Work together!!!

If politicians, of all persuasions, genuinely had the nation’s interests at heart then they would recognise that the refugee issue is not straight forward and that it requires both parties to work together.
What we want to see is not a wedge being driven into the heart of the electorate, but rather both parties seeking a just and compassionate solution to what is human tragedy, not a political football.

The politics of personality

The ongoing decline in the Rudd Government's popularity and approval rating is part of the inevitable reflection communities make on incumbent governments. How did it happen? How can a government that was so phenomenally far in front now be behind in the run-up to the election?

There is no doubt that the answer to that is: Tony Abbott. His political savvy and relentless discipline in the last little while has been remarkable. Not unlike that of his former leader and mentor, John Howard.

But it needs to be said that, by and large, the battle ground has not been policy (what are the Liberal policies any way?) but personality. The Liberals have ruthlessly and relentlessly painted Rudd as boring, wordy and remote. One would have to say that they have been successful.

They have also been able to hammer the enormous spending spree that the fiscal rescue seemed to demand. (What would they have done?) and despite the annoying nature of its repetition...the idea of the Great Big New Tax has been fed into the nation's psyche and people don't like such an idea.

Equally well, political liabilities have been kept out of the public eye. Where, for example, has the agressive Ms Bishop been? or the twee Mr Pyne?

I suspect that the Libs have had (good) advice that they are both political liabilities and so have been kept very much in the background.

Will the Labor party then be sucked into this game and start playing personality politics. It will be fun to watch! It will be dirty! But is it good?

I don't think it is yet all over for the Labor Party, but they need to get their act together if they are to be credible.

Religion and politics (ii)

Part of the debate that has been doing the rounds on this question is whether or not is desirable that people of religious faith should be allowed to also exercise secular power.
The anxiety about this seems to come (not unexpectedly) from those who declare themselves to be not-religious.. It seems to me that this anxiety is misplaced, and comes about from a fundamental misunderstanding about religion that it is a private pursuit.
To the person of religious persuasion nothing could be further from the truth. Religion is essentially about whole-of-life, it is not a hobby or an interest, but about the way you view the world.
Now there are many things that are like this, not just religion, you education, background, ethnicity, social class...all affect the way you see and do things. We do not say that people of a certain racial background, or type of upbringing have to put that to one side...or that if you happen to have been educated at a state school, a private school or at home...then you are not allowed to bring that to bear on your political perceptions.
Why then would we say that some how you should park your religious perspectives (as if you could)?
The answer is not to some how detach ourselves from these things which colour our perceptions, but rather to declare them.
The truth is it's good that K Rudd talks about his Christian faith, or that T Abbott can tell us about why Roman Catholicism has shaped him. If we actually try to suggest that these things are some how unimportant and therefore should be set aside (and I say it again...as if you could) then this is more disturbing in actually making a clear apologetic for your sincerely held belief.
THIS IS NOT TO SAY that religious views, or any others, should go uncritiqued.
Quite the reverse. Critics of religion are right to suggest that we should not just accept an argument "because the Bible tells me so", or because that is what my religion teaches.
The religious person should be challenged to defend their position. This, to my mind, presents no threat to organised religion. Rather it enables those of us who are religious to respond to the challenge to not only be faithful, but also to be artional, reasonable and intelligent.
Nothing less should be expected in modern society.

Lies, lies and damned......

It's often said that you can make statistics say anything, and it's fairly true. The Advertiser's ludicrous daily "VOTE LINE" gives people an almost random question (yesterday's was 'Do computer games dull the imagination?') 91% voted yes and 9 % No.
There is a certain sense of irony about this since said paper is flogging CD roms of various games at the moment in order to increase paper sales.
But the totally ludicrous thing is that the paper reports there were only 20 callers. Now, these figures therefore must at some point or other be wrong. Because if there were only 20 callers then each call repesents 5 percentage points. Therefore if 18 people voted YES it would be 90%, or 17 would be 85%, 19 would be 95....No way can 91% happen.
Even allowing for stuff ups, and dither dathering (and because the phone system only allows you to answer Yes or No I can't see how that could be the case) all percentages would still have to bemultiples of 5.
Of course the real issue is that the sample is nonsense...it is too small and is self-selected.
The result is therefore meaningless on this count also.

What is perhaps as disconcerting is the question for today which is "Do you support the Liberal Party's plan to rebuild the Royal Adelaide Hospital?"
The qualitative difference in importance is striking.
Now I will guarantee that there will be 10 times more votes in the sample at least, which may signify that the result is more meaningful. But of course it will be fuelled on both sides by the political interests, and the process of self-selection (that is you decide yourself if you want to ring up) which means that essentially the self-interested and the politically-inspired are likely to respond vigorously (no way of checking if they ring twice, or more even)
Truth is it's a bit of a waste of time!

PS. There were over 600 calls about the RAH question...I sunsequently penned a letter to the paper

Anyone who has been inside the RAH surely cannot believe that more than 80%
of South Australians prefer that rabbit warren to be redeveloped in preference
to a state of the art new hospital.

Some, of course, may; and
clearly the Opposition is using this as a point of difference in the lead up to
next year's election.

Yesterday's phone poll would have us believe
that more than three quarters of South Australians think that it's better to
rework the tired old buildings; , but it makes us suspect (what we already
know) that phone-in polls are subject to blatant flooding by interested
parties and thus statistically irrelevant.