Stilgherrian » lyn allison

Coonan’s own goals in ICT debate

Stilgherrian — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 01:55:50 +0000

Body language is revealing. At Friday’s breakfast forum, two Senators’ body language showed their confidence in their grasp of Information and Communications Technology issues. Alas, the minister, Senator Helen Coonan (pictured), wasn’t one of them.

Coonan’s opening speech was long on motherhood, short on detail. Her opponents, Labor’s Senator Stephen Conroy and Democrat leader Senator Lyn Allison attacked with confidence — and hard numbers. Coonan looked rattled.

When he wasn’t speaking, Conroy was alert. His eyes scanned the crowd, noting tables for heavyweights Microsoft, IBM, Lenovo, Accenture, Fujitsu, Symantec, Gartner … though Telstra were notably absent.

Allison was relaxed and comfortable, sitting back and waiting for her turn, ready to rattle on about quantum computing, laptops in school, IT literacy, and a global brand for Australian IT innovation — something like Woolmark for wool.

But Coonan frowned and ruffled through her papers as if cramming for an exam, nodding as she recognised something. I’ve been told since that she wouldn’t agree to the debate unless she had all the questions in advance — and her answers were apparently scripted.

Then came the lists. Lists of programs and reports and millions of dollars spent. The Coalition vision, it seems, is based on how much money its spent. Few specific achievement were named.

Conroy repeated Labor’s broadband promise: A Fibre to the Node network with a guaranteed minimum of 12Mb/sec to 98% of Australians. At $4.7B, “this is likely to be the single largest commitment of a Rudd government, we’re that serious about it,” he said.

Coonan tried attacking it, saying FTTN won’t help distant farmers, but came unstuck. She claimed that with her championed technology, the OPEL consortium’s WiMaX, “if you live under a rock you’ll be able to get broadband.” Own Goal #1, Senator: WiMaX can’t penetrate rock.

“You get into trouble when politicians start picking technologies,” Coonan said. “You mean like OPEL,” retorted Conroy. Own Goal #2.

And everyone’s threatening to break up Telstra. But as one journalist asked to resounding applause, “Has anyone got the balls to say you’re actually going to do it?”

“If I tell you now you’d have to kill me,” answered Coonan. Own Goal #3: That “me” should be a “you”, Senator. Unless you really mean …

[Note: This is an edited version of an article originally published in Crikey.]

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Published twice in one day

Stilgherrian — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:54:42 +0000

I’m happy. I’ve been published twice today, thrice this week.

As I mentioned before, Crikey was happy for me to cover today’s panel discussion with IT minister Senator Helen Coonan and her Labor opponent Senator Stephen Conroy. They were joined this morning by Democrats leader, Senator Lyn Allison.

My Crikey story points out that Coonan scored at least three own goals. I’m chuffed that it was selected as a “top story” for subscribers.

My other Crikey story was about Australia’s contribution to the Space Age, published on Wednesday and including my comments about the spaceport we never seem to get.

I’ll do a public version of both those stories tomorrow.

And the third piece was a little snippet for New Scientist, which I sent them on 24 June. There’s a picture (right), but here are the words for search engines to find.

The label on reader Stilgherrian’s Australian-made Starmaid ice-cube trays reassures him that they are “freezer safe” — which he says is “handy”.

But right now it’s Red Wine Time…

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The Citizenship Dog-Whistle

Stilgherrian — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:59:45 +0000

Another week, another big-spending government TV “information campaign”. This one’s for the new Citizenship Test — and gosh, that just happens to be a Coalition-specific policy and it just happens to be running when we’re not in an election campaign, honestly.

And last night immigration minister Kevin Andrews was seen on TV with a bunch of potential citizens — all of whom, by some happy coincidence, had reasonable English and were not particularly unphotogenic. But he was still defending the test.

This TV advert is little more than dog whistle political propaganda. That’s clear for two reasons. First, look closely at the script (below). And second, if you wanted to reach the people most directly affected, mass TV advertising is far from cost-effective.

I’ve written about the pointlessness of a multiple choice Citizenship Test before. But even if the alien implant in your back teeth tells you that a glorified pub trivia questionnaire will produce better-integrated citizens — as opposed to just creating a black market in the test answers — this TV advert is clearly about something other than bringing that test to the attention of the people who might be sitting it any time soon.

Here’s the script:

Australia’s introducing a Citizenship Test.

It’s a way of making sure that people becoming citizens know about Australia, and understand the responsibilities and privileges of committing to our way of life — things many of us take for granted like democracy, mutual respect, and equality of opportunity, and the values we share like free speech and a fair go.

Preparing for the test will also introduce people to our history, traditions and some of our national customs and symbols.

The test questions are based on this book, which also explains a citizen’s responsibilities and privileges.

Understanding our values will help people take part in Australian life, make a contribution, and become part of our diverse community.

You can find out more about the new Australian Citizenship Test at australia.gov.au.

Citizenship — your commitment to Australia.

Authorised by the Australian Government, Canberra.

Note how the emphasis is on “responsibilities” and “commitment”. Sure, it mentions “privileges” too, although by implication privileges still have to be earned. Those words are all about conforming to rules, written or unwritten.

Note, too, that it isn’t addressed to potential citizens. It’s talking about them, not to them. Not “Understanding our values will help you take part in Australian life,” but will help people. Some people other than you watching the TV. Them. The scary ones.

And that, of course, is the message the Coalition wants to send.

“We’re protecting you from the scary foreigners. They’ll have to change their evil ways now. They know that Federation started in 1914 and Phar Lap’s heart is in Bennelong. Our Way Of Life is safe.”

Yes, as Senator Lyn Allison point out, hard-working, good-hearted, committed people will be denied the right to vote because they don’t know that the golden wattle is our national floral emblem.

Now the ad spend…

Potential citizens are already Australian Permanent Residents, and have been for years. The Department of Immigration already knows where they live, their nationality and presumably what languages they speak. So if you wanted to tell them about the new test, just send them a letter. It’d be a lot, lot cheaper.