Ari on the web

Life's tough for Indonesia's atheists

2012-01-22T18:11:00.004+07:00

The plight of atheists in Indonesia has been attracting a bit of attention lately, with the sad case of the man facing five years in prison for doubting the existence of god in a Facebook post coming on the heels of this interesting profile on an atheist activist in the Jakarta Globe.

While Indonesia often prides itself on its religious tolerance, that tolerance is not readily extended to adherents of faiths or non-faiths beyond the six religions recognised in the Constitution (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism). And frankly, often adherents of those six have their rights violated, such as in the case of the East Java Shiites or the GKI Yasmin church congregation in Bogor.

Early on in my time in Indonesia, it was explained to me that Indonesians have a rather distrusting attitude to atheism. Many associate it with communism, which was demonised by Suharto after he ousted leftist Sukarno in 1965.

That may be part of it, but I think the explanation is a bit broader than that. Indonesians are a very spiritual people, be it in adhering to an established religion, the animist tradition or local folklore. To them, a person's religion is an inherent part of their character and identity, and so to deny your belief in a religion is to give the impression that you have all the facets necessary to be a fully formed person.

The commitment to rationalism the underlies most atheists' thinking is not well received in Indonesia. Here, people take their cues from leaders, from history and from superstition, and use that as the guide for acceptable behaviour. The idea that someone can assess the evidence before them and reach their own conclusion about the right course of action is unfamiliar, and perhaps even arrogant. Far safer, goes the thinking, to trust the judgement of others than to trust your own judgement.

Whatever the reason, there are very few people who publicly promote their atheism in this country.

Most foreigners who are atheists or believers of faiths beyond the six often decide that the safest option when asked about their religion in to nonchalantly declare themselves Protestants and let the matter rest. Engaging in a discussion on the topic can turn ugly quickly.

This can occasionally backfire for someone like me, who is atheist on matters spiritual. Last year, I was at a train station in Jakarta when an Indonesian man came up for a chat, and after the usual questions on where I was from, whether I was married and whether I had children, he asked my religion.

"Christian," I replied.
"Me?," he said, "I'm an atheist. So tell me, why are you a Christian? Why do you believe in god?"

Very good question. Served me right for not being more honest on these things.

Jeremy and Adelle, the singing diplomats

2012-01-14T00:09:00.004+07:00

A story of mine on Jeremy Stringer and Adelle Neary, the Australian diplomats making a name for themselves in Indonesia on TV talent show Asing Star, is in The Age today, and is available online here.

For those interested, here's the full version of the story I wrote, and a picture and a couple of video clips to go with it.

By Ari Sharp
Jakarta

When Adelle Neary and Jeremy Stringer came to Jakarta to represent the Australian government, they were both keen to strengthen the ties between Indonesia and its southern neighbour.

What they didn’t expect was to become celebrities in the process.

Neary, a 29-year-old from Adelaide, and Stringer, a 41-year-old from Fremantle, are the singing diplomats who have taken center stage in the television program Asing Star, and Australian Idol-type show that invites foreigners to sing Indonesian songs.

“What’s great about Indonesia is that they just like to see people up there having a go,” Stringer said in an interview at an upscale restaurant near the Australian embassy.

“In other singing contests, people actually want to become famous as a singer, whereas on this one the novelty is that you’re a foreigner who can sing in Indonesian,” Neary added.

Both have won two episodes of the Asing Star (“asing” means “foreign” in Bahasa Indonesia) and are in the running for a possible final planned by private broadcaster Trans 7 in the next month.

When the program launched last year, producers put appeals for contests out to major expatriate employers, including embassies.

Neary, who is in her first year of a three-year posting with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was a little reluctant at first to put herself forward because of a lack of performing experience. She’d had no formal voice training, and hadn’t sung publicly since her days in a school choir.

“I did what I now realise was an audition at their studio whereby they asked me some questions, took my clothes sizes, took a photo of me and then made me sing into a BlackBerry camera,” she said. “Then I found myself standing on the stage in the studio for a run through, and I realised it was really happening.”

Stringer, nearing the end of a four-year stint with the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), was a little more enthusiastic because of his years of singing in choirs at home in Western Australia, including one that had sung Indonesian songs.

“I turned a corner and boom, it was the whole deal,” he said of his first day recording. “A singer and dancers on stage, house band playing, celebrity judges sitting out front, the audience dancing, TV cameras and cables and technicians everywhere. My stomach dropped and I just thought, ‘I am supposed to get up there and sing in front of all of this?’ But despite the terror, I did, and it was fun.”

Each episode of the program features five foreigners singing a song each, with a panel of three judges – a sinetron soap opera star, a rock musician and a comedian – casting votes. The winner, or in some cases joint winners, go through to the next week. Each is able to win up to two episodes, making it through to a possible final if they do. Competitors come from all over the world – Brazil, India, Russia and the Ukraine have all had representatives on the show - and many are in Jakarta on short-term modelling contracts.

The show taps into the Indonesian curiosity about Westerners, particularly those who have taken the time and effort to learn the language and culture of the country. The tone of it is relentlessly positive, with contestants lauded for their willingness to have a go, even if they don’t always hit the right note, or choose the right word in a post-song interview.

The contestants each get to choose which songs they would like to sing.
For his first song, Stringer chose Bento, a song by rock icon Iwan Fals that stuck with him from his time in Indonesian in the mid-1990s and sent out a subtle but firm message of protest and social rebellion at a time during the Suharto regime when such things were frowned upon.

His second song was Alusi Ahu, in the traditional Batak language of North Sumatra. “One of the judges on an episode that I won said he was really proud that I could sing one of their national songs,” he said.

Neary’s first song Selimut Hati, was chosen with little thought because of time pressures, but it’s her second song that has really connected with audiences. Bengawan Solo is a popular song about the Solo River from generations ago and is seen by contemporary Indonesians as passe. Neary’s willingness to embrace its dagginess, and breathe new life into it, complete with retro dance moves during the bridge, endeared her to judges and fans.

Stringer and Neary are both realistic about the diplomatic potential of their involvement in the program, although their meeting with Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd early this week on his visit to Jakarta and a subsequent video of their brief chat did elevate its significance somewhat.

“It’s a bit of a getting-to-know-you exercise,” Neary said of the show. “It’s like the case in real life. The more you get to know somebody, the harder it is to impose a stereotype. So perhaps in that way, seeing a couple of everyday Australians up on the stage, singing in Bahasa and communicating in Bahasa in a pretty light-hearted and relaxed way, is an unexpected way to portray Australians.”

Stringer agreed, but saw some benefits flowing the other way. “I think Indonesia can seem quite inaccessible to Australians and I think that this experience might show Australians that [Indonesia’s] just like this, with normal everyday pop culture that is entirely accessible, that is entirely user-friendly,” he said.

As for the future, both say this is unlikely to prompt them to leave the diplomatic corp in pursuit of a singing career any time soon.

“Probably Australia’s interests are better served if I stick to my day job,” Neary said with a laugh. For now, though, she’s rifling through her extensive Indonesian music collection for a track to sing on the show’s Valentine’s Day episode.

The perils of being overly adaptive

2012-01-13T15:40:00.003+07:00

Following on from my post last week about prolonged sensory overload being the explanation for many of the behaviors you see in Jakarta, I read an interesting piece in the Jakarta Globe (my employer) by Farid Harianto providing a similar explanation, although in slightly different terms:

Carol Graham of the Brookings Institute makes a powerful argument that a human’s ability to adapt to inhospitable conditions is a good thing for his or her psychological perspective but at the same time facilitates collective tolerance that leads to bad equilibrium. Humans can adapt to almost anything from poverty, unemployment, bad health, and high levels of crime and corruption. Adaptation is a very good thing, a human defense mechanism under unfavorable conditions.

The danger arises when this adaptability leads to surrender. Rather than attempting to change an all but intolerable condition, people collectively assume, and expect, that such a condition is merely a constraint that they have to live with.

Tolerance, such as is evident in the way our citizens approach the dreadful daily traffic of Jakarta, has led us to a bad equilibrium. While individually one can develop a human defense mechanism to cope with traffic jams (installing good audio systems in their cars, carrying the most current mobile gadgets or changing hours of work), the social costs of traffic jams are enormous. Every year in Jakarta billions of dollars are wasted on fuel and lost working time due to traffic, not to mention the costs associated with the increased stress of urban life.

The key to harnessing the power of human adaptability is to invoke strong disincentives and to create a collective expectation regarding what are good and bad behaviors. In particular, socially bad behaviors should be codified and harsh punishment consistently applied to offenders. The essence of such a state is that the rule of law is strongly observed and enforced.

He makes a fine point. I wasn't familiar with Carol Graham, but I am interested to learn more. This paper looks like a good place to start.

Invest in Indonesia: Rudd

2012-01-11T13:42:00.002+07:00

Yesterday, I was among a group of Australian journalists participating in a briefing with visiting Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd on his visit to Jakarta.

I had a piece published in the Australian Financial Review on the discussion (page eight today, behind a pay wall online), but due to space limitations, there was no room for some of the content.

Here's the full version I wrote.

By Ari Sharp
Jakarta

The Australian corporate sector risks missing out opportunities in Indonesia as it moves toward its long-term place among one of the 10 largest economies in the world, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said on a visit to Jakarta.

Mr Rudd, speaking after meeting with the country’s new trade minister, Gita Wirjawan, urged large Australian companies to conduct one board meeting a year in Indonesia so that members could witness the growth in the world’s fourth most populous nation.

The Australian minister praised a trio of significant economic reforms that he said was part of “Indonesia 2.0” and made the country a more attractive destination to foreign investors.

The “landmark” reforms he identified were the introduction of 10-year tax holidays for many foreign investors, the passage by the parliament last month of a land acquisition bill that is expected to speed up the development of infrastructure, and the liberalisation of workplace laws that reduce barriers to the hiring and firing of staff.

The new trade minister, Mr Rudd noted, was a “dynamic figure” who would continue the “radical transformation of the Indonesian economy” instigated by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“The winds of change are definitely blowing when it comes to the liberalisation of this economy,” he said.

He noted that companies from several Asian countries, including South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, had established a firm foothold in Indonesia, but Australian companies had so far failed to take full advantage of its close proximity.

“There is a grave danger that this one passes us by,” Mr Rudd said. “It’s important now for corporate Australia to step up to the plate.”

While Australian companies have long had a presence in the nation’s resources sector, Mr Rudd said Indonesia was becoming an appealing site for investors in the finance and services sectors. Australian banks ANZ and Commonwealth have both established a significant presence in Indonesia, while Rio Tinto has a significant stake in a Papua copper and gold mine.

Indonesia’s economy grew an estimated 6.5 percent last year, and the country’s central bank has forecast growth of 6.3 percent in 2012. While the targets dwarf growth expectations in the West, they are lower than that anticipated by many other countries at a similar point in their development. These figures also represent a reduction from the seven-plus percent growth experienced during the latter period of the Suharto administration.

“This is not a small economy anymore,” he said, noting that Indonesia’s current gross domestic product of $900 billion could surpass that of Australia, which currently stands at about $1.4 trillion, by the end of the decade. He predicted Indonesia would be one of the globe’s 10 largest economies by 2050; the International Monetary Fund currently ranks Indonesia in 17th place globally.

Mr Rudd acknowledged that Australian companies doing business in Indonesia faced some risks, but that those were far outweighed by the potential benefits.
“Life’s an imperfect beast,” he said. “If we wait for nirvana to be produced… then we’ll miss the boat.”

His comments came less than a month after several protesters were killed at the port servicing a mining site in West Nusa Tenggara province operated by Australian gold miner Arc Exploration.

On his two-day visit to Indonesia, Mr Rudd met with ministers for foreign affairs, trade and agriculture.

Mr Rudd and Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa on Monday announced they had made progress on cooperative efforts to thwart people-smugglers, many of whom use Indonesia as a transit country before heading to Australia. The two said they would share information on the flow of asylum seekers, and that Australia would offer its expertise on detecting and preventing document fraud.

Mr Rudd said he was keen for Wirjawan and the Indonesian Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa to visit Australia soon to showcase the Indonesian economy to potential Australian investors.

Jakarta's sensory overload

2012-01-03T15:35:00.002+07:00

You don’t need to be in Jakarta for long to experience sensory overload.

Take the near-deafening noise that acts as the soundtrack to the city. Wander through the streets of Jakarta, and it’s not uncommon to hear people shouting in conversation despite being within a metre or two of one another. Many older vehicles have long discarded their mufflers, and trundle along the street inducing headaches in anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot. Head to a cinema, and the soundtrack is pumped out at a significantly louder volume than theatres in other parts of the world.

Or consider the street food that constitutes the diet of many Indonesians. A popular snack stand is simply labelled gorengan, which translates as fried. On offer are half-a-dozen different things – tofu, tempeh, banana, cassava and more – battered and deep-fried in cheap oil to the point where the ingredient at the core of the greasy delight is sometimes hard to locate. An essential condiment to gorengan is whole green chillies, which are liberally added. Salt, chilli and oil are the mainstays of Indonesian popular cuisine, and people embrace it.

Or look at the forms of entertainment that keep people enraptured. The Indonesian film industry exists largely of horror films. Most are needlessly and gorily bloody, with extended scenes of torture a common feature. Where horror films elsewhere rely on developing characters in whom the audience invest their sympathies and use the power of inferred terror to reach the dark side of viewers, such techniques are eschewed by Indonesian film makers. Instead, the characters are thinly drawn and the violence is bloody, graphic, and always front and centre.

On one level, you can treat these things as discrete, separate idiosyncrasies. But I think there’s a lot more to it than that.

On a social and cultural level, the Indonesia of today is not too different to the Indonesia of recent decades, the very place and time when today’s Indonesians were growing up. So people here grew up with thumping noise, palate-burning cuisine and graphic violence, and have over time developed a resistance to it. Adding to the phenomena is the frequent thuggery of Indonesia’s not-so-distant past. The norm for most people, therefore, is a high level of sensory input, so that on a sociological and even physical level, they become unfazed by it. This, for many people, is life as it always has been.

For any new sensation to make an impact, therefore, it must reach a level of intensity greater than that with which people are already familiar. Or looked at another way, people become far more tolerant of unpleasant environmental factors, so that the urge to object (say, to quagmire traffic jams that steal hours of your time each day) is less.

When I ride the Kopaja minibus, one thing often surprises me. The standard process for paying your Rp 2,000 fare is to wait for the bus jockey to wander up the aisle, his (and occasionally her) presence heralded by him shaking a handful of coins to create a tell-tale tinkle. It’s a distinctive sound, though a relatively soft one, and I always hear them coming behind me. But I’ve noticed that many Indonesian passengers seem oblivious to it, even as the sound is being made right behind them, and rely on being physically tapped on the shoulder before apparently noticing the presence of the jockey.

The prospect that the passenger is deliberately playing dumb (or in this case, deaf) to avoid paying their fare appears unlikely: everyone pretty swiftly is asked to pay up, and fare-evasion is virtually zero. More likely is that people have weaker hearing, either in a physical sense or in the social sense, that they are less attentive to the sounds around them and so block them out. Both are possible, and reflect the consequence of growing up in a noisy environment – it dulls your hearing.

Replicate that across all five senses, and you can appreciate that Jakarta can have a remarkable effect on those who grow up in it.

But I suspect the phenomenon reaches the sensory organs, and also affects people’s psyche.

Scandal after scandal has rocked the Indonesian political establishment, with each allegation of corruption and impropriety more tawdry than the one that came before it: lawmakers failing to attend sessions of parliament, bureaucrats signing off on resources contracts that undervalue national assets by billions of dollars, legislators brazenly accepting kickbacks to support the funding of certain projects at the expense of others, dozens dying as a bridge collapses after inferior materials were likely used in its construction.

The sense of outrage, however, is muted. Little of this is new, and decades of disappointment have meant that the standards the public expects their leaders to uphold are so low as to be negligible. Only the very rare scandal that can cut through the public’s collective thick hide – like the Muhammad Nazaruddin saga, in which a government legislator allegedly sought kickbacks for a construction project before running off to Colombia when he was found out – manages the inspire genuine anger.

Of course, there is an upside to this sensory and psychic overload for people who have grown up among it. It breeds a hardy resilience, meaning that no matter how long the odds of success might be, people persist and persist, and upon each setback, dust themselves off and try again. People are also forced to be more creative and entrepreneurial, finding something new and inventive to rise above the ordinary – thankfully, not everyone simply becomes louder, spicier or more visceral.

People are ultimately a product of their environment, and that has never been more evident than in the bustling metropolis of Jakarta. My entire thesis, I admit, is based on anecdotal evidence, but the unrelenting sights, sounds and smells of the city – let alone those things than affect the mind as well as the sense organs – surely have some underlying explanation. From my vantage point, this is it.

Not dead, just resting

2011-09-05T11:29:00.002+07:00

Apologies. It has now been more than two months since I wrote a fresh blog post. It was not my intention to leave things so long, but my copy editing work at the Jakarta Globe has been keeping me rather occupied lately. It's not that I haven't had ideas for things to blog about, just that the notion of spending a sustained period on the computer in my leisure time after doing a long stint in the office is too much to bear.

Not sure when normal transmission will resume, but it will happen at some point. I hope.

The Australia Network, from one who sees it

2011-07-04T10:33:00.005+07:00

With news the tender for the Australia Network has been delayed (and a further report that the ABC was on the verge of loosing the contract to Sky News), I figure now is a good time to offer my musings on the AusNetwork as someone who gets to see vastly more of it than those in Australia do.

Despite its somewhat grandiose claims to promoting Australia's national interest abroad, there's long been speculation that the primary purpose of the AusNetwork is, in fact, to give expatriate Australians (or parliamentarians on 'fact-finding missions') a slice of life back home.

And having spent Saturday night at a Jakarta barbecue at which a delayed telecast of the Sydney vs Adelaide AFL game was on the widescreen, I think there's some truth to the speculation.

For many expats, the AusNetwork is pretty much the AFL network. Check out the schedule here, and you'll see the network routinely broadcasts six AFL games (a few of them live) each weekend. It's more football than you'd get to watch on TV in some Australian cities.

But football aside, the Australia Network contains a few nuggets of good programs amid plenty of dross and filler.

The highlight is the couple of hours of news, made up of the news breakfast program and half-hour bulletins spread through the day. The bulletins tend to have a strong Australian focus (rather than being genuine world news bulletins) but are slick, well produced, and interesting. There is the occasional technical gremlin - much as there is with the rest of the ABC's output, it seems - but it does a decent job of filling viewers in on what is worth knowing.

There is the occasional moment that would no doubt perplex a curious foreigner keen to learn more about Australia. The coverage a fortnight ago of the anniversary of Kevin Rudd's downfall referred to the 'coup' Australia had experienced last year. While Australian understand the tongue-in-cheek way in which the term is used, it is less certain that people who have experienced genuine coups get the distinction.

It's pleasing to see that despite the theoretical restraint the network's role as a tool of Australian diplomacy places on its role as a credible and fearless reporter of news, there are no outward signs that it holds back. Seeing contemptuous reports on the gutter brawls that constitute a large part of Australian political debate is oddly uplifting.

To its credit, the AusNetwork does have some of its own correspondents scattered through Asia. In Jakarta, Helen Brown does a fine job of covering Indonesia, and there are other reports that have an undeniably global flavour to world events, rather than a parochial "what it means for Australia" attitude. All strength to its arm.

Once you move beyond football and news and current affairs, the AusNetwork can be rather dire. High rotation repeats of Australian drama (Packed to the Rafters, Tangle) get an airing, as do documentaries, many in the worthy-but-boring category. It's hard to get too excited about it, and given the interesting stuff aired in Australia, perplexing how it makes it to the front of the queue.

Beyond that, there's an eclectic mix of arts programs (a 1985 Midnight Oil concert to mark the 10th anniversary of Triple J was a Sunday night special a few weeks back) and educational content (a recent English-teaching program demonstrated the concept 'anti-' by pointing out Fred Nile is 'anti-homosexual') to round out the schedule. Nothing especially compelling, but probably worthwhile nonetheless.

It's worth noting that the AusNetwork seems to have few commercial advertisers. There are three of four advertisements on extremely high rotation, with the rest of the breaks between programs filled with ad nauseum promotions for upcoming fare. Watch too large a stretch and it will drive you crazy.

All up, it's not a bad service, but it's also not a great one either. Expats seeking to ward off homesickness would find it worthwhile, and curious foreigners would be left with a marginally better perception of Australia. But watching a few of the other equivalent networks (the French, Spaniards, Italians, Chinese and Japanese all offer something similar) you get the sense the Australian version is rather stodgy and restrained, struggling to reflect the country's dynamism.

A rethink in what it offers, regardless of who gains the contract, would probably be worthwhile.

Impact of Saudi-Indo tensions on Australia

2011-06-30T12:36:00.004+07:00

My debut contribution to the Lowy Institute's Interpreter blog has gone live:

On 18 June, Indonesian maid Ruyati binti Sapubi was executed by beheading in Saudi Arabia after she was convicted of murdering her employer who, according to Ruyati, had kept her in the country against her will. The action sparked an immediate and sharp wave of public sympathy in Indonesia. Within days, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a moratorium on Indonesian citizens heading to the Gulf kingdom for work, starting on 1 August.

While the issue has profound implications for the relationship between those two countries, it also has an indirect impact on Australia-Indonesia relations.

Here's why.

Read the rest of the piece here.

Badminton's fun. Who knew?

2011-06-24T11:58:00.008+07:00

In the part of the world where I'm from, badminton is more likely the answer to a trivia question than a sport people would play or watch. To many Australians, there's something just a bit twee and silly about the sport, especially when compared to the fast pace of tennis. But there are some parts of the world where badminton is all the rage: Denmark, Taiwan, and, yes, Indonesia.

This week is the Indonesia Open, one of the five premier events on the global badminton circuit. And so I ventured to the Istora indoor sports venue, which sits in the shadows of the Gelora Bung Karno stadium that was the site of my Persija Jakarta experience last Sunday.

I went along on Wednesday, the opening day of the main competition - and really enjoyed it.

The element I had previously dismissed as a weakness of the sport - the unusual movement of the shuttlecock through the air - is in fact its great strength. You see, no matter how hard you strike a shuttlecock, and it has apparently been clocked at 320 km/h, by the time it reaches your opponent's side of the net it has slowed dramatically due to the drag of the feathers on the shuttle. So speed and strength alone win you very few badminton points.

Instead, you need to get creative, moving your opponent around the court, pushing them to one side then the other, into the net and to the baseline. Points are miniature psychological battles rather than competitions of brute force.

The unusual aerodynamics of the shuttlecock also mean that even when one player appears dominant during the progress of a point, there's always an opportunity for their opponent to fight back. Where a smash would usually be the end of the matter in a tennis point, the same is not the case in badminton.

Throw in the excitement of a rather adolescent Indonesian crowd cheering on their compatriots and the carnival atmosphere that surrounds any big international sporting event, and it's hard not to have a fun day out. With the tournament running until Sunday, I might just make a return visit.

Sporting dreams can come true.

Luckily, the shuttlecock never travels too far.

In-do-ne-sia Ba-bam-ba-bam-bam

Tobacco maker Djarum doing all it can to get 'em while they're young.

Football fanaticism, Jakarta style

2011-06-20T09:59:00.013+07:00

There are few things that give you a flavour of a city more than thronging with fans at a sporting event.

And having spent an afternoon shouting myself hoarse with the Jakmania fanatics that drape themselves in orange in support of Persija Jakarta, I can confirm that the Indonesian capital is no exception.

Yesterday was their final game for the season in the Indonesia Super League of soccer (or football, to the purists), played in the imposing concrete cauldron that is Gelora Bung Karno in Senayan. The home side was taking on PSPS Pekanbaru, hailing from an utterly unremarkable city on Sumatra.

I went to the game with a small dose of trepidation given it was the side's first home fixture after a several-week ban imposed by police following a small riot outside a game in early April.

Still, emboldened by curiosity, I followed the crowd of enthusiastic young supporters who had gathered on the curb not far from my home, waiting for a bus. After wading through the inevitable macet (traffic) that fills the streets, even on a Sunday afternoon, I made it to the stadium that hosts political rallies when it's not hosting sporting contests.

This description, published a few weeks back, is rather apt:

The Bung Karno Stadium, right in the middle of the city, holds 88,000 people and is just about everything you would expect of a soulless stadium rented out for religious meets, political rallies and civil service entrance exams, built with Soviet help in the early 1960s.

So having paid my Rp 30,000 ($US3.50) to a scalper - I could find no legitimate ticket-seller from which to make a purchase - I headed into the stadium. Cautious about my own safety and not wanting to dilute the atmosphere, I headed a few bays away from the hardcore Persija fans, who are part of a slightly obsessive club that calls itself Jakmania.

Jakmania takes the tradition of choreographed singing, chanting and dancing that characterises enthusiastic soccer crowds the world over, and adds a massive gulp of red cordial. Every fan - with the exception of the handful of curious foreigners - goes along with the actions dictated by the cheerleading fan co-ordinators, who stand on a scaffold at the front of the crowd.

As with many things in Jakarta, there is a rather unrestrained quality to Persija supporters, where many of the social and legal constraints that have been imposed for decades in other parts of the world are ignored.

Supporters will unashamedly unleash the full power of an aerosol-can hooter in the ear of a fellow fan. The waft of cigarette smoke (unremarkable given Djarum are a major sponsor) is sensed near-constantly. Flares will be let off on a regular basis to celebrate a goal, a win, and even a view that an opposition player ought be given a red card. And despite a wire fence and imposing moat of several metres' width between supporters and the arena, fans will try to rush the field.

Exhausting, sure - but also a heck of a lot of fun. In the end, Persija won 3-0 to pick up third spot. I reckon they can step up a level next season. I'm certainly keen to go along to find out.

Might leave my hooter at home, though.

Fans waiting for a bus an hour before the game.

These supporters were armed with instruments, and prepared to use them.

There was a vein of patriotism running through the vocal support, as the Indonesian flag attests.

The field itself was lush and green, and the standard of soccer pretty solid.

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL

"You put your right hand in..."

As in the 1970s, flares are all the rage.

Sadly, Collingwood supporters were a little thin on the ground.

Bashir verdict

2011-06-17T12:38:00.012+07:00

So Abu Bakar Bashir will serve 15 years for terror - if the verdict can survive the appeals process, which has not been the case following past convictions.

I suspect the verdict will bring some relief to victims of terror attacks that Bashir has previously been associated with,including the carnage of Bali in 2002, even if that connection may not have been provable nor criminal under the laws in place at the time.

It will also send a wave of relief through the Indonesian government, for whom the inability to obtain a terror conviction against Bashir was a source of embarrassment, given his notoriety.

Keen to see things first-hand, I headed down to the South Jakarta District Court complex yesterday to watch the verdict unfold. There was no shortage of company, with about 1000 Bashir supporters from Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid watched over by several hundred members of the Jakarta police and a strong contingent of journalists.

The Bashir supporters were certainly vocal, but at no time did it look like tempers would boil over. The police, however, were prepared in case they did - the firearms, riot shields and tank were hard to miss.

As is traditional with Indonesian trials, coming to the verdict itself was a painfully slow affair. Despite the determination already having been made, the judges read aloud a meticulous account of the evidence against Bashir before announcing the verdict, uniting all those outside in a strong view that whatever the decision, the judges should just get on with it.

There is plenty being written today about the implications of the verdict, and at this stage I have little to add. But I thought it was worthwhile to publish some of the photos I took yesterday in an event that amounted to a strange carnival of justice.

Police were strict in checking trucks and buses heading towards the courthouse. Even though it was more than 10 kilometres away, all the commuters on this Kopaja were forced by police to step off and be checked for weapons.

At the courthouse, members of JAT were thronged alongside heavily armed police.

Bashir is considered by many as Indonesia's bin Laden.

The heat during the day sapped the energy of many who had gathered.

In court, Bashir sat in front of the judges, with several dozen supporters crammed in behind him.

This tank did not need to be used - its mere presence was a strong enough signal to Bashir's supporters.

After the verdict, many of Bashir's supporters jogged in circles around the courtyard in a mock training drill, in an apparent nod to the paramilitary training camp Bashir was accused of funding in Aceh.

Five ideas to tackle Jakarta's traffic congestion

2011-06-06T09:55:00.006+07:00

It's a cliché for expats in Jakarta to complain about the 'macet', the traffic that clogs many roads much of the time and makes trips through the city ordeals of epic proportions. It's also a cliché for new arrivals to to offer a magic bullet solution, usually prefaced by the phrase "If only they'd...".

But I'm different. I don't offer one silver bullet solution. That would be folly. Instead I offer five ideas that each would make things a little bit easier, and if combined would have a significant impact on the congestion of the city's roads. It would be naive to expect they could leave the cities roads unclogged - this is a place of 9.6 million people according to the official count - but they would leave them flowing a lot better than they do at the moment.

Indonesians recognise things have got to change. A recent study from the Jakarta Transportation Agency put the cost of congestion at 46 trillion rupiah ($US5.4 billion). And late last month President Yodhoyono ordered the governor of Jakarta, and five other regions, to fix their traffic problems.

So the will is there; it's now a question of finding the right solutions. Here are my ideas.

1. Get the trains working
Surprisingly for a city of a love-affair for all things petrol-fuelled, Jakarta has quite an expansive train network. The goal of using trains to shuttle people in and out of neighbouring cities has crated a network of inner-city stations that have the potential to be thriving transport hubs.

But the service is woeful. Services don't seem to run to a timetable and often leave passengers waiting half an hour for a service. The rolling stock is packed to the gills, leaving many gasping for air and others surfing on top. And the trip is physically and mentally draining, with trains a haven for pickpockets, beggars, buskers and sellers of trinkets.

So do something about it. Jakarta would do well to invest in new rolling stock to boost the frequency of services. All those commuters who have been scared off trains by the prospect of long waits and a packed carriage would give the service another look, and a significant number will be tempted from their car or ojek. Once the trains are moving, they get to destinations far quicker than any vehicle battling traffic.

Expanding the network is desirable, but a trickier prospect. As mentioned, the existing lines are primarily designed to service Jakarta's satellite cities. Building new lines to look service to suburban areas alone is likely to cost plenty, and prompt plenty of land acquisitions that would cause no shortage of angst. In short, it ain't gonna happen and probably shouldn't.

Quality train services are nothing new to Java. The long-haul intercity services - such as the one from Jakarta to Yogyakarta - are smooth, comfortable and reliable. There's no reason why this similar approach couldn't be taken to shorter services.

2. Expand the bus network
The TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta is more like a light rail service in other parts of the world. It operates on main roads, vehicles travel along dedicated bus lanes, and the stops every half-kilometre or so are elaborate bits of infrastructure cleverly positioned in the middle of the road, accessed by pedestrian overpasses.

The network, which now has 10 corridors criss-crossing the city, is a relatively recent addition to Jakarta's transport, but is its best functioning element. There are few experiences that give you more hope that the chaos can be overcome than sitting on a bus as it zooms past gridlocked traffic.

Which is why the network needs to build upon its success. More corridors servicing more neighbourhoods. There are still plenty of major roads with considerable space to facilitate a bus lane, either through appropriating an existing traffic lane or through claiming some of the land that sits in the middle of thoroughfares.

There is no reason why the density of routes can't be increased so that people can be taken closer to their destination. There's also no reason why the breadth of the network can't be expanded to take in the fringes of the city.

When you're on a good thing, stick to it.

3. Scrap the petrol subsidy
Many countries tax petrol, both for environmental reasons and to boost government coffers. Indonesia does the opposite, offering a generous subsidy for petrol consumers through the state-owned Pertamina.

The policy has disastrous consequences. Rising world oil prices coupled with fixed prices at the pump is squeezing state finances as the subsidy rises to meet the gap. It's likely that other government programs will be suspended to accommodate the petrol payoffs, or alternatively the country will deepen its reliance on foreign aid. According to this report, in the first four months of the year, the state paid 29.2 trillion rupiah ($US3.4 billion) in petrol subsidies.

Cheap petrol means drivers have little incentive to get out of their cars or off their ojeks. And in the long run, vehicles powered by alternative fuels such as biofuels and hydrogen have little chance of entering the market.

The state budget does allow the government to increase the price at the petrol pump, pushing some of the cost of a scarce resource onto consumers. Such a move would be politically unpopular, but is necessary to protect the budget and unclog the roads. The social unrest of scrapping the subsidy entirely would be great, but were the move to take place in smaller increments and the reasoning properly explained to the public, it would be palatable.

4. Allow easier U-turns
In an effort to unclog the roads, Jakarta has taken the admirable step of separating traffic heading in one direction from traffic heading in another. So if you happen to approach a road from one direction and need to head the other, you need to push forward until there's an opening in the road the enables you to carry out a U-turn. Often the next opportunity to do so will be a kilometre or two up the road, which is not an unreasonable distance to travel away from your destination if the traffic is moving smoothly, but is an epic distance when stuck in a vehicular quagmire.

The upshot is that a whole lot more vehicles spend a whole lot more time on the road than they would otherwise.

So relax the turning rules, let people go the direction they want to go, and reduce the length of time vehicles are on the road. While the change would risk creating a new point of chaos, as vehicles more frequently seek to enter or exit their lane, the reality is the slowness of the traffic would provide ample opportunities to do so painlessly.

5. Clear the footpaths for easier pedestrian movement
Many would sooner travel by pogo-stick along a Cambodian minefield than would jauntily wander down the footpath of a Jakartan street. Most footpaths are filled with hazards that disrupt your journey - broken pavement, parked ojeks, flower pots, resting police officers and kaki lima food vendors among them. Add to that the noise, pollution and danger caused by the cars nearby, and you're left with a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

So, what to do about it? Move commercial activity off the pavement, and onto the many side streets and lane ways that come off the main roads. Move the ojek parking bays there, and set up zones for the kaki limas. Remove the advertising hoardings, pot plants and other impediments that might look nice to some but inconvenience many. Stop motorcyclists from using the footpath as an extra traffic lane when the roads are clogged. And redirect some of the funds currently pouring into road projects into improving the state of the footpaths.

As with any change like this, enforcement needs to start soft and get hard. Alternative places need to be established, and people need to be nudged into using them. And if the nudges don't work, then you get a little more forceful. But it needs to happen.

Travelling by Shank's pony is never going to be a substitute for many trips taken by car or ojek. But it will be for some. Shorter trips within the one neighbourhood and trips from home or workplace to the nearest train or bus station would be done on foot by many people - if the conditions are pleasant enough.

So there you have it - five ideas to get the city moving. None of them easy. But none of them too hard. And the rewards at the end are worth it.

Animals and Indonesia

2011-05-31T08:33:00.007+07:00

Four Corners last night aired a disturbing story about the appalling conditions in some Indonesian abattoirs involved in slaughtering cattle exported live from Australia. The painful, drawn-out killing of the cattle was the stuff of nightmares, and reflects badly both on the Indonesian abattoirs and their staff, as well as the Australian meat industry figures who knew there were problems but allowed it to continue.

It has been interesting to observe the way animals are treated in Indonesia. Not well, in many cases. Monkeys are dressed in silly outfits and forced to perform stunts on the side of the road. Live chickens are strung up by their feet, tightly clustered in batches as they are transported to the market. Scrawny cats are kicked and teased by children as they scrounge for scraps of food in piles of rubbish.

In a way, these things are not surprising. This is a poor country in which many people are struggling to make ends meet. Animals are considered almost exclusively for the benefits they can bring their human owner - be it as food, a source of entertainment or a means of obtaining a modest income. Any entitlements they might have as living creatures is ignored.

Beyond that, Indonesia is also a country with a history of violence, in which people have been arbitrarily subjected to pain, suffering and incarceration. That this might breed a rugged approach to the treatment of animals is sad but expected.

Not that these things are excuses for mistreatment - but they do serve as a useful explanation.

A few weeks back I visited one of the streets of Jakarta in which pet sellers ply their trade. While the photos are not nearly as distressing as the abattoir footage, it does give some insight into the treatment of animals here.

Not much fun being an animal in this part of the world.

Suction cups, ear candling and other bunkum

2011-05-30T11:00:00.004+07:00

I'm a sceptic. And proud. I mean 'sceptic' in the real sense, not the way it has been used as a euphemism in the climate change debate for a head-in-the-sand denialist. (As it happens, I suspect a real sceptic would rationally assess the evidence and conclude there is reason to take action to reduce carbon emissions, if only as a precaution against calamity.)

My scepticism is all about seeking out evidence to assess a given proposition, and stripping out emotion and subjectivity in working out what is genuine, and what is merely wishful thinking.

For that reason, I'm doubtful about the merits of medical treatment outside the mainstream. My reasoning is best encapsulated by the quite brilliant Tim Minchin and his beat poem, Storm:

“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue
“Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”

For me that knocks out homeopathy, pranic healing and a variety of other treatments so kooky and devoid of evidence they seem only useful as an announcement to the world of the person's gullibility.

But my scepticism of alternative medicine does come with a small caveat. I'm willing to try almost anything, in order to test it for myself and personally acquaint myself with its proponents' bunkum. So long as the risk of harm is minimal, the cost reasonable, and the risk of humiliation no greater than I might experience on a Japanese game show.

My theory on these things is that there's often a significant placebo effect at work. If your ailment is minor and you're willing to suspend disbelief, some of the fringe treatments can actually have a positive effect. Not because the treatment itself has any desirable physical properties, but because the sensation of being pampered, cared for and briefly removed from the hustle and bustle of daily life can have a therapeutic benefit.

The zen music, burnt incense and darkened rooms that seem to accompany many alternative therapies are the true source of the feeling of wellness that often goes with treatment. The benefit is incidental to the alternative therapy rather than a direct result of it, but it is there all the same.

All of which explains why few weeks back I found myself, while on a trip to Kuala Lumpur, signing up for a double hit of a Chinese cup massage and an ear candling. Not together, mind you - best to focus on one at a time. In the interests of medical science, you see.

I had my doubts about the effectiveness of either of them, but with little downside I was willing to give it a go. (The perception of 'little downside' is actually off the mark. I hadn't researched the treatments much beforehand, but there is some evidence that both carry risks - of burns in the case of the cupping and perforated eardrum in the case of the candling.)

So just what are the supposed benefits of the cup massage. As the American Cancer Society explains:

Cupping is a practice of Chinese medicine recommended mainly for treating bronchial congestion, arthritis, and pain. It is also promoted to ease depression and reduce swelling.

Cupping is supposed to realign and balance the flow of one's vital energy or life force called qi or ch'i, pronounced "kee" or "chee." In the presence of illness or injury, proponents say, the qi is disturbed and there may be too much or too little at certain points in the body. The practitioner diagnoses any imbalances in the qi and attempts to restore them. Although not widely used as an alternative method of treatment for cancer, some practitioners may use it to rebalance energy in the body that has been blocked by tumors.

Righteo. Can't say I'm afflicted with any of the ailments identified for treatment, but restoring imbalances in energy distribution must surely have some positive effects.

I entered the massage room and soon I am lying face down on a bench behind curtains, feeling mellow and at peace with myself and the world. That continued right up to the point when the first cup was applied, the suction pump set to work, and the flesh of my shoulder involuntarily pulled some distance from my skeleton. Then the second cup was applied, again tugging at my back against its will, and the process continued until a dozen or so cups were in place.

What I hadn't realised before starting was just how much flesh is pulled into the cup. I imagined the cups to be applied with the sort of strength you can experience when you place a cup at your mouth, sucking in some of the air to hold it in place. There's some suction, but not the sort that causes any great pain to your mouth. The quantity of suction during the massage is several multiples of that.

So once the cups were in place, they stayed there while the masseuse left me to lie still, stare at the ground, and ponder what the hell was happening to my back. While the sensation was only mildly painful, it was certainly not pleasant, and most definitely not the sort of thing likely to prompt relaxation, no matter how much incense and Enya is in the vicinity.

Eventually the masseuse returned, ready to relieve me of the cups. Off they came, one by one, each time a part of my back silently cursing me for subjecting them to such cruel and unusual punishment. After they were all removed, my back felt oddly tender, slightly itchy and with considerable stretches of raised flesh chaffing against my shirt. This was not pleasant during the deed, and certainly not present afterwards.

That night, I returned to my hotel room in mild discomfort. Taking my shirt off and examining myself in the mirror revealed why.

Ugly, red, raised welts stared back at me, atop many of them small bubbles of fluid that I associated with severe sunburn, suggesting some burning had occurred. These welts and bruises took more than a week to subside, through there does not appear to be any long-term damage.

It is difficult to know just how the sensation of redistributed energy ought to feel, given I'm not a believer in the concept in the first place. So I can't say for certain that the massage has failed to meet that goal. But I can say with certainty is that it has brought me little pleasure or relaxations, either amid the massage or after it.

With the bruises on my back still lingering, two days later I tried out ear candling, a therapy that was of particular interest to me because of frequent build up of wax inside my ear canal. Could this be my cure, I wondered, given nothing else seemed to fix the problem?

According to WebMD, this could be the therapy for me:

Ear candling is an ancient practice that supposedly removes wax from the ears, thereby improving physical and spiritual well-being.

I entered the massage room, lying down on my back and with my head tilted to the side. The masseuse took out the candle and rested the bottom of the candle on top of my ear. After wrapping a small cloth around the lower part of the candle, she lit the top. Just what happened from here is a little hard to tell - as the recipient of the ear candling, it's difficult to observe what is going on.

In my candled ear, I heard a soft burning sound - the sound you hear when listening to a matchstick burning. The sound would gradually become louder as the candle burned closer and closer to my ear, but at no point made me feel like I was in danger.

After a quarter hour or so, amid a flourish of her wrist, the masseuse theatrically blew out of the candle. She then unravelled the lower part of the candle and revealed a small pile of powder. The wax from my ears, the masseuse triumphantly said. I was in no position to argue, although previous tests have shown that the powder displayed after ear candling is nothing more than the wax and soot from the candle itself.

I flipped my head to the other side and my other ear was candled, another pile of powder purposefully presented as evidence of my poor aural hygiene.

Sad to say, in the hours that followed my ears felt much as they had before, with a gently annoying waxiness that I have become used to. The candling brought little pleasure as it was taking place, although I do admit the head massage that I received at the same time was rather nice. Perhaps I should stick to that next time.

After all that, my back was sporting bruises and my ears may have had more wax than they did before and I more stressed than I did beforehand. But I was wiser for the encounter - I can now state with the confidence that comes from personal experience that suction cups and ear candling are nothing more than lures for the gullible.

Prison no impediment for terrorists

2011-05-19T10:24:00.002+07:00

New research from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute suggests Indonesia's prisons, far from setting terrorist inmates on the straight-and-narrow, are giving them space to organise themselves and plan new attacks.

The full report is available here, but Greg Sheridan has two interesting pieces on the study in The Australian today.

In his news piece, he summarises the research thus:

TERRORISTS have set up shadow governments in Indonesian prisons, recruiting members, sending money from jail to jail and, at least once, co-ordinating an attack outside.

They run businesses, use mobile phones to preach sermons to followers outside and dominate prison mosques, says a report released last night by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

And in his analysis piece, he explains the significance of the research:

It is worth noting that this kind of fresh, empirical evidence is as precious as gold in the war on terror. Instead of attributing motives and causes and syndromes to the terrorists, often enough projecting our own fantasies on to them, let's actually ask them why they did what they did, look at their life experiences, what they plan for the future, and see what we can learn.

Fascinating. And disturbing.

Corruption forum

2011-05-18T16:21:00.005+07:00

I went along to an interesting panel discussion on corruption in Indonesia, hosted by the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club (of which, I'm happy to say, I'm now a member).

Despite only two of the four advertised guests attending - Donal Fariz from Indonesia Corruption Watch and Amien Sunaryadi from the World Bank - it was useful to get some understanding of the challenges faced in combatting corruption in one of the world's most corrupt large countries.

The panellists were confident that the right systems had been put in place to tackle corruption, but the challenge was for them to be properly implemented. The panellists talked of powers that have been granted to corruption-busting bodies, primarily the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, that hadn't been utilised.

In some cases, instances of corruption were being dealt with by offenders merely having to repay their illgotten gains - hardly a penalty likely to discourage people from trying their luck.

I asked the panellists whether part of the problem was that corruption was so endemic in Indonesian society that there was no longer public outrage at examples of corruption. They seemed to agree with the sentiment, and suggested that public enthusiasm for honest governance was an important part of eradicating corruption. As to how to achieve that, ideas were scant.

Afterwards, I spoke to a researcher who had been coming to Indonesia for 15 years. He said he remembered coming to similar forums in the late 1990s, where experts would piously talk about the need to thwart corruption, but there was little result.

Hopefully we won't be having the same discussion in 15 years time.

UPDATE 19/5 - This post prompted me to think back to a really clever proposal for combatting corruption I read a little while ago.

From Cafe Salemba:

I think it is good to have competition amongst anti-corruption squads or law enforcers. Think this way: a corruptor can bribe the police, but, in competition, the general attorney office or KPK will still be more than willing to arrest him/her - and vice versa.

Now you may want to say: what if the corruptor bribe them all? It's possible, but at least it is now more expensive to do so than with single anti-corruption office. The competition raises the corruptor's cost of wrongdoing and make anti-corruption more efficient.

And some follow-up discussion at The Chronicles of a Capitalist Lawyer and back at Cafe Salemba.

Inside a tragedy

2011-05-17T08:53:00.003+07:00

The Jakarta Globe yesterday published a very fine account of the horrible racial pogrom in February in which three members of the Ahmadiyah sect were killed while police watched on.

Ahmad Masihuddin, Irwan and Bebi are the lucky ones.

Ahmad recalls the moment when a man attempted to mutilate his genitals, while Irwan has developed an intense fear of water. Bebi cannot speak, due to a dislocated jaw, and must eat through a straw.

Read the rest here.

Malaysia's awkward mulitculturalism

2011-05-16T10:07:00.006+07:00

Last week I spent a couple of days in Kuala Lumpur, taking in the fantastic sites and smells of a city that's small enough to function smoothly and large enough to keep a curious tourist amused, for a few days at least.

But one thing you can't help but notice when you arrive is the creepy 1Malaysia campaign, the touchy-feely multicultural propaganda effort that appears based on the notion that if you hit people hard enough with a message they'll meekly acquiesce.

Peering down at you from billboards, dominating bus stops and even blaring through your car radio are state-sponsored messages of happy diversity, emphasising how harmonious the relationship is between Malaysia's three main ethnic groups - Malays, Indians and Chinese.

Not content with plying people with images of multicultural children smiling as if they miss out on dinner if they don't, the campaign uses the distant stare of Malaysia's prime minister, Najib Razak, to ram home both its message and his election prospects.

What makes this particular propaganda effort so cloying is the vast chasm between it and reality. Malaysia is a country built upon racial division, divvying up entitlements based on race. In an supposed effort to help them overcome previous disadvantage, Malays are given access to opportunities denied their Chinese and Indian countryfolk.

In Kuala Lumpur, at least, the three groups seem to live very separate lives, residing in their own neighbourhoods and socialising among their own. Not surprising, perhaps, but what is disturbing is the extent to which these divisions are fostered by the state.

It has a long histry. The driving force in Malaysian politics since before the country's independence in 1957 is UMNO, the United Malays National Organisation, and it remains dominant today.

While notionally the ruling party is Barisan Nasional, comprised of a variety of political organisations (including those representing Chinese and Indian interests), it is UMNO that dominates its operations, holding a monopoly on its leadership.

So in this context, it is hard to take a campaign promoting the benefits of racial harmony seriously. Fine sentiments, certainly, but they fly in the face of reality and, frankly, insult the intelligence of anyone who is exposed to it.

In the words of Shakespeare's Queen in Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Sadly, even fine things such as the crystal fountain outside The Pavilion shopping centre not exempt.

Trying accused terrorists

2011-05-09T20:52:00.005+07:00

News that prosecutors have decided against seeking the strongest possible penalty for Abu Bakar Bashir is a disappointment to those of us that want to see the legal system are the primary forum for seeking justice against terrorists.

The prosecutors' decision emerged in a Jakarta court hearing today into terror offences. The prosecutors have dropped some charges and are now seeking life in prison rather than the death penalty.

According to Agence France-Presse:

Prosecutors at his trial in Jakarta said the charge of providing firearms and explosives for terrorist acts, for which the 72-year-old preacher could have faced the death penalty, "could not be proven convincingly".

The charge of inciting acts of terrorism was also dropped, leaving only the accusation of providing funding to a terrorist group, for which the prosecutors sought a maximum life sentence.

Bashir's fellow travellers in Indonesia may complain at the severity of the sentence sought (as they did at the court hearing today) but the reality is that a severe penalty needs to be in play given the gravity of the offences.

Though the Jemaah Islamiyah figurehead escaped penalty for the group's involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings, the Indonesian justice system proved itself capable of handling terror cases with the successful prosecution of several others with a more direct role in the mass slaughter.

Without prejudging Bashir's guilt, if prosecutors are unable to mount a case that would lead to the most severe penalty for someone of Bashir's seniority, it makes it harder for the rest of us to have faith in the court system as a means of justice in terror trials.

(This should not be confused with the broader debate over the merits of the death penalty. The decision not to seek it was not due to the ethical argument against it. So long as it remains the harshest penalty on offer in a judicial system, it ought be used for the harshest of offences.)

The issue is thrown into particularly stark relief by last week's treatment of Osama bin Laden. While his death is no shame, the fact he was sent off to his disturbed notion of heaven through the bullet of a SEAL's gun rather than following a judicial process is a disappointment.

Next time militaries around the world close in on high profile targets, the contrasting fates of Bin Laden and Bashir will make the easy kill all the more tempting.

And we will be collectively poorer for that fact.

Starry, starry night

2011-05-07T09:43:00.004+07:00

There are few things sadder in the world than children who grow up not seeing the stars at night. Staring up at the skies in wonderment is a universal experience across time and place, but there are some who get the opportunitiy only rarely.

Jakartans are in that category. The abundance of light and pollution generated by the city makes it impossible to see anything in the sky at night beyond a haze and the occasional glimpse of moon.

Which is perhaps why it was so thrilling to go to Jakarta's planetarium yesterday. Seated on the fringes of several schoolgroups, I found it heartwarming to hear their shrieky excitement as the room went black and the 'sky' was filled with twinkling stars.

A great way to spend an hour in Jakarta. A bit of a shame it's harder to experience the real thing.

Ossie, Ossie, Ossie?

2011-05-05T12:36:00.010+07:00

Burdened by an insatiable curiousity and too much time on my hands, last night I ventured to witness the rally held in honour of Osama bin Laden at the Islamic Defenders' Front (FPI - Front Pembela Islam) facility.

The FPI have a reputation for hardline religious values on a swathe of moral and social issues (see the Wikipedia listing for the history), so it's little surprise they would leap on the bin Laden death as a cause célèbre.

At the rally, my lack of Bahasa Indonesia language skills only put me at a marginal disadvantage - much of the evening was spent shouting condemnation of Barack Obama, the United States, Israel, and even on one occasion, Australia. Meanwhile any mention of bin Laden was met with rousing cheers. And all was followed by folksongs, though thankfully we were spared Kumbaya

It was the usual rah-rah ranting and raving to the true believers, who in this case numbered about a thousand and were overwhelmingly male.

I went along because I was curious to see just how vehement and widespread ran the sympathy for religious fundamentalism in Indonesia. The reality is that in this little pocket, the anger runs deep - but there is no reason to think that it is reflective of the wider population.

For the most part, Indonesians are the victims of terror rather than the perpetrators. Though many might share a religion in common with bin laden, they see him and his band of merry terrorists as impediments to achieving a decent life rather than a help.

So Singapore

2011-05-04T09:28:00.004+07:00

My partner and I last night jumped online to buy tickets for the World Netball Championship 2011 happening in Singapore in July.

The experience of buying the tickets, through the ticketing agency SISTIC, was a great reflection of the often Orwellian Singapore mindset.

Soon after you start the purchasing process, a message in red tells you that your IP address is being monitored. Sure, many websites might record your IP address, but few would have the gumption to tell you: "Your IP address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX is being recorded for your security." (emphasis added)

Then when you get to the point of choosing your seating category, the drop down menu invites you to choose your price. On the list lies just a single item - "Standard Price".

And finally when buyers are attempting to select seats, the drop down menu carries a bewilderingly large array of options, leaving by far and away the most tempting option being the one at the top - "Let the system assign the best seats".

So welcome to Singapore, where you're being spied upon and told it's for your own good, where choice is often an illusion, and where the system is omnipotent.

Osama's death raises Indonesia terror risk?

2011-05-02T23:21:00.003+07:00

Tom Allard writes in the Fairfax papers on Tuesday that Indonesia is preparing for a post-Osama attack on Western interests:

INDONESIA is bracing for retaliatory terrorist acts targeting Westerners as it emerged that the country's most wanted militant, Umar Patek, was arrested earlier this year in the same Pakistani town where Osama bin Laden met his end.

The country's anti-terrorism chief told The Age that he "definitely" expects an attack.

"Every terror action [from the perspective of violent Islamists] will be replied by another attack," said Ansyaad Mbai, the head of Indonesia's National Anti-Terrorism Agency.

It's a sensible analysis, trading on the notion that bin Laden was of significant symbolic rather than practical value to the jihadist cause, a view I suspect is close to the mark. The abundance of willing foot soldiers in Indonesia and a renewed sense of injustice is the right formula for further violence.

It's pleasing that Osama is no longer a threat - although frankly, a court hearing and a life behind bars is preferable to what occurred - but we need to be realistic about what might follow.

My durian debut

2011-05-01T19:07:00.004+07:00

I've only been in this fine city a few weeks, but I already have a contender for my favourite little afternoon tea spot: The White Box, in Menteng.

The place exudes funk, with a white theme throughout the cafe only interrupted by the occasional bit of faux-graffiti wall art. The staff are nonchalant but get the job done, while the menu has enough quirky and unusual items that the sheer length of it (a common feature of Indonesian menus) is not as off putting as it as at other places.

Even though I was there on a quiet weekday afternoon, there was some live acoustic music happening out the back, with the resident strummer making fine use of his six-stringer. Come back during a busier time, and I suspect the place would be a hive of activity.

It was here that I popped my cherry - to use a culinary metaphor - for a distinctive Indonesian fruit: durian. Okay, so it was in the form of a durian mousse cake. But with the warnings attached to the fresh durian, a food that has been known to make grown men quiver and reduce seen-it-all old ladies to tears, I thought is safest to start with something softer.

The durian is a complex fruit, it's smell so overwhelming that it is banned from a multitude of places, including the kitchen at our accommodation. From all reports it's pungent and tenacious, but generally lacking the pleasant flavour to make those characteristics tolerable.

Dilute it in a creamy mousse, however, and it's a different story. When given a generous helping of sugar, the flavour become rather pleasant and the subtler parts that I suspect are normally overwhelmed when the fruit is eaten on its own come through. The mousse cake at White Box was a fine demonstration.

I'm sure there are many excellent places in Jakarta I'm yet to discover - if many can match the overall awesomeness of White Box, I'll be impressed.

As for durians, having sampled the mousse cake, maybe I'm ready for something more potent.

Going, going, gone...

2011-04-30T19:46:00.004+07:00

A quick rant before returning to more important matters...

When I let this blog rest idle in 2007, I thought hard about whether to remove the content or let it remain online. In the end, as I explained in my final post, I didn't think it was fair to try to remove from easy public access things that had once been in the public domain.

Clearly, there are many who take a different approach.

As part of reviving this blog, I have been checking the links that run on the right hand side in what I called my 'ego file' - writing of mine that had been published elsewhere. Sadly (for me rather than anyone else) almost all the links are now broken, the operators of the relevant websites evidently choosing to ditch the old content as they moved onto new publishing systems.

Which is a great shame, when you think of how much other material online is disappearing, most of it of far greater interest and historic value than my scribblings. It's particularly galling given the argument of constrained space applied to previous generations of media is redundant online.

That content is a significant part of history - think of how fundamental the online world is to understanding any contemporary political or social development. Making that material difficult or impossible to access damages our ability to understand the past.

True, there are worthwhile attempts at archiving material (such as the National Library of Australia's Pandora Archive and Internet Archive's Wayback Machine), but they are only ever going to scratch the surface of the content on the internet worth preserving.

So with that frustration, I'm yanking down the links to some of my previous work on the right margin. Not that it's much good to anyone, but for posterity's sake, I present links to stuff that was once online and in most cases now isn't:

AJN - Hephzibah
AJN - Alec Sharp Obituary
AJN - La Maison de Nina
Aust.Pol - 2001 Election
Aust.Pol - 2002 Election
Aust.Pol - Letters from Israel
Beat - Headlock
Beat - Melbourne Art Fair 2006
Beat - Stephen K Amos
Beat - Who Killed The Electric Car?
Crikey - Debate with Hillary
Crikey - North Korea Travellogue
Election Tracker - Senate
Election Tracker - Republic
Election Tracker - First Timers
Election Tracker - Election Night
IPA Review - Kim and Capitalism
NZ Comedy Festival - Connell and Wiggins
Online Opinion - Labor's Woes
Tasmanian Times - Senate Voting
The Program - Take Me Out
The Program - Irshad Manji
The Program - Scorched Happiness
The Program - The Corporation
The Program - 400 Columns
The Program - Spatial Theory
The Program - 12 Angry Men
The Program - 2005 MICF - 1
The Program - 2005 MICF - 2
The Program - 2005 MICF - 3
The Program - 2005 MICF - 4
The Program - 2005 MICF - 5
The Program - Phobia
The Program - Second Helping
The Program - A Devil Inside
The Program - Cho Revolution
The Program - Measure For Measure
The Program - Telegraph Hill
The Program - Lano and Woodley
The Program - Shrimp
The Program - Tim Minchin
The Program - The Wrong Night
The Program - Sam Simmons
The Program - Michael Chamberlin
The Program - Mark Watson
The Program - Mannix
The Program - Hijacking Catastrophe
The Program - Hephzibah
The Program - The Key
Travel Rag - Morocco
Travel Rag - North Korea
Travel Rag - Bangkwang Prison
Vibewire - Australia, China, US
Vibewire - Life on the inside
Vibewire - North Korea
Vibewire - Africa - Aid or Trade?
Vibewire - Cross Media Ownership
Vibewire - Clyde Prestowitz
Vibewire - Scott Ritter
Vibewire - Zaki Chehab
Vibewire - Labor's Woes

Monumentally tasty

2011-04-29T21:35:00.004+07:00

Gotta love a country that can take the mickey out of its own national monuments.

Above, Jakarta's Monas. Below, the soft serve icecream of the same name.

Always something for sale

2011-04-29T09:29:00.003+07:00

Drive along the roads leading up to the highways and thoroughfares of Jakarta, and you'll see plenty of people sticking their thumbs out. They're bumming a ride. Well, sorta.

In fact, they're offering themselves as 'jockeys' to cars who want to take advantage of the express lane on roads reserved for cars with three or more occupants. Paying for an extra rider (or two, in the case of a mother-and-child combo) might cost a bit, but it will get you out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic that fills the main roads during peak hour.

The extra-passenger jockeys are perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the fact that people in Jakarta are entrepreneurial, forever seeking out opportunities to make a few thousand rupiah.

In large part the entrepreneurial spirit is driven out of necessity - there's no decent welfare system in Indonesia, so those who can't fend for themselves or fall back on family will soon find themselves destitute. The threat of going hungry at night does tend to make entrepreneurs out of most people.

But Indonesians - well, Jakartans at least - are rather canny at finding business opportunities. You see it when travelling on the bustling trains, where every conceivable product is presented for sale by merchants that wander up and down the aisle. A cold drink? Cigarette lighter? Children's picture book? They've got it.

Such trinkets are available for sale from wandering sellers up and down every major street. With prices of just a few thousand rupiah for most items and a decent meal costing several multiples of that, it's tough to see how the sellers earn enough to survive. Some probably don't.

It makes you wander just how much more rapidly Indonesia might develop if these enterprising minds and extra pairs of hands were put to more productive use. There are no shortage of major infrastructure projects that would lift the quality of live in Indonesia; there is an abundance of natural resources that could be harnessed (exploited?); and there is cheap enough labour costs for Indonesia to be a major manufacturing base.

Surely these plus-one jockeys and trinket sellers would be ready and willing to take a decently paid job in one of those more productive areas if one was available to them?

Before long they would be better off, and so would the country.

Even if it would leave motorists stuck in traffic and train travellers' thirst unquenched for a little while.

Hung out to dry?

2011-04-28T08:55:00.003+07:00

Does the Russian embassy in Jakarta have a Hills Hoist on its roof?

A nod to the Australian embassy, perhaps, which sits on the other side of Jalan Rasuna Said.

The noise annoys

2011-04-27T17:18:00.004+07:00

Pssst. Happy International Noise Awareness Day.

Nope, I didn't realise it existed either, but apparently today is the 16th time it has been held.

I found out about the day thanks to a wonderful group of activists I met this afternoon gathered at Bundaran HI, Jakarta's largest roundabout.

If any city needed to think about the noise at which it functioned, it would be Jakarta. Day and night, the city is filled with people, animals and machines generating a cacophony of sounds that make it hard to hear even the most blatant of personal bodily eruptions.

Take our place. Even indoors, and some distance from the street, we hear the imam from the local mosque preaching to the heathens through a megaphone; we hear the announcer at the train station booming at commuters with incomprehensible messages; and we hear the constant growl of cars, bikes and buses, many of which seem to have been built during a strike by the muffler-makers union.

Go a little closer to the street and you can add the sales pitch of the warung and kaki lima food stalls, the music pumped out at the larger shops, the animals at the market, the equipment on construction sites and all manner of other sounds.

Some of the noise is unavoidable, but there is plenty that could be controlled - if the will was there. Drivers beep their horns far more frequently than is necessary, often just as a look-at-me statement to no-one in particular. Many shops draw attention to themselves by pumping out music at a volume that strains the speakers. And train stations (there's one near us, making me acutely aware of it) broadcast their indecipherable message at a thunderous volume.

It's as if there's "sound inflation" at work, where each raises their volume to be heard over the other. Go soft, and you won't be heard.

Enough! So say Masyarakat Bebas-bising (Noise-free Community), the small but determined group behind the Jakarta gathering.

They are running a campaign calling for the city to have two hours a day at volumes of less than 90 decibels, and seven hours a day of no more than 70 decibels.

While I have no tool for measuring volume here, by this chart I would be surprised if the main streets of Jakarta had sustained periods below 95 decibels during daylight hours.

The campaign, carrying the slogan "sayangi telingamu... sayangi masa depanmu" ("love your ears... care about your future"), points to the many sources of excessive noise: traffic, music, heavy industry and terror attacks. Can't argue with that.

Good luck to them in their campaign, but I don't like their chances. Noisiness seems to be ingrained in the psyche of Jakartans, perceived as a natural way of functioning. Unlike in other cities, there's no shame attached to being a generator of loud noise, or any sense that your noise might be causing inconvenience for others. To change the noise levels, you need to change the mindset of the noise makers.

A tough task, but a noble one. Jakarta would be a finer place if it was a little quieter.

Sure beats window shopping

2011-04-26T13:39:00.006+07:00

Indonesia does have a reputation for an authoritarianism, which makes it all the more refreshing to see the challenging series of sculptures that are scattered around Grand Indonesia, (probably) Jakarta's most glamerous shopping mall.

Confronting statements on life, love and labour are on display, and most veer far from the agitprop pseudo-art that acts as a substititue for creative expression in many parts of the world.

The art at Grand Indonesia is is art that forces people to confront the status quo and think for themselves, a provacative concept itself in a country that attaches such a high value to groupthink.

It is quite telling that it is not a gallery that provides a home to these sculptures, but a shopping mall.

In the West, shopping malls seem to be havens for bland inoffensiveness in which people can mentally switch off as they administer a hefty dose of retail therapy.

Most likely, the confronting art on display at Grand Indonesia would never appear in a mall in many other nations. The fear of offending someone - on the grounds of religion, wealth or merely good taste - would be too great.

Thankfully, the folks behind Grand Indonesia are a more open minded. All power to them.

Here's a sample.

I might add some more over the next few months.

ANZAC dawn

2011-04-25T09:02:00.004+07:00

I've just returned from the ANZAC Day dawn service in the inner city Jakarta suburb of Menteng Pulo. The venue was the Jakarta War Cemetry, a little oasis of quiet amid towering residential blocks and the sights and smells of kampung life.

While Australians and New Zealanders represented the bulk of the several hundred people in attendance, there was also a generous contingent of Indonesian veterans and soldiers, diplomats and civilians from several other nations.

Like most ANZAC Day service, it was a simple affair that prompted those in attendence to think about themselves and their circumstances. Its power derives from its quiet understatement.

The cemetery for Commonwealth soldiers is a remarkable place, with nearly a thousand soldiers buried in minimally marked graves amid immaculately maintained lawns. Among those whose final resting place is here are 96 Australians.

Just why so many Commonwealth soldiers met their maker here, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website explains:

Jakarta War Cemetery therefore contains the graves of many who died in defence of Java and Sumatra during the swift Japanese advance in 1942 and many others who perished afterwards as prisoners of war.

The humidity of Jakarta, even before the break of dawn, meant that the service was a far warmer experience than is ever likely in Australia. And where Australians at home tend to dress to keep warm - those not in uniform, that is - the Jakarta ceremony was one that called for a degree of formality.

It was humidity - yep, let's blame that - that prompted many to seek an amber ale, which they were doing in great number at the official gunfire breakfast at one of the city's swank residential apartments.

An ANZAC Day to remember.

First impressions last

2011-04-21T12:48:00.004+07:00

You learn a lot about Indonesia in the first few minutes after landing at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport. Those hanging out for the petty bureaucracy, small scale corruption and smog-filled traffic jams that makes Jakarta the city it is need not wait long.

Soon after landing late last Thursday afternoon (on a day that started before dawn in Sydney), I joined with many of the 150 others who had just disembarked on a flight from Singapore in the queue for those who bought a visa on arrival. Buying the $US25 visa off the friendly teller was no trouble - it was the queue to get it processed that inspired frustration.

Fanning ourselves with passports, airline tickets or well-thumbed copies of The Economist, we sweltered for more than an hour as we awaited service. In front of us, just two of the eight booths established to process visas were open, and attending those two were a pair of bored looking Indonesian officials who had probably encountered their fair share of aggrevated foreigners.

With agonising slowness, the duo processed the paperwork of the tourists, lonely hearts and (no doubt) drug runners who occupied the queue. Once each person reached the front, they were given the once-over by the officials keen to protect their patch of turf - why are you here? how long are you staying for? do you have a ticket to depart?

Just when we thought the queue could move no slower, the two officials found themselves dealing with a particularly tricky group of arrivals. Perhaps they'd been too honest with their answers. Perhaps they had no onward ticket. Or perhaps the official was fearful that the queue was moving too fast and needed to be arbitrarily halted.

With the two officials occupied, the line moved not an inch in ten minutes. The heat and stress put tempers among new arrivals on a low boil, but with us eagerly awaiting permission to enter, righteous anger was unlikely to help the cause.

Every so often, new arrivals would move swiftly past the back of the counter. A curious site, I later discovered that such express treatment was attainable for some uang rokok ("smoking money"), apparently Rp 50,000 (about $US5.80).

More than an hour after joining the queue, my paperwork was processed and I was through to the next stage. The customs check was mercifully swift, although it was hard not to notice the half dozen bored customs officials who without too much effort could have been assigned to the visa on arrival queue.

But such is the way in Indonesia (and in many other parts of the world) - the bureaucracy is designed to benefit the bureaucrats, with service a secondary concern.

Leaving the confines the airport, the forecourt was awash with taxi touts eager to please. "Where you going, mister?" they shouted with wearied voices. "Singapore," I replied more wearily, inspiring flummoxed "crazy bule" looks from the drivers.

Eventually we found our driver and hit the road.

The highway into downtown presents an impressive sight. Staring across the city you see a phalanx of tall structures - some completed, some in progress, and some abandoned - interspersed with kampung housing and stretches of green space.

The city appears to be largely unplanned, with housing, offices and factories all located close to one another, sometimes unnervingly so.

Once beyond the highway, we reached the suburban streets of south Jakarta, and with it the traffic for which the city is legend. Five lanes, all heading in the same direction and all at a standstill. Taxis, buses, ojek (motorcycles) and bajaj (goggomobiles) all belching plumes of smokes out of their exhaust, giving the streets a smoggy haze.

As a new arrival, every intersection and every traffic jam brought with it something new to capture the imagination, so it was not so bad to be crawling at the pace of a particularly lethargic snail. A few more weeks in the city, though, and taking the traffic with good humour might be a tad trickier.

Eventually we made it to our accommodation, tired and a little stressed, but glad to finally be here.

Jakarta has a lot of fine features, that in the week since arriving I'm slowly discovering. But sadly that fineness is well hidden to new arrivals, who are far sooner encountering the aggrevations of the city. Still, what a city it is!

Selamat datang and all that

2011-04-20T13:19:00.004+07:00

Now, where was I?

A little over four years ago I let my blog lie dormant because I had taken a new position at The Age. I had a fantastic time there, was given some great opportunities and met some incredible people (being a business reporter amid the global financial crisis and a politics reporter during the downfall of a Prime Minister is hard to beat). But my wanderlust was getting the better of me and last year I left the paper to seek other opportunities.

Now, I'm less than a week into my time in Jakarta, a heaving mound of humanity that serves as the capital of Indonesia. My plan is to settle down, get to know what makes this place tick, and potentially pick up some work along the way writing, editing or teaching.

Throughout, I'll be sharing it with you on my blog. I'll be writing about Indonesia, its people, its politics, its culture, its economy, its place in the world, and its food. Ah, the food. Who knew so many things would taste so good when deep fried?

Indonesia's a place with a palpable sense of excitement. Now more than a decade on from the stiff autocracy of President Suharto, the place is home to a lively free press, an active civil society, a steadily growing economy and a growing assertiveness abroad. There is a sense that this is a place on the make, one that is capable of great things if the power of its 240 million people can be unleased.

But its one bugbear is corruption, which infects almost every encounter with authority. There are no shortage of fine words being uttered on the need to combat it, but so far it appears to be too great a beast to tackle.

So keep an eye on the blog as I do my best to bring you the most of the humidity, the energy and the chaos of this sprawling metropolis.

And now, the end is near...

2007-02-07T18:21:00.000+07:00

After two-and-a-half years, 572 posts, and a lot of late nights that could have been spent watching Letterman, AOTW will enter a permanent hiatus. It's been a fun journey, traversing an ecletic range of topics in a way that impressed some and bemused many. I've said plenty of things that I'm proud of, and a few that I regret, but either way I've enjoyed the process of finding my own voice and claiming a small soapbox as my very own.

I've been debating with myself whether or not to take the AOTW archive off-line. In the end I think I'll keep it accessible, both because of the reality that once something is published it can never really be unpublished, and because I think readers are intelligent enough to realise that one's past can never be a guide to one's future.

Now I'm moving on to greener pastures, having started this week as a trainee reporter at one of Australia's most influential newspapers. The blogosphere is regularly gloating over the impending demise of newspapers, but yet so much blog content is derived from them. Much like newspapers survived radio and television, they will survive the technological age. Indeed, more than merely survive, newspapers are making this new media their own. It really is an exciting time to be a part of it.

Whatever happens from here, I'll know one thing for sure: I did it my way.

Musings on a sorry State

2007-02-05T16:01:00.000+07:00

On Saturday I returned from my five week sojourn to the United States. Whilst I landed with the best intentions in the world to share my wild ride with my blog-post parched readers over the weekend, I ended up doing rather more pedestrian things, like overcoming jetlag and shopping for groceries. Come Monday, I commenced my new job (more on that soon) and so my opportunities to write about the trip are rather limited.

So, rather than the careful, sober analysis that such a trip deserves, I offer up a few random thoughts on things that captured my imagination.

The United States is a sick society, caught up in a pique of hyper-consumerism in an unsuccessful attempt to fill the psychological void of post-industrialism. It's nothing new to suggest that literally everything is for sale in the US, but it's still unnerving to see it close up.

A few examples help illustrate the point.

Inside many trains on the New York subway is wall-to-wall advertising for self-improvement of all kinds, from hair regrowth to breast enhancements to anxiety medication to eyebrow threading to hokey Jesus-love. Staring at that for an hour commute day after day can't help but leave you feeling woefully inadequate about things that are perfectly normal. Buying your way to physical and mental perfection is destined to fail, but it doesn't stop people buying and selling the dream.

Enormous serves of food are the norm, as if the mound of fatty morsels on the plate are an emblem of prosperity and success. An abundance of fast food outlets sell an abundance of sheer mediocrity, and people lap it up unthinkingly. Overwhelmingly, these places focus exclusively on the quantity of the food sold and make no claims as to it's quality.

Unthinking displays of patriotism dull the critical senses. The ubiquity of flag needs to be seen to be truly understood, with flags on most buldings, appearing on many cars and incorporated into a large number of corporate logos. Sadly this jingoism corrupts public debate, with ideas evaluated not according to their inherent value, but according to their degree of patriotism. One need not show that an idea is a good one, but that it is "the American way" or that it is "what the founding fathers intended". Witness the debate over the troop surge in Iraq or gun control. Patriotism, not efficacy, becomes the most important measure of worth.

Interest in celebrity has reached the point of obsession. America has spawned a generation of deeply vain but utterly talentless fresh meat who become famous for nothing more than their own vacuousness. The latest generation of celebrity themed reality shows insult their makers, their participants and their viewers, but still they are enthusiastically lapped up. I'm still not sure whether the reality TV show idea I heard was satirical or genuine: a group of nerds compete for the right to lose their virginity to an attractive celerity. Such an obsession with the famous surely reflects deep personal inadequacies amongst those who gawk admiringly.

Individually, these examples mean little, but taken together they present a picture of a society in a deep malaise. Accepting the massive difficulties of generalising about an entire nation, especially one as diverse as the United States, it seems that American society has entered an intellectual paralysis and has lost the ability to reflect on itself. Headstrong consumerism, with a foreign policy to match, has become a substitute for taking a long hard look in the mirror.

There are, of course, a few noble exceptions to the slow collective suicide of American society. A spectacular array of street press provide witty, incisive commentary on the state of the nation, and show a keen eye for feature writing and investigation that their more conservative daily newspapers could learn from. Kudos ought go to papers such as The Village Voice, the Austin Chronicle, the Chicago Reader and New Orlean's Gambit Weekly. The indefatiguable folks at The Onion still continue to pump out satire that hits just the right note.

American society is a great society, and we ought be eternally thankful for it fighting and winning the two great battles against tyranny of the twentieth century, first against Fascism and then against Communism. We must stand side by side with it in its battle against a third tyranny, Islamic fundamentalism. One hopes that it can shake off its cultural and intellectual mediocrity, which is condemning its people to an endless cycle of trashy pop culture and unthinking patriotism.

One final snippet comes in the form of a minor controversy over the lack of release for of a subversive black comedy my Office Space director Mike Judge. According to John Patterson at The Guardian:

The plot: in the future, the educated and intelligent will be massively out-bred by moronic A-type prison-fodder and Nascar idiots, to the point that all knowledge of engineering, agriculture, medicine and literature will be lost to misty memory. Luke Wilson plays ordinary Joe Bowers, chosen to be frozen by the military in 2005, who accidentally wakes up in 2505 to find a broken-down, thuggish America where language has become a patois of football chants, hip-hop slang and grunts denoting rage, pleasure and priapic longing, where citizens are obese, violent, ever-horny and narcotised by consumerism, TV and fast food. Everything's branded, and people have names such as BMW, Mountain Dew and Frito. TV features the Violence Channel (its signature show: "Ow, My Balls!") and the Masturbation Channel ("Keepin' America 'batin' for 300 years!"). The President's a Smackdown champ and porno superstar, and there's a mulleted wrestler on the billion-dollar bill. And everyone in the future thinks that Joe Bowers, suddenly the smartest man on earth, "talks like a fag".

There is venomous anti-corporate satire throughout the movie, remarkable mainly because Judge names real corporations. I was astounded - and invigorated - by the sheer vitriol Judge directs at these companies, who surely now regret permitting the use of their licensed trademarks. Like fast-food giant Carl's Jr, which in 2006 sells 6,000-calorie burgers the size of dictionaries under the slogan, "Don't Bother Me, I'm Eating". In Idiocracy, this has devolved into "Fuck You! I'm Eating!" And every commercial transaction has been sexualised: at Starbucks you can get coffee plus a handjob (or a "full body" latte).

Forget straight-to-DVD: this thing should be compulsory viewing.

Deep in the heart of etc, etc

2007-01-30T03:35:00.000+07:00

Having spent almost a week in Texas, I'm disappointed to see that it's not nearly as Texan as I was expecting. San Antonio is a big city with lots of fat lanyarded conventioneers flocking into town to eat overpriced shrimp and slap other fat landarded conventioneers on the back.

Austin is a little nicer though, like a slice on Byron Bay in the heart of Far North Queensland. It's a fun city, with plenty of live music, some supurb improv comedy, a mayor called Will Wynn (I shit you not) and an unofficial slogan "Keep Austin Wierd". That's my kinda place.

UPDATE 5/2, 7:50pm. In response to the comments:

- Austin as Byron Bay was not meant as a geographic reference but as a cultural reference. Whether it's in Queensland, New South Wales or Timbuktu is irrelevant to the comparison I was making.

- I'm trying to imagine the conversation I might have with this Jason Traxal: "Hi Jason, my name's Ari from Australia. An anonymous person told me to look you up and tell you that you played basketball with him in Melbourne four years ago. Do you mind showing me around Texas?" Too long a bow to draw, I'm afraid.

- The improv comedy I saw in Austin was the excellent Available Cupholders in their 27 January show, which featured a wonderful long-form narrative play based around a colourful crime gang known as The Wheels, each of whom possessed their own set of, er, wheels. For what it's worth, other classy improv was seen in the forms of the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles, who performed an improv battle between Jews and Christians (Baruch-Ha-Ha-Ha vs The Kings of Kings of Comedy... very cute) and some slightly underdeveloped work by the Peoples (sic) Improv Theatre in New York.

Can I, y'know, help you?

2007-01-18T10:45:00.000+07:00

Normally I like nonchalance in people who are delivering services to me. I don't want my waiter to be a sycophant, my station master to stress out or my airline steward to twist an ankle in my service. Still, quite often in this country, service is beyond nonchalant - it's just plain rude in its cantgiveafuck-ness.

I had a nigling feeling that something was not quite right on my first meal in Los Angeles after landing. After being shown to our seat at a 1950s-themed diner, our waiter roused himself from his comfy booth and approached us. With earphone still wedged in his left ear, he flung some menus in my direction, and returned a few minutes later only to ask "Yeah?", which we soon learnt was an invitation for us to recite our order.

This was far from an isolated experience. On many occasions, you can't help but get the feeling that your mere presence as a customer is intruding upon the leisure time of the person you are trying to deal with. From Greyhound, to Walgreen (a Walmart spin-off) to many a suburban Chinese restaurant, apathy is the norm.

As a few people have pointed out along the way after experiencing similar mediocrity, never is the adage that you get what you pay for more true. Though it has just been increased, the minimum wage is low by European and Australian standards, and there are plenty of people who are working at this wage, plus tips, of course. When someone is being paid such a meagre amount, its little wonder that they struggle to summon the energy to care. The fact that businesses can survive with such poor service suggests that most customers are willing to tolerate it if it means that prices stay low. As always, it's a trade-off: good service requires paying your staff decently, which requires increasing the cost to the consumer. It is a cost few consumers are willing to pay.

There are a few exceptions of course to this "low cost, low expectation" model of service delivery. Starbucks, who are as ubiquitous as the stereotype suggests, charge a little more than most for their products, but their staff are remarkable in their friendliness and courtesy. In a country in which these values appear in short supply, it is most welcome.

Boom! Chicago

2007-01-18T10:36:00.000+07:00

The front page of the tabloid commuter giveaway in Chicago this morning reads "Obama-rama", and this Barackaphilia has spread nation wide. Obama, a local Illinoisan, has only just dipped his toe in the Presidential waters, but he has received a reception normally reserved for deity making the presence felt on earth. He's charming, charasmatic, and oh-so-electable. For newspaper editors sick of the tiresome partisan politics that has become entrenched since the numbing effects of September 11 wore off, Obama is a breath of fresh air.

Having said that, being the leading candidate 21 months out from election day is a bit like leading the Melbourne Cup at the first turn. There is plenty more of the race yet to be run. Leading up to '04, Howard Dean was the lead Democrat significantly closer to the Convention, but by the time the big day came around he was no where to be seen. Still, for Democrats this is an exciting time, and Obama is an exciting candidate, and one wonders whether any of the more seasoned Republicans can compete in the popularity stakes.

Pricey internet means few posts

2007-01-12T07:04:00.000+07:00

Sorry

UPDATE 12/1, 7:30pm: It also means mysteriously misspelling easy to spell words. The US is a strangely unreflective society, steadfastly refusing to take a moment to think but instead indulging itself in an orgy of mindless consumption. It's a society with a sense of entitlement, where the very idea of leaving an urge unsatisfied in frowned-upon. The cultural differences are subtle, but the collective mindset is more obvious.

Los Angeles Carpark

2006-12-31T03:49:00.000+07:00

It's stating the bleeding obvious to state that Los Angeles is a car-city, but it really is tragic to see. Large parts of the city are little more than undergirding for a network of concrete freeways that head in every concievable direction in all their loud, imposing ugliness. Urban areas are dark and unpleasant to wander around, with carparks dominating areas that in most other cities would be for shops, parks and urban space for people rather than vehicles.

The public transport system is adequate without being great, but it seems to take an almost apologetic tone, conceding early that it is a second choice and used only by those too young, old, poor, disabled, foreign or ethnic to get behind the wheel of an SUV. Apart from the superficial problem of a lack of transportation for non-drivers, its effect on the life of the city is depressing and obvious.

The almost biblical devotion to the motor car is laden with politics. To Americans, their car is their sanctuary of freedom and individuality, a private space away from the unclean and uncivilised masses outside their doorway. It is a place they can exercise complete control over their environment (the irony that they are enslaved by their vehicles is apparently lost on them) and their destination. Any attempt to suggest that they would be better off without it is met with derision and suspicion.

Intercity transportation is also laughable without a vehicle. The three hour journey from Los Angeles to San Diego took seven hours via Greyhound. The company routinely sells more tickets than it has seats, so passangers may need to wait for the second bus or beyond (with intervals beyond an hour for each bus) before getting on board. At the bus terminal, the management are clearly believers in the principles of minimalism, when it comes to both signage and cleanliness. After two hours at the terminal, we finally boarded. Half way to San Diego, we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the laughably titled freeway, with mostly single-occupany vehicles on the road blocking our path. As a bus, we received no priority access. To an outsider, it was obvious that the two problems were linked in a vicious circle: because the bus service is so poor, most people drive themselves, resulting in traffic which slows the bus and hence worsens the service. Repeat ad infinitum. If only more of these selfish drivers were to jump aboard, our journey would be so much quicker.

Hola, Senor from California

2006-12-31T03:39:00.000+07:00

It's kind of ironic, really, that after being parched for cheap and fast internet access in Los Angeles and San Diego, its only once I arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, that I can sit and internetify to my heart's content. So much for affluence delivering good things in abundance!

Perhaps the most noticable thing soon after arriving in Los Angeles is the prevalence of Spanish. Southern California is a genuinely blingual part of the world, not in a patronising 'to help out those who are learning English' kind of a way, but in a way that the two sit side by side with equal validity. In some neighbourhoods, English is the minority language, with an abundance of signs, newspapers and overheard conversations all in a lightening-fast Latin American Spanish. At first it's rather charming, and you catch yourself almost apologising for speaking English to someone who's preferred tongue is far more latin. They feel no need to reciprocate the apology.

Early on its rather charming, allowing an exotic foreign adventure in downtown LA. After a while, though, it becomes clear that the language divide is merely symbolic of a far greater divide. Many of the neighbourhoods of SoCal (Southern California, dummie) are hispanic neighbourhoods, with a withered appearance and a quiet poverty-stricken desperation in the air. Mind you, many of the English-speaking neighbourhoods appear just as run down. You can't help but wonder about the limited life opportunities available to Spanish-only speakers, whose job prospects are limited and whose participation in civil society is limited to the Spanish-subset. It's easy to see how early after arrival, native Spanish speakers find it comforting to be amongst speakers of their own langauge. When this divide continues a generation later, it represents a failure of integration.

Coming to America

2006-12-25T04:21:00.000+07:00

I'm on the road again...

Today I'm heading off to the United States for five weeks, to see what there is to see. Initially I was keen to do a Red State tour of America, visiting the southern states which in recent generations have become a Republican stronghold. Alas, by the time I spent a decent period on the very blue east and west coasts, my time in the middle was squeezed. Kind of symbolic of the way most of us see the country.

So the itinerary? Los Angeles, San Diego, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, St Louis, New Orleans, San Antonio.

Going to be in town? Drop me an email. You know the drill.

Normal transmittion with continue from the AOTW OB van. Stay tuned.

Undergrad Reflections: Your time is up

2006-12-25T04:09:00.000+07:00

I'm sorry to say that like most uni students, I've left things to the last minute. This time, though, I've run out of time. I had some other observations I wanted to make about my time as a student, but haven't found the time to make them. Perhaps at some future point I'll return to this project and find voice once again.

As an aside, last Wednesday I was just a few minutes away from graduating when I was afflicted with a brutal case of kidney stones. Alas, I didn't last long enough to nod in the direction of the VC and receive my certificate, so my graduation remains ellusive. Most likely I'll graduate in abstentia and receive the certificate some time early next year. My time as a student goes on just a little longer!

Undergrad Reflections: Student Politics 2003-2006

2006-12-23T19:56:00.000+07:00

I've decided to cluster together these last four years for two reasons: firstly, I was strictly a spectator rather than a participant, and secondly, because my departure overseas is imminent, and I want to get this thing written before I head off.

The defining event of this period was the liquidation of student union. The event meant that a generation of the Labor Right wannabe student pollies were ashamed to show their face, and the task was left to more junior students on campus. As for the left, they found themselves in the rare position of being the responsible economic managers, and were quite effective in making this point.

One of the most interesting trends to watch has been the steady growth of the Liberal presense on campus. Early on, it was virtually non-existant. Perhaps mindful of the strong anti-Liberal feeling on campus, Liberal students were reluctant to wave the Liberal banner high. For a while, they aligned themselves with the Labor Right, running joint campaigns and driving a wedge between the left and right factions of the Labor Party. In recent years, the Liberal banner has been waved loud and proud, and with a moderate amount of success. In 2004, the Liberals had a dominant position on campus, occupying a number of positions in Union House. An extra-ordinary position for the party to be in.

Perhaps the best bit of politicking seen in my time on campus was the introduction of Incentive Voting. In effect, it's the application of the principle of compulsory voting to a campus context, but with the use of lunch vouchers for voters rather than fines for non-voters. It's damn hard to argue against, and it's electoral effect is devastating. In the absense of incentive voting, it's generally hard-core lefties who come out and vote, keenly aware of their civic duty. Moderate students, however, have better things to do with their time. In this environment, left wing factions dominate. Under incentive voting, however, the moderate, apathetic and hungary all coalesce and turn up at the polling both keen to exercise their right, and the dynamic of the election changes. From memory it was used in 2002 and 2003, and its ability to both boost turnout and the centre-right vote is extraordinary.

It's instructive to see that on average, university students are far more moderate, or even conservative, than their reputation suggests. Campus elections are generally a process of self-selection and so this average is not reflected in electoral outcomes.

Another manifestation of this is the lack of militancy on campus. In my first year, I remember the excitement of seeing the occupation of the Raymond Priestly Building, the rather austere brick building in the centre of campus which houses the Vice Chancellor and the university bureaucracy. Upset at some global injustice probably beyond the reach of the VC, the protestors took over the building en masse locked themselves inside and hung banners from the side. With loudspeakers and a decent food supply, they looked set to continue the occupation for days at least. Before long there were police on horseback, journalists, and a mass of curious rather than committed students loitering at the bottom of the building.

I stood with a group of onlookers on the side. The whole thing appeared amazingly infantile and counter-productive. The protestors all looked and sounded like mad socialists, and worst of all they looked beyond reason. With a group down below, we talked to each other and found that all of has had hardened our position against the cause espoused by the protestors, and took pity on the university bureaucrats who had been endangered by the mob inside. The protest didn't last for too long, although the court proceedings afterwards did. Several students were changed with trespass and damage to property.

From that point onwards, protest became fairly mild. There were numerous occassions when hot headed and angry shouting was used. The burning of effigies became commonplace. But all of it within a respected framework that imposed limits on behaviour. In the early years left wing students would have a free ride whenever they would launch into protest. Capitalism/Imperialism/the United States would be loudly and freely decried, banners would be waved and cheers would be vocally repeated, all without an opposing point of view heard. More recently, right wing students have beome a counterveiling force, attending these protests, shouting counter-slogans and engaging much more with the left wing students. Often these counter-protests have had more numerous attendees than the pitiful rallies they were protesting against it. Whilst at the time I was reluctant to support it because of the fear of conflict, in retrospect I can see how they forced unengaged students to acknowledge both sides of an issue rather than glibly take on the perspective on the only side represented, which was commonplace beforehand.

The effect of Voluntary Student Unionism is yet to be fully felt on campus, but I suspect it will lead to a renewed left-wing dominance. The reality is that many moderate and conservative students are quite atomised and individualistic, and will be reluctant to join a student union unless they can see tangible benefits for themselves. Furthermore, even if they do sign up, they are unlikely to be engaged politically, instead buying into the "union as service-deliverer" model. Lefties, already convinced of the inherent benefits of collective action, will sign up and vote in great number. Though it might not reflect the zeitgeist of the campus, the radical left will continue to find a home in Union House.

Undergrad Reflections: Student Politics 2002

2006-12-21T15:35:00.000+07:00

This is my personal account of a few experiences I had with the Melb Uni Student Union in 2002. For a more general overview of what was going on at the time, you might be interested in the blogs of Brent Houghton or the early days of Andrew Landeryou. My encounter with the mysterious SimplySensational654 has left me wanting to find out more. The details on this one sit toward the bottom of the post.

Student political battles are usually of little consequence. Not so those battles which occurred in 2002 at Unimelb. The events of 2002 would have existential consequences for the student union, which was driven into liquidation, and would confirm the worst suspicions that cynical students have toward their self-interested representatives.

At the time only those on the inner-clique of the student union knew what was going on - most of us watching from the outside knew little. It's remarkable to think that as we were looking on, the Union entered into the deal that would ultimately lead to its liquidation, and engaged in the sort of corrupt practices that would make third-world tinpot generals whince.

In 2002, I tried to change things - and failed spectacularly. Aware of the disenchantment most students had with the ruling Labor Right faction, and the ongoing chasm between the politics of the Loony Left with students generally, Brent Houghton and I decided to seize the moment. With the elections approaching in September, we decided that we would form a ticket which would take the moderate ground between the two major factions and capitalise on student dissatisfaction. In short, we would run the Australia Democrats 2001 "Change Politics" campaign in our very own backyard.

Brent was a friend of a year or two, also a member of the Democrats (incidentally, Brent's excellent account of these events was published a couple of years back). The previous year, he had been persuaded by Labor Right to stand for them as the House and Services Officer. He was instinctively suspicious of Labor Party politics, and had been convinced to run by Darren Ray, a former school friend of his and the Labor Right candidate for President. With the farcical elections of 2001, with most non-Labor Right candidates failing to nominate, Labor Right swept the board, and so Darren and Brent both assumed their positions as office bearers. During the year, though, Brent felt that he was being treated badly by the Labor Right machine. Part way through the year he quit the faction, and continued as an office bearer as an independent. For this he would be further bullied.

Brent and I got on well personally, and so we set about building a group of students who could run a serious campaign. We approached some Democrats members on campus, some of whom joined us. We also approached other students who we'd had personal contact with, and we knew would be sympathetic to our cause. As word spread of our existance we were even approached by a few students who wanted to be a part of it. Whilst we were flattered at the time, the correct response ought to have been suspicion rather than flattery. Our openness may have ultimately lead to our downfall. Anyhow, within a couple of weeks we'd found a group of twenty or so students, a critical mass threshold that meant we ought to be taken seriously.

Union rules at the time meant that unless we had a registered student union club, our ticket name would need to simply be the name of one of the candidates, followed by the word Ticket. We soon became The Sharp Ticket. We also needed a them for our campaign. The motif of Bob the Builder appealled to us. Though he was perhaps a little juvenile, the image of a non-nonsense character who took a can-do attitude was just the image that we were seeking to project. We planned to have our candidate photos taken with builders caps, and to base our slogan on Bob's "Can we fix it? Yes we can!" The ideas kept flowing.

Late one Tuesday night (August 20 for those who love detail) Brent and I were working late in his student office-bearer office. We'd put out a call on our email list to supporters to join us, but for this eye-glazing task, none did. We were editting candidate statements on Brent's computer, and using the whiteboard to draw up a list of names of candidates who we wished to slot into particular positions. Strictly speaking, we were in breach of electoral regulations, since the use of an OB's resources for campaign activity is forbidden. Despite this, most tickets did just that, although they did so clandestinely. Late into the night, Brent went home, and I left just a few minutes later, closing his office-bearer door behind me.

The next morning I received a call from Brent (paraphrased, but pretty close to the mark):
"Ari, what the hell have you done?"
"What do you mean?"
"I've been hauled before the Returning Officer. They're going to exclude us from the election. This morning Darren (Labor Right president) wandered by the office and the door was open. He saw all our campaign stuff on the whiteboard and reported us. Did you lock the door after you left?"

It was something I had to think about closely. I was very certain that I had closed the door behind me. I wasn't so sure that I'd locked it. Still, the idea that I had left the door open seemed absurd. If I had just closed it without locking it, then in order to see what was on the whiteboard, the door needed to be opened, in breach of privacy rules and office protocol. We'd been stitched up. Regardless, our campaign was over before it even began.

It only emerged two years later, but the Returning Officer who made the decision to exclude us from the election was from Global Tertiary Solutions, a firm appointed by, and with strong links to, the Labor Right faction who were the beneficiaries of our exclusion from the race. This was far from a level playing field.

Despite all this, what we said at the time is still correct: in a technical way, we did breach the regulations, and our exclusion was a just punishment. However the method by which this was discovered was questionable, and the likelihood of others breaching the same regulation was high.

As to just how we were exposed, things seemed all too strange. To this day, I've never been able to confirm it for sure, but the theory that those of us involved have is that we were done in by a mole. The twenty or so supporters on our email list were aware that we were doing campaign work in the office. This information was innocuous amongst supporters, but fatal in the hands of an opponent. It seems likely that this information was leaked from our list to Darren, who then either entered Brent's office on his own, or with the assistance of the Union House security guard, with whom he was on good terms and who possessed a master key for all offices.

Once we had been expelled from the elections, I started recieving some mysterious emails. The exchange started when I sent out an email to our list of campaign supporters:

Ah well, you win some, you lose some.

Thanks to everyone that worked their guts out these past few weeks to try and achieve real change in the Melbourne Uni Student Union. Your passion and determination has shown that there can be a better way to do things in this place, and that eventually these values will prevail.

By order of the Returning Officer, I am unable to campaign in any way for the student elections. I understand the reasons for the decision, and I will not be attempting to breach this order.

Soon after I recieved this response:

From : -- -- simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Sent : Friday, August 23, 2002 12:32 AM
To : absharp@hotmail.com
Subject : [sharpticket] A final Sharpticket farewell

The Sharp Ticket has finally finished.

Politics is a tough game. Those who are right always win.

And to your friends that 'jumped left' well, 'good luck' they too should have understood the difficulties that lay ahead.

Well done, you did at one stage pose a threat to the power allocation of Union House.

My response:

From: "Ari Sharp" absharp@hotmail.com
To: simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [sharpticket] A final Sharpticket farewell
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 01:32:25 +1000

Hmmmm, just who is our mole??

Regardless of which anonymous hack I'm dealing with, I can't let the statement that those who are right always win. Those with strength, resources, contacts, genetics and a bit of sheer bloody-mindedness usually win. Are these people always right? I doubt it.

-A.

Their response:

From : -- -- simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Sent : Friday, 23 August 2002 1:44:02 AM
To : absharp@hotmail.com
Subject : Re: [sharpticket] A final Sharpticket farewell

These 'hacks' outsmatered you.
These 'hacks' have not had their group shut down.
These 'hacks' are not hacks at all.

It is the collective opinion here that you have no idea what you're talking about.

All I can say to you is, that your ticket was the first to fall from grace. Those who inadvertantly escaped from the returning officer and ran to your lefty buddies will soon also be the subject of a sudden fall from grace.

The right always does win. We beat you, and your 'candidates' who ran from disaster are next.

And to you - thank you. What a clever idea building an email list. The emails proved quite interesting.

My reponse:

From: "Ari Sharp" absharp@hotmail.com
To: simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [sharpticket] A final Sharpticket farewell
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 01:51:32 +1000

> These 'hacks' outsmatered you.

I think this sentence says more than I ever could.

-A.

Their reponse:

From : -- -- simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Sent : Friday, 23 August 2002 1:57:26 AM
To : absharp@hotmail.com
Subject : Re: [sharpticket] A final Sharpticket farewell

Hilarious. A typo.

We're not the ones who are not allowed to run.
We're not the ones who knowlingly breached the regulations.
We're not the ones who deceived the students of the uni.

The Sharp Ticket acted disgracefully. And those who have run away from the Sharp Ticket can never run away from the fact that they are corrupt and disloyal. They will be found out. Their names will become remembered as the 'sharp ticket' disgrace. We will do what is morally right. We will inform the students of WHO this Sharp Ticket was and the fact it rortered the system - knowingly. The ticket is gone and ALL of its initial candidates soon will be.

They ran away from a ticket that stole from students. A ticke whose leaders, admitted to being guilty of breaching regulations.

Shame, Shame, Shame.

See you in Student Council 2003.... Actually no we wont will we??

And again from them:

From : -- -- simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Sent : Friday, 23 August 2002 1:59:19 AM
To : absharp@hotmail.com

We were all very moved by the final farewell.

> Ah well, you win some, you lose some.

But you didn't win 'any' did you....

And again:

From : -- -- simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Sent : Friday, 23 August 2002 7:04:42 PM
To : absharp@hotmail.com
Subject : speeches

Your welfare candidate managed to make a good deal. A jump from the ship that had been hit and was sinking.

But did he jump to a stable and safe ship? Or will he fall from grace just like the rest of YOU hacks?

Hmmmm.... Let us think.... Oh yes... I remember - he WILL fall... How you ask?

Well, the "sharp" ticket fell - it fell on it's own 'sword' and it cut itself up... This falling requires skill, courage and determination. The three things required to achieve anything...

It fell because people like you are in this game only for 'representative' purposes. You have no idea how the union runs. No idea about the reality of it all. You live in a little world where everything is ok...

WELL IT'S NOT

The Welfare Officer candidate in question is Nick Demiris, a candidate who approached us out of the blue a few weeks earlier and expressed his interest in getting involved. Once our ticket dissolved he joined the Labor Right ticket, and not long after that, the Liberals. Given what we now know about Nick, this seems to be where he belonged all along. Just how genuine his commitment was to us - or Labor Right - seems highly highly questionable:

From : -- -- simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Sent : Friday, 23 August 2002 7:28:40 PM
To : absharp@hotmail.com
Subject : Re:

Let us talk pragmatically Mr. Sharp.

Your little friend who is still a candidate for welfare ob is likely to succeed. But of course, I am sure we can come to an arrangement that is mutually beneficial in terms of future elections at the union.

If you were to provide us with an 'insight' into your former candidate, who did, by the way DEFECT, we would ensure you secured a place on Student Council at the next possible opportunity.

All we require is some background material, some contact details and some insight into him.

Simply reply with this information and you shall be on Student Council at the next election.

Remember - do we want this guy to be welfare OB? Have you seen hi spolicy speech?

> I will work for the students - the position is about the rights of
>students and the protection of these rights. The position is about
>assisting those who are disabled and culturally diverse. I will work
>'above' the disgusting plague that is student politics to bring you
>accountability, and a broader range of improved services.

I mean - come on - above student politics? Does he think he is above democratically elected peers?

We need to stop him. He has too much support and he will adversely affect the powe in MUSU. He is one who would not cooperate with poltiical interests and deals, but rather 'work' for the office.

He must be stopped.

Your friends (who can provide you with support and a spot on a sure thing next time)...

Without any intention of taking up the offer, I thought I'd push things a little to find out what I could about my mysterious correspondant:

From: "Ari Sharp" absharp@hotmail.com
To: simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Subject: Re:
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 21:57:24 +1000

Before I talk to anyone, I want to know the following:
1. Who are you?
2. Who do you represent?
3. Do you have the power from within your organisation to offer such a deal?
4. Who was the mole?

And SS654's response:

From : -- -- simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Sent : Sunday, 25 August 2002 2:05:13 AM
To : absharp@hotmail.com
Subject : Deal

Thanks for the response.

I am in a position to offer such a deal - this I can assure you. In terms of your other questions, I can't answer those just yet.

Your former candidate jumped/defected from the sinking ship and ran to a different ticket - is this loyalty or what? All we need is an insight - some background info and some contact details.

If you can provide us with this information YOU will be the person to gain. You will be the winner out of the 'deal.' A position on Student Council is what is on the table for offer.

We are not stuffing you around - be assured. Provide the requested information by Sunday 25/8 via an email to this address and we will reply by 6pm with a contact name and phone number as well as information pertaining to the agreement.

This is the only way the deal can work - otherwise, we can not be sure if you will expose us, and as such we require the information first. Again, once received, we shall email you contact details so as to set up a meeting to discuss how the agreement of you getting a Student Council place will be implemented at next years elections.

Hear from you soon.

Sadly, I can't find my response to this email. The gist of it was that I had no interest in doing a deal with a shady anonymous figure and that I found the whole thing rather tawdry.

This was the SS654 response:

From : -- -- simplysensational654@hotmail.com
Sent : Thursday, 29 August 2002 2:59:15 AM
To : absharp@hotmail.com
Subject : Re: Deal

The thing is 'mate' you wont see me round and I wont see you round. You still have no idea do you? The only clue you are now going to get is that we have had a mutual acquaintance.

And now, Mr. Sharp you fell for our little trap. You ticket was crushed.

We must thank your friend Andrew, for his fantastic posters. Their designs will do doubt prove a great addition to our material. Notably, it was interesting to read your Environment Candidates speeches, Michael and Lauren.

"A greener university - fight the issues on campus before fighting abroad" - again would these people have any idea as to how to be student politicians? NO NO NO. They would have no idea.

In response to a seperate question - the mole was not a male...

And with that, my contact with SimplySenational654 ceased. I tried emailing them a while later, but Hotmail informed me that the address was no longer active.

Over four years on, I have no great personal stake in the politics of Union House. I do, however, want to get to the bottom of just who was SS654. This has become my own personal Deep Throat (think Mark Felt, not Linda Lovelace). I have my suspicions, but I've never been able to confirm them. I was hoping the blogosphere might be able to shed some light on it. Those who were involved in the 2002 campaign know who they are, and would no doubt know something about the identity of this person. Others might have also been receiving emails from them. Of the people on the email list - of whom one was the mole - I am sure of the bona fides of most of them. There are a few, though, who I'm doubtful about.

SS654, if you're out there, drop me a line. Anyone else, a comment or email would be appreciated.

Undergrad Reflections: Student politics 2001

2006-12-19T14:09:00.000+07:00

Little did I know it when I arrived on campus in 2001, but my six years there would be the most turbulent and fractured in campus politics for decades. From the very start, I was lukewarm in my interest in the shannagans of student politics: in my view at the time, I'd bypassed student politics and headed straight to the real thing. I was the Victorian President of the Young Australian Democrats, and later that year would be preselected as a candidate for the 2001 Federal Elections. Why bother learning to crawl when I could already walk?

When the campus elections of 2001 were approaching in early August, I was reluctant to run, knowing that there were barely a handful of fellow Democrats on campus, and the other tickets were far more experienced and slick-oiled than I could possibly be. Nonetheless after some persuading by fellow Democrat and then NUS National Environment Officer Peter Zakzrewski, I nominated. Fearing the commitment that comes with a year-long appointment, I took the easy way out, and nominated for a position as a Melbourne Uni delegate to the State and National conventions of the National Union of Students, a week-long obligation, usually carried out whilst drunk. Melbourne University elected seven delegates to the NUS Conference, and these positions were elected via proportional representation in elections held simultaneously with the election for a myriad of campus office bearer and committee positions.

I paired up with a fellow Democrat, Jane Sullivan (who I haven't heard from in five years - are you out there, Jane?) and we lodged a ticket nomination for the NUS position as Democrats on Campus, filling in the nomination form and depositing it in the modest nomination box held in Union House. To avoid last minute hitches, we put it in on a Tuesday, with nominations closing on the Friday. The lodging of the ticket would prove to be the entirety of our campaign effort. Three days later I checked the election noticeboard to check the list of nominations. To my extreme shock, there were just nine nominations in total: seven from Real Students (the brand name of the Labor Right faction) and two from the Democrats on Campus.

The exact detail of what had happened eludes me, but in effect, during the week of nominations, the Labor Left-dominated Student Council had sacked the Returning Officer, believing that this would annul the nomination process, which would need to start afresh under the new Returning Officer, and so the Labor Left (as well as Liberals, and just about everyone else) had not bothered to submit their nomination. Upon their arrival the new Returning Officer, in order to meet the election deadlines already set, decided to treat the nomination process as valid. The upshot of it was that most tickets had failed to nominate, and only the Labor Right ticket had submitted their nomination, alongside the now mighty Democrats on Campus.

Come the second week of September, amidst farce and frustration, the elections were held (incidentally that was the week of 9/11, and so anger at the election was far more subdued that would otherwise have been expected). At the end of that week, the votes were tallied, and I was elected to represent the students of the University of Melbourne at the National Union of Students. Or so I thought. Appeals were submitted to the campus electoral tribunal, but to no avail. As well as my personal success, this result gave almost absolute control of the office bearer positions and committee position to the Labor Right faction, a situation which would lead to the dizzying heights of irresponsibility that was to come.

Early in December the Victorian NUS Conference came and went at Monash University in Clayton, with only hazy memories in my head of the conference being short of quorum until a delegate from the Gippsland finally arrived several hours after the scheduled start. When the important business of the meeting arrived - electing snouts to pleasure themselves in the NUS trough for the coming twelve months - I took my guidance from NUS veteran and friend Pete and teamed up with the Labor Right faction, much to the chagrin of the Labor Left folks who resented my right to be there, let alone vote against them.

A week later was the National Conference, hosted by the University of Ballarat. I'd heard about the National Conference before, thanks to interstate Democrats who had attended in past years. My impression of it beforehand - which was vindicated by what I saw in person - was that the Conference was a sad collection of drunk and horny student politicians, conducted at odd hours, and dominated by a loopy collection of unrepentant hardcore socialists.

The thing I was most looking forward to at Conference was the tension between the Liberals and the rest. I'd heard legendary stories about the Liberals' antic and the past, and wanted to verify them myself. One story had it that the Liberals had thrown a fridge out of a second storey window. Another was that they'd vandalised their accommodation. Other years they'd been banned from campus and forced to stay elsewhere. The Liberals' were opposed in principle to the idea of student unionism, and the starters was to so sought to destroy the reputation of NUS. They were Trojan Horses, and were unashamed about it. My year at the conference, the motif of choice was the Australian flag and the national anthem, which were displayed and sung prominently and loudly, a basically inoffensive act calculated to stir the tempers of the hardcore left who are so riddled with paranoia that any display of Australian patriotism was akin to racism (anti-Muslim racism was the hot button issue at the time). Time after time the Left would take the bait, successfully banning the Australian flag from the conference floor and generally getting hot and bothered. It was a great piece of political theatre. Though there were only a handful of them there, the Liberals had the most fun by far, and whilst achieving nothing at all in the formal part of the conference, achieved plenty outside of it.

Nothing much at the conference takes place before dark, a considerable achievement given that it occurs near the summer solstice. The agenda optimistically begins after lunch, but in reality it starts after dinner. Delegates stay in dorms grouped according to political faction. The committed politicos in each faction spend their time clustering around each other, as if stratergising the invasion of New Zealand. The rest, which is most of us, hang around on the lawns with each other, sipping cheap beer and wondering what the hell is taking so long. This statis goes on for hours, until eventually there is a movement toward the main conference hall.

Inside, a jumble and tables and chairs sit haphazardly, soon grouped according to faction, with Labor Left (two of them), Broad Left, International Students, Labor Right, Independents and independents all represented. At the back on one side are the Liberals, treated like AIDS victims at a Fred Nile Rally, whilst on the other was my modest group of half a dozen or so. The Democrats on Campus. From the ceiling hung the names of each of the universities represented. I soon learnt that come voting time, we would gather under the title of our respective universities. At the front stood a modest podium, and to the side of that sat a circle of chairs with representatives of each faction elected to organise the minutiae of the conference.

It was only on the second evening of the conference that the business of the conference actually begun. After a few formalities, the first issue to be decided was whether or not the results of the Melbourne University election should stand. As soon emerged, the result at Melbourne Uni had fundamentally altered the balance of power of the conference itself, not surprising given that the Uni is the second biggest at the conference, and that the delegates were almost all from the one faction - Labor Right. Without Melbourne Uni, the Left have the numbers. With us, the Right have the numbers.

The strategy of the Left was to have the Melbourne Uni results annulled, and the previous year's delegates take our place. A straight vote of the conference - with the current Melbourne Uni delegates in place - would have resulted in a failure of the annulment motion because of the existing balance of power. So first it was necessary to put through a motion that prevented the Melbourne Uni delegates from voting on the legitimacy of their own election. Debate on each of these two motions took hours and hours. The debate, of course, was farcical, given that delegates always vote as a bloc and always vote in their own interests. Not one vote was shifted either way by the hours and hours of fiery rhetoric. The Left talked about the horrible injustice of the nomination process. The Right talked about the importance of respecting due process of campus. And it would have been exactly the opposite if it had have suited them. For me, siding with the Right and maintaining my delegates position was the only sensible thing to do.

A vote on the first motion occurred at around midnight, and sure enough we were to be stripped of our right to vote on the motion of whether or not we could remain as delegates at the conference. Debate on the second motion then stretched on for hours more. Debate is probably a generous description of what occurred: the proceedings are more of a pantomime, with speakers on both sides playing to the prejudices of their faction members, inviting a call-and-response, thumping the podium, venting their spleen, and putting down the numerous heckles of their opponents. It's Parliamentary Question Time on speed.

By three in the morning, I'd had enough of being a passive observer. Extreme in my naivete, or perhaps suffering delusions of grandeur, I reasoned that if I could put my case calmly and rationally, I might be able to persuade some of the passive rump of students on the Left to cross the floor. Almost as nervous as I'd ever been, I stood before the rowdy group of students and starting making my case. I told them how excited I was to be there. That this was my first ever conference. That I want to represent my university, just like everyone else there did. And then I was interrupted. The factional leaders had finally snapped and requested that the motion be put. I never got to finish my speech.

Sure enough, the motion was put, and despite my scintillating rhetoric, the vote went against us. The 2001 Melbourne Uni delegates were turfed out, and the 2000 delegates invited back. In doing this, power had shifted from the Right to the Left. I remember being rather nonplussed at the end of it all. I'd got there by freak chance, and now the right order of things was being restored. Most of the next day at the conference was spent by the Labor Right leaders trying to overturn the previous day's decision. By this stage, though, my heart wasn't in it and I planned my trip home.

Undergrad Reflections: Classroom capers

2006-12-15T14:31:00.000+07:00

The transition from school life to uni life is tough for many people. For most students, high school is a place of intensive supervision, with a confined range of choices available and an untrusting eye constantly cast over everyone. It has to be this way, given that at that stage in our lives most of us lack the emotional maturity to make wise choices over what we study, how we study, and indeed if we study. Whilst describing the latter years of high school at many private schools as intellectual spoon-feeding is a common cliche, it is a cliche which emerged with good reason.

For me, the latter years of high school were richly rewarding, spent at a private Jewish school with a year level of high achievers and bookish conformists. There was an culture of respect for learning and a celebration of high achievement, rather than the denigration it experiences in so many other schools. It was cool to work hard and intellectualism was nothing to be ashamed of. Still, high school was spent with teachers who would be constantly putting pressure on their chargers, querying every absense and constantly putting in place deadlines to be met. It was a place where just turning up was not an option.

Once at university, external motivation disappears. Truth be told, often at high school we did what we did because of the consequences if we didn't. Come university, these consequences don't exist. Except for the ultimate: results. As a university student, motivation needs to come from one's self rather than one's environment. Lack of attendance at class, failure to do the weekly reading, failure to get out of bed in the morning... only you will know.

For me, the transition wasn't so bad. Old fashioned as I am, I had already become a believer in the idea of effort for the sake of effort. Facile as it seems, I did things because they were the right things to do, not because of the consequences. Right from the start I took the approach that turning up to class was the barest minimum of participation, and anything below that was unacceptable. With no one telling me what to do, it was a good approach to take.

There were plenty of students, though, who floundered without strong guidance. In my experience, it was students who came from schools that closely monitored their performance who found the transition most difficult. In their final years at high school they had developed learned helplessness, and university life exposed it. On the other hand, students that had come from schools which gave them more freedom were far better prepared. It's interesting to note that whilst private schools have a higher percentage of their students reach university than do public schools, these students are also more likely to change or drop out of their selected course.

Studying at university is a slackers life. For most. With two twelve week semesters scheduled each year, this still leaves the majority of the year without any need to turn up. When we do turn up, for those of us studying arts, law or commerce at least, we have just twelve attendence hours each semester. The story is a little different for those hardy souls who have signed up for engineering, medicine, dentistry etc, where upward of thirty hours a week of attendence is expected.

More important than the quantity of university study is the quality. The format of university teaching actively encourages passivity and a lack of preparation. Lectures are overwhelmingly passive experiences, were students are spoken to rather than spoken with. Tutorials, although in theory interactive, rarely seem to reach the great heights of intellectual discussion that they ought to be.

On the surface at least, lectures seem to be a remarkably ineffective method of imparting knowledge from the teacher to the student. Though technology has transformed just about every other interpersonal experience, it seems to have left university teaching largely unscathed. There are many lecturers - particularly in the arts faculty - who have such a repulsion for technology that they eschew it deliberately and instead rely on chalk-and-talk. Those lecturers who do use technology to their advantage benefit greatly from it. The reality is that not all students are audio-learners: many rely on their visual senses. Furthermore, an audience is more receptive to a message if they receive it in both visual and audio forms. There's nothing revolutionary about all this, but sadly it seems forgotten by many teachers.

Power-Point presentations is the most obvious and useful addition to any lecture. When used badly, Power-Point is painful. At its best, though, it can liven up even the dullest of lectures and can crystalise ideas that otherwise appear allusive. Over the years more and more teachers have mastered PP and use it as a part of their lectures. There are still plenty, though, who thumb their noses at it.

There is nothing accidental about a poor standard of teaching. An output, after all, is the product of the inputs. It's accepted that many university lecturers are reluctant teachers. They've earnt their place at the front of the lecture hall not because they are brilliant teachers, but because of their brilliance in their chosen field. Also, many of them resent the need to teach at all: their primary interest is research, and teaching is merely the part of the job that pays the bills.

Still, most of them would find that a one year Diploma in Education would dramatically improve their teaching skills. It's not an unreasonable expectation that lecturers possess this basic qualification if they are to teach undergraduate students. The experience would be a wake-up call to somnambulist lecturers, and would do plenty to improve the Quality of Teaching that the university seems to take great delight in drawing our attention to.

As for tutorials, I have plenty of sympathy for the postgrad students who put themselves at our mercy. The extraction of teeth is a pleasure in comparison to the sheer agony of watching a tutor extract an answer out of a group of too-cool-for-school silent undergrads. The fault here is with the students, not the teacher. Most students keep silent not because they don't know the answer, but because they fear looking stupid. The irony is staying silent looks stupidest of all.

Part of the problem might be a lack of familiarity with our fellow students, an inevitability given the sheer number of students enrolled in most subjects. There's not a lot different between a high school classroom and a university tutorial room, yet discussion often runs riot in the former, but is non-existant in the latter. Part of the problem might also be a cultural barrier - many students who went to high school in Asia are used to a passive learning style, where students are expected to listen rather than speak. For these students, overcoming their unfamiliarity with speaking up, is a significant challenge, especially when combined with the challenge of having English as a second language.

At the start of my university life, I had a vision in my head of how student life should be. Every lecture should be electrifying, every tutorial discussion scintilating, and every assignment a pleasure to research. Like most fantasies of mine, this one never left my head. Shame 'bout that.

Citizenship Test: Canadian example

2006-12-14T14:38:00.000+07:00

There's been a fair bit of hubbab in the past few days over the government's proposal for a simple civics and English language test prior to the granting of citizenship. On face value, such a proposal doesn't seem unreasonable if we are to accept the mantra that Australian citizenship is a privilege, not a right (although as this piece points out, the exact opposite is true for those born in Australia).

Anyhow, the Canadians have had one in place for a while - well, the civics part of it, at least. For obvious reasons, the test itself is not publicly available, although this very interesting site, thanks to Your Library, allows you to take a free sample test.

For what it's worth, my entire Canadian experience consists of accidentally spilling some gravy and cheese on my chips, but I scored 80% on a sample of five questions, enough to entitle me to citizenship.

Given that few people are likely to fail the test, but plenty are likely to learn more about their country before sitting it, it seems like a step forward in the quest for an informed and civically-aware populous. If the folks from Saskatchewan can do it...

Check out the sample test and see how you go.

Ari joins The Age

2006-12-13T18:01:00.000+07:00

This evening, with only a glass of cheap white wine for company, I signed a contract to transform Ari on the Web into Ari at The Age. After an arduous application process involving a folio, a trivia quiz, a writing challenge, and a faux pas involving my gross indifference toward the suffering of others, I have been selected for the Reporting Traineeship.

Though it would be nice to think of it as a case of blogger-boy making it into the big wide world of the MSM, I suspect that my blog was a minor factor at best in my selection. The work I am most proud of - and which had a priviliged place in my portfolio - is the array of work which has appeared in a variety of other outlets, both on- and off-line, and which are featured in the charmingly honest 'Ego File' toward the bottom on the right-hand side.

Perhaps the strongest work was the stuff that appeared in Vibewire, whom incidentally are in the midst of a fundraising campaign. So if you're in the mood to help out a bunch of ~~smartarse young upstarts~~ ambitious young writers, click this way.

The future of AOTW is yet to be decided, but it's unlikely to continue in it's current form once I start work in February. I'll keep you posted.

2007 just got a whole lot more interesting!

Undergrad Reflections: The sex and booze myth

2006-12-12T07:59:00.000+07:00

It's undeniable that life changes once you reach a university campus. Suddenly the freedom to do things your own way becomes intoxicating. The stereotype is that an undergrad's first year is spent drinking, lazing around and fornicating with new friends. In my experience, however, this is grossly exaggerated. Perhaps in the university colleges, whose halls I never graced, hedonistic abandon is more common with the close confines of college dorms creating an unstoppable momentum. Most students, however, don't live on campus, and so are distanced from this college culture.

Sure, there are plenty of attempts by established students to woo new arrivals on campus. O-Week (later rebadged as Orientation 200X when there were not enough activities to stretch it out for the whole five days) is awash with pub crawls, where older students don stupid hats and march a group of first years who are desperate to fit in around to nearby pubs, who themselves are desperate for punters, particularly young and thirsty ones.

The only pub crawl I ever went on was the 2001 Commerce Students pub crawl. The crawl started just after lunch, and included nine pubs through Parkville and Carlton. At least that's what the dodgy photocopied map explained. I never made it past the second pub, by which stage I was already tired of seeing every third or so student remonstrate with the bouncer because, at seventeen and lacking a convincing fake ID, they were unwelcome inside. Those of us who did make it inside were squeezed into a corner, ironically unable to make it anywhere close to the bar, making small talk with fellow corner-squeezed first years. Almost without exception, the conversation would go something like this:

UGrad #1: Hey
UGrad #2: Hi
UGrad #1: So, what are you studying?
UGrad #2: Commerce. You?
UGrad #1: Commerce.
Both reflect on the folly of asking such a question on the Commerce Pub Crawl.
UGrad #2: Where'd you go to school?
UGrad #1: Whisky.
UGrad #2: Oh, Whisky. Hey, d'you know Wanker McPhee.
UGrad #1: Nah, never met him.

And so the inanities would continue until both had exhausted their supply and moved onto the next person. It was hardly a good environment to make friends, with the urge to appear hip, cool and alcoholic leading to such excrutiating pretentiousness that genuine encounters become impossible.

Although I didn't realise it at the time, the very notion of the pub crawl as a bonding activity is incredibly exclusionary. The seventeen year olds knocked back at the door were the mere tips of the iceberg. There were plenty of students who for a variety of reasons don't bond over alcohol: some for religious reasons, some because of their metabolism, and some because of cultural differences. Those of us left are generally macho, Anglo and wander around campus with a sense of entitlement.

A few years later I thought up an alternative idea for a first year socialising activity that didn't divide the drinkers from the rest, although I never put it into practice. A Park Crawl was my idea, whereby students would bring a lavish selection of picnic goodies with them, and we would move from one park to another picnicking, eating, talking, and if the mood took us, drinking. With vast amounts of lush greenery in the surrounding area, it was an idea with plenty of potential. Perhaps some other first year sick of being made to feel like a loser because they don't drink will make it happen.

As my first year progressed, I kept getting the impression that I was missing out on something. The drinking/lazing/fornicating trifecta was hardly an accurate description of my university experience. Whilst there were some who did indulge in these things with reckless abandon, I think I was probably in the majority. My steps toward socialisation were far more tentative, trying to find a handful of people with common interests rather than a vast network of drinking buddies. I was in the luxurious position of knowing plenty of people before I even started, a product of coming off the private school production line. At first, these became my network of friends, and it was only later that I sought to move beyond my social comfort zone.

Like many of my non-gregarious colleagues, the student union's Clubs and Societies were a ~~Godsend~~ vast nothingness-send. Initially I wasn't very discriminating in whom I signed up with. Wandering around the tables during Orientation 2001, I signed up to the club of just about anyone who smiled in my direction. I was a paid up member of the Amnesty International Club, the Melbourne University Debaters Society, the Melboure University Baseball Club, the Melbourne Uni Jewish Students Society and the MU Jugglers Club. Clearly I thought I'd have a lot of time on my hands. The club that made the biggest impact on my social circle, however, was the Political Interest Society, a group of political enthusiasts who loved to talk intelligently rather than zealously about topics close to them.

The formal structure of the club gave many students a space to be sociable. Whilst wandering over to join a group of strangers for lunch would be bizarre and unwelcome, the context of a student club gave perfect justification for this very thing. The fact that you knew from the start that you had a common interest with the people you were joining was a bonus.

Even without a romantic partner at the time, I didn't feel particularly phased or desperate to find someone. That was for more confident and narcissistic people. I was happy to hang back a little, observe others, make friends and see what happened from there. Most of us, I suspect, were looking for friendship rather than a cheap root, regardless of the external pressure to boost our credentials.

I suspect that the mythology surrounding the indulgences of uni life are constructed by those who seek to bignote themselves. People of meek and mild habits are unlikely to advertise the fact, whilst those that live flamboyantly love to let the world know. It's a shame that so many students are made to feel inadequate because they don't indulge in the excesses of uni life. Many of us are happy that way.

Undergrad Reflections: What's it all about?

2006-12-06T20:17:00.000+07:00

This is the second in my series on life as an undergraduate student. Bear with me during the boring bits, since the last couple of paragraphs offer some candid self-reflection on my drift to the political right.

I have quite a simple theory of education: education is the process of relaxing assumptions about the world. The further down the path of education we move, the more assumptions are relaxed, in search of the ultimate intellectual nirvana: a worldview completely devoid of assumptions, which sadly seems a theoretical impossibility. By assumptions, I refer to things that we accept as 'given' without needing explanation or justification.

To see this theory in action, a simple example close to my heart: the study of politics (or as those of us who wish to make the subjective appear objective might call it, political science). Without exerting much intellectual energy, you can apply the same framework to things as diverse as language, creative arts, engineering, medicine, business, economics and the law.

As primary school students, we take the world completely on face value. Our knowledge of politics is merely the recall of a handful of verifiable uncontested facts - who the Prime Minister is, what the houses of parliament are called. This is a simple reality that we unquestioningly accept, blissfully unaware that beneath these benign facts exists a dense discourse.

Then we enter secondary school, where we relax the assumption that things have always been as they are. We study to history of our country, with ideas of colonisation and social conflict and we learn about the anticedents of the institutions that exist today. We become comfortable with the idea that the things we previously took for granted had to evolve to become as they are. At this stage we are still in a headspace devoid of theoretical explanations. (For most people, this is the furthest they reach in their understanding of the world.)

In the final years of high school, we relax the idea that the present state of things is somehow an inevitable outcome of our history. We come to realise that things with which we have become familiar (such as the doctrine of the separation of powers, the independence of the public service) are in fact important and deliberate constructions put in place in preference to alternative arrangements. To use a hotly contested phrase, we come to realise that our system of government is the product of evolution rather than Intelligent Design. Ever so slowly, we come to appreciate the remarkable achievement that is a functioning democracy.

As undergraduates, we relax the assumption that institutions are important in themselves, and come to realise that they are merely manifestations of theoretical ideas. Debate, therefore, occurs at the level of these theoretical ideas, hence we are opened up to a world of liberty, democracy, justice, conservatism and the subaltern. Once we make this intellectual leap, we come to see that the neat consensus of societal objectives (peace, freedom, prosperity, equality) that we previously accepted are in fact hotly contested, and occasionally incompatible, and it is necessary to negotiate a path through. We also come to see that the institutions which purport to manifest particular ideas can in fact fail to do so. We therefore become open to the possibility of change or alternative constructions of the world.

And for what awaits those studying as postgrads and beyond, I can only speak speculatively rather than from experience. My hunch is that we relax the assumption about the nature of human beings and human society, and the study of politics begins to overlap with the study of psychology and sociology. The political meaning of the fundamental aspects of social organisation come into question, so that even the most innoccuous word, object or person takes on a political meaning.

This framework is useful at understanding the disjoint between 'elite' and 'popular' opinion. Elite opinion thinks of the world as (at least) undergraduates would, and so hold few assumptions about the way it is. Popular opinion operates with more assumptions, at about the level of the high school student. So when a given issue arises, elites concern themselves with the theoretical challenges posed by an issue, whilst the populous take the existing theoretical worldview as given and so think only of the practical implications.

Consider, for example, the issue of mandatory detention of asylum seekers. On this debate, elites concern themselves with theoretical questions of global justice and human liberty, and so take a sympathetic view of the plight of asylum seekers. Popular opinion, however, doesn't consider these questions and concerns itself only with the immediate practical effect (hordes of foreigners, threat to national security).

To the populous arguing with the elite, these adverse practical effects are the only consideration needed in forming a view, and the elite's antipathy toward these things appears foolish and naive. To the elite arguing with the populous, these practical effects are merely details to be dealt with in pursuit of a fundamental ideal.

(Sure, there are plenty of elites and the populous who defy this portrayal of their viewpoints, however this tool is useful for explaining major currents in opinion. And those who do take an opinion contrary to that suggested by the sophistication of their world view usually justify it in their own coin, such as the elite who might argue that 'mandatory detention curbs the incentive for people smugglers', or a member of the populous who might argue that 'women and children couldn't possibly be a real threat'.)

So the real benefit in a university education is helping a student understand why things are as they are, and how they could be different. University encourages you to challenge even the most foundational and permanent features of the world, by virtue of the fact that these features are constructed rather than natural.

For most students, this drives them toward progressive or even radical politics, as they come to realise that the social hierarchy that they'd previously accepted as immovable can in fact be washed away with the tides of history. All of a sudden the Anglo-hetero-normative-patriarchal-capitalist nature of supposedly neutral institutions becomes obvious, and plotting for their destruction is the only sane thing to do.

For me though, ever the contrarian, the relaxation of assumptions about the world pushed me toward a more conservative strain of politics. It become evident to me that the prosperity, peace and liberty that we enjoy in Australia and the rest of the western world is not some birthright granted to us by a higher being, but is instead the product of the wisdom and decision-making of earlier generations. Had they have made a different set of choices, we may have ended up under tyranny, in poverty and devoid of basic freedoms. Crucially, should we make a poor set of choices, we may yet end up is this dreaded dystopia, such is the impermanence of the current state of affairs. The fundamental tenets of life as we know it need defending - whether it be from religious extremists, political extremists or economic extremists - and to glibly assume that these tenets will exist ad infinitum may be fatal.

A university education forces you to take nothing for granted and recognise that every aspect of the world has a reason for being as it is and that nothing is permanent.

Or as John Maynard Keynes once said, "In the long run, we're all dead."

Undergrad Reflections: Introduction

2006-12-05T13:54:00.000+07:00

Barring disaster when my results are released this Friday, my days as an undergraduate students are now complete. After six years of study (well, five of study, and one swanning around Europe and the Middle East) I will be a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne. Or to use my newfound postnominals, I will be Ari Sharp, BCom/BA (Melb). Whilst the university will be acknowledging my graduation in the usual way, by making me wear a silly cap and cloak whilst they ask me for money, it seems appropriate to honour it in a more personal and meaningful way.

Therefore, I will be embarking on a frothy and indulgent reminisce on my time as a student at one of Australia's eminent educational institutions. In this endeavour I am inspired by Alice Garner's recently released The Student Chronicles, which maps out the author's path to undergraduate glory at Unimelb. Though I haven't read it yet, I'm also curious about Ross Gregory Douth's experiences at Harvard, in Privilege.

Like both Garner and Douth, I come from a background whereby a university education is seen as a birthright rather than an opportunity. Both my parents received a university education, and the vast majority of my high school class went on to study at one of this city's major universities. Given this, it's easy to become complacent and take for granted the chance to spend years honing my intellect without suffering the material discomfort or privation that comes with spending your productive years rather unproductively.

Much like dreams and nightmares are supposed to help a person cope psychologically with what they've experienced during the day, I hope that these musings can help me make sense of the past six years of my life. In no particular order, I want to talk about life on campus, what goes on inside the classroom, the Melbourne Uni student political scandals of recent times, the good, the bad and the ugly of university academics, and anything else comes to mind. I guess at the heart of it I want to answer the existential question that afflicts all students at one time or another: what's the point of it all?

I probably won't find an answer, but I'll have some fun looking.

Deadly sins in Iraq

2006-12-05T12:55:00.000+07:00

As the world waits for the Iraq Study Group to deliver its findings on how the hell we get out of this mess, Kenneth M Pollack at MERIA (The Middle East Review of International Affairs, dummy) has delivered his own critique, The Seven Deadly Sins of Failure in Iraq:

If Iraq does slide into all-out civil war, the Bush Administration will have only itself to blame. It disregarded the advice of experts on Iraq, on nation-building, and on military operations. It staged both the invasion and the reconstruction on the cheap. It never learned from its mistakes and never committed adequate resources to accomplish either its original lofty aspirations or even its later, more modest goals. It refused to believe intelligence that contradicted its own views and doggedly insisted that reality conform to its wishes. In its breathtaking hubris, the Administration engineered a Greek tragedy in Iraq, the outcome of which may plague us for decades.

One of the interesting things to note is the suggestion that the disintegration of Iraq after the invasion for far from inevitable. Logically, therefore, there is a good reason to be supportive of the invasion decision, but opposed to the gross mismanagement that occured afterwards. While we wait for Baker et al, have a read of Pollack.

Sadness turns to lameness

2006-12-04T14:33:00.000+07:00

Tragically, Big Kim's brother David died today.

Rove McManus sent his condolences to Simon Beasley.

Footnote to Israel-Lebanon report

2006-12-04T13:05:00.000+07:00

In August, BBC reporter Orla Guerin filed a report from the town of Bint Jbeil in the midst of the Israel-Lebanon conflict. The report was one of the more blatant examples of BBC bias on the Middle East conflict, and blogger Drinking From Home exposed the numerous factual errors in the report.

In Australia, SBS aired the same report on 15 August.

Nearly four months on, and with one feisty librarian on the case, SBS issued an ~~apology~~ clarification for airing the error-riddled report:

World News Australia (15/8/2006)
On August 15, 2006, World News Australia carried a report on destruction in the town of Bint Jbeil in Southern Lebanon during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. The report stated that "this town has really been wiped out."

The centre of the town did suffer extensive damage and could be said to have been "wiped out" but some areas of the town suffered less damage.

A subsequent bulletin of the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs states that "1,200 houses out of 1,500 were destroyed in Bint Jbeil"

It wouldn't even qualify as a Clayton's apology. As for a discussion of why terrorists chose to base themselves in a civilian area, leading to the tragedy at the centre of the report, the search for balance continues.

UPDATE 5/12, 10:30am: Should have linked to the clarification. Sorry 'bout that.

It's Time for a change

2006-12-03T19:38:00.000+07:00

We can count down the hours until Kevin Rudd takes over the Labor leadership and the party gives itself a chance of winning the next election. The Sunday papers were already hinting heavily that Rudd was the likely winner, and the desperate desire for a clear result means that some of the wavering Beazley backers will come to support Rudd. Look for a win of at least 10 votes.

Its worth remembering that even when he was elected Labor leader (again) in January 2005, Beazley was there primarily to steady things after the instability of the Latham era, and not to contest the next election. There was a good reason for him stepping down after the 2001 election - he was tired, people were bored with him, and he had two electoral losses to his name - and these things all held true in 2005.

The plan at the time was for Beazley to settle things down and then allow one of Latham's generation to assume the leadership close to the next election. Ideally, this would have happened earlier, probably at this time last year, but the absense of a clear successor to Beazley until now meant that it didn't happen.

Surely Beazley was aware that the party had turned to him as a boring-but-stable option, and that he wasn't the right option in the long term. Somehow he got a little too comfortable in the leader's chair.

So long, Bomber, but you always knew it was coming.

Rudd meets with the Labor caucus

UPDATE 4/12, 5:05pm: Do I win a prize?

Melb Press Club: Dr Phil "Amigo #2" Burgess

2006-12-01T11:56:00.000+07:00

The past twenty-four hours has seen some almighty stoushes enter the public domain. Last night it was a drunken Glenn Milne taking his hatred of Stephen Mayne to new levels. Then this morning the pimple that is the leadership speculation in the Labor Party reached popping point, and a Rudd vs Beazley ballot was announced for next Monday. And Telstra and the ACCC's mutual loathing of one another rolled on.

This final conflict was fanned at the Melbourne Press Club's luncheon, with Telstra's Public Policy & Communications man Dr Phil Burgess the guest speaker. Burgess was breathing fire, continuing his vigourous assault on the ACCC, and its head Graeme Samuel, over what Telstra perceives as the unfair regulatory burden imposed on Telstra. No doubt the fine detail of the speech will be reported and dissected by the assembled media (and besides, Phil promised it would soon be online for the world to see at Now We Are Talking), but there are a few observations that struck me about Burgess's performance.

- By his own admission, Phil Burgess loves a fight. He said several times that he wouldn't be backing away from an argument, and he saw it as healthy within a democracy that competing opinions be aired, and sensible ideas be turned into policy and poor ideas exposed as such and ignored. The take-away message from today's speech was that the ACCC was a "Rogue Regulator", acting beyond the mandate given to it by the government and acting in a way that wasn't in the government's interests. It was an interesting line to run, and suggests that Telstra's stratergy is to drive a wedge between the government and regulator, a charge which Burgess coyly denied in a door-stop interview afterwards.

Dr Phil

- There was a really interesting analysis in the difference between the way that lobbying and regulation occurs in Australia compared to overseas, most notably the US. In Australia, corporate lobbyists approach the government directly, and put their case straight to the decision makers. In the US, lobbyists put their arguments to the people and try to build popular support for their cause. Telstra have deliberately taken the US approach to lobbying the ACCC (and by extention, the Government) over price-setting for competitors' access to Telstra-owned infrastructure.

- Burgess doesn't suffer fools gladly. Your fearless correspondent asked a slightly sneaky question about whether it was a mistake for the government to keep the infrastructure and retail divisions of Telstra together for the privatisation given the long subsequent dispute that has arisen about competitor's access. Burgess was spitting back questions in response, giving plenty of chin music (a term that I just discovered crosses the Pacific) and aggressively challenging those who asked him questions.

- Somehow Burgess managed to keep a straight face as he played the Good Ol' Aussie Company card, hinting that Telstra should be treated better than it's foreign-owned rivals Optus (Singapore), Vodafone (UK) and Hutchison (Hong Kong). Despite his American drawl, Burgess was desperate to show that he was Australian as Apple Pie. Or something like that.

- Telstra seems to be paranoid about its public image. The Burgess enterage seemed to include at least half a dozen assistants and media advisers, helping to keep the main man on message and focussed.

Seeing Burgess in full-flight is strangely exhilirating. There's a definite contrast between Burgess's style, and the lethargic Australian approach to corporate PR. Australians don't generally like someone who big-notes themselves, but Burgess is strangely charming. He's here for the war, not for the peace, and he seems doggedly determined to win the battle.

UPDATE 5/12, 5:15pm: Dr Phil's speech is now online here (PDF).

Prahran: It don't mean a thing if you don't get that swing

2006-11-30T13:01:00.000+07:00

So after all that, nothing much has changed. With close to 75% of the vote now counted, the swing to the Liberals in Prahran (on a two party preferred count) is just 0.5% compared to the state-wide swing of 2%. The primary votes suggest that there was very little movement amongst voters between 2002 and 2006, with small swings to the Greens (1.5%), Family First (1.2%, off a base of 0) and the Liberals (0.7%), whilst the ALP had a small swing against it (0.4%), with the absense of a Democrat and Indepedent (Abraham Lincoln!) explaining the rest.

Given the resources that were poured into this campaign by the major parties, how do we explain the lack of movement? Most likely, voters were not particularly attuned to the local battle, and shared the statewide apathy with the election campaign. As Bracks candidly confessed early in the campaign, "They aren't out there with baseball bats ready to get us."

It's worth noting that the Liberals were victorious on primary votes by a significant margin - 4% - and that Labor's victory in the seat is largely attributable to the extremely strong flow of Greens preferences. Winning the seat with less than 4 in 10 votes, as Lupton has done this time around, in hardly a ringing endorsement.

This also points to the remarkable performance of the Greens - 19.5% - who have established a firm foothold as the protest party of choice for wealthy inner-suburbanites. The only thing stopping Prahran from joining the inner-city seats which were on the verge of turning watermelon is that the Labor and Liberal votes are too close to one another, making it near impossible for the Greens to run second and leapfrog their way to victory on preferences. A significant Green vote is here to stay, and a reality that the Liberals will have to get used to if they are to win back seats like Prahran.

So it looks like Ella and Duke were right after all.

UPDATE 1/12, 5:00pm: Polly has pointed to the close battle in Southern Metro region, where the Greens, the ALP and the Liberals are each perilously close to a quota, with only two positions left to be filled. Antony Green suggests that the Greens are likely to pick up the second-last spot, and that the Liberals will just get their toe over the line for the final position:

Liberal 50799 1.0011 Quotas
Labor 50685 0.9989 Quotas

But as Antony says, this one is too close to call. The old adage about absentee votes going to the Liberals more heavily than ordinary votes will stengthen their hand. Also, the Liberal candidate in the balance is David Southwick, a Jew who will poll well amongst the prepolling religious Jews in the Caulfield and St Kilda parts of the electorate. My hunch is that the Libs will get there, meaning that Evan Thornley misses out: a great shame.

Clearly, they have too much time on their hands

2006-11-28T15:21:00.000+07:00

From the Daily Telegraph, via Crikey about Her Maj's man in Canberra:

The whispering campaign against Major-General Jeffery recalls a story involving former veterans' affairs minister Danna Vale.

At a wreath-laying function, Ms Vale was allegedly introduced before the Governor-General.

According to Australian War Memorial staff involved at the time, Major-General Jeffery returned to Government House after the function but immediately despatched his aide-de-camp back to the memorial.

Senior memorial staff were informed that what had happened with Ms Vale was a breach of protocol and should not happen again.

Mrs Jeffery has also been targeted. According to sources close to Yarralumla, she tore strips off her husband's aide-de-camp after she didn't wear a hat to an official function whereas other women - including prominent Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop - did.

This, too, was regarded as a serious breach of protocol.

Wouldn't happen if we had a President.

Prahran: Election night results

2006-11-25T20:54:00.000+07:00

Four more years for Tony.

Counting has finished for the night, and it looks like Talk to Me Tony is back for four more years:

PRAHRAN

Primary Count

Justin Walker (Green)
VOTE: 19.4% SWING: +1.4%

Tony Lupton (Labor)
VOTE: 38.0% SWING: 0.0%

Clem Newton-Brown (Liberal)
VOTE: 41.4% SWING: +0.4%

Gary Pinto (Family First)
VOTE: 1.2% SWING: +1.2%

After Preferences

Tony Lupton (Labor)
VOTE: 56.3% SWING: +1.9%

Clem Newton-Brown (Liberal)
VOTE: 43.7% SWING: -1.9%

Interestingly only 67.4% of votes have been counted, one of the lowest of any electorates, suggesting that there is a high number of postal and absentee votes yet to be counted. Historically, there's a Liberal tendancy amongst these votes, but the Two Party Preferred margin seems to be too big to be overcome.

As happened in 2002, the Liberals won on primary votes, but got beaten soundly after the allocation of preferences. Most of these preferences are from the Greens. The Greens preference flow to the ALP was above 90%, an extraordinarily strong flow, especially given that Newton-Blog went out of his way to establish his environmental credentials.

Enough for now. More tomorrow.

UPDATE 1/12, 5:10pm: An anonymous commenter has asked about whether the results demonstrate the irrelevance of the internet in attracting voters. I think Anonymous is onto something. To me, it comes down the question of who is likely to turn to candidate websites, videos or blogs for information - they are overwhelmingly likely to be switched on politically-minded people who are already well-entrenched in their political beliefs. In other words, swing voters are likely to be apathetic, and therefore not spending their time online finding out about their local candidates.

More likely, the internet plays a role in keeping up energy and excitement amongst true believers, letting them know that the candidate is lively and active. Few undecided voters might have seen Clem's YouTube blog, but plenty of Liberal helpers would have turned to it for inspiration. So long as your helpers don't have the internet as a big part of their lives - ie, the DLP - you can get away with a scant internet presence. For the rest, though, it's essential.

Still, we all know how well www.jeff.com.au went.

Prahran: Final thoughts

2006-11-24T21:16:00.000+07:00

In just a few hours time, the polls will open in Prahran and the 33,000 or so rugged individualists who call this place home will have their say. The more I've watched this campaign, the less I've been certain of the result. Those watching from afar would probably have no difficulty picking it: Lupton's a well-known and well-liked sitting member in an electorate of Doctors' Wives and assorted other progressives, and should be returned easily. On the ground, though, the energy of the Newton-Brown campaign has easily dwarfed his opponents, giving the impression that he might just achieve success.

Ultimately, however, for Newton-Brown the 4.3% swing required is just a tad beyond him. Accepting that the statewide swing to the Liberals will be 2.5%, and that Newton-Brown's personal vote may earn him a further 1%, he's still short of the mark. For most voters, the local battle is a mere sideshow to the heavy-hitters - Bracks and Baillieu - and their efforts will count for far more than that of local candidates.

So for Prahran, my prediction is a Lupton victory, with a decent sized swing against him. As unfashionable as it is to say it, in this battle we've been blessed with two quality candidates, and whoever gets in will be a deserving victor. For the loser, this battle will be but a mere stepping stone to bigger and better things.

Just one sleep to go!

A smorgasbord of candidates awaits Prahran voters.

State election predictions

2006-11-24T20:16:00.000+07:00

Morgan have the ALP up 53 to 47.

Galaxy have the ALP up 55 to 45.

But then again, "Last poll tips easy Kennett victory"

If both polls are accurate and the swing is consistant across the state, they'll lead to a return of the Bracks government, albeit with a reduced majority. Which sounds about right. Bracks will win the election, but this is as much a result of the commanding victory he had in 2002 as it is a ringing endorsement of the previous four years of his Premiership.

Voters aren't thrilled with Bracks, but they see him as a reasonably harmless bloke, even if he occasionally appears paralysed by indecision. It's a reflection on state and local politics more generally that voters are looking for decent administrators rather than real visionaries. When schools, hospitals, roads and water are at stake, the worst offence is rocking the boat. Mediocrity is a virtue.

Politically, there are three very different styles of battles going on.

Firstly, there are the country electorates. These are the ones made up of lifelong conservative voters who swung to Labor in 1999 and have stuck with them. It's interesting to note that these are areas with little historical tradition of voting Labor, and the Labor trend certainly hasn't carried over to Federal elections. If the working class suburbanites who voted for Howard in 1996 and never looked back are "Howard's Battlers", then perhaps these voters are "Bracks' bumpkins".

It will be interesting to see if they stick with Bracks this time around. They've got every reason to desert him. The drought is hitting regional Victoria hard, water restrictions are harsher in the country than they are in Melbourne and the Fast Train has become the Farce Train. Most likely some of these voters will return to the conservative fold, however the bitter divisions between the Liberals and Nationals are hardly encouraging. Watch for some of these seats to fall from Labor to Liberal. For the Nationals, their days are numbered.

My prediction: Ripon, South Barwon, Ballarat West, Hastings, Gembrook to fall to the Liberals.

Secondly, there are suburban electorates. The northern and western suburbs have always been Labor heartland, and nothing their will change. In the south and the east, Bracks might be on the nose, Pinnocio-style, because of his Bracksflip on tolls for the Mitcham to Frankston Freeway. But these are voters who have fallen under the charms of St Steve, and the toll reversal will be too long gone to hurt him. These seats will stay with the ALP. There are, though, a few that will fall from Labor's grasp, because the of slender margin by which they're held, and the strength of the local campaign.

My prediction: Evelyn, Kilsyth and Mount Waverley to fall.

Thirdly, there is the intriguing battle in the inner-city, where the ALP are under threat from a relentless Greens campaign. There was talk that these seats might fall in 2002, but then the Labor sitting members achieved a primary vote which was too high for the Greens to leapfrog to victory. This time, though, the primary vote will be lower for Labor and those seats look under real threat. The ALP have tried incredibly hard to publicise the preference deal the Greens have reached with the Liberals. It's a message, though, that means very little to the cynical, disengaged and Green-loving voters at which it is targeted.

My prediction: Richmond, Brunswick and Melbourne will all go Green.

So all in all, here's what I predict will happen:
- Labor will lose five seats in the country, mostly to the Liberals.
- Labor will lose three seats in the inner city, to the Greens.
- Labor will lose three seats in the eastern suburbs, to the Liberals.

Therefore, Labor will be returned with a significantly reduced majority:

Labor 51 (-11)
Liberal 25 (+8)
Nationals 7 (=)
Greens 3 (+3)
Independents 2 (=)

As for the Upper House, in each of the eight regions, Labor will win two seats, and the Liberals will win two seats. As for the final seats, here's how I think they'll fall:

- Southern Metro, South Eastern Metro, Western Metro, Northern Metro: Greens
- Eastern Metro: Family First
- Western Vic, Northern Vic and Eastern Vic: Nationals

Which leaves us with 16 Labor, 16 Liberals, 4 Greens, 3 Nationals and 1 Family First. This fine balance will make things extremely tricky for the ALP if they are returned in the lower house. Even if they were to reach an agreement with the Greens, one one of their number is elected as Speaker, they no longer have a majority on the floor of the house. Perhaps the single Family First member will become Spring Street's very own Steve Fielding. Oh the joy.

Prahran: Rules are rules

2006-11-22T12:07:00.000+07:00

The VEC site has some fantastic dancing ballot papers...

Makes you wanna get up and vote!

... but I couldn't find the specific rules relating to appropriate authorisation of campaign material. Does anyone want to offer an opinion on whether campaigning SMSs and emails are required to carry the standard "Written and authorised" tag-line? It would seem an unusual exception if it wasn't required of them, and a certain local Liberal candidate has been sending 'em out, authorisation-free.

UPDATE 22/11, 4:20pm: I found the relevant piece of legislation on the AUSTLII website (which, sadly, features no waltzing acts of parliament, nor lambadaing High Court judgements). Section 83 is the one for us:

83. Printing and publication of electoral advertisements, handbills, pamphlets or notices

1) A person must not print, publish or distribute or cause, permit or authorise to be printed, published or distributed, an electoral advertisement, handbill, pamphlet or notice unless-

(a) the name and address of the person who authorised the electoral advertisement, handbill, pamphlet or notice appears at its end; and

(b) in the case of an electoral advertisement, handbill, pamphlet or notice that is printed or published otherwise than in a newspaper, the name and place of business of the printer or publisher appears at its end.

Penalty: In the case of a natural person, 10 penalty units; In the case of a body corporate, 50 penalty units.

(2) For the purposes of sub-section (1)(b), a person who makes copies for distribution of an electoral advertisement, handbill, pamphlet or notice that is published on the Internet is deemed to be the printer of those copies.

(3) Sub-section (1) does not apply in relation to-

(a) a car sticker, an item of clothing, lapel button, lapel badge, fridge magnet, pen, pencil or balloon; or

(b) an article included in a prescribed class of articles.

(4) Nothing in sub-section (3)(a) is to be taken, by implication, to limit the generality of regulations that may be made by virtue of sub-section (3)(b).

So does a mass-circulation SMS or email constitute "an electoral advertisement, handbill, pamphlet or notice" which is "printed, published or distributed"? Hmmm, one for the lawyers out there.

Prahran: The Clem Show continues

2006-11-22T11:25:00.000+07:00

The Clem Newton-Blog DVD has arrived in the post today for me, and presumably for most of Prahran (his only direct mail out this campaign, apparently).

The CNB motorised billboards have hit the streets.

The "Vote Ted... Vote Clem" ad is in the (city-wide) Beat magazine. This is a cashed-up campaign which continues to roll on relentlessly. All of a sudden the 4.3% swing required is looking very gettable.

It's rather prophetic to read the words of Robert Ray, the Labor veteran who was commenting on the 2002 state campaign for the The Age. Two days before the election Ray focussed on the then-challenger Talk to Me Tony Lupton, and the way he ran a strong local campaign:

Communicating with the electorate is what it's all about. An introductory card, followed up by a community survey, several leaflets on specific issues and direct mail from both Lupton and the Premier mean few residents of Prahran don't know of Labor's campaign.

A local campaign has many facets other than just leafleting. Tony Lupton has knocked on over 2000 doors, conducted policy forums, met residents' groups and spent every morning of the campaign at local railway stations. Before all this, he was involved in street chats at the Prahran Market, Toorak Village and the Hawksburn shopping centre. More than 1000 telephone calls have been made to undecided voters.

For many candidates this would be a major chore but a select few, like Lupton, revel in it. Meeting people, mixing it up, copping the odd bit of abuse is all part of the campaign. Lupton would have been buoyed by the fact that Premier Bracks has visited the electorate three times.

Perhaps Newton-Blog has stolen Lupton's campaign manual.

Word on the street, though, is that Talk to Me Tony has been hitting the phones hard, a technique that will be just about invisible to those of us watching the campaign until we see its impact on polling day.

Prahran: Upper house dilemma

2006-11-21T15:12:00.001+07:00

Accepting for a moment that Bracks will be returned, albeit with a reduced majority (although one campaigner working at Liberal HQ suggested that the battle was far from over), our attention now rightly turns to the vexing question of who ought control the balance of power in the Legislative Council.

Democrats candidate (and incidentally a former campaign manager of AOTW) from Southern Metro region John Mathieson sent out this email to the true believers... and me as well, for some reason:

In 2006 the voting system has been changed for the Victorian Upper House. Instead of the old system where 22 members were each elected for 2 terms in single member electorates, we now have a senate style voting system where 8 electorates will each elect 5 members. This means for the first time that smaller parties are likely to win seats in the Victorian Upper House. In fact it is more than likely that smaller parties will hold the balance of power in the Upper House. This could maybe be The Greens, or Family First or some of the new dodgy outfits with an unproven track record.

Or it could be a party with a 25 year proven track record of mediation and forward thinking in the Australian Senate such as the Australian Democrats. This year... I am standing, along with my friend, the extraordinarily passionate and dedicated Paul Kavanagh, for the seat of Southern Metropolitan in the Victorian Upper House. Southern Metropolitan covers most of the prosperous areas where you people are likely to be living – from Beaumaris to Port Melbourne to Balwyn to Oakleigh...

I have seen how John Howard has handled his Senate majority “soberly, sensibly and wisely” since he got control of both Houses of Parliament and I’m not too sure he owns the same dictionary as me. Mine is from Oxford, his I think may have been penned by Alan Jones. Howard’s not the first to think that controlling both houses of parliament is a licence to shut down the Democratic process and he won’t be the last. I want to be involved in ensuring that Upper Houses around Australia remain serious Houses of Review and not rubber stamps and that fellows like Howard and his kind don’t get the opportunity to unleash their worst instincts on the Australian public in the future. At the end of the day, why have an Upper House if it is not able or prepared to scrutinize legislation thoroughly and objectively?

It's a fine questions that John poses. It seems most likely that the balance of power will be held by some or all of People Power, Family First and the Greens. Sorry, not the Democrats.

Two of those three prospects are alarming. The thought of a government needing to rely on the support on ideological zealots on either the left or the right in order to pass legislation is a scary one. The Greens and Family First both represent a victory of fundamentalist principles over moderation and compromise.

Which leaves those of us who value a rigourous but functional upper house in a quandry. At best, the Democrats will be a preference funnel for someone else, picking up a percent or two only the have themselves knocked out of the race just a little after the DLP. Perhaps the way out is the great unknown, People Power, who see to have sprung up from nothing, and have taken what can best be described as a scattergun approach to policy? At the moment I'm leaning in that direction, but not with much confidence.

What's a moderate voter to do?

UPDATE 22/11, 11:10AM: One emailer has queried whether my leaning toward People Power was for my first preference. It's not: instead it's my highest preference out of the three in contention for the balance of power. With respect to my primary vote, well, old habits die hard!

Thanks to an anonymous commenter who has pointed me toward UpperHouse.Info, a site to which I've become quite a fan, especially with its election calculators. For the psephologist nerd in us all.

Prahran: Gay, green, and kinda obscene

2006-11-20T09:46:00.000+07:00

From yesterday's Sunday Herald Sun:

Green's website sex profile
By Chris Tinkler

November 19, 2006 12:00am

A KEY Melbourne Greens candidate has admitted to declaring on a website a fondness for illegal sexual perversions.

Justin Walker, a chance to win the seat of Prahran (a chance?? who are they kidding. -AOTW), has advertised picking up men in public toilets among his sexual activities on a homosexual dating site.

The 29-year-old, photographed at functions with Greens patriarch Senator Bob Brown, also declared a taste for exhibitionism, group sex, voyeurism and self-gratification.

Having sex in public toilets and indecent exposure are both criminal offences.

The story relates to a Gaydar listing that Justin "Juzzy" Walker had for himself, which has since been removed. (A bit of self correction on my part is needed here - the profile has been amended, not removed. -AOTW.)

Andrew Landeryou over at The Other Cheek seems to be getting very hot and bothered over Walker's unusual proclivities. Though I'm not a big fan of Landeryou's take on this fairly mild discovery that a candidate (shock, horror) has an interesting sex life, I am thankful to him for doing much of the journalistic leg work to publish the original source material. You can check out a screen shot of the Gaydar page here. The sanatised, clean - and still kilt-adoring - Gaydar page can be found here.

As for the rest of the world, it seems likely that the scandal will pass rather
quickly. Indeed, in the electorate of Prahran, for many voters frottage and exhibitionism, is, well, kind of endearing.

(Hat Tip to Michael Hudson for pointing me in the direction of this one. And of course to Handy Andy.)

UPDATE, 21/11 5:30pm: I've received correspondence from Justin, who has rightly pointed out that I erred in suggesting that the profile has since been removed. It has, in fact, been altered.

He also requested that I include his comment from the original article in properly representing his position:

Mr Walker admitted yesterday to putting the content on the gaydar.com.au website page, which also includes a link to his election campaign blog.

"I put that profile up four to five years ago, I haven't looked at it since," Mr Walker said.

He claimed some of the information was wrong.

"The information was incorrect and I corrected it," he said.

It was rather unfortunate to draw our attention to this confused version of events. Just like Bill Clinton faced impeachment not because of his sexual activities but becaused he lied about them, Walker's biggest sin might be these half-truthes rather than the events to which they refer.

To suggest that he hadn't looked at the profile in four or five years, and yet managed to include a reference to his Prahran candidacy, an event which would have occurred early in 2006, makes no sense. Short of editing his profile without looking at it, this seems a logical impossibility.

This minor confusion aside, the more I think about the sequence of events, the more I sympathise with Walker and the gutter journalism he has encountered from the Herald Sun and Landeryou. The attack is little more than a homophobic witch-hunt, with the focus of the attack not on the suggestion of criminality, but on the notion that being an out, gay, sexually active man is worthy of shame. It isn't, and any journalist who believes that it's worthy of comment is reflecting their own prejudices in their news judgement.

My decision to retell the story was in part to refer to its insignificance, and also as part of my attempt to catelogue the events of the campaign, whatever they may be. Politically, I think that Walker's sexuality is irrelevant, and the way he has been portrayed says as much about his accusers as it does about him.

As Polly has pointed out elsewhere on this topic, the 'allegations' are more likely to help his campaign than they are to harm it.

And to think I should be studying for an exam...

2006-11-17T16:59:00.000+07:00

The latest edition of Melbourne Pixel is online.

Okay, so nepotism might have taken me to the site, but it's quality content that kept me there. For twenty minutes now, and counting. If you can find yourself a more stylishly designed bit of cyber-real estate, I'd love to see it.

And the ever thoughtful Nahum was at the Make Poverty History Forum yesterday at the Town Hall, and shares some of his thoughts with the MG collecting community.

Prahran: Cutting through

2006-11-17T07:55:00.000+07:00

In the midst of an election campaign, one of the biggest challenges for a candidate is to 'cut through' the dross, grandstanding and overhyped posturing of all the others. It's a rare skill, and even more so in an era of cynical politicians and an even more cynical electorate.

In the battle for Prahran, Clem Newton-Blog seems to be doing just that.

The past week has seen CNB come close to overwhelming the electorate with campaign material. Normally this is barely worthy of comment, especially in a marginal electorate. What is noteworthy, though, is that CNB's campaign is fresh and innovative in a way that makes "Talk to Me" Tony struggle in his wake.

Newton-Blog has letterboxed the electorate promoting an afternoon tea on Saturday in the home of one of his constituents, along with guests David Davis and Big Ted himself. The function is limited to 150 places (which is 1% of the electorate) but the flyer would make CNB's accessability known to many more beyond that. It show's Newton-Blog as an open and available person, and the invite has a charming old-world feel to it.

Wandering along Chapel Street, the clogged arterty which runs through the middle of the electorate, I came across two motorcycle mobile billboards trumpeting that I should "Vote Clem... Vote Ted" along with the aforementioned's smiling faces. (Normally I'd publish the photos to share this find, but at the moment my camera and computer are getting on with each other about as well as the Liberals and Nationals are.) Motorised billboards are certainly a step up from Clem's bicycled A-Frame, and would surely have cost plenty.

To add to all that, apparently Clem's famous YouTube debut will be coming out as a DVD, delivered to a letter box near you some time soon. The man clearly means business.

As for the Lupton campaign, there's been a decent volume of mail (although even then it is dwarfed by all the Clem-aphenalia) but crucially it lacks the ability to cut through. Every week there's been a personally addressed letter banging on about the wonderful achievements of St Steve and the horrors of evil Mr Baillieu, but it reads like it came straight out of the Labor election campaign kit. It lacks colour or movement or a sense of excitement.

My hunch is that the Lib's have identified Prahran as an electorate which is likely to swing. The resources poured into the Clem campaign must surely dwarf what even the candidate himself thought possible. This is no longer merely a young local upstart tring to shave a couple of percent of the sitting member. This is now a concerted, highly funded campaign focussed on the end game.

A week to go, gentlemen.

Prahran: A late starter joins the race

2006-11-11T13:08:00.000+07:00

Nominations have closed for candidates for the State Election, and the fine citizens of Prahran are blessed with four (count 'em, FOUR!) humanoids desperate to represent them on Spring Street:

Candidates in ballot paper order

WALKER, Justin
AUSTRALIAN GREENS

LUPTON, Tony
AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY

NEWTON-BROWN, Clem
LIBERAL

PINTO, Gary
FAMILY FIRST

Justin, Tony and Clem are well known to this blog, but Gary Pinto is the New Kid on The Block (you'll see why that's ~~funny~~ mildly amusing in a moment).

So just who is Gary Pinto?

The Family First website is largely unhelpful, other than for its colourful and multi font-filled way of telling the world sweet FA.

GARY PINTO
FAMILY FIRST
Lower House Candidate
PRAHRAN
Details of this candidate will be added shortly.
For more information contact
vic@familyfirst.org.au

But a Google search is revealing.

Hit Number 2 is Infusion Nites, who tell us this about the wannabe MP:

Gary Pinto

Australian singer/songwriter Gary Pinto is a man of distinct sound and great vocal talent. Gary fronted the Melbourne based R&B outfit CDB in the mid 1990s and after the group separated, Gary went on to pursue a solo career. Gary's smooth vocals are showcased in his music which is soulful, inspirational, and positively charged.

...and a little futher down the Googlelist we stumble across Pinto's Guy Sebastian connection:

The deeply religious Sebastian said at the weekend he did not intend to moralise to women on the subject but believes establishing such a clinic was vital to help women make informed decisions regarding the consequences of abortion.

"I've met a few women who have had one and their stories are just horrific, they just shock you," he said in Adelaide on Saturday. "Some have never recovered.
"It's the worst thing to do – make an uninformed, uneducated decision. That's how stuff goes wrong."

The planned centre would be aimed at helping both women who have had abortions and those who are considering having them, Sebastian said

"I'm anti-abortion; I don't believe any human being has the right to decide the fate of another, but I'm totally against telling other people what to do," he said.

He hopes to establish the centre with the help of one of his backing singers, Gary Pinto, who was formerly part of the group CDB.

The links between Sebastian, Family First and the Assemblies of God are well known.

That style of Christianity has struck a chord with outer-suburbanites, many of whom are deeply conservative 'aspirational class' voters. It's much less certain, however, that this brand of family values will play well in the god-forsaken heathen-loving idol-worshipping Sodomite Kingdom of Prahran.

Pinto will no doubt have his hands full pitching the Family First message deep in enemy territory. Still, the man can sing. Clem? Tony?

Live it, don't just blog it

2006-11-08T16:49:00.000+07:00

I've just spent a delightful afternoon in the cosy surrounds of the James Squire Brewhouse with some well-informed friends watching the Midterm Midtacular results on CNN. Between the dozen of us, there were enough smart-arse remarks, well-formed observations and generally intelligent questions to make the afternoon a fun one. Sure, the flash looking big-screen TV was an essential part of our election-info diet, but it was an event to be enjoyed collectively.

Not so the blogosphere. After arriving home, I've logged on to see what the rest of the world has to say, and I'm startled by the obsessiveness of many bloggers. There were countless bloggers who took it upon themselves to blog the events of the evening in excrutiating detail, with every twist and turn documented for all eternity.

Sure, I admire their commitment to their craft, but here's what I don't get: why did these clearly intelligent and well-informed people spend their election night whiling away the hours in front of their computer screens when there were many an election party to be enjoyed? Would their time have not been better spent enjoying victory or commisserating defeat in the arms of friends, no doubt whilst imbibing a Dennis Hastert-like quantity of ale? Or, and this is the intriguing thing, are their on-line buddies now their circle of friends, with a big night spent with them being preferable to one in the company of flesh-and-blood humans?

Victorious Democrats, moments before returning to their computers to blog all about it.

Prahran: Tram It, Dammit

2006-11-07T18:48:00.000+07:00

This week's Stonnington Leader has a decent amount of election coverage, although its treatment of the issue of the week, transport, was monumentally lame. The biggest transport issue for Prahranites: are the old W-Class trams on the Chapel Street route too noisy and cumbersome? Local residents complained about the noise, Tony said he liked 'em and Clem didn't bother. Right.

How about this as the transport question for Prahrainians: what can we do to increase capacity on peak hour trains? As most transport wonks will tell you, it's a question of infrastructure.

Firstly, Melbourne's antiquated signalling system limits the frequency of services because it requires big gaps between trains. It can and should be overhauled.

Secondly, the number of tracks at some outer-suburban parts of the network are inadquate and need to be increased. This effects the frequency of services in the inner-city. Triplication all the way to Dandenong would do wonders.

Thirdly, the city loop is at its limits. The long term option needs to be the building of a fifth and sixth loop, but in the mean time there need to be more train lines that "do a Sandringham" and go direct to Flinders Street.

Looking beyond the Prahranese, there is a desperate need for infrastructure in the outer 'burbs. The trainline to Rowville has been mooted for decades but is no closer to being built. Deviating from the Dandenong line at Huntingdale, it could service Rowville, Scoresby, Mulgrave and Monash University very easily, overhauling that part of the city's reputation as a public transport black hole. Millions have been spend studying the possibility. Electrification to Craigieburn and (finally) the train line to South Morang should be high on the agenda.

So is either major party walking the walk? Not likely. Whilst Rome burns, the two parties fiddle.

Adjusting ticket pricing is the easy option that the parties have adopted. Baillieu wants to provide (PDF warning) free transport to students and merge zones 2 and 3. Talk about missing the point! For those who live within range of decent public transport, PT is undoubtedly better value than a car. For those who live beyond decent public transport, no financial saving will outweigh the inconvenience of using it. Bottom line is that consumers are much more sensitive to service levels and infrastructure than they are to pricing.

Credit ought to go to the Libs, though, for promising the building of the Cranbourne East train line and the extention to South Morang as praised by the fine folks at the Public Transport Users Association.

As for the ALP, thus far into the campaign this is what they have to offer (PDF warning) on public transport:

FARE GO PACKAGE
HOW THE BRACKS GOVERNMENT WILL CUT THE PRICE OF TRAVELLING ON PUBLIC
TRANSPORT

Yawn.

Prahran: Vote Clem... the Movie

2006-10-29T19:19:00.000+07:00

Like him or not, Clem Newton-Blog is full of creative campaigning energy. This time he's heading to cyberspace to get his message heard. "Vote Clem... the movie" might not be quite as controversial as the works of the Werribee Kings, but it shows that the internet can be a local force as well as a global one.

Kudos ought to go to Newton-Brown and his campaign team for putting together the video in the first place. As for the content, it's a mixed bag.

Newton-Brown seems to have an absurdly illogical position on car parking. Setting aside the objection that it's a local issue rather than a state issue, N-B wants to have his cake, and eat it too. To start with, he makes clear that there should be no metered parking on or around Chapel Street. He then goes on to say that the car park at Cato Street, adjacent to Chapel Street, should be demolished and a public square put in its place. In other words, N-B wants to both reduce the supply and the price of a scarce commodity. Presumably he will be equipping local traders with stun-guns and pepper spray to deal with the angry mobs of dissatisfied commuters who unwittingly visit Clemsville.

The truth is that N-B is right with his second suggestion, not his first. Cato carpark would indeed make a wonderful public square and the land could be used far more effectively than it is at the moment. But the quid pro quo needs to be that motorists accept a charge for using those parking spaces that do remain, and given the significant demand, a hefty charge will be warranted. Only then will economics shift in favour of public transport.

N-B is spot on with his push for bike lanes, although he could be even bolder and argue for the Copenhagen-style bike lanes, where the bikes are shielded from passing traffic by parked cars. Given this is being tested out by VicRoads under the current government, his reluctance is understandable. He's on the mark as well with his push to clean up the Yarra, where I one day look forward to swimming, with Clem by my side.

N-B is foolish, though, when it comes to 2030. Using the backdrop of a supposedly inappropriate development, N-B plays into the hand of NIMBY local residents who love to object whenever a neighbouring property attempts redevelopment. Rather than a spirited defence of the importance of progress, economic development and property rights, N-B makes clear that he believes the real enemy is VCAT and greedy developers.

And so he calls for the abolition of 2030, ironically in part because he believes the infrastructure in the inner city can't cope with high density housing. The fact that massive amounts of infrastructure would need to be put in place to cope with a sprawling low-density metropolis doesn't seem to occur to the candidate. 2030 is far from perfect, but the underlying philosophy of containing urban sprawl and basing lifestyles around activity centres is the only viable way for the city to keep growing.

As a final aside, the emphasis of Baillieu's message at the end it interesting. Though there are probably an army of advisers who have encouraged a touchy-feely message, Baillieu has taken a different tact. In just over a minute of airtime, he uses the following phrases:

- "We've got strong plans for this state, action plans that we'll deliver."

- "A Liberal government will deliver on all these projects, because that's what we're good at, that's what we have a record at. Liberals have always delivered on time and on budget."

- "Vote for a Liberal Goverment in Victoria, because we'll deliver on time, and on budget, because that's what Liberals always do."

The language is bold, just a touch agressive, and very Kennett. Schools and hospitals get a mention, but they're presented as projects that require a keen businessman's eye. The dithering of Bracks, Thwaites et al is replaced with a crisp sense of confidence. Baillieu looks for all the world like he'd rather be an entrepreneur than a bureaucrat, and that's got to be a good thing.

Prahran: Green Games

2006-10-25T18:45:00.000+07:00

The local Greens have launched their campaign website, and it makes their upper house intentions clear. Sue For Parliament is not some highly legalistic method of entering the hallowed halls of Spring Street, but is instead the party's site for the Southen Metropolitan candidate, Sue Pennicuik. Local Prahran candidate Justin Walker is also featured on the site, complete with the seemingly obligatory blog.

It's no surprise that the Legislative Council is where the Greens are focussing their energies. The new multi-member electorates mean that the party is in with a realistic chance of winning up to four seats, and with it the balance of power. Although the polls may vary on just how high their vote will be (Galaxy had them on 7%, AC Neilson on 13%) the reality is that this election is likely to be a watershed for the watermelons.

It will be interesting to see how the major parties respond.

The ALP need to tread carefully. The two parties are in competition for the left-of-centre vote, and so the Labor Party will be tempted to demonise the Greens as the lunatic fringe, focussing on things such as their drug policy which may scare off moderate voters tempted to dip their toes in green waters. However, come November 25, the ALP will most likely need to form an agreement with the Greens to secure passage of bills through the Legistlative Council. This is unlikely to be a fully-fledged coalition agreement, but more likely an agreement on fundamental issues which will at least ensure that affairs of state can continue. If the demonised image of the Greens takes hold in the public imagination, it will be tough to sell a deal with the devil.

Things for the Liberals are interesting as well. It must be sorely tempting for the Liberals to give the Greens a foothold in order to divide the left between the Greens and the ALP. The best strategy is for the Liberals to play dead in electorates where the Greens are likely to poll well (eg Brunswick, Richmond, Melbourne) in the hope that the Greens candidate polls ahead of the Liberal candidate whilst the Labor candidate will poll first but fail to reach the 50%+1 necessary to win. Next, the Liberals need their preferences to flow strongly to the Greens ahead of Labor to push them beyond 50%.

Tempting as it must be, it's unlikely to happen, because:
a) it would involve the Liberals playing dead, when they will need to keep their primary vote up in order to boost their upper house prospects, and
b) it would involve the Liberals preferencing the Greens ahead of the Labor Party, which would contrast sharply with the Liberal's anti-Green drum-beating.

Instead, what I suspect we'll get from the Liberals is a campaign that makes clear that if the Labor Party are re-elected, they'll be doing so hand in hand with the Greens and all their Greenish loopiness. The only way to ensure this doesn't happen, is to vote Liberal (or, alteratively, to ensure an overwhelming ALP vote, but I don't think the Lib's campaign material will say that).

In the unlikely event that the Liberals are elected in November, then the upper house - and hence, the state - will be condemned to gridlock: common ground between Greens and the Liberals will be despeately hard to find. A little scary, but sure as hell would be fun to watch.

A tale of two cities

2006-10-24T16:27:00.000+07:00

Forget different demographics, Melbourne's two daily newspapers seem to be operating in different universes.

Over at the People's Republic of News Limited:

Poll reveals Labor backlash
EXCLUSIVE
Ellen Whinnett, state politics reporter

October 24, 2006 12:00am

THE Bracks Government is facing a voter backlash and could lose up to 16 seats, an exclusive Herald Sun poll shows.

Almost 60 per cent of those polled believe the Government is out of touch while half say Labor does not deserve to win the November 25 state election.

The poll shows voters deserting Labor in droves, with a swing of almost 6 per cent against the party.

Whilst over in the far more Bracks-friendly Commonwealth of Fairfax, it's a very different story:

Liberals face crushing loss at poll
Paul Austin
October 24, 2006

THE Victorian Liberals are in danger of a crushing defeat at next month's election, with the latest ACNielsen/ Age Poll showing Premier Steve Bracks on track for a landslide victory.

But the poll, conducted exclusively for The Age one month before the November 25 election, finds overwhelming public support for Liberal leader Ted Baillieu's promise to slash the number of poker machines in Victoria.

As William over at the Poll Bludger explains, this is more than just different spin on the same data:

Galaxy Research has created a buzz by showing a lower-than-expected Labor lead of 52-48 in its poll in today’s Herald-Sun. However, it comes on the same day as an ACNielsen poll in The Age showing a Labor lead of 56-44, in line with general expectations.

A difference of 4% is a substantial gap given the similarity of the questions asked, techniques used, and population sampled. And more worryingly for Bracks, it seems that Galaxy has some form at picking results, if Crikey's wrap-up of the Queensland election is any guide:

The final polls from both Newspoll and Galaxy picked the result almost exactly.

My hunch: the truth lies somewhere between the two. Given their low starting point, the Liberals would be incompetent not to receive some sort of swing toward them. The game they are playing at is a two term victory: win back some seats this time, and get themselves in a good position to win in 2008. I suspect that we might see a reverse of the 1999 election, with the conservatives winning a swathe of seats in the country, but struggling to make an impact in Melbourne. This quote from the analysis of The Age poll is telling:

Labor's vote after preferences is stronger in Melbourne (61 per cent compared with the Liberal/Nationals 39 per cent) than in the rest of Victoria (43 per cent compared with 57 per cent for the conservative parties).

Hmmm, just what does country Victoria have in store for us this time? Kennett Mark II?

UPDATE 24/10, 9:03pm: Do'h. 'Anonymous' in the comments has shown the value of proof-reading your work. Next election is indeed in 2010. 27 November, 2010, in fact.

North Korea: Time to start talking

2006-10-18T08:36:00.000+07:00

I've been a little quiet of late on the topic of Korea, although I've been thinking about it a lot. Last night I was listening to a couple of veteran North Asia watchers, and it crystalised my thoughts on the current reality:

The US's attempts at isolating North Korea have failed at preventing the development of nuclear capability. South Korea's sunshine policy of engagement has failed at containing North Korea. But the actions of each actor has undermined the actions of the other, so both isolation and engagement has been half-hearted. So where do we go from here?

My hunch is there's only one way to go, and it isn't reflected in popular opinion about the subject. In record time the UN Security Council raced toward further isolation, creating a resolution that would freeze out the North Koreans even more than the absurdity of their own Juche policy does. If it wasn't for the reluctance of the Chinese, the resolution would be even harsher. Some of the restrictions are necessary - such as those that seek to prevent export and proliferation of weapons. But the thrust of it seems to be to further isolate the regime.

Here's the problem: the regime has been isolated for five decades, and it hasn't fallen. Kim Jong-il relies on isolation to perpetuate his own power: it's hard to tell people that life is good when they know through comparison that it isn't. But keep them ignorant, and you can persuade them of anything.Further isolation won't endanger the regime: instead, it will bolster it. Even more peasants will starve, the propaganda will become even more shrill, the nukes will remain on a hair-trigger, and the regime will stand.

Also, if backed into a corner, the North Koreans might be tempted to use the nuclear capability that they have. The only thing worse than a man with a gun is an angry, isolated man with a gun.

The biggest threat to Kim Jong-il's hold on power is engagement. The flow of foreign goods into North Korea will likely be followed by the flow of foreign ideas, including pluralism, disseent and the affluence of the modern world. With these come threats to the suffocating hegemony enjoyed by the ruling elite. Watch the way that Romania's communists crumbled in 1989, with ideas of freedom slipping through the cracks in the iron curtain.

Although the push for isolation is gathering momentum, there are some who opt for a different tact, and they're not the usual suspects, either. Former Secretary of State James Baker has jumped on board, as this piece from Nicholas Kristof in last week's New York Times shows (thanks to Colin Rule who does what the NYT doesn't, and makes the article available for non-subscribers):

“If there’s one overriding lesson from North Korea’s apparent nuclear test, it’s this: We need to negotiate directly even with hostile and brutal regimes.

It’s probably too late to clean up the mess that President Bush has made on the Korean peninsula, but there is time to apply the lesson to Syria and especially Iran — where we may soon be facing a third military conflict in a Muslim country.

As former Secretary of State James Baker noted in an ABC News interview on Sunday: “I believe in talking to your enemies. … It’s not appeasement to talk to your enemies.”…

“By not having any contact, we’ve lost any way of controlling or directing the outcome,” noted James Laney, a longtime Korea specialist and former ambassador to South Korea. “As this test indicates, we’re completely out of the picture.” …

To show that talking with enemies doesn’t mean rolling over, we can also insist on raising human rights issues. American conservatives have led the way in protesting brutality in North Korea, but the protests simply aren’t effective. The U.S. government could add to the pressure by going public with satellite images of concentration camps and publicizing other intelligence about North Korean human rights abuses.

The challenge is larger than North Korea, though — it concerns how to stand up to all of the world’s rogue regimes. Notably, in the two where Mr. Bush has tried engagement he has enjoyed bits of success. Those are Sudan and Libya.

In the short term, I can see the case for isolation. An unpredictable regime like the one in North Korea will have no compunction in selling their nuclear knowledge the other rogue states or terrorist groups, and preventing this needs to be a high priority. In the medium and long term, though, the objective needs to be to bring DPRK back into the community of nations and show its long-suffering people that their interests haven't been forgotten by the rest of the world, even if they have been forgotten by their own leadership.

Can we isolate North Korea into submission? It hasn't worked for five decades, and there's no reason to think it will start now.

Review: Hephzibah

2006-10-06T21:24:00.000+07:00

It may have been eight years after the film was made, but I've cracked it for a film review in the Australian Jewish News (Melbourne and Sydney editions!). The film is an interesting one, and certainly worth seeing if you have a curiousity for what makes a great mind tick:

Tribute to a woman ahead of her time

Film review: HEPHZIBAH
Reviewed by Ari Sharp

THE great Yehudi Menuhin occupies a revered place in the Jewish imagination: he was a fantastically-talented virtuoso violinist, as strong in character as he was in creative ability.

Less well known, however, is his sister Hephzibah. Hephzibah Menuhin is the subject of Curtis Levy’s documentary of the same name.

Originally produced and released by SBS Independent in 1998, the film is being re-released now in the hope of finding a new audience. Since Hephzibah, Levy has gone on to be the cinematographer of Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit Proof Fence, and also directed the controversial documentary, The President Versus David Hicks.

It is fitting that this is an Australian documentary, given that Hephzibah spent much of her young adulthood here.

Like her brother, Hephzibah communicated with the world through music. Her instrument of choice was the piano, which she embraced at a young age. When she was just eight and Yehudi was seven, the two of them performed a concert in Paris, proudly displaying their youthful brilliance.

Read the rest of the review here.

Small (minded) Britain?

2006-09-30T21:10:00.000+07:00

The past few weeks I've been getting into the comic brilliance that is Little Britain (and you thought the scarce posting was due to work and uni commitments...). Without doubt, the content is funny, but the more I watch it, the more I see a nasty, almost xenophobic streak running through the portrayal of the characters. In fairness, I've only watched the first series, so things might be different with the recent stuff, but I doubt it.

Here's my take on it. Little Britain is a show for middle class, tertiary educated BBC-watchers (and their Australian counterparts) which takes the piss out of everyone else: the old, the decrepid, the gay, the disabled, the working class, the transvestite, the fat, the Scottish. In other words, it's cultural insiders laughing at (most definitely not with) cultural outsiders.

The dozen or so regular characters represent the subconscious prejudices of a mildly insecure audience. None of the characters represent the sort of people who might actually be watching: they're not in on the joke. A few examples helps to illustrate:

- Vicky Pollard is the 'yeah but no but' girl who is the epitome of chav/bogun. She's crass, loud, crude, chubby, and ugly, but has absolutely no self-awareness of her own ridiculousness. She is the girl that every middle class family fears hopes their daughter never becomes. And she'd never watch the BBC.

- Andy and Lou are the coupling of the physically and mentally disabled man with his carer. Andy, as the indicisive, slightly disturbed twit, is a subject of derision and scorn, completely devoid of pity. But then so is his carer, Lou, whose noble but pathetic existance is relentlessly mocked. (The sketches, incidentally, are of panto-like simplicity: "Do you want X?" "Yeah." "Are you sure?" "Yeah" "But you don't like X?" "I know." "But you're sure you want X?" "Yeah." "Okay." "I want Y.")

- Sebastian, the Prime Minister's aid, is a sadly deluded gay man who can't take a hint. Here the contrast is interesting when the hopelessly camp gay man is compared with the serious and refined Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the straight man (in more ways than one), and is one of few characters who is never the butt of the joke. He is, after all, white, straight, male and educated.

The point I'm making is not that there's something inherently wrong with LB or that we should feel guilty and finding it funny. I'm a firm believer that the biggest offence in black comedy is not being funny: so long as it is funny, you can get away with it. And this stuff most certainly is. I think, though, that audiences are not attuned to the political nature of what they're watching, and need to face up to the fact that the show reinforces prejudices rather than challenges them.

It's ironic that there are a legion of lefties who are usually very sensitive to prejudices and stereotypes elsewhere, but will declare themselves LB fans. I suspect the BBC/ABC gives the show 'cover' from criticisms that can quite righly be levelled at the show.

Prahran: Lib's Sustainable Planet Forum

2006-09-21T08:57:00.000+07:00

Holding a public meeting in the midst of an election campaign is an exercise that can be frought with danger: it's hard to hide the vast swathes of empty seats that are a testament to public apathy, and the chances of an ambush by supporters of 'the other guy' are high. Local lib Clem Newton-Blog has done just that, and with an extra degree of difficulty to boot.

Last Tuesday the Prahran Town Hall played host to the grandly titled Sustainable Planet Forum 2006. Okay, so in essence it was a campaign event for the Liberals, but there was a lot more than mere tub-thumping going on. The panel of seven included a few Libs (David Davis, Greg Hunt), but also a few from left field, such as weatherman-cum-environmentalist Rob Gell, public transport guru Paul Mees, spokespeople from Environment Victoria and the Wilderness Society (they even had a table at the back of the room) and everyone's favourite Catholic funnyman, Father Bob Maguire.

As with most public meetings that aren't simply there to whinge about overdevelopment, this one was sparsely attended. The fifty of us who were there, though, we're treated to an excellent overview of the environmental issues that plague us.

Greg Hunt offered an interesting perspective on the water dilemmas that Melbourne is currently facing. He looked at the issue as the challenge that our generation needs to meet, much like previous generations have had challenges of their own to meet and overcome. He compared it to the cholera epidemic that plagued London in the 1860s, or the acid rain that fell upon cities in Europe and North America in the 1980s. Both of these eras had their doomsayers, but both overcame them.

Megan Clinton from the Wilderness Society (!!) gave a presentation on the destruction of old growth forest in eastern Victoria: essentially Gippsland plus a bit more. Paul Mees spoke about the lessons that can be learnt from the Zurich public transport system - including the interesting snippet that their transport bureaucracy has one-tenth the staff of ours, and those guys actually run their system rather than merely overseeing the running of it, like our Department of Infrastructure does.

At first the issues on the table seem like a disparate grab-bag of enviro-concerns. Looking a little deeper, though, and there's a clear common theme.

Each of these issues revolves around how we, as a society, deal with scarce resources. In the case of water, the scarcity is obvious. In the case of logging, the scarcity lies in the pristine old growth forests. In the case of transport, the scarcity of both oil and road space is at play. Though it was a little quiet on the night, we could also add to that list energy generation, in which we have a scarcity of clean sources of fuel.

And the solution to this scarcity? That's where I believes the Liberals could really show leadership, if only they saw it. Each of these issues could be dealt with effectively through a pricing mechanism that both reflected the scarcity of the goods, and the environmental impact of consumption: internalise the externalities. It's absurd that water is both suffering a critical shortage, and is cheap as, well, water. We can have all the water restrictions and public education campaigns in the world, but if we charge a price that reflects the scarcity of the good, we can be sure consumers' behaviour will change pretty quickly. Applying the same logic to the other scarcities will net similar results.

This is an idea that should sit snugly within the values of the Liberal Party. It emphasises the importance of individual consumers in achieving environmental change, and by internalising externalities, it makes individuals responsable for the effects of their own consumption. It would create a myriad of opportunities for environmenal entrepreneurs, who all of a sudden will find their alternative energy sources may be cost effective and that consumers are rushing toward installing water tanks in the backyard.

With the Libs slowly starting to engage in the debate, perhaps we're finally getting somewhere.

(Admittedly, I left before the final speaker, David Davis, and questions. But I doubt he differed greatly from the party line.)

Review: Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear, & the Selling of American Empire

2006-09-14T22:35:00.000+07:00

The fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001 has spawned the release of a plethora of films and documentaries about that fatal day. In United 93 and World Trade Centre we are exposed to the detail - sometimes excruciatingly so - of the disaster, from the death of innocents to the stories of heroism and the noble struggle of good against evil.

These films, however, are a-historical, in that they make no attempt to locate the events they portray in a broader context or historical narrative. Instead they are disaster films in the classic sense: a freak, unexplained events disrupts the otherwise ordinary lives of the antagonists. Hijacking Catastrophe takes a different approach. A compelling documentary, it posits September 11 not as a climax, nor a freak event, but as an enabling act, one that allowed the otherwise thwarted ambitions of a clique of foreign policy wonks to become reality.

Read the rest at The Program.

Vale, Alexander Sharp

2006-09-12T20:54:00.000+07:00

Last Friday my grandfather passed away after a battle with cancer. He was 81. His funeral was on Monday, and I was invited to give the eulogy. My grandfather was a special man - and an occasional reader of this blog - and as a tribute to him, I've decided to republish my eulogy for him.

I'll miss you, Zaida.

A Eulogy for Alexander Sharp (1924-2006)

Every person has just one life, and they owe it to themselves to make the most of it. My Zaida certainly did that. I saw my Zaida through a grandchild’s eyes, watching him in awe as a larger than life figure and the source of all wisdom. He was a man who received so much naches in the achievements of his children and grandchildren, that it was as if he had achieved all these things himself. Zaida was the patriarch of a family, a role that I know he was proud to play, with his three children and nine grandchildren carrying on his legacy.

Sorting through my grandfather’s personal papers since his death, I came across a faded handwritten letter. It was dated 6 September 1942, and written by the Rabbi of the Perth Hebrew Congregation. This is what it says:

To whom it may concern.

I have pleasure in stating that I have known Mr Alec Sharp, of 221 Lake Street, North Perth for over three years. I am impressed by his sincerity of manner, and high sense of responsibility. He is a person of good fame and repute and I believe him to be capable, conscientious and self-reliant. I therefore recommend him warmly to any position he may seek.

Rabbi L Rubin-Zacks

This was written more than forty years before I was born, but it was as true of the grandfather that I knew as it was of the seventeen year old student of whom it was written. His good nature was enduring throughout his life, and this was reflected in all that he did.

Alexander Sharp was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Morris and Bella Sharp. He was the youngest of four children. When he was three years old, his family migrated to Perth to join other members of the family already in Australia.

Just three weeks after his eighteenth birthday, Zaida enlisted in the defence force. He went on to serve four years in the air force, including a stint on the island of Moratai, which is now a part of Indonesia. There are lots of photos of my grandfather from this period in his life. In these photos, my young Zaida is grinning sheepishly at the camera, often striking a pose next to one of his aircraft. He was a ruggedly handsome man, with broad shoulders and a stocky physique. He had a pencil thin moustache which made him look older than his early 20s. Looking through these photos, my aunty commented that my grandfather looked a bit like Clark Gable. I think she was wrong. I think Clark Gable looked a bit like my grandfather. Zaida was discharged from the air force in early 1946, with the rank of a Leading Aircraftman. He was honoured for his service with a Pacific Star.

A few months after he returned to civilian life in Perth, a relative in Melbourne, Barney Sharp, wrote to Alec offering him a job. He took up the offer, and relocated to Melbourne to work for one pound, 10 shilling a week as a salesman. He was not just selling any old product, though: he was selling women’s lingerie, a subject with which the young Alec was only vaguely familiar. This lead to one of Zaida’s favourite jokes later in life, telling people that he “used to work in women’s lingerie.”

Just a few years after his arrival in Melbourne, my Zaida met my grandmother. Their first meeting was at the Maison Deluxe in Elwood, who used to host Jewish dance events on Sunday nights. On New Years Eve of 1950, my grandfather proposed, and in October of that year they were married at Toorak Shule.

When my grandfather got married, he didn’t just marry Jean Silman: instead he married the whole Silman family. The first place the young couple lived together was at the Silman family home on Heidelberg Road in Fairfield. My Zaida also joined the Silman family business, working alongside his father-in-law Myer, and his brother-in-law Richard at the Silman Hosiery Mills in Brunswick. Zaida was a manager at the knitting mill, monitoring production on the factory floor. As part of his work he was required to work with dangerous equipment and this lead to his proudest academic achievement: a BA. Not a Bachelor of Arts, mind you, but a “Certificate in Competency as a Boiler Attendant”.

I think that it was here, in his ten years at the Silman Hosiery Mills, that Zaida learnt the work ethic that he later imparted upon each of his grandchildren. I imagine my young, newly married grandfather working hard on the factory floor amongst the heat and noise and mess, trying hard to build a good life for himself and his young family. Working here may not have been his calling in life, but it was one that he devoted himself to.

It was also during this decade that Jean and Alec became parents, with Gayle, then Michael and then Deborah coming into the world. Zaida always embraced his obligations as a family man, not just as a father and grandfather, but also as an older brother and uncle. As the youngest of four children, he was often doted upon by his older sisters Betty and Molly. Later on in life both Betty and Molly were sadly widowed, and Alec stood by them and provided them with the support they needed to get through difficult times. Alec was also a much admired uncle and cousin. As a father, his parenting style was well ahead of its time: whilst many dads of the 1950s and 60s were quite distant from their children, Alec was a hands-on dad who made sure he was a central part of his children’s lives. Friends of Gayle, Michael and Deb would sometimes note that they wished their own fathers were as hands-on as Alec.

In the early 1960s, the Silman Hosiery Mill burnt down. For Zaida, and his brother-in-law Richard, it was a case of one door closing, but another one opening. The two men went into the cinema business. They became the owner-operators of the Sunset Drive-In in Maribyrnong, showing remarkable business foresight given the growth both of movies and of cars. Their success in Maribyrnong led to them expanding to take ownership of the Coburg Drive-In, and then to a series of cinemas in the Melbourne CBD. At their peak, the two of them went on to operate the Australia Twin Cinema on Collins Street, the Bryson Theatre on Exhibition Street, and of course the one of which he was most proud, the Capitol Theatre, which still stands on Swanston Street nearby to the old site of the Capitol 2, another of their theatres.

Movies were my Zaida’s reel passion, if you’ll pardon the pun. Several times during the 1960s, he and my grandmother went over to Cannes for the Film Festival. Officially, he was there because he wished to discover the next big thing in movies so that he could show it at his chain of Melbourne cinemas. Truthfully, though, I think he went there because he loved the movies: the excitement and the elegance and glamour of the industry.

At his home in Willis Street, Balwyn, Zaida would regularly host movie screenings in the den. He’d set up a screen across the window and set up the projector in the kitchen. The Sharp house was the place to be on a Friday night, where all the kids gathered to watch new release films, often before they’d been screened at commercial cinemas.

He would have great pride in having the latest audio-visual technology. His home was the first to have a colour TV. He was a home movie buff long before camcorders and VCRs became fashionable. He would capture family events, achievements and holidays on 8mm film, edit it together and set it all to music. Later on in life, when video became the norm, he rigourously documented all of his grandchildren growing up. With his steady hand and keen eye for details, he was a budding film director. Every one of those videos has Zaida’s narration from behind the camera, commenting on the action and uttering small jokes with his bone-dry wit. He always knew the right way to capture the moment.

In the mid-1980s Alec and Richard sold the cinemas to Village. At this stage in his life my grandfather was 60, had three adult children and could have settled down to an early retirement. Such an active body and mind, though, wasn’t ready to rest just yet. The Silmans and Sharps bought into a retail store, City Centre Disposals on Elizabeth Street. This truly was a family business: Esther and Jean would do the accounting and Alec and Richard would manage the store. City Centre Disposals was a good business venture for my Zaida, but it also tied in nicely with his interest in gizmos and gadgets. Finally, it fitted in with his grandchildren’s growing desire for socks, boots, torches, tents and sleeping bags, all of which were stocked in abundance. Most Fridays, my Zaida and my father would meet for lunch to discuss the events of the week. This is now a tradition my dad and I continue.

My grandfather was 75 when he left the business and gave himself a chance to enjoy his retirement. He had both an active mind and an active body, and kept both of them busy. He would regularly play social tennis with friends, where he was a deadly left-hander. At home, he and Bobby bought a computer, and Zaida took the internet by storm. He was a vociferous reader of online newspapers, waking up each morning and devouring the New York Times and Jerusalem Post and regularly traded jokes back and forth via email. In retirement, Zaida also became active in Rotary, and through them volunteered at the Prahran City Mission to feed meals to local underprivileged children.

In the end, my Zaida’s body gave way before his mind did. I remember visiting him earlier this year with the DVD of my sisters’ batmitzvahs, which he had been too sick to attend. As he watched it with Bobby and I, he would identify familiar faces and put names to people whom Bobby and I were both struggling with.

Even in his dying days, Zaida did us proud. Last December the doctors detected a tumour on his brain, and he was given three months to live. But despite this diagnosis, he remained with us until last Friday. He will, though, remain forever in our hearts.

Zaida left the world in great peace. He left knowing that the three offspring from his family were themselves now a part of loving families of their own, and that the circle of life was now complete.

The movie of my grandfather’s life was an epic tale. The story is a swashbuckling adventure, across continents and through generations, with good humour and tragedy along the way. Our lead was a sensitive, caring man who led his life with great pride and dignity and earned the respect of all who knew him. And as the closing credits on his life roll, we can all be thankful that we were a part of the film: from the leading lady, to the supporting cast and the extras in the background. I think we should be thankful to the director for giving us such a story, and such a man.

Loony left and Israel

2006-09-04T16:15:00.000+07:00

I had this one all set to go last week, complete with a cute-but-cocky EXCLUSIVE tag at the top. The violent radicalism of socialist anti-Zionism on campus has come to the fore this past month in the context of protests against Israel's war against Hezbollah.

Then The Age went and published the story:

The Socialist Alternative tactics are outlined in an in-house publication.

Discussing an incident at Melbourne, when a socialist stall was overturned, Daniel L. says the best response is to "immediately make a huge fuss — denounce them loudly, screaming ‘you're a murderer, you support George Bush's war, you support killing innocent people in the Middle East, you're fascist scum' and so forth. When we did this it had a huge polarising effect with people coming up afterwards to show their support. Often this was from the point of view of freedom of speech, rather than a willingness to support fighting Israel. But that doesn't change the fact that it is excellent terrain for us."

One writer, Vashti, says "two young Lebanese guys came up and asked if they could beat up the Zionists".

Daniel says of this: "They knew which side they were on and were willing to fight. We do not want to start fights with the Liberals ourselves, but if Lebanese people do it's a good thing and we're f---ing well with them."

The "in-house" publication at the centre of the controversy is a very revealing piece. You can access it here.

There's fun for the whole family in that thing. Like a newly-opened box of chocolates, everyone can reach in and grab their favourites. Here are mine:

Overall, by campaigning agreesively around the issue, being willing to stand up to the Zionists and try to create a fuss, we have had real success and been able to find a significant audience - mostly among Arabic or other non-white students. - Corey.

Corey demonstrates his opposition to racism by treating it as a decisive characteristic in the people he's seeking to attract.

(O)ur Students against War and Rascism (sic) meeting had about 50 popele at it!! We maanged to keep the zionists (sic) out, and the meeting was full of emotion and urgency. The one person who was shaking his head in disagreement during Dougals (sic) introduction was instantly labeled a zionist (sic) and rascist (sic) by Dougal, and shortly after this guy left, sensing how isolated he was there. -Francis.

Now there's a win for free speech and democracy.

Then there's this one here:

It's no surpise then, following the events at both Melbourne Uni and Mondash, that Zionists felt the need to asser their racism and fetish for genocide and mass slaughter of Arab people. - Chris dP.

Down side: glib accusation of genocide.
Up side: Chris dP reckons we deserve a capital 'Z'.

All this reinforces what we already knew about the far-Left: they're obsessed about Israel, certainly far out of proportion with its interest in other regions and potential injustices. Just why this is so is an interesting question. The traditional explanation is flat-out anti-Semitism. This is part of the story, but only a small part.

My theory is that since the end of the Cold War, the interest of the Left has shifted away from seeing the world in terms of people's relationship to the means of production, and toward people's relationship to colonialism. Look at the support the Left has extended for a variety of regimes in South America and Africa, many of whom are flatly anti-democratic, but all of whom have proud anti-colonial credentials. As Europeans, Americans or Australians, the Left see colonialism as the great stain on their nation, one that they need to repent for. The Middle East is seen as a frontier in the battle against colonialism. The Palestinians are posited as the indigenous people of the land, and the Israelis are the European colonial power. As with previous struggles against colonialism, there is no room for compromise: only the exit of the colonial power is considered an acceptable solution for the Left.

So long as this is the pervasive narrative that is used to explain the Middle East conflict amongst the left, opposition to Israel will remain fierce. The fact that this narrative is grossly flawed (the Jewish presence goes back millenia; the 'colonials' are the majority group with no alternative nationality; Israel is a minnow compared to its numerous large rivals) matters little so long as the radical Left refuse to consider it.

It's worth remembering that for its first several decades, many on the Left were supporters of Israel. The narrative at that time was that Israel was the plucky cosmopolitan democracy in a region of hostile states. Its existance was also symbolic of the worst excesses of the far Right.

It seems like a long long time ago.

Don Chipp: reflections on a life well lived

2006-08-29T14:05:00.000+07:00

Growing up in the Democrats, there were two Don Chipps. There was the Don Chipp of historical record: the great warrior who founded the party, and with it a new way of practicing politics in Australia. And there was the Don Chipp of the present day: a scatterbrained duffer who had to be kept on a tight leash and with a proclivity for young and attractive female staffers. They were always two very different people.

I met Don Chipp only once. During the 2001 Federal election, I was invited to MC a small media event to launch the House of Representatives campaign for Don's son Greg in the seat of Melbourne Ports. So on a weekday afternoon a few weeks from polling day, Greg and Don Chipp, Senator Allison and myself gathered before a throng of half a dozen or so media at the Catani Gardens in St Kilda. I called upon Don to say a few words, and with great gusto he launched into a stinging rebuke of the political leadership of the two major parties. Not just the current leaders, mind you: this was a rebuke of Hawke and Fraser as well. Clearly Don had a long memory.

There was a lot to admire about Don Chipp. His decision to leave the Liberal Party, and with it his chances of regaining a government ministry after being dumped by Malcolm Fraser, was a brave one. Earlier today Senator Allison commented that Chipp's greatest legacy was the example he set by voting with his conscience. She's right, and this description could be broadened to include acting with his conscience. Chipp's decision to leave the Liberal Party and form a new fledgling party was a risky one, and shows the strengths of his beliefs. It also showed some canny political judgment, capturing the mood of voters who were thoroughly dissatisfied with both parties.

In more recent time, Don has been a mixed blessing for the party. He would only occasionally make an appearance at party functions. It was well known within the party that he could be rather unpredictable. Sometimes Don would be wise and insightful, but sometimes he would be prickly and abrasive. As as mentioned, he had a habit of refighting old battles long after they had been won and lost, often with little grace or good humour. He was also known to behave inappropriately with some women at party functions, making many women in the party weary of him, up to and including at least one Senator.

I owe a lot of thanks to Don. It was his vision and determination that led to the formation of the Democrats, which has left a indellable mark on the Australian political landscape, as well as giving me a political education like no other. I suspect he was saddened at the decline of the party. It's ironic that his actions in founding the party were ones of principle, whilst it was petty personal bickering that was the biggest influence in its downfall. Chipp was a man of integrity, and so was the party he founded. It really was Don's Party.

Any other Dems or ex-Dems who drop by the site are encouraged to leave their stories etc in the comments.

Vale, Don Chipp 1925-2006

UPDATE, 30/8, 12:33am: Fellow Dem Polly Morgan has published some of her thoughts on The Don.

UPDATE, 26/9, 1:10am: My attention has been drawn to a possible misunderstanding regarding what I wrote about Don, this phrase here in particular:

He was also known to behave inappropriately with some women at party functions, making many women in the party weary of him, up to and including at least one Senator.

I writing this, I didn't mean to suggest that I was aware of specific examples of inappropriate behaviour, only that there were strong whispers - unsubstantiated, it's true - about such behaviour. As to my suggestion that weariness of Don's actions extended high up in the party, my claim is a little crazy/brave. More likely it was "perharps one Senator" rather than "at least one Senator".

Truth, lies and spin

2006-08-24T13:24:00.000+07:00

Following up from my critique of Corporate Social Responsibility, which reads a bit like an application to join the Chicago School, this time around I've had a chance to show my warm and fuzzy side.

Here is journal entry number two for Governance and the International Firm:

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Last week I saw fantastic film about the decline of truth and the rise of spin. “Thank You For Smoking” is a dark comedy focused on a tobacco lobbyist and the brazen approach he takes to the ethics of his work, and more importantly to the truth.

As becomes evident during the film, the art of public relations and spin relies heavily on attempts to influence public opinion through distortions of the truth. The objective nature of truth is questioned, and instead truth is repositioned as merely another subjective perspective on a set of facts. In the real world of lobbying and opinion shaping, the strategy is generally two-fold: firstly, it is necessary to impugn the reliability and reputation of genuinely independent and reliable sources of information; and secondly to generate supposedly factual material of your own which will be perceived as meritorious. The lead character in the film, Nick Naylor, works at an organisation that calls itself the Tobacco Research Institute, an entity whose entire purpose is to construct distorted, misleading and highly deceptive information which can then masquerade as truth. The findings of such an entity are unsurprising: the addictive nature of tobacco is questioned, as is the causal relationship between smoking and ill-health.

It’s not just the business world which has adopted such practices. In the realm of politics and international relations, where information is hard to verify, distortion and manipulation has become commonplace in attempts to influence public opinion. The most notable example is the attempts to link the events of September 11 2001 with the former governing regime in Iraq. Factually, there has been no evidence to link the hijackers to Iraq: they were predominantly Saudi Arabian. The misnomer about the identity of the hijackers arises because of the proliferation of credible experts who either refuse to strongly assert the truth, or who deliberately mislead. US columnist Ruth Rosen has observed the trends in US public opinion on this issue:

You might say, "But everyone knows it was al-Qaeda." And you'd be right, but do most Americans really know just who those terrorists were or that they had no connection to Iraq -- that not a single one of them even came from that country? It doesn't sound very important until you realize that various polls over the last five years have reported from 20% to 50% of Americans still believe Iraqis were on those planes. (They were not.) As of early 2005, according to a Harris poll, 47% of Americans were convinced that Saddam Hussein actually helped plan the attack and supported the hijackers. And in February, 2006, according to a unique Zogby poll of American troops serving in Iraq, "85% said the U.S. mission is mainly ‘to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks'; 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was ‘to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.'"

It’s interesting to speculate as to the cause of this propensity to play fast and loose with the truth. It seems to parallel a similar trend that sees traditional authority figures no longer possessing the moral authority they once commanded, and hence ideas of credibility and expertise are in flux. Note, for example, that journalists have low levels of public trust (much of which is justified), and hence they are less likely to be seen as a truthful voice. Academia is also frequently under attack, with accusations of bias and questioning of motives (often caused by questions over the source of funding). Conversely, laypeople on the internet are authority figures in the ascendancy, often despite a lack of full disclosure about their identity, nor scrutiny of their expertise. Similarly, so-called “think tanks” are well regarded, a phenomena more prolific in the United States, but quickly spreading to Australia. Citizens, and their alter ego consumers, are changing in their patterns of trust, and this is creating opportunities for malevolent influences to take advantage of this.

The demonstrated malleability of public opinion gives rise to a series of challenging ethical questions for businesspeople, particularly those in the field of public relations. Firms have every right to articulate and defend a position on the merits of its product. Within a vibrant civil society, it is expected that firms will have an active voice in public discourse. This contribution, however, needs to be constructive rather than destructive: its intention must be to properly inform consumers rather than misinform them.

Whilst there is general agreement that outright lies are inexcusable in a public relations context, the consensus must extend further. Deliberate deceptions and masking of the truth is inexcusable as well. It’s one thing to dispute interpretations of facts, but it’s quite another to undermine the facts themselves. Another public relations tactic that should be frowned upon is the phenomena of “astro-turfing”, where corporations start and fund supposedly grass-roots organisations who publicly voice support for the actions of a company. This act is little short of identity theft: assuming the role of someone that you are not for your own advantages. It’s an act of fraud on the general public.

Then we come to the issue of the sale and marketing of ‘sin’ products. One of the recurring scenes in the film involves a group of lobbyists who call themselves MOD: Merchants of Death. They are the chief lobbyists for the tobacco industry, the firearms industry, and the alcohol industry, whose products collectively cost over half a million lives in the US each year. The ethical question in the work that they do extends beyond merely a discussion of legitimate or illegitimate public relations tactics. It is the essence of the product they advocate that is under ethical question. At one point the lead character seeks sympathy for other ‘sin’ industries: the land mine manufacturer, baby seal poacher and sweat shop manager. Each of these suffers a similar existential ethical dilemma.

It is worth considering whether it is possible to remain ethical while selling these so-called sin products. Of course, it is possible that ones own ethical sensibility does not consider them to be sin products, in which case an ethical dilemma is avoided. Or alternatively, the ethical dilemma can be overcome (in the cases of tobacco and alcohol, at least) by drawing upon the liberal tradition of freedom of choice, leading to the conclusion that those who suffer the ill-effects of the products are doing so as a result of earlier choices that they have made. For most, however, the negative consequences of the product must give pause for thought.

Ultimately, the film fails to come to a satisfying answer to this question, perhaps because no satisfying answer short of halting production of various sin products exists, an outcome which itself would lead to questions about the ethics of prohibition. The line that various characters in the film use to justify their actions is that it’s “what I have to do to pay the mortgage”. This answer is nothing short of an intellectual sleight-of-hand given that it can be constantly used to shift the burden of ethical responsibility elsewhere, and because its usage is virtually unlimited: a drug dealer, protection racket gangster and corrupt policeman could all use the same defence. The comparison between these groups and their legal counterparts seems rather apt.

Prahran: Clem blogs!

2006-08-23T11:58:00.000+07:00

Guess which very funky Liberal candidate for Prahran has been in touch with the electorate's most-incisive-but-slack blogger?:

hi Ari,
good to see such a detailed commentary on the election (although you haven't posted for some time!).

You may want to have a look at my site www.clemnb.typepad.com

I have attached a flier I will be delivering next week for your information (perhaps the first political flier ever which contains neither a party logo nor headshot!)

best wishes,
clem

Okay, I bite.

(Note: the panel on the right was blank in the version CNB flicked my way, so I guess that's how it will go out to voterland. Perhaps voters will write comments... which is more than can be said for Clem's blog. Joke, Joyce.)

I look forward to reading some blogging posts from the campaign trail. Politicians and candidates entering the blogosphere are becoming more and more common, which can only be a good thing for helping punters connect with their elected representatives. Bartlett does it. Turnbull does it. Turnbull's dogs do it. But guess which candidate was first to market, way back in 2001, before blogs were blogs?

Review: Thank You For Smoking

2006-08-21T12:21:00.000+07:00

Last week I had a chance to see a preview of Thank You For Smoking. It's very dark and very funny, and certainly worth seeing if you can't get a ticket for Snakes on a Plane. Here's my take on it, from The Program:

There's a scene about half way through Thank You For Smoking in which you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Sitting around the table of a seedy café are Nick Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhart), Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner) who between them are the chief lobbyists for the tobacco, alcohol and firearms industries. The topic of debate? Whose sin products kill the most people, and hence which lobbyist has the toughest job.

In the end it's a debate that Nick Naylor wins, with the proud boast that tobacco kills 435,000 Americans a year. Something to be proud of.

Thank You For Smoking is that kind of film. It takes the shrill moral absolutism of public condemnation of the tobacco industry and cleverly subverts it. The set up is pretty straight forward, but the dilemmas that emerge are not. Nick Naylor is a smooth talking public relations professional working on behalf of the tobacco industry. Desperate to turn around the decline in the number of young American smokers, he spends his days thinking up and executing schemes to change the perception of the industry. Meanwhile, in a parallel plotline, Naylor is grappling with his responsibilities as a divorced father who is keen to stay a part of his adolescent son's life.

Read the rest at The Program.

Say no to gay Zionist train drivers

2006-08-15T17:22:00.000+07:00

Has the world gone mad?

Firstly, the horrors of Connex:

The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign calls upon citizens, NGOs and civil society groups to stand up and demand the immediate cessation of the involvement of French companies Alstom and Connex in the expansion of settlement infrastructure around Jerusalem.
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We make the call for European citizens of conscience to put pressure on President Jacques Chirac and the French government to demand that they force an end to Connex and Alstom involvement in projects that contravene international law and work against our rights as Palestinians to exist in our capital.

We call upon our supporters in all the countries where Connex and Alstom operate, to use all forms of popular pressure, protest and boycotts against them, until they end their support for the Israeli project to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem.

And secondly, the boycott of WorldPride 2006:

As individuals and groups working for the liberation of all oppressed peoples, we join in the call to boycott travel to World Pride Jerusalem in 2006 as part of the international boycott of Israel. Although the event is named, "Love Without Borders," Israel has illegally occupied Jerusalem for decades, and has functionally annexed the city. Jerusalem is a city with borders that are constantly enforced by the Israeli army. These borders -- including militarized checkpoints and towering concrete walls -- are often impenetrable to Palestinians and other Arab people.

We support the rights of all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and other queer-identified (LGBTIQ) people to love and live in freedom, and to demonstrate publicly to demand their/our rights. These rights should not be placed in competition with the long struggle of the Palestinian people, including Palestinian LGBTIQ people, for self-determination, for the right to return to their homes, and the struggle against apartheid and the occupation of their lands.

We urge all people who seek peace and justice to support the travel boycott of World Pride Jerusalem as a part of the boycott of Israeli goods, and the call to divest from Israel. Together we can build a free and fair world for us all.

The hatred of Israel shared by the both far left and most of the Arab world leads to some strange bedfellows. Perhaps there's some truth to this, after all.

Hat tip to Polly for the Connex silliness.

A timely intervention

2006-08-10T22:55:00.000+07:00

An email from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Glyn Davis, was sent to all students on Thursday afternoon. It's a damning indictment on those whose words and actions made it necessary to send it:

Subject: Say 'no' to vilification
From: "Vice-Chancellor"
Date: Thu, August 10, 2006 4:18 pm
To: ugrad-users@studentlists.unimelb.edu.au

Universities offer a forum for vigorous debate, including discussion of unpopular opinions.

In Australia, as in the rest of the world, we are experiencing the effects of deeply troubled times in the Middle East.

At this testing moment, students and staff of the University of Melbourne must feel secure in advancing or defending their views of the world.

But equally we must respect long-established practices about the conduct of scholarly debate, however impassioned. Members of the University community have a responsibility to appreciate that people on all sides have sincerely and deeply held views.

They are entitled to express those views without suffering abuse or intimidation. Present circumstances in the Middle East are no excuse for anti-Semitism or racist behaviour. Such vilification has no place on our campus.

Glyn Davis
Vice-Chancellor

10 August 2006

Well said.

The "peace" movement at work

2006-08-10T12:28:00.000+07:00

A perfect juxtaposition, really: The Greens triangles alongside the burning of an Israeli flag. Forget the politics of it, just think of the pollution.

Thanks to The Age, with a hat-tip to the mysterious "aunty" (no, not Aunty).

Words from a heartless bastard

2006-08-07T18:18:00.000+07:00

This semester at uni I'm doing a subject called Governance and the International Firm, which is focused on, well, governance, and the international firm. For a less-cynical explanation, you can look at the handbook entry.

Anyhow, as part of the assessment I'm required to keep a journal of my thoughts on the topics being discussed in class. So that my handiwork is enjoyed by more people than myself and my tutor, I'll be cross-posting the best ones online.

So here's the first one - my argument against the folly of Corporate Social Responsibility:

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One of the central discussions in corporate governance is that of the tension between the stakeholder model and the shareholder model. At the heart of the dispute is the question of to whom the managers of an organization are ultimately accountable. Traditional conceptions of the company place the shareholders as the sole body to whom management are held to account. It has become fashionable, lately, however for companies to shift toward the stakeholder model, whereby shareholders are just one of many stakeholders, along with employees, unions, ‘society’, government, the environment etc. The term which has come to describe this is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Whilst such an idea appeals to our prejudices of preferring supposedly socially-conscientious companies over exclusively business-focused ones, it is weak and flawed when it is properly critiqued.

Firstly, it is problematic in principle. Understanding the origins of the company is useful in understanding why. Prior to the legal innovation of the company, individuals would carry on a private enterprise on their own, essentially operating as a sole trader would today. They would act rationally and pursue their own self-interest and sought to make a profit from their activities. In modern parlance, they had just a single stakeholder: themselves. As these enterprises would grow, it was acknowledged that it was no longer practicable for an individual to possess the resources necessary to carry out an enterprise on their own, and so there was a need for the pooling of assets (and risk!) from multiple people. With the advent of the company, multiple people could take a stake in the business and as the business succeeded they would be rewarded in proportion to their stake. On the down side, they had no guarantee of a return, and should the business fail they would have no claim on the business’s assets. Central to this, however, is the idea that the limited liability company is a collectivized extension of the individual sole-trader: it exists to take care of its own interests and to make a profit. Modern corporations are a long way from the small enterprises of centuries ago, but their purpose and interests remain the same.

The reason why shareholders are the single most important stakeholder in a company is because they are the only stakeholder to accept any risk. When an investor chooses to invest their money, they are seeking a return in exchange for accepting risk. To expect a return without risk in fanciful, and to accept risk without a return is foolish. When the risk outweighs the expected return, the investment is no longer attractive and the investor will look elsewhere. The trend toward seeking to satisfy multiple stakeholders dilutes the importance of the original stakeholder – the shareholder – and hence increases the risk to that shareholder. With this increased risk comes a requirement for an increased return. Given that this is unlikely, the effect will be that other investments will be relatively more appealing to investors, and companies will suffer.

The shareholder is the only stakeholder that bears the burden of risk: employees, government and society can all enjoy the benefits of a company’s success, but suffer no great downfall if the company fails. Unless these other stakeholders are willing to accept the risk, or insure the shareholder against any risk, they have no moral or legal right to consider themselves as equal stakeholders in the welfare of a company.

This leads to the second problem with CSR: a principal-agent dilemma. Shareholders in a company are those who are risking their wealth in the success or failure of the company, and hence are the ‘principals’. The managers, however, have no direct stake in the company (at least in their role as managers: they may be shareholders as well) and so merely act as ‘agents’ for the shareholders. When managers decide to use company funds to spend on CSR projects, they are in effect spending the money which would otherwise belong to the shareholders. They may well find that it is very easy to be generous when they are being generous with the wealth of others. In order to avoid this dilemma, it is best if companies themselves are not the sources of charitable spending, but that individual shareholders make a personal decision about whether or not to make a charitable donation from their dividend or profit upon selling their shares.

Thirdly, the evaluation of success according to the stakeholder model is flawed. The chief argument of many who advocate CSR is that it CSR is good for the bottom line: that is, company profitability and ultimately, share price. The logic of this is an ultimate concession of the supremacy of the shareholder model. The shareholder model is a happy supporter of CSR when it has positive tangible benefits for the company. For example, the shareholder model is happy to see companies develop infrastructure in the developing world, so long as this infrastructure benefits the company. The shareholder model is also happy to see corporate philanthropy and sponsorship of worthy causes, so long as the company benefits from this public exposure. It is a flawed argument to simply suggest that satisfying multiple stakeholders is a good thing because it benefits shareholders. For the stakeholder theory to be persuasive it must show that a company is acting properly when it is satisfying stakeholders other than the shareholders at the expense of the shareholders. So long as both shareholders and other stakeholders benefit from an action, both the stakeholder and the shareholder theorists are in agreement and we are no closer to drawing a distinction between them.

Finally, there is a public policy problem with CSR. Corporations are not in a strong position to determine which worthy projects are deserving of funding and which are not. They are not experts in the field of social policy. It is absurd to expect them to play this role. This is a role best performed by governments (in theory, at least), who are able to make decisions that are in the interests of the population as a whole and show wisdom and foresight. CSR forces companies into the position of making public policy decisions that they are ill-equipped to make. For example, CSR leads to companies deciding which diseases should receive funding for medical research and which ones should not, or deciding which disadvantaged communities should receive grants, and which should not. It is to be expected that companies will simply fund those projects that generate the maximum publicity or those which are least publicly contentious. Neither of these are good criteria for deciding what is worthy of funding and what is not. A far more sensible alternative is for governments to make these decisions, funded by the taxations dollars of corporations, their shareholders and others.

Whilst the intention of stakeholder theorists may be noble, the idea is fatally flawed in practice. It is counter-productive for companies to allow themselves to get caught up in the tide of public sentiment in favour of companies engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility. Unless, of course, satisfying these sentiments is good for company profitability!

About time...

2006-08-07T15:46:00.000+07:00

Here ends the posting hiatus. My laptop is back on deck (now with functioning wireless and broadband!) and so I've got no excuse for getting back in the rhythm of sharing my thoughts with the assorted oddballs who stumble across this patch of turf.

I've posted some select photos alongside each of the Sydney posts from a few weeks back (scroll down for those), and the full selection of Sydney photos can now be viewed via a link on the right hand side, or by clicking here.

Knock yourself out.

Not dead, just resting

2006-08-01T14:18:00.000+07:00

Apologies for the sparsity of posts this past week. I'm enduring a technological drought not seen since the Luddite First XI were on a roll against the Industrial Revolution Social Club just before stumps on Day One.

My computer is in for repairs, the broadband cable to my Significant Other's computer is not functioning, and the dial up cord decided to join in the fun, so I'm resigned to a couple of minutes a day at a little internet cafe around the corner.

Still, those of your seeking your Ari fix can head here.

And being the first of August, I must continue at AOTW tradition and wish all those horses out there a happy birthday. All those in favour? Against?

Final Stop: Redfern

2006-07-20T21:59:00.000+07:00

At the heart of every stereotype lies a kernel of truth: a starting point from which the mythology emerged. Although the truth may be overwhelmed by platitudes, exaggerations or bombastic rhetoric, this itself is not a denial of the truth that sits at the core of these assumptions. In the heart of the nastiest and most nihilistic cliches of modern Aboriginal Australia sits Redfern.

Redfern is a suburb that inspires passion in even the most nonchalant of Sydneysiders. Just a ten minute walk south of the bustling metropolis sits a collection of streets which look all the world like a sub-Saharan refugee camp. In a desolate grassed quadrangle poorly pitched tents blow in the breeze while the meagre possessions of its inhabitants sit to the side. The properties on all sides of the grass are long abandoned, the glass shattered, any good material scavaged and the rest left to rot. The area has the unkempt air of people who are resigned to living in their own filth. Local residents, both friends and foes, call it The Block.

When I visited I was determined to give The Block a chance. Sydney friends had warned me of what to expect, and I wasn't expecting an open-armed welcome. My first greeting was friendly, though, soon after I ventured off the relative safety of Lawson Street. I was met by Buddy, an Aboriginal man who looked about forty and considered himself the area's diplomat. He gave me a firm handshake and took me on a tour of the area. He signalled with a mix of disdain and dispair to the collection of twenty of so drunks who congregated around a campfire in the part of The Block closest to the train station. Clearly they disappointed him, but he understood their woes.

As we meandered through the small collection of streets at the heart of The Block, he gave me a running commentary on a place that had been his home on and off for decades. Each of the properties along the perimeter of the area had been abandoned, either by local residents who couldn't stand the sight outside their front doors, or by Aboriginal tenants who couldn't confine their lives to four walls. Those few properties that did remain occupied had metal bars and forboding signs outside. Clearly the abandoned properties were in major need of repair, but Buddy remained hopeful that it would happen. He envisioned a plan whereby the tent-dwellers of the area would take possession of the houses along the perimeter and live domesticated lives.

As we walked a few kids rode around aimlessly on dilapidated bikes. I asked one of them what life was like living in Redfern (clearly, I'm a fan of incisive questioning). "Boring." was her response. There are many ways to describe Redfern, but surely boring is not one of them. Unless, of course Boring has taken on a new meaning in much the same way that Wicked and Sick has. In which case, bore away.

One of the few buildings that remained occupied was the Tony Mundine gym, a boxing training gym run by Mundine, whose rugby-player-turned-boxer son Anthony is a local hero. Sadly the day I visited it was locked, but it did seem like one of the few rays of hope in an otherwise bleak neighbourhood.

The other ray of hope is in the form of the fantastic Redfern Community Centre, an all-purpose facility funded and managed by the City of Sydney. Inside is a computer room, an arts and music centre, a painting studio, a leisure area, a kindergarten and a space specifically for elders which can best be described as a 'chill out zone'. Children and adolescents are the primary target. In stark contrast to life just outside, inside the centre things are clean, organised and positive. It seems that the Centre is part of a crude strategy for dealing with Redfern: abandoning those over thirty who are so enmeshed in an anti-social lifestyle that they are beyond redemption, whilst giving opportunities to youngsters to embrace a heathier lifestyle. The very deliberate effort to keep out dangerous and destructive visitors acts as a crude filter.

At the end of my improvised tour of The Block, I discreetly slipped Buddy a crisp blue ten dollar bill and told him I wanted it to be shared around and not to be spent on drugs or alcohol. He seemed to be sober and thoughtful, and I trusted him. He explained that the item most needed by the group was fuel, both for cooking food and keeping warm. Already most of the nearby vegeation had been burnt for previous fires, and bottled of gas were proving expensive. Together we walked back toward the group of down-and-outers who were keeping each other company by a makeshift fire. Buddy left me there, and returned to his tent away from the group.

This group of about two dozen are representatives of the Aboriginal underclass. Each of them carried a depressed, defeated expression on their face and all were on a drip feed of VB. As they disgarded the empties, they chucked them dismissively on an already sizable pile just to the side. Their faces carried cuts, bruises and scars and many were rough and unshaven. They spoke to each other in small groups, speaking an accept so full of accent and dialectic differences it was hard to understand it.

The only time they focussed their attention on one thing was when a police van appeared in the distance, an occurance which happened every twenty minutes or so. Collectively they would shout abuse, usually with things that probably sound very witty after half a dozen VB cans. One man near me threated to take off his pants: "Suck on this, ya fucken cunts," he said. He later told me that he was a community elder.

Occasionally members of the group would come up closer to me, even nestling against my jacket. Whilst initially flattered by the attenion, it later became apparent that they were discreetly reaching for my pockets with their hands, keen find out what was hiding inside. I soon wised up to the trick and removed various stray hands, their owners not at all ashamed of being caught.

After some inquisitiveness toward the oversized, interestingly-pocketing whitefella stranger, the discussion came to the question of how much money I'd given Buddy. To avoid seeming like a human ATM, I avoided the question and did my best to change the topic. The group were persistant, though, and wanted an answer. In the absense of a figure, they started speculating. One suggested I'd given $150, and another latched on to this idea. In the way that wild rumours tend to spread, idle chatter quickly became fact, and the idea that I'd given a three-figure sum to Buddy quickly became crystalised. My admittance of the truth at this stage, that I'd given him just $10, was disregarded by the group as a lie.

The group were upset that I'd (in their mind) given such a generous sum to just one member of the group. They told me that Buddy would just "shoot it in his arm" and that I should give them some grog money. When I insisted that Buddy would share around the money I'd given him, they were quickly dismissive. Two of the burlier men then decided to take matters into their own hands. They started walking away from the group and toward Buddy, determined to get their share of the money. All of a sudden my attempted act of goodwill had backfired terribly.

The group around the fire gave me some helpful words of advice: "You better go after 'em if you don't want your mate Buddy to get bashed up." They were right. I marched assertively after the two men and tried to persuade them that I had only given a small sum. As they got closer to Buddy, the restrained themselves. The police van in the distance, plus my presence, gave them second thoughts about meting out rough justice. Whether they showed the same restraint later in the day, I don't know. I went over to Buddy and did my best to explain the situation. He was not impressed.

In the end I had no choice but to leave the group. I'd come to the group keen to learn about it, understand its plight and spread just a small amount of goodwill. In the end I was viewed with an untrusting eye. I guess in a small way I was like the missionaries who had gone before, arriving with the best intentions in the world but unable to gain the trust of those who were in need of help. It's also a useful little metaphor for the dangers of unfocussed charity: when there's 'easy money' floating around people will do all they can to chase it, regardless of the consequences.

As for the future of Redfern, it seems that the place is almost ungovernable. The stragegy outlined earlier, to give the kids a chance to succeed whilst conceding that no amount of external help will assist those entrenched in the lifestyle, is probably correct. Only a collective change of mindset of the participants - that drugs, alcohol, welfare and violence is a failure rather than a legitimate choice - will rescue them from themselves. My brief experience in Redfern gives me few signs of hope.

Fifth Stop: Macquarie Fields

2006-07-18T13:43:00.000+07:00

It's hard to believe that anything particularly exciting happens in Macquarie Fields. Stepping off the train, you find yourself in the midst of a semi-rural area, with paddocks lining the side of the tracks. The properties are large, the roads sometimes unpaved, and offroad vehicles that actually get taken off road are the norm.

So far on this Sydney sojourn I've been lucky to find that most of the interesting places to visit in a given community are centred on the railway station, which seems consistant with the pattern of growth these places experienced. Not so, Macquarie Fields. It took me the best part of an hour of trudging through parkland, alongside roads and along a creek before I came to the heart of the 'burb: a leisure centre on one side, and a football ground on the other (AFL, interestingly). Nearby was a primary school whose students were back for the first day of a new term. All this seemed remarkably ordinary and neat, a far cry from the public housing hellhole I had been led to believe existed at Macquarie Fields.

Finally I settled down at a fish and chip shop to induldge in some ~~potato cakes~~ scallops and a decent Greek salad. As I devoured my Coronary Special, I flicked through the local paper, the Macarthur Chronicle, which fills its pages with a diet consisting exclusively of local criminals and local whingers (often about the local criminals).

It was only on my meander back to the station that I saw the darker side to Macquarie Fields. Just to the north of the station was an abandoned house which had suffered quite severe vandalism, to the point that the windows were shattered, rubbish was strewn and the walls complete with holes. It was an ugly eyesore, but was outnumbered by a factor of ten by properties in the area that were being built or renovated.

Fourth Stop: Lakemba

2006-07-17T21:46:00.000+07:00

Lakemba is a microcosm of the Muslim world, and the battles and contradictions that occur within. Though not immediately obvious, I sense that there's a power struggle going on in Lakemba between the old guard religious clerics who follow a hard religious line, and the new, educated and thoroughly westernised Muslims. Take the posters that litter every available wall and street sign. Amongst a collection of fiercely anti-Zionist and anti-western messages lie posters encouraging people to donate to Muslim Aid's Jogjakarta earthquake relief effort, or to the Muslim Blood Drive.

Take a look inside The Islamic Bookstore, where The International Jew (now complete with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion!) sells alongside thoughtful books on the Islamic solutions to environmental problems. (For what it's worth, my favourite item was one I ended up purchasing: a pamphlet about the Islamic opposition to mingling between men and women.) The battle between the nutters and the moderates is a close-run thing, but it is most definately a silent battle being waged on the streets of Lakemba.

Separate from the handful of distinctly Islamic institutions are a fairly typical range of restaurants, cafes, whitegoods stores and supermarkets. Most of them promote themselves as being Halal (whitegoods notwithstanding), whilst the boutiques boast a fashionable range of headscarves. Lakemba can also lay claim to a unique restaurant: the Island Dreams Cafe sells authentic Cocos Island and Christmas Island cuisine. And a damn fine Pina Colada, as well.

It would be nice for Lakemba to drop its guard a little. At present, there seems to be a simmering hostility toward outsides and a defiant streak to its character. Perhaps it's suffering from a siege mentality, which is a shame. Here's hoping the moderates can win the day.

Third stop: Cabramatta

2006-07-17T21:29:00.000+07:00

Cabramatta is the logical end-point of the multiculturalism of Australian society: if this is where we end up, then I'm happy. It is a suburb in which the lingua franca is either Chinese or Vietnamese, the smells are like those that waft through the streets of Saigon and the architecture seems like that of Asian societies seeking to dispell the lingering colonial influence.

After stepping off the train, it's only a short walk to Freedom Plaza, the commercial centre of Cabramatta. Above it rises an archway like that of so many Chinatowns around the world, whilst to the side a series of concrete wildlife keep a careful, if somewhat static, watch over things. The shops have a let-it-all-hang-out approach, with wildly chaotic and random collections of things for sale spilling out the door, often quite literally.

The supposed crime and drugs which has ravaged Cabramatta are no where to be seen, at least not just before lunch on a Monday afternoon. It's hard to believe that this is the cause of Australia's only political assassination in nearly three decades. With few exceptions, people seem to be peaceful, with the only piece of nastiness coming in the form of a particularly nasty bogan mullet. Although the cliche is of Cabramatta as little Saigon, there are a variety of ethnic influences from all over Asia, with a Thai, Lao, Cambodian, Chinese and Filipino influence all being felt.

Cabramatta is also home to a Police and Community Youth Centre, a peculiarly New South Welsh concept. Although a little shabby and rundown, the centre provides some decent sporting facilities aimed and keeping wayward youth on the straight and narrow. It's hard to argue with a concept that seems to have worked, no matter how soft and fuzzy it might appear at first glance.

Finally on the journey was a visit to the Cabramatta War Memorial, dedicated particularly to the Vietnam War. It's an unusual message that inspires the memorial, focussing on the comradary between the Australian and South Vietnamese soldiers. Given the demographics of the area, that are much more likely to be decendants of the latter category rather than the former who are paying a visit.