Ho Hoo Hah!

I really take some exception to the term 'sex industry'.

Is it really true that anything that involves financial transaction, whether legal or illegal is worthy of the title "industry"?

While no doubt some can and, indeed, do make the case that there are the pseudo-components of industry...work venues, employees, employers, revenue, payments, clients, sales, purchases, advertising...etc....there is the question about whether sexual relationships should indeed be industrialised.

A case needs to be made for the idea of 'industry' being something that is socially beneficial.

This is more than an industrial question. There are pretty significant ethical issues. Do we feel comfortable for example talking about the drug industry, the burglary industry, the pornography industry...or (God help us) the paedophile industry.

All illegal, all profitable...but hardly socially beneficial.

This is not to say that prostitutes should not be protected. But my concern is that prostitutes should not be seeking "satisfactory working conditions", they should be seeking to be freed from prostitution.

Although those involved in the trade often declare that they are doing it by choice, and that it has no effect on them or anyone else. Both of those things would have to be seriously challenged.

Even if we were to assume that a person can be a prostitute and not be affected by it, the social consequences of allowing sexual relationships to become yet another commodity for our voracious appetites for anything would seem to me to be undesirable.

Do we really want to live in a society in which peoples' most intimate affections have actually become commodities that can be bought or sold? Is that good for us, good for them...and more importantly...good for our children?

So, let's try to support prostitutes by helping them to get out of the trade. This should be done by proper social and financial support and not by suggesting that industrial regulation would some how suffice.

Let's confess!

A very nasty case that is before the courts at the moment of alleged sexual abuse by a former Anglican priest (see here for The Australian's report) reminds us all that the ground has shifted in the reporting of these matters.
There is a bizarre caricature that alleged perpetrators might "confess" their sins to an authority figure and thus render the matter confidential. In an Adelaide court 'Archbishop' John Hepworth, a former Roman Catholic priest, and then Anglican priest...but now the leader of one of the many splinter groups (see here for a former blog about this) formed in the reaction to a whole range of issues...particularly the ordination fo women to the priesthood...
Any way Hepworth gave testimony at the trial revealing details of a phone conversation which once upon a time might have been considered privileged. I do not need to go into the nastiness of it here.
What is now the case is that people (by and large) cannot now claim that any conversation with a priest is 'confession' by definition.
To be covered under 'the seal of the confessional' the matter must be a deliberate and intentional confession, stated to be so before the event and not afterwards.
Some of the Anglican Church's guidelines (I don't know about Hepworth's mob...) suggest that in matters to do with child abuse that the 'seal' no longer holds any way. This has yet to be tested, but there is some sympathy with the idea that mandatory notification now extends into the confessional. (I would find this idea difficult and hope personally that I never have to test it)
This stuff is awful. But I think weare trying to take it seriously.

When, I ask, will the State actually adopt the same scrutiny to schools and institutions that it demands (and rightly) of the Churches.

Not agreeing with Iain

Our rather good local MP Iain Evans has been touting round the idea that serial truants should be penalised by not being able to apply for their Driver's Licence until they have worked out some sort of agreed penalty time for each day of truancy. (perhaps a week for a day)

This has a rather seductive appeal. Largely because the 16-18 age group  is notoriously difficult to penalise in any significant way. So why not punish them in a way that hurts, so that they might perhaps realize that if they do not take responsibility for themselves then there will be consequences.

The difficulty with the idea, it seems to me, is in using an unrelated activity...driving... to address another issue altogether...truancy. 

The problem then is that we think we have addressed the issue, but the truth is that we have not done anything at all to address the root cause. We do not even name the root cause instead all we do is deflect it.

If, for example, the cause of truancy is bullying at school; or drug addiction; or poor parenting or (God forbid) the failure of the school to seriously engage non-conforming adolescents ...then how would delaying the driving licence actually address that issue.

Further, it would seem to me, that it is a very bad principle to do something draconian because it is notoriously difficult to do something meaningful.

Attractive, seductive..yes. But quite wrong headed.

Faith intact

That Michael Kirby can leave the High Court with his faith in the justice system intact says more about him than about the system. Though no doubt he would disagree. (here)
His minority judgments have been many and his championing of the cause of freedom and the rights of unpopular groupings have made him many enemies. A man who kept his sexuality secret from most of his colleagues, even some close friends until quite recently. He reminds us that, as important as sexuality is, it will not and should not be the sole defining factor in evaluating our place in history or society. It should not even be a major factor, and he has not allowed it to be so.
One hopes in the future that he will not just be remembered because he was openly gay (eventually) but because of his many principled judgments which often went against the majority, and almost always championed truth justice and ...well not the American way...but one would hope the Australian way.
God bless one clergy family who named their gorgeous son after this great Australian!!

We do not presume

The presumption of innocence is a wonderful thing, if not a little risky. It really undergirds the whole of our legal system.
It is indeed a risky thing, because our presumption may sometimes be mistaken. It is the price we pay for not having a system which presumes guilt, which is also a risky thing, because the consequences of presuming an innocent person is guilty can be devastating (if not fatal) for ...well...an innocent person. In our civilised way we think this is worse thing to risk than occasionally letting a guilty person go free.
Now, I don't know whether Mohammad Haniff (here)is innocent or guilty. I am therefore disturbed by the immigration processes used to detain him yesterday, after the presumption of innocence had been effected by a legitimate court.
This indeed is one of the fatal weaknesses of the whole framing of immigration law (not just this case) we presume guilt. Now no doubt a Minister, in this case Kevin Andrew, may claim knowledge of special circumstances (and may indeed have such); but we have courts to test the veracity of this sort of 'special knowledge'. We are on a slippery slope indeed when authorities, however august, outside the legal system presume to effect the processes of the law.
I hold no hope that any of this will be heard by those in power (on either side) or that forthcoming elections will change their stance. Ever fearful of the electorates' anxiety they will not risk being thought 'weak'.
But it seems to me that the true 'weakness' here is not being prepared to stand up for the fundamental principles of our way of life. Presumption of innocence is one such.