Over the last few months, I've attempted to engage in a number of debates on the ABC's "The Drum" opinion site. The experience has been rather educational, but not in a good way.Many of my comments have been "moderated", though the right word would be censored. The main offender would be articles by Tim Dunlop, who seems rather defensive about criticism. In fact it took quite a few articles before my first comment was published, even after complaints to a variety of feedback mechanisms within the ABC.
The predominant comments "preferred" by his "moderators" would appear to be fawning praise, usually inclusive of personal attacks on any Labor critics. His latest article http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2899052.html is a masterpiece of abject stupidity. He fully supports an attack on a free press, in this case because they have the temerity to question his favourite political party, but in the midst of his "deep reasoning on media ownership" decides to point out how "evil" the Murdoch press is because they keep calling the Carbon Tax ... a Carbon Tax. He prefers thinking about it as a "speeding fine".
I suspect that the censorship of comments are just a measure of how weak his arguments really are.
I'll be publishing a number of Drum and Drummer posts that track some of the more ridiculous ABC "opinion" pieces. I expect Mr Dunlop to get quite a lot of airplay.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Can our politicians understand scientific arguments
After a conversation with a friend about the difference between Chinese politicians and our own, I've decided to survey our House of Reps politicians to see how they compare.
In China, 80% of politicians come from an engineering/science background. Lawyers and the non-technically trained are mostly overlooked for leadership roles. Attention to details is paramount.
I've gone through the first 55 of our own politicians (alphabetically) and it's not looking good so far. 17 are lawyers (most haven't practiced - they became "advisors").
19 have no tertiary qualifications and the bulk of the rest have done an economics, business or arts degree. Only 3 are engineers - mechanical and design, one never actually worked in his field (union officer).
Another quite startling thing I've noticed is the high percentage of Labor members who rose up through the ranks ... uni student in a soft arts degree, then a first job as a ministerial advisor.
I can't imagine what sort of quality advice those ministers received from someone with no experience outside an soft Arts degree.
I'll work through the rest of the list and do some further analysis.
I may spend some time working through the failed candidates from the 2010 election. I remember looking into this a while back and seeing what appeared to be a strange pattern of employment.
Uni, State Labor advisor, quit, run for parliament, fail, return to State advisor role, repeat.
(quite a few skip the Uni step)
Seems like a tax payer funded training camp for future Labor politicians allowing them as much time as required prior to a campaign. This doesn't seem like a very positive thing for a vibrant democracy.
In China, 80% of politicians come from an engineering/science background. Lawyers and the non-technically trained are mostly overlooked for leadership roles. Attention to details is paramount.
I've gone through the first 55 of our own politicians (alphabetically) and it's not looking good so far. 17 are lawyers (most haven't practiced - they became "advisors").
19 have no tertiary qualifications and the bulk of the rest have done an economics, business or arts degree. Only 3 are engineers - mechanical and design, one never actually worked in his field (union officer).
Another quite startling thing I've noticed is the high percentage of Labor members who rose up through the ranks ... uni student in a soft arts degree, then a first job as a ministerial advisor.
I can't imagine what sort of quality advice those ministers received from someone with no experience outside an soft Arts degree.
I'll work through the rest of the list and do some further analysis.
I may spend some time working through the failed candidates from the 2010 election. I remember looking into this a while back and seeing what appeared to be a strange pattern of employment.
Uni, State Labor advisor, quit, run for parliament, fail, return to State advisor role, repeat.
(quite a few skip the Uni step)
Seems like a tax payer funded training camp for future Labor politicians allowing them as much time as required prior to a campaign. This doesn't seem like a very positive thing for a vibrant democracy.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Will the Carbon tax work?
Another day has passed, and once again the quality journalists in the Canberra press gallery spend their time trying to figure out how to make the opposition leader the focus of their venom. They have forgiven the Prime Minister for deliberately misleading the electorate just prior to the election, some are even portraying her malfeasance as "strength" and "standing up for something".
There was a time (perhaps long since gone) where standing up for something meant that you were willing to stick to your principles, regardless of the personal cost. The time for the PM to "stand for something" was prior to the election, where she could have made it clear that she believes in catastrophic AGW, and is willing to impose a living standard changing tax to alter the behavior of the Australian people. She instead chose a path of expediency, as she does now with her negotiations with the Greens.
So why do the Canberra press gallery acquiesce? Apart from their entrenched bias, they actually believe a Carbon Tax is necessary to avoid catastrophic AGW. This of course shouldn't get in the way of them doing their jobs as journalists, but as we have observed from the PM, leftists seem to have a problem with principles.
Now the really sad part of this whole mess is that these same journalists haven't stopped to ask the most basic question - What effect is this tax going to have on CO2 production in Australia?
This should of course lead to the corollary - Is the cost worth the expected benefit?
These are basic questions that should be asked about any government policy - Will it meet the stated goals, and if so, is it the most effective way to achieve those goals?
As far as I can tell, no journalist has asked these questions and certainly no government spokesperson has answered them directly.
My suspicion is that the answers are embarrassing to both the Govt and the Greens, since the effects are likely to be negligible in terms of CO2 production (not counting any manufacturing that relocates to another country).
Assuming that a 5c a litre increase in petrol prices will have negligible change to our habits (since petrol use has increased despite doubling in price over the last 20 years), and that the state government based electricity generators are unlikely to be swayed by a $26/tonne coal tax (since the bulk of their consumers will be compensated for increases), how much effect on CO2 production will this tax have?
The next question is of course - If this tax is ineffective at this current rate, how high will it need to go to have an effect?
There was a time (perhaps long since gone) where standing up for something meant that you were willing to stick to your principles, regardless of the personal cost. The time for the PM to "stand for something" was prior to the election, where she could have made it clear that she believes in catastrophic AGW, and is willing to impose a living standard changing tax to alter the behavior of the Australian people. She instead chose a path of expediency, as she does now with her negotiations with the Greens.
So why do the Canberra press gallery acquiesce? Apart from their entrenched bias, they actually believe a Carbon Tax is necessary to avoid catastrophic AGW. This of course shouldn't get in the way of them doing their jobs as journalists, but as we have observed from the PM, leftists seem to have a problem with principles.
Now the really sad part of this whole mess is that these same journalists haven't stopped to ask the most basic question - What effect is this tax going to have on CO2 production in Australia?
This should of course lead to the corollary - Is the cost worth the expected benefit?
These are basic questions that should be asked about any government policy - Will it meet the stated goals, and if so, is it the most effective way to achieve those goals?
As far as I can tell, no journalist has asked these questions and certainly no government spokesperson has answered them directly.
My suspicion is that the answers are embarrassing to both the Govt and the Greens, since the effects are likely to be negligible in terms of CO2 production (not counting any manufacturing that relocates to another country).
Assuming that a 5c a litre increase in petrol prices will have negligible change to our habits (since petrol use has increased despite doubling in price over the last 20 years), and that the state government based electricity generators are unlikely to be swayed by a $26/tonne coal tax (since the bulk of their consumers will be compensated for increases), how much effect on CO2 production will this tax have?
The next question is of course - If this tax is ineffective at this current rate, how high will it need to go to have an effect?
Sunday, February 27, 2011
A sense of proportion
The government is imposing a "disaster levy" to help pay for the rebuilding of infrastructure that the QLD State Labor Government didn't insure. Their estimate is $5.6B, which should be put in proportion.
Rebuilding the flood affected parts of Australia's third largest city, and a number of major regional towns along the QLD coast is going to cost roughly a third of the price that this government paid for school halls and tuck shops.
Yup, the school halls policy has wasted the equivalent of 3 major natural disasters.
Rebuilding the flood affected parts of Australia's third largest city, and a number of major regional towns along the QLD coast is going to cost roughly a third of the price that this government paid for school halls and tuck shops.
Yup, the school halls policy has wasted the equivalent of 3 major natural disasters.
The Carbon tax you were promised ...
Gosh we are a lucky country, we are going to fix global warming, apparently through the imposition of a tax. It was such a good idea, the Labor party decided to keep it a secret in the lead-up to the last election. I guess they were afraid someone else might steal their policies.
So what do we know about the tax?
Not much, just like all other Labor policies, they are released without details. This allows them to do lots of hand-waving about the benefits, but not allow any scrutiny.
It is a great approach that works well with the super-intelligent left-leaning journos that prefer their investigations to be handed to them in a govt. press release.
Apparently it works by putting a price on carbon, which will necessarily increase all prices. But not to worry, because our wonderful government is going to give us all that tax back in compensation (well maybe not quite all of it).
Now this is supposed to add "certainty" and make all those power generators switch to renewables. And according to PM Gillard, it will stop us from "being left behind".
I don't quite understand how a new totally undefined tax is supposed to provide certainty. I don't understand how you are supposed to make any investment decisions when the new tax is already being mooted to increase. I don't understand why companies would want to switch to renewables when their consumers are going to be compensated for price rises.
The most bizarre thing is that most power generators in Australia are state government owned. They are run by Labor governments and presumably they all believe in AGW, and yet they haven't bitten the bullet on renewables. Could it be that renewables are expensive and unreliable?
And to complete the trifecta of lies from Labor, why is not choosing a high cost energy path "being left behind"? Our major trading partners are not bringing in these types of taxes, and they will continue to burn the coal and gas that we sell them, but which we are choosing to deny or own industry.
If anyone can explain this madness, I'm listening.
So what do we know about the tax?
Not much, just like all other Labor policies, they are released without details. This allows them to do lots of hand-waving about the benefits, but not allow any scrutiny.
It is a great approach that works well with the super-intelligent left-leaning journos that prefer their investigations to be handed to them in a govt. press release.
Apparently it works by putting a price on carbon, which will necessarily increase all prices. But not to worry, because our wonderful government is going to give us all that tax back in compensation (well maybe not quite all of it).
Now this is supposed to add "certainty" and make all those power generators switch to renewables. And according to PM Gillard, it will stop us from "being left behind".
I don't quite understand how a new totally undefined tax is supposed to provide certainty. I don't understand how you are supposed to make any investment decisions when the new tax is already being mooted to increase. I don't understand why companies would want to switch to renewables when their consumers are going to be compensated for price rises.
The most bizarre thing is that most power generators in Australia are state government owned. They are run by Labor governments and presumably they all believe in AGW, and yet they haven't bitten the bullet on renewables. Could it be that renewables are expensive and unreliable?
And to complete the trifecta of lies from Labor, why is not choosing a high cost energy path "being left behind"? Our major trading partners are not bringing in these types of taxes, and they will continue to burn the coal and gas that we sell them, but which we are choosing to deny or own industry.
If anyone can explain this madness, I'm listening.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Liberal Thinking
While I've never joined nor been a donor to the Australian Liberal Party, over the past 35 years, I've been an active follower of politics in Australia and much of the rest of the world. Over this time, my political leanings have veered further towards what I consider to be fairly common ground for Liberal voters, namely individual responsibility, smaller less and intrusive government, equality of opportunity (not outcomes) and a rejection of middle-class welfare.
These basic areas of belief seem to run against the main underpinnings of Labor politics, so it is hardly a stretch to find that much of what Labor does or proposes makes me shake my head in wonder. My thoughts on the Greens are best kept to myself lest I fall foul of my own posting rules.
My plan is to post regularly, on Australian national topics, state politics and general or world events. While I will never censor a post for holding views that run contrary to mine (in fact I look forward to well thought out debate), I will edit out profanity, ad hominem attacks and spam. Where these (non-spam) posts have been edited, the complete content will be available in a "edited posts" thread, so that editing shenanigans so common on the web do not occur here.
So let's talk politics, let's not make it personal but by all means make your points as forcefully as you want.
These basic areas of belief seem to run against the main underpinnings of Labor politics, so it is hardly a stretch to find that much of what Labor does or proposes makes me shake my head in wonder. My thoughts on the Greens are best kept to myself lest I fall foul of my own posting rules.
My plan is to post regularly, on Australian national topics, state politics and general or world events. While I will never censor a post for holding views that run contrary to mine (in fact I look forward to well thought out debate), I will edit out profanity, ad hominem attacks and spam. Where these (non-spam) posts have been edited, the complete content will be available in a "edited posts" thread, so that editing shenanigans so common on the web do not occur here.
So let's talk politics, let's not make it personal but by all means make your points as forcefully as you want.
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