.
An LP reader writes about their day at the office:
The sound of helicopters is ubiquitous this week in central Sydney – not just in the city, but they can be heard – and seen - from kilometres around. Their drone is regularly punctuated by sirens.
Descending into the canyons of the CBD on my way to work, the din of the copters gets worse. Uniformed police are everywhere – in Phillip Street outside the law courts, standing at the front and back entrances of hotels and of course, beside the fence. It begins to spit with rain on a grey day, adding to the Blade Runner atmosphere.
Like most people who work in CBD skyscrapers, we’ve been warned for weeks about what to expect for APEC. We’re to wear our ID cards prominently, not use the stairs between floors and watch for unknown people trying to get into the building. When it comes to it, there doesn’t seem to be any extra security at the front door. Once inside, the helicopter roar can still be heard and at one point a supersonic plane jets past low overhead, sending people running nervously to the windows.
At lunchtime I decide to go and see the fence for myself. It’s easy to walk around - the main streets have only a quarter the usual number of people on them. When I get to the fence, the streets become almost deserted.
The fence is very new and shiny-looking and I wonder what they’re going to do with it when APEC is over – is there a market in used security fences or will the police keep it, for future “emergencies”? There must be kilometres of the thing.
Mr Downer said he played a pivotal role in securing the pandas so that they could breed in Australia as part of a global survival program.
“I love animals and I think the giant panda is one of the truly great animals of the world - they’re an endangered species,” Mr Downer told the Nine Network.
“It is true that I’ve been working with the Chinese in my position not only as an Adelaide MP, but also as the Foreign Minister, to try to get them to lend to us, an Australian zoo, two giant pandas.
“And they’ve agreed to do it to my own home zoo which my own grandfather was once the president of, so I’m kind of excited about it.”
It’s a win win. What will be the next big deal announced?
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Much as I like the bloke, the headline on one of 
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