Stilgherrian » john howard

OMFG! Kevin Rudd tweeted again!

Stilgherrian — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:31:40 +0000

Wow! Yesterday @KevinRuddPM said “Looking forward to communicating with you on Twitter” and now he’s said “Thanks to everyone for adding me on Twitter”! The Rudd Government really is about fresh thinking! Look!

OK, I’m not going to write a blog post every time the PM tweets something. But this gives you an idea of the scrutiny he’s under. He (or an as-yet-unnamed minion) types eight words and suddenly hundreds of people are a’flutter. Or a’twitter.

Mr Rudd’s first challenge will be to explain why he had over 400 followers last night, and had followed most of them back, but now half of them are gone. It’s probably just a Twtter glitch, but we all Need To Know. Now please. I’m sure the friendly folks at Twitter will respond quickly when they know it’s Australia’s Prime Minister (or an as-yet-unnamed minion) asking. That’s like even more important than Sarah Palin!

Have you ever seen Sarah Palin and Kevin Rudd in the same room? Spooky!

Since my welcome to the PM yesterday, I’ve been thinking about some suitably Prime Ministerial tweets.

Most of us don’t get that classified message each morning telling us where the Prime Minister will be, so it’d be harmless enough to feed us a little information as the day goes by. He could add a personal, reflective note without being a security risk.

“‘Only’ 200 pages to read over breakfast. Now I know why the coffee is free.”
“On way to CBR airport, flying to SYD. Constant travel is the tiring part of the job.”
“Glad to see NSW farmland looking better after the rains. Have farmers started to recover”

As I said yesterday, Twitter is about just being yourself. Twitter could humanise the role of PM. Make visible the questions in the PM’s mind, like the ones about the farmers, and people will respond. They’ll also understand that Rudd is busy man and won’t respond personally to every reply, but he does need to show that he’s seen what they said.

He could also use Twitter to send (not-so-)subtly coded political messages.

“Meeting Gordon Brown, looking forward to resolving the pensions problem”
“Hoping Conroy’s finished writing his resignation letter”

The folks who write books about political tactics said that one of John Howard’s more successful tricks was using talkback radio to speak over the heads of “the media” and communicate directly with listeners. His mistake was thinking all those bitter, hate-filled time-wasters on the phones were actually representative of Australia now, rather than being an old-fashioned whingefest — the last remnants of a medium almost dead. A bit like Mr Howard himself.

Twitter and other social media tools could allow Rudd to take that tactic to the next level, talking directly over the heads of the talkback hosts, his media minders (read: limiters) and forum moderators to interact directly with The People. A bit like that story of the King going amongst the peasants in disguise, but without the disguise.

He could also use Twitter to listen over the moderators’ heads. If Rudd (or any politician) learned for themselves to use the searching and filtering and analysis tools, they could investigate what they wanted to see, rather than on the minions who, let’s face it, are only serving the PM because they want to climb that greasy pole themselves. Would you trust them to give you accurate information if it showed them, personally, in a bad light? I thought not.

There’s a whole essay in there about how politics and government is the last remnant of an age when information was hoarded rather than shared. Us hyperconnected folks know that sharing information is where the power truly lies. That’s the big difference between the industrial age and the post-industrial.

We’re in transition, though. Some organisations get it, some don’t. The open source software community is all about sharing and making the process public — warts and all — and as a result they can deliver a secure operating system like Linux for free when it takes Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars to come close. The NSW state government couldn’t even roll out Wi-Fi hotspots in Sydney because they wanted to plan it from the top down with similarly top-down centrally-controlled businesses. Wrong tool for the job, people!

But, as I say, another essay for another time.

Both of Kevin Rudd’s tweets so far have been exactly eight words, and eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture. Will the next tweet also be eight words, making it the super-lucky “888″ message from Chairman Rudd?

Or, it’s a Full Moon in Spring tonight, the first in Rudd’s time as PM. Maybe this is when he reveals that he’s a super-powered were-robot, and the Twitter account will spew forth the hypnotic trigger-words to activate his army of Iced Vo-Vo-eating slaves. Man, that’d be so cool! Scary though.

Full Moon is at 5.18pm Sydney time.

Bonus Link: The mild-mannered Stephen Collins has unleashed his own super-powers to write Welcome Prime Minister. Now please engage.

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Anzac Day Rememberings

Stilgherrian — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:30:19 +0000

Where the fuck do I start? For me, Anzac Day is a tangled mess of emotions and ideas — some about grand themes of global and national politics, others deeply personal.

What pleases me most about Anzac Day is that Australia and New Zealand commemorate the sacrifice of their war dead not through parades of tanks and missiles and a glorification of war but with highly personal ceremonies of remembrance starting before dawn.

We talk not of our nation’s military prowess — though Australia is, by all accounts, capable of fielding professional military forces which make almost everybody else look like disorganised amateurs — but of the personal qualities which have made this nation great.

Those qualities were listed in an Army recruitment advertisement designed by a soldier. They were reiterated this morning by Major General Mark Kelly:

Regardless of religion, racial background, or even place of birth, we gather not to glorify war, but to remind ourselves that we value who we are and the freedoms we possess, and to acknowledge the courage and sacrifice of those who contributed so much in shaping the identity of this proud nation…

The term Anzac has transcended the physical meaning to become a spirit, an inspiration which embodies the qualities of courage, discipline, sacrifice, self reliance, and in Australian terms, mateship, and a fair go. This is what Anzac means to me.

These are the qualities which once gave Australia such a fine reputation overseas — before our foreign policy became one of subservience to American Neocons, and before symbols of military might were perverted into supporting a never-ending War on Abstract Nouns. Before quiet patriotism turned into loud but ignorant flag-draped jingoism. John Birmingham wrote about this in his Quarterly Essay, A Time for War: Australia as a Military Power. But what does it all mean now under Chairman Rudd?

I ponder my own personal ethical dilemma. I feel the “boy’s toys” thrill when I hear an F-111 strike bomber roar into action, and can rattle off endless facts about military history. I’ve felt the power as I’ve squeezed the trigger of a semi-automatic weapon loaded with live rounds. Yet at another level I know it’s disgusting. We’re fat, (mostly) white westerners at the top the food pile, gorging our way through the world’s resources while portraying a handful of frightened refugees as some mortal threat. We ship them to concentration camps, for fuck’s sake! At gunpoint. And before anyone suggest this is some party-political thing, let us not forget that a Labor government created that policy of mandatory detention.

And in amongst all of that, I remember a dead soldier.

I remember a young man who made his choices with eyes open. He was defeated in a battle filled not with the sounds of gunfire and the splatter of blood — I’m sure he faced those piddly threats with his usual joie de vivre — but the roar of thoughts in his own mind. I remember how his death affected me and devastated his family, how the Senate thought the Army had failed to take proper care of their own, and how lives continue to be lost despite those Senate recommendations.

They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning
We will remember them.
Lest we Forget

Nicholas St John Shiels, service number 456021, you are remembered.

I pray that the commanders of Australia’s military forces, and their political “masters”, will one day remember that there are more important, more admirable personal qualities than the ability to cover one’s own arse.

[Photo credit: The rosemary sprig was taken from Matthew Hall's Twitter page. If I owe someone for that usage, I'll make good.]

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What should I do about Australia 2020?

Stilgherrian — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:11:36 +0000

OK, so I didn’t make the 1000 “best and brightest” going to the Australia 2020 Summit. Nevertheless I’m still very interested in Topic 9, “the future of Australian governance: renewed democracy, a more open government (including the role of the media), the structure of the Federation and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.” What should I do?

There’s still the possibility of getting media accreditation, or perhaps connecting to the themes of the event in some other way. Here’s a brain-dump of my thoughts on this sunny Sunday morning… comments appreciated!

I haven’t had time to go through the list of participants in detail, except to be pleased that human rights lawyer Julian Burnside made it and to note, as The Road to Surfdom did, that some selections are… annoying:

I was trying to be positive about the 2020 envisioning thing, I really was.

Until I read that Miranda Devine is a member of the mob considering ‘Future of Australian Governance’.

Miranda Devine!!!!!

I guess she got a guernsey in the name of ‘balance’, once Phillip Adams was invited.

Both, I’m sure, will bring brilliantly innovative ideas to the wankfest that nobody ever thunk before in the history of 20 cents a word punditocracy.

Sorry Kevin but this ridiculous waste of time and money is the stupidest idea since Friday sittings of parliament in which nothing was allowed to happen.

For me, it’s not that Miranda Devine is a “right-wing commentator” and I’m perceived to be “of the left”. Far from it.

Anyone who still uses that ancient left-wing vs right-wing dichotomy — yes, “ancient”, it was invented during the French Revolution — is hopelessly out of date and should automatically be excluded from Australia 2020 or from reporting on it. Yes, I’m talking about you, Larissa Dubecki of The Age:

Old warriors from the left and right of the culture wars are most liberally represented in the governance stream, where conservatives Greg Craven, Miranda Devine and Gerard Henderson have been chosen to line up against Robert Manne, Phillip Adams, David Marr, and GetUp! activist Brett Solomon.

Is it not possible to report on anything “political” without nailing it to that outmoded framework?

Even the 2-dimensional Political Compass is 40 years old. It’s time for something a little more relevant to a multi-faceted society, people, and political reportage which is just a little more sophisticated!

But I digress…

I’m all for diversity of viewpoint. Sometimes I agree with Ms Devine, most of the time I don’t — but that’s fine, we can discuss that.

I’m annoyed with Ms Devine’s selection because her columns don’t seem to offer much new, and Australia 2020 is about new ideas — or at least that’s how it’s been marketed. I also question Ms Devine’s ability to research and marshal accurate facts into a coherent logical argument — as opposed to disgorging a jumble of pre-conceived and largely unconnected ideas and factoids that appeal to her readership.

And I’m annoyed that selecting “old warriors from the left and right of the culture wars” is still looking backwards. It’s a clear sign that the relationship between government and media really does need a thorough renewal if you can’t get any meaningful dialog about the nation’s future without rounding up these tired old cliché-ridden warhorses yet again.

My secret hope is that Chairman Rudd has decided that once all of them — Henderson to Manne, Devine to Adams — are sealed within the marble walls of Parliament House, Canberra, that the vents will be opened and the Zyklon B will issue forth…

Whether the selection of 100 people for Topic 9 is good, bad or indifferent is now moot. We now have a weekend when the focus is on Australia’s future. After Howard’s Decade of Coma, talking about the future at all seems so refreshing.

It’s not that far into the future, only 12 years — the year when someone in kindergarten today will enter adulthood. But it’s a start. And maybe, as I’ve said before and before that, if we don’t decide it’s all fucked up before it’s even started, we can get some value out of it.

So, back to what I could do…

I daresay I could get media accreditation. Crikey would doubtless lend me their name, if not any budget. (I’ll ask tomorrow.) But who knows how many media places are available? The proceedings may be streamed live, like parliamentary committees are, which could mean covering the event from my own desk in Sydney — though it’s always much better to be “on the ground” doing separate interviews and commentary.

I’ve thought of experimenting with Kevin Kelly’s 1000 True Fans idea: putting up a proposal, calling for donations, heading to Canberra with the support of my fans and then generating the media output that those fans want. Could that work?

Or should I just cave in, and start calling it a wankfest like those radio shock jocks?

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So Howard screwed up housing affordability too

Stilgherrian — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:46:05 +0000

At some point we will have to stop blaming John Winston Howard for every problem we face. For the moment, though, it does seem that whenever we lift the lid on some important issue we find something smelly whose cause was inaction or ineptitude on JHo’s watch.

Yesterday it was how we’re stuck with the Super Hornets thanks to “a lack of sound, long-term… planning decisions by the former Government over the course of the last decade”. Today let’s look at Chairman Rudd’s theme of the week, housing affordability.

It’s now more expensive to live in Sydney than in New York.

[P]roperty prices have jumped 400 per cent since 1986, while income has increased by only 120 per cent.

The mysterious but awesomely-brained Possum Comitatus explains how he ran the numbers, leading to this graph.

It’s worth reading the full analysis, but his conclusion is blunt:

[R]eal house prices remained virtually frozen over the period from 1990 through to 2000. It wasn’t until Howard started stuffing around with halving the capital gains rate and things like the first home buyers grant that real house prices started to accelerate…

It also highlights in real terms just how much the NSW market has dropped over the last couple of years.

Possum’s going to look at our policy options in part 2, coming soon. However The Australian’s George Megalogenis has already started down that path — from the suitably cynical viewpoint of which options generate the most votes for whom.

In the must-read piece Making housing more affordable, Mr Meganomics agrees with the Possum about one key point — it really isn’t about interest rates.

Rudd has nominated the second half of 2010 — when the next election is due to be held — as the time zone when inflation is meant to come back under 3 per cent. While he can’t make any promises on monetary policy, because that’s really the job of the Reserve Bank, lower inflation should, other things being equal, mean lower interest rates. Yet that won’t fix the problem of housing affordability.

The well-briefed Rudd would appreciate that house prices, not interest rates, are the main driver of housing affordability. So lower interest rates may mean housing becomes even less affordable by the next election.

Possum’s version of that statement is that “the two key metrics that are the foundation of housing affordability are income and house prices, with interest rates floating around as a third lesser order, though still important issue.”.

This demonstrates Howard’s (short-term) propaganda genius. Of the three key numbers only the least important, interest rates, was moving in his favour. By concentrating on that number through two elections, he made himself look good.

Megalogenis runs through the political angles and concludes:

In the short run, that is until the next election, the social goal of making housing more affordable is incompatible with the economic and political goals of staying sweet with the mortgage belt. In the long run, however, Rudd has no choice but to deflate the property price bubble.

He should view this challenge in the same terms as he does climate change: a project necessary to keep Australia viable. Housing should, pardon the pun, become truly freestanding by Rudd’s stated date for paradise: 2020. That is, bricks-and-mortar should lose its taxpayer supports.

Presently, voters expect a handout to enter the housing market and another to buy a second property. These tax breaks make housing less affordable than it would otherwise be.

He then discusses how you might achieve that — and I won’t butcher his arguments but instead encourage you to read the whole thing, including the comments, and think for yourself. Mr Meganomics takes part in the discussion, too. Fun.

I’ll link to Possum’s policy discussion when it appears. However for now he notes:

There is very simple root cause to the lack of housing affordability in Australia, but it is also a cause that has virtually no easy solution — Australia simply has too few large cities for the proportion of our population that chooses to live in an urban environment. As a result, the supply of desirable urban locations to live — be they inner city or hilltop or hinterland or bayside locations relatively near a city centre — is swamped by the enormous demand. Desirable locations lead the charge in house price growth which pulls the price of all suburbs up with it, generally in decreasing amounts the further away one gets from the suburbs with a high desirability premium.

But since we can’t really change this situation over any time frame shorter than the very long term, even if we were to attempt to, the policy options left to address housing affordability issues become more complex as a result of our policy options being forced to try and affect the affordability ends from policy angles that aren’t necessarily the root cause of the affordability means.

John Howard was never good at “the very long term”, of course. Unless it was looking backwards to Gallipoli. Will Kevin Rudd prove any better?

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Super Hornets are Go

Stilgherrian — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:14:37 +0000

Defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon has announced that the controversial purchase of 24 Super Hornet aircraft will go ahead.

The review of the Howard government’s decision to buy the aircraft — at a total cost of $6 billion even though the RAAF hadn’t wanted them — reached some damaging conclusions, including:

There has been a lack of sound, long-term air combat capability planning decisions by the former Government over the course of the last decade.

The retirement of the F-111 was made in haste but is now irreversible. The cost of turning the F-111 back on would be enormous and crews and skills have already moved on.

The former Government’s decision to leave Australia’s air defences in the hands of the Joint Strike Fighter project was a flawed leap of faith in scheduling terms and combined with the quick decision to retire the F-111 early, allowed an air combat capability gap to emerge.

The subsequent timetable the former Government put on the acquisition of an interim fighter left Defence planners with no choice but to recommend the Super Hornet. No other suitable aircraft could be produced to meet the 2010 deadline the former Government had set. One year on, that is now even more so the case.

Cancelling the order would still incur a financial penalty and create “undesirable tensions”, and the final conclusions is that “the Super Hornet is an excellent aircraft… and is the only aircraft which can meet the small delivery window created by the former Government’s poor planning processes and politically-driven responses.”

As a shareholder in Australia Inc, I’d like to know why the former “board members” allowed this to happen. When company directors are negligent they become personally liable so why, given the report’s damning conclusions, does Brendan Nelson not become personally liable?

Why were established evaluation and purchasing processes ignored? What is the connection between former defence minister Brendan Nelson (a member of the Liberal Party), and the then chairman of Boeing Australia, Andrew Peacock, a former leader of the Liberal Party?

Hat-tip to Tim Dunlop, who also notes:

[D]o you make procurement decisions on the basis of strategy or is it on occasion necessary to build strategy around procurements that have already been made? I mean, the White Paper may be still six months away but it is hardly as if it is being written from scratch. It looks like Fitzgibbon has decided that getting the Super Hornet decision locked away was the more important factor and is happy enough to make strategy decisions with the Super Hornets in the mix. To paraphrase another Defence Minister/Secretary, sometimes you do strategy on the basis on the equipment you have.

As in this case. We’re buying the Super Hornets because, essentially, it’s the only choice left.

[Photo: A US Navy (USN) F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft, Strike Fighter Squadron 115 (VFA-115), Naval Air Station (NAS) Lemoore, California (CA), launches from catapult three during flight operations on board the USN Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. US Navy via Wikipedia.]

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Howard vs Rudd: a tag cloud

Stilgherrian — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:09:08 +0000

I’ve already mentioned the two very contrasting speeches given by John Howard and Kevin Rudd last week. Those differences are well highlighted in these tag clouds.

On the left, Howard’s speech emphasises “government”, “economic”, “values”, “continue“… “years“. Years… eleven long years. On the right, Rudd’s speech emphasises “development”, “cooperation”, “partnership”, “relationship”, “build”, “future“… “change“.

Have a look at the full images, each showing the top 120 words in each speech (minus common English stop words) and tell me what you can see.

John Howard’s Speech

Irving Kristol Lecture, given to the American Enterprise Institute gala dinner, Washington DC, 5 March 2008. Text from The Australian.

accommodation achieve against american asia asian australia battle become being bring britain care case challenges changes children china chinese class clear common confront consequences conservative continue country cultural deal democracy democratic developed direct economic education effectively energy experience extremist faith families food free freedom fundamental given government growth ideas important increases inflation institutions interest involved iraq iraqi islamic japan labour laws less liberal life maintain major market middle military nation organisations pacific parents particular past people policy political possible power pragmatic president pressure prices prime produce provide rate reagan reality reform region relationship religious remains ronald schools security seen share social societies states strategic strength stronger support surge system taxation thatcher threats united values view western work world worth years

created at TagCrowd.com

Kevin Rudd’s Speech

Address to the State Dinner, Port Moresby, 6 March 2008. Text from the Prime Minister’s website.

21st achieve affairs afl agree ahead already areas australia australians based being benefit boom brisbane build business century certainty challenges change children climate committed complexities connection cooperation country course created critical culture decision democracy development different discovered discussed east economic education enjoy ensure exist face foreign forward friendship future global goroka government growth guinea health history hope idea important institutions investment island join key kokoda lie links long-term looking mal match means measures meet mining minister modern moresby mr nations neighbours officials opportunities pacific papua partnership people phase pleased pleasure policy politics port prime prosperity region relations relationship seeing services share significant smaller solomon special stability start statement strong symbol talk ties today track understand unique used visit work world

created at TagCrowd.com

So, what can you see?

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John Howard wallows in the past, again

Stilgherrian — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:24:47 +0000

Did John Howard drop by Area 51 on the way to Washington? You know, Bush-era budget cuts mean poor cross-checking. Sometimes those probes don’t get removed promptly.

Little Winston never looked comfortable in front of a camera. But the way he’s smiling through clenched teeth here… it’s disturbing.

Perhaps we should have a competition for the best caption?

Oh, there’s a news story here too, apparently. I agree with The Road to Surfdom on this one:

John Howard has given his first major post-election speech and…oh, geez, honestly, I can’t be bothered. Read it here if you like. In the meantime, here’s a picture of a shallow empty vessel and a nice piece of glassware…

Lavartus Prodeo summed it up perfectly.

Compare and contrast, as they say, Kevin Rudd in PNG building bridges and restoring relationships and John Howard in Washington ranting about “Islamic fascism” and dwelling on the past.

It’s the exact same dynamic as in the election — Rudd accentuating the positive and looking to the future, and Howard mired in negativity and defending his “achievements”.

I’d much rather read Rudd’s speech.

So, captions…?

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Even in defeat, he haunts us… via our folksonomies

Stilgherrian — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:29:44 +0000

I’ve been working on the tag cloud page, and one of my attempts to clarify things has revealed a disturbing fact.

I decided that the “category cloud” on the left-hand side of the website was already showing that the biggest categories were politics, the Internet, human nature, media and business. I didn’t want the tag cloud to repeat that information. So I decided to remove all the tags which were also the names of categories.

Boy, that certainly changed the emphasis!

Even in the reduced screenshot (right), one name dominates. Yes, out of 944 posts, counting this one, 91 are tagged “john howard”.

My own boyfriend comes in a poor second with just 42.

Is that right?

I’ve tried to placate ’Pong. I’ve said that at least he doesn’t frustrate me to the point of inspiring lengthy rants about the destruction of social values and the end of the Enlightenment. I’ve never suggested that he be tried as a war criminal — though after that night-time canal boat ride in Bangkok I may reconsider that.

(Actually I haven’t told you about that canal boat properly yet. It’s another Unreliable Bangkok piece waiting to be written. I’ve been back in Sydney two months now, it’s not too late is it?)

However this does raise an interesting point about how tags work…

In a traditional information system, you’d plan your keywords in advance. You’d invent a taxonomy (that is, a formal classification system), and then you’d develop a controlled vocabulary (that is, a set of authorised keywords). For example you’d decide that it’s the “construction” industry, not “building”. Everyone would work off that controlled vocabulary.

Save confusion, y’see.

Everything filed into neat little pigeon-holes.

However in the Brave New World of the Social Internet, no-one bothers with all that. Everyone makes it up as they go along, throws it all into the ether, and with luck it’ll all sort itself out. Or Google will do it for us.

Instead of a taxonomy, you have a folksonomy.

This development mirrors many, many aspects of the post-Industrial Age. In the Industrial Age everything was centrally planned, like the Soviet Economy — one of history’s great success stories, no? Now, everyone just works at it as best they can, and problems are ironed out through group consensus — or just ignored because no-one’s interested.

And by golly gosh, it actually seems to work.

A 2005 study by Nature (which is behind their paywall, so we’ll link to C|Net’s report too) found that the centrally-planned, professionally-edited Encyclopaedia Britannica is only marginally more accurate in key areas than Wikipedia.

OK, Encyclopaedia Britannica disputed [PDF file] the study, and then Nature bit back. But the core point is that the Wikipedia approach generates a product which is just fine for everyday purposes, and it does so a lot faster, with a relatively small trade-off in accuracy.

So, to get back to my main point… assuming this actually has a point…

Mostly I write about politics. A very broad range of politics. Through my ad hoc assignment of tags to blog posts, I’ve shown that John Winston Howard dominated my political writing. I suspect that everyone else’s was much the same.

Yes, 2007 really was all about JWH, just not in the way he wanted. And now, Sir, can you please bugger off out of my website? Ta.

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So, who’s for Chairman Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit?

Stilgherrian — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:54:04 +0000

Chairman Rudd’s got a clever strategy going, unless it’s just a coincidence. The usually-secret Red Book warns of approaching “challenges” like climate change, an aging population and the economic growth of India and China. Then we announce the Australia 2020 Summit.

As any management consultant will tell you, develop a shared vision and folks will endure short-term pain — like interest rate rises and having to change the light bulbs.

Actually I’m not that cynical about it. I’m quietly enthused. After a decade of Howard’s backward-looking short-term thinking we seriously need to look to the future. Fast. Of course, back when Barry Jones was science minister we had a permanent organisation to keep watch, the Commission for the Future. Maybe I’ll read Lessons from the Australian Commission for the Future: 1986-1998 [PDF file] when I get the time. But I digress…

If Chairman Rudd wants 1000 of our “best and brightest” in Canberra on 19-20 April, who should they be?

It’s flattering that Nick Hodge and Peter Black nominated me, bless their sycophantic little hearts. And I’ve already gained four votes at Bloggerati. I’d love to be part of this Summit, sure, because I’d be Fighting the Hallucinating Goldfish hands on. However I have a few more modest suggestions…

Before I name names, though, a reminder about the categories, and some thoughts on the type of people we need to see.

We’re choosing 100 people to work on each of 10 topics:

Future directions for the Australian economy — including education, skills, training, science and innovation as part of the nation’s productivity agenda
Economic infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of our cities
Population, sustainability, climate change, and water
Future directions for rural industries and rural communities
A long-term national health strategy — including the challenges of preventative health, workforce planning and the ageing population
Strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion
Options for the future of indigenous Australia
Towards a creative Australia: the future of the arts, film and design
The future of Australian governance: renewed democracy, a more open government (including the role of the media), the structure of the Federation and the rights and responsibilities of citizens
Australia’s future security and prosperity in a rapidly changing region and world.

Maybe that’s not the best breakdown, but that’s what we’re stuck with. I guess it’s what the focus groups are saying.

So how do we pick the people? I reckon:

The majority should be under the age of 40, with a significant number under 30. This is about the future.
The majority should be people most of us have never heard of, not people in the news every week. This is about fresh ideas. This implies that communities need to start identifying and nominating them now.
No-one anywhere in the selection process should ever starting thinking about quotas. None of this 1970s crap about “we must have equal numbers of men and women,” or “make sure there’s a few Asian faces in each group.” The selection should be on talent alone. I’m well aware that’s the most controversial of my suggestions, but if you’re still measuring gender or ethnicity at all it means you’re still classifying people into those categories.
Don’t confuse “opinion” with “vision”. I won’t expand upon that point, or I might rule myself out!
No-one should get a guernsey simple because they did Great Things in some field some time in the distant past. Yes, we need people with experience, but current experience — people who are shaping the future already, and who deserve a wider audience.

Right, time for some names. Here’s my first 5, and I’ll add more over coming days. I’ll list each one with suggested topic numbers in [square brackets].

Dr Dick Quan, tutor in community medicine and tireless collector and promoter of modern art. [5, 8]
Human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, who’ll help find the right balance in government. [9].
Producer and festival director Marcus Westbury, creator of Not Quite Art (amongst other things). [8]
Sociologist Mark Bahnisch of Larvatus Prodeo fame. [6, 9]
Futurist Mark Pesce. Yeah I’ve been reading his stuff again lately, but there’s vision. Plus if I don’t mention him the bloggerati will cast me into the outer darkness. [2, 8]

I haven’t listed anyone for topics 1, 3, 4, 5 or 7 because I know bugger all about them. And while I have a passing interest in topic 10, I don’t know any of the players. Any thoughts? And what do you think my my choices?

Melbourne’s Neil Mitchell has already labelled this Summit a “wank tank”, but then talkback hosts always seem to want action immediately with thought and analysis later (if at all). Discount him. Still, if you want this Summit to matter, and if you want to get your people there, then you need to take the right action.

Talking amongst ourselves is all well and good. But to nominate someone you need to get in touch with the selection committee by… well, we don’t know yet. Stand by.

Oh, and if you’re going to nominate me, category 9 please.

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Kim Beazley for Governor General?

Stilgherrian — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:11:53 +0000

Will former Labor leader Kim Beazley be Australia’s next Governor-General? That’s the story out of Canberra today.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always liked Beazley because he’s a strategic thinker and a good orator — both skills in short supply in modern politics. He’d provide a fine counter-balance to Kevin Rudd, able to give passionate, long-ranging and doubtless wordy speeches about grand visions on grand national occasions, while Rudd gets on with the nuts and bolts of running the country.

Indeed, since Rudd’s predecessor, Prime Minister Toad, took on many of the Governor-General’s roles for himself — to the extent that virtually no-one can remember the current GG’s name — it’d be nice for a bit of profile restored to the role of the Queen’s representative.

Beyond that, since Rudd promised to put an Australian republic back on the agenda, Beazley would make an excellent “last Governor-General”. Well-respected even by his opponents in parliament, and a man of dignity.

Beazley’s final parliamentary speech was filled with history. Even if John Howard didn’t have the manners to show up, commentators like Annabel Crabb agreed it was a fine occasion.

I’m damn sure our troops would rather be farewelled to battle with an inspiring speech by “Bomber” Beazley than a precisely-planned but self-conscious lecture from Rudd or a whining, backward-looking duck-quack from Howard.

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John Howard’s retirement

Stilgherrian — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:46:29 +0000

OK, perhaps I have a pro-Crikey bias. But I reckon their First Dog on the Moon cartoons are awesome. Yesterdays, showing John Howard in retirement, has been re-published at Lavartus Prodeo. Enjoy!

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Corey Delaney, freedom fighter (for the right to party)

Stilgherrian — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:03:58 +0000

I’m pretty sure I know why my story about “protecting kids on the Internet” was bumped from Crikey today. How can I possibly compete with a newsmaker like Corey Worthington ~~Delaney~~ (pictured)? And how can I possibly compete with Crikey’s comprehensive coverage of this new Australian success story?

It’s not so much about protecting kids from the Internet, but protecting the Internet (and us!) from Corey.

Any promoter would be pleased with a turnout of 500 for a simple house party with no outlays, just an invite sent out on MySpace. But then a helicopter arrived on the scene, some police cars got damaged, Mr and Mrs Delaney found out, the neighbours were p-ssed off and the Police Commissioner called a press conference.

It looked like Corey was set to be devoured by a salivating news pack. The sixteen-year-old came with shades, a naked friend running down the street, a pink doona doubling as sarong, and the quote “I can’t remember. I was just off my head”.

Crikey lists much of the good media coverage — including a talkback caller who somehow managed to blame John Howard. For me, though, the highlights are The 7.30 Report’s serious piece (including child psychologist and police youth worker), and A Current Affair’s Leila McKinnon doing the extended interview ~~(where they get his name wrong)~~.

The irony is, today the Victorian claim their tougher new powers to target rowdy behaviour around Melbourne nightspots have been a great success.

[Update 16 January 2005: I've changed Corey's surname from "Delaney" to "Worthington". Apparently Delaney is his parents' surname but not his. Or something.]

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Petitions might finally make a difference

Stilgherrian — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:43:13 +0000

Maybe those annoying socialists on King Street will finally achieve something with their endless petition-signing. Chairman Rudd will require parliament to formally consider and report on all petitions.

More than a million Australians signed 900+ petitions during Howard’s final three-year term. A grand total of 2 were responded to in some way. The other 99.8% were tabled and ignored.

My local MP Anthony Albanese, the “manager of government business” in parliament, says petitions won’t need to be sponsored by an MP any more. He reckons citizens have a basic right to petition parliament. And they’ll look into electronic petitions too.

That, and Julia Gillard’s announcement that NGOs receiving government funds would no longer be prevented from making political statements, are clear sings that maybe Kevin Rudd actually means what he says about strengthening the parliamentary system.

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Post 801: Kill the Hallucinating Goldfish

Stilgherrian — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:16:34 +0000

This is blog post number 801. It’s time for something special. Time for an extended essay encapsulating several trains of thought which I’ve been following for some time.

We are the 801,
We are the central shaft
And thus throughout two years
We’ve crossed the ocean in our little craft (Row! Row! Row!)
Now we’re on the telephone,
Making final arrangements (Ding! Ding!)
We are the 801, we are the central shaft

So sang Brian Eno in the song The True Wheel from his 1974 album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).

Eno says he wrote the lyrics while visiting New York:

I went to stay with this girl called Randi and fell asleep after taking some mescaline and had this dream where this group of girls were singing to this group of sailors who had just come into port. And they were singing ‘We are The 801 / We are the Central Shaft’ — and I woke up absolutely jubilant because this was the first bit of lyric I’d written in this new style.

Yes, apparently in the 1970s a musician wrote a song while under the influence of hallucinogens. Who’d have thought.

Society generally frowns upon people who make important decisions while under the influence. (By an odd coincidence, Hugh MacLeod posted some vaguely-related thoughts only yesterday, in dying young is overrated, revisited.) However the more I look, the more I worry that we’re governed as if our societies were hallucinating. And even worse, it’s as if they’ve forgotten how to remember the lessons of the past.

I’m worried that we’re governed by Hallucinating Goldfish.

I reckon our societies aren’t just hallucinating. They’re suffering paranoid schizophrenia.

Instead of acting upon real data collected from the real world, we construct paranoid fantasies and then respond to those.

Our tabloid media report every threat, adding every scary adjective they can find, to convince us the world is a threatening place. Our politicians often like this, because frightened people will suspend rational thought and Demand That Something Be Done. Apparently politicians have even been known to help this process along by creating new threats for us to be afraid of.

The Howard government’s NetAlert campaign over-emphasised the potential risk to children online.

The claim in the NetAlert advertising campaign that over half of 11–15 year olds who chat online are contacted by strangers does not appear in the government commissioned research.

In fact, only 14% of the research participants said their mix of chat partners included people they hadn’t met. Even before NetAlert, three-quarters of parents had already discussed online dangers with their kids.
Massive energies are spent in the War on Terror (an abstract noun!) even though, as I’ve pointed out before, you’re far more likely to drown in your own bathtub.
Headlines constantly scream about Wild teen crime waves, even though children are safer than ever before.
Dr Mohamed Haneef.
Adam Curtis’ powerful documentary The Power of Nightmares explains how a vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world has been used by American Neo-Conservatives and Islamic Radical movements alike. The entire film is freely downloadable from the Internet Archive.

Our continual state of hallucinatory paranoia is made worse by a lack of long-term memory. Societies try things, and sometimes they don’t work — but that doesn’t seem to stop us trying them again.

Investors pour millions into Web 2.0 businesses they don’t really understand, even though the lessons of the first dot-com bubble were obvious.
The War on (Some) Drugs continues operating in a prohibition mentality, even though that’s been shown to fail so many times before. I can thoroughly recommend Richard Davenport-Hines’ book The Pursuit of Oblivion: a social history of drugs for gaining an understanding, and this BBC interview might be worth a listen.
When we designed mainframe computers, we learned that security was something that needed to be part of the original design, not grafted on as a “feature” afterwards. Then we connected PCs to the Internet, with fundamentally insecure operating systems like Windows and the original MacOS, and were surprised when they got hacked. We’ve started connecting “smart phones” to the grid, with fundamentally insecure operating systems, and we’re surprised when mobile phone viruses appear. And now we’re about to connect TVs to the Internet too.

Yes, I’m worried that we’re governed by Hallucinating Goldfish.

So what can we do about it?

Well, I’m a big fan of Science. All that Age of Enlightenment stuff. Reason. Logic. Joined-up thinking. We should demand it of our leaders (political, cultural, religious), employers, employees and ourselves.

It’s heartening to see that Chairman Rudd is all for evidence-based policy development.

I’m a Labor moderniser. Always have been, always will be and what that’s on about is good evidence-based policy in terms of producing the best outcomes for this nation, carving out its future in a pretty uncertain century where things fundamentally are changing.

It’ll be interesting to see how PM Rudd handles situations where the evidence runs counter to Labor’s political imperative — particularly when compromise is needed to get legislation through the still-hostile Senate.

There’s a lot we can do as individuals to help kill the Hallucinating Goldfish.

Learn how to see though the tricks. I J Good’s paper A Classification of Fallacious Arguments and Interpretations provides a formal list of dodgy tricks, but Wikipedia’s articles on fallacy and propaganda techniques provide a great start. The classic book How To Lie with Statistics and the newer How to Lie with Maps are also great reads.
Turn off the crap. Rid your life of the tabloid media, including shock-horror newspapers and TV programs.
Demand to see the evidence. If someone claims some fact or statistic, don’t take it at face value. Use The Power of the Internet to check it out.
Spread the word. If you spot misinformation or faulty reasoning, tell your friends, family and colleagues. Make your coffee-break conversation more useful than whingeing about the boss or prattling on about lame TV programs.

This all reads like a manifesto, I know, and perhaps it is. Reason and logic are supposedly what makes us humans so special. And yet when it comes to managing our greatest creations, our own societies, we discard those skills and give in to the Hallucinating Goldfish.

It’s time to Kill the Hallucinating Goldfish.

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Distinctly personal reflections on 2007

Stilgherrian — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:32:59 +0000

As the sun sets on 2007 — literally, as I took the photo just before I sat down to write — it’s time to reflect on an astounding year. The Snarky Platypus will join ’Pong and me later, and (perhaps) help us put together some predictions for 2008.

This was a watershed year for me, for my household and business, and for Australia. Many of the changes happened late in the year, so we haven’t noticed the effects yet. But as 2008 unfolds I think we’ll look back and see that, yes, 2007 marked a change of direction.

Personally, my understanding of how I fit into my world (and yours) became much clearer.

Almost a year ago I reflected upon the nature of my village, and then like so many I was moved by the ceremonies on the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s 75th birthday. That started a psychological journey which culminated in my trip to Thailand. That triggered many thoughts. They’re still rattling around; more will emerge. Meanwhile Facebook started re-connecting me with many old friends.

But the two most intense personal changes were meetings: one business, one social.

At a strategic planning session mid-year, Zern Liew helped me develop The Plan for returning to doing more media work. That’s languished for various reasons, but I did write stories for Crikey and put passion into some of the articles here. The business name Skank Media is registered and ready to unroll in 2008.

The social meeting was that dinner with Joe Wilson and Nick Hodge from Microsoft. The redoubtable Laurel Papworth was there — that’s her in the photo, with Rupert Murdoch keeping a watchful eye — and I met the witty Ajay Ranipeta, and Lachlan and Lisa who created Webjam. All good. But the highlight for me was meeting Mark Pesce.

I’ve wanted to meet Mark for ages. No, I’m not some starry-eyed fan-boy, but I did grok some of the stuff he wrote way back and figured he’d be an interesting bloke. He is.

Mark has lived in Sydney for 4 years now. We have many acquaintances in common, yet we only met this month. Even he said:

I’m amazed that we haven’t met before this. Have you been out of the country or something? For the last FOUR YEARS??? It’s. Just. Weird.

Mark is 100% right: it is weird. Then it hit me. I haven’t been out of the country for 4 years. But I have been living under a rock.

Instead of using my skills and knowledge in media and the Internet, I’ve been a mechanic — fixing other people’s tools through my little IT business. And I’ve been frustrated the whole time.

That dinner was an important trigger. It reminded me who my peers are in this “industry” and what sort of level I should be playing at. Roll on 2008!

Actually, there was a third major meeting. PodCamp in Perth and my presentation there. This reminded me, once more, that presentation and “explaining things” is a personal forte. Thank you, Crispin.

I also put on a bit of weight. We’ll deal with that later.

Looking more widely, yes, Kevin Rudd is now Prime Minister.

The Golden Age of the Iced Vovo has not yet emerged, and today there was news of severe fuckwittedness regarding Internet filtering. But on the whole I’m happy that John Howard’s Reign of (the War on) Terror has ended. I’m hoping this translates into some intelligent leadership from Chairman Rudd.

I haven’t said much about ’Pong, but he’s everywhere through this blog. Phom rak khun krub! And the Snarky Platypus has made so much possible too, in his own, um, endurable fashion. I tend not to blog about all that because, well, it’s personal personal stuff. Thank you.

I’ll stop the thank-yous there, or I’ll end up sounding like John Cleese’s BAFTA acceptance speech.

And now, gin and tonic! See you next year.