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So how should I cover Budget 2013?

Crikey logoI’ve commented on Australia’s federal Budget for Crikey every May since Labor took power in 2007. This year will be no exception — but how will I top last year’s rant?

Why do politicians and their groupies always go on about the budget “sending a message”? Can’t they just use Twitter, email and the phone like we all do? But there is indeed a message in the budget: the government has no real vision for transforming Australia, and isn’t particularly interested in developing one with us.

I talked about the $240.3 million allocated to new IT systems for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS); $43.7 million for upgrades at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC); adding a further $233.7 million to the $477 million already spent on the National e-Health Initiative; $198 million for an “aged-care gateway”; $17 million to “enhance” the MySchool website; and so on. And then I concluded:

Why, in a cashed-up nation that is, or was, renowned for its eagerness to develop and adopt new technologies, is all this stuff just mouse nibblings at the edges, buried under the dull plod of business as usual? Sometimes I just want to cry.

To see how I approached the topic in previous years, check out the summary I wrote last year.

So once more I’ll be up early local time — I’m currently in San Jose — to knock out something before or perhaps in between conference sessions. Are there any particular angles you think I should look out for?

[Update 25 May 2013: Crikey decided they didn’t need my input after all. Rather than waste my notes, today I wrote Australia’s Budget 2013 keeps us stuck in the past.]

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Weekly Wrap 153: Dumb tribalism and a long flight

San Francisco sunrise: click to embiggenMy week Monday 6 to Sunday 12 May 2013 is technically still continuing, because as I write this it’s the start of a beautiful Sunday morning in San Francisco — and I’ve got the day to myself.

But it’s already well after midnight Sunday night in Australia, so here we are.

Articles

  • You’ll love the ‘How Fast is the NBN?’ site … until you read this, Crikey, 9 May 2013. The reaction to this article, in the comments and on Twitter, astounded me. By simply pointing out some subtleties in a propaganda website and trying to present Malcolm Turnbull’s arguments fairly — which is all basic parts of a journalist’s job — I was branded a Liberal Party shill, and worse. For anyone familiar with what I personally think and believe, and for Turnbull himself, this must have come as quite a surprise. I hope to write about this soon, because I found the whole experience hilariously funny.
  • Mobile broadband’s false promise, ZDNet Australia, 10 May 2013.

Media Appearances

It’s such a variable thing, this being a media whore. Four spots last week, none at all this week.

Corporate Largesse

The Week Ahead

On Monday we head to San Jose for SuiteWorld, which runs through to Thursday. I’ll then return to San Francisco for some time to myself before flying back to Sydney on Sunday night. Obviously I’ll have to do some writing in there, but I’ll work that out as I go along.

[Photo: San Francisco sunrise, photographed a short time ago through a slightly dusty 17th floor window at the luxurious St Regis Hotel.]

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Weekly Wrap 152: LulzSec, Optus, radio and thinking stuff

Changing alphabets: click to embiggenMy week Monday 29 April to Sunday 5 May 2013 began gently, with planning and washing and other chores, and just two articles to write. But by Wednesday night I’d also done four radio spots, washed an infinite number of towels, and eaten most of a sheep.

Or so it felt.

Then Thursday was full of the Optus Vision 2013 conference, followed by a late train journey back to the Blue Mountains. It was tough to get into work mode on Friday, but I did, and wrote my second article. And washed more towels. And then on Saturday I did the full sloth.

But the most important part of the week, at least in the long term, was all the time I spent from Friday onwards thinking about the unexpected good news I mentioned last week. It means that I’ll soon be able to work on some projects that have been sitting on the back burner, and you’ll start to see them emerging over the next few weeks.

Articles

Both of these articles resulted from this week’s Privacy Awareness Week activities.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Thursday I attended Optus Vision 2013, which meant I was fed food and drink through the day at their expense.

The Week Ahead

I plan to write a story each for Technology Spectator, CSO Online and ZDNet, at the very least, as well as kick off one or more of these new projects. Stay tuned.

It’s my birthday on Thursday, but I’ll just have a quiet drink that night. I’ll head to Sydney on Friday instead and have a proper birthday dinner then, thanks to the Snarky Platypus. I’ll then stay overnight before catching United Airlines flight UA870 to San Francisco on Saturday afternoon, arriving there on Saturday morning.

Saturday night and Sunday day should be free time in San Francisco before, I’m guessing, a social function on Sunday evening serves as prelude to NetSuite’s SuiteWorld. The event proper starts on Monday in San Jose.

[Photo: Changing alphabets, a photograph taken at Optus Vision 2013 once the staffing level of the registration desk had been reduced during the afternoon, and then the desks themselves removed.]

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Visiting San Francisco, San Jose for NetSuite SuiteWorld

NetSuite Suiteworld logoI’m heading to San Francisco and San Jose next Saturday 11 May 2013 for NetSuite’s SuiteWorld 2013 conference. Yes, as their guest.

I was at their first SuiteWorld event two years ago, where we had dinner at Larry Ellison’s house overlooking San Francisco Bay and came to the conclusion that not every business has to “go social”.

I’ve had lunch and other events with NetSuite’s people a few time since, and written a couple of articles:

NetSuite is an interesting company. They just seem to get on with the job of making good software and expanding into new markets. So I’m looking forward to catching up with them again — particularly as I’ve been writing a lot more about security that this sort of enterprise software lately.

I’ll arrive in San Francisco on Saturday 11 May, and then on Monday we head to San Jose for the conference proper. That kicks off Monday night with a welcome reception and NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson’s opening keynote first thing Tuesday morning, and runs until Thursday 16.

I’ll be hanging around in the Bay area until Sunday night — which is a hint, yes — and then I arrive back in Sydney very early on Tuesday 21 May local time. Unless someone decides to extend my stay in the US, of course — and that’s also a hint.

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Weekly Wrap 151: Anzac, alcohol and little yellow birds

Eastern Yellow Robin, again; click to embiggenMy week Monday 22 to Sunday 28 April 2013 was interesting, to say the least. And psychologically exhausting.

That’s part of the reason I’m only getting around to posting this today. Another part is that I simply couldn’t be arsed. But here it is.

I didn’t write anything about Anzac Day, because I’ve written it all before in Anzac Day Rememberings and Anzac Day 2009: Sacrifice. Instead, I had a relaxing holiday — that turned out to be a tad too indulgent, but then I do have a working liver. For now.

The next day, Friday, I received some unexpected good news that has the potential to Change Everything. Well, maybe not everything, but it certainly changes one of the fundamental assumptions that had framed my thinking about my life for the next year. All the thoughts this stirred caused the psychological exhaustion — and there’s still plenty more to think through. No, I can’t tell you what it is.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

Well, Monday and Tuesday have already happened. Ho hum. Tomorrow, Wednesday, I’m taking an early train to Sydney to record Marc Fennell’s Download This Show at 1000, and then there’s a lunchtime briefing. On Thursday there’s the Optus Vision 2013 event. Whether I stay in Sydney overnight between the two remains to be seen. Friday onwards is unplanned.

[Photo: Eastern Yellow Robin, again, one of the fast-moving Eopsaltria australis photographed at Bunjaree Cottages near Wentworth Falls, 100km west of Sydney.]

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Football fixes terrorism, says Australia

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus on Meet the Press: click for program segmentBoston could have been spared a lot of grief last week if Americans had just paid more attention to football — at least if the wisdom of attorney-general Mark Dreyfus here in sports-loving Australia means anything.

Here’s what Dreyfus (pictured) said on Channel TEN’s Meet the Press on Sunday, part of an interview which pondered whether the Boston bombing was a “wake-up call” for Australia:

[T]his goes to your question about what is sometimes referred to as lone-wolf, or people who are disconnected from any organised group — we’ve got a very large program that’s directed at countering violent extremism.

And that’s about working with communities. That’s about working with community leaders; it’s about getting young men out on the sporting field, getting them out playing soccer, playing footy, playing rugby, because that’s where we want them — not sitting at computer screens looking at videos about jihad.

None of this faggoty basketball or tennis for Freedom, no Sir! It’s all proper, manly and not-at-all-homoerotic football!

What about swimming, one of Australia’s most successful sports? No, that’s obviously out because beards and turbans and water resistance. And rowing? Hell no! They had a boat in Boston, and you saw what happened!

Sigh. Is this 1954 again?

“Sitting at computer screens” — always portrayed as a passive, dull-minded activity because, presumably, politicians never use their own computers for creating or interacting, so they never see them as anything more than TVs with dangly bits — versus the traditional, healthy outdoor and above all Australian pastime of blokes group-kicking an inflated pig.

Do politicians not understand that for a significant proportion of us, the mere idea of government-encouraged team sportsball with a bunch of boofheads makes it more likely that we’ll wash the curry out of the pressure cooker and fill it with nails?

Do politicians not understand that if young Mohammed has an interest in physics and chemistry, and is used to researching stuff on the internet, that he might have the potential to be a useful part of — oh, what’s that phrase again? — oh yeah, the “digital economy”, rather than being just another suburban also-ran with his nose shoved up some hairy bloke’s arse in a scrum?

Maybe he could even become part of this cyber thing we keep hearing about — the good part, not the part involving kindergarten kids and trousers around the ankles.

Deep breath.

I’m sure — or at least I’m hoping — that our nation’s programs to deal with violent extremism are just a tad more sophisticated that the Attorney-General makes out. He’s new in the job, and maybe he hasn’t been properly briefed yet. I might ask around. If it’s OK with you, Attorney-General, I might sit in front of a computer screen while doing that.

But I’d have thought that when you’re reassuring the public after a high-profile terrorism incident overseas that your message could be a bit better crafted than “Yeah, we’ll get ’em playing footy, that’ll sort ’em out.”

And before you ask, girls don’t do terrorism. What even are you thinking?