Apparently, meeting a potential partner in between Wham and Duran Duran’s latest hits is becoming a thing of the past since singles started trading their dancing shoes for a computer, modem, internet connection with a reasonable download limit and unlikely nicknames such as “shyandretiringozgal” and “Aussiestud”.
Miranda Devine in The Sydney Morning Herald recently revealed that “more than half a million Australians are registered with a matchmaking site”, which if my sums add up, means that three-quarters, or a staggering 62%, of the citizens of this land are currently chatting online with someone they’ve never met rather than reading this article.
As Ambit Gambit’s reporter by default on fashion and trends, I decided to find out about dating sites so you can get hip with a cool chick or chap on the World Wide Web. To fill out this story, let’s talk to an international expert on relationships and dateless.com’s major shareholder, Dr Brenda Boyd Smith Onassis Hayes.
Pre-empting any questions I should have had if I’d done research, Dr Brenda tells me that although the Love and Psychic Institute where she earned her qualifications isn’t officially recognised, the many (actual figure subject to Freedom Of Information request) happy couples she has brought together can’t be wrong.
Upon suggesting that the Internet dating craze has in common with the cult of celebrity the safety and distance of faux intimacy, she correctly, if stereotypically, points out that someone with only a mediocre Arts degree to her name shouldn’t be making connections with anything other than a Centrelink queue and a dole cheque.
Anyway, who could argue with “sexyminx”, whose recent marriage to “bigbloke” hasn’t stopped her using the site in case he’s a letdown when they come face to face next week?
“Like”, says Ms Minx, “I have to be prepared if he doesn’t like old westerns, crying at the pictures, pancakes, unscented soap, world peace, knitting, ballroom dancing, Barry Manilow, Paul Hogan films…”
According to Dr Brenda, “It’s not easy to hook up these days due to work and reality television watching commitments and, as you’d know, poor social skills. At dateless.com love is a “how r u 2day?” and “wel, tanks, hw bot you” away”.
While Dr Brenda had me convinced, some editors want balance, which makes me look forward to the time when I’m a member of the commentariat and can ignore the opinions of others. Advising the Prime Minister on Molly Meldrum’s suitability to be Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Authority because ABC Classic FM needs to be told what a real classic song is will be a bonus as well.
There’s nobody better to get some thoughtful analysis of problems associated with Internet dating than a couple of contributors to The Age’s Your Say section. E Male and Muggas respectively contributed: “If a girl says she’s a “medium build”, she’s a porker” and “when you rock up to some sheila’s house who said they were fit, however they were anything but, it is really quite awkward”.
These insights reminded me that I should’ve asked Dr Brenda whether the major issue with this popular past time is that you don’t know you’re going to get an ocker sexist body fascist who embarrasses easily.
As for “darlstherockstar”, well, she’s medium build, fit…..
Be one of the select few, elite even, who have read Darlene’s ‘interview’ with Janet Albrechtsen here.

THE cat fight between John Laws and Alan Jones must not be allowed to obscure the serious questions that have arisen concerning the Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), “Professor” David Flint.
As a believer in the Constitutional Monarchy I have long held the view that Professor Flint is the best thing the republican cause has going for it!
But his frequent intrusions into political debate, and his apparently active membership of the Liberal Party, must raise serious questions about his suitability to hold the quasi-judicial office of Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority.
Members of the judiciary generally accept that they cannot be members of political parties, and the difference between the judiciary and a body such as the ABA is not substantial. The ABA has wide powers over the broadcast industry, including the power to suspend or cancel broadcast licenses, and impose heavy fines on stakeholders, and it operates as a statutory Tribunal.
I noted on the day of the Wentworth Liberal pre-selection ballot that Professor Flint was a participant. To say I was surprised is an understatement.
The ABA is a powerful body that inevitably attracts intense media scrutiny – and so it should.
Surely someone in Professor Flint’s position ought to appreciate that his own impartiality, and that of the ABA, will be questioned if he is an active participant in politics, especially party politics?
If he does not appreciate that, then his appallingly bad performance on the 7:30 Report on Tuesday night was no aberration!
Of course he is free to support the cause of the constitutional monarchy (I just wish he would do so with a much lower profile) but his not infrequent intrusion into political debates cannot possibly be defended.
If he wants to be a political activist then he should stand down from his quasi-judicial role, return to academic life, and then be as active as he wants.
But he cannot continue to hold an elevated quasi-judicial role exercising great influence over the media while being a political activist and partisan player.
The beginning of the end of the Bjelke-Petersen era in Queensland really came about when the Premier began politicising high judicial appointments – and especially that of Chief Justice.
The National-Liberal Coalition ended in 1983 for a variety of reasons. One of the underlying reasons why Liberal coalitionists, such as the late Sir William Knox, gave up on the National Party, and the then Premier, was the politicisation of the judiciary.
I know from my own association with him as his first Press Secretary that Sir William Knox, when Attorney-General, regarded judicial appointments as a ministerial duty to be performed with absolute probity. When his successor allowed that process to be sullied, a career long commitment to the coalition came into question.
It took the Queensland judiciary a generation to recover from the damage inflicted by its politicisation.
Unless Professor Flint has the good grace to quietly exit the ABA stage, that quasi judicial body, and the proper role it is charged with, will be significantly damaged.
If he does not exist voluntarily, the responsible Federal Minister should gently show him the door!

ANYONE who watched the “A Current Affair” expose on Brisbane “entrepreneur” Keith Lloyd and his association with the Shafston International College could not help but be appalled at the revelations, and alarmed at the possible wider implications.
I did not know until I saw the program that the particular college is in fact a privately owned educational centre, with the most tenuous association with the University of New England. I did know that it has attracted thousands of international students, but I had always presumed it was simply a campus of New England University.
We now know it is a private college (with a limited tertiary status) established by Mr Lloyd who, until Monday, was its President, and who lived in a penthouse on top of the College’s residential building. The propriety of such a “living” arrangement is questionable even without the serious allegations now confronting Mr Lloyd.
The rapid growth of university and other tertiary college campus operations not directly controlled by an established university or higher education entity has been hailed as the new way in education – and in the export of education services.
The question which needs to be asked, and asked widely, is what federal or state authority is responsible for the monitoring of the mushrooming private college industry?
Our government and non-government schools, churches and community groups, and even tertiary institutions, have been forced to adopt transparent standards and rules when it comes to the relationship between staff and students, and the proper handling of allegations of sexual impropriety in particular.
If the same standards apply to private tertiary and training colleges – including those operating under the Federal Government’s training schemes – then Shaftson College needs to explain why it took a comprehensive investigation by Channel 9 to reveal behaviour by its President, which, on the basis of last night’s program is absolutely appalling and unacceptable………and possibly contrary to the criminal law.
Shafston College and the University of New England are now in “damage control”, but we know that the police investigated complaints against Mr Lloyd previously. Even though criminal proceedings did not result, surely the police informed the College that its President – living on the residential premises – had been the subject of a complaint.
If so, why did it take the College until the 11th hour – facing a nationwide television exposé – to secure Mr Lloyd’s removal as President?
Given that the female students – barely 16 years old – are from an Asian country, the potential for this story to damage our standing in the competitive and lucrative international educational area is enormous.
But the damage will be greater if the same standards now demanded of government and private schools, churches and community groups, are not imposed on the mushrooming commercial training/college industry as well.
The time is also surely right for all our universities to clarify their association with these commercial entities. The University of New England did not object to its very public association with Shafston College – signage, advertising etc – nor has it sought to limit that association until now.
“A Current Affair” did as comprehensive a job on Mr Lloyd as I have seen in many a day. The footage of a multi millionaire business tycoon cowering in a public toilet avoiding the microphone of a determined reporter rightly held him up to scorn and ridicule.
Shafston College has some serious questions to answer. It also needs to devise a way for Mr Lloyd’s apparent ownership of the College and its premises to be terminated as well – and do so pronto.
One can only hope the numerous other privately owned (but often publicly funded) colleges and training institutions sprouting up all around Australia ask themselves whether their standards measure up to those now rightly demanded of our schools, churches, and community groups?

John Howard credits the rise in enrolments at private schools to a desire by parents to have their children taught values in education. I think he is only partly right. It is a desire to have children taught the “right” values. There is no such thing as value free education and no matter what school our children go to, or who their teachers are, they will be taught values, not always particularly good ones.
I had a demonstration of this over the weekend when my youngest, Sophia (given this name in the fond parental hope that one day she will translate into “wise” just as it does), told me that it was wrong to celebrate ANZAC day because her teacher said so. A short inquisition uncovered the fact that she differentiated between commemorate and celebrate (not bad for an 8 year old, so perhaps the Christian name was well-chosen). While that alleviated some of my concern, it didn’t do so entirely, particularly when she then went on to tell me that another of her teachers said that the only reason that people had gone to war back then was because they had been bullied (the new crime plus ultra at school) by posters saying they were cowards if they didn’t go.
We explored the issues more fully on Saturday night with Grandma and Grandpa. Born in 1912, Dad had avoided both world wars – too young for one, and while old enough for the other at the time he was employed in an essential industry making oxygen, and therefore exempt from service. His grandfather had been in the Light Horse, wounded at Gallipoli and had also fought in the Boer War. Mum was born in 1922 and must have been about 20 when she signed-up with the WAAF in 1942. There were two boys and five girls in the Millet family at the beginning of the war but both the boys were dead by the end of it – Graham shot down over Germany and Herbert killed by a sniper in New Guinea. They were the only war fatalities that Cairns suffered and the Cairns Uniting Church has a stain glass window for each of them.
The bullying issue was dealt with quickly, although ambiguously. Mum’s family did things because they thought they were right. I obviously never met my uncles, but you would have as much chance of getting Mum to do something against her will as injuncting, say, the transit of Venus (due a bit later this year if you’re interested in trying). This appears to be at least in part a genetic trait. Great-Grandpa was a slightly different proposition. According to Dad, he just liked wars, and was never so happy as when there was one to go to. He wasn’t particularly brave, but it was presumably an easy way to tour the world in those days, and more to the point someone else took responsibility for most aspects of your life (he was a bit of a shirker).
I imagine that there were men who were bullied into going to war, but it is a curiously one-dimensional way of looking at motivation. Even conscripts, once conscripted, are likely to adopt mental habits of optimism and duty just in order to survive. Some may even welcome the conscription because it makes a decision for them that they may have wanted to make themselves, but couldn’t because of pressure from friends or family.
However, I don’t think either teacher was really interested in moral ambiguities, which is really where my concerns arise. The message that Sophia had taken was that any event where people died was wrong – that pain and suffering are to be avoided at all cost – and that there is no such thing as a just war. This is a disturbingly materialistic and hedonistic view of the world, as well as being entirely in tune with our modern risk averse world. It fails to examine motive and completely ignores the nobility of the giver in the act of giving, even if that act is the giving of their own life.
ANZAC day falls at a time of the year which sometimes even conjuncts with Easter. The Anglican Chaplain to the Armed Forces, Bishop Tom Frame, has just released a new book “Living by the sword?” It is notable for a couple of things. This includes his change of mind as to whether the Iraq war was indeed a theologically just war, but even more so for his being one of the few contemporary Australian churchmen to argue that wars can be good.
In some ways it is odd that Christians are amongst the most likely to take the view that a death, any death, can do no good, when their whole faith, as graphically and over-enthusiastically represented in Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, is based on the redemptive power of death. “Christian” means “follower of Christ” and Sunday’s gospel reading had Christ predicting Peter’s martyrdom, and perhaps in that moment of apotheosis when Peter was crucified up-side down, he in fact did more than follow him and became one with him through the act of martyrdom.
Paul uses war as a metaphor for the spiritual struggle, but so embarrassed are some Christians by the thought of this that hymns like Onward Christian Soldiers have been purged from the Australian Hymn Book. It is impossible to imagine today that had William Booth been founding a new evangelical movement today that it would have been called The Salvation Army.
If Onward Christian Soldiers had still been in the hymn book I would have chosen it on Sunday. With music by Sir Arthur Sullivan it has a rather twee oompapah effect in the bass which I like to point out with the pedal on my church organ. Instead I chose Abide with me for the resonance that it would have with hundreds of ANZAC Day services around the country. And then to finish, our final hymn was Fight the good fight, quite a stirring upbeat number. I don’t know whether Sophia finds celebration any more appropriate in this context as a result of my musical efforts, but it made me feel better. Values are not something you can leave to schools or churches alone to teach, and I suspect are better demonstrated than taught. What better demonstration of some of our highest values than that given by those we honour and celebrate on ANZAC Day?

This is my last ‘Ambit Gambit’ blog entry. In it I’ll make a few comments on how I think the whole Internet thing is going.
The Internet is undoubtedly an amazing invention, perhaps as important in its long–term impact as writing. The form still has some way to go to be really broadly functional (and cheap), but it presents genuine possibilities to change the way we do a number of very important things. Unfortunately, we have not yet worked out how to use the Internet effectively, how to best mix form and content. And in the absence of a new sort of content, I fear the Internet will be claimed by the same old powers, especially commercial interests and governments.
The Internet is very good, indeed fantastic, for providing information. It is also reasonably good for fast, shallow analysis. It is not so good on deep analysis, and it is hopeless on theory.
It is theory that gives us a framework or paradigm in which to organise the information and analysis in order to make it useful. It is innovative, inspirational theory, in my view, that is now most lacking in our emerging global society.
So, I’m shifting my attention back to writing books, which is where theory is still mostly originated and developed. If it is at all coherent, new theory can then spread outwards to affect specialist researchers/commentators, and then move into the wider community. The spread of neo-liberal (economic rationalist) ideas over the last two decades – which have transformed our assumptions about modern life – is a good example of how this process works. It’s just that we have to come up with better theory than that.
Blogs are one of the more innovative things that have sprung up on the net. I ultimately found blogging a somewhat limited form of communication, but it is still early days. It is, of course, time consuming. Furthermore, the attempt to combine the familiarity of sustained commentary with the need to actually say something worth reading presents as many problems as it solves. I certainly found it tricky getting the tone or style right. The interactivity is similarly problematic. In terms of feedback, I was at times bemused by how someone with the capability to log onto the Internet could still hold views better left in the 19th century, and there are always vested interests who are quick to defend any perceived slight. But mostly I was impressed with how many well-informed, intellectually advanced people there are out there.
‘OnLine Opinion’ and its blog ‘Ambit Gambit’ are brave attempts to sustain a popular but substantial Internet site that promotes information exchange and debate, and I wish Graham, Hugh and the rest the best of luck with it. In particular, I thank them for the opportunity to try out blogging.
As for myself, I’ll concentrate on developing new ideas on how our increasingly global, high-technology society works and should work. I began this project in my early post-graduate work, continued it in my doctoral thesis (published as a book: “Global Control: Information Technology and Globalisation since 1845”) and have two new books in the planning stage to get on with. I may also set up my own website to promote my work.
So all the best to my readers. Thanks for your time and attention – those increasingly valuable commodities – and I hope you will continue and expand your efforts on the Internet and elsewhere to broaden debate and work for better informed decision-making generally. In these increasingly strange times, we can afford the alternative less and less.

Politicians’ wives, or ex-wives, have been in the news a bit of late. In Australia, we seem to hear from the missus when she can confirm her husband was the drongo we always suspected him to be.
America, meanwhile, prefers to see its political spouses gazing lovingly like a bride on her wedding day, even after years of marriage, infidelities and a failure to spend more time together than is required for photo opportunities.
Before hubby Howard’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination went pear-shaped, Dr Judith Steinberg Dean was ridiculed for not obeying her politician’s wife vow, “I promise to smile like Posh Spice when in the vicinity of anything camera-like, not say anything remotely interesting and will not inflict my lack of singing talent on anyone above voting age”.
Michael Kingsley in an article in Time suggested that our knowledge of Howard Dean was somehow incomplete without some wifely insight. Perhaps learning that Dean doesn’t leave the toilet seat up or that he cooks a mean Spaghetti Bolognese might have changed American political history. Nevertheless, a person’s relationship with their significant other is irrelevant to their capacity to do any job unless they are planning to form the new Sonny and Cher.
Given the widespread cynicism about the dissembling of politicians, it doesn’t make sense to think we could find out anything more about them by impelling their wives to become public figures. As Judith Shulevitz perceptively argued in the New York Times Magazine, “when we make a political marriage part of the story, we do not penetrate the spin. We merely shift our attention to more spin”.
While local government in Brisbane is a long way from American presidential politics, we have seen the supportive wife role played to the point where for the first time since dinosaurs walked the earth, or Roy Harvey was Lord Mayor, we have a Lady Mayoress.
Unsure of what the job entails I carried out intensive research by entering “Lady Mayoress” into a search engine. For your information, a Lady Mayoress is someone who beams while wearing an awful frock and secretly must be as jealous as a peahen at her husband’s robes and over-the-top jewellery.
Apparently Lisa the Lady Mayoress, wife of Campbell Newman the Gentleman Mayor, will be doing unpaid “charity work”, which rather than delivering Meals on Wheels is probably more the sort of stuff Paris Hilton’s mum does when she’s not putting the hem down on her daughter’s skirts. Mrs Newman also plans for “City Hall to have a heart again”, a goal more palatable than the opposite, but probably not to be attempted in the vicinity of Council employees.
Would, however, Campbell give up his employment to be a male equivalent of a Lady Mayoress and should anyone in this day and age anticipate, and get, such a role simply because of their marital status?
I defer to Germaine Greer as paraphrased and quoted in Shulevitz in an attempt to answer this question: “by the 21st century a woman ought neither expect to achieve a position of power “nor be expected to relinquish her privacy and her own work…simply because she has married a man who has a prospect of success in politics”.

Every now and then you get what is called in the parlance a “get out of jail free card”. I think I got one of those last night when the Liberal Party preselected Dr Ingrid Tall to be the candidate for the seat of Brisbane in the next federal election.
The Liberal Party has referred me to its disciplinary committee for criticizing members of the party in my writings. Dr Tall, in her previous career as President of the Queensland Branch of the AMA, was not only a critic of the party, but for a while simultaneously a member of it. She originally inquired about running for Bowman, but was deflected to Brisbane – a sign of poor political judgement on her part as Bowman is winnable, whereas Brisbane is most probably not.
While her initial inquiries may have been out of the blue, she has been welcomed by the Sicilian faction which insured that she beat Campbell Newman’s brother-in-law Sebastian Monsour (who was the unsuccessful endorsed candidate last federal election) in the preselection.
I’m not sure whether she ever criticized the party while she was both AMA President and Liberal Party member, but to fulfil her role with the AMA she must have stood ready to do so. Which leads to the conclusion that the Sicilian faction does not have a problem with people who criticize the party or specific members of it as long as they do so in a non-party capacity. In which case I expect them to use their numbers to rescind the motion referring me to the Disciplinary Committee.
Now that I am free to continue unthreatened my vocation as the contemporary historian of the Queensland Liberal Party I thought I should let Ingrid tell us for herself how she won the preselection. The following, as close as I can make it, is the text of her speech last night. None of it is my work (apart from square brackets which are my asides) – it fell off the back of a bus in my computer. It might serve as a template for those interested in preselection and encourage other “outsiders” to volunteer, now that some of the mystery has been stripped away. She also has one good line, although you do have to read to the end to find it, or you can click here!

“All on board, welcome aboard, the Campaign Bus for Brisbane. Hop on. We are going for a drive. Watch out Arch Bevis! Has anyone seem him lately…sleeping behind the wheel? Wake up! Watch out! Here we come! This is the renaissance – Campbell Newman, you started it, now let’s keep it going.
If the Liberal Party loses just 8 seats, that’s 3,776 voters changing their minds, John Howard goes. We know what that means – higher interest rates, increasing debt, poorer fiscal management, increasing unemployment, decreased national security and engaging populist theories. [No idea what the last is, but maybe we should run a competition for suggestions].
We know that some seats will be lost and that others will need to be won. We need to keep John Howard in government, that is our responsibility. We need to move forward to win Brisbane, and we can get there together – that is your job tonight. It is your responsibility to pick the candidate you think can best pull it off. This is no time for factions, political connections [take that Seb], whom you know, who ran last time [another straight right]. The question you have to answer is “Who is most likely to win the seat? Who can do the job and take us over the line to guide and steer this country to prosperity?”
What sort of person can best do it? They have to be dynamic, have people skills, media savvy, and a track record. They have to be someone whose metal has been tested on leadership, on negotiating, someone who listens to what you have to say, who knows how to work in a team, someone who has the “it” factor. [No place for the humble in a preselection.]
A while ago I was approached by a Liberal politician to stand for the party for preselection. [There is conjecture as to who this might have been. Another competition?] I had been a Liberal Party member years ago, but I had never thought of standing. I voted Liberal. My small business parents were dyed in the wool Liberals. The Liberal Party’s philosophies and beliefs are core to my personal philosophies – things like the rights and freedoms of the individual; less bureaucracy; small business opportunities and so on.
These are very similar to the platforms and principles indeed of the AMA where we opposed the socialization of medicine. [Campaigns like limiting bulk billing and increasing the Medicare rebate.] I thought how rewarding and gratifying it was in my post as AMA President to represent over 5,000 doctors, to increase its profile, to make a difference, to work with a great team on policy. This ignited a spark to move into mainstream politics [note to Ingrid, you will find you had more influence as AMA President than you will as a candidate or even back-bencher] and to help in bringing Brisbane out of the political wilderness, away from the Labor stronghold it has been for so many years. [In fact since 1980 when Peter Johnson lost to Manfred Cross – Brisbane’s the sort of seat you generally only win in a landslide.]
Labor is losing its grip in Brisbane. Last time the Liberal party had a swing to it of 1.3% with the Greens and Democrats having a swing to each of them of over 3%, contributing to a total of 6% away from Arch Bevis. [Another note to Ingrid, never rely on first preference votes to calculate swings. This one was only 1.5% against Labor ]. This trend needs to continue, and whoever the candidate is has to get us over the line in around 5 months from today. We don’t have the luxury of having a candidate on the ground for two years establishing their name in the electorate like Campbell Newman did. We have to use [her verb not mine] a candidate with an established name and a good reputation – someone who can continue this trend and take it home.
If you do choose me I am someone who has grown up and been educated in the electorate. I am a family doctor in the Valley and New Farm area, and I work in a hospital in Everton Park and the RBH. Health is a topic that is big on the electorate’s minds. It was the number one issue for the state election. Education is a big issue and as someone with two tertiary education degrees I know something about that. I have a journalism degree from QUT. This degree and my previous media work helped the AMA in Queensland reach new heights of media exposure on Channels 7,9 and 10 news, and also with their ads and billboards. I have also done over a decade of weekly health segments on 4BC.
This is only important because I know the electorate and many in it know me. Name recognition is important. It is a good start. And I have a hundred thousand dollars in the coffers for campaigning [this is a standard clause in all preselection pitches and is often not taken seriously] and know that a high profile media role can be used effectively in campaigning for the seat of Brisbane.
The media work and profile helped me work with many charity and community associations over the years – the Arthritis foundation, the Cancer Fund, the Australian Dental Association, Zonta, Richmond Fellowship, and recently the Karuma palliative care hospice service in the electorate.
If you choose me, not only am I known in the community but I have small business experience through my family practice where I dealt with many young families, many young people, the aged and women. If you choose a woman, that can be a plus to getting the women’s vote – something the Liberal Party needs to claw back to ensure that we have a good gender balance in our party.
Many people have asked me to stand because they think I can win the seat off Arch Bevis. Bring on the fight. I’ve heard that he is worried and that with new blood he will be afraid to get back into the water – that is our psychological terrorism. [Take that Hippocrates.] It helps to hear people say – “I think you can beat Arch Bevis off”. I believe them. And if we get elected, I will always fight for the electorate. I will make sure that the Brisbane electorate will get its fair share of funding for aged care places, for home and community care packages that will ensure that older Australians will stay in their homes longer – and that is a real issue when southeast Queensland is attracting retirees wanting to come up out of the cold down south […and given the likely age of your average Liberal Party preselector].
As part of John Howard’s team I will work towards ensuring small business owners and homeowners have the best economic opportunities. I will also ensure that the federal budget stays in surplus with the interest savings funding more of our health and education so everyone can have the highest possible standards of education. Education is important because as a metropolis we are one of the most unhealthy with very high levels of obesity for instance, and also have one of the nation’s lowest levels of education.
Brisbane is invigorated. It is diverse, cosmopolitan, and multicultural and it is thriving and growing [if fat and stupid]. We are no longer a branch office city – we are standing on our own two feet now, but we need to stand tall and be counted [not a good take-out message Ingrid].
I know it will mean hard work and long hours getting us there. It is not a shoo in but many people here have pledged their support here to get us there. It is time for Brisbane to come out of the political wilderness. With your help, guidance, wisdom and support we can do it. We have been a Labor stronghold for ever [24 years seems like a long time I know] but the grasp has weakened through the years and now we go for the jugular, and as a doctor I know where that is [oh dear, Hippocrates].
Let’s all get on the bus and drive this bus to victory. “

That’s how you win a preselection in the Liberal Party.

Discussion surrounding sexual assault allegations levelled at some sportsmen has challenged the idea that maleness is naturally expressed by certain behaviours. The Family Court’s decision last week to approve a 13-year-old’s eventual transition from woman to man appears, at a time when masculinity and femininity are viewed as social constructs rather than inherent states, as a judgment for traditional roles and against infinite ways to be human.
Evidently “Alex”, the biologically female teenager at the centre of the controversy, was, like most of us, socialised about what is an acceptable gender identity. Even today, girls are frocked up, forbidden to play certain sports and indoctrinated to be nurturers by endless Saturday morning television advertisements for dolls, while “Alex” was taught to be a boy by an “idealised” and since deceased father.
Given what girls are taught to expect from womanhood, it is not surprising that many fight against, become depressed by, or seek to delay, its onset. Although bioethicist John Fleming’s question, “if someone said inside her they didn’t feel like a human being, they felt like a horse, would the surgeons resculpture accordingly?” is a bit facetious, it is interesting to consider whether the fixated thinking that leads to eating disorders and self-harm would ever be approved of by members of the psychiatric community in the way this obsession to be a boy has.
Of course, real concerns existed about “Alex”, who reportedly suffered from suicidal thoughts, but politics probably played a part in the ruling as well. Was it political correctness or a submission to civil liberties’ advocates, as Dr Karen Brooks asked in The Courier-Mail on 16 April 2004?
While acknowledging sex and gender dilemmas is often seen as progressive, feminist and political scientist Shiela Jeffreys sees “GID (Gender Identity Dysphoria) (as) a living fossil – that is, an idea from the time when there was considered to be a correct behaviour for particular body types”.
Recent articles in two popular women’s magazines, Woman’s Day and That’s Life, about people who have undergone sex-change surgery reveal, unintentionally, that GID might really be about society’s need to turn ‘difference’ into a syndrome that can be treated. Sam, a female-to-male transgender wed to a male-to-female transgender says, “I don’t know how to live in a female body… but put me in a male environment and I feel the comfort I yearn for”. There is also a reference to “reversing roles” after the Registry Office married them according to their legal sex.
Who could blame Frank for seeking out the accoutrements of femininity to “feel good” after receiving advice such as “…only girls hide like that” and “…grown men don’t cry?” Presumably, if Frank had been Kathy all along, having fears during the Blitz and shedding tears after the loss of a child would have been okay.
This is not to argue that some people do not really believe they were “born in the wrong body” or that they should not have access to surgery as adults, however, we should wonder how much it would be needed if environments and roles were not so circumscribed.

UNTIL recently I was never attracted to the idea of a Bill of Rights to “guarantee” our basic freedoms, including the freedom of speech.
The antics of the Queensland Division of the Liberal Party in threatening to expel any member who dared criticise it, notwithstanding the merit of the criticism, got me thinking.
But the even more oppressive attitude of the Australian Football League (AFL) and the National Rugby League (NRL) has convinced me that the sooner we can a Bill of Rights the better…………………flawed and limited though it might inevitably be.
We are all able to call John Howard, or Mark Latham, or Peter Hollingworth, or Bob Brown, or any other political figure, or appointee, what we like. We can even criticise the Judiciary and its decisions. We can attack the clergy – especially if they are Archbishops or Bishops! We can attack Alan Jones, or John Laws (or both).
Probably, and I am about to put this to the test, most of us can criticise those most protected of all species, the umpires, referees and administrators of the AFL and the NRL.
But if we are players, or coaches, or club officials, then we do so at our considerable financial peril!
When I read last week that Essendon’s captain, James Hird, was facing a hefty fine, or even a suspension, for comments he made about an umpire, I naturally assumed he had abused the umpire during a game, and had called him the usual expletives and more.
So I enquired further. Hird’s comments were made on the AFL version of “The Footy Show”. That really made me enquire further – what could possibly be said on a TV program that could cause so much offence, and fill up pages and pages of Melbourne press space?
Hird’s comment was that the umpiring of a particular umpire in a match he played in was “quite disgraceful”. Really?
For that “unpardonable sin”, Hird had to make a private apology on Monday, a public apology on Tuesday, and then front the AFL Commissioners – and face the prospect of legal action by the “offended umpire”.
The Commissioners fined Hird $20,000, and effectively gave him three years community service by requiring that he undertake a “mentoring” program with umpires for three years! And he had to make another apology last night on the same program as the original “offence” occurred. For good measure, Essendon was fined $5,000 as well.
Whether or not the umpiring was “quite disgraceful” is apparently irrelevant.
But what is our so called “free society” coming to?
The answer is that, at least when it concerns our major football code’s, freedom of speech when it involves any form of criticism of umpires, referees or administrators, is ruthlessly crushed, no matter how valid it might be.
The National Rugby League is no better than its southern counterpart. Indeed, its record is even more intolerant and oppressive. Even criticising the video referee for getting it wrong attracts a fine!
Why do the highly-paid players, and well-resourced clubs and officials continue to tolerate this totalitarian nonsense? Why won’t one player, or club, or official, test the arrogance of their codes administrators in the law courts? The outcome might be very interesting – and even more embarrassing for the AFL and the NRL.
Abusing an official on the field of play is one thing, but saying on a television program that his or her performance was “quite disgraceful” surely does not warrant what James Hird has been put through.
A Bill of Rights might not be the answer, but it would at least put a brake on the growing oppression of free speech that is further sullying the already tarnished image of both rules and league.
The sooner the better.

The fuse President Bush stuck into the Middle East powder keg and lit with the invasion of Iraq has suddenly started burning a lot faster. Along with the start of the second phase of the Iraq war, Ariel Sharon’s latest moves to effect an endgame in Israel guarantee interesting times ahead.
Sharon, like Bush, prefers unilateral measures, although he always has to clear them with Israel’s sponsor, the US. He should, of course, be languishing in jail right now for one of the crimes, war or civil, he has committed, but like Bush he has managed to benefit from the political polarisation of his country. Speaking of crimes, I wonder if Bush, Blair and Howard will ever face a war crimes trial over the illegal invasion of Iraq, as ex-Liberal boss John Valder suggested recently? No wonder they were not keen on setting up an independent international justice organisation.
Under the Bush global regime, Sharon has lost all restraint and is taking Israel down a very dangerous path. In particular, Sharon’s policy of extra-judicial executions of Palestinians, including ‘terrorist’ leaders, completely undermines the most basic attempts to restrict armed conflict. It is the most brutal use of modern military force conceivable. It is also causing real dissent in the Israeli military, many of whom do not like the role of long-range assassins.
What Bush and Sharon have done is to inextricably mix the two messes in Iraq and Israel. Everyone but the Neo-cons that do Bush’s thinking for him can see how the Arab world is having western power forcibly shoved down its throat. The Neo-cons think Arab civilisation will simply collapse into western style ‘democracy’. This is an extraordinary risk to be running right now. And since they are living at the sharp end of the whole project, I fear it will be the long-suffering Israeli people who will feel the pain first if things go pear-shaped. We should never forget that Israel has a large arsenal of nuclear weapons and an early-use doctrine, while Pakistan, an Islamic country with strong fundamentalist interests and engagement in the Middle East, also has atomic bombs and missiles to deliver them. And Iran is almost certainly making or preparing to make nuclear bombs.
I mean, the Middle East is just the wrong place to be seeing how far military force can be used to solve what are in reality very complex issues.
As for Iraq, the US is now fighting the messy war many predicted would follow the invasion. The US has screwed up the occupation, largely due to Rumsfeld’s keenness for the new high-tech, low troop numbers warfare and Paul Bremer’s incompetence. These guys just lack a capacity for circumspection and are blinded by their own sense of destiny.
The wiser heads around the place seem to be leaning towards the UN taking over the whole thing, which would be ironic given the way Bush et al tried to emasculate the UN. Everyone, especially the Australians involved, would breathe a lot easier operating under the UN flag.
And finally, good to see Mr Chalabi, another man who should probably be in jail for criminal activities of a financial nature, and whose role will likely be blissfully short-lived when the Iraqis actually vote, giving advice to Mark Latham. Every time one of these pro-Bush idiots gets on his case, Latham must feel more and more comfortable that he is on the right track. After all, in a really messy situation, sometimes the best strategy is just to do the opposite of what all the venal vested interests want.