Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

The States, individually, retain all the power. So whatever agreement was made at COAG is still only nibbling at the edges. What is needed is national management of, not only water resource  but also infrastructure, health, and education. I propose that the states be abolished, and we have a national government only and an elected Head of State.

I joined the Liberal Party in 1978, and was a member until the mid 1980s. Then, for many reasons, I didn’t renew. Indeed, I switched my vote back to the ALP, and kept voting for them in the House, while voting Democrat in the Senate, until 1996, when I voted for John Howard.

Not longago an appealing aspect to life in Narrung was that the water coming from yourtap was piped directly from the lake. Well, it was appealing before the water receded.  On returning there at Easter I’was greeted byan initial spurt of green-grey ooze from the plumbing, a clear sign of what hadbeen going on.  A bottle of the stuff waspresented to Victorian Premier Brumby as he entered the COAG  conference in Adelaide on Wednesday.  He wouldn’t take it.

Families are struggling to care for their older parents or grandparents. We need to act now before we are completely overwhelmed by the baby boomers who are just reaching the age where they will require more care. We must not forget our elderly...

How we came to confront one another is uncertain.  Amid a multitude of conflicts we found ourselves face to face, testing over and over, sometimes mirroring each other’s methods, sometimes striking unexpectedly into what had been considered safe ground in an attempt to create a “domino effect” from within.  We appear to have a similar level of  tactical dexterity, and we both know that in the end there will not be a winner but a loser, waning determination creating inadvertent forfeits, loss of confidence resulting in dimished thinking capacities. 

© Steve Bell 2008

It’s about time we met her. We are in a field, a cloth of gold, sun-drenched ripened wheat stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction. The field is in a small depression which limits visibility to about 5 metres. Jenny is listening.

This is the first Democratic Audit Update from the Audit’s new home at the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology.

It is often said that I am mad, or sometimes, more kindly, that I am just eccentric, but let me tell you a tale of a young schizophrenic who, for a short time, brought the important part of the known world to its knees until she was burned to a crisp as a result of a quiet political deal.

"When I attend NATO meetings and tell them we are a Defence Force ofjust over 51,000 they look at me with surprise.  When I tell them thataround half of our Infantry and Cavalry are currently tied to overseasdeployments they respond with a look of shock and disbelief"- Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon

Football is, apparently, un-Australian. It leads inevitably to violence among the spectators (partly, we are told, because it’s mind-numbingly boring and so many games finish scoreless). It will never threaten the predominant winter code of the region in question, be it Aussie Rules or Rugby League.

In ethics it is too often argued that humans are intrinsically evil and so the only firm foundation for morality is a higher force such as God. In international relations it is too often argued that humans are so in love with their religious, national, tribal and other secondary identities that there can never be a trans-human system of political justice. Both these positions involve denying respect for our human potential and deferring it; to a nominally higher force in the case of religion and ethics, and to a secondary identity in the case of international politics.

The world is relying on continued growth in China to protect the global economy from the recession in the US. Given the recent unrest in the world's most populous country, the big question is – can the hardliners continue to keep this very diverse country from breaking apart?

It is to be expected that a new government coming into office will take time to settle in, read the files and gradually get used to the idea of being in power. In doing that the Rudd Government is no different to the Howard government, which took the best part of 18 months to settle into the harness. However the Howard government was not bequeathed the administrative mess of a politicised public service and the moral and ethical conundrum that now constitutes Rudd's inheritance.

"When I was originally approached to speak to this audience, I was asked to give a Reserve Bank perspective on the economy. That was a fairly general brief. Given the current state of affairs, it makes sense to fulfil it by talking specifically about inflation and monetary policy." (Glenn Stevens)

I'm interested by the claim repeated in numerous news analyses that "investors are buying oil to hedge against the sliding greenback" - it seems to me to be a tad more significant that world oil demand has exceeded world oil supply for the last several months, and looks like doing so for at least the rest of this year. My forecasts for year end 2008: $145 barrel; A$1=US$1; ULP at $1.87 per litre. Enjoy.

Even in Port Augusta, the cinema was almost full for the opera Carmen, broadcast live from the Sydney Opera House; and not too many walked out during it. I didn't see anybody I knew from the SES or the local pub; but I did feel some emotional stirrings at being part of a nationwide audience of 10,000 people simultaneously sharing this experience.

Indeed,there is a widespread assumption that the ranks of terrorists arefilled with seriously psychologically disturbed individuals.  It's an assumption arising from pop psychology, reinforced by Hollywoodtypecasting. Yet psychiatrists and psychologists find it is not goingtoo far to assert that terrorists are psychologically "normal" in thesense of not being clinically psychotic.  Terrorists are neitherdepressed nor severely emotionally disturbed, nor are they crazedfanatics

To achieve success governments need a guiding philosophy; not a zealous ideology which is insensitive to political compromise, but a directional touchstone which provides overall consistency through the years. In other words, ultimately they must be ruled by values and ideas and not only by an instinct for political survival – necessary though that is. (John W. Howard)

It is a mistake to overrate the intellectual capacity of the media as being capable of bias. Bias demands the rigour of imposed values. The sobering lesson when we look at much of today’s news coverage is the lack of intellect and values. In the place of bias, we find only the banal.

The Afghanistan action is commonly viewed as a "clean" conflict ... that didn't bring the kind of international opprobrium onto the United States that the invasion of Iraq would lead to a year later. ...  But ... [e]verything that followed ... flowed inevitably from the failure to challenge Bush's claim that an act of terror required a military response.