An online scrapbook of clippings culled from blogs, newspapers and journals with an Australian focus compiled by Gareth Parker.

Email to garethparker@iinet.net.au.

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Looking for cheap smokes and a carwash ...

... then head to Scarborough.

Wednesday 31/03/04 | 10:31 PM
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Community leader shows leadership

A RECENT spate of violent crimes involving young Somalis in Perth has received strong and welcome condemnation from a Somali community leader:

WA Somali Community Association president Aboli Shakur Nor yesterday spoke of his disappointment at the youths' alleged involvement in a vicious brawl at the weekend and a spate of carjackings in January.
Mr Nor blamed the youths' upbringing in Somalia, where they witnessed excessive violence, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, for some of their behaviour.

He plans to raise his concerns of growing violence among Somali youths with the parents of those involved, members of the broader community, police and State Government agencies.

"I can say it (recent violence) is very isolated but it's getting out of hand," Mr Nor said. He said although a small minority of the 3500 Perth Somalis were behind recent incidents, their crimes affected the entire community.

"We become very embarrassed as well as furious," he said ...

Both Mr Nor and Mr Mohamed said some youths did not trust or respect law enforcement agencies because of excessive violence of authorities in Somalia.

"(Being a refugee) has a telling effect on life," Mr Nor said.

"To see some loved one die of starvation or war . . . it contributes as well. We're not looking for any leniency in terms of the law, the law is the law."

Monday 22/03/04 | 11:26 PM
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Progress, and backwardness

EXCELLENT news from Malaysia:

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was sworn in for a five-year term Monday after his National Front coalition trounced Islamic fundamentalists at the polls.
With recounts under way in just a few constituencies, the ruling party had won nearly 90 percent of parliamentary seats in Sunday's elections, rolling back gains made by the opposition Islamic Party (PAS) in 1999.

The National Front also seized the key northeastern Muslim state of Terengganu from PAS, while the Islamists claimed to have held on to neighbouring Kelantan, where a recount was taking place.

The victory for Abdullah was widely welcomed by political and economic analysts, who said it would be good for stability in the region.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Gallop State Government has made WA the first state in the nation to ban GM food crops. As yet, the only story online is this pathetic ABC report, which lauds the decision because it will "ensure farmers can continue to market GM-free produce, in a sector that contributes more than $9 billion to the state's economy".

UPDATE: The West Australian's more detailed coverage seems to indicate this is the ban that's not a ban. The first line of the Premier's press release is: "Genetically modified (GM) food crops will not be grown in Western Australia." Yet Cathy Bolt's article in The West says:

Agriculture Minister, Kim Chance, said yesterday the new order formally installed his office as a case-by-case gatekeeper on further trials and commercial releases of new GM crop varieties.
"The State has shut the gate and adopted the role of gatekeeper, in that you have to apply for the gate to be opened to let you in," he said.

He said if developers of new GM crop varieties could establish there was a scientific need for trials or a case for a commercial release in WA they could apply for exemptions from the order.

An application for a commercial release of genetically modified cotton in northern WA would be considered on its merits, once it was approved by the Commonwealth gene regulator on health and safety grounds.

"Our starting position would probably be in favour of commercial production," Mr Chance said.

Huh? Green preferences are interesting things.

Monday 22/03/04 | 08:08 PM
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How things change

FIRST, read this. A letter from Labor leader Mark Latham to the misnamed illegal immigrant booster group Labor For Refugees, it is as strong an endorsement of the principles underpinning Australia's policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers as you are likely to find.

Then, have a look at the comments of the same Mr Latham in the lead-up to the October 2002 by-election in the NSW seat of Cunningham, where he labelled the Greens' policies as "extremist" and said a Green win would cause job losses and "absolute disaster".

Finally, check out the Opposition Leader's position on tax cuts for those earning more than $80,000 a year.

We're done with Latham for the moment. Now, onto Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown. Consider his position on refugees, cited specifically on Brown's personal website as one of 12 Greens "campaigns" ...

The Greens in the Senate and House of Representatives continue to tackle the government on this issue and the inhumane treatment of all asylum seekers.

... and then on tax cuts:

In the forthcoming 2004-5 Budget, the Greens will again oppose tax cuts and will again argue for the redirection of the funds to education, health and the environment.

... and then wonder how Bob Brown, according to The Australian's Matt Price, yesterday cooed about Mr Latham as the prime-minister-in-waiting, statesmanlike and a breath of fresh air.

How things change. Like the rest of the Greens' agenda, the answer can be distilled down to two simple principles. Style over substance and Anyone But Howard.

Friday 19/03/04 | 01:24 AM
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Spot on

I AGREE with every single last word of this Michael Costello opinion piece. Its conclusion ...

Instead of arguing over whether, or how much, Australia's involvement in Iraq has increased the threat to Australia, Howard should simply tell Australians the sober truth.
That truth is that we face an enemy whose every word and deed shows it is uninterested in anything but complete surrender from those it regards as its enemies, of which Australia is one; that it will use indiscriminate terror against its enemies, and Australia is likely to suffer a heavy terrorist attack at some time, possibly close to the next election; that we cannot and will not surrender to terror, or the threat of terror; and that our people must unite for a long, wearing, grinding struggle to find, capture or, as a last resort, kill those who would kill us. This is the harsh truth of our times.

... should be read in conjunction with the rest of it.

Thursday 18/03/04 | 11:07 PM
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Nine out of 10 doctors recommend voting

DEMOCRACY makes you healthier, according to research spotted by Geoff Honnor.

Tuesday 16/03/04 | 11:20 PM
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Sport: socialism versus the market

I AM someone who tends to favour market solutions over state-planned decision-making in economics. Scott Wickstein feels likewise, but that moved Tim Dunlop to observe of the sports fan Wickstein:

Scott, as we know, tends to dress right politically, but like a lot sports fans seems to have an pronounced socialist streak when it comes to sport: extolling the virtues of community over individualism; accepting measures like salary caps to level the playing field between rich and poor clubs; supporting massive government subsidies for such things as the Institute of Sport, stadium construction, sporting scholarships and the like, not to mention regulation such as the anti-syphoning laws.

Scott offers a fairly robust defence in the comments to Tim's post:

I know your teasing, but you are also wrong- if you dig through the archives at Ubersportingpundit, you will find tirades and rants directed at salary caps, drafts, government funding of academies and stadium- I had forgotten to do one on the anti-syphoning list, but thanks for the reminder.

But the exchange got me thinking about my own support of equalisation policies — largely the salary cap and draft —
in AFL football. What follows is my contribution to Tim's comment box.

I support a salary cap/equalisation policy for AFL football, because it is, I believe, in the competition's best interests for teams to be in a position to be successful on roughly an equal amount of the time (in other words, the scoialist goal of equal outcomes). A consistently interesting competition from year to year demands that all fans of the sport go into the medium term having a reasonable belief that their team is some sort of chance, or will be in the near future, in my opinion. I have little doubt that if clubs like West Coast, Adelaide, Collingwood and Essendon were able to operate on a free-market competitive basis, they would dominate the competition as do Manchester United and Arsenal in English Football, or Rangers and Celtic in Scottish football.

This, however, would be bad for the game, in my view. While the standard/quality of the best teams is limited by salary caps and the draft, this doesn't really matter, because Australia isn't competing against other countries in the same sport. It's not like we have to win a World Cup of Aussie Rules, and therefore demand absolute peak optimal performance ("efficiency") that market forces would deliver.

At the same time, I hold the irrational and unprovable view that Aussie Rules is the greatest football code in Australia, and it is therefore in the game's interest that it survive and prosper in the rugby states. Therefore, I see the existence and viability of the Brisbane Lions and Sydney Swans (propped up by various AFL concessions) as demonstrably a good idea. In market economics terms, Sydney and Brisbane are inefficient industries that are being propped up by tariffs. But because the "efficiency" imperative is not there, I think the policy of equalisation best serves the objective of a broadly, nationally-based, roughly equal-outcomes competition.

So I guess to summarise, here is my justification for socialist policies in the AFL ...

1. The lack of international competition in AFL football means the efficiency imperative is removed.

2. My view that AFL football ought to be imposed on the northern states demands that inefficient teams are protected.

3. An equality-of-outcomes (at the expense of overall standard) is a desirable scenario to maintain spectator interest.

So there!

(By the way, Scott is absolutely right about European soccer operating on a free market basis. What happens is that the best-run teams (like the best-run companies) are perpetually succesful. This is a desirable scenario in economics, but not in sport, in my opinion.)

Tuesday 16/03/04 | 11:15 PM
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Teachers reject measurable, performance-based comparison

TEACHERS have reacted angrily to plans by the West Australian government to introduce standardised English and maths testing for all Year 9 students.
Education minister Alan Carpenter said the testing would provide parents with a more complete picture of their child's academic performance, as well as allowing comparison with other Year 9 students in WA.

But the State School Teachers Union has said the tests would be a waste of time and money, saying teachers were perfectly capable of assessing students' abilities without further testing.

"It's expensive of student time, it's expensive of teacher time, and it is going to cost millions of dollars to put into place and run," Australian Education Union WA president Mike Keely said.

And the fact that system-wide testing might put some pressure on underperforming schoolteachers has nothing to do with the Union's opposition. No, nothing at all.

Wednesday 10/03/04 | 08:52 PM
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Ethics and genetic medicine

AN EXCERPT from my newspaper's editorial today:

ONCE again a row has broken out over genetic medicine. And again there is much wringing of hands over perceived ethical dilemmas and anxieties about where science might be heading.
But the critical question at the centre of the issue is simply this: What kind of parents would be prepared to let their child die by forgoing possible genetic remedies? If a child faces death, the parents are entitled to look to the frontiers of medicine for a cure.

That's what this is all about. If the medical knowledge and technology are available to save lives and untold misery, then they should be used. That is the point of medical research and the advances that have been achieved.

Read the rest.

Wednesday 10/03/04 | 05:25 PM
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Politics: the game remains the same

I found a fascinating book at work the other day. Written by political scientist D. W. Rawson and published in 1966, it is entitled "Labor In Vain?"

The book, according to its author Rawson in his preface, "is a product of some 15 years of scrutiny … of the Australian Labor Party, one of the most distinctive products and shapers of Australian society".

I've only skimmed a few chapters, but the insight of parts of the third chapeter - called "The Place of the Politicians" - is remarkable not just in its insight, but in its currency nearly 40 years on.

How's this for a take on the current-day federal ALP's leadership woes under Simon Crean?

Though there have been many Labor parliamentary leaders who have had to face denigration, cabals and conspiracies or, at best, lack of enthusiasm and respect among their followers, there has frequently been an obvious explanation, if not justification, for this …
On both sides of politics, it may be said that no parliamentary leader will be followed indefinitely if his opinions are obviously unpopular within the party or if his leadership seems to result in continual defeat; but subject to this obvious proviso the leader will be followed not only willingly but gladly as long as he has many of the qualities of his supporters, preferably in an enhanced form.

The reverence in which modern day leaders - Whitlam, Hawke, Keating and even the latest Messiah Latham - are held by the Labor faithful is explained some six years before the first of them became prime minister:

The history of the ALP provides a striking example of the exultation and adulation of a leader to an almost pathological extent, in the career of J. T. Lang. If it be objected that enthusiasm for Lang was deliberately stimulated, and this after all is true of the support which nearly all political leaders receive, it follows that members and supporters of the ALP were notably susceptible to this kind of manufactured enthusiasm. Anyone trying to prove that Australians, and especially Labor Australians, usually denigrate and suspect their leaders would find it hard to substantiate his point from the careers of Fisher, Curtin and especially Chifley in the federal parliament …
… [T]he ALP has not been so hard on its leaders as its principal opponent has been.

The recent robust rhetoric of Latham - "arse licker", "incompetent and dangerous", "flaky", "I'm a hater" and the less-famous "Having a go at the ref, yelling abuse. It's part of the Australian way" - are all covered too:

On the Labor side, the essential attitude has been a kind of egalitarianism which may be better described as an indifference, or preferably a hostility, towards the values of the upper classes. These values have in the past included the imperial connection, elegant or elaborate dress and social fastidiousness. The Labor leader who eschewed such things not only avoided the suspicion which his followers felt for those in high places but had a fair chance of having himself idolised.

Dawson has Latham's aspirationals covered too, while eerily forshadowing Kim Beazley Snr's rumination on the cream of the working class and the dregs of the middle class:

[W]ith a continued loosening of class structure, a good deal of social climbing in a highly desirable sense and an increasing experience of and respect for higher education, the social range from which the ALP can draw its heroes is now a good deal wider than it was a generation ago; probably quite wide enough to include Mr Whitlam should he qualify in other respects.

There's even a topical take on pollies' pay:

Parliament still offers opportunities for social mobility, though not as much as in the past. It offers an income which at worst is high by the standards of manual workers and best is very substantial by any standard.

It's all very interesting, and suggests - as I suspect students of history (among whom I cannot claim to be) already know - that little is genuinely new in politics.

Monday 8/03/04 | 09:44 PM
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Ubersportingpundit domain down

SCOTT Wickstein's Ubersportingpundit and all associatied blogs, including Troppo Armadillo and Slattsnews, are displaying placeholder pages at the moment. It looks like someone might have forgetten to renew the domain?

UPDATE: Scott says he never received a renewal reminder but has since paid the bill. He hopes things will be back to normal by tomorrow.

Sunday 7/03/04 | 10:01 PM
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Sport and society

CHRISTOPHER Sheil has an interesting post up on the sociology of sport, particularly rugby league. Sheil, once a devoted league follower, writes:

It was awkward trying to follow the code in Perth. The games were replayed at odd hours, league hardly featured in the local media, and practically no-one talked about it. I stayed utterly loyal while I was away, as one does, and looked forward to resuming my customary interest when I got back. But funnily enough, when I returned to Sydney I found the games boring, and began resenting the time spent reading about it.
I guess it's possible that coincidentally the game got appreciably worse during those two years, and it didn't help when they changed the name of my team. But I think it's more likely that the habit had just been broken. My life had been de-leagued, and, try as I did, I couldn't re-manufacture the interest. I doubt that I've watched more than half-a-dozen games in the past 12 years.

Hard come, easy go; and this is the league's danger. The experience affirmed my belief that sports are profoundly socially based. While you can meet the occasional sports nut, who tends to follow almost all forms and codes, by and large I think we just follow the games we grow up with, and all those arguments everyone enjoys about the competing merits of different games are mainly rubbish.

No doubt someone has done a PhD on this somewhere, but extrapolating off the top of the head, I suppose that, just as being divorced from the social base that made the game relevant to me vanquished my interest, so once the more general social base of a sport declines, so too will the game at large.

There's plenty more interesting stuff in the rest of the post.

Sunday 7/03/04 | 09:58 PM
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Life in Gitmo

THE GUARDIAN'S James Astill has a wonderful yarn about two Afghan boys recently released from Guantanamo Bay (via Tim Blair).

Sunday 7/03/04 | 09:51 PM
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Australian Blogs

After Grog Blog
Anderson, Alan
Arthur, Don
Baillie, Rich
Bald Monkey
Bargarz
Bell, Angela
Bitchin’ Monaro Guide
Bizarre Science
Blair, Tim
Bovination
Bright Cold Day
Bunyip, Professor
Catallaxy Files
Corr, Robert
De Soto, Michael
Dunlop, Tim
Edwards, Steve
EvilPundit
Fat K Files
Gillett, Kev
Hanscombe, Norman
Jennings, Michael
Kelly, Stewart
Libertarian.org.au
Mangled Thoughts
Morgan, David
Morrow, James
News of the Day
Paul and Carl's
Quiggin, John
Russell, James
Sauer-Thompson, Gary
She Sells Sanctuary
Sheil, Christopher
Slattery, Bernard
Spin Starts Here Darl
Supermercado Project
Troppo Armadillo
Trotsky, Gummo
Tubagooba
Ubersportingpundit
Usurer, The
Whacking Day
Wickstein, Scott
Wog Blog
Wright, Paul
Yobbo's View
Zem

Australian Media

AAP
ABC
Age, The
Australian, The
Daily Telegraph
Herald Sun
News.com.au
Sydney Morning Herald
West Australian, The

International Blogs

Cosh, Colby (CAN)
Steven Den Beste (USA)
Green, Stephen (USA)
Harris, Andrea (USA)
Layne, Ken (USA)
Marshall, Josh (USA) Murray, Iain (GBR)
NZ Pundit (NZL)
Penny, Damian (CAN)
Reynolds, Glenn (USA)
See, Andrea (SIN)
Silent Running (NZL)
Staerk, Bjorn (NOR)
Welch, Matt (USA)

International Media

BBC World
CNN
Fox News
London Times
New York Times
Daily Telegraph
Washington Post

Clippings by category

Looking for cheap smokes and a carwash ...

Wednesday 31/03/04 | 10:31 PM Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | link

Community leader shows leadership

Monday 22/03/04 | 11:26 PM Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | link