Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

"It is now possible that the outcome of Scott Parkin's Federal Court case will become a Federal election issue. Spook-squad ASIO have been granted leave to appeal the verdict. Should their appeal fail the Howard Government's only option will be to censor the issue on grounds of national security. Given the timespans involved this would probably occur just before the next Australian elections.": Richard Tonkin

Margo founded Webdiary for the Sydney Morning Herald in July 2000 and took it independent on August 22, 2005. She related her view of the saga in a lecture to the South Australian Governor's Leadership Forum in February 2006.

"The amoral practices of AWB in effect armed the enemy as the price of doing business in Iraq. This cost came out of funds set aside for humanitarian needs; and added to the humiliation of the Iraqi people. They will not find justice unless someone lifts the lid on the full, wider extent of the AWB web of deceit. Senior officials should not be allowed to hide behind the paper-thin walls of Cole’s terms of reference.": Stephen Smith

"I do not know whether Keynes or Friedman was more right in their deep orientation. But I do think that the tension between their two views has been a very valuable driving force for human progress over the past hundred years.": J Bradford DeLong

"We cannot afford to fail in Afghanistan. Recent history has given us graphic evidence of what would happen if we do. But any solution in Afghanistan depends on eliminating its opium.": Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime

" I decided an 'allegorical' approach might be a better one to take with regard to some of the 'hot-button' issues that come up repeatedly on Webdiary. I would like to try an experiment, with the consent and cooperation of the editors and other Webdiarists.": Will Howard

"In an election campaign that has struggled to be the main story for most of its duration the fate of the minor parties has been one of the most interesting features. The new system of proportional representation in the Upper House gives independents and minors a better chance than they have ever had to gain representation in the parliament. Yet the implications are different for each.": Tony Phillips

"During his mandate, new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will face the pressing challenge of forging a global agreement on climate change for the years beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol ends. The Millennium Development Goals remain far off track in the poorest countries, with just nine years to go. Despite a global pledge to reduce significantly the loss of biological diversity by 2010, huge areas of rainforest and oceans continue to be destroyed.": Jeffrey Sachs

"What the hell is happening to the ABC? Ten years of Liberal government of course. And was last Friday another step along the ABC’s road to compliance with the Tory worldview?": Tony Phillips

"This audit directly addresses the controversial role money plays in Australian politics by asking the question: How democratic is the way political parties are funded in Australia? It identifies two central problems with the funding of Australian political parties: a lack of transparency, with secrecy a hallmark of private funding, political spending and the use of parliamentary entitlements and government resources; and the political inequality that is maintained and perpetuated by Australian political finance. ": Joo-Cheong Tham and Sally Young, Democratic Audit of Australia

"On Thursday afternoon pro-democracy activists rallied, and then mostly disaffected, and then often drunk, youths, all but trashed or burned much of the CBD of Nuku'alofa. Such an eruption should not have been entirely suprising given the steadily escalating pressure for serious and prompt governance and constitutional reform that's been building in the Kingdom for several years, coupled with austerity measures imposed on the country by the new government, often under pressure from agencies like the World Bank. The scale and ferocity of the riot, and the deaths of eight people, apparently looters, caught up in it, was the really shocking part.": Dr Mark Hayes

"The Government’s current policy direction on Aborigines, which has gained momentum in recent months, has all of the hallmarks of the assimilationism that led to the stolen generation. The methods and the rhetoric are far subtler – and obviously less cruel - than those of the Government’s predecessors, but the aim is identical and arguably just as pernicious: the assimilation of Aborigines into the mainstream.": David Curry

"Nick the Knife who was the Minister for Administrative Affairs and his sidekick, Andrews the Sleek, were still puzzled by the reaction of the working party they had tried to form to design and implement an immediate move to AWA’s throughout the public service which would reduce all salaries and entitlements by two thirds. The public servants said it couldn’t be done and the White Paper (which had been produced in record time – a true tribute to the efficiency, skill, and dedication of the public service) ran to 3,000 pages. Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to the Ministers that asking a group of people to design a system which reduced their take-home pay and accrued entitlements by 66.6% might not be a task they would embrace with enthusiasm." From Chapter XI of the Chronicles of Nadir, as told from the grave by Tom Lewis.

"China’s remarkable growth has been financed recently by a rapid expansion of money and bank credit that is producing an increasingly unsustainable investment boom. This renews concerns that the country may not be able to avert a replay of the painful boom–and-bust cycle such as the one it endured in the mid-1990’s. ": Marvin Goodfriend and Eswar Prasad

"What is it about a bit of cloth that has archbishops, senators and prime ministers getting their knickers in a twist?": Melody Kemp

"With the Spring racing carnival finally out of the way Victorians are beginning to wake up to the fact that there is an election on November 25th. Only now have the two major parties held their election launches, despite having been in campaign mode for weeks. And it is now that I feel some obligation to provide a starting point for some Webdiary coverage of the event.": Tony Phillips

"History does not end, and it is forever full of surprises. Francis Fukuyama’s End of History and Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations appeared within a mere three years of each other in the 1990’s, and a decade later the return of religion to politics is visible for all to see – and for many to suffer.": Ralf Dahrendorf

"Within today’s booming world economy, most developing countries have been growing rapidly. Yet this has not diminished the pressure to reduce the yawning gap in income between developed and developing countries that has shaped global debates for over a half-century. International inequalities, while large three decades ago, have worsened ever since. But there is another international income divergence that demands attention. Since 1980, the world has witnessed a widening income gap among developing countries.": José Antonio Ocampo

"The British government recently issued the most comprehensive study to date of the economic costs and risks of global warming, and of measures that might reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in the hope of averting some of the direst consequences. Written under the leadership of Sir Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics, who succeeded me as Chief Economist of the World Bank, the report makes clear that the question is no longer whether we can afford to do anything about global warming, but whether we can afford not to." Joseph Stiglitz

"This is not rocket science. Clear the landscape, remove the surface roughage, change the albedo and dry out the countryside upwind and you get less rainfall – a perfect example of climate change. The solution is quite simple and could be achieved in one to two generations: revegetate the landscape.": Ian Read

"With Congress lost to the Democrats and exit polls showing six in ten voters opposed to the Iraq war, Bush finally fired Donald Rumsfeld, his disastrous secretary of defense. But while Americans gave the Bush low marks on the war in Iraq, polls show that they still support him on the struggle against terrorism. Unfortunately, America is not winning the "war on terrorism." An official National Intelligence Estimate confirmed that more jihadist terrorists are being recruited than the US is killing.": Joseph S Nye

"I wore a poppy at work for the last couple of days (I now work in a book shop). My boss, in a friendly way, asked me why. For me it's not because war is bad or because they protected freedoms or because of grief or the loss of youth. It is just because millions of people in the past have fought, killed and died, and whatever we think about it, that shouldn't be forgotten. Forgetting that would be a very big mistake. It's why I'm much more sold on 'Remembrance Day' than 'Anzac Day'. It's just a day to remember, that's all.": Hamish Alcorn

"Adopting children from developing countries does not address the causes of poverty. Despite the high rate of HIV/AIDS infections, Malawi’s population, like that of many developing nations, is growing rapidly. It is projected to surpass 19 million by 2025. That will put more pressure on the country’s already limited stock of agricultural land. Educating young Malawians, especially girls, and making contraceptives widely available, would do much more to slow population growth than a few inter-country adoptions.": Peter Singer

"Oxytocin is active in evolutionarily old areas of our brain, outside of our conscious awareness. We simply have a sense that sharing with someone who has trusted us is the right thing to do. ... Our evidence suggests that bastards’ brains work differently. Their character traits are similar to those of sociopaths. They simply do not care about others the way most people do, and the dysfunctional processing of oxytocin in their brains appears to be one reason for this. Because bastards are out there, we still need government and personal enforcement of economic exchange.": Paul J. Zak

"Taiwan’s Public Prosecutor has indicted the wife of President Chen Shui-bien for embezzling public funds. Chen, as a sitting president, cannot be indicated even though the prosecutor says that he has evidence to prove his guilt. But Chen’s legacy was already in tatters.": Sin-ming Shaw