Month: January 2005

There is nothing like a good war, of whatever sort, to test and highlight the importance of legal and constitutional values.

In the past week we have seen the acknowledgement by the United States that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that there are no grounds to prosecute Mamdouh Habib who had been held without charge or trial at the US Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba for three years.

The acknowledgement that there were no weapons of mass destruction came through the simple withdrawal of the US weapons inspection team from Iraq after it found nothing. As for Mr Habib, the US simply said there would be no charges and asked Australia to take him back. On both occasions, we are told, the intelligence was wrong. Or more likely its interpretation was wrong.

To misinterpret intelligence once is unfortunate; to misinterpret it twice looks like carelessness – indeed recklessness.

The two events are part of a shocking erosion of values in the US and Australia.

For get all the rabbitting on about so-called “core values” of family, “reading, writing and arithmetic”, extra marital sex, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, the gay mardi gras and the like.

There are much more important values – values that the United States was founded upon and values which liberal democratic societies like Australia have fought for. Essentially they are about the liberty of citizens which can only be assured through the rule of law.
Continue reading “Forum for Saturday habib jan 15 2005”

The Liberal Party wants to remain the party of high taxation and high social security, judging by events of the past week.

A group of Coalition backbenchers has called for a reduction in the top marginal rate of tax and an increase in the tax-free threshold. The group argues that this could be done, given the Government will have a majority after July 1.

Finance Minister Nick Minchin immediately rejected the idea. Minchin said it was too easy to call for popular tax cuts without finding the equal (unpopular) spending cuts.

One of the oddities of the past two decades of Australian politics has been the way Labor delivered on the economic rationalist agenda and the Liberals maintained a semi-socialist outlook of higher taxation, higher public-sector spending and higher social welfare.

Labor reduced the top marginal tax rate from 66 per cent to 47 per cent. Labor began the privatisation push with the privatisation of the people’s bank. Labor deregulated the financial system and floated the currency. Labor cut Commonwealth revenue as a percentage of GDP, cut the Commonwealth Public Service and cut social security as a proportion of Commonwealth outlays.
Continue reading “Forum for Saturday 29 Jan 2005 tax cuts”

Paris has decided to take on one of the world’s silliest, most wasteful industries – bottled water.

This month it launched a campaign for people to drink tap water and to demand tap water at restaurants.

Paris city authorities think it is bizarre that they provide drinking water that is equal or better quality than bottled water, yet people are duped or lured into buying bottled water that costs between 250 and 3000 times as much per litre. They cite huge environmental costs of bottled water – the stuff has to be transported to retailers and the plastic bottles either end in landfill or go to costly recycling.

So they are taking on the bottled-water industry, using some of the industry’s own tactics – glamorous brand-name advertising. They have scrapped the name Sagep, which stands for Société Anonyme de Gestion des Eaux de Paris or Parisian Water Management Company Limited. In its place they have created the name Eau de Paris – sounds like a perfume.

Maybe the horribly acronymphomanic Actew should take note. Perhaps it should call its water Brindabella Blue or something similar.

The bottled-water industry is growing at around 10 per cent a year. Annual sales are at about $40 billion – about half the world foreign-aid contribution. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that 22 million tonnes of bottled water are transferred each year from country to country. Each year, 1.5 million tonnes of plastic are used, 90 per cent of which is not recycled.

Continue reading “Forum for Saturday 22 Jan 2005 water”

One of the most encouraging debates in Australia in 2004 was the one over reading.

I cannot recall another year when reading was the subject of so much discussion. It was an Olympic year; a year of wars and natural disasters and an election year nationally and locally.

It was astonishing that reading got such prominence. How well we read? How many of us cannot read? What role should government play in encouraging reading? How is reading taught? What do we read? Does it matter how well or what we read?

The question was politicised in 2004 in an unprecedented way. Opposition Leader Mark Latham, shortly after taking the leadership in December, 2003, made reading a major subject of his campaigning. He launched three reading policies: Bookstart, Read Aloud Australia and Read Aloud Ambassadors.

“This is a program to make more storybooks available to improve the literacy and reading capacity of all children in this country, to encourage parents to read to their children and to give them the opportunity to enjoy that great part of life,” Latham said.
Continue reading “Forum for Saturday 01 jan 1 2005 reading”