Catallaxy Files

… before someone tried to  take advantage of the flooding in Queensland to push their political agenda.

GREENS leader Bob Brown says the coal mining industry should foot the bill for the Queensland floods because it helped cause them… Senator Brown said the Federal Government should impose the original version of the Resources Super Profits Tax, and use the funds to pay for the clean-up.

“It’s the single biggest cause – burning coal – for climate change and it must take its major share of responsibility for the weather events we are seeing unfolding now,” he said in Hobart today. (News.com.au, 16 Jan 2011)

The flood waters have only just begun to recede. There is a massive amount of clean up to be  done before rebuilding can even begin.  And this is what we get from Bob Brown at this time?

There may be a time and place for debating whether global warming contributed to recent events. But for Bob Brown to   link this disaster to climate change before the mud has even dried, then use it to try and gain support for a politically failed tax policy, it almost beyond belief.

Surely even Green’s supporters have to condemn Bob Brown’s attempt to leverage this disaster for political gain while this tragedy is still unfolding.  Shame, Bob, shame.

A few years back, Andrew Norton developed the theory that there is in fact two Ross Gittins writing for Fairfax.

“the Saturday Ross Gittins whose column in the paper’s business section is often an easily-understood explanation of economic ideas and behaviour, and the Wednesday Ross Gittins whose column on the opinion page is regularly a Clive Hamiltonesque critique of modern society.” (Andrew Norton, 05/03/2007)

It seems that the ‘Wednesday’  Ross Gittins is out in force today, with an article claiming Gillard has no ticker and wrapping up with these choice words.

“Far from spending the next three years chatting about whether to get serious about combating climate change, we need to debate our unquestioned commitment to unlimited economic growth.

Does ever-rising affluence – much of it used to fuel an unending status competition – make us happier as both sides of politics assume? Are we paying a hidden price for it in damage to our family and social relationships? Is it really possible for the rich world to keep increasing its consumption of natural resources while the developing world – led by China and India – rapidly raises its standard of living towards Western levels without this irreparably damaging the ecosystem?” (SMH, 14/07/2010)

Claiming there  is an “unquestioned commitment to unlimited economic growth” is a straw man.   ‘The Greens‘ are frequently in the media reminding  the public of the  environmental and social trade-offs associated with economic growth.  Books like Clive Hamilton’s “Affluenza” also stimulate debate about the topic.  And as Andrew points out in his post, the ‘Wednesday’ Ross  has been pushing this topic for a while, not just in his columns but even publishing his own ‘Hamiltonesque’ book.

But lets quickly consider what  the alternatives to continued economic growth are?

The global (and Australian) population is growing, so even maintaining current living standards (with all the current global disparities), requires a certain amount of growth in material goods and services.  Lower growth implies lower (material) living standards.

Even if those in developed nations were to decide they were happy with their lot, what is the ethical basis for denying developing nations the opportunity to improve  living standards? Will people in  developed countries accept decreases in their material living standards to accommodate rising living standards in other nations? The recent riots in Greece suggest not. If  people are unwilling to accept ‘austerity measures’ to ensure the financial sustainability of their own country, its arguably unrealistic to expect them to do so to facilitate raising prosperity in another nation.

Which brings us back to the population debate. With a starting assumption of  ’no more growth’, your choices appear pretty stark. Either  (a) accept lower material living standards, with all the issues discussed above ; or (b) contain or decrease the global population.  Whilst some developed countries already have sub-replacement fertility rates, what does one do about the rest of the world?

Gittins asks legitimate questions about the trade-offs of economic growth – environmental impacts and social change.  But rather than this preference for growth being “unquestioned”, it’s more likely people have examined the alternatives  to continued economic growth and decided they’re willing to accept some of these trade-offs.

Earlier this month, the Australian government released the implementation study for the National Broadband Network.  The scope of the study was to:

“advise Government on how best to implement its stated policy objectives, not to evaluate those objectives, given that the policies have already been agreed by Government. This report therefore focuses on translating high-level policy objectives into tangible actions for both Government and NBN Co to implement. Explicitly, it does not:

• Evaluate Government’s policy objectives;
• Evaluate the decision to implement the NBN via the establishment of NBN Co;
• Undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the macro-economic and social benefits that would result from the implementation of a superfast broadband network.” (NBN Implementation Study, 06/05/2010)

The report is clearly directed at answering the question of how to deliver the NBN in a way that meets the governments policy objectives. It very explicitly states that out of scope is if the NBN should be built, or built according to the governments objectives.

There’s a couple of ways to look at the decision to define the scope this way.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been an interesting week in the Australian telecoms sector, with former BigPond boss Justin Milne announcing he’ll be leaving Telstra. Whilst most media coverage is focussed on what Milne’s departure means for Telstra, the other interesting question is – what will he do next?  Perhaps he could offer some advice to management at Palm Inc. Heading for its third annual loss, it’s worth considering how bad the outlook now is for the former pioneer of handheld computing.

Justin Milne isn’t the only ISP boss looking for a new gig though. The founders of Netspace will soon be looking for something new to do with their time following the sale of Netspace to iiNet. With $40m to splurge, they ought to be able to get plenty of time on Gamecrush, a new service that lets you pay to play (online) games with women.

Flirtatious females is one way to attract publicity, controversy is another. Whilst the promoters of Kick-Ass might be pleased with the controversy they’ve courted, VicRoads might think twice in future about making fun of redheads.

Meanwhile, Kodjo ponders how long the Republicans can continue being “the party of no”, how much does Google really lose from quitting China and is there anything cooler than Soulver, his new iPhone calculator app?

Rounding out the week, HeathG offers three tips for getting your competitive intelligence project off to a better start.

And thats all for this week from MinimalState.com

This week I kicked off my latest blogging adventure – MinimalState. As the second person to join Catallaxy, I won’t be completely abandoning my role here. Posts covering politics and economic policy will probably be cross-posted to Catallaxy, whilst I’ll also try and provide a weekly (or thereabouts) wrap of the news from MinimalState.

For Catallaxy readers, please take note of the commenting rules at MinimalState. Also – to help reduce spam, your first  comment will be held in moderation. Once approved, subsequent posts will be automatically posted – unless you end up in the sin bin for ignoring the rules.

So without further ado, here is a wrap of the first week of the MinimalState.

News From The MinimalState
Despite all the talk about rise of new media, traditional media sources are still more popular popular than ‘new media’ as a source of news, both in Australia and the US.

When it comes to entertainment though, new media does appear to be making inroads – even causing something of an internal tussle within the Seven media group.

Could the poacher turn gamekeeper? Former Daily Telegraph editor David Penberthy had some choice words about celebrity PR pimp Max Markson this week. Is it time to start a Penbo for Media Watch campaign?

Meanwhile the Australian Human Rights Commission wants to play gamekeeper for the world, threatening legal action against the US based site ‘Encyclopedia Dramatica’ (ED). ED might be tacky, might be tasteless and it’s entry on Aboriginals might be racist. But sometimes the way to minimise the harm from sites like this is to ignore them, rather than give the global publicity as a free speech martyr.

MinimalState this week also features a couple of reposts of articles lost in the great Catallaxy crash of “09. So if you’d like to revisit the topics of TIO complaints or competitor profiling, pop on over.

Rounding out the week, another former Catallaxy contributor, Kodjo, has a post on prescription insurance.

So that’s the news so far from the MinimalState – hope to see some of you drop by.

Looks like we will be waiting a while for any meaningful or coherent tax reform

KEVIN Rudd has put the Henry tax review firmly on the backburner, confirming today that his $50 billion public health takeover plan is his top priority.

The Prime Minister said this morning he had not decided on a specific timetable for the release of the review, which was delivered to the Rudd government by Treasury secretary Ken Henry in December.

“I believe what Australian people wanted me to do is to get on with the business of delivering health and hospitals reform. Number one priority,” he told ABC radio.

“Each thing in its season, we’ve got to do one thing at a time.

“But in terms of specific timetables for doing it, no, I don’t have anything particular in mind.”(The Australian 04/03/2010)

My guess is the Henry report is going to suggest a range of necessary, but unpopular,  changes. Rather than fight that battle now,  Rudd will presumably go to the election with health reform his major focus and deal with tax reform later.

As Andrew Norton is fond of pointing out – health and education are ALP owned issues so making health reform (and perhaps MySchool) the focus of the next election  seems like a good strategy for the ALP.

As Sinclair has posted below, our learned colleague Clive Hamilton has begun publishing a five part epic on the conspiracy of climate denialism.  Either Clive has started writing satire, or else he has no sense of irony.

Part 1 of this series was called “Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial“. The article details the threats and personal abuse that have been made against journalists and scientists involved in the climate change debate.

I agree with Clive that there is no place in the current debate for threats of violence and harm against those with opposing views. Anyone on either side of the debate who is threatening violence is doing their cause a great deal of harm and threats of violence or repeated harassment should be referred to law enforcement for appropriate action.

However Clive also complains about the fact that scientists are receiving abusive emails such as these:

” One scientist was called a “Loudmouth, arrogant, conceited, ignorant wanker”.

The emails frequently accuse the scientists of being frauds who manipulate their research in order to receive funding, such as this one to Ben McNeil at the UNSW:

“It’s so obvious you are an activist going along with the climate change lie to protect your very lucrative employment contract.”

They often blame the recipients of being guilty of crimes, as in this one received by Professor David Karoly at the University of Melbourne:

“It is probably not to (sic) extreme to suggest that your actions (deceitful) were so criminal to be compared with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. It is called treason and genocide.

“Oh, as a scientist, you have destroyed peoples trust in my profession. You are a criminal . Lest we forget.” (ABC 22/02/2010)

Now this isn’t particularly friendly and some of it may be unfair criticism, but when it comes to odious comparisons, this is a bit of a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

As commenters at the ABC site quickly pointed out, this complaint is coming from the same Clive who recently declared that ‘climate denialists’ were just a small step behind ‘holocaust denialists‘ on the scale of evil.  I’d also point out that this is the same Clive who likes to create straw men in order to smear his opponents in the internet filtering debate.

Clive needs to appreciate that not everyone who cares about the climate change debate is an academic. Not everyone has the time or skill to compose five part essays when they have something to say on the topic.

Due to a sense of frustration or lack of skill – people will sometimes resort to coarse language and insults. This behaviour isn’t to be encouraged and threats should be dealt with by the authorities. But given Clive’s previous form, this latest lengthy missive looks like simply adding more heat, rather than light, to the climate change debate.