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John Quiggin 
I don’t think I’ve heard any discussion in the media anywhere, apart from Crikey!, regarding the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006, until today’s piece in the Age.
Scum, utter scum, the Howard government. This is an act of pure corruption on their behalf, and I cannot see how it could possibly be justified by any normal, reasonable person who cares for democracy in Australia.
I’d like some comments from Queenslanders, and people knowledgeable in the education bureaucracy, if you have the time.
A commenter of mine shared some information which, to say the least, rocked my socks off.
She said:
I asked her for clarification. This is part of the reply:
Now, to me, this doesn’t make sense. See the intention of the policy as stated in the first sentence. OK. Now read the rest of the quote, which seems to be saying – correct me if I’m wrong – that the “moderating” goes on within schools, rather than between schools?
Now if this is the case, how the hell does this policy achieve its stated aim of correcting disadvantage, if the top kids in the disadvantaged schools have their marks pulled down?
Call me naive, but I graduated from high school in 1974, and as far as I remember the score I earned was the score I earned. It wasn’t adjusted in any way. This was in Victoria, and I haven’t heard of any such penalty on high achieving students in Victoria. Does anyone know if this adjustment system is now adopted Australia wide? or is it just a Queensland thing
And can anyone explain to me how this is supposed to make the system more equitable? because I’m having serious trouble understanding it, myself. It caused my commenter to miss out on a her chosen career.
Wilful,
Having just outed myself as being fairly ancient (see HS graduation date above), I remember the Liberal party ad from the election which got the Whitlam government into power with the famous slogan “It’s Time”. It featured a naive, uneducated leftie voter wobbling about with a placard singing “It’s time for a change, it’s time…” whereupon Sensible Liberal voter rocks up with TEH WISDOM, the bit I remember is: “…Then, they’ll change the system, so you’ll never get them out!” (Animation of someone pulling on a door handle, Naive labor voter looks nervous)
Now the Libs are doing exactly that.
Helen, I too finished high school in 1974 and of all places, in the Queensland state system. The article is substantially correct but fortunately for me had little impact on my personal score. I agree, it is a confounding system but then what government policy has made sense anyway.
Wilful: I agree completely. This is dangerous and fraudulent power grab. Par for the course, unfortunately.
Spread the word about it.
But Crocodile, how is flattening out the scores within each school going to address disadvantage between schools? I mean, take a poor school here in Deer Park or Braybrook. So, according to my commenter, because there are a lot of very disadvantaged kids at those schools, if your kid goes there and gets a high raw result, his/her result is reduced by more than that of a kid at McRob or Geelong Grammar. how is that supposed to address inequity? Is there something I’ve missed? It seems to be designed specifically to increase inequity and boost the advantage of private schools.
I finished school in NSW in 1995. The way it worked for me was that your mark depended on two components. One was your results in the actual Higher School Certificate exams. These were the same for everyone so it was pretty straight forward. The other component was based on assessments throughout the year that consisted of assignments and class tests that were set by the teacher and were unique to the school. That assessment component was where all the adjusting between schools was required. You cannot really avoid adjustments between schools if you are going to have continual assesments throughout the year.
We used to try and figure out how the marks were adjusted all the time, but we never got a decent answer from our teachers about it. My guess was that nobody really understood how it worked, but the marks we got all seemed pretty fair, although I went to a decent sized city school.
One issue that is getting ignored here, despite the long discussions previously, is the US Supreme Court decision on Guantanamo. I guess this is because our host is on his holidays. If you want to join in the discussion on Catallaxy go there.
Prof. Quiggin cut off the (increasingly abusive) comments thread on the post “Servant Problem” before I could put up this link to a 23/6/06 article in the Wall St Journal. Apparently, a lot of the problems with US corporate pension funds is caused by heavy liabilities for management, not shopfloor employees. Here’s a sample (referring to GM):
“But there’s a twist to the automaker’s pension situation: The pension plans for its rank-and-file U.S. workers are overstuffed with cash, containing about $9 billion more than is needed to meet their obligations for years to come. Another of GM’s pension programs, however, saddles the company with a liability of $1.4 billion. These pensions are for its executives.”
Gordon,
“years to come� in actuarial terms does not cut it. If you want something close to the true story, try here.
It is not just the pensions – the real kicker here is the health benefits. If it were “only� 1.4 billion dollars it would not seriously hurt GM. It is the (at least) $31 billion in health and other liabilities, partially related to Delphi, that are probably a death sentence for the company.
In actuarial terms, it does not matter if the liability is a present one or one that does not have to be paid for many years from now – the fund must has the ability to pay all its debts, as and when they fall due, for it to be considered solvent.
Actually, permitting convict votes was already an abuse, compared to usual practice.
If you want an example of abuse, consider what waiving compulsion for older voters amounts to (bearing in mind those same demographic variations that the Age cites). It’s reminiscent of what Aristotle called a fraud on the public, when a Greek city state waived fines for the poor for not voting under the pretence of doing them a favour (actually, voluntary voting all round would be the ideal).
Australia already has a great many institutionalised abuses of this sort, even as compared with other democracies which are none too sound themselves.
Helen, the reason for the within-school moderation is that assessments at each school aren’t going to be the same, so you want to ensure that students at one school aren’t disadvantaged by a systematically more difficult assessment regime. For instance, Mr Jones at Random Disadvantaged Secondary College might make his assignments easier to encourage his often truent, disinterested students to actually do it. On the other hand, Ms Jones at Well-known, Well-off Grammar has to retain the school’s reputation for challenging work, and will set a harder assignment. Now, Jill Q. Average at RDSC ends up getting an A+; whereas her cousin James Q. Average at WWG comes home with a C (for that piece of work). Jill and James perform comparably on their exams at the end of the year, but coursework throughout the year contributes substantially to the end mark. Why should James be disadvantaged just because he went to a better school?
Obviously there’s going to be problems with any scaling whatsoever, and there’s going to be problems without. There’s problems with having different assignments at different schools, and there’s problems with having the same one. And the exact system will be different in different states and at different times, but we will never have the perfect system.
Wilful: I cannot agree more. Disenfranchisement for party political ends is abhorent irrespective of who it favours. I could not imagine the Fraser or Hawke/Keating administrations attempting such a thing; for all of their faults at least they were prepared to tolerate dissent (to varying degrees) both within the partyroom and the broader community. Unfortunately, modern conservatism possesses a wild authoritarian streak from which the Howard government is not immune. One can only hope that come the next federal election what remains of the franchised electorate will be sufficently motivated to use the ballot box as a a brake on Howard a cosinsipient imperial tendencies.
The moderation system in Queensland schools was introduced in 1970 for the grade 12 graduating class of 1973, of which I was unlucky enough to be a member. In its initial, pure, form it was an attempt to make all classes conform to the statistical bell-shaped curve, unfairly disadvantaging small classes of high performers and advantaging small classes of dunces. The author of this atrocity was a Professor Radford, about whom I can tell you nothing except that it was his report that led to the abolition of external examinations.
Hi Helen,
The assessment works very closely, but not _exactly_ like your friend described, and the difference is an important one.
There are basically two major assessment areas in Queensland senior grades. We don’t do HSC exams, as such. There is what they call Formal Assessment and the QCS test.
Because in Qld we don’t have a state-based curriculum, but rather let individual schools set curriculum, it’s very hard (as Alexander pointed out), to ensure standards are even. The department overcomes this by having teachers send away a student’s marks that are representative in that class of the other students getting that grade (typically, I believe, an A student, B student, C, so on). A board made up of other teachers from private and public schools meets and analyses these marks to ensure they are reflective of general standards – if they are not, the marks of the class will be effectively changed. Any student has the right to request that their work is sent away to the board (regardless of what principals, etc. may say). If the board finds their work is substantively better/worse, it will get changed.
So that’s how Formal Assessment (i.e, essays and subject exams) are standardised.
The QCS is (allegedly) a kind of general knowledge compendium assessment, of all the skills you shoudl have learnt in high school from grade eight. Students rock up, it goes for three days, and they complete a huge range of questions (e.g, when I graduated in 98, I had maths questions on the QCS, even though I hadn’t done maths in years 11 and 12).
Unlike Formal Assessment, the QCS _is_ standardised, and it’s very strict – teachers aren’t allowed to realyl help with questions or anything. Students complete the QCS, and the results are sent away to be marked anonymously (eliminating bias), and the results are tabulated for each school.
Because teachers mark on a general bell-curve, this (again, props to Alexander) means that schools whose students have all scored brilliantly on the QCS will have been marked harder, and this will bump them up (as your friend says: incrementally). And schools that have done badly, will be bumped down. So teachers discourage kids who will do badly or not go to uni to skip the QCS.
Phew! Sorry this is so long, but the key thing is –
a) it’s very standardised after all that
b) Your friend would have no idea how well those other kids did (and it’s _extremely_ unlikely they would have got 0/100, the test is really not that hard)
c) Your friend may not have seen what her school’s ranking was, and if she has found that information, it certainly doesn’t tell you what the difference between schools is, or how that percentage translates to actual marks
d) it’s very incremental, and it’s a real stress out when you are a young kid and you think your marks are going to effect you for the rest of your life. My advice is tell her to not stress about what she enrols in at all. Just get in there, get her GPA up for one semester (much easier than in school, and fairer), and then she can swap into whatever she likes, and get credit for the old units as an elective. 🙂
*Anyone, feel free to correct me if I’ve missed/misunderstood anything.
I would be interested in reaction to this article in the economist on whether company tax hurts the poor. It is based on this paper.
Andrew,
Thanks for the article. For anybody interested in a summary then page 25 of the paper outlines the authors findings and conclusions.
One thing missing from the papers general disussion about corporate tax rates is the process of capital formation. The paper seems to assume that there is a fixed pool of international capital and that it moves to the lowest taxing region (thus boosting wages within that region). I suspect that this is only a minor component of how corporate taxes diminish capital. More significant is the process by which capital is formed, in particular various forms of social capital (eg the leverage created for labour when it operates within a well structured firm, irrespective and separate to any physical capital involved). In my view corporate taxes don’t so much chase capital to other juristictions so much as dismember it locally.
The implications for these alternate narratives is significant. If there is a fixed pool of global capital that is just moving about, avoiding taxation by entering the lowest taxing juristiction, then we might fix the problem by having global government to disband corporate tax competition from the world. However if high taxation actually dismembers capital where-ever it is imposed then a single international corporate tax regime would actually be disastereous.
Regards,
Terje.
This week I was offered the opportunity to sign a petition sent by Kim Beazley to a church member that I know. I assume that such a petition was sent to many church groups.
Broadly speaking the petition said that the Internet is filled with cruel and nasty sex and violence (which is of cause true) and that ISPs should be forced to fix this problem.
A few things were amusing in the petition.
The petition said that this issue should be above politics and then suggested a political remedy (ie force ISPs to filter out the bad stuff). So much for being above politics.
It implied that X-rated pornography on the Internet was a big problem. Actually if it is a problem then the high street adult book stores of Sydney are also a big problem even though the Labor government in NSW and the state police don’t want to know anything about breaches of state laws in this regard. Also given that X-rated means that the video involves consensual adult sex with no violence I would have thought that X-rated was less of a worry than something like the nightly news from Iraq.
It said that something should be done to stop this stuff getting into schools. If it can be stopped I would be very surprised to find that schools are not already implementing such filtration technology.
Blocking nasty web sites would be pretty simple. It might be as simple as having ISPs offer an alternate set of DNS servers for their users to use. The DNS servers could exclude any entry for web servers that have been found to host nasty stuff. However a lot of non-nasty stuff would also get blocked in the process. And blocking porn in emails or porn in newsgroups would seem very technically difficult.
And even if software was smart enough to recognise genitals in an unacceptable orientation to one another then filtering based on such content recognition would still be no good for web sites starting with https that are fully encrypted.
In essence the petition is saying that it is hard to catch the bad guys (ie child pornographers) so lets go after some good guys (ISPs offering internet connections to Australians) so that we can be seen to be doing something.
It all reminds me of the slogan about no child living in poverty by 1990. Protecting the kiddies is such a nice idea.
I could not imagine the Fraser or Hawke/Keating administrations attempting such a thing – Cpl
Then you’ve got no imagination at all, Cpl. Even St Gough lowered the age of voting from 21 to 18 years out of partisan calculation.
Each of these governments would have done dirty stuff like this if they’d controlled the Senate. You only have to look at the alacrity with which Labor governments have embraced optional preferential and above-the-line voting to see this (IMO the first of these is a Good Thing, the second a Bad Thing, but the motives for both were purely partisan).
There’s a reason most Australians hold politicians of all shades in contempt.
Oh, and I agree with Terje – this moral panic about internet pr0n is complete bulldust, built on ignorance and fear (I teach my kids “never vote for anyone who tries to scare you”). Lefties and (classic) liberals should be side by side on this issue.
Of course, DD. Perhaps I should have emphasised that it was an ALP government that reduced the compulsion to vote for the older demographics.
OK, derrida derider, explain how the Bracks reforms of the Victorian leg Council benefit them, as opposed to democracy? As far as I can work out, they’re excellent reforms that benefit minor parties against the entrenched interests.
DD, are you seriously suggesting that 18-20 year olds should NOT have the vote? I guess we could ally yourselves with Kuwait on that one. The Whitlam reforms were a happy confluence of good policy and partisan interest.
The Hawke reforms were generally supported by both sides in the Senate. Above The Line Voting has turned out to have some very nasty consequences, but there were good reasons for introducing it at the time (an 11% informal vote in one Senate election – almost all people who tried to vote all the way through but stuffed up, rather than deliberate non-voters).
Howard’s moves in this regard are different. Some of them have legitimate cases, but most have zero support amongst academics or other parties – they are purely there to disenfranchise those who don’t vote Liberal.
StephenL, as I implied in the next para sometimes good policy and good politics coincide, and sometimes they don’t. My point was that it is politics, not policy, that usually determines electoral matters.
On above the line voting, it was very much a case of the major party machines conspiring with each other to stamp out independents, both within and without their parties – something that was commented on at the time. There were other possible ways of addressing the informal vote issue (optional preferential voting for one, but the coalition wouldn’t wear that for obvious reasons).
Not being Victorian I don’t know about Bracks, though it’s possible he’s playing a long game in the knowledge that Victoria is not a natural Labor state. But of course there are some precedents for self-denying ordinances (indeed, the origin of that phrase is in just such a case). It’s just that they are rare enough to be memorable. The most famous one in my lifetime was Steele Hall’s ending of the SA gerrymander.
I was only 24 hours from Melbourne…….
The extent of my contribution will be to drink beer and yell at the television but I’m ready. Bring on the State of Origin decider!
Wilful, Bracks’ changes to the Legislative Council need to be seen in light of the fact that this is the first (or second?) time in one hundred and fifty years that Labor have controlled both houses of Parliament, versus conservative dominance of the Council for almost all of the remainder. Bracks wasn’t trying to bring in good government at his cost, he was trying to stop Liberal/conservative domination in the future. Nor, I think, is the exact nature of the proportional voting system in the Council particularly great from a minor party position, I seem to recall thinking at the time (but can’t remember why now). Certainly, he wasn’t thinking of the benefits minor party presence in parliament can bring.
This is also shown by the fact that he’s disallowed the Council from refusing supply. If he was interested in good government, he would’ve welcomed the oversight.
Helen & Patrick, I should’ve mentioned but forgot to that I was describing the current Victorian system, which appeared to have some similar motivations. Still, when I was right in the Queensland system it is mostly co-incidence! (I was in either the first or second year (2002) to have the new VCE system with lots of in-school assement, and the teachers didn’t have much more of an idea of what was happening than the students did, so I might even be wrong in Victoria.)
“The Whitlam reforms were a happy confluence of good policy and partisan interest.”
AND
“Howard’s moves in this regard are different. Some of them have legitimate cases, but most have zero support amongst academics or other parties – they are purely there to disenfranchise those who don’t vote Liberal.”
Hmm, I reckon Howard might agree with general tenet of the first statement and just who was it wanted to raid the public purse to subsidise election campaigns? What a disaster that’s been for democracy. After all who needs all those pesky fundraising party members now? More trouble than they’re worth for the faction heavies.
Our parents had a very successful scaling method for students. It started in Intermediate and carried on to Leaving and Matriculation(Leaving Honours for real fossils) It was called statewide public examinations in all subjects and you were awarded A,B,C,D,E,F depending on the height you scaled.
Now you get most participated for falling down a crevasse!
You know it’s really amazing how academics in this country are so bloody pissed at the lack of interest in academic /scientific outcomes, when they’ve done their bloody darnedest to see that the only real scale of achievement nowadays is to be had in sports. Winners(jocks) are grinners and the tossers(geeks) can please themselves I suppose.
Helen, just a minor point. The system that you and others have problems with, was reviewed by Professor Nancy Vivanni in 1990 (approx) following the election of the Goss government.
The ‘system’ does not come under the control of the Education Department. Rather, it was the responsibility of the Board of Secondary School Studies. now called the Queensland Studies Authority. It is independent of the Department and, in theory, independent of Government.
It has wide support among educators.
Is it capable of manipulation? Of course! Is the Pope a catholic?
But, the system is on constant lookout for rorts. Nevertheless, value judgements will occur.
If you reallywant to pursue the issue, the best avenue is to take it up with the Authority.
Observa said “Our parents had a very successful scaling method for students. ”
My father who was an educationist in the first half of the last century always likened those whose only experience of education was as a consumer to army generals who are incapable of planning for anything but the last war they fought in.
The world is fast changing and pedagogy has to change with it.
The Observas of this world seem to be like the Bourbons: learning nothing and forgetting nothing.
You should try getting in front of a class of thirty or so 16 and 17 year olds and try to motivate them using ancient methods and tools. Don’t want to? I didn’t think so.
Thanks very much to everyone who replied to my questions. Much appreciated!
As a parent who has navigated the Queensland Y12, QCS, OP, Uni transition twice (and one more to go!) and as a Y12 to uni from 1970
I would make the following personal observations.
1 – Whilst the current process is more complex its breadth and depth of assessment methodologies makes it a much fairer method of individual student assessment compared to my ‘end of year’ exams
2 – Whilst the maths behind the school to school comparisons is complex significant deviations can be identified and corrections made.
3 – comments regarding the ‘private school ‘manipulation of QCS results by not allowing students who underperform to sit to improve the schools standing I believe are misleading – our children went ‘private’ my recollection was that in both instances and in 2 different schools, of the OP eligible students, 1 year was 99% and the other 98% sat QCS, however having said this I have heard of this ‘manipulation’ in both state and private schools.
4 – Based on my senior results from 1970 it is most likely that I would not have made the OP cut off necessary to study for the profession that, on the whole, I have enjoyed for 35 years and, would likely have found myself adding 3 additional years to my studies (untenable to my financially strapped parents) to attain my goal. However it is more likely that I would not have pursued the ‘upgrade’ so my future could have been quite different.
5 – When we see a system that can appear to dash the dreams of youth so early we get emotional and look for blame at the closest point – “the school failed”, “the system is corrupt”, “universities are elite” etc.
However leaving aside students who are genuinely ‘non academic’at the time of Y12 assessment, the reason students miss out on a Uni place now (as opposed to the Horn of plenty of the Gough Whitlam era – for which I will forever be grateful) is not because of a failure in the QSA/QCS method but because of unnecessarily high OP cut offs due to the limited availability of program places as a result of inadequate funding of tertiary education by the federal government. This lack of funding has forced perfectly capable students into TAFE or 1st year undergraduate ‘upgrade’ paths. The additional financial burden is not just felt by the student but by the community as a whole due to the loss of productivity and additional parental support.
So what do we make of this. Well I for one will vote for a party which enunciates a policy desire to see every Australian with the highest attainable educational qualification achievable, irrespective of social or economic status, for the lowest HECS if any.
Why – because that’s 1st world future thinking.
The problem with the system Observa refers to is that your life was effectively determined by 5 three hour exams. If you had a bad day for a couple of them, no uni. Not to mention if you were just bad at exams but good at things like essays or practical experiments in a more real world context. I met one woman who’s mother died a week before her first year 12 exam. Not surprisingly her marks were pretty bad, but she had done well enough on the assessment through the year to get into her third or fourth choice.
I have deep problems with much of the way current assessment is conducted, and Helen’s points are particularly significant, but it doesn’t do to idealise the old system.
The International Energy Agency has released a report entitled “Energy technology perspectives: scenarios and strategies to 2050”. The press release says:
‘Energy Technology Perspectives is part of the Agency’s response to the call from G8 leaders at their Summit in Gleneagles in July 2005 for the IEA to advise on alternative scenarios and strategies aimed at a “clean, clever and competitive energy futureâ€?. Running up to the St. Petersburg G8 summit the study presents a series of scenarios to demonstrate the role energy technologies that are already available or under development can play in future energy markets. “We find that clean and more efficient technologies can return soaring energy-related CO2 emissions to today’s levels by 2050 and halve the expected growth in both oil and electricity demandâ€?…’
Be nice to read it, but they want 100 Euros.
Howard’s electoral changes are excellent news – there is no good reason why prisoners should be allowed to vote for legislators (a massive conflict of interest to be sure), and my only beef is that MORE groups aren’t going to be excluded from the franchise. I’d start with public servants and welfare recipients, but given a few minutes with a felt-tip pen and some butcher’s paper, I’m sure I could brainstorm some more. The real reason that the “academics” oppose this is because their tax-thieving interests are served by having more mendicants on the voting rolls, voting for tax-thieving parties such as the Greens.
Using similar logic, anyone who is fundamentally opposed to the roles of government shouldn’t be entitled to vote for ’em.
I’m not sure where you pulled that from, but I suppose you thought it sounded clever. What you are really saying is that anyone who doesn’t support any particular existing government programme should be excluded from voting. That is a monumentally ridiculous, arbitrary, statement, and as far as counter-theses go is in no way as logically sustainable as the original contention that those who pay for the government (on net) should, on moral grounds, be exempt from the coercive whims of those who don’t – especially as the latter can and will deploy aggressive force to mulct the former almost ad infinitum.
Interesting point of view Steve Edwards. I would think that the motivation behind taking away prisoner’s rights to vote is to further punish them. That they could possibly infleunce the outcome of elections in their favor seems implausible. The amount of “tax theiving” as you call it is determined by the political party in power. If you have an problems with the amount of tax you are paying( including GST) I suggest you take this up with the Liberal party. There is not going to be a Green’s government the near future.
True, Bill, true. The Liberal Party is an evil organisation that is centralising government and destroying our freedoms. I’ll pay that. Death to the Liberals!
Steve Edwards remarked (5/7/06 5:13pm):
That’s kind of odd: I came to the exact opposite conclusion. Economically speaking, if you are forced (indeed legislated) to consume public goods, voting provides an (imperfect) way to allocate those public goods that you must consume. If you prevent prisoners from voting, then aren’t you going to create an even more imperfect allocation of resources?!?
those who pay for the government (on net) should, on moral grounds, be exempt from the coercive whims of those who don’t …
So, you want a return to the C19th system where the franchise depended the person’s economic circumstances. In those days, it was property ownership. In your case, it would be not being either dependent on social security payments, or in other ways not a net beneficiary of the social security / government payments system. I reckon this would exclude quite a few farmers these days with the drought – wonder what that would do to voting patterns in Liberal electorates?
No, Helen, that’s not how it worked in the 19th century. Even within one country, there was much local variation. The first Reform Act in the UK actually disfranchised some people, by imposing a uniform property limitation even on people who had the vote by virtue of inheriting their ancestors’ votes.
The ideal reform policy would have been, promote people into that stake in society that property ownership was considered a proxy for. To see how “universal franchise” could go horribly wrong, see how the movement away from a property qualification in fact led to apartheid and race based systems in places like South Africa where concepts of identity and belonging by virtue of connection didn’t work out so happily as in the UK.
The analogue here in Australia is the progressive barring of people remaining within the self-identification of a British connection.
The Independent (UK newspaper) on 5/6/06 revealed that BHP BIlliton tried to gain access through the American occupying forces in Iraq to the Halfayah oilfield.The article is below. Astonishingly, this matter seems to have got no media exposure in Australia at all.
” By Saeed Shah
Published: 05 July 2006
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former foreign secretary, undertook to lobby the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, in an attempt to land a lucrative oil contract in Iraq for BHP Billiton, according to evidence given to a public inquiry in Australia.
In the most blatant evidence to so far emerge about Western businesses jockeying for a slice of Iraq’s oil wealth, the Anglo-Australian group BHP Billiton drew up a plan for getting access to the huge Iraqi Halfayah oilfield just weeks after outbreak of war in 2003.
BHP Billiton held a secret meeting in May 2003 in London with Sir Malcolm – who has worked as a consultant to the company since 1997 – and Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign minister, to discuss how best to convince the Americans that BHP Billiton should be handed the Halfayah field in southern Iraq.
The evidence came to light as part of a Royal Commission inquiry started late last year in Australia to examine any involvement of the country’s businesses in breaching the sanctions that were in place against Iraq before the war. According to the minutes of the meeting, Shell, the oil giant, and Tigris Petroleum, a joint venture set up by BHP Billiton and some of its former executives, were also interested in “securing the Halfayah field investment”.
The minutes, which were taken by Australian government officials and labelled “Confidential”, note: “Sir Malcolm emphasised that it was critical to register the BHP Billiton/British Dutch [Shell]/Tigris interest early with the US administration… It was a good claim and required lobbying – including from the Australian government – in Washington.”
The document said that BHP Billiton had briefed the office of Australia’s Prime Minister adding, “it has only just started lobbying in the UK but intended to approach Downing Street and the DTI [Department of Trade and Industry]”.
The minutes said “Sir Malcolm would be seeking an appointment with Vice-President Cheney when the opportunity arose”. And Mr Downer, who is still Foreign Minister, “agreed he would raise the matter both in Washington and in Baghdad with Paul Bremer [the US administrator of Iraq]”.
BHP Billiton was keen on Halfayah because it had spent years in clandestine negotiations with Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1990s over developing the oilfield, the document said.
Greg Muttitt, of the campaigning group Platform, said: “The idea seems to be that, all you have to do to get oil contracts in Iraq is register your interest with the Americans. This is a shocking way to operate. It should be up to the Iraqis to award contracts, not an occupying force. We’ve heard all the denials from Blair and Bush that this war was about oil. And here we have Rifkind saying he’ll arrange it through the Americans.”
Sir Malcolm, who was foreign secretary from 1995 to 1997 and is now MP for Kensington and Chelsea, said yesterday that he had no recollection of promising to take BHP Billiton’s case to Mr Cheney, though it was “entirely possible” that BHP Billiton was seeking to influence US opinion.
Sir Malcolm said that he has had no contact with Mr Cheney in recent years, except in 2001, when he met Mr Cheney with BHP Billiton colleagues. He also said that he had no knowledge of any contact between the company and the Iraqi regime in the 1990s.
A spokesman for BHP Billiton said: “We take the evidence given during the [UN] Oil For Food Inquiry very seriously and BHP Billiton is extremely concerned about the issues relating to BHP in the Royal Commission.” BHP has set up its own internal inquiry.
there were recent discussions re: whether america can sustain deficits of $800 billion, which is nearly 7% of GDP.
so i though this article which is a tad over-excited entitled “Is Cheney Betting On Economic Collapse?” might interest a few people
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07052006.html
exerpt
“Cheney has invested heavily in “a fund that specializes in short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. The third is protected against inflation.”
Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond fund which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar.”
Interesting change from “no taxation without representation” to “no representation without taxation”. It would provoke one really interesting set of protests on the streets.
I think that prisoners should lose their liberty (a tautology), however I think that taking away their voting franchise makes a police state just that little bit easier to implement. I oppose that aspect of the electoral reform that removes the right of prisoners to vote and I see little merit in the rest of the electoral reforms. A more meaningful reform would have been to remove compulsory voting. Following these reforms Joe Average will still be forced to vote (or at least compelled to turn up) whether he wants to or not but Mr Burglar will be forced not to vote.
Regards,
Terje.
P.S. What electorate do prisoners currently vote in; is it the one in which the prison resides?
An interesting question indeed! The “Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Prisoner Voting and Other Measures) Act 2004” implemented the effect that prisoners serving a sentence are now prohibited from enrolment and voting if they are serving a sentence of three years or more (the amendments would have applied to prisoners serving a sentence continuously from the return of the writs for one election to the issue of the writs for the next election, but could not effectively be implemented). (From the AEC website.)
Furthermore:
Prisoners serving a full-time sentence of imprisonment are entitled to enrol but not to vote.
Prisoners serving sentences of periodic detention, on early release, or on parole, are entitled to enrol and vote.
If you are currently enrolled, you are entitled to remain on the roll at the address where you were enrolled before you started your prison sentence. However you should advise your Divisional Returning Officer that you are absent from your enrolled address to make sure you are not removed from the roll in error.
If you were not enrolled when you started your prison sentence and you are eligible, you can enrol at the address where you were entitled to be enrolled before you started your sentence (this will usually be the address where you were living at that time) or, if that is not possible, where one of your next of kin is enrolled, or, if that is not possible, where you were born, or, if that is not possible, where you have the closest connection. (Again, from the AEC website .)
Sad news. David Heidelberg is dead (via Barista).