Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

"I will gladly pay the cost of a ticket to help you pay your way back to Iraq. When you get there , and if you manage to survive for being as outspoken as what you are here in Australia , then you should be able to help straighten out the mess which YOUR Iraqi countrymen have got you into in the first place , which appears to be the reason that you have come to MY country to avoid.'

One of the very scarce reports on what is going on in prisons in Papua came earlier from Oswald Iten, a journalist with the Swiss quality paper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, who was imprisoned in Jayapura for twelve days in December 2000. He had allegedly violated the conditions related to his tourist visa (he had been making photographs and since he was a journalist that counted as working without a work permit). I can’t recall that that report got much attention in this country...

It does sound like some of the measures PM Gillard's been announcing will be  of help, and a long way ahead of when Nick X campaigned for clocks in SA Pokie rooms so people could keep track of time.  However,that the $1.5 billion  (a driop in the ocean of accrued profits and taxes) cost of implementation is being used by the Government as its primary vindication for reneging suggests they've been bought by the lobbyists.

This appendix is provoked by the first skirmish in this year's Culture Wars, relating to Morals campaigner (and bully?) Meryl Tankard Reist's legal attempt to stifle the small, eclectic and amiable blogsite, No Place For Sheep,a newish site operated by psychologist Dr Jennifer Wilson.

You begin to suspect that governments here will be thinking more carefully about where shrinking revenues might be used and the question that comes to mind is, who/what will be preserved and who/what what may be jeopardised or jettisoned.