tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-176391002024-03-07T06:00:29.222+10:00Woolly DaysLa Dolce Vita RomaDerek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.comBlogger1547125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-40954466031446277832013-01-13T00:27:00.000+10:002013-01-13T21:03:40.714+10:00On Jonathan Moylan and the Whitehaven coal hoax<br />
The latest in a long line of <a href="http://whitehavencoal.com.au/documents/WhitehavenCommentreHoaxMediaRelease.pdf">Aussie hoaxes</a> was perpetrated to great effect this week though its creator might yet pay a penalty of ten years and half a million bucks. Anti-coal activist Jonathan Moylan is in the wars for putting out a press release in the name of ANZ Bank on Tuesday. The release said the bank was divesting its $1.2b loan to Whitehaven Coal for its Maules Creek Coal Project. It was an important announcement. In Whitehaven’s own words, <a href="http://whitehavencoal.com.au/operations/maules_creek.cfm">Maules Creek </a>is “one of only a few remaining tier 1 undeveloped coal assets in Australia. It is also one of the largest coal deposits in Australia with 362 Mt of recoverable reserves.”<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBtF4AZ1mUOqGEwKG-_gZCFhMzamL89D4jPRjNRtmuWhWnfCNdV9HbJeEn0DrBT-1XuqNkna1kb2Wy1vylm7__vgQSB5DWc8CaqF92YSsxRfS6SUPQBZaPjFYgQ9FBWgjdlfMjOg/s1600/whitehaven.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBtF4AZ1mUOqGEwKG-_gZCFhMzamL89D4jPRjNRtmuWhWnfCNdV9HbJeEn0DrBT-1XuqNkna1kb2Wy1vylm7__vgQSB5DWc8CaqF92YSsxRfS6SUPQBZaPjFYgQ9FBWgjdlfMjOg/s320/whitehaven.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: ABC TV News</td></tr>
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Before it could be exposed as a hoax, it triggered <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/environmentalists-hoax-triggers-314m-whitehaven-share-price-fall-20130107-2cd11.html">a stock market collapse</a> for the coal company. While almost all of the losses were subsequently recovered before the day was out, Moylan’s actions raises serious political as well as ethical and legal issues. Using dubious means, he focussed attention on the important question about whether we should be investing in major coal projects in a time when fossil fuel emission is the biggest issue we face as a species.<br />
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Maules Creek is in the heart of the rich Gunnedah Basin in NSW. That state and Queensland produce 97 percent of Australia’s black coal. It is<a href="http://www.australiancoal.com.au/coal-production.html"> an industry in decline</a> with Australia producing 405 million tonnes of raw black coal in 2010-11 down from 471 Mt. in 2009-10. Yet Australia remains the world’s fourth largest coal producer and <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=4050">the world’s leading exporter</a> with markets in Japan, South Korea, China, India and Europe. Coal fired generators are leading contributors (20 percent) to a greenhouse effect as heavy-grade emitters of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.<br />
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<a href="http://www.c2es.org/science-impacts/basics/fact-sheets/coal-facts">The Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions</a> acknowledges fixing the coal issue will be difficult. Coal is cheap, is important for meeting energy needs in the developing countries, and has good lobby groups in countries like the US, which is the “Saudi Arabia of coal.” Coal-fired generators could still play a role if carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology ever takes off, possibly 10-15 years away. There would also be a need for a carbon market, priced at around $30 a ton of CO2 and a way of retrofitting CCS into existing technology. An ANZ that truly considered its customers interests, would ensure such boxes were being ticked. But it has no plans to do so and there is no scrutiny of whether such interests are considered.<br />
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Instead, the argument focussed on Moylan with those dividing into two sides on whether his hoax ends justified the means. Those that supported him like <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/its-coalminers-not-moylan-who-are-costing-us-the-earth-20130110-2cix6.html">Bob Brown</a> identified Moylan’s action as a necessary civil disobedience that brought out in the open ANZ’s investment in coal. That brought out the coalition’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/abetz-slams-greens-for-backing-hoax-20130108-2cerk.html#ixzz2HlWTCa9R">Eric Abetz</a> saying the ends did not justify the means. He turned it into an attack on Lee Rhiannon and the Greens’ “extreme political tendencies.”<br />
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Whoever is right, there is one thing for certain - Moylan planned his attack well. He put together a fake ANZ press template, a website and dummy email inbox online. <a href="http://images.smh.com.au/file/2013/01/07/3934862/Hoax.pdf">The press release</a> was a remarkable use of managerial language to frame an argument that would be quite unusual and brave in an Australian business context. Moylan used the voice of ANZ Corporate Communications to announce the bank would not support the project. Toby Kent, “Group head of corporate sustainability” was quoted to say the company wouldn’t invest in coal projects that cause “significant dislocation of farmers, unacceptable damage to the environment, or social conflict." The decision was made after “a careful analysis of reputational risks and analysis of the returns on this mine in the current climate of high volatility in the coal export market.” The released concluded with the statement ANZ was undertaking “a review of coal and gas investments on productive agricultural lands and areas of high biodiversity.”<br />
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Moylan’s fake ANZ release was quickly picked up by AAP Newswire who failed to conduct any of the basic identity checks that would have exposed the hoax. At the bottom of the emails are phone numbers for Toby Kent and Joanne McCulloch “Media Relations Advisor” which if anyone had bothering phoning would have quickly exposed this email as a hoax. Either that or a quick check of ANZ’s database of media releases would have been enough to dispel, or at least doubt, the information.<br />
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Instead AAP swallowed the news whole and provided it directly to the markets. When traders in the Australian Stock Exchange saw the newswires shortly after midday Tuesday, they went ballistic. Whitehaven bore the brunt as 85% owners of Maules Creek Coal. Maules Creek is 18km north-east of Boggabri on the Kamilaroi Highway between Narrabri and Gunndah. It is also just 16km from the railway line servicing the coal terminals at the Port of Newcastle, 360km to the south-east. Maules Creek’s <a href="http://whitehavencoal.com.au/operations/maules_creek.cfm">current resources</a> are expected to support a large open cut mining operation for 30 years at an average saleable coal production rate of 10.8 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa). Subject to approvals, the first coal production will commence in mid 2013, with saleable production exceeding 10Mtpa from 2016 onwards.<br />
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But it was a dead duck without ANZ’s investment, and within minutes Whitehaven shares plunged almost 10 percent from $3.52 to $3.21. Whitehaven Coal lost more than $276 million in market value. It capped off a bad year for the company since<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/whitehavenaston-merger-gets-shareholder-thumbs-up-20120416-1x2fa.html"> it merged</a> with Nathan Tinkler’s Aston last April giving him 19.4 percent ownership. The share price has lost over half its value since then with CEO Tony Haggarty and the board blaming it on uncertainty due to Tinkler’s <a href="http://www.news.com.au/business/companies/nathan-tinkler-touchy-subject-for-whitehaven-coal-investors/story-fnda1bsz-1226549849091#ixzz2HlOFN0cm">financial woes</a> - they want him to divest to institutions. Tinkler was quick <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/nathan-tinkler-wants-to-save-whitehaven-buy-more-shares/story-e6frg9e6-1226507660958">to return fire</a> on Haggarty and the board saying he wanted to increase his holding not decrease it.<br />
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That plan may be in tatters after Tuesday. The price did not recover until the real ANZ responded with a media release (<a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTY2NzEwfENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1">pdf)</a> entitled “Fraudulent media release regarding Whitehaven Coal”. This release (which looked remarkably like the fraudulent one) said ANZ remained “fully supportive of Whitehaven Coal.” <br />
At the end of trading, Whitehaven was just 2c down on the day reflecting the fact there were other issues with the project. The damage done to Tinkler, was variously <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/hoaxer-jonathan-moylan-cost-nathan-tinkler-180-million-after-whitehaven-share-plunge/story-fndo317g-1226549159715">estimated </a>to be anywhere between $50m and $180m (assuming it wasn’t him who picked up the shares when they were on the rebound). <br />
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Whatever the damage to Tinkler or Whitehaven, Moylan will suffer significant collateral damage. There is a strong prima facie case his actions were illegal according to <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca2001172/s1041e.html">Section 1041E of the Corporations Act 2001</a> (Cth). That act states it is an offence if a person makes a knowingly false statement that is likely to make people dispose of shares. The maximum jail term for individuals is 10 years, with fines of up to $495,000. Organisations face fines of up to $4.6 million.<br />
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The Australian Securities Investment Commission said it would be investigating whether there had been a breach of Corporations Act rules on false or misleading statements. According to dean of law at the University of Western Sydney <a href="https://theconversation.edu.au/public-nuisance-or-fraud-whitehaven-hoax-puts-market-creditability-at-risk-11544">Michael Adams</a> the legislation that deals with corporate fraud imposes a high penalty on false or misleading statements about traded securities on the ASX. Adams believes a successful prosecution will hang on the difference between a public nuisance and civil disobedience. “A protest normally provides publicity for a cause and brings the matter to the general public’s attention, but causes little harm to the community,” Adams said. “A fraud – and in particular one that impacts on the share market – has huge consequences”.<br />
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Research fellow on ethics <a href="http://theconversation.edu.au/whitehaven-hoax-was-an-unethical-act-that-was-harmful-to-all-11571">Edward Spence</a> picked up on Abetz’s argument about the ends and the means. Spence said Moylan’s ethical failings were harmful to the “integrity of the digital informational environment”. This is the environment whose trustworthiness, Spence said “we all rely on to conduct our legitimate informational transactions.” We are not only biological beings, he said but also and increasingly informational beings. “When the informational environment is harmed we are also harmed.”<br />
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Spence may be exaggerating the harm here as it ignores the fact that checks and balances such as AAP did not do its job properly. Nor did any of the rest of the media use the hoax to expose ANZ's dealings with the coal industry. Why didn't anyone ask the bank if they would do "a review of coal and gas investments on productive agricultural lands and areas of high biodiversity".Why is it acceptable for the bank to continue to invest in projects that cause "significant dislocation of farmers, unacceptable damage to the environment, or social conflict?"<br />
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We're waiting.Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-60458611522912736692013-01-03T22:28:00.000+10:002013-01-03T22:28:09.844+10:00A new start it ain't: Jenny Macklin and unemployment<br />
The new Australian political (and election) year did not get off to an auspicious start with <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/the-great-vanishing-act-macklins-dole-comment-disappears-20130101-2c3yw.html">the Macklin affair</a> though some good might yet come of it. The affair has seen a government minister tied up in knots about a nonsensical hypothesis, the media whipped up in frenzies of righteous wrath, and the leader of another party now wanting to live out the nonsense.<br />
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The problem occur on New Year’s Day. Families Minister Jenny Macklin held a door-stop media conference at a Melbourne hospital to promote the government’s <a href="http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/programs-services/paid-parental-leave-scheme/dad-and-partner-pay">Dad and Partner Pay scheme</a> introduced on January 1. The scheme brings in government-funded paternity leave for two weeks so it should have been a good news story for Macklin to deliver.<br />
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However the journalists there were not interested in the good news, they were more interested in a bad news change that came in on January 1. This change was <a href="http://johnquiggin.com/2013/01/03/how-we-got-to-macklin/">a follow on</a> from a change John Howard made in 2006 which was to end the supporting parent allowance when the child turned eight. Howard exempted those already receiving the parenting payment before July 2006 who were able to keep it until their youngest turned 16. This meant there would be exemptions until 2014. However the Gillard Government has now ended that immediately, saving $728 million over four years.<br />
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This change shifts<a href="http://www.acoss.org.au/media/release/no_happy_new_year_for_people_hit_by_benefit_changes"> 80,000 single parents</a> from the parenting payment to the Newstart allowance when their youngest child turns eight. Some parents will be up to $110 a week worse off with the new arrangements and it was this issue that journalists turned to when one asked Macklin if she could live on the dole on $246 a week. Macklin could have done many things at this point, including refusing to answer on the grounds it was a very stupid question. Fellow Minister <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/not-easy-living-on-the-dole-plibersek/story-fn59niix-1226546965942">Tanya Plibersek </a>would later answer the question “properly” by saying "I don't think anyone thinks it's easy."<br />
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But no such luck for Macklin, who gave the worst possible answer. “Yes I could”. Macklin then made matters worse by omitting her answer from<a href="http://jennymacklin.fahcsia.gov.au/node/2201"> the transcript</a> issued by her office. Macklin tried to push on by telling journalists they had simply applied existing rules to people who had on the payment since 2006. “What’s important for people who are unemployed is that we do everything possible to do everything we can to help people get into work and that’s what we’ll be doing with these single parents as well,” she said.<br />
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But it was too late. The damage was done by the killer quote. TV cameras captured that answer which immediately provided the headline for broadcast and print media and the subsequent non-appearance in the transcript merely fuelled speculation of a cover-up. <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/remark-by-family-and-community-services-minister-jenny-macklin-is-just-obscene/story-e6frfhqf-1226546766117">Susie O’Brien</a> in the Herald Sun went so far as to call it “obscene”. Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie also took Macklin to task, but ridiculed calls for the minister to try surviving on the Newstart allowance. “You can't replicate that experience if you are a senior member of government,” she said.<br />
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Goldie’s comment came as Greens’ leader <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/greens-deputy-leader-adam-bandt-to-live-on-dole-for-a-week/story-e6freuy9-1226546531719">Adam Bandt</a> repeated tragedy as farce by announcing he would live on the $246 allowance for one week, challenging Macklin to do the same. "Once you take into account your rent your bills, your food, there's not much change left over from $35 a day,” he told reporters in Melbourne, but didn’t elaborate how much of his modern lifestyle and well-tailored suits would be pushed to one side to make ends meet in that week.<br />
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Bandt’s stunt had little to do with the Newstart Allowance and everything to do with his struggle<a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2012/11/03/seat-of-the-week-melbourne/"> to retain Melbourne</a> at the next election. But the whole affair does highlight issues with the low benefit rate when there are systemic problems of under-employment Australia has not solved. While the current rate of unemployment is low at 5.2 per cent by historic and international standards there is <a href="http://www.ayac.org.au/news/154/67/Are-unemployment-Benefits-Adequate-in-Australia.html">a high degree of volatility</a> within this rate. In March 2012 the unemployment rate in Tasmania was 7.0 per cent, nearly twice the 3.7 per cent rate in the Northern Territory. Similarly, in March 2012 the unemployment rate for those aged 15-19 is 18 per cent, more than three times the national average.<br />
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There are “dole cheats” but for the vast majority, the dole queue remains a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/56672.html">humiliating experience</a> for most people. Economist John Quiggan said that instead of completing the Howard agenda, the Gillard government ought to be looking at increasing the real value of benefits, “allowing the unemployed to share in some of the growth in incomes for the community as a whole”. Even thinking about the absurdity of living on $246 a week, reminds us that many people have to do exactly that and some parents of those aged eight and over will now pay the price for the Government’s budget balance obsession.<br />
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Meanwhile <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/2011/04/13/gillard-sydney-institute-speech.html">Prime Minister Julia Gillard</a> preferred to focus on solving the inequities of employment in the “patchwork economy” rather than increasing dole payments. “Some today see a problem, they offer blame”, Gillard told the Sydney Institute last year. “I see a person, a person who can work. I offer only opportunity, I ask only responsibility in return.” If Gillard gets the public space to tackle that agenda, she might yet be grateful for Macklin’s mistake.<br />
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Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-61800682803268576952013-01-01T10:49:00.000+10:002013-01-02T19:53:10.871+10:00Should people be free to bushwalk unprepared?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEkvyejhXe8XTCkTqu7mBqC-LLUKxRxX0mIf-dDvbN4drElW2cQsjuJN7fTzfnfdQO8XaRpHaINoJHEr8j7p2sUf9_NZI5N5O-K2l6IEIzlQMmsv4uTnBcUDxM1af4HipFIGEyfw/s1600/blue+mtns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEkvyejhXe8XTCkTqu7mBqC-LLUKxRxX0mIf-dDvbN4drElW2cQsjuJN7fTzfnfdQO8XaRpHaINoJHEr8j7p2sUf9_NZI5N5O-K2l6IEIzlQMmsv4uTnBcUDxM1af4HipFIGEyfw/s200/blue+mtns.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
A Victorian bushwalker in NSW has been <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/victorian-fined-for-trekking-underprepared-20121230-2c1ej.html">fined</a> on charges of “lack of planning or preparation”. The 29-year-old man, name unknown, went off on a long walk last Saturday in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. He was leaving from Newnes and heading east across the rugged Wollemi National Park to Colo Heights. He carried a kilo of potatoes and an unknown quantity of naan bread which he estimated would last him three days. <br />
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He told friends who dropped him off he would meet them at the other end on Wednesday at 3pm. When he didn’t rendezvous at the appointed time, his friends alerted authorities who mounted a search and rescue operation. With the help of two helicopters, they found him just four hours later on the track. The first helicopter spotted him and the second winched him out of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolgan_Valley">Wolgan Valley</a>. According to Police, the man had suffered a minor ankle injury and declined treatment. Police took him to Katoomba station for questioning before giving him a $500 infringement notice.<br />
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None of the media covering the story stated why this was an offence (they were all too obsessed with <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/roasting-for-bushwalk-fuelled-by-naan-spuds/story-e6frg6nf-1226545462020">the spuds and naan</a>) but they did quote NSW Police Force Rescue commander Brenton Charlton who said the route through remote terrain was extremely difficult to complete safely and had taken much longer than estimated. "Getting the basics right with trekking is so easy - all people have to do is notify the police or other responsible person of their trip intention and carry a personal locator beacon," Charlton said. "Making use of available technology, together with some commonsense trip preparation, could mean the difference between life or death."<br />
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Whatever about that quantity of food being sufficient for three days, it is clear the man was underprepared. Though some people on that bushwalk forum said the walk was possible in three days, even a modicum of research would have uncovered it was likely to take much longer. According to this site devoted to <a href="http://users.tpg.com.au/newnes/g/walks.htm">walks at Newnes</a>, the track to Upper Colo is listed as a very hard grade walk that takes seven days. The walk “ is for experienced and well prepared walkers only! Country traversed is rugged and there are no tracks beyond Annie Rowan Creek.” Its advice is “Check with your local bushwalking club before attempting this one.”<br />
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Clearly the Victorian did not take this into account. But should that be an offence? And should all bushwalkers be forced to take a “personal locator beam”? PLBs are distress radio beacons which transmit location information about individuals directly to Search and Rescue forces letting them know that the owner is in grave and imminent danger. They retail on Gumtree for around $225 second hand though Blue Mountains police apparently do give them out for free. When Briton <a href="http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/free-locator-beam-could-have-saved-neale-20090715-dley.html">Jamie Neale</a> was found alive after being missing in 2009 for 12 nights, Blue Mountains police superintendent Tony McWhirter told media they have free PLB for bushwalkers so they can locate them. However since then, the law has changed.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmViaXoucG9saWNlLm5zdy5nb3YuYXUlMkZtZWRpYSUyRjI3NjU2Lmh0bWwmYWxsPTE%3D">NSW police media release</a> (which was the basis for all media stories - no journalist did original research) did state why the fine was activated. It was issued under the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_reg/npawr2009338/">National Parks and Wildlife Regulations of 2009</a> for engaging "in activity that risks the safety of self/others". The relevant clause is 22(1)(d) which reads “Sporting, recreational and other activities<br />
(1) A person must not in a park:<br />
(d) engage in any activity or recreational pursuit that involves risking the safety of the person or the safety of other persons or damaging the environment.<br />
Maximum penalty: 30 penalty units.”<br />
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As a contributor to a NSW buskwalk forum said, the fine was troubling. “Guy sounds like an idiot", said <a href="http://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=11963#p158110">colinm</a>, “but I don't see that it necessarily warrants a fine. Since he's a Victorian, I bet he doesn't contest the charge, so is a bit of a soft target.” So should bushwalkers be forced to be prepared or should anyone have the right to go out and do what they want? Was it necessary for an expensive search and rescue operation to be mounted when the man was just four hours late? And what equipment should be compulsory on any trip? These angles were not covered by media. In their efforts to make the trekker look like a fool, the naan bread proved more alluring than the nanny state.Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-45791121436741306532012-12-30T10:14:00.001+10:002012-12-30T10:31:57.060+10:00Bonds of Love and Hate: a review of Skyfall<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWGjd27NHefppb5nZ2Bab2EVarJ4AjcTim6MCV3SSkv4BRHBQoHf6S3DuCLxu8yX_kEyaK16cuKo6v-GRrU26rWGXZysA0UnclWIyKxoFR4E0rnWhJ5isaV5p8Bc0xY9TWumA4aw/s1600/skyfall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWGjd27NHefppb5nZ2Bab2EVarJ4AjcTim6MCV3SSkv4BRHBQoHf6S3DuCLxu8yX_kEyaK16cuKo6v-GRrU26rWGXZysA0UnclWIyKxoFR4E0rnWhJ5isaV5p8Bc0xY9TWumA4aw/s200/skyfall.JPG" width="147" /></a>The real <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_(ornithologist)">James Bond</a> was an American ornithologist and a world renowned expert on the birds of the Caribbean. When author Ian Fleming was birdwatching in Jamaica, his guide would have been Bond’s Birds of the West Indies, the definitive textbook of avifauna in the region. In 1953, Fleming wrote the spy novel Casino Royale and gave his hero the “brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon” name of the ornithologist. James Bond, he said, was the dullest name he had ever heard and a suitable one for the “anonymous blunt instrument” of state policy.<br />
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By the time Fleming died in 1964, the Bond character had featured in 12 novels and two short stories. Perhaps more importantly he had made a successful transition to the big screen in three movies. Fleming didn’t immediately like the look of the little known Sean Connery before the filming of Dr No in 1962. “I’m looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stunt-man,” Fleming said. Connery’s casting as the first Bond owed much to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1455828/Dana-Broccoli.html">Dana Broccoli</a>, wife of producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. Broccoli was convinced of Connery’s sex appeal and a new image was born. In the end Fleming was so impressed by Connery he added a Scottish back story in the later novels.<br />
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Fifty years on, the writers of the latest Bond film have added a further Scottish twist in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1074638/">Skyfall</a>, the 32nd entry in the durable franchise. The current Bond, Daniel Craig is from Cheshire (a fact perhaps responsible for his statement in the film during the word association when he equates Country with England) but the Bond character supposedly grew up on the remote Scottish property of Skyfall. Either way the Bond series has become a classic British institution and Bond himself the embodiment of British stiff upper lip and never say die exemplified by <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=59f_1343435189">the Queen's complicity</a> in the Olympic opening ceremony parachute landing.<br />
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And despite the confusion over nationality, Craig is a classic Fleming Bond. Craig is a silent, often morose, blunt instrument, or as Fleming put it “Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure”. Skyfall captures most of the Bond nuances. There is the classy, brassy theme music, the femme fatale Bond girls, the malevolent hero, the vintage cars and suits, the “before I kill you, Mr Bond" moments and the usual spats with authority. As M (an almost wistful Judi Dench in her final outing in the role) noted, “orphans make the best agents” and no challenge is too big or too dangerous for our hero, who always retains a sense of style and dignity no matter how hairy the situation.<br />
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And matters do become extremely hairy when the lead villain is finally introduced 70 minutes into the film in a memorable long-take entrance. Spanish actor Javier Bardem has already brilliantly played one baddie. His psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men won him a best supporting Oscar in 2007. Bardem’s CV is impressive and he wasn’t immediately sold on the idea of becoming a Bond villain. Director Sam Mendes promised Bardem he could develop the character and said the ideas about the way he looked and the hair colour -were Bardem's own. "I thought they weren't going to work," <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2012/oct/28/profile-javier-bardem">Mendes said</a>. "All of them worked.”<br />
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In one of Bardem’s most famous film performances, he plays the Cuban homosexual author Reinaldo Arenas in Julian Knabel’s Before Night Falls. Bardem recreates some of the sexual tension in that film when as Skyfall villain Silva, he interrogates Bond and runs his fingers across Bond's bare chest, before parting his legs. "What's your regulation training for this?" Silva asked him. Bond’s wisecrack "What makes you think it's my first time?" does nothing to dispel the notion a gay Bond might be possible.<br />
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If such a prospect would leave Fleming turning in his grave, he would be little happier with the other major sexual relationship in the film, that of Bond and M (or “Emma” as Albert Finch's gamekeeper Kincade insisted on calling her). Dench is a convincing hard-nosed matriarch whose tears for a supposedly dead Bond she cannot shed are instead provided by the rain outside her Millbank window. If it is love, it must remain a taboo as her firm insistence he could not sleep at her house showed. The oedipal undertones are underscored by the baddie Silva’s referral to her as “mother” and “mummy”. Bond shows more ornithological reserve but the tenderness in their relationship is obvious all the same.<br />
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With car chases and spectacular action sequences, Skyfall remains a commercial product designed to sell lots of theatre tickets. And though it has succeeded in being the best selling Bond movie yet, it is not the only attraction. As the minimalist gadgets supplied by Q show, Bond is a killing machine who must do most of the legwork himself. The audience is forced to either work backwards from Silva’s taunts or fill in the gaps themselves to put a human face on the enduring anonymous blunt hero.Craig’s “unromantic Anglo-Saxon” Bond remains, like the original’s birds, an enigma we never tire of watching.Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-42962301575705390682012-12-29T01:43:00.002+10:002012-12-29T11:04:25.282+10:00Brian Leveson - media personality 2012<br />
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The 2012 Woolly Days media person of the year is Brian Leveson. Leveson is a jurist not a journalist but his impact on journalism and the world of media this year has been profound. </div>
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The year 2012 will not go down as a great year for the world’s media. While the world’s business-as-usual pattern of production and consumption sees it <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/2012/11/18/new-report-examines-risks-of-degree-hotter-world-by-end-of-century">barrelling down a path</a> towards a 4 degree increase in temperature by 2100, the focus of most media attention is ever increasingly the deeply superficial. </div>
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Commercial media have always fulfilled two purposes: to make money and to inform but it is the profit imperative which is winning clearly at the moment. The large multi-national conglomerates that own media stock look no further than the bottom line when it comes to meeting deadlines. Issues like news values and ethics are a poor second if there is no payback. Meanwhile shareholder disquiet of falling ratings or circulations can be managed quarter to quarter by cost cutting and doing more with less. There is as a result according to <a href="http://innovationandgrowth.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/the-evolution-of-the-journalism-job-market/">Michael Mandel</a>, a “shift in journalistic employment to non-traditional industries, an increased in the self-employed, a delayering of journalism, and perhaps lower pay.”</div>
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Brian Leveson <a href="http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/12/12/1226535/657599-aus-news-file-leveson-address.pdf">admitted as much</a> on his recent visit to Melbourne. The closure of a large number of newspapers has reduced the extent to which local government, health, education and the courts can be held to account. “Society will be less well served as a result”, he said. Yet Leveson was aware that even if journalism jobs are becoming diffused and of less value, the media they serve remain powerful players as editorialists, chroniclers, sensemakers, muckrakers and watchdogs. </div>
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Their contract with the public to perform these roles is based on trust. The one-to-many broadcast model of television and the major papers ensured they always had the microphone to drown dissent. The internet and web2.0 changed all that and disapproval can amplify virally if compelling enough. The web further undermined the media’s privileged modus operandi by allowing a multiplicity of blog voices harvesting free online content often with more sagacity and insight than the journalists. Social media has forced big media to become more humble in their dealings with the public they profess to “serve”.</div>
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There remains pockets of strong resistance, with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp leading the counter-assault. This old fashioned news and entertainment empire (one of the few not owned by a non-news company) remains convinced it does not need to answer its critics. China is <a href="http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/murdochs-adventures-in-china.html">a rare failure</a> but In the US, Fox News is highly successful while his 2011 plan to buy the 60.9 percent of British cable company BSkyB it did not own was just a whisker away from being successful when undone by fine journalism. </div>
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Revelations by the Guardian journalist <a href="http://woollydays.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/guardians-rusbridger-and-davies-media-personality-2011/">Nick Davies and his editor Alan Rusbridger</a> brought the sordid hacking affair to light. The shadowy practices not only showed the need for profit greatly exceeded all other motives but described the contempt News had for its own audience. With the weight of evidence growing Prime Minister David Cameron appointed Justice Leveson in June 2011 to investigate the culture, practices and ethics of the British press as well as the dealings between the press, politicians and the police.</div>
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As testimony followed testimony, it was clear much was rotten in Murdoch’s hamlet. It wasn’t just the attitude that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/privacy-is-for-paedos-the-world-according-to-paul-20111130-1o5un.html">privacy was for paedo’s</a> as former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan espoused, it was the scene of serious crime. As November 2012, there had been 90 arrests on charges of interception of mobile phone messages, payment to public officials, data intrusion. The Inquiry would expose potentially corrupt dealings between senior members of the media, political parties and the police.<br />
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In nearly nine months of oral hearings, almost all available to transcript or watch online, involving 337 witnesses and 300 statements, the Inquiry became “the most public and most concentrated look at the press” Britain had ever seen. It enormous resonance not only in Britain but wherever British legal, ethical and press traditions operate, such as Australia. The numerous celebrities who portrayed themselves as “fair game” to an uncaring media, added to the notoriety of the charges. Australian media were quick to distance themselves from the phone hacking but there but for the grace of god go they at any lengths for a story. </div>
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With such a wide ranging brief, Leveson’s Inquiry had important things to say about plurality of ownership, privacy laws, and regulation of the press, all of which got the media companies quivering in their boots. Leveson was at pains to stress his inquiry was not an attack on press freedom. However, he said, with rights came responsibilities and all too often the press has simply ignored them. Neither the press or the press council ever launched investigations into allegations of serious misdoings such as breaches of data protection or trade in private and confidential information. Indeed when the phone hacking issue was raised, police executing a warrant were driven off the News of the World premises while the Press Complaints Commission criticised the Guardian for publishing the results of their investigations into the cover-up. </div>
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In November 2012 Leveson released his findings in a 2000 page report and 48-page <a href="http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc07/0779/0779.pdf">executive summary</a>. Leveson proposed an independent replacement for the Press Complaints Commission which he said had no regulatory powers. It would have a dual role of promoting high standards of journalism while protecting the role of the individual. The new body would not include serving editors or politicians and it could impose fines and direct the appearance of corrections. </div>
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Leveson said participation needed to be universal for the body to be properly funded and succeed in its purpose. Those that declined to be involved would forfeit the right to the in-built arbitration process and therefore could not claim costs of any civil action even if they won because they had refused the cheaper route to justice. Leveson said such a body would not regulate the press. He did not advocate prior restraint (a point of honour with the British press since Milton’s <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/areopagitica/">Areopagitica</a> in 1644). He acknowledged how the important role media plays in society “as a critical witness of events” and accepted that media and journalists have several necessary privileges under the law as “one of the true safeguards of our democracy”. Leveson said his legislation would in fact enshrine “for the first time, a legal duty on the Government to protect the freedom of the press”.</div>
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However, the media did not see it that way. Every newspaper in Britain except the Guardian rushed to denounce Leveson’s key recommendation. Biggest selling paper <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/4675652/The-Sun-says-Fooled-again.html">The Sun</a> said it was “deeply alarmed” by the prospect of “State control of newspapers.” “Such a law could allow State officials to walk into papers like The Sun and censor stories,” it said. <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/361485/Our-verdict-on-Leveson-Freedom-of-the-press-must-be-used-for-good">The Express</a> also worried about political aprons: “To put politicians in ultimate regulatory control of newspapers and then expect them never to seek to use that power to constrain criticism or scrutiny is to place in them a degree of trust they frankly do not deserve.” </div>
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Prime Minister David Cameron – himself implicated by the evidence of the over-close relationship between press and politics – <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/29/leveson-inquiry-david-cameron-statement">plumped for the press</a> over Leveson. He expressed his reservations over the legislation for the independent process to recognise the new self-regulatory body. “For the first time we would have crossed the Rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the land,” Cameron said. “We should I believe be wary of any legislation that has the potential to infringe free speech and a free press.”</div>
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High profile hacking victims such as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/jk-rowling-leveson-david-cameron_n_2220827.html?utm_hp_ref=media">JK Rowling</a> expressed dismay at Cameron’s speech. “"Having taken David Cameron's assurances in good faith at the outset of the inquiry he set up, I am merely one among many who feel duped and angry in its wake," she said. The Hacked Off coalition gained 100,000 signatures calling on the government to comply with Leveson’s findings. Cameron’s coalition partners the Lib Dems are among them, so the matter rolls on, awaiting further political arbitration in the new year.</div>
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If Cameron didn’t reckon for the public outcry, then Leveson certainly did. He predicted the victims and the public would not accept the outcome “if the industry did not grasp the opportunity”. Following seven inquiries into the British press in 70 years, it “did not make sense to contemplate an eighth.” Whether short-term interest will prevail is a moot point, as is the longevity of the media’s powers of influence. What is not in doubt is that Brian Leveson has done us all a favour by pointing a strong light on its problems. Maybe then, the media can return to the problems that affect the rest of us. </div>
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Previous Woolly Days media personalities of the year</div>
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2009 <a href="http://woollydays.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/mark-scott%E2%80%99s-year-of-living-dangerously/">Mark Scott</a></div>
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2010 <a href="http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/julian-assange-media-personality-2010.html">Julian Assange</a></div>
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2011 <a href="http://woollydays.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/guardians-rusbridger-and-davies-media-personality-2011/">Nick Davies and Alan Rusbridger</a></div>
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<br />Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-75829576973953684772012-12-20T23:10:00.001+10:002015-06-05T17:11:44.586+10:00Allan Macpherson and Mt AbundanceThe first European in the Maranoa was likely either Thomas Mitchell or his son Roderick in 1846 (though Finney Eldershaw claims he beat both Mitchells by four years in his journey of 1842). <br />
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Roderick Mitchell was the deputy Crown Commissioner for Lands in NSW who charted several branches of the Balonne River and may have got as far as the Bungil and Bungeworgorai Creeks. His journeys, and probably his maps, undoubtedly helped his father <a href="http://woollydays.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/major-mitchell-and-the-maranoa/">Sir Thomas Mitchell</a>, then surveyor-general of NSW on his trip to the Maranoa in 1846. Sir Thomas Mitchell took the same route up the Darling River system into Queensland. He was the first person to describe Mt Abundance and the rich area around it. He called it the Fitz Roy Downs in honour of the then Governor of New South Wales, Sir Charles Fitz Roy.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkAM79s5DnUzCE1TnyM_uZARxfGkYMRUC_K5-FcyxkYZFOp-TSRaU9_DkGS0S8c7UZ3FWHgAxOaCPiffK-Qo2VNSawt_y8oVDCB7xnAtZaRyIrw9g4KQ4NWUPEmK0oIsUH3Uv8ZA/s1600/Allan+MacPherson.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkAM79s5DnUzCE1TnyM_uZARxfGkYMRUC_K5-FcyxkYZFOp-TSRaU9_DkGS0S8c7UZ3FWHgAxOaCPiffK-Qo2VNSawt_y8oVDCB7xnAtZaRyIrw9g4KQ4NWUPEmK0oIsUH3Uv8ZA/s1600/Allan+MacPherson.JPG" /></a>It was no coincidence it was Mitchell followed his son, nor was there a coincidence about the man that followed Sir Thomas to become the first white settler of the Maranoa.<br />
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His name was Allan Macpherson.<br />
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Macpherson's father William was the clerk of the NSW parliament and just as important as Mitchell.<br />
They were both from Scotland and good friends too. Mitchell was also fond of William’s son Allan, a determined and ambitious young man. Allan was an adventurer who ran cattle and sheep on his Keera property in the remote Gwydir district of northern NSW. While the hilly country reminded him of his native Scotland, it wasn't profitable. Macpherson was captivated by Mitchell's description of Mt Abundance as "champaign country" and was determined to claim it for himself.<br />
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Knowing that "first come first served" meant possession under British law, he set off north-west along the river system for the promised land in July 1847. Macpherson had more than just Mitchell's maps, he had an armada of help: ten thousand sheep, hundreds of cattle, dozens of horses and drays and twenty men. The going was slow - they travelled just 60km in the first two weeks - but by the end of September his team was at the natural ford or "rocky bar" on the Balonne that Mitchell (senior) called St George's Bridge because he arrived there on the saint’s day, April 23.<br />
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St George was not just the patron saint of England, it was also the last settled part of the English realm.<br />
Not a single white man or woman lived north of the bridge. MacPherson crossed his Rubicon but was forced to halt for lambing season. Leaving the sheep behind, he finally gazed on Mt Abundance on Friday, October 15, 1847. Macpherson found Mitchell had not exaggerated about the quality of the land. "A glorious prospect!" he enthused.<br />
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He claimed a farm 30km across from the Cogoon River (now Muckadilla Creek) in the west to Bungeworgorai Creek in the east. The sight of the first natives two weeks later scared his men witless. Macpherson shamed them as cowards and he spent the following months building huts, cattle and sheep yards and fencing. Macpherson built several outstations including a cattle station on the spot of what would later become Roma.<br />
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The distance to the port of Newcastle was forbidding and Macpherson hoped to find a closer route to Brisbane via the Darling Downs. Urgent farmwork tied him down at Mt Abundance and after Christmas he went back to Keera for more supplies and drays. In January 1848, Macpherson got caught up in what would be a formidable foe for all who would live in the area: summer floods. Macpherson was constantly wet and bogged in heavy and impassable country with swollen fast-moving creeks.<br />
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He eventually made it to Keera but his return to the Maranoa was also delayed by floods. It was again a fleeting visit as Keera and Sydney demanded his presence on urgent family business. It was on his third return to St George's Bridge, Macpherson received the bad news Mt Abundance had been attacked.<br />
Two men in outstations were speared to death and the rest were fleeing south.<br />
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Macpherson found them where the Cogoon met the Balonne but was able to convince only one of his men to accompany him back to Mt Abundance. The blacks were gone but there was a lot to be fixed. The experience redoubled his efforts to find a more direct route to the Darling Downs. The furthest he got was to a nearby station east of the Bungil owned by James Alexander Blythe.<br />
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Blythe was one of the earliest travellers to the Maranoa after Mitchell and had come back to establish a property between Roma and Wallumbilla. Macpherson was also fortunate to survive a skirmish with Aboriginals on his return home to Mt Abundance but his servant Charley was missing presumed dead. By the end of 1848, Macpherson became convinced it was too unprofitable to run sheep due to "blacks, losses, native dogs and overcrowding."<br />
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He turned Mt Abundance into a cattle property but the native attacks continued and three of his workers were speared in March 1849.After two more wool-carriers were killed, Macpherson and the new Commissioner of Crown Lands John Durbin patrolled the area with mounted troopers gathering the wool and taking it south. But Macpherson had had enough.<br />
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He went off to Scotland to get married and Mt Abundance remained an expensive and unprofitable out station. He sold it on his return “for a song". As Macpherson said, "it was by no means the first pioneers that reaped the golden returns, but those who were prudent enough to follow in their wake."Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-4941814244341034202012-12-11T00:51:00.003+10:002012-12-11T01:02:27.826+10:00Business Issues: On 2DayFM and the death of a woman in London.When looking for culprits in <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/radio-industry-insiders-say-on-air-stunts-now-going-too-far/story-fndo471r-1226533996679">any suspicious death</a>, it is safe to assume someone running
away from the scene, has something to hide. On Saturday, two of Australia’s
largest companies, Coles and Telstra
were seen <a href="http://afr.com/p/business/marketing_media/austereo_suspends_all_advertising_SFFW5on7gGuAqY0yoo6eqO">running away</a> from Southern Cross Austereo’s radio station 2Day FM with indecent haste after one of Sydney station’s prank calls apparently led
to the suicide death of a nurse in a faraway London four days later.<br />
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It is safe to assume that despite their infantile behaviour with the prank, 2Day FM DJs Michael “MC” Christian and Mel
Greig never intended to cause harm to any of the participants. After being hiding for several days, the company wheeled them out to tell their stories to Channel's 7 and 9 tonight. They have <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2245727/Australias-2Day-FM-DJ-Mel-Greigs-tears-interview-Michael-Christian-suicide-nurse-Kate-hospital.html">both apologised</a> which is more than can be said of station management and its legal advisers who reviewed and approved
the tape before it was played on air. No doubt the justification for not
spiking it was the media attention it was going to get for so easily breaching
royal security. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Today seems so far from last Wednesday, when two jolly 2Day FM station hosts were
conducting the breezy on air patter beloved of morning FM radio stations across the planet, They told listeners they had hold of the telephone number at King
Edward VII Hospital in London where Kate Middleton was staying. Michael “MC” Christian informed
listeners they would “try and get Kate Middleton or even Prince Wills on the
line”. They did not tell listeners this was not live.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Michael was to act the role of Prince Charles, Mel was the Queen
and another staff member provided the yelps for a royal corgi. How the hospital did not see beyond this half-baked plot remains a mystery especially when the fake upper class accent of
Greig (supposedly the Queen) asks to speak for “Kate, my granddaughter.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nurse Jacintha Saldanha didn’t ask for any further proof of
identification (glossing over the fact the Queen is not Kate’s grandmother) and
passed the caller onto Kate’s ward. There another nurse was further duped by
Mel, Michael and the corgi’s increasing ludicrous vaudeville acting into
revealing matters of the patient’s health. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Saldanha may
have died of the shame of being so duped and breaching a trust of confidence but no one comes out of this smelling of roses.</div>
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This is astonishingly poor risk management
by Austereo, particularly as they must have known they were dealing with material of international important given the worldwide prurient interest in the Royal Couple and their future
baby. There is a case the material
should be in the public domain, particularly as an expose of poor hospital
security protocols but Austereo presumably didn’t think they could make money that way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So they played it for laughs. There was some negative reaction in the days that followed but mostly
they got away with it. Grandfather-to-be Prince Charles joked about it asking newspaper
reporters <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">“How do you know I’m not a radio station?</span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; line-height: 115%; padding: 0cm;"><span style="outline: 0px;"> Meanwhile
British newspapers <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4684619/prince-charles-jokes-about-australian-dj-prank-call.html#ixzz2Eep6LtUY">gleefully repeated</a> </span> some of the juicy titbits the second nurse
gave to 2Day FM. </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Then Saldanha died on Saturday, and no one was laughing. British
media and social networks became holier than thou and launched a
firestorm of protest against the station and its two DJs. Mel and Michael were whisked
away into hiding and their twitter accounts summarily deleted. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Others fled quickly too with reports of Telstra and Coles speedily
ceasing their advertising with 2DayFM (but not Southern Cross Austereo’s other
stations). Telstra told AAP they had
suspended “advertising on the station until an investigation into the issue has
concluded”. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Neither they
nor Coles issued media releases to confirm their actions. A check of <a href="http://www.coles.com.au/AboutColes/News/tabid/101/Default.aspx">Coles newsroom</a> boasts “t</span>here’s always something new happening at Coles,” but they didn’t
see their abandonment of 2DayFM in their moment of crisis newsworthy of a media
release.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What Coles did do was put <a href="http://www.facebook.com/coles">their justification on Facebook</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“<span class="usercontent">We understand Australians are clearly angry
and upset by what appear to be tragic consequences of the 2Day FM UK hospital
prank,” the retailer wrote.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="usercontent">“We have wanted to let you know we have
instructed 2Day FM to remove all Coles group advertising from the station as
soon as possible.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="usercontent">That post brought almost 2000 comments with
also half the respondents thinking Coles’ reaction was over the top.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="uficommentbody"> “It
was a funny joke, get over it", said Anthony Paino before reminding Coles of other things they should boycott. ‘ How about your remove all caged eggs and pork from
your shelves," he said.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="uficommentbody">Helz Jessop asked would they stop selling alcohol if they killed someone drink driving while Abbi Hamilton was looking for patriotism: </span>“Why not do something proper and remove all
imported food and drinks from your aisles?" she said.</div>
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<span class="uficommentbody">Phil Young said it was advertisers like Coles that made
the radio stations "untouchable and unaccountable,” Young said. “Now that Coles
have suddenly got a conscience they might look at some of the other stuff they
are involved in that causes harm.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Coles can attempt to take the high ground with their move. But the fact remains they only boycotted it after Saldanha’s death - they presumably thought the content was not objectionable at the time as it was played.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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The big companies' rapid stampede to the exit after the media firestorm on Saturday caused the station to cover
their tracks similar to the way it handled stablemate Alan Jones’s “died of
shame” comment. A spokeswoman for Austereo, Sandy Kay,let <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/all-advertising-on-2day-fm-suspended-indefinitely-after-nurse-in-prank-call-commits-suicide/story-e6frfmq9-1226532724014#ixzz2ESbpT4UX">the cat out of the bag</a> when she confirmed to AAP that there would be no advertising on 2Day FM over the weekend. </div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">"We
have suspended advertising at least until Monday on that radio station in
Sydney out of respect to advertisers until business issues can really be
addressed,' Kay said. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was
respect to advertisers Austereo was worried about, not respect to the dead
woman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">And what did Kay
mean by “business issues” that could be resolved in a couple of days? </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps
she was thinking the Jones boycott lasted only <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/alan-jones-sponsor-boycott-ends-as-advertisers-return-to-2gb-121912">a couple of weeks</a></span> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">and advertisers were desperate to be associated with their high-rating product
no matter how juvenile or crass the consequences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Mel and
Michael were idiots but they were just doing what the station and their
advertisers expected of them. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;">As <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/the-delicate-art-of-pulling-off-prank-calls-on-the-radio-126820">radio DJ </a></span><em style="color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/the-delicate-art-of-pulling-off-prank-calls-on-the-radio-126820">Jason ‘Jabba’ Davis</a> said a</span></em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;">udiences want to be in on
the joke.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">“As broadcasters we want to make people laugh, but we need to
pull it off without dishing out grief to the undeserving,” Davis said.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b> </b></span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> If you are feeling suicidal, don’t mess around.
Call Lifeline on 13 11 14</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-31662866118068113502012-10-23T00:57:00.001+10:002012-10-23T00:57:38.723+10:00Major Mitchell and the Maranoa<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGmt_N-VuymymtKokDesWy3_qwtp1kyEuY5bvneB-4nVwWIjVRF4UP6ruQUyIg8zO5-_BV-m8Ib-8C687hllwWA_61_Ej6rr6dJhFsKGszDb33u8sjSHAirsMnxKQYqAj_BiuDPg/s1600/thomas+mitchell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGmt_N-VuymymtKokDesWy3_qwtp1kyEuY5bvneB-4nVwWIjVRF4UP6ruQUyIg8zO5-_BV-m8Ib-8C687hllwWA_61_Ej6rr6dJhFsKGszDb33u8sjSHAirsMnxKQYqAj_BiuDPg/s200/thomas+mitchell.jpg" width="163" /></a>The Maranoa is far from Stirlingshire but it was the fertile woody lands west of what is now Roma that most appealed to the Scottish-born surveyor-general of NSW, Thomas Mitchell. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mitchell-sir-thomas-livingstone-2463">Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell</a> was a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army who earned his stripes with Wellington in the 1811 Iberian Campaign against Napoleon. The Duke was so impressed by the young Scot, barely 19, he commissioned him to survey the battlefields. After 16 years of military service he was head-hunted by the Crown to perform the same duties for the young colony of New South Wales as Deputy Surveyor-General.<br />
<br />
Mitchell’s boss was John Oxley who had opened up several areas to white settlers including the Lachlan, Macquarie and Tweed Rivers. With Allan Cunningham, Oxley beat an inland path to what would become Queensland via the Brisbane River
But the difficulties of his explorations led to an early death. John Oxley died in 1828 aged just 45. Hired just a year earlier, Oxley’s ill-health was always at the back of Mitchell’s mind and suddenly he was promoted into the role he would keep for the next 27 years and four major explorations.<br />
<br />
The first of those in 1831 took Mitchell directly due north of Sydney towards Tamworth. He found the Gwydir River and turned inland till he found the Darling. After natives killed two of three helpers, Mitchell returned to Sydney to plan his next sortie.
It took four years to return to the Darling but he was determined to find out where this long meandering river emptied into the sea. His botanist Richard Cunningham was killed by the Aborigines and Mitchell was forced to withdraw again after a skirmish.<br />
<br />
Undaunted, he was back a year later to try again. There was more battles with natives and he killed seven of a large posse of 200 that were attacking him. This time he followed the Darling until it joined the Murray near Wentworth. Mitchell went on to see the Grampians and he followed the Glenelg River to the Bass Strait coast (where Nelson is now).
Mitchell returned to Sydney a hero after opening up this vast stretch of Australia Felix to the Europeans.<br />
<br />
It led to a relative semi-retirement and there was no more expeditions for nine years.
Having mapped much of what would become Victoria, he would do the same for what would become Queensland. With fellow explorer Edmund Kennedy he set off north on December 15, 1845, aged 54. Mitchell called on familiar routines striking out north-west for the Darling, as he had done three times before. But this time he continued north to the Narran River, to the Balonne, and to the Culgoa. Near the junction of the Maranoa and Balonne rivers, Mitchell found a natural bridge on April 23, 1846. He named the bridge for the auspicious saint's day he found it, St George’s Bridge.<br />
<br />
Crossing the bridge Mitchell followed the Cogoon Creek which he renamed what he thought the natives called it: Muckadilla Creek. This took him into great pastoral country west of what is now Roma. He christened a hill in the region Mt Abundance and from its top, marvelled over what he called a “a champaign region, spotted with wood, stretching as far as human vision or even the telescope would reach.” Mitchell would continue west to find the Warrego and Barcoo Rivers but it was his description of Mt Abundance that resonated. By champaign, Mitchell meant undulating country, but many who followed in his path were made drunk by his vision.
It was to be his final exploration.<br />
<br />
When he returned to Sydney, he told his friend and fellow Scot William MacPherson about his discoveries.
His son Allan MacPherson held lands at Keera in New England and Mitchell encouraged him to try his luck at <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900601.txt">Mount Abundance</a>.
Heading north-west and crossing St George’s Bridge in the path of Mitchell, MacPherson was the first white settler of the Maranoa in 1847 just a year after his mentor, bringing with him his workers, cattle and sheep.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/goodbye-bussamarai-mandandanji-land.html">Watched closely by the Mandandanji</a> whose lands he craved, MacPherson was fearless and carried guns to enforce his law. Ultimately he was not successful but he laid open the path for others to follow both from the south and from the east to the Darling Downs.<br />
<br />
Thanks to his mentor Mitchell, MacPherson had changed the region forever.
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-26320888540004348912012-10-20T23:20:00.003+10:002012-10-22T23:05:00.857+10:00A new news beast: Newsweek goes digital<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In an interview that could easily have passed for Fox
talking to Murdoch, the Newsweek Daily Beast Company sat down with its
editor-and-chief and founder Tina Brown to discuss the end of print at
the venerable magazine Newsweek. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Newsweek
fell into the hands of Brown and Beast two years ago but have been
unable to resist sliding circulation and rising costs. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19989346">The last print edition </a>will be December 31.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Brown was on “Newsbeast” this week seated
next to the company’s new CEO Baba Shetty as they said why Newsweek
was shedding staff and its print publication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
For </span>Brown, it about protection, both of
journalists and content. Senior suited-up columnist John Avlon lollypopped his bosses with the opening question phrased as a statement: “So we
are taking the bull by the horns, going all digital…”</div>
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“We are,” replied Brown. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We must embrace the future.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
Newsweek was 80 years old, she said. and it
was time to start looking at the next 80 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Brown, like many editors before her, conceded defeat for print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
The industry has reached a tipping point and
it was no longer a case if but when, she said.<br />
<br />
And “when” said Brown, might as well be “now”.<br />
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“We decided to take away the when and…embrace it, be ready
for it.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Avlon turned the discussion to Shetty with management speak.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Being proactive not reactive is always a good idea…”<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yes,” replied Shetty, who unlike Avlon, was dressed down
with a jumper and shirt.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The new CEO, a “brand guru”, said Newsweek was a great brand
and a powerful media icon but was encumbered by “the form factor” and its
economics. Taking away issues of physical printing distribution and
circulation by porting the core product to digital would be “incredibly
liberating”, Shetty said.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Consumers were moving to digital and advertisers would want
to be there to grab these audiences, he said. Tablet devices, web usage for news, and social news meant it
made perfect sense for Newsweek to now go “completely native on digital”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Brown gave an economic rationale to back it up. She said it
cost Newsweek $42m a year to print, manufacture and distribute "before you’ve
even paid one writer or one intern". <br />
“That’s an enormous albatross,” Brown said.</div>
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“We thought it was more important to protect the
journalists, the contents, the photographers, the ideas.” </div>
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Brown said she wanted a digital Newsweek to focus on the marketplace
of ideas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But how then, would it be
different to the Daily Beast, also entirely online, asked Avlon. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shetty said they were “incredibly
complementary".</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In four years, the Beast had gone from a start-up to a site
with 15 million visitors a month, up 70 percent since 2011, a huge spike in
readership and engagement. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many were “lean forward, participatory, multiple visits a
day,” Shetty said. “The Daily Beast is indispensable in many people’s information
diet.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A healthy portion of this traffic was generated each week by
Newsweek’s strong original journalism. Newsweek, said Shetty, “a step removed”,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>offered more considered, thoughtful,
long-form journalism. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Brown said the the Daily Beast and Newsweek spoke to “the
same reader in different moods”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Daily
Beast offered news that was “hot and happening” while Newsweek appealed to the
ipad reader on the train home. But, she said, they offered the same sensibility:
reflection, context and “a thorough look at what was happening in the world”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Avlon steered the conversation to the new brand: Newsweek Global. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CEO Shetty called it a terrific new
perspective and described who the product would appeal to: “The mobile, highly informed, highly engaged, person very
aware of what is happening over the globe.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He said removing legacy print, meant Newsweek could
re-interpret what it could be in pure digital form. Brown said the Daily Beast now appealed to a similar global
reader who lived in India, London or Brazil.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Brown said one of the focuses was on “really powerful live
events” including ones they had organised like <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/women-in-the-world.html">Women in the World</a>.
which has<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/13/women-in-the-world-foundation-launch-by-tina-brown-and-kim-azzarelli.html"> an associated foundation</a>
which last week launched a campaign for education of girls in Pakistan with
Angelina Jolie, hot on the heels of the shooting of 14-year-old education
campaigner Malala Yousafzai.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All aspects of the company, said Brown were “now playing together”
but print was the anomaly. Getting rid of it went with “enormous regret” as some
“incredible brilliant talent” would be leaving the company but it was “the right
decision for the company.” Avlon concluded that in terms of content that was “good news
for journalists” and an exciting new opportunity” before nodding to the camera
to end the interview.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/18/a-turn-of-the-page-for-newsweek.html">The Daily Beast article</a> that went with the video, gave some
statistics to back up the “tipping point” :</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are now 70m tablet users in the US, up from 13m in two
years. A further explosion of use is likely, especially as two in
five Americans get their news online, a number that is also growing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Exiting print is an extremely difficult moment for all of
us who love the romance of print and the unique weekly camaraderie of those
hectic hours before the close on Friday night,” the article concluded. "But as we head for the 80th anniversary of Newsweek next
year we must sustain the journalism that gives the magazine its purpose—and
embrace the all-digital future.”</div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-65323051462765152392012-10-16T19:36:00.000+10:002012-10-17T12:39:48.080+10:00Brand Branson<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Er1aXyliVB5EcAAEQRiXPjzS-vTzgCCwdCRpwZqgyzN5wKi7EGKEQ1kTZpyT1Fqg3Doc-heCSMc5JdpL9lU2D-Q7TfHsaeJwXj08wUyj9CL_zKcG-J9OLCYI9wSneS6SLj-XUA/s1600/branson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Er1aXyliVB5EcAAEQRiXPjzS-vTzgCCwdCRpwZqgyzN5wKi7EGKEQ1kTZpyT1Fqg3Doc-heCSMc5JdpL9lU2D-Q7TfHsaeJwXj08wUyj9CL_zKcG-J9OLCYI9wSneS6SLj-XUA/s320/branson.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/six-victorians-pay-200000-each-for-space-flight-tickets-with-virgin-galactic/story-e6frf7kx-1226478388369">TWENTY-THREE Australians</a> are among the 600 people who have
stumped up a cool $US200,000 each to be among the first space tourists with
Virgin Galactic. The flights are expected to take place at the end of next
year after Virgin test flights prove successful and the passengers undergo
basic space training.<br />
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Flights on Virgin’s <a href="http://www.spaceshiptwo.net/">SpaceShipTwo</a> will carry two pilots and
six commercial passengers on a two and a half journey that will involve just
six minutes of sub-orbital weightlessness 21,000m high. The idea is the latest brainwave of serial inventive British
businessman Richard Branson who will be on the first scheduled flight with his
family.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The entrepreneurial icon turned 62 in July but shows no sign
of slowing down. </div>
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Where others see disaster, Branson sees opportunity.
<a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/08/01/8382250/">CNN</a> called him part Warren Buffett, part PT Barnum and an “unflappable inventor
and promoter”.He has vast interests on six continents, including airlines,
express trains, mobile phones and credit cards.</div>
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Branson was always an independent sort. Aged 16 he <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/richard-branson-fails-virgin-companies-that-went-bust-2012-4?op=1">set up a magazine</a> to put out a student point of view. “I didn't like the way I was being
taught at school,” he said in 2006. “I didn't like what was going on in the
world, and I wanted to put it right.” Plenty of advertisers were willing to stump up to reach the
cashed-up youngsters reading Branson’s mag and his career was up and running.</div>
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He advertised records in the magazine and started selling
them himself at a London store at discounted rates under the brand “Virgin”.In 1972 he launched Virgin Records and was approached by a
struggling artist called Mike Oldfield to listen to his demo. Other companies
thought Oldfield's instrumental work was unmarketable but Branson took a gamble. Oldfield’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tun9bcnfotU&feature=related">Tubular Bells</a> was the first record released by Virgin. The album took off after it was
used as the theme music for the movie The Exorcist and by the end of 1973 it
was a massive international success. Branson was always grateful to Oldfield and would later name
one of his first Virgin America planes Tubular Belle.</div>
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Branson’s willingness to take a gamble paid off and he was
at it again in 1976 when he signed the band the Sex Pistols. Johnny Rotten and
his punk crew were controversial but they knew how to shift records. Though the band broke up before Branson made serious money out of them, they successful <a href="http://www.ageofmarketing.com/the-sex-pistols-effect">changed Virgin's image</a> as a hippie label. In their wake, he signed up XTC, The Skids,The Culture Club, The Human League, and Sting. Virgin’s income went
from a loss of <span class="st">£</span>900,000 in 1980 to a profit of<span class="st"> </span><span class="st">£</span>11 million in 1983. In 1992 Branson was able to sell the music label to EMI for
<span class="st">£0.5 billion.</span> </div>
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By then, Branson had broadened his scope with
expensive airlines in his firing line. In his autobiography <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Losing-My-Virginity-Survived-Business/dp/0307720748">Losing My Virginity</a>
he explained why. “My interest in life comes from setting myself huge,
apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them,” he said.
“From the perspective of wanting to live life to the full, I felt that I had to
attempt it.” Just as his assault on the expensive record industry worked,
the over-regulated airline market was also ripe for picking.</div>
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His Virgin Atlantic Airways was followed by Virgin Blue in
Australia in 2000. Virgin Blue took full advantage of Ansett’s collapse a year
later to become the country’s second largest airline. Internationally there was
Virgin Trains and Virgin Mobile and even Virgin Comics as Branson spread his
net far and wide. Meanwhile there was a succession of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167462/Billionaire-Richard-Branson-son-Sam-set-records-kite-surfing-Channel.html">world record attempts</a>,
film appearances and humanitarian initiatives as Branson the man competed with
Branson the brand. </div>
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He was knighted in 2000 for “services to entrepreneurship”
and he now gets rock star treatment wherever he goes. Last year, stadiums in
Sydney and Melbourne were filled with people who <a href="http://jamiemcintyre.com/business-rock-star-sydney-morning-herald-talks-sir-richard-branson-tim-ferriss-upcoming-21st-century-financial-education-summit/">forked out $300 a ticket</a> to
attend a “financial education summit” where Sir Richard was the star speaker.</div>
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Now at an age when many are reaching for the pipe and
slippers, Branson is still reaching for the skies and beyond. </div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-2690306701599053212012-10-12T00:14:00.003+10:002012-10-17T11:57:13.368+10:00Australian Wheat bickering<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r4783">Wheat Export Marketing Amendment Bill 2012</a>
is one of many issues used as poorly understood political footballs in Canberra. <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/previousproducts/1301.0feature%20article212006?opendocument&tabname=summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2006&num=&view=">Wheat is important</a> because it is
the staple food of almost half the world's population and is one of the most
important commodities produced by the Australian agriculture industry. Australia
produces 3% of the world's wheat but its exports represent around 15% of the
world wheat trade annually.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet there is little news about what this bill,
currently staggering slowly through parliament will do for the industry.
Instead media commentary is all about the drama of who will<a href="http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/wa-libs-will-cross-floor-on-wheat-bill-20121007-2771m.html"> cross the floor </a>and whether the bill will get up. At its simplest, the bill is aimed at <a href="http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2012/10/03/543856_grain-and-hay.html%20levy">ending a compulsory 22c a tonne</a> levy wheat growers pay to the Government export body for “accreditation”. It would seem a piece of de-regulation
ideally suited to free market Opposition philosophies. But the Opposition is
living up to its name and opposing the bill. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Opposition have hidden the obtuseness of their
opposition behind a supposed need for a “well managed transition”. In <a href="http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/PressReleases/tabid/86/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8920/Joint-Press-Release-with-Warren-Truss--Statement-on-Wheat-Industry-Deregulation.aspx">a joint statement</a> released today by the
leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott and his deputy Warren Truss tried to explain it
away. “Coalition in our first
term will implement measures agreed by the industry to ensure a well-managed
deregulation to free and open competition while maintaining our international
reputation for quality and reliability,” they said. Abbott and Truss said deregulation had to wait
until they formed government to “safeguard” port access arrangements,
transparency standards on stock information and minimum quality standards. It pointed to the Indonesian live export
debacle and for good measure it threw in pink batts and over-priced school
halls to show why Labor could not be trusted on this. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The pair denied they would bring back the single desk, which Truss managed during Coalition Government. <span style="font-family: inherit;">The waters are
muddied by several of his “agrarian socialists” who have joined
Labor in wanting state interaction in the industry
removed. These are National party
members in WA, the state that grows the most wheat. WA grew 11 million tonnes in
2003-2004 which amounts to over $2 mlllion dollars to the export agency, money
the industry would rather keep. The <a href="http://www.pgaofwa.org.au/press_releases/ABBOTT%25E2%2580%2599S+DEREGULATION+PLAN+SLAMMED+BY+PGA">Western Grain Growers' Committee </a>of WA
said Liberal policy was destroying its reputation in the bush. WGGC chair John
Snooke said the will would remove “<span lang="EN">a redundant bureaucratic body
which has no purpose and imposes an unnecessary cost on wheat growers in
Western Australia.” Snook said there was no need legislation on issues such as
wheat quality “because they already are being handled by the industry and by
the market.”</span></span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That is the problem
for Abbott and Truss: the industry is already deregulated. That happened in
2007 when the old Wheat Export Authority was wound up. Set up in the shadow of
World War II, the WEA had grown to have wide powers. The main ones in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century were to monitor the Australian Wheat Board single desk and to manage
any other party that wanted to export Australian wheat. When both the WEA and
the AWB was tarnished by the revelations of kickbacks to Saddam’s Iraq in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWB_Oil-for-Wheat_Scandal,">Oil for Wheat</a>
the WEA was disbanded.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 2006 PM John
Howard <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/scandal-costs-awb-its-monopoly/2006/02/10/1139542402621.html">stripped AWB of its monopoly</a>.
This was against the wishes of many of his Nationals who argued the single desk
was the only way to give Australian wheat farmers bargaining clout in an
unfairly-run international market. The AWB was privatised and later acquired by Canadian
interests. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 2008 Labor
introduced a new board with more limited power replaced the WEA. It was
supported by the Liberals but not the Nationals. Confusingly the new body <a href="http://www.wea.gov.au/">Wheat Exports Australia </a>had
a similar name and the same acronym. But the new WEA was given just one role to
play: set up an accreditation scheme for the bulk wheat exports to ensure
exporters met company standards. “The
Scheme allows for the accreditation of bulk wheat exporters which meet the
specified 'fit and proper' criteria and for WEA to exercise its monitoring and
enforcement powers,” the (new WEA) says. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The problem is
that this accreditation costs money and the (new) WEA is funded by a compulsory
22c a tonne of wheat levy from grain growers, and grain growers don’t like it.
As one grain grower told me “<span lang="EN">If the bill doesn't pass we'll
effectively be operating in a pseudo partially deregulated market continuing to
fund the current WEA which is of no use to us that I can see.”</span> In May, the levy, called a <a href="http://www.wea.gov.au/PDF/media/media%20releases/WECreinstated.pdf">Wheat Export Charge</a> was removed
pending the passing of the bill. But it was automated re-instated on
October 1 when the bill had not passed through parliament. </span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The debate was <a href="http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/coalition-feigning-unity-on-wheat-govt-20121011-27f46.html">adjourned again </a>today with the Opposition divided and Labor wasting time on wedge
politics. The wisest words went to former
Liberal MP <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/washer-calls-for-wheat-bill-deal-20121007-277c6.html#ixzz2900XM7M2">Wilson Tuckey</a>, who lost his seat to Nationals wildcard Tony Crook who supports the bill. Tuckey also wants a free vote in the Opposition. ''In
political terms, do you feed a boil, or do you lance it?'' he said </span></span></div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-68688019274660931082012-10-07T11:46:00.003+10:002012-11-24T16:50:35.340+10:00Goodbye Bussamarai: The Mandandanji Land Wars in the Maranoa<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE-xgxi2DuBu_GuCWu0j7hzgDtuMwzFKECwUawG2cwcotkH0eMPkes1WQ7o3N-LGr-boGWnwvEMdiC_u07U8KjlmLBOrO6nqyrenECMB8MAsyICPfmJsX6ChjVsIGB7poquil81A/s1600/bussa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE-xgxi2DuBu_GuCWu0j7hzgDtuMwzFKECwUawG2cwcotkH0eMPkes1WQ7o3N-LGr-boGWnwvEMdiC_u07U8KjlmLBOrO6nqyrenECMB8MAsyICPfmJsX6ChjVsIGB7poquil81A/s200/bussa.jpg" width="134" /></a>I have just finished reading <a href="http://www.goodbyebussamarai.com/">Goodbye Bussamarai</a>, about how Europeans displaced the Aborigines in the part of Australia I live in. Subtitled less evocatively “The Mandandanji Land War Southern Queensland 1842-1852”, the book is simultaneously a work of great research, and a difficult, dense and sometimes dull read.
Author Patrick Collins laments the fact that most Australians have heard of the Apaches heroes like Cochise and Geronimo but few have heard of tribes such as the Mandandanji and their leaders such as Bussamarai.<br />
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The problem is the record is patchy, written by whites and with the most awkward bits left out. It doesn’t help that a sense of Bussamarai the man does not emerge from Collin’s book.
What does emerge is that early Europeans were tolerated as adventurers but not as a permanent and disruptive presence. When explorers Mitchell and Leichhardt drifted into what Collins calls <a href="http://www.dsdip.qld.gov.au/resources/map/reform/maranoa-map.pdf">East Maranoa</a> in the colony of NSW (the current Queensland local government region of Maranoa plus all of the Balonne shire north of St George), they were followed by a handful of whites determined to take advantage of the fertile lands suggested by Mitchell’s descriptions of “mount abundance” and a “champagne region”.<br />
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Mitchell and <a href="http://www.davidreilly.com/australian_explorers/leichhardt/ludwig.htm">Leichhardt</a> also described their meetings with “the blacks” so the settlers knew the land weren’t empty. But they were not occupied in a way the new settlers understood. So with a sense of entitlement allied to superior firepower, it gave carte blanche to mass murder as the competition for territory expanded. The white arrived with “too many dreams and two many cows”.<br />
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After NSW surveyor-general <a href="http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/history_nation/mitchell/index.html">Thomas Mitchell</a> came to East Maranoa in 1846, he recounted his adventures in Sydney to William MacPherson, secretary to the NSW parliament and William's son the grazier Allan. Mitchell gave Allan maps and encouraged him to set up a land claim there. Macpherson Junior would be the first farmer in the Roma region setting off with men and livestock from his headstation in the Gwydir in 1847.<br />
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Without an inspection of the land, MacPherson was taking a large leap of faith with <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900601h.html">Mount Abundance</a> near Muckadilla some 200km from the nearest white settlement at Moonie.
Mitchell and MacPherson weren’t the first whites in the area. Clarence River area squatter Finney Eldershaw described his search in 1842 for suitable land after he heard of “luxurious downs” in the region. But it wasn’t the Aboriginals that stopped Eldershaw, it was economic conditions. Australia was in depression and East Maranoa’s remoteness from white settlement made it a difficult financial prospect.<br />
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Five years later, conditions were improving. While MacPherson was setting off, another friend of Mitchell, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kennedy-edmund-besley-court-2297">Edmund Kennedy</a> was back in the region to do more exploration. He was joined by Archer, Blyth and Chauvel who explored the region from the north. MacPherson started his run in October 1847 with 20 men working the property.
While we know a lot about the early whites, the Aborigines are more inscrutable. The character of the warrior “Bussamarai” who gives his name to the book is particularly problematic.<br />
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Collins claims that a tribal leader called variously by different whites as old Billy, Eaglehawk, Possum Murray and Bussamarai was the one and the same person but the evidence is not always convincing. Collins said the elder who helped Mitchell find Muckadilla Creek and the Maranoa River was “probably” Bussamarai. All Mitchell said was the blacks were not covetous and asked for nothing.
But by the time Kennedy got to the region, relations had gone downhill and he had to use “one or two shots in the air” to frighten 200 Aborigines away from his camp. As the decade went by the Mandandanji lands became untenable as more whites entered the East Maranoa motivated less by fame and discovery then by land acquisition.<br />
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MacPherson recorded the first cattle killing at Warroo station near Surat in late 1847. By December 1848 there was all out war between the blacks and the settlers affecting every station the area between the present day towns of Roma and Chinchilla. Station hands working for absentee landholders dispensed rough justice in retaliation for attacks on their livestock while authorities in faraway Sydney and even further London turned a blind eye.<br />
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Finally a new force gradually restored “order” by 1851. This was NSW’s northern division of the <a href="http://www.qhatlas.com.au/content/native-police">Native Police</a>, who served the economic ends of the pastoralists. Pastoral superintendent Frederick Walker led a team of 20 Aborigines up from the Macintyre River district dispensing rough justice wherever they went. Walker was renowned for his good relations with Aborigines but he showed no mercy in East Maranoa.<br />
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Scanty evidence exists of the genocide that followed. Pastoralist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lang-gideon-scott-2325">Gideon Lang</a> testified to an 1854 parliamentary select committee on the native police that he wanted them to protect his Darling River runs. But Lang also knew of the “wholesale and indiscriminate killing” and “cold blooded cruelty on the part of the whites quite unparalleled in the history of these colonies”. Walker’s men used “fair means or foul” to bring about a lopsided peace in East Maranoa. There were significant massacres at Yuleba Creek in March 1850 and Yamboucal station near Surat in May 1852.<br />
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In retaliation, Collins said Bussamarai united the Bigambul people and two or three other groups with the Mandandanji to drive out the whites. They engaged in battles with the Native Police with inevitable conclusions. On November 1852 a Sergeant Skelton noted a skirmish at Ukabulla between the Aboriginals led by Bussamarai and armed troops in daylight. Two Aboriginals were “shot in the attempt to apprehend them,” Skelton said. “Likewise four more of the Blacks were shot before I could drive them to the station.”
The East Maranoa front was “tamed” and the war and the atrocities moved on to other areas of Queensland.<br />
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The surviving Mandandanji settled into a life of fringe dwellers in their own territory. Many were forcibly removed to settlements at Taroom and later at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woorabinda,_Queensland">Woorabinda</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherbourg,_Queensland">Cherbourg</a>, scattering the memory of their sacred link to the land. The Goodbye to Bussamarai is not only to a warrior but to a way of life that had no chance against European civilisation.
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-41754179740427921522012-10-03T01:51:00.000+10:002012-10-03T11:25:19.016+10:00Ukraine challenges Australia's cigarette plain packaging laws<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0jI5SAyeVPCtC7tKLEFLCgDseUV9JqhqQmDWMBCWCM8-i5kanzPlNUgwgrbx1DtgsJYYxDlFvtV6FMdjwXewCsCbfHqIkhml21Tf4Naky8uuSVnYCbY6I4Oov0PfLqvEWaSbaSg/s1600/cigarette.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0jI5SAyeVPCtC7tKLEFLCgDseUV9JqhqQmDWMBCWCM8-i5kanzPlNUgwgrbx1DtgsJYYxDlFvtV6FMdjwXewCsCbfHqIkhml21Tf4Naky8uuSVnYCbY6I4Oov0PfLqvEWaSbaSg/s200/cigarette.jpg" width="133" /></a>While those who detest the loss of national power to international bodies usually blame the UN, it is <a href="http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news12_e/dsb_28sep12_e.htm">a World Trade Organisation decision this week</a> that is posing the most serious threat yet to Australian government policy. The high-stakes decision is about cigarettes smoking, a global <a href="http://www.who.int/tobacco/framework/wha_eb/wha39_14/en/index.html">pandemic</a> that kills six million people a year. Accounting for <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc263adc-05c5-11e2-9ebd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz289etKq15">one in every 10 adult deaths</a>, smoking is the most widespread public health threat in the world and the single biggest preventable cause of cancer. At least 15,000 people <a href="http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-3-health-effects/3-30-deaths-attributable-to-tobacco-by-disease-cat">die a year in Australia</a> from smoking related causes.<br />
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Australia is now in the vanguard of public health initiatives against this pandemic. Last year the Government passed ground-breaking legislation for cigarette plain packaging through <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-31/coalition-to-back-plain-cigarette-packaging/2739026">a hostile parliament </a>and then<a href="http://theconversation.edu.au/big-tobacco-crashes-at-first-legal-hurdle-on-plain-packaging-8807"> a high court challenge</a> in August this year. The legislation requires tobacco products to feature standard <a href="http://theconversation.edu.au/the-olive-revolution-australias-plain-packaging-leads-the-world-8856">olive-coloured plain packaging</a> with large health warnings.<br />
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Within <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/hidden-hand-of-big-tobacco-leads-to-wto-challenge-20120819-24gjo.html">hours of that court decision</a> a challenge came from tobacco-producing country Ukraine in the WTO.
Ukraine is not the first country that comes to mind when dealing with Australia trade. According to the <a href="http://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/ukraine/ukraine_brief.html">Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade</a>, trade is “modest” and it favours Australia. In 2009 Australia exported $70m of goods and services to Ukraine while just half that amount went the other way mainly to pay for Ukrainian fertilisers and electrical circuits equipment. Ukraine exports a lot of cigarettes but little or none to Australia. <br />
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Nevertheless Ukraine requested a <a href="http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_e.htm">WTO Dispute Settlement Body</a> (DSB) panel to look at the cigarette trademark restriction. After being deferred last month, the DSB agreed to form a panel last week.
Now the DSB will determine if the measures “erode the protection of intellectual property rights” and “impose severe restrictions on the use of validly registered trademarks”. Ukraine explained why IP and trademarks trump public health policy. “Governments should pursue legitimate health policies through effective measures without unnecessarily restricting international trade and without nullifying intellectual property rights as guaranteed by international trade and investment rules," they said. In arguing international trade and property rights should be a factor in health policy,
Ukraine said the measures were “clearly more restrictive than necessary to achieve the stated objectives” and an “unnecessary obstacle to trade”.<br />
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With so little trade at stake, it seems an absurd argument but as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3479769.htm">ABC Lateline</a> discovered, Ukraine's tobacco industry is especially powerful. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, production soared through conglomerates like Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and Philip Morris peaking at more than 130 billion cigarettes four years ago. Unsurprisingly JTI supports the challenge to Australia. “Put simply, if this measure is passed, Australia will be saying to the rest of the world, ‘we're not open for business’,” JTI said.
Ukraine challenges two key Australian measures, the <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2011A00148">Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011</a> and its implementing <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2011L02644">Tobacco Plain Packaging Regulations 2011</a>. Its case is that these Acts are inconsistent with several articles of the<a href="http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/t_agm0_e.htm"> Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights </a>(TRIPS) Agreement, some of the <a href="http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tbt_e/tbtagr_e.htm">Technical Barriers to Trade </a>(TBT) agreement and one of the <a href="http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/06-gatt_e.htm">1994 GATT agreement</a>.<br />
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Australia was furious with the interference. It said Ukraine had high death rates from tobacco and its actions were at odds with<a href="http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/103831/E92554.pdf"> its own policies </a> to comply with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Australia defended the tobacco plain packaging as a “sound, well-considered measure designed to achieve a legitimate objective — the protection of public health”. Australia said the WTO recognised public heath as a fundamental right of its members and the measure was non-discriminatory and not unnecessarily restrictive.<br />
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Unlike Ukraine, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/12/09/uruguay-challenges-goliath-philip-morris.html">Uruguay understood</a> Australian aims. Its WTO reps said Uruguay “could not remain silent in this fight against the most serious pandemic confronting humanity”. Uruguay said the Multilateral Trading System should not force members to allow a product that kills its citizens in large numbers “to be sold wrapped as candy to attract new victims.” New Zealand said that it is also considering plain packaging measures and Norway said that countries are under obligation to adopt measures to protect public health.<br />
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But other countries such as Zimbabwe, Honduras, <a href="http://www.voxy.co.nz/business/dominican-republic-challenges-aust-plain-packaging/5/136496">Dominican Republic</a>, Nicaragua and Indonesia have backed Ukraine. Zimbabwe relies on <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2009-03-18/world/zimbabwe.finance_1_mdc-leader-morgan-tsvangirai-breadbasket-of-southern-africa-president-robert-mugabe?_s=PM:WORLD">tobacco taxes</a> and has not forgiven Australia for its anti-Mugabe stance. It said 200,000 farmers and their families in the country depend on tobacco. How many Australian lives should die for these farmers, they did not say. Central American nations Honduras and Nicaragua supported the Ukraine too. Honduras said that the WHO Framework Convention is” indicative and non-binding” while Nicaragua said tobacco was one of their most important exports.<br />
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Big Tobacco has been careful to cover their tracks but no-one is in any doubt who is behind the charade. Fairfax economic correspondent Peter Martin said a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/smoke-signals-plans-of-big-tobacco-plain-to-see-20120828-24yqj.html">Philip Morris International briefing note</a> for the US trade representative in the Trans-Pacific Partnership wants an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, “including the right for investors to submit disputes to independent international tribunals.” Martin said the Howard Government FTA with the US resisted this notion but an Abbott Government might be more pliable.
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-43367557943243642622012-09-30T00:19:00.000+10:002012-10-06T20:57:42.981+10:00“We’ve got some explaining to do”: The hypocrisy of Shep Smith, Fox and 24 hour news.It is odd despite the everyday nature of 24 hours news and the mass live broadcast public murder/suicide of September11, we remain shocked when ugly life happens in front of us. The latest outbreak of ugly life outrage occurred today, when Fox News <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19763649">apologised</a> for showing a suicide from a live car chase in Arizona.<br />
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Shep Smith was the on air man providing explanation and context for Fox News viewers in the god voice from the point of view of the TV helicopter. As rhe chase ended on a dirt road, the hinted man <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZttwwbM-AU&feature=youtu.be&bpctr=1348916073#t=00m08s">went berserk</a> He staggered around like a hunted deer in the spotlights fleeing from police but unable to escape the glare of the helicopter. Clearly cornered, this might have been the moment to end live coverage and let ;police do the job. Instead the camera kept rolling while Smith struggled with the interpretation for his viewers.
“I would just- he is looking rather erratic, isn’t he?,” said Smith sounding less godlike by the second.<br />
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While Smith waited for re-assurance from somewhere, his <a href="http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002117.html">filled pauses </a>of ums and dunnos and oh mys questioned what was happening. Both cornered men were increasingly out of options.
“Well, it looks like he’s a little disoriented or something…” Smith suggested about the other, desperate to re-assure viewers this could never happen to them "...It’s always possible he could be on something.”
While Smith invented the news, the cameras rolled on.<br />
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Utterly helpless and hopeless, the man reached for a gun and killed himself.
After a second, the video jerks back to the studio. There is the strange sight of Smith issuing repeated cries “get off” for six seconds. Each call is more urgent than the last, until he shouts one final “GET OFF IT”. He turns away from the camera before they finally break for an ad claiming to be for “mesothelioma families” - <a href="http://www.infobarrel.com/1-800-444-Meso">Call Now 1-800-444-Meso</a> - but is actually for lawyers.<br />
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When he returned Smith didn’t apologise for the fake ad but there was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=824fK1pkGT8&feature=player_embedded">extraordinary grovelling</a> for airing the suicide footage.
“We’ve got some explaining to do,” began Smith. With the “we” Smith spread the blame across the organisation. “While we were taking that car chase and showing it to you live, when the guy pulled out of the vehicle, they went on five second delay. So that’s why I didn’t talk for about ten seconds,” he said.
“We created a five second delay as if you were to bleep back your DVR five seconds, that’s what we did with the picture we were showing you. So that if we would see in the studio five seconds before you did, so that if anything went horribly wrong, we’d be able to cut away from it without subjecting you it.”
Smith paused before adding “And we really messed up.”<br />
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The mess up was not only the suicide but the strange editing error that followed immediately after it (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=824fK1pkGT8&feature=player_embedded#t=00m35">36 seconds into the video</a>) that makes a double-voiced Shep say incoherently “I am all very sorry”.
Shep said the footage “didn’t belong on TV” but he didn’t explain why. Instead he worried about the internal systems that failed to keep the content out.
“We took every precaution, we knew how to keep that from being on TV,” he said.
“And I personally apologise to you that is what happened. “<br />
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Looking to the side rather than direct into the camera, Shep continued: “Sometimes we see a lot of things we don’t let get to you, because it is not time appropriate, it’s insensitive, it’s just wrong. “
He turned back to face the camera.
“And that was wrong. And that won’t happen again on my watch and I’m sorry,” he said.
“We’ll update you on that guy and how that went down tonight on the Fox Report.”
Smith repeated he was sorry and then changed his voice to uplift for the next story: “Now, the attack on…”
The show must go on.<br />
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A lot of people weren’t going to wait for the Fox report or Shep's watch to see “how it went down.” His audience protection argument might have worked 10 years ago but not any more. It wouldn't take long for someone to send the footage viral. <a href="http://gawker.com/5947427/fox-just-aired-a-live-broadcast-of-a-car-chase-that-ended-with-a-suicide?post=53072831">Gawker</a> were quick off the mark with a link with caution to the original footage via Buzzfeed as well as the strange apology.<br />
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The first Gawker commenter picks up an obvious problem: “I'm confused. If they went to 10 second delay, how did the suicide end up on screen anyway? I don't understand Shep's explanation,” <a href="http://gawker.com/5947427/?post=53072831">Scout’s Honour</a> said. It was five seconds not ten, but the point holds up. Fox News overplayed its hand while Shep struggled and while it recovered in one second, it took the host six seconds to realise they had recovered. In panic, Shep did not realise for five seconds, someone has pressed “dump” button out of the broadcast. He was shouting at the delayed footage. <br />
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It was a category error on several levels that asked many questions of Fox and 24 hour news. Car chases are popular time sinks for the networks and easy to follow by helicopter. When a chase unfolded on air in 2009, Smith <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9xRbFUGtZI&feature=related">quipped on air</a> about the energiser bunny and how he had enjoyed this type of entertainment for many years.
So after Buzzfeed, Gawker and others quickly pounced on the mistake, it was surprising to hear several journalists blame the messenger. The <a href="https://de.twitter.com/CJR/status/251772260455706624">Columbia Journalism Review </a>tweeted, “Who's worse? @FoxNews for airing the suicide, or @BuzzFeed for re-posting the video just in case you missed it the first time?” while Reuters social media editor <a href="https://twitter.com/AntDeRosa/status/251769936379277312">Anthony De Rosa</a> asked “Why is Buzzfeed sharing a suicide video?”<br />
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<a href="http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/als-morning-meeting/189989/will-tvs-long-love-affair-with-car-chases-come-to-a-screeching-halt-as-fox-broadcasts-suicide-live/">Al Tomkins in Poynter</a> answered both questions saying the Fox hypocrisy deserved to be given the widest audience . Tomkins ask for the guidelines for broadcasting chases. Are they prepared to air the worst possible outcome from an unfolding story? What outcomes are they not willing to air? Why? How do they know know the worst possible outcome will not occur? Broadcasters will ignore Tomkins' inconvenient questions about motivations and consequences and show them for the same reason they show the 1-800-444-Meso ads: They make money.<br />
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Tompkins acknowledged chase coverage could be is useful for people near the scene. But his unspoken argument was that they served mostly commercial ends. “These are humans involved, struggling with their lives as we transform them into “stories,” he said. “They are humans, they are not ratings points.” But as long as there are ratings points, we will have to put up with the occasional pious homily about live deaths.
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-42895726050654637432012-09-27T23:13:00.000+10:002012-09-30T14:09:45.558+10:00Peter Jackson: The tragedy of Australia's black fistic idol<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh11Sa7jxUS8yyMiJ2e-g3imvIjkiaquoPC_HIQxWK5kYTbpL_9k_7bSGM9IEb5OBo1naFWm0d5m3vKnFwreTFoIfYGkK7keg1T1mQGnoaLVknpEDM3RDsxMQAiGmkgGnN65Rnaww/s1600/boxer.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh11Sa7jxUS8yyMiJ2e-g3imvIjkiaquoPC_HIQxWK5kYTbpL_9k_7bSGM9IEb5OBo1naFWm0d5m3vKnFwreTFoIfYGkK7keg1T1mQGnoaLVknpEDM3RDsxMQAiGmkgGnN65Rnaww/s200/boxer.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim Corbett v Peter Jackson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Australia's greatest ever boxer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jackson_%28boxer%29">Peter Jackson</a> never forgot his first defeat. Years later on his deathbed in Roma in Western Queensland, Jackson discussed the matter at great length with his doctor Guy L’Estrange. That loss to Bill Farnan in 1884 in Melbourne was Australia’s first heavyweight fight with gloves. Jackson was already a famous and feared fighter and expected to win, despite carrying a leg injury. But Farnan beat him in three rounds.<br />
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We don’t know what rundown Jackson gave L’Estrange about the Farnan fight on his deathbed in 1901, tragically aged just 40. But there is evidence foul play was involved. In in its eulogy for Jackson, the boxing magazine The Referee published the suggestion Jackson was nobbled in the fight and had been “given a dose”.<br />
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Despite, or perhaps because of this grievance, the loss spurred Jackson onto greater things. Born in Christiansted on the island of St Croix in what was then the Danish West Indies (and is now the American Virgin Islands) in 1861, this black kid from the Caribbean found himself in the strange world of Sydney aged 16 and standing six feet tall. He was gentle and easy going and didn’t like a fight. But his weakness for food led him to Larry Foley’s Hotel. <a href="http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/LarryFoley.htm">Larry Foley</a> was one of Australia’s first boxing champions who was undefeated at bare-knuckle fighting. He liked the look of Jackson and tried him out in the back shed. Foley gave Jackson a job and the training he needed in ringcraft.<br />
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Jackson became as good as his mentor in bare-knuckle and would sometimes fight with his right arm bound. Four months after the Farnan loss, the pair held a rematch. The bout was indecisive with police stopping the fight in the sixth round after spectators stormed the ring. Farnan retained his title by default but lost it to Tom Lees two years later in 1886. Jackson beat Lees later that year to take the title. <a href="http://www.australiaonnet.com/about-australia/famous-australians/peter-jackson.html">Foley gave him</a> a special belt to celebrate the win, now in the possession of a Sydney based collector.<br />
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Having conquered Australia, Jackson went off to take on the best in the world in America. He arrived in 1888 and started with an 18 round victory over Black Canadian George Godfrey. Godfrey had previously tried to fight <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpu8H1AH6ek">John L Sullivan</a> but after Sullivan became world champion, he refused to fight black boxers. Jackson would run into the same problem with Sullivan - he would not “lower himself to fight a nigger” - and Jackson left frustrated for England.<br />
<br />
Jackson chalked up two years of victories in England and returned to the US hoping to get another chance to take on the champion. But Sullivan still would not get in the ring with a black man and turned Jackson down. Instead, <a href="http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/Article-PeterJackson.htm">Jackson fought</a> Sullivan’s main contender, Gentleman Jim Corbett. Jackson was five years Corbett’s senior and was ill for ten days before the fight in May 1891 and had a sprained ankle. Yet Jackson and Corbett slogged it out for 61 rounds for an energy sapping draw with most observers saying Corbett had the worst of it.<br />
<br />
Though Corbett would later go on <a href="http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/corbett.htm">to defeat Sullivan</a> and become world champion, it was the Jackson fight he remembered best in the biography The Roar of the Crowd. “That night I thought Peter Jackson was a great fighter. Six months later still tired from the fight, I thought him a greater one. I still maintain he was the greatest fighter I have ever seen.”<br />
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But Jackson would never lift the world crown. After the Corbett draw he went back to England and defeated the snarling Australian-Irish fighter <a href="http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/fpslavin.htm">Paddy Slavin</a> to lift the British and Commonwealth titles in a difficult bout. The pair had bad blood since Sydney days and they still hated each other intensely. In the eighth round Slavin broke Jackson’s rib and a splinter punctured a lung. In intense pain, Jackson seemed beaten but rallied in the tenth to take control of the fight and pounded Slavin to pieces. The referee insisted the fight continue until Slavin was knocked out but the damage was fatal to Jackson.<br />
<br />
The punctured lung never repaired and Jackson went on a downhill spiral. He was forced to appear in vaudeville, giving boxing exhibitions in circuses and as Jeff Rickert and Raymond Evans said about him in “<a href="http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Radical-Brisbane-Raymond-Evans-Edited-by-Carole-Ferrier-Edited-by/9780958079457">Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History</a>”, acting as a grey-wigged Uncle Tom in stage performances of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Suffering from tuberculosis, his last fight was against the powerful Jim Jeffries in 1898 and Jeffries knocked him out in five rounds.<br />
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Though Jackson always retained Danish citizenship, it was to Australia he returned in 1899, his career in ruins. He trained fighters in Sydney for a time but his TB worsened. On the advice of doctors, he retired to the dry heat of Roma, a shadow of the giant he once was. He died on July 13, 1901 at Argyle Cottage a privately run sanatorium which was later demolished to make way for the southern end of Roma’s airstrip. Dr L’Estrange put the cause of death of the “retired pugilist” as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis">pulmonary phthisis exhaustion</a>.<br />
<br />
Jackson was due to be buried at Roma but there was a last minute change of plan. Another black West Indian boxer, Jack Dowridge from Barbados, who fought under the label of <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/20536201?searchTerm=mitre">the Black Diamond</a>, sent a telegram asking for the body to be sent by train to Brisbane. Jackson’s casket was escorted to Roma Railway Station by a band with a procession of sporting bodies and dignatories. In Brisbane, the procession went from Dowridge’s Hotel to Toowong Cemetery where he was buried in an unmarked grave.<br />
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Dowridge, with the help of several journalists and Jackson’s former coach Foley began to raise funds for <a href="http://monumentaustralia.org.au/monument_display.php?id=92719&image=0">a Jackson memorial</a>. After a public subscription, Sydney mason Lewis Page carved a dazzling white Carrara marble monument over Jackson’s grave with an image that looks nothing like Jackson. The inscription repeats what Shakespeare’s Antony said about <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius_caesar/full.html">Julius Caesar</a> “This was a man”.<br />
<br />
But the best tribute was paid by Jack Johnson, an uppity black boxer from Galveston, Texas who achieved what was denied Jackson. <a href="http://www.graysonline.com/lot/0094-2301645/artworks-and-antiques/rare-johnson-vs-burns-fight-sydney-1908-vintage-poster-canvas-print">On Boxing Day 1908</a>, a white Australian crowd in Sydney was stunned when he defeated Canadian Tommy Burns to become the world’s first black heavyweight champion. A few weeks later he went to Brisbane and Dowridge took him to visit Jackson’s grave in Toowong. A.E. Austin of the Brisbane Courier said the living champion spent a quiet few moments in silent contemplation at the grave of his brother-in-arms. “It was an impressive sight to see the living gladiator kneeling for a moment over the tomb of he who was Australia’s fistic idol”, Austin wrote.
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-63336672344411609712012-09-18T22:51:00.004+10:002012-09-27T23:36:34.441+10:00Clive Palmer: last sentry <div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihfLveTFFrs-Pr5R1BAByGXn_9z4PZhJ76mOCtV5q99rn4xFntO5f9BcT5eDio4Fpen6xYDLcSrtFjp8sfPEu4KUeAI564uwuei8POAEA4z0VKLGIpmXaQgK_0pF6NVhBUZbLFxg/s1600/palmer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihfLveTFFrs-Pr5R1BAByGXn_9z4PZhJ76mOCtV5q99rn4xFntO5f9BcT5eDio4Fpen6xYDLcSrtFjp8sfPEu4KUeAI564uwuei8POAEA4z0VKLGIpmXaQgK_0pF6NVhBUZbLFxg/s320/palmer.jpg" width="320" /></a>Clive Palmer continues to hold a fascination for Australian politicians and the media alike. Prime Minister Julia Gillard invoked his name in her revenge attack on Campbell Newman's Queensland LNP Government. Gillard made <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/every-working-australian-must-know-2013-what-has-happened-queensland-2012-speech-queens">a long speech</a> to the Queensland ALP conference yesterday but it was the reference to Clive Palmer (curiously left out of the official transcript) that gave the <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/even-clive-palmer-is-having-doubts-gillard-blasts-newman-government-20120916-26007.html">Brisbane Times</a> its lead. "Even Clive Palmer is having doubts," Gillard said. "You know the ship is going down pretty fast when the bloke who wants <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17890754">to resurrectthe Titanic</a> is seen leaving it."<br /><br />Gillard is referring to LNP life member Palmer <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/mining-magnate-clive-palmer-accuses-premier-campbell-newman-of-destroying-queensland/story-fndo45r1-1226473739704">dishing out</a> on LNP leader Newman. Palmer has been on the attack since last week’s Queensland budget where the new government raised coal royalties. The near billionaire Palmer is directly affected through his China First coal project in the Galilee Basin which was cancelled in May though he cloaked his criticism in wider concerns. According to News Ltd, Palmer said “strikes, protest marches and royalty hikes were not good for the image of the state and would drive away investment.” <br /><br />It is amusing to see Labor use Palmer as a tool of their propaganda after painting him so often as<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/wayne-swan-on-song-in-attack-on-miners-and-income-inequality/story-fn59niix-1226439874974"> the bogey man</a>. Wayne Swan was in his sights for much of that past 12 months, but the businessman has added the State Government to his grumbles. He is up in arms against both levels of government over <a href="http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2012/06/25/341301_news.html">his proposal to pump wastewater</a> from his Yabulu nickel plant into the Great Barrier Reef protection zone. <br /><br />Meanwhile the Queensland Government decision to award Gina Rinehart and an Indian consortium a rail corridor to the Galilee still rankles. Palmer and his Chinese partners have put their joint venture <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/galilee-basin-coal-projects-beset-by-problems/story-e6frg9e6-1226467650517">on hold</a> due to the dropping price of coal. Luckily for Palmer, his enormous wealth is in iron ore not coal. His company Minerology painstakingly secured 160 billion tonnes of iron ore deposits south of Dampier in the Pilbara Ranges in Western Australia over 15 years.<br />
<br /><a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2012/78/australia-billionaires-12_Clive-Palmer_P96W.html">Forbes</a> estimates Palmer as being worth $795m making him the 29th richest person in Australia. Palmer said his father George, a successful silent movie star of the 1920s and radio pioneer, had the greatest influence on him. "Dad worked with the then Prime Minister Billy Lyons when he was in power, advising him on media stuff. He was probably the first of the spin doctors,” Palmer told the <a href="http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/06/07/12153_more-gossip-news.html">Gold Coast News</a>. "He also set up train and buslines for transportation. He broke that monopoly that the state railways had. He was quite an amazing guy."<br /><br />On leaving uni, George's son got a job in real estate in the Gold Coast. He quickly became their top marketing consultant, before setting up his own company, GSS Property Sales. With the Coast in the middle of a construction boom, Palmer thrived and was worth $40m before the age of 30. In 1986 he set up companies to buy iron ore deposits and trade oil. He became a close confidant of Joh Bjelke Petersen and an admirer of the way the Premier turned Queensland into a coal exporter. Palmer <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2012/s3497389.htm">was considered</a> the architect of Joh’s final election victory in 1986.<br /><br />Palmer also met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and set up joint ventures with Russian companies that persist to this day. Palmer also greased the wheel with Chinese interests and had to be very patient to make the deals work over many years. The lesson was to treat everyone with respect. Palmer said their collective decision-making process often allowed middle management more power than the managing director. But Palmer’s key skill was his sense of timing. As Griffith Uni’s <a href="http://theconversation.edu.au/mining-magnate-property-tycoon-politician-just-who-is-clive-palmer-6646">Jason West </a>said, thermal coal prices spiked to unprecedented levels allowing the likes of Palmer, Hancock and Forrest to experience profit margins beyond their wildest expectations. “Instead of earning margins of $2 to $10 a tonne as they had for decades, coal miners were now earning margins of $50 to $100 a tonne which in turn increased asset values to levels rivalling well-established and brand name top 50 firms,” West said.<br /><br />West said Palmer had one income-earning asset and a whole bunch of tenements offering nothing but promises of future wealth. But some of those promises are extremely lucrative. They include the massive $8 billion <a href="http://www.citicpacificmining.com/en/project/sino-iron-project/">Sino Iron Project</a> at Cape Preston, 100 km south west of Karratha, WA expected to deliver before the end of the year. Owned by Hong Kong-based CITIC Pacific, it is on Palmer’s tenements and will be the largest magnetite iron ore mining and processing operation in Australia. The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/palmer-to-hit-iron-ore-jackpot-in-two-years-20120821-24jky.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a> estimates Palmer will rake in half a billion a year in royalties on Sino Iron. <br /><br />These are impressive numbers for someone who is still mostly regarded as a joke. Much of this poor public profile is his own fault due to his buffoonish tendency to act as <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport-old/soccer-old/clive-palmer-slams-football-refuses-to-guarantee-future-of-gold-coast-united/story-e6frepmf-1226274668335">a walking headline</a>. Palmer is not shy about self-promotion and prefers to call himself <a href="http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/rich-crusaders/clive-palmer/201202261087">Professor Palmer</a>, courtesy of an honorarium from Bond University. Somewhat bizarrely, he has also been officially listed as a "national living treasure" though the <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.com.au/nationallivingtreasures/clivepalmer/">National Trust of Australia</a> offers no reason for this accolade other than the incorrect statement “Palmer is a self–made billionaire”. <br /><br />Whatever his status, there remains the unfinished business of political ambition. In <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3589046.htm">a Lateline interview</a> last week, he attacked Campbell Newman for his lack of experience in business. “I'm the most successful Queenslander in the commercial world that's ever lived, yet I'm not supposed to have any say and any knowledge about that,” Palmer said. But while he has flirted with Katter, he still wants change from inside his party. “I love the LNP and I've been a supporter of it for 43 years,” he said. “I remain the last sentry at the gate to protect democracy in this country.” The question remains whether the sentry is there to guard the gate or attack the castle.</div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-86539479606329852822012-09-16T11:50:00.002+10:002012-09-19T12:53:24.672+10:00Barbarians at the gate<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAMvzGOOA0Vuqy-l4TbpejcNApWm4dhlULZ4RvcrNhsNZzfBqRANLinlO2DlCdB7NAUUWSTLHRVvsSTt9HyCSvpcbNWyvFrAk6AaADLydGzuXKou8lzSfrg1C_ycQgvjYoJMZwkA/s1600/behead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAMvzGOOA0Vuqy-l4TbpejcNApWm4dhlULZ4RvcrNhsNZzfBqRANLinlO2DlCdB7NAUUWSTLHRVvsSTt9HyCSvpcbNWyvFrAk6AaADLydGzuXKou8lzSfrg1C_ycQgvjYoJMZwkA/s200/behead.jpg" width="150" /></a>“Behead all those who insult the prophet” is a curiously
worded slogan. It says Mohammed is a figure so holy that even the mildest
rebuke should be greeted by severing that person’s arteries at the throat. It is a common punishment for trivial matters
in hard-line Wahhabist regimes such as Saudi Arabia. One such trivial matter lies behind the latest
calls for such barbarism, a "<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/13/anti-islamic-film-us-nakoula">clumsily overdubbed and haphazardly-edited</a>” low budget film with no production values.
Its US-Egyptian maker Nakoula Bassely
Nakoula could well be the Ed Wood of the 21<sup>st</sup> century. But because his film contains “insults to the
prophet”, it is capable of causing
world-wide riots, multiple deaths including a US ambassador and the banning of youtube in Afghanistan. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://m.smh.com.au/nsw/fury-at-sydney-protests-20120915-25z0a.html">Yesterday's protest in Sydney</a> was the first Australian attempt to normalise
such an extreme response. It was a deliberate affront to the norms of western
culture and the live and let live philosophy of multiculturalism. Saturday shoppers
on Pitt Street would have been bewildered to reads signs that told them "Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in
hell''. It was so far outside their life experience as
to be surreal. But they would have noticed the anger was real enough.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was worse in other parts of the world where protesters
were taking active steps to behead the insulters. Urged on by <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012/09/15/anti-american-riots-are-a-sign-of-fissures-between-radical-and-more-moderate-islamists/57785172/1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=206567">opportunist Salafi political leaders</a> they lashed out at
whatever target was convenient. But it was contrived. In Libya and Egypt, it was Al Qaeda-affiliated
groups preaching to the disaffecting. In Yemen, it was former president Salah undermining
the current administration. And behind the scenes across the region it was Iran
flexing its muscles. There is no god but
God and Muhammad is his prophet, but it was politicians pulling the
strings.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As usual, the West had no idea how to react. The protests
were cloaked in wrath so righteous, it dared not be criticised. Far easier to
criticise the target of the wrath, as western countries did in the past,
blaming Salman Rushdie or the Danish cartoons for antagonising Muslims, not the
protesters themselves for their over-the-top response or their leaders for
their cynical manipulations. It is easier to retreat into pious homilies that
attack the proximate rather than political causes. Then-US president George HW
Bush refused to condemn the fatwa on Salman Rushdie with a non-committal “no
American interests are involved” while the British deplored his fight with a
great religion.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now the American can’t look away any longer when a work of
no artistic value causes international murder and mayhem. Nakoula had every
right to make a film that took Mohammed’s life to pieces and portrayed him as a
flawed man, not as a flawless “prophet”. If that was humiliating and offensive to some,
then so be it. That is their problem and they could have dealt with it by
ignoring it. But the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMhwVg4jmO8">Innocence of Muslims</a> is not only a rubbish film, it is not
even honest rubbish. Nakoula <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/12/u-s-ambassador-to-libya-3-others-killed-in-rocket-attack-witness-says/">lied</a> to his cast and crew about its intentions
. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Under an assumed name of Sam Bacile,
Nakoula pretended he was making a “historical
desert drama” called <a href="http://www.mooncasting.com/us/casting-feature-desert-warrior-los-angeles/">Desert Warriors</a>. His lead
character was Master George, a philanderer and husband of multiple wives, one
as young as seven. The references to Mohammed and Islam were thrown in later in
the absurdly bad editing process. When one of the cast rang Bacile/Nakoula to talk
about his deception, he <a href="http://gawker.com/5942748">replied</a>, “I'm tired of radical Islamists killing each
other. Let other actors know it's not their fault.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nakoula may have wanted to light a flame but it was up to
others to burn the house down with it. Former Iranian Hezbollah leader Massoud
Dehnamaki gives a clue as to how others would use the spark. Dehnamaki told the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/14/how-petty-criminal-nakoula-bassely-nakoula-sparked-a-mideast-meltdown.html">Daily Beast</a> it was up to
the US to “prove” it was not involved
The US government had to prosecute the filmmakers, he said. “Westerners see
their own freedom in the ability to insult others,” Dehnamaki said. “They see
freedom as a one-way freeway that moves in the direction of their demands.
They don’t respect other people’s beliefs.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And indeed there were pictures in the news today of Nakoula
being arrested. Though it was not well explained by media, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ifWYKzUPaqJJsJ5aj-58K0JCL1Fg?docId=91c9d18979f24144ba8ea358237f046f">his crime</a> was not blasphemy or even deception but simply
a breach of probation conditions.
When he was done for a fraud crime in 2010, Nakoula was not allowed a computer
or the Internet without permission for five years. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But there is no crime in his film, except against
taste. It was not as <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/09/201291565916989823.html">the White House said</a>
“reprehensible and disgusting”, but the
response was. Bad films don’t kill people, people kill people. No one wants to take
the side of a convicted fraudster who deceived his crew and set out to
deliberately offend with a ham-fisted film.
But that is what we must do.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Freedom is not a one-way freeway as Dehnamaki calls it. It is
an 18<sup>th</sup> century enlightenment value that understands complex
societies need a certain tolerance of difference to survive. No longer tied to the dictatorial value-system
of any one church, some leeway of live and let live is needed to ensure a
peaceful life. It is why blasphemy was
mostly wiped off the books in the west in the 20<sup>th</sup> century but it is
also why it is creeping back in the 21<sup>st</sup> in the form of <a href="http://njca.anu.edu.au/Professional%20Development/programs%20by%20year/2010/Sentencing%202010/Papers/Mason.pdf">legislated race hate crimes</a>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It makes it harder to get criticism into the
public domain while doing nothing to address the root cause of the hatred. And it is the thin edge of the wedge. There are more serious works than Nakoula's at stake. Only this week, British television <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2201699/Islam-The-Untold-Story-Screening-Channel-4-documentary-cancelled-presenter-threatened.html?ito=feeds-newsxml">canned a serious historical program</a> that casts doubt on the
authenticity of Muslim traditions. Filmmaker Tom Holland said his <span style="line-height: 115%;">"Islam: The Untold Story" was a “a
legitimate subject of historical inquiry”. But it was cancelled on “security
advice”. British audiences should slam Channel Four’s cowardice and demand they
show it. </span>This is not war of civilisations, it is test of strength. We must stand up for free speech. Unless we
are happy for western countries to imitate the Saudis, those who demand
beheading need to be disarmed. </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-17722199098436644892012-09-09T13:10:00.003+10:002012-09-09T13:14:09.123+10:00Birth, marriage and debt: Bankrupcty in Australia<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you are a man, in your early forties and single, then chances are you are more likely to be
bankrupt. That’s the finding of <a href="http://www.itsa.gov.au/dir228/itsaweb.nsf/docindex/Statistics%20&%20Research-%3EProfiles%20of%20debtors-%3EProfiles%20of%20debtors%202011%20document/$FILE/ProfileOfDebtorsITSA.pdf?OpenElement">the Profile of Debtors 2011</a>
a new report released by Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia. This Government agency would know as anyone
who becomes bankrupt must lodge a statement of affairs with ITSA. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The law covers this off under the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ba1966142/">Bankruptcy Act 1966</a> which
allows for trustees to distribute property fairly among creditors and prosecute
dishonest debtors. Bankruptcy lasts three
years but can be extended. Since 2003 several patterns among bankrupts have
been noticeable: they are mostly male (55:45), they are getting older, and they
have less children than before. The primary causes are unemployment and
economic conditions affecting their industry (particularly since 2009). The majority
of bankrupts earn $30,000 or less and the size of their unsecured debt is
increasing. <br />
Despite their low incomes, almost half of them have unsecured debt of more than
$50,000 and over a quarter per cent have unsecured debt of more than $100,000.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Over 23,000 Australians went bankrupt in 2011 and ISA constructed
a profile of the average bankrupt last year. He was male <span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">aged between 35 and 54 years and single without dependants. It was
his first time bankrupt. </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">He earned less than $30,000 in
the 12 months prior to bankruptcy (well below the $48,000 national average) and
owed more than $20,000 mostly to the banks. He had no assets like property that
could be used to repay creditors. Tasmania
and Queensland had the highest percentage of bankrupts and NT had the lowest.
Three percent of bankrupts identified as Indigenous (who comprised 2.5% of the population). </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Nearly half of the liabilities is unidentified by the
research with the “other” category responsible for 47% of all debt. Of the
identified debt, credit cards were highest, responsible for 21 percent of unsecured
debt followed by personal loans and house mortgage both on 12 percent. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Credit
cards also accounted for 18% of personal insolvency agreement debtors’ debt and
a record 58% of debt agreement debtors’ unsecured debt.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">According to <a href="http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byheadline/12-28AD+Clock+is+ticking+on+credit+card+debt?openDocument">ASIC</a>, A</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">ustralians have over $36
billion owing on credit cards, an average of $4,700 per card holder. MoneySmart’s
Delia Rickard said paying off their credit card debt should be a top priority
for millions of Australians. ‘If you
have $4,700 credit card debt (the national average) and only make the minimum
repayments, it will take 49 years to pay it off and cost you around $14,600 in
interest,” Rickard said. “But if you are able to pay off $250 each month, you’d
pay off your debt in two years and save $13,700 in interest.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Despite the RBA keeping interest rates at historical
lows, banks still charge astronomical rates for their credit cards. <a href="http://north-shore-times.whereilive.com.au/news/story/australia-falls-out-of-love-with-credit-cards-paul-clitheroe-debt-interest/">Paul Clitheroe</a> said t</span>he average card rate is around 17 per cent but many charge 20 per
cent or more. “Monthly interest charges continue to eat away at household
budgets making it hard to get ahead with card debt,” he said. “If you're
serious about clearing card debt, one solution is to use a personal loan to pay
off the balance.” Clitheroe said this would increase monthly repayments but the
debt would be paid off in three to five
years depending on the loan term.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are <a href="http://www.choice.com.au/media-and-news/consumer-news/news/july-1-2012-changes.aspx">new rules</a>
in place since July 1 which will allow people be better informed against the
scams the credit card companies use to fleece their customers. The company must
now refrain from offering limit increases on cards, unless agreed, provide
monthly statements that show how long it will take to repay the entire balance
if you only make minimum repayments and provide clearer details on
interest-free periods. All new credit cards must include: facts sheets
to make it easier to compare offers, the capacity for consumers to nominate the
credit limit, a ban on over-limit fees, notifications if you exceed your credit
limit and repayments to the most costly aspect of your credit card debt first
(such as cash advances) to reduce debt faster.</span></span>Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-20743271173136024222012-09-06T23:37:00.000+10:002012-09-06T23:37:40.894+10:00Going Platinum: Lonmin and the Marikana<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuO8ZGN51RJpJByXmt6Ek8187MG4JR6B8ZDD0CeZBCfFs-TyutxkE3Apa_30HbY4NvEiaW3zyDc3CYKNriBM1ZDtDVVMfSaNA6EYCWJcPAWzqVbCB_Ug_aHBUc6ei-cpYwX5U_zg/s1600/lonmin.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuO8ZGN51RJpJByXmt6Ek8187MG4JR6B8ZDD0CeZBCfFs-TyutxkE3Apa_30HbY4NvEiaW3zyDc3CYKNriBM1ZDtDVVMfSaNA6EYCWJcPAWzqVbCB_Ug_aHBUc6ei-cpYwX5U_zg/s200/lonmin.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The precious metal platinum is what catalytic converters use
to convert the toxic by-products of petrol combustion to something less
poisonous. Platinum is not easy to find
in the Earth’s crust and 80% of it is found in South African nickel and copper
mines. One of the earlier companies to
see the value in these mines was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/139614.stm">Tiny Rowlands’ Lonrho</a>. Rowlands was a classic self-made 20<sup>th</sup> century capitalist who turned Lonrho
from an obscure farming and mining company into a <span style="line-height: 115%;">multinational conglomerate.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Rowlands had no compunction with dealing with apartheid
era South Africa for which hypocrite Prime Minister Ted Heath called Lonrho “<a href="http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2012/08/23/lonmin-unacceptable-face-of-capitalism/">the
</a></span><a href="http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2012/08/23/lonmin-unacceptable-face-of-capitalism/">unacceptable face of capitalism</a>."
But while Rowland was making enemies in London, he knew how to do business in
Africa. He made many friends among black African leaders including Nelson
Mandela, Kenneth Kaunda and Muammar Gadhafi. When Mandela came to power, he
didn’t throw out Lonrho but instead bestowed on Rowlands South Africa’s highest
honour the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Good_Hope">Order of Good Hope</a> in 1996. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By then Rowlands was on the outer at Lonrho after he
financed a film exonerating the Libyans of Lockerbie. In 1999 Lonrho refocussed on its mining core
business and renamed itself as Lonmin. The focus of that mining was the
wealthy <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushveld_Igneous_Complex">Bushveld Complex</a> of northern
South Africa around Johannesburg, home to the world’s largest collection of
platinum group metals. It was a money-spinning venture as platinum prices
soared. Xstrata saw the value and bought up 30% of the company. Of the
245 tonnes of platinum sold in 2010, almost half was used for vehicle emission control devices.</span></span></div>
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But by then the bottom was starting <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2012/09/06/reflections-on-marikana-have-asked-little-about-lonmin">to fall out</a> of Lonmin’s
market. In March 2008 the global financial crisis was about to strike and platinum was
one of the first casualties. The price started to plummet. Lonmin were never
big fans of unions and suffered constant safety stoppages because of accidents,
numerous labour strikes, and unplanned plant and equipment shutdowns. Yet they
were also <a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6A2cAXPZn">protected </a>by an ANC-backed National
Union of Mineworkers whose leader Cyril Ramaphosa ended up on the board of
Lonmin.</div>
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But as the NUM flirted with management, its membership fled
to more radical unions. There was also <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/lonmin-an-example-of-exploitation-1.1365221#.UEiWASIWlJS">simmering resentment</a> from locals who
felt they were not getting their fair share of the mining boom. Social welfare organisation Bench Marks Foundation said low wages and social
disintegration, crime, murder, rape and prostitution, unemployment and poverty
amid the third richest platinum mine in the world, created an incubator rife
for worker and community discontent.</div>
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On August 16, Lonmin shares <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/lonmin-shares-tumble-1.1364086#.UEiWtiIWlJR">plummeted</a> 7 percent on news an illegal strike had paralysed all its South African
operations. At its flagship operation in Marikana near Rustenburg, 100km north
of Johannesburg,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lonmin threatened to
sack 3,000 rock drill operators if they fail to end a wildcat pay strike. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clashes between unions claimed nine lives,
including two police officers. </div>
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Jeffrey Matunjwa of the Mineworkers and Construction Union
<a href="http://m.aljazeera.com/se/2012817174448523970">defended</a> the strike action. He told Al Jazeera they couldn’t stand by while
bosses and senior management were getting fat cheques. "And these workers
are subjected to poverty for life,” Matunjwa said. He said despite 18 years of post-apartheid
democracy, most of the 28,000 mineworkers were still earning $360 a week “under
those harsh conditions underground."</div>
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Matters came to a head on August 16. Members of an elite
South African police unit were called into Marikana. They opened fire killing
34 strikers and wounding 78 others. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
the largest single massacre on South African soil since <a href="http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/50th-anniversary-of-sharpeville.html">Sharpeville</a> in 1960 and a bloody reminder South African police had never departed from
their apartheid-era role “<a href="http://thinkafricapress.com/south-africa/police-service-and-public-order-war-saps-marikana-lonmin">as the brute enforcer of state power</a>.” </div>
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Police claim the strikers shot first, for which there is
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6guOlOFY7Q">some evidence</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and many strikers were armed. But there is
also evidence the return fire from police wasn’t indiscriminate. <a href="http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-08-30-the-murder-fields-of-marikana-the-cold-murder-fields-of-marikana">The Daily Maverick</a> <a href="http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-08-30-the-murder-fields-of-marikana-the-cold-murder-fields-of-marikana"></a>
estimated the majority of those who died were killed beyond the view of cameras
at a nondescript collection of boulders some 300 metres away from the protest.
They said heavily armed police hunted down and killed the miners in cold blood.</div>
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The only charges laid have been against 270 strikers initially
charged with public violence and later murder. These charges were laid under
the doctrine of ‘common purpose”, an apartheid era conceit kept by the new
rulers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their lawyers write to Prime
Minister Zuma saying it was <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/video/africa/2012/09/2012916206164131.html">inconceivable</a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>the strikers would have killed their own
people. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last Sunday the Director of
Public Prosecutions for the North West <a href="http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-09-03-marikana-npa-drops-common-purpose-charges-but-critical-questions-remain">dropped</a> the common purpose charges. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They didn’t
explain why but defended the initial decision on “a sound legal principle” and a “prosecution duty” to go for the highest
charges. </div>
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Yesterday a court <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/video/africa/2012/09/20129673416467772.html">released 100</a> of the 270 miners as most of the unions signed a peace pact with a Lonmin
desperate to rid itself of the unwanted international attention. One union and
non-union workers have not signed up to the deal so it remains a worrying time.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lonmin has been losing 2,500 ounces of
daily production since the strike started a month ago. With the price of
platinum <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-05/platinum-buying-expands-as-mining-strikes-escalate-commodities.html">recovering</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>since July
to the point where only silver has gained more this year among precious metals,
every day of lost production is costing them a lot of money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The company will be looking for its state
links to do whatever it takes to get their mines operational again. </div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-16847228508780423792012-09-03T22:55:00.001+10:002012-09-03T22:58:32.063+10:00Cotton On: Politicians crawl through the Cubbie Hole<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]-->The war of words over the future of Cubbie Station has
started. The Foreign Investment Review Board has recommended to Treasurer Wayne
Swan the sale of Australia’s largest cotton grower and holder of water licences
to a consortium dominated by Chinese textile producer <a href="http://www.chinaruyi.com/sben.html">Shandong RuYi.</a>
The sale, currently in the hands of administrators, required FIRB approval as
it was in excess of the $244 million takeover trigger for investigation. While
the FIRB has not made its decision public, Swan has used it as <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/australian-cotton-farm-sale-to-asian-consortium-will-save-jobs-says-wayne-swan/story-fndo4eg9-1226464034796">a political attack</a>
to wedge the Opposition after the State Government backed the sale while local LNP
senator Barnaby Joyce said it was not in the national interest.<br />
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Swan explained his reasons for the approval in <a href="http://www.treasurer.gov.au/wmsDisplayDocs.aspx?doc=pressreleases/2012/079.htm&PageID=003&min=wms&Year=&DocType=0">an August 31 media release</a>. Cubbie had been on the market
for three years and the joint proposal by Shandong RuYi and Aussie wool company
Lempriere had given him several undertakings. These included RuYi selling down
its interest to 51 per cent within three years while maintaining “appropriate”
board representation, having Cubbie managed by a Lempriere sub-company and
offering jobs to all existing Cubbie employees.</div>
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Swan points to the <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/nationalfoodplan/process-to-develop/green-paper/">National Food Plan</a> which is in draft form and seeking public submissions until September 30. That
Plan also vigorously defends the need for foreign investment in Australia which
it says is critical for the agriculture and food sectors. “Foreign investment
in agriculture supports production, creates jobs and contributes to the prosperity
of rural communities and the broader economy,” the Plan green paper said. The
paper said foreign investments undergo a rigorous national interest test and
are subject to the same laws and regulations dealing with competition, tax and
governance. </div>
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So why should anyone care about the future of a company that <a href="http://www.cubbie.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=61">employs</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>only 50 people with another 120
contractors?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> It was not a simple case of xenophobia against Chinese investment (though in truth, it would be hard to imagine a similar furore if it were Seattle RuYi buying Cubbie). </span>It is because as Senator
Joyce <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/seeney-welcomes-foreign-cubbie-investment/story-fn3dxiwe-1226463800372">said today</a> it was the loss of “prime agricultural land to an overseas interest.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well, the sale would involve Australia’s
biggest water licence going to an overseas interest and 13 per cent of the
nation's cotton crop.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNMaDlP9N8S5jzRhhl9MPG8kfCExJFLpDkDTLeJZr2umX-rjGSsMfPqrXzIoHyyref1a6DmyL8LFjrPrenRwaJYUc-cGuaJpKqMjgNpd08TQkftIJwsfwEvIWUpCskryzQHpzaCA/s1600/cubbie.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNMaDlP9N8S5jzRhhl9MPG8kfCExJFLpDkDTLeJZr2umX-rjGSsMfPqrXzIoHyyref1a6DmyL8LFjrPrenRwaJYUc-cGuaJpKqMjgNpd08TQkftIJwsfwEvIWUpCskryzQHpzaCA/s320/cubbie.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Barnaby lives in St George some 80km north of Cubbie so is
well aware of how big a deal it is. Its massive scale and its potential to
impact on the entire Murray Darling Basin, is most impressive from the
satellite image. In the middle of parched brown western Queensland landscape,
lies this darker patch of fertile ground following the Murray-Darling plain.
Due west of Dirranbandi, (100km north of the NSW border) is Cubbie Station a
patchwork quilt of storage dams, stretching along 30km of the Culgoa River. At
93,000 hectares, Cubbie is Australia’s biggest irrigator and most of the water
is used to make cotton.</div>
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Cottonseed <a href="http://cottonaustralia.com.au/cotton-library/fact-sheets/cotton-fact-file-australian-cotton-history1">came to Australia</a>
in the first fleet and was an early cottage industry. It took the shortages of the American Civil
War to set Queensland cotton up on a commercial basis but the industry ebbed
and flowed according to inconsistent 20<sup>th</sup> century demand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the help of subsidies from the newly
elected National Party government, SW Queensland got in on the act in 1960 but
has been badly affected by droughts in 1995, 2004 and 2008. In 2010/11 there
was a record Australian crop of 4.1 million bales showing an industry in
resurgence after almost a decade of drought.</div>
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The recovery came too late for the owners of Cubbie,
Australia’s biggest cotton plantation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cubbie had always <a href="http://www.melaleucamedia.com.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=35">got away</a> with paying a pittance for its water much to the disgust of its neighbours and
NSW irrigators downstream. Slack government processes allowed Cubbie to
gradually suck in more of the region’s scarce water resources. As one
commentator <a href="http://www.warwickhughes.com/cubbie/">noted</a> about other parts of the world, “water diversion on the scale of Cubbie could easily
be the cause of war.”</div>
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Despite all the favourable treatment, the company still went
broke in 2009. Cubbie Group chair Keith De Lacy – a former Treasurer in the
Wayne Goss government - <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-10-29/cubbie-station-going-into-administration/1121884">blamed the drought</a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>for the company’s woes. De Lacy said the
station had only had one good season in five and the company was selling up to
reduce debt and recapitalise the business to pursue other farming
opportunities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time SA independent senator Nick Xenophon
said Cubbie going into voluntary administration proved the station was not a
sustainable use of water. "What it does indicate is a failure of water
policy at the Queensland Government level and it indicates even more strongly
that you need to have a federal takeover of the river system," he said.</div>
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This week Xenophon spoke out again on Cubbie <a href="http://nickxenophon.com.au/article/media-release-treasurer-must-get-out-of-cubbie-hole">opposing the decision</a> to approve the sale. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>“These important
environmental assets shouldn't be flogged off to a foreign company that has no
connection to Australia, and no obligation to act in our interests,” he said. “There’s
also a concern the impact this could have on the entire Murray Darling Basin.”
He also called on FIRB to make its report public so that the general public
could be confident in its decision to approve the sale. “There must be a much
lower trigger point for investigation,” he said. “We need much more
transparency in terms of why applications are approved or rejected and we need
a national register which lists foreign owned properties so that we know who
owns what.”</div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-35183994550434681402012-08-27T23:04:00.000+10:002012-08-27T23:10:11.034+10:00Salman Rushdie: From Bradford’s Fahrenheit 451 to the memoirs of Joseph Anton.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I haven’t yet laid my hands on a copy of Salman Rushdie’s
new book, but it is an anticipated pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Joseph Anton: A Memoir” tells his own story of being forced underground
with armed surveillance after Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against him over The
Satanic Verses. Acton was the name Rushdie used while incognito during the time
when he was most in danger. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fatwa
remains current, as the only man who can lift it – Khomeini – inconveniently died
a few months after the pronouncement. However Rushdie is beginning to rebuild
his life in the open 24 years after the publication of that fateful book.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The best explanation for the fatwa and how it directly
inspired the likes of London’s 7/7 are to be found in Kenan Malik’s “From Fatwa
to Jihad”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>English writer Malik tells
how in February 1989 he witnessed a profound event: the first burning of The
Satanic Verses in public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A thousand
Muslims gathered in Bradford, Yorkshire with copies of Rushdie’s book and
burned it in front of a police station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It wasn’t quite Kristallnacht but it was calculated to shock and to
offend.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like Rushdie, Malik was born of an Indian Muslim family. He
grew up in Britain in an Islamic culture which was deeply embedded but not “all
consuming”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He became a radical leftist in the 1980s, and did
not think of himself as Muslim but black.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Malik quotes secular writer Fay Weldon who said the Qu’ran offered no
food for thought. “It forbids change, interpretation, self-knowledge, even art
for fear of treading on Allah’s creative toes,” Weldon said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Malik didn’t mind treading on Allah’s toes. He was
self-consciously secular and militant. Black for Malik was a political badge
which stood for refusing to put up with the discrimination dished out to the
previous generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whites called
them Asians but they were no more Asian than the Brits were Europeans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Malik said it was much later they became
“Muslims” and that for political reasons. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rushdie came from a similar background to
Malik and his early writings had done more than most to humanise the experience
of immigrant Muslims. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rushdie was used to having his books banned if not burned.
His first novel Midnight’s Children was banned in India and Indira Ghandi
successfully sued for libel in a British court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the second novel Shame, Rushdie’s description of Benazir Bhutto as
the Virgin Ironpants caused outrage in Pakistan and another ban.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rushdie laughed it off as he won prize after
prize for his great writing. The third book took his mockery to the next level.
It would be no less than a fable about the origins of Islam. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Written over 12 years
before 9/11, The Satanic Verses opens with an exploding airline. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The magical events that happen to the two
survivors of the explosion are used to discuss how God’s revelation to the
prophet Mahound brings a new religion called Submission (the English
translation of “Islam”) to a city in the sand called Jahilia (“Ignorance” –
where Arabs lived prior to Islam).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
second tale in the book is a caricature of Ayatollah Khomeini and the third is
based the true story of an Indian pied piper who leads all her Indian village
on the Haj and then into the sea to drown.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In one book, Rushdie was attacking Islam’s history, one of
its major political leader and one of its five pillars of behaviour. He might
have expected some resistance, yet the immediate reaction wasn’t huge.
Rushdie’s book was so obtuse and so difficult to follow in its non-narrative
form it was almost impossible to understand in a single reading and almost
threatened to go under the radar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then Sher Azam stepped in. Azam was the president of
Bradford’s Council of Mosques. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Azam
wasn’t the first Muslim critic of the book. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That honour belongs to philosopher Shabbir
Akhtar who called it an inferior piece of literature. But Azam was one of the
earliest to realise how Rushdie could be a rallying cry for Muslim
identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Azam had not read the book but
read reviews of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knew religious
scholars had declared it blasphemous and he took on the task of writing to
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Azam compared it to the Spycatcher affair and
asked for it to be banned. He got no reply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Azam told Malik Christians don’t mind about what people say
about their God because they no longer believe in “Him”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But look what it means, he told Malik. “It
means a country where the values have gone. People drink, take drugs, have sex
like dogs.” Azam said those problems would disappear if people believed in God.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Azam tapped into a new consciousness
among young radicals. These people were moving away from the radical secularism
preferred by Malik to a radical religiosity that could be firmly rooted across
the Muslim world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Muslims who burned the book in Bradford felt an immense
power in their action. Applauded as it was across the umma, they felt tuned in
to a philosophy much bigger than themselves. It gave them a giddy sense of
power they had never had before in their lives. A few days later on February
13, Khomeini called on “all zealous Muslims” to execute anyone involved in the
publication of the book, and Iran offered $3m for Rushdie’s death ( or a
knock-down $1m if the assassin was non-Muslim). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It didn’t matter that Khomeini issued the fatwa primarily as
a marker in his battle with the Saudis for supremacy in the Muslim world. His intervention
had made it an event of global consequence. That day Rushdie attended a
memorial service for writer Bruce Chatwin who had just died. Paul Theroux came
up to him and said “we’ll be back here next week for you.” Rushdie said it wasn’t
the funniest joke he’d ever heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
the following morning, Scotland Yard had given him grade one protection and
spirited him away to a safe house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Joseph Acton was born.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But so was jihadism in Britain, according to Malik. He
argues Britain and many other Governments formed pacts with religious movements
because they thought they would be easier to control than the left. This was a miscalculation
and it was made worse in the UK by Government policies that outsourced “Muslim
issues” to Muslim organisations. In the wake of the London Bombings of 2005, Muslim
leaders lashed Prime Minister Tony Blair for ignoring the warning signs that
led to 7/7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blair hit back criticising
moderate Muslims for not doing enough. “Governments cannot go and root out the
extremism in these communities,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That was your job, it implied but no one asked Blair why he felt so
helpless rooting them out. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Under the guise of multiculturalism, Britain divested all
its decisions on Muslim issues to the Muslim Council of Mosques. Radicalism
fermented in these organisations. Six of the 7/7 plotters were trainee doctors.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Satanic Verses furore was a catalyst
for a more confident Islamic identity which educated young professionals could
endorse. But it was not an identity recognised by most Muslims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islamism was not an expression of ancient
faith but a modernist reaction against the loss of belonging in complex societies
comforted by a literal belief in the Qu’ran. Rushdie, one of the most nuanced
of Muslim culture writers, had no chance against the power of this certainty.</div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-21707240488895862312012-08-26T00:33:00.001+10:002012-08-27T16:53:38.064+10:00The beginning of the end for Tony Abbott<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Opposition leader Tony Abbott is not interested in economics and doesn’t like reading press releases so he may not have seen <a href="http://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2012/mr-12-18.html">the minutes</a> of the last Reserve
Bank meeting. What Abbott would remember
from that August 7 meeting was the headline of interest rates
kept on hold at 3.50 per cent.
The Board said world conditions had declined since February, commodity prices
were down and global growth was unspectacular. Australia's <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1370.0%7E2010%7EChapter%7ETerms%20of%20trade%20%285.1.5.2%29">terms of trade</a> (the relative prices of Australia’s exports and imports) peaked nearly a year
ago, the Bank said, “though they remain historically high”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The Board offered its judgement on the world and Australia's place in it. China was
steady, US growth is modest, Asia was recovering from natural disasters. Europe
remains the sick man of the world as policymakers juggle sovereign and bank
debt with the need for future growth. The share market was volatile, risk aversion
was high while interest rates were historically low. Yet the board noted Australian
banks have had no difficulty accessing funding, even on an unsecured basis. This
was because Australia was a “highly rated sovereign”. Inflation and unemployment
are low and not even <a href="http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/clean-energy-future/carbon-price/">the carbon price</a> will change it that much.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is an extraordinary result given Board Governor Glenn
Stevens’ statement to the politicians yesterday, <span class="hps-normal">we were
“not in anything like normal times”</span>. Stevens was speaking at the <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommrep%2Fe73df312-5bb4-44f5-96db-3aa59659333a%2F0001%22%20">House of Representatives standing committee on economics </a>and repeated the good news about the
local economy. Resource investment might be declining but export shipments
will pick up. The dampening effect of a high dollar was beginning to wane, so other
sectors such as construction and tourism may also bounce back.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Liberal
member of the committee <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=00AN0%20">Steve Ciobo</a> asked if Australia was merely just lucky
to near Asia’s boom and far from the toxicity of Europe. Stevens avoided the
political connotations of the question but admitted Australia’s geography and
resource-rich land was a “blessing”. However he noted there were cultural
issues at play too. “<span class="hps-normal">We are in the real economy
exposed to the strong bit, and our financial economy and our psychology is
still quite connected as well to the pessimism from the North Atlantic,”
Stevens said.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hps-normal">The Opposition has tapped into this
pessimism with great effect since the last election and has taken every opportunity to link bad economic news to the minority government. After two years, Tony Abbott is
no longer pretending Australia is in dire
straits but still marked Tuesday’s second anniversary of that
election with <a href="http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/PressReleases/tabid/86/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8855/Towards-Hope-Reward-and-Opportunity-for-All-Australians.aspx">a hope</a> “</span>the Australian people can vote for a better way.” Abbott sought refuge in the past for his
promise of renewed hope and a stronger economy. “Sixteen members of my Shadow Cabinet were
ministers in the Howard Government,” he said. “We delivered an era of reform
and prosperity before, and we are determined to do it again.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Abbott’s presser made no mention of the change in global
conditions since Howard lost the November 2007 election. This
week, he repeated claims the carbon and mining taxes were responsible
for economic uncertainty in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3573785.htm%20">a shambolic performance</a> on ABC’s 7.30. They were among many egregious errors, perhaps chief among them the suggestion Marius Kloppers may have misled investors if he failed to
mention the carbon tax as a reason for BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam postponement. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It wasn’t just Leigh Sales toughening up on Abbott this
week. Many in the media have started to ramp up the scrutiny. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/is-abbott-on-thin-ice-absolutely-20120823-24oyz.html">Michelle Grattan</a> said his credibility was as big a problem as Prime
Minister Gillard’s trust. Grattan noted Abbott’s biggest strength, his absolutism, could become his biggest problem when the facts don’t fit his strategy. He is
also in danger of losing the advantage over the Government as more people
recognise his “<a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/is-abbott-just-a-one-trick-tony/story-e6freah3-1226458018427">one trick tony</a>”
behaviour. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/tony-abbott-has-made-a-string-of-false-claims-about-the-impact-of-the-carbon-tax/story-e6freakc-1226457617348">Laurie Oakes </a>openly called out Abbott as a liar
in his weekly article for News Ltd
today. While most people would not find
it surprising a politician is less than scrupulously honest, it is a problem
for Abbott because, says Oakes, “the central message from Abbott supporters is that the
Prime Minister is the liar - Ju-liar.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">With still a year to go before the next election, the
advantage remains with the Opposition. But recent polling has seen a narrowing
and even in Queensland where Labor has been battered at the last Federal and State
election there is improvement. On
figures
released this week, <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2012/08/24/galaxy-57-43-to-federal-coalition-in-queensland/">Poll Bludger</a> reckons only the marginal seat of
Moreton might fall and there is still another year of Campbell Newman
government cutbacks to factor in. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">While leadership tensions in Labor are still <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3547959.htm">not totally behind them</a> (and won’t while Kevin Rudd remains in
parliament), Gillard seems almost certain now to last until the next
election. But there is no guarantee she
will face Tony Abbott. Opposition members not rusted on to Abbott’s take-no-prisoners style (and there are many in the party, as the leadership ballot in
2009 showed), may get increasingly nervous if Labor continues to chip away at
their lead, while their own leader goes missing in action.</span></div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-10125852474162543072012-08-22T00:09:00.003+10:002012-08-24T22:53:58.431+10:00Saving the Sufi Saints of Timbuktu<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfJCud55scOTYLCHr7jv_mQyJuytglvZCeEjyDmEbspdvkaA_quw37M4gpNBpo4MyOgy8JFY7LC7fTcnU3k9_H9N7rAnLqj0z56Wm50GpLG0tL5RDwqxnlxhXSmoYMX0PvHoaEQ/s1600/timbuktu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfJCud55scOTYLCHr7jv_mQyJuytglvZCeEjyDmEbspdvkaA_quw37M4gpNBpo4MyOgy8JFY7LC7fTcnU3k9_H9N7rAnLqj0z56Wm50GpLG0tL5RDwqxnlxhXSmoYMX0PvHoaEQ/s200/timbuktu.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><small>The Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu (UNESCO/WHC) </small></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tucked away at
the bottom end of the Sahara, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1911321.stm%20">Timbuktu</a> has long been the perfect metaphor for a
mythological exotic other. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1510 Moorish
author Leo Africanus saw Timbuktu’s fabulous wealth at the height of the Songhai Empire – one of the largest Islamic
kingdoms in history. In The History and Description of Africa, Africanus said
the ritual in the court in Timbuktu was “exact and magnificent”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The city's </span>wealth and power came from its position as the
southern terminus of a key trans-Saharan trade route. Merchants sold slaves and
bought gold and the city was far enough away from everywhere to maintain
autonomy. Some 333 Sufi saints are said to be buried in tombs and
mausoleums across the city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If ancient
Timbuktu was a fabled place, the reality of modern Timbuktu is more prosaic.
Over the centuries, its trade diminished as Atlantic vessels replaced the ships of
the desert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> It</span> became more isolated due to local squabbles and changed hands many times. In 1884 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_conference">a decision</a> in faraway Berlin brought Timbuktu under colonial ownership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sited north of a line between Say in Niger to Barou on Lake Chad, European bureaucrats deemed Timbuktu French territory not British. Locals were
oblivious to the line on the map until nine years later when a small group of French soldiers annexed
the city to the new French Sudan.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Timbuktu was
bequeathed to the newly independent state of Mali in 1968. The corruption of
Mali’s one party state coincided with the <a href="http://www.eden-foundation.org/project/desertif.html">desertification</a>
and drought of Timbuktu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Northern Mali
was <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/07/201277173027451684.html">dying</a> while government in far-away capital Bamako did nothing to avert the crisis. Tuareg
independence fighters from the north had long been active in the region and
many returned to Mali this year battle-hardened after the Libyan civil war to
depose Gadafi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">They were behind the <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/welcome-to-azawad-africas-newest-country/256438/%20">National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad</a> to liberate northern Mali. Helped
by a coup d’etat in Bamako in March , the NMLA combined with an Islamist group
called Ansar Dine to quickly took over the three biggest cities in the region –
including Timbuktu.</span> Ideological differences quickly spread between the two factions. While
NMLA was Tuareg nationalist, Ansar Dine was Islamist with links to Mauretanian-based Al Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It was Ansar Dine who wanted to impose Sharia Law on
Timbuktu. The former allies clashed at the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-01/mali-rebels-push-into-northern-town-of-gao/3925342">battle of Gao</a>
in June.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Islamist faction won a decisive victory and took revenge on recalcitrant locals by
destroying Timbuktu’s World Heritage listed old city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On June 30, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18657463">the BBC</a> reported I</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">slamist fighters damaged the shrines in the city including
the mausoleum of Sidi Mahmoud, one of the revered 333 Sufi saints. While UNESCO
hissed over the destruction of one its treasures, an Ansar Dine spokesman unapologetically
said all the shrines would be destroyed. "God is unique,” he said. “All of
this is haram (forbidden in Islam). We are all Muslims. Unesco is what?"</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
sweeping certainty of the Islamists is in stark contrast to the views of most
Muslims. Ansar Dine enjoys <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2fbed582-c1e2-11e1-b76a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz24BgReJpl">little support</a> among locals and rules by fear. Mali is 97 percent Islamic but the
vast majority want nothing to do with the cult of Islamism. Ansar Dine follows not in the path
of Mohammed but invented traditions of the twentieth century drawing on fundamentalist icon <a href="http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com.au/2008/06/sayyid-qutb-father-of-islamism.html">Sayyid Qutb</a>. Their spokesman was wrong: nothing in the magnificent mausoleums of
Timbuktu are haram. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Where this
leaves the city and the rest of Northern Mali, depends on the strength of the
<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hUzdwb6DwRzxAVBUIB3-2LMLXS5A?docId=CNG.190ace56035c08110aa9b72cd4d0d3cd.751%20">new unity government</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in Bamako, announced overnight. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imposed by the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) it relies on army and civilian leaders to overcome
their suspicion of each other and work together. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next door Niger is alarmed about the dangers of Islamic radicalism in northern Mali. Ansar
Dine’s links to AQIM will ensure Western support for the new government. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Financial support for a desperately poor city is imperative. </span>But the fate of Timbuktu and its 333 Sufi
saints will ultimately rely on the solidarity of its people to resist the
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95713/MALI-Students-flee-Sharia-in-northern-schools">medieval modernist barbarism</a>
of the Islamists. </span></div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-9299484040281000502012-08-19T00:07:00.001+10:002012-08-21T22:46:52.707+10:00Dear Minister (Redacted): Assange and FOI<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mU7MFApDcgF4MuOwcoeBY6vU_H6heIEdLL9tYiwpV9yLeYKTEmqFvngY7-9-ePk0jQKp-T8ZhB5CXWBR_mgNt6cN2WVjnprTjbre1Itt3uH9rsW4HGxrmLWwUcy97vaWGKDNXw/s1600/redacted.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mU7MFApDcgF4MuOwcoeBY6vU_H6heIEdLL9tYiwpV9yLeYKTEmqFvngY7-9-ePk0jQKp-T8ZhB5CXWBR_mgNt6cN2WVjnprTjbre1Itt3uH9rsW4HGxrmLWwUcy97vaWGKDNXw/s200/redacted.JPG" width="151" /></a>On Thursday, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and
Trade <a href="http://www.dfat.gov.au/foi/downloads/dfat-foi-1205-F345.PDF">published their answer</a> to a Fairfax Freedom of Information two-fold request on Julian Assange. The
first part was for briefings to Foreign Minister Bob Carr about Wikileaks,
Assange and Bradley Manning. The second was cable traffic (the kind made
freely available by Wikileaks) between the embassy in Washington and the
department on Wikileaks, Assange and Manning in the months February to April
this year. The aim of the FOI was not to release Assange but to embarrass the
government by proving Bob Carr a liar. Fairfax's gotcha today was DFAT’s long-held concern Assange would be extradited to the US was “at
odds with Carr's repeated dismissal of such a prospect.” More importanly however, DFAT's heavily redacted response gives much insight into Australian concerns about Assange<br />
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The response started with a letter
addressed to Carr on March 2. The letter was written by the department’s
secretary <a href="http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/exec/richardsondennis_bio.html">Dennis Richardson</a> who was also ambassador to the US for four years to 2009. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While this was before the period of Assange’s
international infamy, Richardson presumably had some sage advice on how
to deal with the Assange dilemma. “Dear Minister” it began followed by five
pages all marked “redacted”. Some tantalising notes were left on the last page. Consider,
Stephenson wrote to Carr in note s22.1(a)(ii), on any given day, the department
is dealing with around 1500 consular cases. The appendix s22.1(a)(ii) also
deals with workload and said consular work was increasingly
complex due to the travel behaviour of Australians and the number of cases
raised to the media which require ministerial involvement. We don’t know where
this was leading as the next page was redacted.</div>
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There followed a suggested response to possible questions on
Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson whose name was included on a Heathrow <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/04/20/who-stopped-robinson-the-inhibition-of-responsibility/">“inhibited travel” list</a>.
This was to confirm events but to deny
any Australian involvement or British restrictions on her travel. The problem
was caused by “management of Ms Robinson’s check-in” and “inadvertent comments
by airport security and other staff”. They said check-in staff eventually
cleared Robinson to travel and she boarded the flight as planned. The talking point ended “I hope this will put
all the conspiracy theories to rest.”</div>
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Those conspiracy theories had to wait for the next page which
was redacted. The next point was a problem of Carr's own making. A month prior
to becoming Foreign Minister, Carr used<a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20%20http://bobcarrblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/julian-assange-and-an-australian-charter-of-rights/"> his own blog</a> to decry the role of judges
as prosecutors in the Swedish legal system as “an outrage by Australian
standards”. The
possible question was shouldn’t the Government do more to stop him from being
extradited there. The answer was whatever
his opinions as a blogger, as a representative of the Australian Government, he
had to express “confidence in the integrity of judicial processes of Sweden”. </div>
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The matter of a US indictment should only be discussed “if
raised”. The response should be that while the US is investigating Wikileaks
there was no announcement of any action against Assange and the US has not
advised Australia of any such action though “the details of our conversations
are confidential”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Australia refuses to
comment on the <a href="http://rt.com/usa/news/stratfor-trapwire-abraxas-wikileaks-313/%20">leaked emails from Stratfor</a> which spoke of the sealed
indictment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two other issues to discuss only "if raised" were the “temporary surrender” extradition mechanism and the likelihood
of Australia extraditing him to the US if he returned here.</div>
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The briefing said Assange was welcome home “once
international orders preventing his travel have been lifted”. Any extradition
from here was a matter for the Attorney-General though Assange could fight such
an order in Australian courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was
also an ambiguous answer to avoid confirming Assange’s eligibility to
run as an Australian Senator as “suggested on Twitter”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-17/asia/world_asia_australia-senate-assange_1_founder-julian-assange-wikileaks-britain-s-supreme-court?_s=PM:ASIA%20">Wikileaks’ own suggestion </a>and while the response was to be handballed to the A-G, Senator Carr’s
own opinion was that “Assange has not been charged with an offence in Sweden or
elsewhere”.</div>
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There follows background on the legal proceedings. British
police issued Assange with a <a href="http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/2101/can-julian-assange-escape-the-european-arrest-warrant">European Arrest Warrant</a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>in December 2010 which a court found
valid two months later. Assange appealed to the High Court which upheld the
decision in November 2011. However they allowed an appeal to the Supreme Court
on the legal matter of whether a prosecutor was a “judicial authority” who
could issue an EAW under UK law. After hearings in February, the Supreme Court
has reserved its opinion. If the appeal is successful, Assange is free to walk.
If it is unsuccessful, Assange still has one last legal avenue open, the
European Court of Human Rights.</div>
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The Department said they had spoken to Assange twice by
phone, twice in person, facilitated a visit by his mother and had attended all
legal proceedings. If he ends up in Sweden, he would probably be kept in detention
while any trial was pending. As for the US, there a Grand Jury was deliberating the
Wikileaks cablegate affair in secret. Wikileaks was accused of providing a
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table">rainbow table</a> to crack passwords in
Manning’s pre-trial. After Wikileaks released the Stratfor email, Australia sought clarification on
whether there was <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/wikileaks-stratfor-emails-a-secret-indictment-against-assange-20120228%20">a sealed indictment</a> for Assange. The request was denied due
to the secrecy arrangements of the Grand Jury. </div>
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The secrecy of DFAT files on Assange continued with
10 more redacted pages. There followed a cable from Washington marked “routine,
information only”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cable provided a
summary of the Manning case which described in great detail <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/16wiki.html?_r=2%20">the links</a> to Assange and Wikileaks. These included file-sharing, contact details and
on-line chat. Implicit in the cable was that prosecutors
were building a case against Assange. </div>
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This possibility was made explicit in another similarly undated “routine”
cable which said the US has been investigating Assange for more than 12 months.
An <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/11/us-opens-wikileaks-grand-jury-hearing">unconfirmed grand jury</a> was empanelled in Virginia in 2010 but
this has been a Kafkaesque black hole for information with no one involved
allowed to talk about it and the US refusing to even confirm its existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cable also quotes commentary which
suggests a successful US prosecution of Assange would be “challenging and
complicated”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Possible charges could
include accessing computers without authorisation, theft of US property,
disclosing prohibited material or criminal conspiracy to “defraud the US”. Any prosecution would not tackle First
Amendment rights even though as a non-American he may not be covered. </div>
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A few more redacted pages occurred before more
routine cables.They quoted <a href="http://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-denounces-UNESCO-after.html%20">a Wikileaks press release </a>denouncing UNESCO for banning Wikileaks personnel from a conference about
Wikileaks. They pointed out the conference was organised by “Washington
insiders, cold war ideological allies (such as Freedom House and the disgraced
IAPA) and U.S. mainstream media groups.” When media asked the US State Department,
spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said given US’s state of “suspended animation”
in UNESCO, she was “not sure we’re going to have much to say about it." </div>
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Another cable gave an update on the Manning arraignment. With
the complexity of the case of 40,000 documents containing 400,000 pages,
it would mean an August start date. Manning would be detained
for 800 days by the time it starts. It reported a voice from the gallery shouting “Judge, isn’t a
soldier required to report a war crime?” It also reported the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/23/news/la-pn-manning-defers-plea-at-court-martial-in-wikileaks-case-20120223">Michael Ratner’s comment</a> that prosecutors were “bludgeoning
Manning to accept a plea where he would then implicate Assange”. </div>
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Then it was back to the leaked Stratfor emails. On 27
February Wikileaks began publishing the <a href="http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html">Global Intelligence Files</a> based on five million emails from
a company called Stratfor which provides subscription-based analysis of geo-political issues. It
was a private sector Cablegate which Wikileaks publicised with newspaper
partners. The cable did not mention the “sealed indictment” but did say Australia
was mentioned twice. The first, an East Asia Monitor Guidance, talked about
Australia’s submarine crisis and the second from a “well connected former
Senator” discussed Chinese mining interests. </div>
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A cable followed that explicitly mentioned <a href="http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/375123_fw-ct-assange-manning-link-not-key-to-wikileaks-case-.html%20">the Stratfor “sealed indictment” email</a>. The email’s author Fred Burton was an
ex-deputy chief of US counter-terrorism with “close ties” to the intelligence
and government network. The email was not official confirmation and the cable
author said Burton might be mistaken due to a draft
indictment “commonly used by prosecutors to ‘game out’ possible charges.”
Either way the silence of the Grand Jury made everything just speculation.</div>
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There was a long explanation why <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury">Grand Juries</a>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>operate in secrecy. It was imported from
English law, it protected witnesses, it would lessen the risk someone indicted
would flee, and lastly it would prevent someone tried but exonerated from “being
held up to public ridicule”. While Assange might have coped with the indignity,
it is also designed to prevent “satellite litigation in advance of judgement”. </div>
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More cables discussed new allegations in the Manning case.
Firstly, that he <a href="http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/03_-_March/U_S__officials_question_if_accused_leaker_helped_Al_Qaeda/">provided</a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>material assistance to the enemy, Al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It discussed in detail the legal arguments and
the media commentary with many saying the case was weak and questioned the
benefits to AQAP. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another cable followed
that talked about the “rainbow table” allegation. </div>
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Another one discussed the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture’s
<a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session19/A_HRC_19_61_Add.4_EFSonly.pdf">report to the UN on Manning</a> (Manning data starts page 74).
Juan Mendez said Manning’s detention was punitive but he did not accept monitored
access to the prisoner. It had a letter from the Department of Defense to
Mendez saying they were satisfied with the detention and had placed him on
death watch. </div>
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The last significant cable was about Wikileaks’ request for
the US to publicise details of Manning’s court martial. The Center for
Constitutional Rights' Michael Ratner <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/155136/bradley_manning%3A_a_totalitarian_show_trial_of_state_secrecy%20">said</a> the public had First Amendment and common law rights to access to criminal
trials. Ratner quoted Circuit Judge Damon Keith’s dictum “democracies die
behind closed doors”. He noted Mendez’s objections and said the public had a “compelling
interest” in the Manning case. Particularly Assange had a “unique and obvious
interest” and “it appears” federal prosecutors had a sealed indictment against
him. </div>
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The last cable in the document about Jennifer Robinson’s flight
difficulty was completely redacted. By my counting 39 pages out of 125 were
redacted showing Assange has been a major topic of discussion and concern for
DFAT. Yet there is much revealing about what is left in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Australia almost certainly knows about the
sealed indictment but is content to hide behind legal niceties from confirming
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was certainly <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-in-pursuit-of-assange-cables-reveal-20120817-24e8u.html">the take</a> of today’s Fairfax report on the
material. The Department as ever played a straight bat. Fairfax concluded with
DFAT’s non-response. “A spokesperson for Senator Carr said yesterday Assange's
circumstances remained a matter for the UK, Ecuador and Sweden, with
Australia's role limited to that of a consular observer.” Carr hopes the convenience of consular observation will keep Australia off the hook as this high-stakes game heads towards a spectacular climax.</div>
Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17639100.post-30471977469804544502012-08-07T02:11:00.001+10:002012-08-07T15:16:47.169+10:00Murdoch's adventures in ChinaWhen Rupert Murdoch took control of The Wall Street Journal
in 2008, he collected another less prestigious Dow Jones monthly publication
called The Far Eastern Economic Review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/technology/28iht-murdoch.3.10538243.html?_r=1%20">New York Times </a>called it an incidental addition to the vast global stable of Murdoch's News
Corp. Murdoch promised editorial independence to all of the Dow Jones stable as
part of the price he had to pay for the Journal. But given his reputation, it
was no surprise to find there would be a chilling effect whenever a story
appeared that affected Murdoch.<br />
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The Review’s editor Hugo Restall had hired Australian writer
Eric Ellis to write a review of Bruce Dover’s book “Rupert's Adventures in
China: How Murdoch Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is a privileged insider’s account of
Murdoch’s attempts to woo the Chinese Government in the 19990s and his
relationship with third wife Wendi Deng.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The book got a big reception in Asia in 2007 and Restall hired Ellis to
review the book in January 2008. But by February, Restall had got
<a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/02/26/murdoch-self-censorship-part-2-now-youre-in-now-youre-not/?wpmp_switcher=mobile">cold feet</a> and told Ellis the book “looks more like the work of a disgruntled ex-employee rather than
an analysis of the business." </div>
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The book was nothing of the sort, as Ellis realised. In his
spiked review, Ellis said for a businessman who has left such a mark on the
world’s media, Murdoch himself was under-analysed and his personal life
off-limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was this reason why the
book is of great service: because Dover (now the chief executive of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-09/dover-australia-network/3721202">ABC’s Australia Network</a>
charged with beaming content into Asia) was the Sun King’s chief courtier in the
Forbidden City in a time when China meant everything to the boss. </div>
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Dover tells the story from the time Murdoch bought STAR TV
in 1993 for $1 billion to the time 10 years later when Dover has been sacked
and Murdoch realised he could not replicate the success in China he had
elsewhere. By 1993, Murdoch had defeated the British print unions in Wapping, was
starting to make big money with BSkyB and the Premier League and expanding his
footprint in America. The 23-year-old Richard Li’s STAR TV was a satellite
operation that beamed programming to an area that stretched from the Philippines to the Middle East with the
potential to reach two-thirds of the world’s population. </div>
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But Li could never make money from STAR TV subscriptions as
most of its users pirated the unencrypted service. He changed the model to
advertising and charged big rates though no one could be exactly sure how much of an
audience he was aggregating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Li’s father
Li Ka-shung was Hong Kong’s wealthiest businessman and a friend of Deng
Xiaoping and he quietened ruffled feathers in Beijing over the fact the uncensored service
was available at all in mainland China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Xiaoping told Ka-shung the business had to go and Li reluctantly
sold to the highest bidder in 1993. Pearson PLC (owner of the Financial Times
and Penguin Books) offered the same money as News Corp but wanted Ka-shung to
stay on in some capacity. Murdoch had no such qualms. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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The problem was Li never sought approval from Beijing on the
sale. When the Chinese politburo found out who STAR TV’s new owner was, there
was deep concern. The Chinese saw only too well how Murdoch intervened in the
politics of every other country he had interests in and feared the same would
happen to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These fears intensified
after a major speech Murdoch made in London’s Whitehall Palace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Murdoch was the main speaker in a night
celebrating BSkyB’s new multi-channel offering. With the Internet still in its
infancy, Murdoch used the speech to laud the new forms of communications which
he said were a threat to “totalitarian regimes everywhere”. Orwell had got it wrong, Murdoch said, mass
communication technologies did not subordinate individuals but liberate them.
Telephony and satellite broadcasting, he enthused, made it possible to by-pass
state control of information.</div>
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Murdoch would later claim he was talking about the recent
collapse Communism in Eastern Europe. But the politicians in Beijing had no
doubt he was talking about them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Premier
Li Peng was incandescent with rage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Butcher of Beijing at Tiananmen was at the height of his powers four years
later and he saw Murdoch’s speech as a threat to Chinese sovereignty. Within a
month he banned the distribution, installation and use of satellite dishes in
China, dashing STAR TV’s expansion plans from the word go.</div>
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Murdoch is nothing if not determined and quickly realised
the extent of his blunder. He moved to Hong Kong with then wife Anna and started a long and assiduous campaign of
wooing the Chinese leadership to see his position. The problem was that all
contact with Zhongnanhai was funnelled through the State Council Information Office
and Murdoch was allowed to meet no-one above the rank of vice minister. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1994 he used the excuse of limited transponder
space on the satellite to drop the BBC from STAR TV but he later admitted to
biographer William Shawcross it was because the Chinese leaders hated the BBC.
Nevertheless it changed nothing and Murdoch remained persona non grata. </div>
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The new play was for Murdoch to befriend family members of
Deng Xiaoping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He got Harper Collins to
publish Deng’s daughter Deng Rong’s hagiography of her father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also feted his disabled eldest son Deng
Pufang in an artists’ tour of Australia. The problem was Deng slipped from
power in 1994 and new leader Jiang Zemin was not like the emperors of old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deng’s children were out of favour and with
them any chance of Murdoch patronage. Zemin enforced the crackdown on China’s
half a million satellite dishes.</div>
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Dover himself was in China by this time trying to negotiate
a joint venture with the People’s Daily. This strange alliance with the
conservative communist organ was another peace plan and one tacitly approved by
the politburo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The paper was under
pressure to reduce its reliance on state handouts and proposed a business news
magazine with News Corp. However, once again SCIO were not across the deal and did their
utmost to ensure the new joint venture would never get off the ground. It was
not the thaw in relations Murdoch needed.</div>
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Murdoch next’s ploy was to get into bed with businessman <a href="http://www.hurun.net/hurun/detailen14,people12.aspx">Liu Changle</a>.
Changle took half share in the Phoenix TV joint venture with STAR TV. Liu had
cultivated several key Beijing decision makers and Murdoch was told by senior
leaders this was his only way into China. Phoenix proved popular and shook up
the tawdry domestic TV market. But Murdoch hated Phoenix because Changle
retained day-to-day control.</div>
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Murdoch looked to the new information superhighway for a
solution. As Beijing wrestled with control of the internet, Murdoch started a
new joint venture with People’s Daily called <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-06-14/business/9506140178_1_venture-chinese-communist-party-rupert-murdoch">PDN Xinren</a><i>. </i><i><span style="font-style: normal;">The first product ChinaByte was launched to fanfare in January 1997 and
soon became the most popular site in China. But after the tech bubble burst Murdoch
lost faith in the product and by April 2001 has sold his foothold in the
fastest growing internet market in the world.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-style: normal;">Dover documents other manoeuvres such as getting rid of anti-Chinese
China correspondent Jonathan Mirsky from the Times Hong Kong bureau. Murdoch
had promised The Times editorial independence but he invited the Times editor
Peter Stothard on a charm offensive of China. Southard would later spike so many
stories from Hong Kong and Mirsky resigned citing Murdoch’s heavy hand. Murdoch also spiked
the HarperCollins autobiography of former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten on
Chinese instructions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Murdoch competed
with great rival Time boss Jerry Levin to fawn over Chinese leaders and promise
anything for a toehold in the country. Finally Murdoch made a speech which was
a mea culpa for Whitehall where he conceded cultural and social values of a
country trumped open communications. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-style: normal;">With relations warming slightly, Dover tells the amusing story of when Murdoch
met Vice Premier Zhu Rongii in Australia in 1997. Zhu asked Murdoch to tell him
the story of his rise to power and the pair had an animated conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point Zhu put his hands on Murdoch’s
wrists, looked him in the eye and spoke in Mandarin.”I see when you needed to
expand your business interests in the US you became a US citizen,” he said. “Maybe
you should think of applying for Chinese citizenship to further your business
interests in China”. Murdoch blinked when he heard the translation and
spluttered a reply. Zhu burst into laughter and said he was joking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-style: normal;">Murdoch did in the end apply for Chinese citizenship – by marrying his
young Yale-educated interpreter Wendi Deng. Deng had the language skills but
not the contacts in the politburo and the Chinese kept one step ahead of the Murdochs.
Just as they successfully cultivated Zemin’s Shanghai clique, the leader was replaced by Hu
Jintao. Dover was on the outer too, his boss frustrated by his inability to
penetrate the Great Wall. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hu closed down
STAR TV’s intrusion into the Chinese “grey sector” and insisted China retain control
of Chinese television, </span></i><a href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200507/13/eng20050713_195922.html">banning cooperation between local stationsand foreign companies</a>. </div>
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<i><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200507/13/eng20050713_195922.html"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></span></a></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-style: normal;">After 12 years of trying, Murdoch finally admitted he had hit a brick
wall in China. In 2006 he sold his remaining
interest in Phoenix and reposition STAR TV towards the Indian market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it was not a total failure. Bruce Dover
said Murdoch was a major catalyst of change in China both of its media and its
attitude to the Internet (which the party wanted to ban entirely).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Phoenix transformed Chinese television with
its brash, downmarket programming but control remained in Chinese hands. Dover
said in seeking to woo China’s leaders, Murdoch overstepped the mark. “He
became too impetuous, too imprudent,” he concluded.</span></i></div>Derek Barryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15581505641163336050noreply@blogger.com0