Speaking of the new wowserism, over at New Matilda Binoy Kampmark has a nice take on Chairman Rudd’s War on Binge Drinking.
Oh well done Aunty Victoria!
The Victorian government is going to ban ATMs from gaming venues.
So, just because some people get suckered into shoving all their money into addictive machines, the rest of us are denied the convenience of withdrawing cash at the pub when we’re running short. Instead we have to go down the street — where we can be mugged more easily.
Here’s a thought. If gaming machines are the problem, why not get rid of the gaming machines?
Oh, that’s right. 8% of Victoria’s revenue comes from gaming machine taxes [PDF file], a total of 13% from gambling of all kinds.
Chairman Rudd has already said he supports Nick Xenophon’s push to remove ATMs from gaming areas. Xenophon doesn’t even become a Senator until 1 July, but already he’s an object of sincere and deep affection.
We’d already started to see the rise of a new wowserism. Imagine what it’s going to like when the balance of power in the Senate is held by Xenophon and Family First’s Senator Steve Fielding! If you thought we’d seen dull conformity before…
Australia 2020: recent articles
Here’s what other people have written about the Australia 2020 Summit recently:
- Science communicator Professor Julian Cribb says “Your Ruddiness, the problem with your summit… is that it is already thinking too small, although it professes to think big.” Hear hear! We must solve the problems facing humanity as a whole, he said. “This isn’t a joke. For the last eight years the world has eaten more food that [sic] it has produced, and the gap is widening as demand rises and production stagnates. Meanwhile Australian governments, Coalition and Labor, have done their level best to ensure a future food crisis by winding back agricultural science in this country and agricultural aid overseas.”
- In The Australian, Mike Steketee asks us to Forget ideology, just focus on ideas. “A start to considering ideas on their merit would be not to pigeonhole them according to who puts them forward.”
- In An ambit claim for the Ruddfest 2020, Valerie Yule says that a fair Australia can also be prosperous. “Australia Fair would still be able to Advance,” she says. “‘Fair’ means fairness in opportunities, fairness in rewards, and fair dealing.”
For completeness, in my last post I mentioned the Media Watch report, and the Centre for Policy development’s ideas for what happens next. What else have you seen?
Australia 2020: The Disillusionment
When Chairman Rudd announced the Australia 2020 Summit the euphoria kicked in like a clean hit of a fresh new political drug. After 11 drab years of John Winston Howard, Change! Big, bright colourful change with sparkly bits and the sound of a thousand sitars! But now the euphoria’s wearing off. We’re coming down — and the Main Event is still a month away.
Kevin still looks pretty cheerful, though, doesn’t he. Why is that?
Look back through everything I’ve written so far and you can see the moodswing. “Chairman Rudd’s got a clever strategy going,” my first post began. Another post was headlined Australia, let the Enlightenment begin!, quoting Maxine “Toadslayer” McKew and agreeing that the nation was ready to start a new conversation about its destiny. At the end of February I even nominated myself.
Given Rudd’s claim that his government would be open and transparent, and develop policies based on evidence, it all sounded pretty good.
As days go by, however, it’s become increasingly clear that the potential of the event will be stifled by the political “need” to placate the same old whingeing lobby groups, the same old middle-class middle-aged white men in dark suits (just flick through the Steering Committee) and, it seems, the “need” to pre-load the agenda with specific topics to… well, let’s explore that.
Howard vs Rudd: a tag cloud
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.
Post 1010: Half-way to Australia 2020
A witty headline, eh? OK, well, only a little bit witty. But I missed marking the major milestone of Post 1000 on this website, so I thought this would be the next best thing.
The annoying thing is, I don’t have anything to say about the Australia 2020 Summit right now, and I have plenty of other things to write about. So let’s pretend you didn’t see this post, and I’ll write the update later, OK?