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The surging interest in cricket in England is having an effect in Australia. The South Australian Cricket Association warned today that the England vs Australia Test due in late 2006 might well be sold out. At least 6,000 English visitors are expected for the match. And they immediately followed that up with yet another demand for government funding to expand the seating capacity of the Adelaide Oval. I am confused. Do I laugh now, or do I cry? September 23rd, 2005 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The other day I was driving round my local area of Adelaide when I noticed four youths sitting down on the pavement, a gap between each one, as police interrogated them for some reason. I thought it was curious; I thought it doubly curious when I returned ten minutes later and they were still there, still being interrogated by the local police. I would have thought that by then, the police station would have been more appropriate. But then the methods and means of the local police have always baffled me. I wonder what accents the police officers had. The South Australian police have found it hard going to find suitable local candidates so they are looking to hire British police officers to meet the shortfall. One thing that the British recruits might be surprised to find is that Australia does have a ‘class system’ and its most eloquent expression is in the way police treat members of the public. People who are clearly unemployed or blue collar factory workers, such as myself, will generally get a pretty raw deal in any dealings with the police and at the other end of the spectrum, members of the legal fraternity can claim special rights under the ‘Mates Act’, like this chap did. On one level, this story is an interesting example of globalisation at work. An organisation with specialist HR needs can now search for people from around the world. On another level, it is a warning, not least to any Brazillians in raincoats in Adelaide, to exercise caution. SA police are armed at all times on duty, and the State is not your friend. September 3rd, 2005 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
Australia is not famous for higher education. Indeed, “Australia” and “Higher education” would strike most people as an oxymoron in the “French Military Victory” class. Needless to say, the Australian Government has long tried to nudge Australia’s university system towards some sort of quality, and has permitted private Universities to be established. In addition, the government has encouraged students from overseas to pay their way through Australian universities, as a way for universities here to raise money. Recently, the government has also allowed Australians to enter universities by paying their own way. This move towards a more financially sustainable education system has not been well received by many members of the Australian academic ecosystem. One of whom has put together a rather amusing parody website which takes a humorous potshot at trends in Australian university education. Underling the parody is the normal assumtion that anything in the private sector must be inferior, and that any private qualification must obviously be worthless as it can be bought. But the site has caused a bit of a flurry of attention in various educational quarters in Australia, and one consultant has been tracking the progress of this satirical site. This recalls to me the time, long ago now, when I was studying like a demon in order to obtain the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) qualification, back in the dark days when networking involved lots of wires. As it was, I was dating a university student at the time and she was appalled that I had to acheive an 85% score to pass and obtain the qualification. She was doing sociology or something of that ilk in a Melbourne university and told me smugly that she only needed to score 55% to pass. Easy for her, but who do you think knew their subject better? After all, Cisco had a real stake in me being proficient in knowing how to use their product. Thanks to Professor John Kersey for alerting us to these sites. August 10th, 2005 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
It is hard to know what to make of this article, which seems to be pressing for an ID card system for Australia. Australian Prime Minister John Howard seems to be not so keen on the idea, but refuses to rule it out. More depressing is the quote from the chief of the Australian Defence Association calling for ID cards because terrorists do not like it:
Unfortunately this is fairly indicative of the quality of debate in Australia regarding security matters. (Hat tip- Tim Blair) July 14th, 2005 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Chen Yonglin, a Chinese diplomat with inside knowledge of his country’s large scale espionage activities within Australia, has revealed that the Chinese intelligence services sometimes ‘forcibly repatriate’ (i.e. kidnap) political enemies in Australia and bring them back to China. He has also just tried to defect in order to tell his story and has, with indecent haste, been refused political asylum within only 24 hours of asking for it. Why? Because too many members of the Australian ruling class are in the pockets of Chinese business interests and allowing Chen Yonglin to defect could cause the Chinese government to threaten lucrative trade deals with Australian companies. Our Australian Samizdatistas have often told me just how cynical and corrupt the people at the top of Australian politics are but I still find this deeply disturbing. These are shameful days down-under and I hope a lot of Australians are angry as hell. June 7th, 2005 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
An interesting email arrived in my inbox this morning. It was from Stephen Mayne, telling me, along with 5,300 other subscribers, that he and his wife had sold their e-magazine crikey.com.au for $A1 million. The interesting thing about this is the business plan that Mayne established. Although the website holds plenty of interesting articles about Australian politics, news, sports, media and business, the main effort that Mayne and his team put their energies into is the daily news email. Subscribers pay a fee, and in return, the daily email with between 15 and 20 news and gossip items come into their inbox. It is a gossipy sort of publication, but no more so then the mainstream Australian media, and it was at least a different point of view then the reliably statist points of view that are published in the mainstream Australian press. Although Mayne has given up control, he will still be contributing so I hope the ‘crikey.com.au’ spirit lives on, and I am pleased for Mayne personally. The man has worked incredibly hard over the last five years to build up his little niche in the Australian media. And it also gives hope to others that there is a long term viability to ‘new media’. You do have to work incredibly hard, and take risks, and you need a bit of luck. The only equivilent online publication I can think of is the Indian website Tehelka.com, which, after many adventures, seems to have made the transition from online to print media. (Samizdata magazine, anyone?). So well done to Mayne, and I hope he enjoys his new fortune to go with his more established fame. February 2nd, 2005 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
In case you get caught short Down Under, the Australian government has a website to help you. November 27th, 2004 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
None of us are getting any younger. This truth, long recognised, has finally dawned on the Australian government, and the media is in panic mode about the cost of it all. No wonder. Australia has a socialised medicine and health system, so the costs could well rise to infinity. At least we will be able to read about it because one of the few medical procedures in Australia that are not regulated to death is laser eye surgery. But there are none that are as blind as those who will not see. November 25th, 2004 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
So said re-elected Australian Prime Minister John Howard, in an interview on April 17 this year. (Audio here). While Howard is certainly America’s friend in the war against Islamic fundamentalism, you should actually be careful before assuming that he shares your position on much else. This is after all a man who once introduced a hypothecated income tax specifically for the compulsory purchase of people’s firearms. (Link via Tim Lambert.) October 11th, 2004 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, has called an election for October 9. So we get to choose once again between a fuzzy right-wing statism, or a ‘Blair wannabe’ statism. You will excuse me if I do not get ferociously excited about this choice. One of the worst things about Australian elections is the placards that political parties insist on hanging on street poles. At no other time of the year are any other organisation permitted to do this, but political parties do like their perks; inflicting an eyesore I call it. I am not going to vote – I will defy the State, and not vote. That is an offence which will cost me a parking ticket fine. It is actually also illegal for me to advocate not voting to other people as well. As to who will win, I think the ‘Blair Wannabe’ Party will win; I wrote about this back in June and nothing has happened since to make me change my mind. In the great scheme of things, this is a small matter but it will consume the local media and blogs here for the next six weeks. August 30th, 2004 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
Although Australia and the US have signed a free trade agreement, it is an imperfect document, with many exemptions on both sides. In Australia, there has been a loud campaign to have existing ‘local content’ rules for Australian television excluded, and this campaign has been successful. The ‘local content’ rules mean that a certain proportion of television programmes that are broadcast on Australian television must be locally made. The scrapping of this rule was an American objective in the free trade negotiations, as it meant that US television companies were restricted in their access to the Australian television market by what in effect is a quota. Australia resisted this; we should not have. Australian television has had local content rules for a long time, they provide that at least 55% of the programming on Australian television between 6am and midnight must be locally produced. This creates a local internal market for television, which is actually quite a cut-throat industry. The economies of scale mean that Australian television products are not cost-competitive, but they do rate well. → Continue reading: Cultural protectionists win in Australia August 4th, 2004 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
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