It is now likely Labor will win back government in NSW in 2015, after O’Farrell’s double whammy this week of the Great Koala Shoot and the privatising of buses; which will mean, I guess, no buses to Palm Beach any more, and me in my eighties driving an hour to town and endangering life and limb, not always my own.
When will governments learn that privatisation loses votes? It killed Keating, Olsen, Iemma, Keneally and Bligh. It caused anti-privatisation landslides in each Australian jurisdiction. It stained Thatcherism forever, and the mumbling old crone will go to an unhonoured grave now, detested by all for her smashing up of whole communities and her driving to suicide of thousands of honest, decent, coal-mining husbands and fathers. It is slowly killing the Hawke-Keating-Kelty Compromise, as successive Qantas planes fall out of the sky and underpaid Asians load and repair them, and they fall out of the sky again, and tourists come here less and less and the storms of global warming shake and buffet each jerry-built aircraft and our economy shrivels for want of incoming overseas customers. Privatised into trauma getting here, and never coming back again. No way.
It’s never been liked and it’s never worked. People hate it. They hate it. Look at France, Greece, New Zealand and most of Africa. They hate it.
Why do it? Why do it?
Just asking.
O’Farrell will sell off the Opera House next, as a spare gambling venue and luxury flats.
Discuss.
Name:
What does one want in a political leader?
An ability to negotiate is number one. A leader must first unite his or her own side into a cohesive whole, by bringing all of them or at least a great majority, into general agreement on the way forward.
An ability to negotiate with potential opponents and even with actual enemies is highly desirable.
An ability to enunciate a vision to the supporters, and to the potential opponents as well.
An ability to inspire one’s own side is useful, to get them to act to the limits of their own abilities to further the cause. This may of course be done by others, under the leader’s general direction.
I see no great room for manly virtues, or womanly virtues either, in any of that.
Powers of leadership, whether of negotiation, of charisma – at its heart, someone people will follow – and of intelligence are non-sex specific.
Am I wrong in any of this?
Isn’t it interesting how Japan and Italy have survived politically for so long without leaders, how countries such as those can muddle along, despite the most tenuous of relationships within the leaders parties regarding the leadership. Do you think the country can rally behind a leader anymore, harness the vitality of a country to exceed its potential? I can’t see that anymore.
Why do we not trust ourselves to lead ourselves? Why do we insist on thinking that these men and women for all of their best intentions, locked away in an artificial and heightened atmosphere of “politics” surrounded as they are by insiders and lobby groups, advisors, specialized media interests are more capable of providing leadership of us than we can ourselves? Why not a benevolent dictatorship then, or ruling Monarch? it would fulfill your precepts mentioned above.
I don’t know anymore, in Austria I saw coaltions of the two major parties Socialists and Christian Democrats work together to no great disadvantage. Now I see the Tory/Gina Rhinehart party coalition with the NP Palmer faction functioning as a smooth machine, who is the leader of that bunch, who is giving the orders there?
“Do you think the country can rally behind a leader anymore” ?
I suppose it depends on the situation : if we were faced with a real external threat, yes I do think so.
Once threatened most people will rally behind “My Country Right or Wrong” sentiments, and the then-leader, whoever that is, will gain in stature and power : thus Churchill in 1940, Curtin in 1942, Thatcher in 1982, even Bush in 2001. And many others; dictators and other leaders throughout the world and throughout history has traded on responding and if necessary creating an external threat.
The risk we face is that unscrupulous people are seeking power here in Australia. And we all know who they are. They are desperate – desperate – to force an early election. Because they are ahead in the polls. Temporarily, in my view.
We shall see.
What is going on here? This was my post not Macabre’s!! Get off my computer!
Sorry Douggie . . .
WTF Doug?
Simple enough, allthumbs – she flounces in, sits on my lap and plays with the family jewels . . . and puts my post under her moniker, after berating the various idiots.
Things we put up with.
Doug, tell me you are not R2 as well?
I’ve been in France and England for 2 weeks OK? I missed him! And his . . .
Doug, you’ve taken the DeVere thing to far, is Macabre or R2 your Stratford woman?
I told Eleanor if she responded again I would begin erasing all her former work. She has responded again, imagining I did not mean it, or I have changed my mind. Working backwards, I will take out for each new response a former one. I will do that until there is none left.
It will be very soon as if she had never been born.
Rousseau, Montesquieu and Jefferson were arseholes. That said, I’ve always imagined Doug as the sort of gent that gets around in tartan knickerbockers, long socks and a tamashanta, with eyes that veer off slightly in different directions and brown curly hair. It is an idealised image and I’m not sure I want his bits entering into the descriptor whatsoever. At least not in real time.
Very humorous, Reader1. Regrettably these days suit and tie is the go, since someone needs to pay the bills. As for physical description, think William Hurt, with a little more hair, if you must. (blushes)
You bitch, just wait ’til I get you …
I’ll have to lock the computer!
She’s also a practical joker, who thinks it is funny to nick my posts at times. Women.
Expect more of the same, unless I can lock the computer! Bob can you ban Macabre too? Please?
Gottle of geer, gottle of geer.
Doug Quixote June 3, 2012 at 12:48 pm
What is going on here? This was my post not Macabre’s!! Get off my computer!
Reply
Macabre June 3, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Sorry Douggie . . .
My joy knows no bounds!!
Am I wrong in any of this?
I am unable to erase the above communication but my son the nerd will soon, with technology I do not, and may never understand.
I apologise in the meantime for any misery caused by its ugly inclusion in the lives of my readers.
I must admit I have stopped reading this site and contributing to the debate because of the poor quality of the comments.
Some posters should start their own blog (or take up basket weaving or macrame or become political advisers to Julia Gillard) and give Bob Ellis some peace and quiet.
Its creating a distinct impression in my conservative mind that Lefties are all morons.
Lift your game.
So this is just a dating service after all.
“An ability to enunciate a vision to the supporters, and to the potential opponents as well.”
Not just enunciate it, but also believe it, and achieve it during the term of office. Otherwise there’s no point having a “vision” in the first place.
Hmmm, belief is optional; many great leaders did not believe in anything much, and many we have called great paid mere lip service to the accepted ideology.
Achieve the vision during a term of office? Wow, you don’t want much do you? Who did that – I’d like a list of those Greatest of the Great.
The GST is a good example for you.
GST was a vision!?! Get a life, Bananaman!
As for Fatty O”Barrell, he’ll get his in 2015 if he’s not careful, and Bailleau and Newman may not be far behind. Useless shits the lot of them.
Privatisation, I still don’t get it. When were services meant to make a profit? Taxes=Services, right!
Victoria had a great govt-run public transport system. Now it is a disaster. Difficulty running if too hot; too wet. Overcrowding. In search of a ticketing-system, oceans of tax-payers money has been poured down the drain. Gangs of thugs employed to make sure you have paid; even if ticketing system isn’t working; shot on sight; now gangs of thugs trained to attack gangs of thugs who hang around platforms trying to avoid the initial gangs of thugs.
And the latest, operators have the right to turn a train into an express half way through the journey. No wonder train surfing is on the rise. Only way to get off. How many cities have I visited around the world where trains come along every 3 minutes. Ours 20 minutes, sometimes 40.
When governments climbed into bed with multi-nationals, they changed the blue-collar side of their own purposes. Sacrificing public facilities for easy money. Facilities they didn’t own. We did, the taxpayer. If they had have held referendums on any privisations, nothing would have gotten through. If a government sells off and it is seen as a mistake, the firing squad. Why shouldn’t they be viewed as criminal? They are the worst type. They have mismanaged high levels of power on our behalf. Again Victoria – eg desal plant. Kenneth Davidson screamed and screamed his head off in the Age. Don’t do it. The cost will take Victoria to the brink.
He presented the figures over and over again. A raft of alternatives. Piping water across Bass Strait from the run-off into the ocean of Tasmania’s Hydro-system. A fraction of the cost. Surveyed as a goer back in the sixties by the Bolte govt. Natural pumping through gravity. Everything he said came true. Everything he says comes true. Do governments listen? No they just keep rolling out PPPs [Public Private Projects] in which inevitably the tax-payer gets screwed and opportunities are lost. Example? Baillieu is trying to balance the books by decimating TAFE, the lower classes’ tertiary training opportunity in life. And such a fucking important one too.
So, like Brumby, Baillieu pours money into private RTOs [Recognised Training Organisations], that offer a cheap alternative to TAFE institutes, and slowly degrade the whole process with shonk and quick certificates and night-flights. Baillieu thinks no-one gives a shit about TAFE institutes – increases money for private schools while going about privatising tertiary training. It started with Kennet, then the promise of transparency by Brack’s, the rights of ownership by the public fading away with the rise of PPPs.
How to start fighting back. The reversal. If I was King I would start by creating a government-public-based bank, The Australian Bank. Each customer is offered one share and voting rights. Going on the sizeable profits of the major players, shouldn’t be too much of a risk. Nor shouldn’t be too long before it was the bank with the highest number of customers. After all it would be the safest bank, government-public owned. In turn the government could invest the savings of the people back into projects for the people. Run their own mines, the peoples’ mines. Think of the levels of employment the idea lays open. And would we then see the other banks not passing o
n interest rates cuts? And talking about fees? I mean isn’t this a no-brainer? Comments please.
Frank, you devil!!
From a fellow Victorian you are right on the money with the transport et al. The question is how do we get back control.
It’s the (market) economy, stupid. Efficiency, equity, price mechanisms, all that stuff. It doesn’t have to be true or consistent, but these are the tenets to which we are now all beholden under pain of ostracism, BBB credit ratings and impoverished superannuation accounts. From memory Labor governments here and abroad have had a bit of a hand in bedding this new regime down.
Aren’t you BFF with old Abraham Carr ? Has none of the wisdom from his time with those avaricious capitalists and scourge of government owned assets Macquarie filtered down, and helped open your eyes to how the world really works. (For some).
We accept, if with a grumble, such as privatisation – a bad idea since first tried with the second fleet – because so many are prepared to regard certain politicians as “leaders”, even when we dislike or disagree with them. Is this because so much of our rearing was hierarchical? Grades, grade captains, vice captains, prefects, senior prefects, head prefects, teachers, masters, principal, vice principal, inspector,board of govenors? Keep quiet,underling. Know your place. Obsequiousness bred in?
Politicians should act like the foremen of a jury, with the public providing the input to their decision. They are not leaders, nor are the public their followers. Alan Jones and Kyle Sandilands are leaders more than our politicians are.
If politicians cannot oversee a business and ensure its profitability, why on earth should they be allowed to oversee a state?
Rape in Marriage?
The High Court decided three days ago that there is no doctrine which says that a man cannot be convicted of raping his wife.
In 1963 – yes 1963 – “PGA” had sexual intercourse with his wife, who avowed that she had not consented to that intercourse.
The man is on trial for rape, right now.
The Court decided by 5 judges to 2 (one male and one female judge dissenting, in case you were wondering) that if there ever had been such a doctrine it had no application in Australia, certainly by 1935.
Those who have hidden behind the doctrine, accepted law most would have thought, must now be a little nervous.
PGA v The Queen [2012] HCA 21.
So if a woman doesn’t have an orgasm is that rape?
To treat the question seriously, consent must happen before intercourse, and cannot be withdrawn after the event. At what point it may be withdrawn, once given, so as to make it rape is one of ‘those’ questions.
I thought stop meant stop even when you’re in. For example if she was experiencing pain. On the other hand if you were coming and she said pull out, most difficult. I think you could plead loss of mind and control…insanity at that point. Do you have a copy of the law before you?
Which law? Every jurisdiction has its own, and the word rape does not appear anywhere in the statutes these days. It is however the best descriptor we have.
And the guy is over 80 and in poor health. But by the sounds of it was a real bastard, a violent domesticator. And no law against it at the time, so although there may be some retrospective justice what a can of worms to open. Women encouraged to follow suit, the courts coming to a standstill. Like you state, men replaying all their sexual encounters over their lifetimes, including while being in different stages of inebriation. It will be just like living in Sweden. Perhaps all sexual acts will need to be recorded on camera in the bedroom to cut down litigation. Or just play safe, put some soft music on, dim the lights, maybe a glass of red, and take advantage of yourself.
Victoria Legal Aid state : “The law makes rules about sex and sexual touching. It says that any sexual touching without your agreement (consent) is unlawful. This is known as a sexual offence and is a serious crime.
The law applies to sexual penetration, which includes anything that involves a penis touching a vagina, anus or mouth. It also includes putting an object or a part of the body into contact with a vagina or anus. The law also applies to touching a person in a sexual way, like touching another person’s vagina, penis, anus or breasts.
If you don’t agree and someone threatens you or touches you sexually they are breaking the law.
If someone has sex with you or touches you sexually when you are asleep, unconscious or so affected by alcohol or drugs that you are not able to agree, it is still sexual assault.
Sexual assault is behaviour of a sexual nature that makes you feel uncomfortable, frightened or intimidated. If someone has sex with you or touches you sexually and you don’t agree with this, they are breaking the law. They can be charged with a criminal offence.
This is the case even if you started having sex or agreed to be touched sexually but then changed your mind.” I think any decision on this in court is going to be influenced by the choice of judge and their state of mind.
Come to think about it how the hell is she going to prove rape occured so long ago. Where are the external markings? Internal bruising? The semen samples? She might have witnesses. The kids.
This passage from PJ Fitzgerald, ‘Criminal Law and Punishment’ quoted in Justice Heydon’s dissenting judgement deserves requoting :
[T]he idea of the rule of law … is based on the demand that the citizen should be ruled by laws and not by the whims of men. In the sphere of criminal law this idea has become crystallized as … a principle according to which only breaches of existing criminal law should be punishable. The justification of this principle, which has been adopted as an actual rule in some legal systems, though not in the English legal system, is that the citizen should be able to know beforehand what conduct is permitted and what forbidden; for only in this way can he order his affairs with certainty and avoid coming into conflict with the law. It is this demand for certainty with regard to the provisions of the criminal law that militates against retrospective criminal legislation. When Parliament creates a new crime, it almost invariably legislates for the future only. This, however, is just what the courts cannot do. Our legal system is such that a court can only decide a point of law which arises in some actual case before the court, and consequently the court’s decision always relates back to the facts of this case, facts which of course precede the decision. If, therefore, a court manufactures a new crime, it thereby determines after the event that the defendant’s conduct, which at the time of commission was not prohibited by law, is a criminal offence. To countenance this type of retrospective criminal legislation means that certainty and consequently freedom are at an end. Bentham long ago pointed out that when the judges make law like this, they are treating the citizen as a man treats his dog, hitting him every time he does something to which the master takes exception. Animals and young children can only be trained in this way. Sane and adult members of a free society, however, are entitled to demand first to be told what conduct is forbidden so that they may choose whether or not to keep within the law.”
148. Fitzgerald put the second objection to “the creation of new offences by the courts” thus:
“Even suppose that a court could decide that the kind of act which the defendant had done would in future, though not in the instant case, constitute a crime, there is still the objection that this type of proceeding is not consonant with democratic government. If Parliament creates a new crime, the citizens whose liberty is thereby restricted have the consolation that this was done by their elected representatives whom they chose to perform this sort of activity, and whom in due course they may re-elect or reject. The judges, on the other hand, are appointed by the Crown, virtually irremovable and in practice accountable to no one. That such a body should have the power to decree that certain acts shall constitute crimes is totally incompatible with the notion of democracy.”
Wow, is all I can say. Thank you for your indulgence.
It is hard not to agree with both points Fitzgerald makes. What muddies the first is the concept that we have to be told what is a criminal offence – ie right or wrong. Given a chance. Could be said that the we should carry a moral code with us at all times, and that rape fits into a wider sense of right or wrong. For instance, if it was legal to rape, would you? Soldiers do in wartime. I wonder how many experience shame afterwards. If you could do a lab experiment on the soldier-rapist and were able to flash the image of their mother, sister, wife etc watching, would they be able to continue? And if not, why not?
There is a query also over the second point made by Fitzgerald. What is his model? Enlightened judges to this point seem the best people to preside over grey law. Nick Cohen, wrote an article for the Observer in 2009 titled “In rape cases, ‘no’ means ‘no’ to everyone except the British public. Judges and the police have come far since the 70s. How sad juries haven’t kept pace.” “Julie Bindel [journalist], who can often seem the last principled feminist in England, has sat through dozens of rape cases and told me: “I gaze into juries’ eyes and see middle-aged women in particular wanting to blame the victim. They look at the man in the dock and think he’s like their sons.”…. “But today’s dominant style is for women to be bawdy and empowered: to try to drink as much as the men around them, talk as dirty and boast about their control of their lives…. “The jury, a representative sample of the people who pass them [the rape victims] in the street, takes their account of themselves literally and says that, if the defendant is really so brassy and sassy and in control of her life, then rape isn’t the responsibility of the rapist and the victim must pay.”
So if we cannot rely on judges to bring sanity to grey law, then what is the model to be?
True about juries, Frank. The men see themselves or their mates and the women see their sons : “there but for the grace of god go I” as it has been put.
However, I am an optimist and I think that juries get it right most of the time.
They sit there and watch the victim and the defendant for days on end, sometimes months, and I trust their collective rationality to sort out truth from fiction.
“Great Koala Shoot”… come on Bob. You’re better than that. You know, as well as anyone with any idea of Australia’s natural fauna, that introduced species such as foxes, wild cats and the like have no native predator and can destroy ecosystems. Culls take all the time, even in the middle of Paddington in Centennial Park. The shooters allowed in will be dealing with this vermin. Not the beloved Koala. And at least Barry’s compromise does not involve the creation of a $10billion plus fund that is bound to fail.
There is a ferry from Palm Beach – quite good actually. Takes a while but would be perfect to catch up on reading, enjoy a drop of Mateus or dabble in the concoction of the odd (Murdoch) conspiracy.
I use the ferry a good deal, and the journey to town via Woy Woy is a lovely experience, but an hour longer, precisely, than driving.
I do not drink much, as these grammatical mannerly round-the-clock posts show.
You think shooters can be trusted not to shoot and eat koala? Or, like Dick Cheney, each other? What a loveable innocent choirboy you are entirely.
Come see me after Mass, in my private quarters, lad.
No-one eats koala – not even starving aborigines. They reek of eucalyptus in every skerrick of their flesh.
Kangaroos maybe. Possum even. But Koalas – as Doug says they taste horrible and are fare too boney.
And Bob I believe in the one true faith – Gaia. No temple needed.