Spacehamster’s Blog

In regards to the “Global” financial crisis, I think this article sums up my feelings perfectly.

There has been a good deal of talk in recent weeks about imminent economic armageddon. In fact, this is far from being the end of capitalism. The frantic scrambling in Washington marks the passing of only one type of capitalism - the peculiar and highly unstable variety that has existed in America over the past 20 years. This experiment in financial laissez-faire has imploded. While the impact of the collapse will be felt everywhere, the market economies that resisted American-style deregulation will best weather the storm.

I’ve always been a believer in Market regulation, and these events prove that support may have been justified. Hopefully, lessons will be learnt from these events. But somehow, considering the nature of those involved, I doubt it.

Just read this rather disturbing story in today’s paper. As I’ve said before, there’s art and then there’s attention seeking. I love a beautifully-painted landscape. Or a well-drawn portrait. But I’ve come to realise that a work of art can be beautifully done, yet still be ethically and morally questionable.

In my uninformed opinion, art such as this does border (if not skitter over the edge) into child pornography. I mean, if Bill Hansen was such a great artist, why didn’t he paint pictures of the children with their clothes on?

After reading so many political blogs, I’ve realised that perception is everything. For instance, during the Howard Government’s reign When Howard was in power we were told that we’d never had it so good. However, the facts do back up that statement - the economy was (and is) still buoyant and performing well.

A few months later, The Age is reporting about a petrol price rise. So one minute we’re told that Australians are prosperous and have plenty of money to spend. The next we’re told that petrol price rises will cause pain to Australian families.

Think about that for a minute.

It doesn’t make any sense. I used to think the job of a newspaper was to report the facts. Over the years I’ve seen a trend for newspapers to start peddling the political line depending on whomever was in power at the time. Thank god for my English Studies class during college, because being able to perceive the media’s ridiculous political spin has been a godsend.

I’ve always been a natural pessimist by nature. I always expect the glass to be half-empty - it makes it easier to avoid dissapointment. So I’m openly pessimistic on whether Kevin Rudd can win this election or not. It’s entirely possible to win the Primary and popularity vote and still lose. Notice how both the mainstream media (and the commentariat) take leave of their senses during an election campaign?

Before the election started, the emphasis was on how Workchoices was impacting working families. How hospitals were in crisis. Now it’s all about the Prime Minister’s election-winning tax cuts. It’s also partly Labor’s fault - where are Labor’s election winning policies during this first week? Why doesn’t Labor commit to funding for Hospitals and Schools? I haven’t heard a single mention of Workchoices from Labor during the first week of the campaign. And why haven’t we ever seen more appearances from the rest of the Labor team? Why is it always Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard on TV, rather than Wayne Swan or the others?

If (or when) Labor loses this election, it won’t be just because the Liberals ran a better campaign. It’ll also be because Labor didn’t fight hard enough for its core beliefs - better education and health for Australian families. And made the mistake of putting the focus solely on Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, rather than taking a team approach. Of course most people want to see Howard gone. But only if there’s a better alternative government. And although Kevin Rudd has proven to be a good alternative leader, I don’t think Labor has done enough to prove they have a good alternative government.

It’s not enough to be a Howard hater - you need to have a sustainable Alternative government to vote for. I think Howard is going to win the election and (hopefully) retire in 3 years. I look forward to seeing Peter Costello taking over as Prime Minister. It’ll be a fresh start for the Liberal Party and hopefully for the country.

Of course, I’d love to be proven wrong.

I’m not too sure what to say about these riots in Sydney, other than to say that this was inevitable. It’s unbelievable to look at how much worse things have become since the 2000 Olympic games. Back then, we were showing the world what a diverse culture we actually have - and how easily we were able to accept other cultures within our own without sacrificing our own values or way of life.

And now look at us.

About seven years ago, I was offered a job in Sydney - so I travelled there to attend the interview. Quite frankly, I didn’t enjoy my stay there at all. The streets were too narrow, the buildings were too tall. It was too much culture shock to take in at one time. In a previous posting, I remarked on how isolated Melburnians were from one another - the same is true in Sydney as well, as these riots prove so graphically.

How did we get to this point? Race riots? Here? In Australia? If anybody thought that voting for a particular political party meant a safer Australia, they were sorely mistaken. The truth is, a safer better Australia starts with the actions of every single Australian. There was an old Buddhist saying that I will always remember - “Change yourself, then change your family, your family changes the village, your village changes the country, and your country changes the world” (sic).

Perhaps its time we all started heeding this philosophy.

I noticed that opinion polls indicate an even split between those who support and oppose Nguyen’s execution. I remember several years ago, when Hansonism was at the height of its popularity, a phone poll was performed by A Current Affair. The question was “Would you prefer less Asian Immigration?”. The result was 85% Yes and 15% No. I took that rather personally and thought that families like ours weren’t very welcome in Australia. That sentiment, no matter how unfounded, has been with me ever since.

At that time, my father had some words of advice that I’ll never forget -

“Just because a majority of people agree doesn’t make them right”.

If you were to believe the polls, 85% of Australians hate Asians and don’t want them here. But if you look at what’s happening on the ground the truth is very different. I think people are starting to learn that cultural differences are more important than skin colour.

I hated Hansonism, and I hated having to endure the wave of racial prejudice that swept over the country in its wake. But I think that the Australian community has learned a lot from this experience - let’s hope we can pass those lessons on.

There’s been plenty of debate lately about the threat terrorism represents to our society. My opinion is that this type of inflammatory and slightly naive sort of comments don’t help -

RELIGION should be made a factor in migration to Australia, according to a Liberal MP who says non-Christian applicants should be subject to greater scrutiny. Liberal backbencher Alby Schultz also called yesterday for citizenship laws to be tightened, with more thorough background checks on people from countries with “a history of anti-Christian behaviour”.

“We’ve got to tighten up on the way all people that come into this country — particularly those people coming from a country with a history of anti-Christian behaviour — apply for citizenship,” Mr Schultz told The Australian, adding that there was strong support among government MPs for tougher laws.

So what this Government representative is proposing is a Christian Australia policy? Wasn’t the White Australia policy bad enough? People migrating to this country should be evaluated based on their individual actions, not solely on the basis of what religion they’ve chosen to join. We expect our politicians, as “responsible” Community Leaders, to offer constructive criticism of the problems and tensions that exist within our society. This type of potentially abusive polemical proletysing isn’t particularly helpful.

This article on Margo Kingston’s Webdiary was a major eye-opener for me. Up til’ now I’d never had a sense of perspective on our new fellow Muslim Australians. Of course I’d read the newspaper articles, but this was the first time I’d heard from someone who was a Second-Generation migrant (like me). It’s amazing how each succeeding migrant family has the same difficulties fitting into a new country. Especially when the first-generation have conservative viewpoints that may differ in some ways from the prevailing culture.

Irfan Yusuf’s article gives me hope that together, we can overcome whatever difficulties we may have, and that our fellow Muslim Australians can and do make a contribution to our community.

I don’t often like proselityzing about politics, outside of a few private forums - but there are some issues I feel strongly enough about that I don’t mind posting my views. This is one of them. I tried to come up with a clever quip, but I think these new IR laws are far too momentous to joke about. The number of changes that the Federal Government is making will completely transform the market for every single worker and business in Australia. For business, this is absolutely fantastic - the new laws give them complete and total hire-and-fire powers over their employees, with no interference from the unions. For employees…well, it takes away many of the rights that we had under the “old” IR regime.

Take a look at this list of changes (taken from this Age article) -

These changes are called WorkChoices. Will I be able to choose whether I work under a collective agreement, Australian Workplace Agreement or award?
No. As now, that will depend on your negotiating power with your employer. Under the proposal, employers will be able to require workers, including existing workers, to take an AWA as a condition of employment.

The employer could instead choose to negotiate a collective agreement, which must be approved by most of the workers it covers, or the employer could choose to be covered by the relevant award. A worker cannot be dismissed for refusing to sign or negotiate an AWA. If an existing agreement expires and employer and worker cannot agree on a new one, they are in no-man’s-land. Their relative industrial strength will determine what happens.

The Government says this legislation will lead to higher wages. How will it do that?
That is really not the purpose of this legislation. Its central purpose is to roll back decades of union gains through awards and collective agreements, and return wage determination to a contract between employer and employee, based on their relative market power. For most employees, this will not lead to higher wages.
But there will be exceptions. Workers with special skills or those who are more forceful negotiators could do better by negotiating on their own rather than with their colleagues.

The response among some people has been dissapointingly apathetic. The believe that these changes will not mean anything - especially for medium- to high-income workers in highly skilled jobs like IT. Most IT people are used to negotiating for individual contracts, they’re used to being hired- and fired- on a regular basis, and they don’t think Unions are really all that useful. What these IR laws actually do is spread this philosophy and environment to markets that have never seen or experienced it before - and that’s where the controversy arises.

Regardless of how any of us feel (and that includes myself) - just keep in mind that a large majority of Australians voted for John Howard’s Government in the last Federal Election. By doing so they gave him an electoral mandate to make these changes. Surely people that voted for John Howard did so because they also supported the new IR and Terrorism laws? If they didn’t want these laws to pass, why else would they vote for his Government?

Right?

I admit to being an initial supporter of Mark Latham when he was first elected as Labor party leader more than a year ago. As I’m not a politician, I’m not afraid to admit that I was wrong about him. Even though he can dish it out, the man has proven to be extremely sensitive to criticism and quite venomous when given half the chance.

This is unfortunate, as he probably has made a few good points about the corrosive nature of politics in this country - on both sides of Parliament. Unfortunately, this adversarial atmosphere has leaked onto the blogosphere and resulted into a virtual war between people on both sides of the idealogical divide. As for me - I’m more than happy to respect other people’s beliefs (providing those beliefs aren’t bigoted or prejudiced in any way), and carry out a civilised debate on issues. I just wish people on both sides weren’t so blinded by such narrow-minded political idealism. Faith is good - but faith can also sometimes be blind.

That being said, here is a speech from Mark Latham, made at Melbourne University. I think it encapsulates everything in his book, and makes for a fascinating insight into the enormouse ego and combative nature of national politics. Definitely recommended reading.