Thursday, November 12, 2009
High Court and drunks
An interesting article about a High Court case. To understand thios post you'll need to read the article (the post is an expanded version of my online comment).
I think the matter here is that only one of three potential legal issues was covered, duty of care. Short answer is the High Court probably got it right in that the publican did exercise his duty of care - he did try to stop the patron driving.
We could perhaps go further in defining the responsibilities of someone legally serving drugs that will result in diminished responsibility. Would the same decision be made if an anaethetist had administered drugs that made a patient drowsy and of impaired judgement and had handed back to the patient the keys knowing the patient planned to drive?
The alternative case may have been a breach of contract, the patron had agreed with the publican to be served alcohol on the condition that the publican retained the keys. I just don't know if enough of the elements of contract exsted in that agreement.
But the really interesting question is that the Court really only ruled that the publican did not have an obligation to not hand over the keys. It did not, contrary to the implication in the article, rule that the publican had to hand over the keys (see note below). That is, the publican may have been safe from the charge of false imprisonment by not handing over the keys, he just didn't have to not hand them over. To take the fire analogy further, while the legal defence of necessity means you can break into a burning house to save a life, it does not oblige you to do so. The pity will be if the judgement results in RSA training being perverted to misrepresent the judgement.
The judgement itself contains a really beautiful summary of the basis for the decision;
The Proprietor and the Licensee must succeed for each of three independent reasons. First, even if there was a duty of care, and even if it was breached, it has not been shown that the breach caused the death. Secondly, even if there was a duty of care, it was not breached. Thirdly, there was no duty of care.
On the more intricate matter of the doctrine of necessity, the judgement said;
The second and third alleged breaches involve the difficulty that deflecting, delaying or stalling Mr Scott, apart from the deception which it would probably require and which itself might have irritated Mr Scott, could not have lasted very long. If it lasted for any length of time, it would have involved non-compliance with Mr Scott's desire to exercise his legal rights to possession of the motorcycle. It would be unlikely, given Mr Scott's mood, that the Licensee could maintain a posture of open non-compliance for long, for a point would soon have been reached at which any manifestation of resistance by the Licensee to returning the motorcycle would involve the actual commission of a tort in refusing possession and would provoke Mr Scott into an attempt to vindicate his rights by self-help. The Licensee could not lawfully detain Mr Scott, or his wife's motorcycle, or the keys to it. Deflecting, delaying or stalling would have been as ineffective as offering counselling to Mrs Cole in Cole v South Tweed Heads Rugby League Football Club Ltd, or persuading her to regain her sobriety in a quiet place before departing from the Club.
I maintain as a non-lawyer that these words don't actually go to the defence of necessity, for the simple reason that it is a defence. That is, breaking into the burning house still includes an unlawful act, trespass. The defence is not that a law was not broken, merely that the breaking of the law was justified. But the fact that it would require a law to be broken does obviate the duty of care, I cannot have an obligation under law to break the law.
As I note it will be a great pity if this part of the judgement is used to prohibit people from refusing to "hand over the keys."
I think the matter here is that only one of three potential legal issues was covered, duty of care. Short answer is the High Court probably got it right in that the publican did exercise his duty of care - he did try to stop the patron driving.
We could perhaps go further in defining the responsibilities of someone legally serving drugs that will result in diminished responsibility. Would the same decision be made if an anaethetist had administered drugs that made a patient drowsy and of impaired judgement and had handed back to the patient the keys knowing the patient planned to drive?
The alternative case may have been a breach of contract, the patron had agreed with the publican to be served alcohol on the condition that the publican retained the keys. I just don't know if enough of the elements of contract exsted in that agreement.
But the really interesting question is that the Court really only ruled that the publican did not have an obligation to not hand over the keys. It did not, contrary to the implication in the article, rule that the publican had to hand over the keys (see note below). That is, the publican may have been safe from the charge of false imprisonment by not handing over the keys, he just didn't have to not hand them over. To take the fire analogy further, while the legal defence of necessity means you can break into a burning house to save a life, it does not oblige you to do so. The pity will be if the judgement results in RSA training being perverted to misrepresent the judgement.
The judgement itself contains a really beautiful summary of the basis for the decision;
The Proprietor and the Licensee must succeed for each of three independent reasons. First, even if there was a duty of care, and even if it was breached, it has not been shown that the breach caused the death. Secondly, even if there was a duty of care, it was not breached. Thirdly, there was no duty of care.
On the more intricate matter of the doctrine of necessity, the judgement said;
The second and third alleged breaches involve the difficulty that deflecting, delaying or stalling Mr Scott, apart from the deception which it would probably require and which itself might have irritated Mr Scott, could not have lasted very long. If it lasted for any length of time, it would have involved non-compliance with Mr Scott's desire to exercise his legal rights to possession of the motorcycle. It would be unlikely, given Mr Scott's mood, that the Licensee could maintain a posture of open non-compliance for long, for a point would soon have been reached at which any manifestation of resistance by the Licensee to returning the motorcycle would involve the actual commission of a tort in refusing possession and would provoke Mr Scott into an attempt to vindicate his rights by self-help. The Licensee could not lawfully detain Mr Scott, or his wife's motorcycle, or the keys to it. Deflecting, delaying or stalling would have been as ineffective as offering counselling to Mrs Cole in Cole v South Tweed Heads Rugby League Football Club Ltd, or persuading her to regain her sobriety in a quiet place before departing from the Club.
I maintain as a non-lawyer that these words don't actually go to the defence of necessity, for the simple reason that it is a defence. That is, breaking into the burning house still includes an unlawful act, trespass. The defence is not that a law was not broken, merely that the breaking of the law was justified. But the fact that it would require a law to be broken does obviate the duty of care, I cannot have an obligation under law to break the law.
As I note it will be a great pity if this part of the judgement is used to prohibit people from refusing to "hand over the keys."
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Immigration Conundrum
There is nothing quite so absurd as seeing the Liberal Party, supposedly the party of free markets and economic rationalism, waging a new campaign against refugees, and indeed migrants in any form.
When you sign up to these economic theories one of the first things you learn to do is to treat labour as simply an input in production processes, not as a derivative of human body, mind and spirit. Pretty soon you learn that efficiency is maximised by high labour mobility so that labour can find a market for its consumption, and producers can find labour for their activities. So the economic rationalist favours migration.
A complaint about migration is all the more bizarre coming from Kevin Andrews, the man who bought you WorkChoices. Remember that, a legislative program designed to make sure real workers were treated exactly the way the theory says they should be.
The fascinating thing is, of course, that really the Liberals ran a real scam of maintaining high levels of immigration to access mobile worjkers. However they hid it behind education programs, but the secret kept from Australians but known to everyone else was that once here on a student visa it was virtually guaranteed that it would be converted to permanent residency. (As one commentator said, "These courses are sold by agents operating throughout Asia, openly selling permanent residency, not education. The standard commission paid to them is 15 per cent, but lately some of the newer Chinese and Indian-owned colleges have been paying up to 40 per cent commission.")
Now the Government is tightening up on things the education providers are getting squeezed. While we should probably not care, this has its own flow on effects. Poorly run colleges that suddenly close drain overseas confidence in the whole sector.
But all those taxi drivers that can't talk English that the Australian Transport Council (Ministers from the States, Territories and Commonwealth) just pontificaed about - probably students.
But if you want to talk about queue jumping - especially for the so-called "economic refugee" surely it was the education scam that was the easiest way to do it.
Which just might mean that there is an increased flow of boat borne refugess arriving, but not because the rules on what happens to boat arrivals were weakened but because the rules on education visas and skills lists were tightened.
When you sign up to these economic theories one of the first things you learn to do is to treat labour as simply an input in production processes, not as a derivative of human body, mind and spirit. Pretty soon you learn that efficiency is maximised by high labour mobility so that labour can find a market for its consumption, and producers can find labour for their activities. So the economic rationalist favours migration.
A complaint about migration is all the more bizarre coming from Kevin Andrews, the man who bought you WorkChoices. Remember that, a legislative program designed to make sure real workers were treated exactly the way the theory says they should be.
The fascinating thing is, of course, that really the Liberals ran a real scam of maintaining high levels of immigration to access mobile worjkers. However they hid it behind education programs, but the secret kept from Australians but known to everyone else was that once here on a student visa it was virtually guaranteed that it would be converted to permanent residency. (As one commentator said, "These courses are sold by agents operating throughout Asia, openly selling permanent residency, not education. The standard commission paid to them is 15 per cent, but lately some of the newer Chinese and Indian-owned colleges have been paying up to 40 per cent commission.")
Now the Government is tightening up on things the education providers are getting squeezed. While we should probably not care, this has its own flow on effects. Poorly run colleges that suddenly close drain overseas confidence in the whole sector.
But all those taxi drivers that can't talk English that the Australian Transport Council (Ministers from the States, Territories and Commonwealth) just pontificaed about - probably students.
But if you want to talk about queue jumping - especially for the so-called "economic refugee" surely it was the education scam that was the easiest way to do it.
Which just might mean that there is an increased flow of boat borne refugess arriving, but not because the rules on what happens to boat arrivals were weakened but because the rules on education visas and skills lists were tightened.
Intelligence squared debate on the catholic church
I've just watched the five parts of the Intelligence Squared debate on the motion that "The catholic church is a force for good in the world." Really interesting format from the BBC where they do an entry poll and then a poll after the debate - very dramatic outcome (I won't spoil it for you).
The link above is the whole show - below is it in five YouTube sections.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
You do have to love Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry.
The link above is the whole show - below is it in five YouTube sections.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
You do have to love Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry.
The extraordinary events at residential colleges
There has been much in the news over the last few days about the culture at the colleges at the University of Sydney, in particular, St Pauls. As an Old Pauline I must admit to not at all being surprised by this.
In my own experience (1975, 1976) there was much about the college culture that was abhorant, strarting with the idea of initiation of Freshers through to an attitude to women that verged on the primitive. In my era a large proportion of the college came from single sex boarding schools and from regional areas, and brought with them the culture of the B&S Ball.
I was no wowser in College. I knew how to let myself into the Womens' College rather than be signed in at the front, I held some of the best late night parties in my college room, and I could be relied on to get horribly drunk at Rawson Cup and other special dinners. I did not however participate in any of the events that involved intimidation of fellow residents nor the deneigration of women.
The current matter in part revolves around a Facebook group that apparently positioned itself as "pro rape" or at least verged on doing so going under a title of "Define Consent". The Warden in his defence of this has rightly pointed out that this site was not condoned by the college, that the college does not censor the students social networks and that the college is not in loco parentis.
However, in his defence the Warden seems to express no understanding that the culture that lies at the heart of the site is indeed something over which the college has control. There is a degree to which the colleges as businesses are confronted with a marketing problem. The community at large might be horrified by this culture, but the target market - both students and to a degree their parents - actually revels in it. As such a single college taking action faces the risk of financial disadvantage versus the colleges that don't.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the bulk of the outrage was directed at St Andrews College, which seemed to resolve some of the issues by ceasing to be a male only college. There is some suggestion that move was made for financial rather than cultural reasons, but it did have the effect of slightly civilizing that college. However the stories over recent days have noted similar concerns at other colleges.
That this is cultural is the point made by one former female college student. The simple and accurate point she makes is;
The focus now needs to shift to how we change a dangerous misogynistic culture. There are a raft of positive changes that can take place, the first being an acknowledgement, by everyone involved in college life, that there is, indeed, a problem with the college system.
As we've seen the warden of the college hasn't reached that point yet, and no doubt his lawyers have told him that he can't admit there might be a problem for fear of the liability that would cause.
I suppose the only point left to note is that we should not be surprised about a mysogonistic culture at an institution named after the great mysoginist St Paul!
In my own experience (1975, 1976) there was much about the college culture that was abhorant, strarting with the idea of initiation of Freshers through to an attitude to women that verged on the primitive. In my era a large proportion of the college came from single sex boarding schools and from regional areas, and brought with them the culture of the B&S Ball.
I was no wowser in College. I knew how to let myself into the Womens' College rather than be signed in at the front, I held some of the best late night parties in my college room, and I could be relied on to get horribly drunk at Rawson Cup and other special dinners. I did not however participate in any of the events that involved intimidation of fellow residents nor the deneigration of women.
The current matter in part revolves around a Facebook group that apparently positioned itself as "pro rape" or at least verged on doing so going under a title of "Define Consent". The Warden in his defence of this has rightly pointed out that this site was not condoned by the college, that the college does not censor the students social networks and that the college is not in loco parentis.
However, in his defence the Warden seems to express no understanding that the culture that lies at the heart of the site is indeed something over which the college has control. There is a degree to which the colleges as businesses are confronted with a marketing problem. The community at large might be horrified by this culture, but the target market - both students and to a degree their parents - actually revels in it. As such a single college taking action faces the risk of financial disadvantage versus the colleges that don't.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the bulk of the outrage was directed at St Andrews College, which seemed to resolve some of the issues by ceasing to be a male only college. There is some suggestion that move was made for financial rather than cultural reasons, but it did have the effect of slightly civilizing that college. However the stories over recent days have noted similar concerns at other colleges.
That this is cultural is the point made by one former female college student. The simple and accurate point she makes is;
The focus now needs to shift to how we change a dangerous misogynistic culture. There are a raft of positive changes that can take place, the first being an acknowledgement, by everyone involved in college life, that there is, indeed, a problem with the college system.
As we've seen the warden of the college hasn't reached that point yet, and no doubt his lawyers have told him that he can't admit there might be a problem for fear of the liability that would cause.
I suppose the only point left to note is that we should not be surprised about a mysogonistic culture at an institution named after the great mysoginist St Paul!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The price of evidence based policy
An interesting item in today's SMH that the Realising Our Broadband Future conference will cost $528,498. Interesting that the sum is so precise so far out from the event - but I haven't looked at the "tender document" referred to in the article to comment more.
I did venture earlier that one could take a cynical view of this conference, but if we don't is this a reasonable figure? I guess the interesting comparison is how much money other participants in the sector can command.
The recently formed ACCAN is everyone's envy in consumer land because they have an annual budget of $2M. By recollection the industry body Communications Alliance has a budget of not much more than that (maybe 50% more). There was one broadband conference organised by CommsAlliance and Telstra that was rumoured to have cost that much, but funded by Telstra.
If we are living in a world in which "money talks", the question is how do we really engage in meaningful conversation if the only way to achieve it is at conferences that are financially unviable for anything but Government or large firms?
Just a question....
I did venture earlier that one could take a cynical view of this conference, but if we don't is this a reasonable figure? I guess the interesting comparison is how much money other participants in the sector can command.
The recently formed ACCAN is everyone's envy in consumer land because they have an annual budget of $2M. By recollection the industry body Communications Alliance has a budget of not much more than that (maybe 50% more). There was one broadband conference organised by CommsAlliance and Telstra that was rumoured to have cost that much, but funded by Telstra.
If we are living in a world in which "money talks", the question is how do we really engage in meaningful conversation if the only way to achieve it is at conferences that are financially unviable for anything but Government or large firms?
Just a question....
Finding the Left
There has been much recent discussion about trying to identify what it means to be "on the left" these days. The OZ ran a series of forgettable articles under the title "What's Left?", which is incidentally also the title of a great book on the topic by Nick Cohen.
Cohen's thesis is that he can't identify with a "left" that has redefined itself to be "anti-American" and hence aligns itself with various fascist states merely because they too are "anti-American". He correctly punctures the theory that "my enemy's enemy is my friend", and questions how defence of Iraq from the US could be a "left" agenda.
It doesn't help the left cause that it can be so easily characterised as being, well, flakey. Gerard Henderson writing in the SMH has justly criticised the Sydney Peace Prize winner John Pilger. Quite frankly I find Pilger an embarrassment of the first order. I've never really been able to find an essential philosophy inherent in his writing just a desire to criticise the ruling classes - the neo-Trotskyite strategy that the revolutionary needs to align himself with every cause that opposes the state.
This strategem is what Nick Minchin seems to believe lies at the heart of climate change activism. He said on Four Corners "For the extreme left it provides the opportunity to do what they've always wanted to do - to sort of de-industrialise the Western world. The collapse of communism was a disaster for the left and really they embraced environmentalism as their new religion. For years the left internationally have been very successful in exploiting people's innate fears about global warming and climate change."
Nick might be interested to learn that the theory of climate change was actually first publicly sprouted by one part of the industrial complex - the nuclear power industry - against another - the fossil fuel industry.
But perhaps he needs to also learn the lesson of the left with respect to fascism, just because a theory is being supported by the left doesn't make it wrong. On climate change it remains the fact that the underlying theory is incredibly convincing, and that waiting for sufficient evidence before acting is too late. But there are also benefits in acting. There is the ongoing need to diversify energy sources because the energy crisis that will ensue if we have demand continuing to grow when known reserves cease increasing will make the oil shocks of the 1970s look inconsequential. There is also the additional benefit of being able to change geoploitics but not being dependent on the "oil-rich" Middle Eastern states.
The left stands for concepts of political and economic equality that should transcend national boundaries. It believes in the ongoing role of the state in pursuit of this goal, domestically and internationally. The "socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange" does not require that these activities are controlled by the state, but that their pursuit serves social goals. (Your typical market theorist actually justifies their theories by trying to demonstrate that a free market results in the "socially optimal" outcome).
I do not recognise the left in the writings of John Pilger or in a conspiracy on climate change.
Cohen's thesis is that he can't identify with a "left" that has redefined itself to be "anti-American" and hence aligns itself with various fascist states merely because they too are "anti-American". He correctly punctures the theory that "my enemy's enemy is my friend", and questions how defence of Iraq from the US could be a "left" agenda.
It doesn't help the left cause that it can be so easily characterised as being, well, flakey. Gerard Henderson writing in the SMH has justly criticised the Sydney Peace Prize winner John Pilger. Quite frankly I find Pilger an embarrassment of the first order. I've never really been able to find an essential philosophy inherent in his writing just a desire to criticise the ruling classes - the neo-Trotskyite strategy that the revolutionary needs to align himself with every cause that opposes the state.
This strategem is what Nick Minchin seems to believe lies at the heart of climate change activism. He said on Four Corners "For the extreme left it provides the opportunity to do what they've always wanted to do - to sort of de-industrialise the Western world. The collapse of communism was a disaster for the left and really they embraced environmentalism as their new religion. For years the left internationally have been very successful in exploiting people's innate fears about global warming and climate change."
Nick might be interested to learn that the theory of climate change was actually first publicly sprouted by one part of the industrial complex - the nuclear power industry - against another - the fossil fuel industry.
But perhaps he needs to also learn the lesson of the left with respect to fascism, just because a theory is being supported by the left doesn't make it wrong. On climate change it remains the fact that the underlying theory is incredibly convincing, and that waiting for sufficient evidence before acting is too late. But there are also benefits in acting. There is the ongoing need to diversify energy sources because the energy crisis that will ensue if we have demand continuing to grow when known reserves cease increasing will make the oil shocks of the 1970s look inconsequential. There is also the additional benefit of being able to change geoploitics but not being dependent on the "oil-rich" Middle Eastern states.
The left stands for concepts of political and economic equality that should transcend national boundaries. It believes in the ongoing role of the state in pursuit of this goal, domestically and internationally. The "socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange" does not require that these activities are controlled by the state, but that their pursuit serves social goals. (Your typical market theorist actually justifies their theories by trying to demonstrate that a free market results in the "socially optimal" outcome).
I do not recognise the left in the writings of John Pilger or in a conspiracy on climate change.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Branding political parties and the Nationals
There has been a great deal of recent public speculation about the state of the Liberal/National coalition in Federal politics, much of it seemingly fed by Liberals who are trying to pressure the Nationals to (in management speak) "get on the bus or get off the journey". Today Michelle Grattan joins the fray with a piece that concludes that the winner from a separation of the two parties would be the ALP.
I am not so sure I agree. It is certainly one thing the Liberals keep reminding the Nationals of, that in the history of "three cornered contests" the Liberal candidate usually wins what was a previously National seat. However, on the flip side the Nationals have been increasingly challenged by strong regional "independents" who have pushed an old fashioned regions vs cities agenda. (I used the quotes because both Federally and in NSW there has been a degree of loose co-operation between these independents).
One consequence of the declining position of the Nationals has been the reduction i the portfolios they can claim, including communications which was long a cherished portfolio amongst the Country Party. That then means that they effectively lose their voice on issues of significant regional importance.
When confronted by a "three cornered contest" the regional voter is ultimately offered two candidates constrained to the same policy, one of whom belongs to the party of the leader of the Opposition or (more recently) PM. It is not the fact the Nationals lose that is astonishing, it is th fact that they remain competitive. In the seats where the voters choice is the ALP, a coalition candidate or a strong candidate campaigning on regional values it is the third candidate who wins.
The challenge as Grattan points out is how the merged Queensland party, the LNP, will brand itself for the election.
Here they might look to NSW Labor. NSW Labor has long realised that Government is won or lost in NSW on the basis of regional seats. They have created an entity called Country Labor for campaigning in the regions, an entity that has its own logo and conference.
The LNP in particular, and the coalition as a whole need to get the idea that there is a natural separation between the "non-socialist" parties of the city and the bush. "Coalition" in opposition is a nonsense. The two parties either need to fully merge but create the "Nationals" brand as the exclusive brand under which they campaign in the regions, including separate policy; or they need to fully separate and have three cornered contests against sitting members of both sides. My money is on the Nationals knocking off all the country Liberals, and possibly some independents too.
All that having been said, you could say "what does he know?" After all I did join the Democrats just before their sad demise. That demise had many causes, but in the list were the failure of the Democrats to stay clear on their position instead becoming participants in "governing" against principle, and an inability to share in a common interest rather than self-interest (most, if not all,of them did research that showed they had a better chance as themselves than as Democrats - but rather than take the message to build the Democrat brand they hid it).
The people of regional Australia do need representatives other than those who believe in a quiet system of patronage and sheltered workshops (the modern ALP) or those who believe the purpose of the State is to enhance the well-being of corporations (the modern Liberals). If not the Nationals, then who?
Note: The last two descriptions were for dramatic effect, both parties are deeper than that and include many fine well-intentioned individual members.
I am not so sure I agree. It is certainly one thing the Liberals keep reminding the Nationals of, that in the history of "three cornered contests" the Liberal candidate usually wins what was a previously National seat. However, on the flip side the Nationals have been increasingly challenged by strong regional "independents" who have pushed an old fashioned regions vs cities agenda. (I used the quotes because both Federally and in NSW there has been a degree of loose co-operation between these independents).
One consequence of the declining position of the Nationals has been the reduction i the portfolios they can claim, including communications which was long a cherished portfolio amongst the Country Party. That then means that they effectively lose their voice on issues of significant regional importance.
When confronted by a "three cornered contest" the regional voter is ultimately offered two candidates constrained to the same policy, one of whom belongs to the party of the leader of the Opposition or (more recently) PM. It is not the fact the Nationals lose that is astonishing, it is th fact that they remain competitive. In the seats where the voters choice is the ALP, a coalition candidate or a strong candidate campaigning on regional values it is the third candidate who wins.
The challenge as Grattan points out is how the merged Queensland party, the LNP, will brand itself for the election.
Here they might look to NSW Labor. NSW Labor has long realised that Government is won or lost in NSW on the basis of regional seats. They have created an entity called Country Labor for campaigning in the regions, an entity that has its own logo and conference.
The LNP in particular, and the coalition as a whole need to get the idea that there is a natural separation between the "non-socialist" parties of the city and the bush. "Coalition" in opposition is a nonsense. The two parties either need to fully merge but create the "Nationals" brand as the exclusive brand under which they campaign in the regions, including separate policy; or they need to fully separate and have three cornered contests against sitting members of both sides. My money is on the Nationals knocking off all the country Liberals, and possibly some independents too.
All that having been said, you could say "what does he know?" After all I did join the Democrats just before their sad demise. That demise had many causes, but in the list were the failure of the Democrats to stay clear on their position instead becoming participants in "governing" against principle, and an inability to share in a common interest rather than self-interest (most, if not all,of them did research that showed they had a better chance as themselves than as Democrats - but rather than take the message to build the Democrat brand they hid it).
The people of regional Australia do need representatives other than those who believe in a quiet system of patronage and sheltered workshops (the modern ALP) or those who believe the purpose of the State is to enhance the well-being of corporations (the modern Liberals). If not the Nationals, then who?
Note: The last two descriptions were for dramatic effect, both parties are deeper than that and include many fine well-intentioned individual members.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Two short notes and a Government conference
I'm doing one of those periodic tidy ups around my desk. I am a great note taker at conferences and meetings but often they don't go anywhere. ut there are two notes I made at a broadband conference this year - the sources of which I have not retained.
The first says "The Internet is 'a-national' not 'international'". There are some who would dispute that in that the Internet is by physical architecture still US-centric and by information architecture still anglophonic central. However, the distinction being made is important. The governance issues of the Internet are not merely beyond the boundaries of nations but also beyond the boundaries of the standard relations between nations. This is the same distinction as is sometimes sought when trying to describe really big corporations - we moved from international corportations (based in one country but trading in many), to multinational (having many homes in different nations) and finally transnational (transcending nations). But maybe a-national is better (beyond the concept of nation). I suspect this is one of the issues I'm going to discover Bobbitt discusses.
The second reads "Infrastructure - you dig holes and put it down - it is also how you kill a dog". Which I think is a little statement about the attitude we have to infrastructure - that we can think of the infrastructure as an end in itself rather than an enablement of something else.
On which I will note the Government's new conference Realising our Broadband Future. The purpose of the conference, with increasing degrees of cynicism, could be stated as;
1. An appropriate move by the Government as we progress to build the NBN to ensure we have a national agenda to realize the opportunities it produces,
2. An attempt by the Government to refocus discussion on the NBN away from the cost and onto the benefits, in part as a substitute for a full cost/benefit analsis, or
3. Just “bread and circuses”, a diversion from the debate over NBN costs, refugees, the economy to reinforce the Government’s positioning as being concerned with realizing the promise of the future as well as managing the demands of today.
Being the eternal optimist that I am I choose to believe that it is option 1 (though Paul Budde will no doubt insist that it is actually only the Government's response to his call for trans-sectoral thinking).
Readers views would be most welcome!
The first says "The Internet is 'a-national' not 'international'". There are some who would dispute that in that the Internet is by physical architecture still US-centric and by information architecture still anglophonic central. However, the distinction being made is important. The governance issues of the Internet are not merely beyond the boundaries of nations but also beyond the boundaries of the standard relations between nations. This is the same distinction as is sometimes sought when trying to describe really big corporations - we moved from international corportations (based in one country but trading in many), to multinational (having many homes in different nations) and finally transnational (transcending nations). But maybe a-national is better (beyond the concept of nation). I suspect this is one of the issues I'm going to discover Bobbitt discusses.
The second reads "Infrastructure - you dig holes and put it down - it is also how you kill a dog". Which I think is a little statement about the attitude we have to infrastructure - that we can think of the infrastructure as an end in itself rather than an enablement of something else.
On which I will note the Government's new conference Realising our Broadband Future. The purpose of the conference, with increasing degrees of cynicism, could be stated as;
1. An appropriate move by the Government as we progress to build the NBN to ensure we have a national agenda to realize the opportunities it produces,
2. An attempt by the Government to refocus discussion on the NBN away from the cost and onto the benefits, in part as a substitute for a full cost/benefit analsis, or
3. Just “bread and circuses”, a diversion from the debate over NBN costs, refugees, the economy to reinforce the Government’s positioning as being concerned with realizing the promise of the future as well as managing the demands of today.
Being the eternal optimist that I am I choose to believe that it is option 1 (though Paul Budde will no doubt insist that it is actually only the Government's response to his call for trans-sectoral thinking).
Readers views would be most welcome!
Books, Hooke and economics
In an otherwise very entertaining article on historic books Miranda Devine makes the following statement;
Hooke accused Newton of commandeering his work, and as a result Newton wrote him out of Principia. Their rivalry probably drove both men to greater things but history only remembers one. Hooke was brilliant. He was also reportedly very short, covered in smallpox scars and crippled with scoliosis. No picture of him exists, and it is said the only portrait, housed at the Royal Society, disappeared when Newton became president.
It was in his last barbed letter to Hooke that Newton's most famous quote appears: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Newton's malicious point, biographers say, is that Hooke, being short, is not one of the giants to which Newton refers.
This is a witty portrayal of the relationship between Hooke and Newton, but errs in claiming that "history only remembers one". In fact, history remembers Hooke well, especially through Hooke's Law. This law is best known as stating that the force on a spring is proportional to the extent it is stretched. This has its most common application in a simple spring scales wherein a spring is stretched by a weight placed upon it and thus the force exerted can be assesed by how much the spring stretches (and relying on gravitational force being the same across the planet the mass can be derived).
The point at which the spring sits is an equilibrium of the force of gravity and the force of the spring. The law can then be used to calculate the oscillations that will be followed by a spring that is temporarily stretched beyond its equilibrium then released - it will oscillate around its equilibrium point though losses from various factors (heat loss in the spring, atmospheric resistance) will eventually bring the spring to rest at its equlibrium.
In fact Hooke's Law is probably one of the best examples for showing how the attempts by economists to create a science by mimicking physics has thus far failed. Economics abounds with analyses that will demonstrate the direction of a force. An economy or market subject to a "shock" can be shown to head in a cetain direction (price movements, quantity traded etc) to return to equilibrium. But nowhere does it explain in theory the magnitude of these forces.
To the extent that the economic forecasting "biz" does so, it does it on the basis of complex models that have been calibrated by understanding the path of correction in the past.
There are some further interesting consequences. For example, if you create a system of thre or more springs attached to one object on a plane surface so that no two springs are directly opposed, and displace the object so that it is no longer in equilibrium, the behaviour of the object can (I think) become chaotic within the mathematical meaning of the term.
Robert Hooke has only been forgotten by those who don't really want to understand science.
Hooke accused Newton of commandeering his work, and as a result Newton wrote him out of Principia. Their rivalry probably drove both men to greater things but history only remembers one. Hooke was brilliant. He was also reportedly very short, covered in smallpox scars and crippled with scoliosis. No picture of him exists, and it is said the only portrait, housed at the Royal Society, disappeared when Newton became president.
It was in his last barbed letter to Hooke that Newton's most famous quote appears: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Newton's malicious point, biographers say, is that Hooke, being short, is not one of the giants to which Newton refers.
This is a witty portrayal of the relationship between Hooke and Newton, but errs in claiming that "history only remembers one". In fact, history remembers Hooke well, especially through Hooke's Law. This law is best known as stating that the force on a spring is proportional to the extent it is stretched. This has its most common application in a simple spring scales wherein a spring is stretched by a weight placed upon it and thus the force exerted can be assesed by how much the spring stretches (and relying on gravitational force being the same across the planet the mass can be derived).
The point at which the spring sits is an equilibrium of the force of gravity and the force of the spring. The law can then be used to calculate the oscillations that will be followed by a spring that is temporarily stretched beyond its equilibrium then released - it will oscillate around its equilibrium point though losses from various factors (heat loss in the spring, atmospheric resistance) will eventually bring the spring to rest at its equlibrium.
In fact Hooke's Law is probably one of the best examples for showing how the attempts by economists to create a science by mimicking physics has thus far failed. Economics abounds with analyses that will demonstrate the direction of a force. An economy or market subject to a "shock" can be shown to head in a cetain direction (price movements, quantity traded etc) to return to equilibrium. But nowhere does it explain in theory the magnitude of these forces.
To the extent that the economic forecasting "biz" does so, it does it on the basis of complex models that have been calibrated by understanding the path of correction in the past.
There are some further interesting consequences. For example, if you create a system of thre or more springs attached to one object on a plane surface so that no two springs are directly opposed, and displace the object so that it is no longer in equilibrium, the behaviour of the object can (I think) become chaotic within the mathematical meaning of the term.
Robert Hooke has only been forgotten by those who don't really want to understand science.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Feeling sorry for Malcolm Turnbull
One really has to feel sorry for Malcolm Turnbull for this exchange with Allan Jones. You really should listen to it.
The first part was the Jones haranguing on refugees. Jones gave a perfectly good example of how the public was "conned" by the Pacific solution. You see the Pacific solution still saw 95% of the individuals accepted as refugees in Australia, and at the same time processing on Christmas Island is part of the Pacific solution.
Then poor Malcolm got subjected to minutes of Jones talking to climate change deniers. Love these two lines from Malcolm;
"You might as well say that about your old friend John Howard."
"Everyone's conned except you and Lord Munkton."
The first part was the Jones haranguing on refugees. Jones gave a perfectly good example of how the public was "conned" by the Pacific solution. You see the Pacific solution still saw 95% of the individuals accepted as refugees in Australia, and at the same time processing on Christmas Island is part of the Pacific solution.
Then poor Malcolm got subjected to minutes of Jones talking to climate change deniers. Love these two lines from Malcolm;
"You might as well say that about your old friend John Howard."
"Everyone's conned except you and Lord Munkton."
Monday, November 02, 2009
Can iiNet win?
The AFACT vs iiNEt court case has now wound into day 11. itNews has been giving a day by day report of the "action".
I have not made a detailed study of the case, but one wonders really whether an iiNet win does much good for industry. In other places around the world there is already action taking place to legislate to require a process of ISPs acting to protect copyright, the UK being the best example. If AFACT don't win the case, haven't they just improved their lobbying position?
I like a comment made by a barrister about the Pirate Party that "In Sweden there appears to be a feeling among a significant part of the population that the internet is a territory where copyright laws do not apply." I know the Pirate Party Australia exists - I don't know how they are going on registration.
It will be an interesting conundrum for the Government.
Note: These are personal thoughts and should not be considered as an advocacy on this issue either way.
I have not made a detailed study of the case, but one wonders really whether an iiNet win does much good for industry. In other places around the world there is already action taking place to legislate to require a process of ISPs acting to protect copyright, the UK being the best example. If AFACT don't win the case, haven't they just improved their lobbying position?
I like a comment made by a barrister about the Pirate Party that "In Sweden there appears to be a feeling among a significant part of the population that the internet is a territory where copyright laws do not apply." I know the Pirate Party Australia exists - I don't know how they are going on registration.
It will be an interesting conundrum for the Government.
Note: These are personal thoughts and should not be considered as an advocacy on this issue either way.
What to do about privatised monopolies
There have been very few voices that have lasted out the last two decades by consistently arguing that telecommunications should remain a monopoly under Government ownership. Kenneth Davidson however is one, as shown by his latest contribution.
He doesn't i his spray really get to the point of telling us though why we should love a privatised monopolist, just why we should hate competitors.
Annoyingly he pursues the myth that Telstra's competitors have only cherry picked in the cities. If we go back to the first part of this competition, fixed line voice calls and mobile phones, we can see errors in the analysis.
Prior to competition long distance calls were charged in price bands based on distance. Following on from competition, these bands have been eliminated with all long distance calls charged at the same rate. Firms like AAPT that entered tis market early were always actually more successful i regional Australia than the cities because regional Australians had more long distance calls as a proportion of their phone bills. This was despite the fact that buying the fixed line access (PSTN OTA) was always dearer in regional Australia.
When it was decided to allocate two additional licences for GSM mobiles, the two licencees (Optus and Vodafone) had "must build" conditions o their licences. These required coverage of 80% of the population of Australia. However, once operators got to these levels they competed in the metro markets by quoting how much coverage they had. City customers who might never go into the regions still valued a phone that would be more useful when the time came. Mobile networks built out into the regions not because the base stations would ever attract a commercial traffic level, but because they needed to compete to secure metro customers on the coverage promise.
The nonsense about never seeing competitors in the bush just reflects what the Government has realised, that there is no logic in facilities based competition of the fixed line network. Splitting Telstra is a way to preserve this monopoly while fostering competition in services.
He doesn't i his spray really get to the point of telling us though why we should love a privatised monopolist, just why we should hate competitors.
Annoyingly he pursues the myth that Telstra's competitors have only cherry picked in the cities. If we go back to the first part of this competition, fixed line voice calls and mobile phones, we can see errors in the analysis.
Prior to competition long distance calls were charged in price bands based on distance. Following on from competition, these bands have been eliminated with all long distance calls charged at the same rate. Firms like AAPT that entered tis market early were always actually more successful i regional Australia than the cities because regional Australians had more long distance calls as a proportion of their phone bills. This was despite the fact that buying the fixed line access (PSTN OTA) was always dearer in regional Australia.
When it was decided to allocate two additional licences for GSM mobiles, the two licencees (Optus and Vodafone) had "must build" conditions o their licences. These required coverage of 80% of the population of Australia. However, once operators got to these levels they competed in the metro markets by quoting how much coverage they had. City customers who might never go into the regions still valued a phone that would be more useful when the time came. Mobile networks built out into the regions not because the base stations would ever attract a commercial traffic level, but because they needed to compete to secure metro customers on the coverage promise.
The nonsense about never seeing competitors in the bush just reflects what the Government has realised, that there is no logic in facilities based competition of the fixed line network. Splitting Telstra is a way to preserve this monopoly while fostering competition in services.
On politics - and the very confusing Mr Rudd
The PM has kept up his strange ways, with yet another appointment of a former opponent to a Government post, this time Peter Costello to the Future Fund. One story quotes a cabinet minister saying "Just once I'd like to end cabinet without giving a job to a bloody Tory." This was said about a different appointment, but the list is indeed long.
The Opposition Leader has laid the claim that "it does show the complete hypocrisy of Kevin Rudd on economic matters." He claimed Rudd has demonised the Howard-Costello team as an example of the neo-liberals who brought on the global financial crisis, and that Rudd also contends that Costello blew the proceeds of the mining boom and made no provision for long-term infrastructure and other productivity-based spending.
While it is not quite the same argument it does recall the occassion when the then NSW Education Minister Rodney Cavalier was asked about the BHP shares he disclosed in his register of parliamentary interests. Cavalier replied "there is nothing in the socialist scriptures which says that someone should impoverish themselves during the capitalist phase."
So to the point that Rudd may be critical of "extreme capitalism" and that Costello is identified with it, there may be no problem appointing him to a job that effectively requires such an extreme capitalist - acting only to maximise returns. The wider point made by Turnbull (and Keating) is really that Rudd and the ALP's criticism is really that Costello actually wasn't a good Treasurer and therefore he shouldn't be appointed.
The reality is that the Government has accepted and acknowledged that we had 11 plus years of good economic management under Howard/Costello, but that it could be better. The need for the PM to resort to the line that being attacked by both Turnbull and Keating means he must be getting it pretty right is the problem Alan Kohler has written about, though he comes to it from a different direction.
Kohler suggests that the Rudd appointments reveal that Rudd "has decided to admit that politics is an insincere, superficial theatrical performance by those involved – a Punch and Judy show that hides the serious machinery of government." The argument being that these people he has just appointed were only recently being accused of being incompetents of the first order by those who have appointed them.
Kohler, however, goes on to give a better diagnosis of the problem, and this is that;
What the opposition says is given equal coverage to what the government does. Even-handed media coverage is all very well, but the opposition’s response to a government action or policy is simply not as important as the action itself.
The result of equal reporting of both sides of the game is that the government is under-reported and the opposition is over-reported, which in turn leads to the business of government being overlooked and the theatre of politics dominating.
This is in reality fair comment. In particular the media seems to think its role in "holding Government to account" is merely to hold a megaphone up for oppositions, rather than detailed policy reviews of their own. This is never clearer than in election campaigns when policy announcements are met with stories about either what the party is hoping to achieve politically through the policy or how it will be received in the polls. There is scarcely any coverage of what the policy actually means as policy.
A fairly perfect example of that would be the ALP's NBN policy announced in early 2007. Media commentary was on the implications for the election, not on what delivery would entail. Two years later and that is still largely the media coverage.
I have a friend who says that main stream political reporting is now nothing more than "reporting on politics as a horse race, or as celebrity".
Of course, it is easy to blame the media as I (and Kohler) have done. he challenge is to figure out how to effect change. Maybe a blog dedicated to policy analysis not politics would be a good idea.
The Opposition Leader has laid the claim that "it does show the complete hypocrisy of Kevin Rudd on economic matters." He claimed Rudd has demonised the Howard-Costello team as an example of the neo-liberals who brought on the global financial crisis, and that Rudd also contends that Costello blew the proceeds of the mining boom and made no provision for long-term infrastructure and other productivity-based spending.
While it is not quite the same argument it does recall the occassion when the then NSW Education Minister Rodney Cavalier was asked about the BHP shares he disclosed in his register of parliamentary interests. Cavalier replied "there is nothing in the socialist scriptures which says that someone should impoverish themselves during the capitalist phase."
So to the point that Rudd may be critical of "extreme capitalism" and that Costello is identified with it, there may be no problem appointing him to a job that effectively requires such an extreme capitalist - acting only to maximise returns. The wider point made by Turnbull (and Keating) is really that Rudd and the ALP's criticism is really that Costello actually wasn't a good Treasurer and therefore he shouldn't be appointed.
The reality is that the Government has accepted and acknowledged that we had 11 plus years of good economic management under Howard/Costello, but that it could be better. The need for the PM to resort to the line that being attacked by both Turnbull and Keating means he must be getting it pretty right is the problem Alan Kohler has written about, though he comes to it from a different direction.
Kohler suggests that the Rudd appointments reveal that Rudd "has decided to admit that politics is an insincere, superficial theatrical performance by those involved – a Punch and Judy show that hides the serious machinery of government." The argument being that these people he has just appointed were only recently being accused of being incompetents of the first order by those who have appointed them.
Kohler, however, goes on to give a better diagnosis of the problem, and this is that;
What the opposition says is given equal coverage to what the government does. Even-handed media coverage is all very well, but the opposition’s response to a government action or policy is simply not as important as the action itself.
The result of equal reporting of both sides of the game is that the government is under-reported and the opposition is over-reported, which in turn leads to the business of government being overlooked and the theatre of politics dominating.
This is in reality fair comment. In particular the media seems to think its role in "holding Government to account" is merely to hold a megaphone up for oppositions, rather than detailed policy reviews of their own. This is never clearer than in election campaigns when policy announcements are met with stories about either what the party is hoping to achieve politically through the policy or how it will be received in the polls. There is scarcely any coverage of what the policy actually means as policy.
A fairly perfect example of that would be the ALP's NBN policy announced in early 2007. Media commentary was on the implications for the election, not on what delivery would entail. Two years later and that is still largely the media coverage.
I have a friend who says that main stream political reporting is now nothing more than "reporting on politics as a horse race, or as celebrity".
Of course, it is easy to blame the media as I (and Kohler) have done. he challenge is to figure out how to effect change. Maybe a blog dedicated to policy analysis not politics would be a good idea.
The German Question
An interesting item in the Times Literary Supplement about Margaret Thatcher and her concerns about German reunification. It includes the interesting observation that she used to carry a map of Germany's 1937 borders to describe the "German problem".
It is perhaps hard from the perspective of the early twentieth century to understand this, but political leaders twenty years ago were still a generation who remembered WWII as a personal experience, even if only through contemporary news, the agony of the injured and wouded, and the devastation of bombed cities.
The build up to that war can be ascribed entirely to the "German problem", being the issue that emerges once unification of the German people in one nation state became both a goal and reality. It is easy to believe that the partition of Germany after WWII between East and West was very much a concious decision by the victors to ensure that German ambition was thwarted, and that consigning many peoples of East Germany and Eastern Europe to Russian (and hence Communist) dominance was a small price to pay for that stability.
In hindsight it seems clear that the West German engagement in the European Union made reunification less a threat, Germany no longer has the ability to pursue an independent course from its European colleagues. A Secondary concern was wether the contagion of the East German economy could have sufficiently damaged overall German economic performance and hence the whole EU.
Thatcher's final concern was the impact of reunification on Russia. She foresaw correctly that it would bring Gorbachov down, but the reaction was one of seeking more aggressive reform, whereas the concern was a return to a more hard line communist stance.
The German question is an interesting read. Two books I've read recently put it in perspective. The first of these was E O Lorimer's What Hitler Wants (published as a Penguin special just before 1939). The second was A J P Taylor's The Course of German History, published just before the end of the war.
These two books make an interesting pair, the latter providing a historical analysis for the interpretation of Lorimer's book. As a school student I read Mein Kampf as a background in history, but did not realise that the book itself only appeared in English translation after the war. Hitler refused to authorise an English translation and very few English could read German.
While these two together create the image of a German problem that had stretched for two hundred years, a standard interpretation that lasted till at least when I was young, more recent studies suggest an alternative.
Niall Fergusson's The War of the World builds the theme that there was in fact one war that ran from 1914 to 1990. Fergusson's theme is that the world just before this was a master of globalisation with international trade and travel on an almost seemless basis, and poses the question what went wrong.
The same theme starts Phillip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles, in which he describes the Long War as being between the contending "constitutional orders" of fascism, communism and parliamentarianism. Bobbitt builds a theory of history that links changes in constitutional order to changes in military capability and foretells a more terrifying future.
I haven't yet finished reading either book. I'm indebted to my friend Mathew for suggesting I read Bobbitt's Terror and Consent in which he argues "we need to reforge links that previous societies have made between law and strategy; to realize how the evolution of modern states has now produced a globally networked terrorism that will change as fast as we can identify it." I stopped reading after a few pages because the book makes so many references to the earlier work I thought I should put it in sequence.
I will return to it.
It is perhaps hard from the perspective of the early twentieth century to understand this, but political leaders twenty years ago were still a generation who remembered WWII as a personal experience, even if only through contemporary news, the agony of the injured and wouded, and the devastation of bombed cities.
The build up to that war can be ascribed entirely to the "German problem", being the issue that emerges once unification of the German people in one nation state became both a goal and reality. It is easy to believe that the partition of Germany after WWII between East and West was very much a concious decision by the victors to ensure that German ambition was thwarted, and that consigning many peoples of East Germany and Eastern Europe to Russian (and hence Communist) dominance was a small price to pay for that stability.
In hindsight it seems clear that the West German engagement in the European Union made reunification less a threat, Germany no longer has the ability to pursue an independent course from its European colleagues. A Secondary concern was wether the contagion of the East German economy could have sufficiently damaged overall German economic performance and hence the whole EU.
Thatcher's final concern was the impact of reunification on Russia. She foresaw correctly that it would bring Gorbachov down, but the reaction was one of seeking more aggressive reform, whereas the concern was a return to a more hard line communist stance.
The German question is an interesting read. Two books I've read recently put it in perspective. The first of these was E O Lorimer's What Hitler Wants (published as a Penguin special just before 1939). The second was A J P Taylor's The Course of German History, published just before the end of the war.
These two books make an interesting pair, the latter providing a historical analysis for the interpretation of Lorimer's book. As a school student I read Mein Kampf as a background in history, but did not realise that the book itself only appeared in English translation after the war. Hitler refused to authorise an English translation and very few English could read German.
While these two together create the image of a German problem that had stretched for two hundred years, a standard interpretation that lasted till at least when I was young, more recent studies suggest an alternative.
Niall Fergusson's The War of the World builds the theme that there was in fact one war that ran from 1914 to 1990. Fergusson's theme is that the world just before this was a master of globalisation with international trade and travel on an almost seemless basis, and poses the question what went wrong.
The same theme starts Phillip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles, in which he describes the Long War as being between the contending "constitutional orders" of fascism, communism and parliamentarianism. Bobbitt builds a theory of history that links changes in constitutional order to changes in military capability and foretells a more terrifying future.
I haven't yet finished reading either book. I'm indebted to my friend Mathew for suggesting I read Bobbitt's Terror and Consent in which he argues "we need to reforge links that previous societies have made between law and strategy; to realize how the evolution of modern states has now produced a globally networked terrorism that will change as fast as we can identify it." I stopped reading after a few pages because the book makes so many references to the earlier work I thought I should put it in sequence.
I will return to it.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Infrastructure and planning
I must be having one of my right-wing days!
John Roskam of the IPA had a column in the AFR today (thankfully reproduced on the IPA website) that was warning us against the idea that the Federal Government was hoping to reach out from Canberra to help us plan our cities.
Now apart from the fact that I would disagree with him on the qualities of Canberra I must agree with him on the idea that city planning from Canberra would be a mistake. I am not an absolute fan of Adam Smith and Fred Hatek but they are right about the "genius" of markets in being able to transmit large amounts of information about preferences. Letting people make their own decisions can be the best policy.
But we also know there are plenty of weaknesses to that. That includes externality (we all suffer if one person puts up an ugly building), free riders problems (the public goods that are non-rival and non-excludable like roads), and the reverse problem of booms (too many people at the same time identify a need resulting in an overinvestment).
Roskam was responding to the Prime Minister's address to the Business Council of Australia annual dinner, in which he said;
The previous government vacated the field on future planning for our major cities.
More broadly, the previous government vacated the field on infrastructure per se - as this was passed off as the responsibility of the states, despite their financial and in many cases planning constraints. There was a failure of planning, a failure of coordination, a failure of investment and a failure in service delivery.
The BCA is well aware of the shortcomings in our nation's infrastructure planning and development, and this was a focus of the 2005 Infrastructure Action Plan for Future Prosperity. The Government that I lead was elected to tackle the challenge of providing national leadership for long-term infrastructure planning and investment.
and later;
Clearly, the Commonwealth should not take over state responsibilities for land planning or have a direct role in the day-to-day decisions of state and local governments.
As Minister Albanese has said, no Commonwealth Minister wants to decide development applications or where to lay sewerage pipes. But we must recognise the economic reality of the 21st century.
The national government has a clear responsibility to provide national leadership in the development of strategic planning frameworks for our largest cities. That is why, working with State and Territory governments, we established the Council of Australian Governments Cities Taskforce.
We created the Major Cities Unit within Infrastructure Australia to identify opportunities where national leadership can enhance the prosperity of our cities and the well-being of their citizens. We have also created the Australian Council of Local Government so that we can hear from, and talk to, all levels of government involved in economic development.
and then announcing;
In partnership with the States and Territories we will now propose the development of national criteria for the future strategic planning of our major cities. The first in our country's history.
And, the Commonwealth will now consider linking all future infrastructure funding to compliance with these criteria.
If the Commonwealth is to foot any significant part of the urban infrastructure bill - the Commonwealth will legitimately expect to have confidence in the integrity of the strategic planning system in our major cities.
The goal is that our cities have strong, transparent and long-term plans for growth and high-quality urban development; that our cities are productive, liveable and sustainable.
The criteria are listed in the speech. So realy all the PM was saying was that he has deviated from the policy of the previous Government by investing directly in urban infrastructure. Secondly he announced that further funding would be contingent on being satisfied that there was a robust planning process in the relevant area before committing funds.
In that regard the PM was hardly anouncing micro-planning from the Stalinist centre. In fact, uit sounded awfully like the role the BCA called for the previous Government to take on infrastructure. We don't need Government necessarily to make all the investments, we do need Government to facilitate the information exchange that doesn't always happen because markets aren't perfect.
Perhaps then we could respond to the latest paper from the Centre for Independent Studies that tells us we can solve our rail problems by introducing business class train travel.
John Roskam of the IPA had a column in the AFR today (thankfully reproduced on the IPA website) that was warning us against the idea that the Federal Government was hoping to reach out from Canberra to help us plan our cities.
Now apart from the fact that I would disagree with him on the qualities of Canberra I must agree with him on the idea that city planning from Canberra would be a mistake. I am not an absolute fan of Adam Smith and Fred Hatek but they are right about the "genius" of markets in being able to transmit large amounts of information about preferences. Letting people make their own decisions can be the best policy.
But we also know there are plenty of weaknesses to that. That includes externality (we all suffer if one person puts up an ugly building), free riders problems (the public goods that are non-rival and non-excludable like roads), and the reverse problem of booms (too many people at the same time identify a need resulting in an overinvestment).
Roskam was responding to the Prime Minister's address to the Business Council of Australia annual dinner, in which he said;
The previous government vacated the field on future planning for our major cities.
More broadly, the previous government vacated the field on infrastructure per se - as this was passed off as the responsibility of the states, despite their financial and in many cases planning constraints. There was a failure of planning, a failure of coordination, a failure of investment and a failure in service delivery.
The BCA is well aware of the shortcomings in our nation's infrastructure planning and development, and this was a focus of the 2005 Infrastructure Action Plan for Future Prosperity. The Government that I lead was elected to tackle the challenge of providing national leadership for long-term infrastructure planning and investment.
and later;
Clearly, the Commonwealth should not take over state responsibilities for land planning or have a direct role in the day-to-day decisions of state and local governments.
As Minister Albanese has said, no Commonwealth Minister wants to decide development applications or where to lay sewerage pipes. But we must recognise the economic reality of the 21st century.
The national government has a clear responsibility to provide national leadership in the development of strategic planning frameworks for our largest cities. That is why, working with State and Territory governments, we established the Council of Australian Governments Cities Taskforce.
We created the Major Cities Unit within Infrastructure Australia to identify opportunities where national leadership can enhance the prosperity of our cities and the well-being of their citizens. We have also created the Australian Council of Local Government so that we can hear from, and talk to, all levels of government involved in economic development.
and then announcing;
In partnership with the States and Territories we will now propose the development of national criteria for the future strategic planning of our major cities. The first in our country's history.
And, the Commonwealth will now consider linking all future infrastructure funding to compliance with these criteria.
If the Commonwealth is to foot any significant part of the urban infrastructure bill - the Commonwealth will legitimately expect to have confidence in the integrity of the strategic planning system in our major cities.
The goal is that our cities have strong, transparent and long-term plans for growth and high-quality urban development; that our cities are productive, liveable and sustainable.
The criteria are listed in the speech. So realy all the PM was saying was that he has deviated from the policy of the previous Government by investing directly in urban infrastructure. Secondly he announced that further funding would be contingent on being satisfied that there was a robust planning process in the relevant area before committing funds.
In that regard the PM was hardly anouncing micro-planning from the Stalinist centre. In fact, uit sounded awfully like the role the BCA called for the previous Government to take on infrastructure. We don't need Government necessarily to make all the investments, we do need Government to facilitate the information exchange that doesn't always happen because markets aren't perfect.
Perhaps then we could respond to the latest paper from the Centre for Independent Studies that tells us we can solve our rail problems by introducing business class train travel.
There are always firsts
There is a current debate raging in Australia over what information in Government tendering processes should be regarded as commercial-in-confidence. The proximate trigger has been debate about the National Broadband Network and what should or should not be released from the Expert Panel report.
Today Henry Ergas has written a column on the general topic, though using the case of toll roads to make the point. I can't think of anything he has written with which I have agreed more. The secrecy accompanying PPP projects results in a lack of public accountability on the projects.
Part of his criticism is also of PPP's in general and the illusion that they reduce Government risk, whereas they tend to maintain risk, don't stop "crowding out" and really often amount to auctions for monopoly rents. I wouldn't perhaps subscribe to the theory that the private sector alone can be relied upon to deal with the issues of infrastructure building (I will return to that in a later post).
Mr Ergas will no doubt be delighting in the inquiry in the Federal Parliament that will be conducted by the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee (inquiry won't be formally established till 15 November). The inquiry will be addressing "A process for determining public interest immunity claims made by the government in response to orders of the Senate or of Senate committees for the production of information and documents."
The inquiry could range further, given that in speaking on the topic Greens leader Senator Brown said "Freedom of information ought to have been legislated long ago for the private sector as well as for the public sector because the private sector ... is very, very dependent upon the largesse of taxpayers."
This is where Senator Minchin's demands over Telstra have led. Both Senator Minchin and Mr rgas need to realise that this practice of claiming commercial confidentiality has been driven more by the private sector in its dealings with Government than by the political process. They may be winning no friends in boardrooms around town.
Meanwhil any of my dear readers who have an interest in the matter of claimed confidentiality might like to take note of the inquiry.
Today Henry Ergas has written a column on the general topic, though using the case of toll roads to make the point. I can't think of anything he has written with which I have agreed more. The secrecy accompanying PPP projects results in a lack of public accountability on the projects.
Part of his criticism is also of PPP's in general and the illusion that they reduce Government risk, whereas they tend to maintain risk, don't stop "crowding out" and really often amount to auctions for monopoly rents. I wouldn't perhaps subscribe to the theory that the private sector alone can be relied upon to deal with the issues of infrastructure building (I will return to that in a later post).
Mr Ergas will no doubt be delighting in the inquiry in the Federal Parliament that will be conducted by the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee (inquiry won't be formally established till 15 November). The inquiry will be addressing "A process for determining public interest immunity claims made by the government in response to orders of the Senate or of Senate committees for the production of information and documents."
The inquiry could range further, given that in speaking on the topic Greens leader Senator Brown said "Freedom of information ought to have been legislated long ago for the private sector as well as for the public sector because the private sector ... is very, very dependent upon the largesse of taxpayers."
This is where Senator Minchin's demands over Telstra have led. Both Senator Minchin and Mr rgas need to realise that this practice of claiming commercial confidentiality has been driven more by the private sector in its dealings with Government than by the political process. They may be winning no friends in boardrooms around town.
Meanwhil any of my dear readers who have an interest in the matter of claimed confidentiality might like to take note of the inquiry.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The great carrier pigeon test
Last night's HungryBeast had a segment in which a carrier pigeon was pitted against an ADSL connection and a car to transfer a data file. Thanks to itNews for alerting me to the segment.
The show recreated a test performed first in South Africa. It was in response to a comment in Parliament by Kevin Rudd that; "If the Liberals had their way Australians would be left using carrier pigeons for the future rather than accessing an internationally competitive broadband network." The challenge was to see which was faster - the carrier pigeon or the internet at transferring a file of a 700 MB movie 132km from Tarana to Prospect.
The results were the pigeon in 0ne hour and five minutes, the car clocked a respectable 2 hours and ten minutes and the internet advised the upload would take between "four and nine hours" but the net cut out twice "the second time for good".
The conclusion they reached was "So Prime Minister, maybe you should think twice before dishing carrier pigeons because if you live in regional Australia and need to send large files ANYTHING is better than the Internet."
Good example of how relatively slow broadband speeds are in regional Australia - but that actually was the PMs point. He wasn't dishing carrier pigeons - he was dishing the Liberals for selling out Australians on the prospect of better broadband.
***********
So that's the policy analysis. But what about the test. Did this real life demonstration tell us anything?
Well let's first understand the internet connection. Ee don't get told much about the internet connection being used - except the claim that at the Tarana end the internet conection is the same as used by "90% of the population" but at the Prospect end there is footage of a laptop having a dongle installed...that is we don't know enough about both ends of the internet link.
In the course of the test we are told "the internet crashed twice". Presumably that was the connection, and not the whole internet. But we don't know the cause. It could have been any of the links involved (and this communication would have been going to the local Telstra exchange, then to an exchange in Sysdney, perhaps through two more in Sydney, before heading back out to Prospect exchange (if an ADSL link was used) then another line. Of course, being the net it is entirely possible packets were being routed through Mongolia. In fact the most likely cause of the "crash" was settings in either computer that couldn't handle a single large file transfer at slow speed (i.e. a time out action at the browser or other application not the internet connections).
But we are told the internet connection advised it would take 4 to 9 hours for a 700 MB transfer. Let's just do the sums...
MB700 MB is 5600000 kbits
4 Hours is 14400 Seconds a transfer rate of 388 kbit/s
9 Hours is 32400 Seconds a transfer rate of 172 kbit/s
But this calculation doesn't allow for the IP overhead added to convert the 700 MB to packets etc.
Meanwhile a car travelling 123 kms without knowing the route. Let's assume the 123 is the hypotenuse of a right angled isoceles triangle and that the road route is along the other two sides. That gives the total distance as 123 times the square route of 2, about 174 kms. I usually allow an average of 80 kms/hour for a mixed country city drive like that. Estimated time 2.175 hours, so the two hours and ten minutes is reasonable.
The evere reliable Wikipaedia suggests the average flying speed of a homing pigeon "over moderate distances is around 48 km/h, but speeds of up to 95 km/h have been observed." Either it was a very fast pigeon, or (more likely) it had a very good following wind to cover 123km in 1 hour 5 minutes (that would be 113 km/h).
The physical test has therefore not demonstrated much more than could have been worked out with a pencil and paper (or a spreadsheet...). The test is setting up a stupi example by focussing on the transfer of a 700MB file, and has chosen a sufficiently short distance to suit the purposes. Over a longer distance the internet transfer doesn't take any more time, while the other two do. The pigeon can't go as far as the car and the car is limited to the land of the continent.
Its is a pity that people ned to resort to such stupid exercises to demonstrate what we by now know...the old standard 256 Kbps (or a 512 Kbps as offered under the Australian Broadband Guarantee) doesn't cut it. And our reference point needs to be what we need to start building now to have in five to ten years.
The show recreated a test performed first in South Africa. It was in response to a comment in Parliament by Kevin Rudd that; "If the Liberals had their way Australians would be left using carrier pigeons for the future rather than accessing an internationally competitive broadband network." The challenge was to see which was faster - the carrier pigeon or the internet at transferring a file of a 700 MB movie 132km from Tarana to Prospect.
The results were the pigeon in 0ne hour and five minutes, the car clocked a respectable 2 hours and ten minutes and the internet advised the upload would take between "four and nine hours" but the net cut out twice "the second time for good".
The conclusion they reached was "So Prime Minister, maybe you should think twice before dishing carrier pigeons because if you live in regional Australia and need to send large files ANYTHING is better than the Internet."
Good example of how relatively slow broadband speeds are in regional Australia - but that actually was the PMs point. He wasn't dishing carrier pigeons - he was dishing the Liberals for selling out Australians on the prospect of better broadband.
***********
So that's the policy analysis. But what about the test. Did this real life demonstration tell us anything?
Well let's first understand the internet connection. Ee don't get told much about the internet connection being used - except the claim that at the Tarana end the internet conection is the same as used by "90% of the population" but at the Prospect end there is footage of a laptop having a dongle installed...that is we don't know enough about both ends of the internet link.
In the course of the test we are told "the internet crashed twice". Presumably that was the connection, and not the whole internet. But we don't know the cause. It could have been any of the links involved (and this communication would have been going to the local Telstra exchange, then to an exchange in Sysdney, perhaps through two more in Sydney, before heading back out to Prospect exchange (if an ADSL link was used) then another line. Of course, being the net it is entirely possible packets were being routed through Mongolia. In fact the most likely cause of the "crash" was settings in either computer that couldn't handle a single large file transfer at slow speed (i.e. a time out action at the browser or other application not the internet connections).
But we are told the internet connection advised it would take 4 to 9 hours for a 700 MB transfer. Let's just do the sums...
MB700 MB is 5600000 kbits
4 Hours is 14400 Seconds a transfer rate of 388 kbit/s
9 Hours is 32400 Seconds a transfer rate of 172 kbit/s
But this calculation doesn't allow for the IP overhead added to convert the 700 MB to packets etc.
Meanwhile a car travelling 123 kms without knowing the route. Let's assume the 123 is the hypotenuse of a right angled isoceles triangle and that the road route is along the other two sides. That gives the total distance as 123 times the square route of 2, about 174 kms. I usually allow an average of 80 kms/hour for a mixed country city drive like that. Estimated time 2.175 hours, so the two hours and ten minutes is reasonable.
The evere reliable Wikipaedia suggests the average flying speed of a homing pigeon "over moderate distances is around 48 km/h, but speeds of up to 95 km/h have been observed." Either it was a very fast pigeon, or (more likely) it had a very good following wind to cover 123km in 1 hour 5 minutes (that would be 113 km/h).
The physical test has therefore not demonstrated much more than could have been worked out with a pencil and paper (or a spreadsheet...). The test is setting up a stupi example by focussing on the transfer of a 700MB file, and has chosen a sufficiently short distance to suit the purposes. Over a longer distance the internet transfer doesn't take any more time, while the other two do. The pigeon can't go as far as the car and the car is limited to the land of the continent.
Its is a pity that people ned to resort to such stupid exercises to demonstrate what we by now know...the old standard 256 Kbps (or a 512 Kbps as offered under the Australian Broadband Guarantee) doesn't cut it. And our reference point needs to be what we need to start building now to have in five to ten years.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The David/Julia Project?
Not quite. But I just saw this morning the very excellent movie Julie & Jilia, based on the book of the same name and the story of how Julie Powell wrote a blog about cooking all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
The book by Simone Beck, Louistte Bertholle, and most famously Julia Child which starts with the words "This is a book for the servantless cook". Eventually first published in 1961, andd first published in Great Britain, my copy is 1972 reprint of the Penguin edition that first appeared in 1966. Though I actually bought my copy sometime around about 1979/81 when my brother had introduced me to the book (second hand from Lawson's).
The original blog still exists and you can read it from its first post. Probably something I should do one day.
The scense in the movie where Julia Child is given a copy of Larousse in French is fascinating, because these days you can get a version in English. But if you really want to cook French you need your Beck, Bertholle and Child to get you started - Larousse just expands the repetoire.
Maybe my task should be the David/David project and cook everything from Elizabeth David's Italian Food. Her French Provincial Cooking is perhaps more famous, but I'm just fond of the Italian.
For anyone who is interested the movie is excellent. Also Julie Powell has started a new blog.
Bon appetit.
The book by Simone Beck, Louistte Bertholle, and most famously Julia Child which starts with the words "This is a book for the servantless cook". Eventually first published in 1961, andd first published in Great Britain, my copy is 1972 reprint of the Penguin edition that first appeared in 1966. Though I actually bought my copy sometime around about 1979/81 when my brother had introduced me to the book (second hand from Lawson's).
The original blog still exists and you can read it from its first post. Probably something I should do one day.
The scense in the movie where Julia Child is given a copy of Larousse in French is fascinating, because these days you can get a version in English. But if you really want to cook French you need your Beck, Bertholle and Child to get you started - Larousse just expands the repetoire.
Maybe my task should be the David/David project and cook everything from Elizabeth David's Italian Food. Her French Provincial Cooking is perhaps more famous, but I'm just fond of the Italian.
For anyone who is interested the movie is excellent. Also Julie Powell has started a new blog.
Bon appetit.
Friday, October 16, 2009
In praise of John Watkins
I have two reasons to want to write a short note in praise of John Watkins, being Alzhiemer's and trains.
It was my pleasure to attend a lunch last week hosted by Alzheimer's Australia NSW at which Grame Samuel spoke about his own familiy's experience. John Watkins left politics to become CEO of this body and has done a wonderful job of raising its profile. I loved most John's quote that forgetting where your keys are is not a sign of dementia, forgetting what they are for may be.
While John is doing well, I'm concerned that he has a long way to go to displace breast cancer in popularity as a cause - yet I suspect that more people of my generation will suffer in life from the effects of dimentia, as sufferers, carers or friends, than anything else. Here I am also making the distinction between the effects on quality of life rather than just the end of life.
John Watkins left politics rather suddenly to take up this job, probably leaving just as the ALP needed him most. The party's stupid approach to factions denied John the Premiership when Bob Carr stood down, only for the party to have to resort to a more untried and certainly less talented man in Nathan Rees fom the left.
John wanted out because, in part, he was sick of the excessive ctriticism of Transport by Treasury. This was the time when the North West rail was canned to become a metro, which itself has been shrunk. The flavour of that battle has been listed in a Crikey post today that read;
News today that Sydney's controversial CBD Metro railway to Rozelle (i.e. nowhere) will cost at least $2 billion more than planned (i.e. up to $7 billion) reinforces doubts about what this rail link is for, and why the NSW government is so keen to pursue it despite refusal by Infrastructure Australia and the federal government to fund it.
According to a public transport lobby group, EcoTransit, it's the brainchild a group of bureaucrats within the state government who want to thwart and thereby "discipline" Sydney's CityRail by setting up an alternative private, non-union network.
In effect a Thatcherite political experiment. Details here.
If only we had more citizens like John.
It was my pleasure to attend a lunch last week hosted by Alzheimer's Australia NSW at which Grame Samuel spoke about his own familiy's experience. John Watkins left politics to become CEO of this body and has done a wonderful job of raising its profile. I loved most John's quote that forgetting where your keys are is not a sign of dementia, forgetting what they are for may be.
While John is doing well, I'm concerned that he has a long way to go to displace breast cancer in popularity as a cause - yet I suspect that more people of my generation will suffer in life from the effects of dimentia, as sufferers, carers or friends, than anything else. Here I am also making the distinction between the effects on quality of life rather than just the end of life.
John Watkins left politics rather suddenly to take up this job, probably leaving just as the ALP needed him most. The party's stupid approach to factions denied John the Premiership when Bob Carr stood down, only for the party to have to resort to a more untried and certainly less talented man in Nathan Rees fom the left.
John wanted out because, in part, he was sick of the excessive ctriticism of Transport by Treasury. This was the time when the North West rail was canned to become a metro, which itself has been shrunk. The flavour of that battle has been listed in a Crikey post today that read;
News today that Sydney's controversial CBD Metro railway to Rozelle (i.e. nowhere) will cost at least $2 billion more than planned (i.e. up to $7 billion) reinforces doubts about what this rail link is for, and why the NSW government is so keen to pursue it despite refusal by Infrastructure Australia and the federal government to fund it.
According to a public transport lobby group, EcoTransit, it's the brainchild a group of bureaucrats within the state government who want to thwart and thereby "discipline" Sydney's CityRail by setting up an alternative private, non-union network.
In effect a Thatcherite political experiment. Details here.
If only we had more citizens like John.
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