The results in the Gippsland by-election have to give a few people pause for thought. By-elections this close to elections generally punish the candidate associated with the party that causes them, in this case the Nationals. However, they were rewarded with a 7% two-party preferred swing to them.
Both the Liberal Party and the ALP got bloodied noses from the contest. The ALP dropped 9% on first preferences, and the Liberals came in third with 20.54% of the vote, not much more than half that of the National Party.
Senior Liberals have been confidently predicting to me that the National Party will merge with the Liberals at a federal level because they are “washed-up”. This result says not. And if they are not washed-up, then proponents of amalgamation have to explain why they should merge with the Liberals. The National brand is a valuable one to be able to pull out in rural and regional seats.
Pollsters and pundits should also beware relying on the opinion polls to predict exactly how well Kevin Rudd is travelling. The realities of high petrol and food prices look to be eating into his support when electors get to make a mark on the ballot paper, rather than air an opinion to a pollster, which mirrors the fact that the polls in the lead-up to the last election gave him a much more comfortable margin than he eventually received.
My friend, and occasional colleague, John Black’s prediction for the by-election was interesting, but ultimately spectacularly wrong. Something is happening out in voter-land which is very difficult to measure.
June 29, 2008 | Graham
Who said the Nats were washed-up?
June 29, 2008 | Graham
Caroline Marohasy rides The Horseman
My friend Caroline Marohasy makes her movie debut in The Horseman, a new Australian revenge thriller, shot in and around Brisbane, including at the Burpengary caravan park.
If you like the look of the trailer (I found it was suitably creepy, although they needed to hit the cabbage a bit harder in some of the fight scenes) you might consider becoming a Facebook fan of the movie.
Caroline is studying acting in Sydney, which is journalism’s loss as she originally started a journalism degree at UQ. As you can tell from her appearances on the YouDecide2007 programs we did for TV station Briz31 she could have had a good career on any side of the camera, with or without a script, which is not surprising, as her mother is Jennifer Marohasy.
Caroline’s one to watch, even if you give the movie a miss!
UPDATE 15:32
Caroline asked me to put the case that Australian independent feature films really need grass roots support, and this one is no exception. She also drew my attention to this review on the Facebook Fan site:
I just saw an advance screener of this film and was left breathless!
by Dean Bertram at 5:13am
The Horseman is the most compelling Australian film that I have seen since Wolf Creek. It is taut and relentless, grabbing you by the throat in the opening scene and not letting go until the end credits roll. The film’s frenetic pacing and tight narrative structure brings to mind similarly impactual genre classics like Mad Max and Romper Stomper. Indeed, it belongs to that rare type of thrilling Aussie cinema that gets bums on seats and keeps them there!
Kastrissios should be congratulated for such an amazing debut. He should also be paid close attention to: I believe he is set to become an important fixture of the Australian cinema scene.
Dean Bertram PhD
Festival Director
A Night of Horror International Film Festival
UPDATE 30/6/08 7:56
They’ve invested in more and better cabbages, and uploaded the resulting soundtrack as a result of my throwaway line above. The punches no longer sound like a flogging with a limp lettuce. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjl-Sduq_tA
Congratulations to Steven Kastrissios, the director, producer and major funder of the film for being so responsive to audience feedback.
June 29, 2008 | Graham
Why does the MSM do science so badly?
You’ll have to go hunting to find this story, but it is perhaps the most important event so far this year, with the greatest potential to affect our lives.
A Nature Physics article outlines how researchers have managed to manipulate the quantum state of a previously unknown molecule by varying an externally controlled electrical current.
Being able to do this is a prerequisite for building a quantum computer. If quantum computing is possible it will vastly scale-up the size of computing tasks that can be undertaken.
According to the article, quantum computers would also be able to talk instantaneously across any distance of space, putting another tool into the kit of those looking for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
This has been reported in a few newspapers, but none in Australia that I can see. Perhaps journalists aren’t interested, don’t understand the issues, or fear another cold fusion beat-up. Although, as this Wikipedia article shows, perhaps cold fusion was written-off too easily.
June 26, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
Back in the Harness – with Clathrates
Another stint in the good ol’ public service. But my mind is elsewhere. On clathrates, to be quite precise.
And I sure hope I am not the first one to mention this to you, because you’ll be hearing a lot more about them, and it is not good news. But there is some good news, on the humble scale of our revered public sector.
For the past year I’ve been cheekily dodging questions about my work status. ‘I’m not retired, I’m just deinstitutionalised’ is my line. Sometimes I just say the reason they call it REtirement is because you are tired again. No rest for the wicked, etc, just keep moving, and the busi-ness shall set you free.
But it was time for a change of pace, and a certain pride welled up after missing out on a temp job. Surely I am not totally unemployable? Having spent more years in post-secondary education than in K-12, with more degrees than a thermometer, surely it must be possible to get paid for something?
But as my HR expert friend has often pointed out, the skills shortage is with the employers, not the employees.
When a temporary job popped up, ironically at a higher base salary than I ever got when fully employed, I gave it a go. So this week I have found myself back in the trenches, plodding to work everyday, the very model of a modern public servant.
Lo and behold, nothing has changed, not really, not ever. Except maybe that the staff has gotten younger, both junior and the higher ups. Or is that a deception of my perspective, like the way men seem to have become more polite and don’t make such amusing fools of themselves fawning for my favours any more…but I drift.
There is some confusion, at least in my mind, about exactly what I am meant to do. And there is some uncertainty about how the whole task fits together. But never mind, I jump right in and try to add value where ever I can. Everyone is kind and friendly, and just when I think that being away from home all day might lead to a trimming of the waist, the counters are laid with a lavish morning tea.
By day four I am starting to relax a bit, appreciating the chats with the interesting younger staff. They all seem to have hobbies, backgrounds that are quite different to mine. One is keen to talk about Barcelona, which bowled me over last year. Another has been a television producer, and knows a lot about film making.
And then there are the old colleagues, who have either remained or returned, and we share a few catch-ups about where various others have gone. It is collegial, and there is an air of professionalism and confidence. This particular department is certainly up-beat, part of the future, part of an Australia that isn’t ashamed of itself.
The report I am assisting with (Commonwealth codes of conduct strictly prohibit any discussion about it outside the workplace, and I am truly grateful to be in a country that values integrity) will hopefully be useful, after the dust has settled and the structure and content become clearer. Its rhetoric will reflect a mature nation, and will go beyond arguments about welfare vs market forces, while striving to improve social access and equity. Working with these competent, knowledgable people, I am able to believe that. I don’t think the money spent on their salaries, or my brief contract, will be wasted. I hope not.
But at night, bleary after staring at a screen all day in an over-heated, artificially lit building, I am confronted again by the distant whisper that is steadily turning to a roar. Yesterday’s Canberra Times cover talked about the oceans dying, and the dead zones with no oxygen that are growing. The SMH and Australian didn’t even mention it in their inner pages. I’m reading Fred Pearce’s The Last Generation, which is mostly about climate change. He is a leading science journalist, well known to readers of New Scientist.
Which bring us circuitously back to clathrates. This is methane frozen under the sea, and there are gazillions of it, all starting to let this powerful greenhouse gas bubble up into the air.
Because I’ve studied complex systems, Pearce’s points ring true. Climate, he tells us, quoting from leading scientists in the global warming field, is more likely to make abrupt changes than gradual ones. It is an angry beast, one scientist says, and we are poking it with sticks. The front of the book catalogs some of these. And, like Tim Flannery’s Weather Makers, I am reading this 2 years after its publication. Some of his warning have now become sad truths, like events at the poles and tropical fires. And the release, gradual so far, but potentially explosive, of clathrates.
This week I’ve been going to the gym at 7 am, part of this new schedule, which is thankfully only going to last a month. But there is no frost, not even in late June. And there is certainly no rain. The overnight temperatures are higher, the daytime temperatures fairly mild. I tell a young fellow who moved here from Melbourne that Canberra used to be much prettier. He says Victoria is much dryer than in his childhood.
It feels kind of comforting to plod along in a job again, to walk to Manuka at lunchtime along with lots of other quietly dressed and well-mannered civil servants. I am reminded of the many years I spent in the Parliamentary Triangle, feeling reasonably good about being part of the Government, a good cog.
But the unease won’t go away, complacency always escapes me. I want to embrace the fine young people, warn them, help them run away to another planet, work with them to avert the disasters I keep reading about, the messes that lie ahead that even good bureaucracies won’t be able to fix. Don’t they realise carbon trading isn’t enought? Again I’m glad to not be young, I’ve had a wonderful natural world for most of my life. But instead we chat over morning tea, and we get to know each other a bit. Soon enough, I’ll be gone.
June 23, 2008 | Graham
Nats to wipe the floor with Libs
This looks like being inaugural at the same time as it is the ultimate, as in last. Courtesy of Facebook, Nats v Libs looks like the merger isn’t going anywhere.
Closer attention to detail reveals that it is actually a rugby union match between Libs and Nats (I prefer that order).
I don’t like the Libs’ chances. With the Nats drawcards being Tim Horan and Barnaby Joyce, and the Libs Mal Brough and Michael Johnson, there’s a sporting gerrymander going on here.
If you like this sort of thing, then you should probably go and see the match. In fact they are still looking for players. With an amalgamated party seeming more and more likely it will probably be the last, unless the new party’s constitution allows for grandfathering in this area as well, in which case they’ll probably stil be rolling Tim Horan out in 50 years time. Or wil the be great-grandfathering?
June 19, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
Under the Moruya Moon (6)
Two steps forward, one step back. It’s the way of the world. So it wasn’t surprising to find that the termite damage to the house was worse than we thought. The floor in one bedroom had collapsed before the tenants moved out last December, and it has taken us this long to get a good estimate of the full extent. Now the gyprock has been ripped out to have a closer look, and it’s not pretty.
The little brick house is kind of cute on the inside, but truly ugly on the outside, an 80’s creation that missed the only really worthwhile feature of the site, which is distant views of the ocean. This view is of the entry through the laundry, there is a ‘front’ door, but we never use it. The kitchen/dining room has a blank wall where it could look out on glittering water:
We refurbished the house to improve its rental prospects a few years ago, with some basic freshening up like new vanity, carpet, curtains, and paint. But always we thought about knocking it over and building something more modern a bit further up the hill. This would both give better views and put it at greater distance from the shed. The kitchen is servicable but original, with crumbling internal shelves and now some cracks in the stove top. There was a leak from the septic system, and now the termite damage.
The termites are gone, but because some outside cement paths are above the level of the vapour barrier, water has gotten in and rotted the flooring. And it goes right through the frame of the house. Repairs would probably be throwing good money after bad.
But the shed conversion is coming along, slowly:
Now instead of having a dual occupancy with two functioning dwellings, it looks like we might just have the shed and a condemmed place that we will pillage for its brand new solar hot water system and a few light fittings. We already bought a new vanity for the shed. Or should we just bite the bullet, keep hemorraging money, and repair the house so we can rent it out for a few more years?
I’ve always resisted discarding things, be they clothing, appliances, or furniture. And yet here we are with a purely economic decision to cast away a structure that is only about 30 years old. Houses should last longer, even at the coast, with termites laying in wait everywhere. Mice have also gotten into the house, now that the floorboards are exposed, and we had to lay traps the other weekend.
Bad design together with bad choice of materials have condemmed this house, perhaps we can build something more sturdy. Eventually. At the moment, the termites seem to be having the last laugh:
June 16, 2008 | Graham
Liberal National Party could be the end for Springborg
One of the lesser mysteries of the proposed Liberal National Party is why the Santoro faction changed from being opposed to its most enthusiastic proponents. Afterall, when Mal Brough first mooted his ambition to be Liberal Party President they targetted him for being pro-amalgamation.
To date the theories that I have heard have focused on the theory that they figure they have a better chance of controlling the merged entity than they do of controlling the Liberal Party. This amuses me because I have had proponents of the merger argue to me in the past that this is one way to keep the Santoro faction under control.
Now there is a new theory, and it seems to have some legs. In the new party room Lawrence Springborg will no longer have the numbers, and Tim Nicholls probably will.
Tim who? You might recall that he is the guy who ran against Bruce Flegg for the Liberal leadership, even though he had only four out of the eight votes and could only guarantee a tie. He’s the member for Clayfield, Santoro’s old seat, which was lost to Labor in 1998. He won it back, but it is marginal, and it has been made even more marginal by the last redistribution. He and his father Peter have been loyal family retainers of Santoro’s for years.
So, despite having trouble counting, and with a seat he is likely to have trouble holding, Nicholls still holds leadership ambitions. These could be realised under the new party.
You will need 12 votes to change the leader. Assuming that Bruce Flegg won’t vote for Nicholls under any circumstances, that gives you seven Liberal Party votes. The Liberal Party votes are said to be solid because none of the Liberals has ever been supportive of Springborg. In fact, the reason that Bob Quinn was dumped when he was had to do with the fact that he stood beside Springborg as Springborg expounded on the alleged tendency of fish to change gender from drinking recycled water. Quinn was expected to repudiate the remarks and didn’t.
Jeff Seeney, who is said to be looking for an opportunity to revenge himself on Springborg for rolling him, has at least 5. The only question is said to be whether the coup occurs before or after the next election.
Tim is a young man in a hurry, and the Liberal Party has a history of turfing out leaders at exactly the wrong time, so before the next election looks like a good bet.
Confirmation of the continuing interest of the Santoro faction in this issue is available from the fact that Michael Caltabiano and Peter Bastan (the former chair of the Liberals’ Constitution and Rules Committee) were included in meetings on the merger as late as last week.
June 16, 2008 | Graham
Putting the Wowser into Rudd
The NHMRC is about to change its definition of what constitutes “binge drinking” and Kevin Rudd is getting the blame. When I started this piece earlier today that was unfair, because the NHMRC is an independent body that the Prime Minister has no control over. By this afternoon, Kevin deserved the blame as he suggested that the Opposition’s criticism was because they were “in denial” about the binge drinking epidemic.
It is easy to see this as a psycho-drama where Kevin, scarred by the fact that alcohol had a part in his father’s death, acts out his internal traumas on a national audience. I don’t think that is the case. We know that Kevin is a binge drinker on occasion, and that a fair proportion of his cabinet must be, under this definition, so the policy is unlikely to be caused by deeply held teetotal convictions.
Furthermore, with these guidelines “binge” is so broadly defined that just about everyone has been a “binge drinker” at some time, and probably most of us “binge” regularly. It’s almost a unique medical usage of the term rather than being one with a practical English language application! So you’re stigmatising commonly accepted human behaviour.
A more realistic scenario is that there are thought to be votes in beating-up on alcohol consumption, and there probably are. But the political benefits are about to get eaten-up when you define most of us individually as being in the grip of a drinking epidemic. Particularly when we all know intuitively, and this is borne out by the stats, that we drink less now than we did 30 years ago.
Most people will find this almost as bizarre as the thought that Tony Abbott, who calls this a moral panic, might actually be speaking for most of us!
Not that the tactic hasn’t worked in the past. Memories of the days when Mum and Dad always took us for afternoon tea at the Temperance Union tea shop at the Brisbane Royal National Association show came flooding back to me yesterday listening to this Rear Vision broadcast about the temperance movement in Australia. That was only 30 or so years ago and temperance was on the last legs of that phase, but Kevin Rudd appears to be betting that it’s time is about to come around again.
June 14, 2008 | Graham
Grammar’s taught to grammarians
Baden Eunson from Melbourne Uni decries the “fallacy” that children “learn grammar by osmosis”, and it needs to be taught. I agree with him to some extent, but after reading Nicholas Ostler’s “biography” of Latin Ad Infinitum, I’m not so sure that it’s such a big deal.
The Romans, driven I suspect by their infatuation with standardisation (which palls in comparison to ours, but they caught the disease first), invented grammar. It didn’t exist before them, people just spoke languages. English grammar was invented because without a grammar it was an “inferior” language. And as Latin was by this time seen as some sort of Platonic form amongst languages, English grammar was made to conform to Latin in areas where it didn’t. So was born the ban on split infinitives and the insistance that two negatives made a positive, even in circumstances where two negatives used to mean something like “double plus bad”. If that’s the way that Latin did it, then that’s the way a language with pretensions must.
When you think about it, there are probably more languages in the world without formally taught grammars than there are ones with, but how many speakers of these languages complain, or have trouble learning their languages without it?
On the one hand this leads to questions about whether grammar is innate to language, or hard-wired into the brain. On the other it leads to a recognition that language is like an organism and it just grows. There are some standard types which appear to exist, and they flourish in all different varieties. If you hold language in the light the second way, then grammar is like Linnaeus’ system of classification. It’s post hoc, rather than pre hoc. (Isn’t Latin useful when you want to sound wiser than you are?)
In the history of the world hardly anyone’s learnt language through grammar, they’ve generally learnt grammar through language. Is that what Eunson means by osmosis? Should he have a problem with it? Is there really a standard way to speak English, or a number of standard ways, varying over time and geography? And if so, what is grammar but an attempt to impose one set of preferences on all, just because they happen to be the set of prejudices to which the particular grammarian subscribes?
June 13, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
The Age of Stupid
You will see this phrase again, as it is the name of a hot new movie about environmental catastrophe. This doco formerly named ‘Crude’ features Pete Postlethwaite playing a journo looking back from some decades in the future, wondering why we didn’t act when we could. You can find out more at their website: www.ageofstupid.net
The theme fits my week, cause I only realised yesterday afternoon that I was missing a major Canberra conference on climate change at the ANU. I dashed off (rather my spouse came and picked me up, as neither public transport nor my bike would have got me there in time for the last sessions). It’s got to be stupid to be skimming through the Tuesday Canberra Times on Thursday avo. That’s because there are so many papers to skim through, as my partner gets them at academic discount. (another environmental sin).
But the things one learns from other cities’ papers, and that others could learn about Canberra’s goings on. For example, coastal homes are already falling into the sea, after the recent king tides in NSW. And Ken Davidson agrees with Ross Gittins about the stupidity of Rudd’s approach to the petrol excise tax. Could we get real, please, and face the inevitable with some realistic approaches? Sydney is thinking about encouraging 4 day ten hour work weeks, to reduce petrol costs for individuals. Great idea, as long as they stagger the day off and reduce traffic at the same time. But I don’t think that positive could make up for the changes to their planning laws that seem to reduce the possibility of appeal, as outlined in another article.
On a grander scale, the Indian mango crop seems to be going the way of our bananas a few years back, but in a chronic, rather than acute, situation. Maybe the smart people can wake up the stupid people before it’s too late. I would sure miss mangos.
And here in the ACT, which has to be a leader in stupidity, there are ongoing struggles over the big gas plant planned for Tuggeranong. It is normal (dysfunctional but normal) for governments to run their consultations ass over tit. That is, they get together with the big ‘stakeholders’ (a term that can be interpreted many ways) and decide what is in their best interests. After the bureaucracy has assisted with tax payers money (another sore point in the gas plant saga) the government informs the public and gives them 10 minutes to take it on board, form coalitions to offer opposing perspectives, and with zero bureaucratic support of funding, mount a legal challenge if necessary. These are some of the allegations being tossed around. Sounds democratic, right?
The alternative is for elected officials to see themselves as conduits for public input, where broad assessment of openly supplied stats and info is followed by a request for a solution to an agreed-upon problem. Increasing revenue for a public utility or a private company does not constitute a public policy problem. By and large, our publics are aware of environmental constraints and favour developments that help Canberra, at least, to become more sustainable.
The dysfunctional approach actually follows an established formula, clearly articulated by Naomi Klein in the Shock Doctrine: hit ’em when they’re down. And having now finished reading a book about Dickhead Cheney (appropriately called Vice), it seems that almost everything that has functionally diminished democratic process, almost globally, has tentacles that include his machinations. But, as reported about the recent US-Iraq treaty, the dogs aren’t barking.
In Canberra, lots of dogs are barking, but I reckon the gov will wait until after the September elections and then hit us with the worse news about our water supply and introduce further restrictions. That fear lurks in the front of mind of many ACT citizens, gardeners or not. We’ve had a few trickles of rain recently, but the azelias are flowering, and the jonquils, which usually are spring flowers. Even the daffodils seem threatening to join the show. The autumn has been unusually warm, with the overnight temperatures rarely touching zero. Once upon the not so distant past, we’d have been scraping frost off the windscreens at 8 am (but never at 10).
And it has been standing room only at the meetings in Weston Creek of people concerned about the large planned set of new suburbs. No one can understand why we should be encouraging more people to come here, given the water situation. I gather most blocks will be tiny, and some streets will be west-facing. Is that smart?
Population was well covered at the ANU conference, amid the gloom of predictions of what happens at 1, 2, 3, 4, and the likely 5 degrees of warming. It was good to see the members of See Change were well represented offering hope. Suburbs are clustering to implement bulk buying of solar panels, with a discount. A small step in the right direction, but much more is needed. We’re talking about offering more services, to help people get over the hump of total helplessness on the one hand, followed by glut of information and little local assistance on the other. Another attendee said a group is forming to advocate light rail within Canberra. That would be a real breakthrough, and hang the expense, as costs will tend to even out as the price of petrol rises.
One ray of intelligence: Mick Gentleman, who introduced the solar feed in tarriff bill, told the plenary session that it will be debated (again) next week, and that he has the support of his Labor caucus. We’ve heard that much before, and can only hope that they proceed. But a leading solar thermal researcher, Keith Lovegrove, explained why photovoltaics on the roof are much less efficient that centralised production of electricity using steam turbines. He should know. We should all know, but maybe we’re just stupid.