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