Category: Politics

Posted on

Weekly Poll: Which woman for Governor-General?

Photographs of our nominations for Governor-General 2008

Over the past few days we’ve been speculating about who’ll be Australia’s next Governor-General. Some high-profile folks reckon it should be a woman. So which of these nominees would you choose, and why? Vote at the website, and add your comments.

In alphabetical order of surname…

  • Marie Bashir, well-respected Governor of NSW and tireless worker for Aboriginal mental health.
  • Liz Ellis, former captain of the Australian netball team and solicitor.
  • Edna Everage, housewife superstar, actress and ambassador for Australian culture.
  • Julie Hammer, an electronics engineer and intelligence officer who blazed the trail for women in the air force.
  • Ja’mie King, dedicated fund-raiser and self-promoter. (Personally I think Ja’mie will eventually replace Dame Edna as our leading international celebrity.)
  • Dannii Minogue, because… oh, someone will think of a reason.
  • Kylie Minogue, pop princess and actress of renown.
  • Lowitja O’Donoghue, first chairwoman of the disbanded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
  • … or someone else?

Previous results: Kevin Rudd becoming PM was the clear winner on first preferences at 52%, with The Chaser crashing APEC security a strong 2nd at 36%. The antic of footballer Ben Cousins was twice as important as Australia’s signing of the Kyoto protocol.

[poll id=”17″]

Posted on

Kim Beazley for Governor General?

Photograph of Kim Beazley

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.

Posted on

What is “data portability” and why should you care?

Data portability is the capability to control, share, and move data from one system to another, says Wikipedia. Michael Pick of Smashcut Media has made a very short video explaining it more clearly.


DataPortability – Connect, Control, Share, Remix from Smashcut Media on Vimeo.

Data portability will become more important as more are more of our lives are conducted online. And the issues need to be thrashed out it advance — especially when people like Facebook reckon that even if you delete your account they get to keep your information forever. The Data Portability Workgroup is discussing it as the IT industry level, but where are are politicians and non-government organisations on this?

Thanks to Peter Black’s Freedom to Differ for the pointer.

Posted on

My new hero: Hideki Moronuki

[Update 15 July 2010: There is identity confusion in this post. See my update.]

Photograph of Hideki Moronuki

Hideki Moronuki Minoru Morimoto (pictured) is the Japanese Fisheries Agency’s chief of whaling. While I’m reasonably sure I’m not in favour of whaling, and certainly not if people are fibbing about its true purpose, you’ve got to admire his ballsy, direct language.

In a lengthy opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald last Monday, Moronuki Morimoto defends Japan’s “scientific whaling” with the observation that to commercially manage forests, fisheries and other “natural living resources” but not whales makes no sense. He dismisses as a “fallacy” that there must be one commercial activity (whale watching) to the exclusion of the other (whaling).

There are enough whales for both those that want to watch them and those who want to eat them.

I fully respect the right of Australians to oppose whaling for some “cuddly” reasons, but this does not give them the right to coerce others to end a perfectly legal and culturally significant activity that poses no threat to the species concerned.

And on Wednesday, with two of Sea Shepherd‘s unruly wankers aboard his ship, he said the pair would be given an opportunity to try whale meat while aboard the ship.

Hat-tip on that last quote to The Road to Surfdom.

Posted on

If there were only 100 people on Earth…

Screenshot of Miniature Earth: 43 live without basic sanitation

… it’d look like what’s depicted in this short film, The Miniature Earth.

The text is from the late Donella Meadows’ State of the Village Report from 1990 but the movie, now in its third edition, has updated statistics.

It isn’t very new. It’s already been seen by 675,828 people on YouTube since it was posted in September 2006. But I thought it’d be worth giving it a plug.

A great way to spend three and a half minutes, I reckon.

Posted on

Angry geeks: “Don’t waste money on internet filters”

Crikey logo

[This is what I wrote for Crikey, finally published today.]

Child Wise’s Bernadette McMenamin found out the hard way: geeks get angry when you suggest filtering their Internet. OK, she only wants to block child porn and other illegal nasties, that’s clear now. But the geeks are still angry.

Why?

  1. Two completely different problems are conflated. One, preventing distribution of already-illegal child pornography to anyone. Two, preventing children from viewing undefined “inappropriate” material, but allowing access to others in the same home. Different problems need different solutions, but they’re jumbled together for political purposes. Naughty naughty, Senators Conroy and Fielding.
  2. Taxpayer-funded technical “solutions” are proposed for social problems. As John Birmingham reminds us, the government is not your babysitter.
  3. Technical illiterates are demanding specific answers: filters. Those in the know are already several pages ahead in this story, and know filters won’t work. Geeks get angry when their knowledge isn’t respected — even when it isn’t understood (or understandable).

Real-world experience in everything from spam filters to the record industry’s futile attempts to stop copyright violations always shows that filters only block casual users. Professionals, the desperate or the persistent will always get through.

However if a politician demands a filter, pretty soon a shiny-suited salesman will appear, ready to sell him a box with “filter” written on the front. It’ll work — well enough for the demo, anyway.

“Look, Minister! Nice Minister. Watch the screen. See? Filter off, bad website is visible. Filter on, bad website gone. Filter off. Child in danger. Filter on. Child happy and safe. Filter off. Voter afraid and angry. Filter on. Voter relaxed and comfortable. Cheque now please.”

Continue reading “Angry geeks: “Don’t waste money on internet filters””