Done and dusted

There is any number of comments that could be made about the recent State election I'll try and up-date some of these ad hoc remarks as the day goes on.

1. The age old dilemma about the "dodgy how to vote cards", in which Labor sympathisers obviously tried to make themselves look like Family First members, handing out cards that would give Labor a preference rather than Liberal, raises the question about the difference between legal, moral and ethical (Ethics 101). Something which may be legal is not necessarily moral.

2. The Labor campaign manager says "These questions are best left to philosophers". I want to suggest that this is equivocation of the worst kind, the 'lectorate despises this sort of casuistry and the Labor party should sack campaign managers who do not think they should act morally as well as legally.

3. Good on Premier Mike Rann for condemning this out of hand. Well done Chloe Fox for not adopting this strategy. Boo to Leon Bignell, whose victory has been tarnished even if it cannot be proved that this actually delivered the victory to him.

4. On the other hand. Let us not so be so ingenuous as to suggest that voters slavishly follow how to vote cards, and even if they do then more fool them.

We should all take responsibility for how we vote and not blame cards which short-circuit our brains.

The Legislative Council

Don't even get me started on the Legislative Council! The whole process of 'voting above the line' is in my mind an affront to our democratic rights. It suits the two major parties who want to get rid of as many independents and smaller parties as they can. Anything which impedes their open slather is a bad thing in their eyes. By voting above the line you are ceding your right to choose for yourself to these party machines.

I shall expound more about this tomorrow

The Spin Dilemma

Premier Mike Rann said on radio the other day in answer to a caller accusing him of too much "spin"..,.well I suppose you will think this answer is spin any way.
Indeed! Even if a question is answered directly...the spin critics will suggest that you are trying to spin the impression that you are a direct speaker
Damned if you do....
This, incidentally, is why English should do more than just teach grammar. It is more important to know how to decode spin than where to stick your apostrophe!

The luckiest

Ben Folds has a great song called the Luckiest. I love this song, I am reminded that it's a song I suppose he wrote when he lived at Unley, and the personal references are all the more pignant because of it.

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

What if I'd been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?

And in a white sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

This week's luckiest is Mike Rann! Lucky that in a week in which he could have gone down that there was more spin for Malcolm Turnbull in the other direction. I imagine he won't be quite so teflon-coated in future. Can't wait to see what Alex will make of it on Monday!!!!

Judgement of poor Mike's poor judgement!

It will be a free-for-all in State politics this week as SA Premier Mike Rann finds his private life exposed. We will be reminded of why the 'private life' of a politician in this country has traditionally been regarded as off limits. Will the Labor Party take the opportunity to mudsling in the other direction?

I noticed a brief clip of Liberal Chris Pyne saying yesterday that private lives of politicians have by and large been left alone. In these latter more desperate days this tradition seems to be evaporating before our eyes.

One can see little good come of this. Despite the fact that Rann has been highly successful (well at least he has managed to stay in office for a long time) we, the public, will see his legacy reduced to some grubby little stories about an alleged affair.

Is this appropriate? does it matter?

To my mind it does matter whether a person lies or not. It does matter if they treat other people (however consensually) poorly!

This was the problem with the Lewinski affair. Clinton lied. He treated Lewinski poorly,and his wife even worse.

There seem to be some elements in this present business that may have the same sort of thing.

All in all, were I Mike Rann I would be inclined to think that enough is enough, and it's time to go. But I won't hold my breath!

The locus of evil

I am always faintly bemused by the polemic of SA Attorney-General Michael Atkinson who this week declaimed that some members of the so called Gang of 49 were evil, beyond rehabilitation and better off behind bars. He has been more or less backed up by Premier Rann..(here)...ahhh "law and order" what better policy issue when the Opposition seem to be gaining a bit of ground.

My question to the Attorney is whether 'evil' is an appropriate legal descriptor. It seems to me it is not. It may be theological (and Atkinson is a sort-of Anglican) or it may be emotive but it is surely not useful when talking about what certain criminals are doing or what should be done about then.

It must also make prison reformers fume when a Labor Attorney declares that prison cannot at least attempt to rehabilitate the young offender. The offensive language, too, of other State Ministers who suggest that criminals should be racked, packed and stacked...or what ever...helps us to realise that the attitude to prison policy in this state is not exactly what you would call 'progressive'. Indeed it seems positively Victorian.

beating up the premier

I still don't get this! Who beat up the Premier and why?

On Matt and Dave on Friday some whacko rang up and said they could fully understand why someone had thumped the Premier. Good on Matt and Natasha S-D (who was guesting) who reminded the dim-wit that no matter how much you could understand it there was absolutely no justification.

The Advertiser story on Saturday gave no clue as to what this was all about!!

A serious misgauging

Bikies, often calling themselves 'bikers', have seriously misgauged their level of community support. Their show of strength descending on the city of Adelaide yesterday was exactly what they shouldn't have done.(here)

The trouble with pathetic social liberals like myself is that while I am disposed to say that we should not pass draconian laws which limit peoples' freedoms of association, we are also scaredy cats and we don't much like being being intimidated by very big beardede men in leatrher jackets, prone to beating up (a popular perception with much evidence to support it). Shows of force do not appeal to us.

It is rather like sending 200 brown shirts goose-stepping through the mall and saying that we should endorse Nazism.

While people like me are most likely inclined to say that a proper process through the courts in which laws are challenged properly is something I would support, (I mean hasn't anyone spotted that totalitarianism begins by preventing freedom of association...McCarthyism, anti-Communist laws for example, ...Australia steadfastly refused to ban a legitimate Communist party) at the moment I just think :Good on Media Mike for standing up to bullies.

What sort of law?

Ever ready to tap into the mood of the moment Media Mike apparently agrees with a 'proposal' of Police Commissioner Hyde to not only confiscate the vehicle of hoon drivers, but to "crush them" (here)

This will no doubt have some, if not a lot of, appeal in some corners of society, but is this sort of vindictive action what our justice system is about?

Would we, for example, countenance the destruction of someone's house because a crime happened to have been committed in it?

Sounds more like the world of the fascist dictator than the liberal democracy we are supposed to embrace.

We have for many years accepted that illegal proceeds might be confiscated and used to recompense victims of crime, why could these cars not be impounded and sold?

There is clearly a mind game going on here, I for one do not want to be party to vindictive retribution which serves no constructive purpose other than to appeal a vicious streak in the populace at large.

Our leaders should do better than this.

Cooperation - a new era?

During Q&A last week one of the participants (about to join Obama's media circus) noted that as the dust settled on the Obamaisation of American politics, one of the things that seemed to be emerging was a new political era in which political opponents try to work together rather than to rigidly oppose everything that the other side presents.
Only history, I suspect, will tell if this is indeed happening. But I think we see some possible signs of it in our own fair land and State. Whilst inevitably people are tiring a little of Kevin Bland (better that a leader should be bland than be carefree...government is essentially a conservative process), they are tiring ever more of the haphazard critique that comes from oppposition. Abbot for example couldn't help himself on the said program and just had to be cynical and snide. I think we are tiring of it.
I have blogged before that I think Turnbull is more cooperative than his role allows, and I suspect he too is tiring of just having to criticise the government.
Did the Queensland electorate, too, on Saturday reject an Opposition whose sole offering seemed to be not in new policy and/or vision but that they might get rid of long standing government who happen to have picked up a pretty rum situation?
Is this happening in SA...I tire of hearing Captain Marty never offering new initiative but simply whining about Major Mike. The Opposition spokespersons make fools of themselves (it seems to me) because their principal dynamic is not to offer a sense of new beginnings but a constant harping on about how awful the government is. Now that they are locking themselves into the ridiculous policy (for example) of revamping the RAH rather than build a new hospital...they are simply being driven by negative reaction to the government's policy instead of what is best for the state.
Add to that their other great gift...self and mutual immolation on the altar of political infighting...their political irrelevance seems assured.

Beholden!

Curious little report about SA social inclusion commissioner, David Cappo, which says that the new Federal Government thinks the SA model is 'fantastic', with the reservation that because Cappo is a priest this may mean he is compromised because (to quote them) he is beholden both to Mike Rann and to God!
This sort of 'nervous nellyism' always makes me smile. It mainly, and often only, seems to come up in relation to religious people of various hues.
Surely everyone is multiply 'beholden'.
True, non-religious folk are often very suspicious of the religious and not without cause. But if the Social Inclusion commissioner had been a Boy Scout, Gay, a director of BHP or a senior academic would there still be the same sort of objection.
Personally I wonder what people actually think 'beholden to God' might mean....they of course don't mean that at all I suspect...but rather are suggesting that Cappo is a functionary of the institutional church, and a particularly strong brand of it at that.
I must say that while I am not particularly drawn to the brashness of Premier Rann, and often find him arrogant and dismissive of others, he is to be commended for the insightful appointment (some years ago now) of Cappo. The Church is not where he would naturally be drawn, so one must assume that he assessed Cappo on merit and not because he might be able to put in a word with the Almighty (BBHHN)!, or that he was beholden to anyone in particular.