It’s time, once again for the Monday Message Board. As usual (in fact, more so than usual), civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
49 thoughts on “Monday message board”
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John Quiggin 
So Labor won’t be abolishing AWAs should they win the next election, according to what Beazley said yesterday on Sunday. If the trade unions had any brains they would disaffiliate tomorrow!
Reflecting on Harry’s questions re stockpiling anti-viral drugs and whether Abbott is trying to put people off buying while trying to build government stocks. I would hope so. Abbott has to consider an avian flu outbreak in the light of the following.(Lateline)
“Well, it was a scenario drawn from a US document published a few years ago. But basically, what happened was that the disease spread more or less uncontrollably from country to country as people travelled. Eventually it took hold in the United States. Medical facilities couldn’t cope and there was widespread social breakdown, as people abandoned their posts concerned about their health. Now this is a pretty scary scenario, and just so people don’t think it is entirely in the realm of science fiction – back in 1919, Australia had a Spanish flu pandemic outbreak and that killed some 13,000 Australians, in a then population of about 4 million and at different times in the first half of 1919, schools were closed, churches were closed, places of public gathering were off limits. Normal life had pretty much ceased in large parts of Australiaâ€?
Then they didn’t have to deal with limited supplies of treatments and vaccines as well.
While not wishing to sound harsh, governments filling warehouses in preparation for anticipated disasters can be called stockpiling. Individuals doing so may be called hoarding. And this approach from individuals works only while it is behaviour limited to a very few. If it became widespread I would suggest that the various authorities would have to move to make prophylactic prescribing not allowable. And that would have to apply to prominent doctors also.
Harry has in a way made a triage decision in nominating who it is that he would stockpile for. Would say something about the Australian family. Who just looks to protect the nuclear family and who feels that they need to look out for the elderly parents etc. also.
Which leads me to thoughts re Canada for example. Harry (Sorry Harry) has decided that his children take precedence over say policeman or teachers. As I understand Australia’s approach is that we are looking to protect essential workers and assist other countries in that respect. Canada it seems has ambitions to cover its entire population.
Abbott also said,
“Well, I don’t think people should suddenly be rushing to their pharmacist to buy antivirals. First of all the supply in pharmacies is very limited and second, the quantity required to protect yourself for the duration of a pandemic is simply not going to be there, other than for emergency workers in limited numbers in the government stockpile.â€?
We are therefore looking at this point at working out who should get the drugs or vaccine if it is developed. Canada is putting itself in the situation I would suggest of having to work out who wouldn’t get the drugs or vaccine. The demented elderly, prisoners, then healthy adults versus the sick or children?
Having considered the matter I suspect I would miss out whichever situation we were in. Oh well.
MB – I don’t think it is surprising – there are some people on AWAs who have a got a sweet deal and would like things to stay that way. The important thing is freedom of choice – workers should have a choice between AWA/EBA, and not be forcefed something they don’t necessarily want.
not long now until football fans will find out whether we make it to Germany for the World Cup, easily the biggest sporting event in the world.
Australia looked good against Jamaica. There was as Craig foster said good organisation particulalry in attack.
IF we get back some critical people from injury such as Moore and Kewell life is looking good.
It does show with a damned good coach we would have been there long ago unfortunately we didn’t have the cash.
An interesting piece in the Editorial of the Australian talking about how genereous Australians have become lately.
It kind of puts the lie to the notion that Australians have become narrow self serving materialistic individualists. It seems that there has been an expansion of Civil Society.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16865773%255E7583,00.html
EXTRACT:-
A new report on philanthropy, commissioned by the Government from the Australian Council of Social Service, further reveals the picture of ordinary Australians promulgated among the moral middle-class for the hideous caricature it is. Far from having fallen away during the Howard ascendancy, Australia’s culture of reaching out to those less fortunate has thrived. With a total of $11 billion now donated to charities each year by individuals and business, we are giving almost twice as much in absolute terms, and 60 per cent more in real terms, than was the case in 1997. This bounty is flowing to non-profit organisations large and small, from international aid agencies through to local sporting and recreation groups. Arts and cultural organisations, it is true, rank low on the charitable priorities of individuals. But the gap there is made up by business, which donates almost one in 10 of its philanthropic dollars to the arts. And Australians are no less generous with their time than their money, almost doubling their commitment to volunteering since 1995.
Ros, I think you are right — buying for a family does display a certain selfishness. So too does eating meat and bread when the same resources could be used to feed those in greater need. Or consider medical treatment.
Of course reducing private demands will provide disincentives to produce more anti-virals but I assume capacity constraints operate.
I will rethink my position on the basis of your well-argued view that collectively people seeking to privately take care of their families are in fact acting immorally by denying supplies to emergency workers.
An interesting article on Public Private Partnerships and the calibre of the deals done by the monkeys in Macquarie St.
“Let’s not forget what happened to the first major project, the M2, which began operation in May 1997, and cost $650 million to build. Earlier this year, after eight years of operation, the M2’s owner, the Hills Motorway Group, sold the tollway to Transurban. The price was $2.07 billion.
That’s a tidy $1.42 billion appreciation over the cost price eight years ago. This superb capital gain was based on the secure revenue flow provided by toll-paying motorists, who are already taxpaying voters.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/paul-sheehan/the-new-tarts-of-william-street/2005/10/09/1128796406649.html
Beating Jamaica at soccer is like beating Brazil at cricket.
Terje,
But how much of that increase is due to increased generosity and how much to an increase in perceived need?
Does the reported figure include the large donatiosn given in response to the first Bali Bomings and/or the Asian Tsunami?
On the other hand, the figure on volunteer activity has always shown quite high levels in Austrralia and it’s increased in recent years.
Dave,
They were higher in the ratings!
It is how they played that mattered.
On further reflection Harry, my circumstances are that I only have an adult offspring who doesn’t currently live in Australia, no grandchildren, a mother whose dementia has reached the stage where I might be able to persuade myself that avian flu was a blessing, but we have private health insurance. While that doesn’t necessarily mean that we would distort the allocation of resources in an epidemic, it does mean that we probably assist in distorting the delivery of health services in the long term.
Doctors writing scripts for their families I have a problem with. How many are stockpiling.
Ian Said: Terje, But how much of that increase is due to increased generosity and how much to an increase in perceived need?
Response: I don’t actually know the answer. However if we were beating back the state in the area of welfare and we found that Civil Society was stepping in to fill the void due to perceived need then I would still cheer. Ultimately I would rather live in a world where welfare was a product of individual charity and community spirit and participation than one where the strong arm of the state was engaged to force income and/or wealth redistribution.
The trouble with charity, is that people end up begging.
“Please madam lady almoner, can I have a blanket for to keep my children warm?”
“Well, aren’t you the nasty neglectful mother. How did you spend that shiny shilling we gave you last week?”
“I bought myself a pasty marm, when I could have brought gruel and saved some pennies.”
“Then you must say sorry to Jesus for your feckless ways, and we will ask his Lordship if he will give a blanket to an ungrateful woman like yourself.”
Dickens had it down. There’s a long history of polemic, research and bitter experience that lies behind the notion that social services are a right and not to be earnt.
There is a huge issue of historical amnesia behind the idea that charity is somehow “better” than government.
You couldn’t find any to link to though obviously, if your silly little story is anything to go by.
I’ve just been reading a most frightening book “The Monster at Our Door”by Mike Davis,a US research,who tells the story of the 10 year long battle to hold the avian flu at bay,and the terrible prospects of a pandemic if the virus mutates . A virus of “terrible lethality”. Davis links his story to the 1918 pandemic,which was also a bird flu virus,newly recreated . He also looks at the terrible folly and inaction in the USA where the drug companies simply aren’t interested in vaccines(of 27 companies making than in 1977,only 2 remain today).Jimmy Carter had a plan for a massive stockpiling of drugs,but Reagan said that the free market would take over from the state. Thus the ideology of the Free-Market saw the US government retreat,leaving this terrible gap. The most useful drug,Tamiflue is made by one company,Roche ,in Switzerland . If Bush could get all the drugs from this company it would be 2008 before there would
be enough for the USA alone,let along anyone else…Worse Bush has diverted large sums to “bio-terrorist” research As Davis says.”..it is as if an asteroid was hurtling towards us,and the powers that be have been totally inactive ,because the warning signs have been present for some time”. The book is brilliant,but I must sayit is terribly depressing reading.
Yobbo,
This is the second time you have abused me openly and gratuitously on the internet. The last time you said you would like to do me physical violence.
I can only conclude that you get some pleasure out of thinking you hurt me.
Why, I really don’t know.
Ros, your mother and mine might well both survive avian flu and our feelings would be mixed for the similar reasons. In the 1919 epidemic the flu killed a significant number of young otherwise healthy young men(perhaps it was an immunity thing but it could also be an inflammatory response thing). While hospitals will be certainly overstretched and doctors may be stockpiling flu drugs, its all a bit of a lottery until the fatal mutation occurs.
So far we’ve seen only limited human disease and low bird to human transmissivity in spite of a widespread epidemic in bird populations which was first detected in April 2003. So while H5N1 virus is pretty lethal in effect, whether it can mutate to a human transmissable form is yet to occur. In spite of Asia being the most likely spot for bird to human transmission, it hasn’t happened yet and the odds of it happening must be decreasing every week as the epidemic runs it’s course. The odds must certainly be less likely in Europe where humans and ducks/chickens don’t live in quite so close contact as they do in south east Asia.
Of course there is Africa and the Americas to go but as the epidemic evolves this strain of the virus will naturally lose it’s potency.
“it hasn’t happened yet and the odds of it happening must be decreasing every week as the epidemic runs it’s course. ”
You are obviously following this in more detail than I but I would have thought that the coming northern winter is the maximum risk period.
Actually David, I abused your stupid, meaningless story. That is quite withing the rules, I think. Or is it forbidden to even ridicule arguments on here now (If you’re a right-winger)?
Guy,
You are quite right, people should have a choice. But the mere existence of AWAs means employers will be able to move workers on awards or EBAs, and the workers won’t have any choice in this, because the employment relationship is inherently unequal. Have you ever heard of a worker knocking back an AWA on being offered a job? Only skilled and professional employees, who have a reasonable bargaining power, have a chance.
The other problem, of course, is that by removing the “no disadvantage” test, AWAs won’t be required to meet minimum standards. There have already been cases of employers offering AWAs at below minimum standards (difficult to say how many–AWAs aren’t made public like awards), so you can imagine what could happen once the legislation comes through.
Make no mistake about this. Individual contracts based in contract law have always been around, particularly for managerial and other professional employees, whose skills can get them a good deal. But AWAs, as distinct from these contracts, have the sole purpose of undermining the award system and collective bargaining.
Yobbo, if you need to bolster your arguments with words like “stupid” and “silly”, it’s usually a sign that the arguments are weak. I’ve been trying to avoid such words in my own writing and I suggest you do the same.
In any case, I’m trying to promote civilised discussion here. Please stick to a civil tone or go elsewhere.
Terje’s comments set me thinking: is there any historical evidence for the alleged crowding out of private philanthropy by the welfare state.
For example, what happened to charitable giving in Britian in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s?
Certainly there ceased to be the same level of charitably established endowments in support of hospitals, scholarships, and so on in Britain after the 1940s. This includes the semi-volunatry organisational efforts that got the schools and hospitals going in the first place, not just the continued and initial funding. But how do you quantify and estimate these absences?
In my view, the moral change took place over succeeding generations, and the original crowding out was from fewer private resources being available after new (higher) general levels of tax. This would have had the first effect of people reprioritising their personal commitments, once certain things were seen to be being done by the state. Unfortunately the time lags, noise from other priorities, and the disconnect between personal incidence of tax and actual provision of government services all combine to make it hard to analyse statistically.
Here’s a link to a story that makes my libertarian blood boil:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/deals-on-unfair-dismissal-outlawed/2005/10/10/1128796469425.html
It is revealed that the Howard government will ban private deals between employers and unions to protect workers from unfair dismissal. And the law will be retrospective!
Unions and employers will face fines of up $33,000 for even submitting a private unfair dismissal deal for certification.
Where does Howard get off sticking his micromanaging nose into contracts between private individuals and incorporated bodies such as unions and business firms?
Howard wants to talk the talk of liberalisation, but he walks the walk of the corporatist nanny-stater.
The evidence continues to mount that Howard is a control freak. He has a view of the industrial relations jungle but then seeks to taxidermy all the actors in it into a risible parody of the free labour market.
What the hell are you scared of Johnny?
The rest of Howard legislation is aimed at creating a framework of industrial legislation akin to the situation existing in Britain after the Taff Vale Case in 1901
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taff_Vale_Case
In broad terms, this decision attempted to destroy the British Labour Movement by legal action.
But it didn’t work.
In Australia, as in Britain after 1901, the different interests in industrial relations won’t stay stuffed for long. Howard will achieve his life-long dream, but whoever succeeds him as leader of the Liberal Party will find life very difficult. Howard is jubilant, but the Tories should start worrying.
The Times Higher Education Supplement world ranking of Universities is here, for those who are interested. It seems that Australian Universities did rather well. ANU first of ours, followed by Melbourne, Monash then NSW. Where’s Sydney?
Of course, these things are probably impossible to measure.
With the approaching train wreck in industrial relations the ALP must be quite happy to sit back and watch it happen, say “I told you so”, take power in a crushing electoral victory and roll-back all the terrible changes – No. . .isn’t the ALP going to roll-back. . .but but??????
I guess in a quaint binary universe, it is possible to interpret criticism of the Liberals as apologietics for the ALP.
I’m glad I don’t live in that universe.
I’m on record on this blog as criticising the ALP for its continued adherence to the traditional framework of arbitration. I hope that the stated intention of the ALP not to demand a complete rollback of reforms signifies a change of philosophy on IR.
Sadly, however, I fear it signifies nothing more than a gutless decision to remain a “small target”. After all, the ALP has done so well following that strategy.
Ian: Terje’s comments set me thinking: is there any historical evidence for the alleged crowding out of private philanthropy by the welfare state.
Terje: Thankyou for thinking. I wish I was more successful at getting people to think about this issue. I have little doubt that Government taxation and Government services crowd out “Private Enterprise” and “Civil Society”. However I don’t have data at hand that can readily prove the point. I would not just look at philanthropy however. I would also include traditional forms of supporting extended family, and non monetary participation in community activity.
With the football season still reasonably fresh in our memories, I thought I’d suggest the following as an appropriate revision of the theme song of a famous Melbourne-based AFL club (to the tune of “Here Come the Aussies” and the Chelsea FC song).
Blue is the colour, football is the game
We’re always losing, and it’s a crying shame
So cheer us on if you can stand the pain
‘cos Carlton, Carlton is the name
Here at the ground, whether wet or dry
You will cry, ‘cos we don’t try
Home or away, when you see us play
We just get blown away – hey!
Blue is the colour. . .
Terje – I am quite happy to admit that I didn’t make a contribtuion to Tsunami relief because the Government had said it was giving $1 Billion. I pay in the top marginal tax rate and if the government is giving my money to that cause then I don’t need to. I also believed then, and have been sadly proven true, that the incompetence and corruption in the effected countries would waste vaste amounts. Two very good reasons for me not to donate directly.
John: You really are taking it too far when even words like “silly” are off the table. You yourself have used it in over 20 posts (I did a search).
It’s quite plainly obvious that you regard any criticism of your mates as “abuse”. I’ve yet to see you pull anyone on the left up for anything as remotely benign.
You’re a biased hypocrite in other words. Is that abusive enough for you? (If it helps you decide, I hold many right of centre views!)
Yobbo, I deleted Dave Ricardo’s sarcastic response to Steve, and a whole string of responses in the Bali thread. Go back and check.
And, as regards “silly”, fairly typical instances of my 20 uses are “OK, this is kind of silly, but bear with me” or “Another silly feature of the election campaign”. If you want to use the word in this way, feel free.
But in any case, if you don’t like the way I run this blog, please go somewhere else. I’m sick of refereeing flamewars.
Razor… for shame… Outsourcing your compassion to the government? I would have thought from your previous posts that you’d have at least used the private sector. Maybe there’s hope for you becoming a socialist yet! 🙂
I think socialism is shameful. So I did not ‘leave it to the government’.
I think the government had no business giving away taxpayers money to foreigners no matter how worthy the cause. It is as bad as company executives that give away shareholders money to charities so that they can feel big. I advocate a bigger role for Civil Society but not theft and fraud.
alpaca – must be a genetic throwback thing from my father’s family who used to hump sacks of wheat onto ships in Fremantle Harbour and were good union men.
I agree with you Homer, it is a delight to see the Australian football team with a decent national coach. That is not to say Frank Farina was a complete failure, he just lacked the necessary experience at the top level. However our first high profile coach Terry Venables also stumbled at the penultimate phase of qualification for the World Cup. We live in hope.
http://www.pajamasmedia.com/
http://www.rogerlsimon.com/
Following Roger Simon’s PJMedia mob (launching November) I discovered with interest and delight that there are Aussie bloggers developing a global presence in the blogosphere who don’t get much of a mention in discussions about our local scene. For those interested
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/
Richard Fernandez is Wretchard. Roger Simon advises that he is Pajamas’ Australian Editor. Richard has grown to averaging over 12 months between 5 and 6 million hits.
Curious as to where The Belmont Club would fit in JQ’s listing of blogs if he was looking at Richard for referral. Australian? This medium grows more interesting daily. Not sure how PJMedia is different in concept to say Crooked Timber though the key details of how PJ is to work are still being kept under wraps. At May 2005, 234 blogs had signed up with PJMedia and they then were covering UK, Australia, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, Spain, Germany, France, India, Malaysia and the Netherlands. The reach seems to be further than that now. As I understood Roger Simon and Charles Johnson PJMedia is also about establishing blogs as a business. If they develop a model that will finance blogs that would seem a worthwhile outcome at least from their energy. Where to now blog world.
Another who is one of the PJMedia team is http://www.israellycool.com/ or Aussie Dave, a young Australian who migrated to Israel.
Another of our immigrant Aussies having an interesting impact in the world, as included by Richard in his latest post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/07/AR2005100702332.html
“A slight, aging sociology professor with gentle manners, Taniwal returned to his homeland from exile in Australia after the fall of the Taliban to help build a new Afghanistan….
When I saw him again here two weeks ago, he was sitting in the provincial governor’s office and the warlord was somewhere in the countryside, out of power, his militia largely disbanded. I reminded Taniwal of our first meeting, when he could not even get into the governor’s house because it was occupied by the warlord’s family and dozens of his thuggish guerrillas, bristling with Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers
Here is the gotcha clause in the much compromised proposed Iraqi constitution:
“NEW: Article to be inserted between Articles 137 and 138
At the start of its functioning, the Council of Representatives shall form a committee from its members, which will be representative of the main components of Iraqi society and the duty of which will be to (make) … recommendations for the necessary amendments that can be made to the Constitution….The articles amended by the Council of Representatives … will be put before the people for a referendum within two months of the Council of Representatives’ approval of them.”
In other words, at some undesignated time in the future, this committee conjured out of thin air may sit down and completely rewrite the constitution which is about to be voted on next Saturday.
This procedure, foisted on the Shiite majority by the Bush Clique, is entirely consistent with the back-room transfer of phony sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority. It is also consistent with the phoney Coalition support for the January elections.
The decision is all about politics — American politics and the urgent need to sweep this mess under the rug during the fast-approaching Republican Party primary season for the 2006 elections.
This story is an early example of stories which are likely to become more common in coming months:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05266/576644.stm
http://www.krg.org/
Leaders in Iraq Agree to Change in Constitution
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 11 – “Iraqi political leaders said they had agreed to an important last-minute change in the draft constitution on Tuesday evening in exchange for a promise by some prominent Sunni Arab leaders to give public support to the document in the nationwide referendum on Saturday.
The change would create a panel in the next parliament with the power to propose broad new revisions to the constitution. In effect, the change could give the Sunnis – who were largely shut out of the constitution-writing process – a new chance to help redraft the document after elections in December.
The agreement was a major victory for American officials, who had spent weeks urging Iraq’s Shiite and Kurdish leaders to make changes that could soften Sunni opposition to the charter and forge a broader consensus. The Americans had voiced fears that if the constitution passed over strong Sunni opposition, more would turn toward violence….
I think it is an important change, to be honest,” said Saleh Mutlak, a Sunni Arab member of the constitutional committee who had strongly opposed the draft and who expressed some resentment at not having been included in the final negotiations.
The change would also give Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted elections in January, a significant new motive for participating in politics. The more parliament seats they win in the December elections, the better chance they would have of changing the constitutional provisions they oppose, like allowing for the creation of semiautonomous regions within Iraq. ”
I guess it depends whether you are a half full or half empty glass sort of person Katz.
But Ros, note that the very cheery article you’ve cut and pasted doesn’t mention the fact that the new Article vitiates the proposed Constitution as it stands. All of the torturous negotiations that got the process this far can be thrown into the waste-paper bin. This compromise simply freezes everything for another day. That “other day” is to be determined by the requirements of the US political cycle — primaries, campaigns, and the election in November 2006.
In fact, that won’t happen, because the Shiites are likely to be as dominant in popular elections for the forseeable future, unless the insurgency grows so strong that elections become impossible. Meanwhile, the insurgency, funded, led, and dominated by important elements in the Sunni community, is getting stronger. These people know they can’t win the political game by non-violent means. This delay in enacting a permanent constitution simply gives them the opportunity to strengthen their paramilitary forces.
If the Bush Clique were serious about setting Iraq on the road to constitutionalism based on popular sovereignty, they’d be sending in forces sufficient to drive through the timetable agreed upon around the time of the January elections.
But Bush won’t do that.
1. It’s unpopular, and therefore destructive of Bush loyalists’ chances of winning Republican primary contests and ifthey survive that challenge, elections against Democrat opponents.
2. After the end of the Bush regime in 2008, it suits corporate interests that Iraq remains a weak, internally divided, and Balkanised state, as long as there is sufficient peace to enable the reliable export of oil. The Bush Clique is hoping against hope that their connivance in the violence in Iraq will achieve this outcome. It is a forlorn hope, but that’s all they’ve got.
Ros,
The fundamental problem with this fudge is that while it may reduce violence in the short term (and thereby take some of the political pressure off the US administration) it establishes the precedent that violence and the threat of violence can be used to override the rule of law and constitutional processes.
If the threat of Sunni violence can be used to rewrite parts of the Constitution, what’s to stop Shia militants trying to force the rewrite of the sections dealing with Sharia law or the Kurds trying to extort a greater share of oil revenue?
Thanks to Jon Stanhope, Chief Minister of the ACT, who posted the draft Anti-Terrorist Act 2005 on his website.
http://www.chiefminister.act.gov.au
The draft may not be there much longer if the Federal Govt gets its way. So the opportunity to link and download may be brief.
There is much of interest in this draft.
1.”… seditious intention means an intention to effect any of the
following purposes:
…
(d) to promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different
groups so as to threaten the peace, order and good
government of the Commonwealth.”
“Groups” is a very vague term. Presumably, uppermost in the minds of the promoters of this legislation is the notion that Islamists might promote serious ill-will towards non-Muslims. It can also apply to the opposite situation. It might also apply to workers’ organisations and the corporations that employ them.
2. “[A person is not guilty of an offence if s/he]
(a) tries in good faith to show that any of the following persons
are mistaken in any of his or her counsels, policies or actions:
(i) the Sovereign;
(ii) the Governor-General;
(iii) the Governor of a State;
(iv) the Administrator of a Territory;
(v) an adviser of any of the above;
(vi) a person responsible for the government of another country…”
Where does the government get off punishing statements concerning the actions of a limited number of foreign persons? This makes it illegal to say things about the Pope (a Head of State) which would be legal were they said about the Archbishop of Canterbury. This is an absurd and dangerous provision.
3. On the face of it, anyone resident in Australia who donates money to American Right wing religious televangelist Pat Robertson, since he called for the assassination of the President Chavez of Venezuela, is liable to prosecution for funding terrorism. Did the framers of the legislation intend this? Is the Howard Government likely to act on Robertson supporters?
>Where does the government get off punishing statements concerning the actions of a limited number of foreign persons?
Withotu reading the whole section in context it sounds like it does the exact opposite – excluding criticism of the policies of domestic or foreign governments from the provisions of the Act.
But IG, the section implies statements that may be made by Australians in “bad faith”.
There are at least two issues here:
1. That our governments, state and federal, may concern themselves at all about what Australian residents say about a small group of foreign persons (those “responsible for the government of another country”), in contradistinction to all other foreign persons.
2. That the governments of Australia have commited themselves to the task of convincing a judge and jury that there is such a category of political comment as “in bad faith.”
Two outcomes may arise out of the above-mentioned commitment:
1. Governments will convince juries to endorse by their decisions further inroads into free and frank expression, including that expression that concerns a small category of foreign persons in contradistinction to all othe foreign persons.
2. Even if governments prove to be incapable of convincing juries to do the above, still this legislation enables governments to oppress free speech by the very cost and onerousness of defending statements perhaps mischievously accused of being made “not in good faith”. This is a very powerful weapon to forestall free and frank comment and to punish free and frank comment by oppressive process, regardless of judicial outcome. For a reminder about how this worked, look at the way Bjelke-Petersen used the laws of defamation against his opponents. This provision makes it even easier.
It is a very dangerous and oppressive provision.
Katz, decidding matters of intent such as whether people were acting “in good faith” are EXACTLY what courts are intended to do.
The legislative provisions in question resemble, at least in general outline, the provisions of the various racial vilification Acts in the Australian states.
I didn’t find the slippy-slope arguments convincing when used by critics of those Acts and I still don’t.
IG,
According to the “Age” this morning, I’m not the only person to view this proposal with deep suspicion.
Here’s John North, President of the Law Council of Australia:
“The Government has tried to broaden the offence of sedition to cover all eventualities. [And] in putting in a “good faith” defence, it also seems to have reversed the burden of proof so that the burden of proving that what you are saying is legitimate dissent is placed on the defendant.”
North and I may be wrong, but is it worth the risk?
PS, I don’t like those vilification laws either.
While i’m not a lawyer I worked in the Policy section of the Queensland EPA fro aroudn a decade and was pretty closely involved in drafting substantial bits of legislation.
I may be wrong here but normally a “good faith” defence requires the Prosecution to show the reverse – that the speech or act in question was NOT covered by one of the statutory defences – the onus of proof is not reversed. In fact, because it’s so hard to prove intent, such a defence is very difficult to overcome.
Whether you like racial villification laws or not, the fact remains that, to date, they have not been abused in the way you fear.
I lived throguh the Bjelke-Petersen years and I’m acutely aware of the need for restraints on government power – but Joh showed that the existing laws are quite sufficient to allow outrageous abuses given a supine legislature and judiciary.
Australian state governments fell asleep at the wheel over these anti-terrorism laws. They almost let Howard drive us over a cliff. It is somewhat encouraging that they are now, belatedly, stirring themselves into action.
Plaudits also to Malcolm Fraser and Petro Georgiou for waving the conservative flag in defence of civil liberties.