When Rome Counted its Citizens

Census-Romans
Census taker visits a family of Indigenous Dutch Travellers living in a caravan in 1925. Wikipedia CC

You may not immediately deduce from the headline that we are about to embark upon a discourse about the Census, which will happen in Australia on or about  August 10, 2021.

I say on or about because the online version of the head count can be filled in electronically on or a few days after August 10. You just have to declare where you actually were on Census night.

As you will recall, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) held its first online census in 2016. There was a major glitch on Census night (August 9) when the ABS website crashed, leaving millions of citizens perplexed. In October 2019, a Census test was held across 100,000 households to assess ‘end-to-end operational readiness for the 2021 Census.

In 2016, about 37% of people opted to fill in the paperwork and wait for an official collector to come calling. This time the ABS says it expects a better than 63% online response, given research that shows Australians prefer to complete the census online.

Taking a once in five years snapshot of the country’s population is an expensive exercise, budgeted at $565 million. The ABS is in the process of recruiting 22,456  field staff and managers.

Named after the Latin word ‘censere‘, meaning estimate, the Roman census was the most developed of any in the ancient world. The Romans (Ed: what did they ever do for us?), conducted their census every five years. The Roman Empire  used this information to extract duties  from its citizens.

An ABS history page says the first known census was taken by the Babylonians in 3,800 BC, nearly 6,000 years ago.

Records suggest that it was taken every six or seven years and counted the number of people, livestock, quantities of butter, honey, milk, wool and vegetables. 

So yes, there is an historical precedent for the (compulsory) collection of personal data from every household in the country.

You may remember Tony Abbott, who was Prime Minister for two and a half footie seasons (2013-2015), tried to axe the census to save money. It didn’t happen (such change requiring a new Act of Parliament). To be fair to Abbott, both the Fraser and Keating governments sought to abolish the census for the same reason.

Sydney Morning Herald journalist Peter Martin unearthed this little-known fact in 2013 while writing about other countries which had tinkered with changes.

As Martin noted, Britain had for a long time been trying to abolish its census (held once a decade since 1801). The government held an inquiry in 2013 to find ways to update the way the UK collects data. This year’s census will be the last. Thereafter, the UK will harvest the data people generate in their everyday lives.

Apolitical, a social network for civil servants, observed that other countries are moving in this direction or have already done so, including the US, Norway and Finland.

Rather than survey citizens, statisticians would collect the data traces left behind by people’s everyday interactions with government. Data is collected from welfare and tax departments, housing and vehicle registrations or our health records. 

Apolitical says statisticians can glean more from the aggregating of all this information (and anonymising it to protect citizens’ privacy).

In 2010, Canada’s Harper government tried to replace its census with a voluntary survey, prompting the shock resignation of Canada’s chief statistician, Munir Sheikh.

Following his resignation, Dr Sheikh, once described by a colleague as ‘the best economist in Canada’, expressed his disapproval of the government’s decision, saying that a voluntary survey could not replace a census. 

Following the reinstatement of the mandatory census in 2015, Canada is preparing to hire 32,000 census enumerators and crew leaders to survey its vast country in 2021. Canada, like Australia, uses data from the census to share resources fairly and accurately  among its widely-scattered provinces..

New Zealand also considered replacing its census, using data from government departments to determine its population. The country’s last census was in 2018 but it is already gearing up for 2023.

Some governments have encountered deep social opposition to certain questions. Former President Trump wanted a Citizenship question in the 2020 Census. He backed off after a wave of hostilities that included a threatened boycott.

In July 2019, he realised there was no time left to have the question included in the 2020 Census papers. So he issued an executive order calling on agencies to turn over citizenship data to the Commerce Department.

In the first few days of his administration, President Biden rescinded this directive. Litigation about this issue argued that citizenship data could have politically benefited Republicans when voting districts are redrawn.

The other controversial question on census forms is the one about religion. In 2001, the UK re-introduced the question (not asked since 1851), largely as an attempt to calculate the size of the Muslim population. Accordingly, some 390,000 people in England listed their ‘religion’ as Jedi, a response which occurred in Australia too, with 70,000 recorded in 2001. In 2016, 48,000 people entered Jedi as their religion. New Zealand  had the highest per capita Jedi response (53,000) in 2001). Statistics New Zealand’s response was: ‘Answer understood but not recorded’.

The US does not ask the question (nor does Scotland), though the US asks about race and ethnicity. In Australia, the religion question has been ‘optional’ since the first Census in 1911. The box ‘no religion’ is a recent addition.

Curiously (well, we think it is curious), the ABS confirmed that 90% of people have answered the question in recent censuses. If your religion is not listed, the form provides space to enter the data. Because of this response, the ABS holds data on 150 religions in Australia.

The idea of trying to run a country without a census horrifies Peter McDonald, Emeritus Professor of Demography at The Australian National University. He thinks scrapping the census would be a nightmare for planners and governments.

“The problem in Australia is that we have no reasonable alternative to the census,” he told FOMM this week. “From an accuracy (and privacy) perspective, the census is better by a long way than trying to combine various administrative data bases. Without the census, the States would continually claim that their population was larger than it actually was. And every other group that received funding on a population basis would do likewise. 

Statistics is a dry subject, but one we encounter every day of our lives, so let’s leave you with this. Mathematician Joey Scaminaci’s clever rap ‘Statistics’ attempts to teach the basics in three and a half minutes. It  impressed one fan who commented:

From Australia I thank you, this is very helpful! Gonna ace my big exam”.

 

Down the rabbit hole, looking for trouble

down-the-rabbit-hole
Image by Lee J Haywood cc https://flic.kr/p/7wJQch

The phrase ‘going down the rabbit hole’ could well apply to my activities earlier this week, as I set out to research ‘alternative’ social media networks including those adopted by the right wing.

Before I disappeared down the burrow, I had some idea what I would encounter, having last year researched 4Chan and 8Chan.

My research was thwarted right at the start by Amazon’s reported move to ban Parler from its web-hosting network.

Apple and Google have also removed the Parler App from its app stores. Not surprisingly, www.parler.com has been off-line since Monday.

Parler (pronounced par-lay), at last count had 15 million members, including a significant number of Trump supporters. Parler has been cited as the source of posts inciting violence before last week’s storming of Washington’s Capitol Building. Amazon terminated the app’s internet access at the weekend, having previously warned the social media operator about breaching its moderation rules (deciding which comments to let through).

While Parler went off-line, looking for another web host, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took to his own forum to explain why Trump has been denied access. Twitter had already blocked Mr Trump’s account after earlier labelling some of his tweets as disputed or false claims.

Amazon (and Parler) have not made official comments about the ban, not surprising given the potential for litigation. This piece by the Washington Post (owned, as the article declares, by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos), should suffice as a summary.

The fallout from last week’s rioting at the Capitol Building includes internet giants Facebook and Twitter banning soon to be ex-President Trump from commenting. This could be construed to mean they figure the riots happened because Trump encouraged it (and social media gave the angry mob a place to vent, plan, organise and schedule).

Authorities seemed slow to lay arrest and lay charges, (the FBI today says more than 100 arrested). Those charged  include those accused of bringing bombs and weapons into the building. Others, whose faces were caught on video, have so far escaped the link between that and their actual identities. If it had been in CCTV-dominated London, they’d all be nicked by now.

On Tuesday, US authorities announced new arrests and charges including Jacob Anthony Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli. They also charged Derrick Evans, a recently-elected member of the West Virginia House of Delegates. The US Attorney’s office said Mr Evans was identified on a video, shouting as he crossed the threshold into the Capitol, “We’re in, we’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!

The pair and one other man were charged in Federal Court in connection with the violent incursion into the Capitol.

Chansley, the most identifiable of those captured on video or security cameras was hard to miss, with his red white and blue face paint, tattooed chest, horned helmet and bearskin toupee.

He was charged with “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.”

On Tuesday I clicked ‘like’ on multiple Facebook posts condemning Australia’s acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack for seemingly taking ex-president Trump’s side over the Twitter ban. The debate, free speech vs consequences. rumbles on.

McCormack’s attempts to compare the riots with last year’s Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustice were described by Amnesty International as “deeply offensive.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is on leave, last week condemned the rioters over the “terribly distressing” violence and called for a peaceful transfer of power.

But unlike many other world leaders, he refused to acknowledge Trump’s role in inciting the mob that gate-crashed the US Capitol building.

Just in case you think things like that only happen ‘over there’, there are stridently right-wing politicians in our own parliament saying provocative things. The Guardian reported that government backbencher George Christensen said over the weekend he would push for laws to “stop media platforms from censoring any and all lawful content created by their users.

Further to Parler’s ban, social media posts have appeared claiming that ‘ultra left-wing radicals’ have downloaded Parler profiles aplenty and a mass ‘doxxing’ is feared.

Doxxing in this context means a deliberate dumping of publicly available data with the aim of ‘outing’ people who express strong views on social media. Apparently it (the gleaning), has been going on for some time.

At this point, like my friend Mr Shiraz, who finished his daily rant on Facebook and went outside to prune trees, I turned my mind to substantive issues in Australia.

It seems the combined media coverage of Covid-19 and life in Trumpistan* has pushed Australia’s refugee issues off the news agenda.

Since I recently joined a local refugee support group which aims to help refugees in a positive way, I thought I should play my part.

I started by writing to the Southern Downs Regional Council, asking Mayor Vic Pennisi to join the 168 local governments in Australia who have designated their regions a ‘Refugee Welcome Zone.’

Our near neighbour, Toowoomba Regional Council, declared the city as such back in 2013 – before it was even a ‘thing’.

The Refugee Council of Australia definition of a ‘Refugee Welcome Zone’ is: a Local Government Area which has made a commitment in spirit to welcoming refugees into the community. The aim is to uphold the human rights of refugees, demonstrate compassion for refugees and enhance cultural and religious diversity in the community’.

There’s a bit of a precedent, with participants widespread throughout Australia including the City of Sydney (NSW), Brisbane City Council (Qld), the City of Subiaco (WA), Clarence City Council (Tasmania) and Port Macquarie-Hastings Council (NSW).

There are eight local governments in Queensland who have rolled out the welcome mat for refugees, including Brisbane, Gold Coast, Logan, Townsville, Toowoomba and Noosa Council.

In applying myself to letter writing, I broke the cycle of ‘doom-scrolling’ which is a catch-phrase to describe the act of constantly updating news and social media feeds on one’s mobile phone. They say it makes anxious people grind their teeth at night.

This insidious condition worsens for every day the US inauguration grows closer; for every day we endure live press conferences updating our region’s Covid status.

In what must surely now be recognised as a classic FOMM digression, the phrase ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ has been nabbed by an enterprising South Australian winemaker.

Down the Rabbit Hole Wines is clever marketing in an industry that seems switched on to it. I should also tell you about a Victorian winemaker whose label is Goodwill Wine. I don’t imbibe, but She Who Does tells me the red is worthy of their loose adaptation of our band name (www.thegoodwills,com).

Brand names aside, ‘going down the rabbit hole’ is defined by dictionary.com as a metaphor for something that transports someone into a wonderfully (or troublingly), surreal state or situation.

I rest my case.

Last week: One of my readers (a beekeeper) chided me for calling the bee disease ‘Fowlbrood’. I’m blaming the spellchecker, as I already knew it was ‘American foulbrood’ or AFB.

*Trumpistan: a term for the parts of the USA which support Donald Trump

Our Obsession With U.S. Politics

US-politics-obsession
Image by Rolf Dobberstein, www.pixabay.com

For reasons attributed to the way my mind works, the 1950s children’s song ‘Nellie the Elephant has been in my head for months now.

If the complete domination of the airwaves by the US election is getting you down, just sing this happy refrain:

Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, off she went with a trumpety trump – trump, trump, trump.”

Yes, once heard never able to be un-heard.The song (Ralph Butler/Peter Hart) was first released in October 1956 by Mandy Miller and an orchestra conducted by Phil Cardew. (There’s also a 1984 cover by punk band Toy Dolls).

On Wednesday, every TV channel had live (and ongoing) coverage of the US election vote count, interspersed with snippets of local news. The blanket coverage continued yesterday and today. At one point we switched off and went out to sow grass seed and count birds.

This short discourse on our obsession with the US election begins with the obvious observation: “Why the hell should we care?” Surely we have enough problems of our own to solve without being mired in America’s divisive political miasma.

Media coverage of the US election this week (and what seems for a long time now), quickly relegated the triumphant third term return of Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Pałaszczuk to a lesser position. It also relegated our own (small) battles with Covid-19 from top of the news, where it should be.

Covid and the obsession with events in Trumpistan lessened the usual impact of two major Australian sporting events. On Tuesday we had the Melbourne Cup, run without the usual crowd (100,000+); no outlandish hats, frivolity or drunken behaviour. Masked strappers led the horses in to the parade ring, while anyone within coo-ee of a television camera conspicuously wore a mask. This is Victoria, after all. The 2020 Cup was run and won, the day marred by the death of the top weight horse Anthony Van Dyck, which broke a fetlock and had to be euthanased. The other scandal from Cup Day, which added fuel to the ‘Nup to the Cup’ animal rights movement was jockey Kerrin McEvoy’s $50,000 fine for over-use of the whip on second-placed Tiger Moth.

Meanwhile in Adelaide, rugby league players lined up for the first of three State of Origin matches. The matches would normally have been held in May and June but this year, Covid restrictions forced a re-organisation of the classic inter-State contest.

The games are to be staged over three consecutive weeks; next Wednesday in Sydney then the following Wednesday, November 18, 2020, when Brisbane will host the third game and possible decider, depending on whether NSW wins next week.

There were other news stories this week which were not about the US election or Covid-19. Here’s a few you may have missed.

  • Reserve Bank cuts interest rates to 0.10%;
  • China suspends Australian wine imports;
  • Australia Post CEO resigns;
  • Girl, 3, found alive under rubble after Turkey’s earthquake;
  • Parrot saves owner from house fire – “Anton, Anton, wake up”;
  • Diego Maradona is to have brain surgery;
  • Queensland wins State of Origin 1, beating NSW 18-14;
  • The Goodwills release new single after lengthy hiatus.

President Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court is a good example of the extent to which we have become immersed in American politics. The US Supreme Court became topical when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died after a long illness. President Trump, as is his constitutional right, (although going against convention – no surprises there. Ed) recently appointed Justice Barrett, a favourite of conservatives, to replace Justice Ginsberg. Appointments to the US Supreme Court are rare, as Justices are appointed for life.

This issue dominated traditional media and social media alike for weeks, the focus being on the likelihood of Trump appointing a conservative judge before the election (which he did).

Meanwhile in Australia

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week announced the appointment of two new Justices to our equivalent forum (the High Court of Australia). Federal Court Judges Jacqueline Gleeson and Simon Steward will replace outgoing Justices Virginia Bell and Geoffrey Nettle. The latter are due to retire at 70. The compulsory retirement age was brought in after a referendum in 1977.

Unlike the politically charged US Supreme Court, Australia’s High Court judges are appointed by the Governor-General in Council (which means he suggests potential candidates to the Attorney- General and then the PM, who makes the appointments).

Mr Morrison thanked the outgoing justices for their work.

Every justice appointed to the High Court carries a significant burden to uphold the laws of our land,” he said. “I congratulate Justices Steward and Gleeson and I wish them all the best.”

As this ABC report observed, our High Court process stands in stark contrast to that of the United States, where Supreme Court appointments are fought tooth and nail in a politically charged atmosphere.

An article in ‘The Conversation’ argued that Australians in general know very little about the workings of the High Court. The Canberra-based court and its panel of seven Justices is the last resort for civil cases which have been through at least one other legal forum.

The High Court’s independence is no better demonstrated by the recently decided case, Hocking v The Director of the National Archives. An academic, Professor Jennifer Hocking had sought access to the correspondence between former Governor-General Sir John Kerr and the Queen during Australia’s constitutional crisis in 1975.

The High Court held that Kerr’s papers were public record and not, as had been previously ruled, his personal correspondence.

The National Archives of Australia spent close to $1 million defending its position, an amount which could double after the High Court ruled that it pay Professor Hocking’s costs.

Even though a Pew Centre research report said 71% of Australians closely follow US news, it serves us better to be informed about domestic news. Start by following the High Court’s upcoming deliberations on Palmer vs State of WA over the ‘hard border’ closure.

The High Court of Australia is completely transparent (cases and judgements are available online). But as senior lecturer in law Joe McIntyre said in The Conversation article: “Whereas appointments to the US Supreme Court are a highly visible festival of political intrigue and showmanship, the process in Australia is a secretive affair occurring strictly behind closed doors.

As I post this week’s FOMM, US news channels are proclaiming Democrat candidate Joe Biden a narrow winner of the 2020 US election. Whether or not this is confirmed in the days and weeks to come, if you are one of the people who think Trump has to go, keep your spirits up (perhaps for another four years) by humming this ear-worm of a tune:

Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, off she went with a trumpety trump – trump, trump trump.”

(Wikipedia says the rhythm and tempo of this song is often used to teach people cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) (100 compressions per minute). 

When Campbell Newman lost his seat

Campbell-Newman-Pre-Polling
Up to 60% of Queensland’s eligible voters will vote early or register a postal vote in the State election.

Queensland heads to the polls tomorrow, four years and nine months after the historic defeat of Campbell Newman and the LNP Coalition. I thought it would be interesting and educational to revisit those restive times, when Campbell Newman became only the second sitting Premier since Federation to lose his seat.

Mr Newman’s seat of Ashgrove was taken by Kate Jones, who ironically is quitting politics in 2020 to pursue other interests. The Tourism Minister’s last hoorah this week was to attack Clive Palmer on national television, saying his claim about a Labor death tax is “bullshit”.

Even with Campbell Newman losing his seat in January 2015, it was a close-run thing. Incoming Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk formed government with the help of one independent, Peter Wellington. The Labor Party increased its majority by four seats in the November 2017 election, despite Mr Wellington deciding to quite politics. So tomorrow’s poll is a contest between two women – Annastacia Palaszczuk, who is attempting to win a third successive term, and Deb Frecklington, in her eighth year in politics, hoping for a promotion from her highest position in the Campbell Newman government (assistant Finance Minister). Whoever wins, we are stuck with them for four years, courtesy of Queensland’s second referendum on fixed terms, which was got a Yes vote in 2016 (after a No in 1991).

In researching this topic, I uncovered a FOMM written in early February 2015, a year which also saw Prime Minister Tony Abbott ousted by Malcolm Turnbull before the former completed his term.

My blog on the Friday after the 2015 Queensland election called for more compassion, in politics and in daily life. It was also an attempt to soothe the “bruised egos and wallets of those who backed the wrong team.

Flashback:2015

We talked about compassion over the festive season, and how we could all try a bit harder. A few wise people wrote to me at the time and suggested that first you have to give yourself a break. But that week I felt an unlikely pang of compassion for Tony Abbott, under siege from his own party and the media. Just imagine how he might have felt going into the Press Club on the Monday after Queensland voters turned on the LNP.

The PM has a thick hide, obviously, but I imagine he might have had to do some meditation or yoga before he fronted the media pack. While it seems clear that the LNP’s narrow defeat in Queensland, with Premier Campbell Newman losing his seat, was all about that government’s arrogance and can-do-ism, inevitably Tony Abbott got the blame.

In typical style, the PM did not refer to the Queensland election in his prepared comments for the Press Club, although some of his detractors rode that particular elephant into the room. You could hear the knives being sharpened from up here in the mountains. A backbencher got a run on Radio National this week saying he had texted the PM to say he no longer had his support. Whether the inexplicable decision to bestow a knighthood on Prince Philip was the last straw or whether they’ve been keeping a list, we’ll never know. Whatever, I felt a bit sorry for the man. Being PM is an impossible 24/7 job that creates the kind of stress you and I would not want to know about.

“What did Tony Abbott ever do for us?” I hear you say. True, the Abbott government seems to care less about people who struggle financially; the ones to whom a $7 co-payment is a big deal. This (Federal) government scores low on Compassion, as did the former LNP (Queensland Government), which apparently thought it could do what it liked and no-one would take it personally, or be able to do anything about it.

The C-word I’d most like to introduce into contemporary politics is an old-fashioned one – Civility. ‘After you’, and ‘if it’s not too much trouble’, and ‘how has your day been?’. It costs nothing be civil with one another, but from my observations of political life here or in Canberra over the past 20 years or so, there is too much of the ‘us and them’ and ‘let’s get ‘em’. If you’re an Opposition Labor MP you have to vote along party lines, which means you disagree with everything the incumbent government has to say and ditto for the LNP when Labor is in power.

On that basis, the Queensland Parliament will be a shackled institution. The former Premier of Queensland would have us believe that hung parliaments are bad. But just why are they bad? Why not call it Consensus government? Imagine a Queensland parliament with 30 Labor members, 20 Libs, 10 Nats, 10 Greens, 14 independents and five ratbag parties to give us a bit of a giggle and keep the bastards honest. Select the most intelligent and fair-minded member as Speaker and we would indeed live in interesting times, when pollies would have to talk to one another to come up with policies they can all agree upon.

Meanwhile back in 2020

The other election preoccupying not only Australians, but the world in general, is the November 3 US presidential election. Sixty million Americans (about 40% of the expected turnout), have already voted – which may be portentious. Reactions to the polarising President, Donald Trump, have been extreme. Musician Bruce Springsteen, for example, says that if Trump wins, he is moving to Australia.

Bruce has any number of options to work his way through Australia’s migration red tape. As a business migrant he can just headquarter his music business here and tick all the boxes, especially the one that asks how much money he is bringing with him. He could also apply for an ‘exceptional talent’ visa. Above all. he has a very Australian name.

The numbers of American-born people living in Australia has almost doubled since 2001, when the Census identified 60,000. By the 2011 Census, this number had increased to 90,000. Five years later in 2016 it topped 106,000. On the annual growth rate, the numbers of US-born in Australia should now be around 120,000, the sixth-largest American population in the world.

As happens everywhere, people end up living somewhere they went to visit and then met someone (and stayed). But affairs of the heart and family ties is just one part of the puzzle. A 2015 investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald concluded there were economic factors at play. Australia, to a large degree, survived the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), which was an attraction for Americans looking to prosper somewhere else in the world that speaks English.

Post-covid and post-Trump, there is every reason to think Australia may again become the magnet for disenfranchised Americans that it was during the Cuban missile crisis (1962), the Vietnam war (1955-1975) and after 9/11 and the GFC.

The Trump factor is fairly obvious, as the ABC’s Lee Sales discovered when interviewing former US Secretary of State Richard Armitage (2001-2005), about next week’s election.

When the life-long Republican was asked what would happen if Donald Trump wins, he simply said: “Got any more room in Australia?”

FOMM back pages: Citizen Kang for President

 

 

 

 

Conspiracies, Daffodils and Tulips

conspiracies-daffodils
(Area 51, Nevada, US. Image by mdherren, Pixabay.com)

In spring, as the poet said, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of conspiracy. Wait! I just misquoted Alfred Tennyson and there’s a one in eight chance that someone under 34 will believe the quote is authentic.

While the new season takes tentative steps towards summer (tulips and daffodils flowering), imported conspiracy theories have taken root in Australia. The media noticed; with The Australian, the New Daily, The Guardian and 60 Minutes among those to investigate. Satirists weighed in, mocking the worrisome ideas fomented by the mendacious QAnon. While satire has its place, conspiracy theories can cause a lot of damage if people act on them.

During the lockdown of public housing towers in Melbourne, some 10,000 people refused to take a covid test. Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said some had declined believing that Coronavirus was a conspiracy, its effects overstated, or simply with a misguided faith that it would not affect them.

More recently, News Corp reported that people are being “actively investigated” by police for encouraging Melbourne residents to protest against Stage Four lockdown. Anti-lockdown protesters clashed with police in the Victorian capital on Sunday night. The anti-lockdown lobby has been very active on Twitter and other social media outlets before and after those events.

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ attempts to hose down the second phase of COVID-19 are being defied by those including followers of the social media conspiracy spreader, QAnon. If you hear someone utter the words ‘sovereign citizen’, its a sure sign they follow one of the far-right conspiracy groups in the US (and now, it seems, in Australia).

QAnon believes the world is being controlled by a ‘deep state’ of Satan-worshipping paedophiles and people traffickers. The plot (there always is one) is that the deep state wants to overthrow the incumbent president, Donald Trump. Even though QAnon has previously turned on Trump, at this stage in the election cycle it appears they think he’s the right man to fix what ails the US.

There’s more available, if you want to go looking for it, on Facebook and bulletin boards like 4Chan and 8kun (known as 8Chan before the Christchurch mosque massacre). The latter was in the news again this week as the perpetrator was jailed for life without parole.

The shooter posted simultaneous footage of the massacre on social media forums and investigations since showed him to be active on right-wing bulletin boards like 8Chan.

The London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks extremism around the world, detailed the rise of QAnon across social media platforms. Its report, The Genesis of a Conspiracy Theory, shows that interactions with content in social media groups more than tripled, from 2.35 million in February to 7.26 million in June.

The ISD report shows a marked increase in discussions on social media platforms between March and June. Unique users discussing QAnon jumped by 12.02 million, or 63.7% on Twitter, 188,855 or 174.9% on Facebook and 96,894 or 71% on Instagram. One should hope that some of those discussions were rebuttals posted by people who know that it is just so much hokum.

Little wonder that the FBI and ASIO warned that extreme-right radical groups are a domestic terrorism threat.

The definition of a conspiracy theory is that which is promulgated as fact yet cannot be supported by evidence. Or as Daniel Pipes (a US historian and writer) was quoted in a Senate report:

“Like alchemy and astrology, conspiracism offers an
intellectual inquiry that has many facts right but goes wrong
by locating causal relationships where none exist.”

Australia has always had an element of conspiracists; holocaust deniers, anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers, mask-deniers, Islamaphobes and those who subscribe to (US) theories that the world is controlled by a cabal of (Jewish) financiers (and that aliens are being kept in a secret underground facility in the desert somewhere, for breeding purpose, perhaps). The adherents may be small in number but they wield a disproportionate amount of influence.

People aged 18-34 appear to be susceptible to being swayed by conspiracy theories. About 20% of this cohort told pollsters they believed the 5G mobile network was being used to spread coronavirus (a widely debunked and baseless theory).
The better news is that 5G theory beliefs decreased in older age groupings. About 13% of 35 to 54-year olds responded positively to the theories, and between 4% and 8% of the 55+ cohort.

The rapid growth of QAnon appears to have started with the emergence of the Coronavirus in March. Those who believe that vaccinations cause more health problems than the specific ones they are forestalling, were the obvious target.

ASIO’s annual threat assessment released in February outlined the threat of right-wing extremism as real and growing, according to a Lowy Institute report. A June update revealed that right-wing extremist investigations now make up a third of ASIO’s domestic caseload. ASIO warns that far-right groups are using Covid-19 as a cover to push ideologies and gain recruits.

In Australia, this manifested itself in a series of rallies in May, with protesters calling Covid-19 a scam and protesting against vaccines, pharmaceutical companies, fluoride and 5G.

As if this was no disturbing enough, a meme being circulated (again), purports to claim that Australia does not exist. I thought it was satire, and so did the person who brought it to my attention. No, it is a conspiracy theory/hoax that’s been around long enough to have its own hashtag, #australiadoesntexist.

So, enough of this nonsense; let’s just enjoy the daffodils and tulips, the pardalote chit-chitting away, the smell of jasmine…

If you see Junior thumbing away at his phone or tablet when it’s supposed to be family time, share the real quote from Tennyson: “In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

Or if you prefer a poem with an Australian flavour:

And jolly Spring, with love and laughter gay
Full fountaining, lets loose her tide of bees
Upon the waking ember-flame of bloom
New kindled in the honey-scented trees.

Hugh McCrae

 

 

The return of capital punishment

capital-punishment-returns
The condemned man enjoyed a full moon. Image by prettysleepy2, www.pixabay.com

In February, my attention was caught by a bizarre story about the Sri Lankan government advertising for two public executioners of “strong moral character”.

I let it go at the time, as the topic seemed too morbid for FOMM readers. But that was before Donald Trump’s government last month re-introduced capital punishment in the US for Federal offences.

People in Trump’s government have been lobbying to reintroduce capital punishment, last used in 2003. The main target is drug traffickers, as the US battles to staunch its opioid crisis. Trump has also tweeted that the death sentence should apply to ‘mass shooters’. After this week’s racially-motivated shootings in the US, Trump is sticking to this line, resisting calls for firearm controls saying ‘hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun’.

The capital punishment debate should pique the curiosity of Australians born after 1967, because that was when the last person was executed in this country. Ronald Ryan had the dubious honour of being the last man to step up to the scaffold in February 1967. One of my former lecturers, the late Keith Willey, was the only journalist to attend the execution of Ryan in Pentridge Gaol.

Ryan, who had been founded guilty of killing a gaol warden, said to the hangman before the trapdoor opened: “God bless you – whatever you do, do it quickly.”

Actor Lewis Fitz-Gerald directed a 1993 documentary-drama based on the Ryan execution. Fitz-Gerald also played the part of his late uncle (Keith Willey).  The Last Man Hanged also starred Colin Friels as Ryan.

Keith Willey wrote at least eight books, including “You might as well laugh, mate’, published posthumously in 1984. Willey’s Walkley-award studded journalism career included covering wars in Israel, South Vietnam and Cambodia and racial massacres in Cyprus and Kuala Lumpur.

Ryan’s execution happened at a time of growing public dissent about capital punishment. There were demonstrations, vigils and petitions. The Federal government abolished capital punishment (including the ACT and NT) in 1973. Queensland had already abolished it (in 1922), NSW in 1939 and Tasmania in 1968. Other states lagged behind including Victoria (1975), South Australia (1976) and Western Australia (1984).

As you know, I delight in uncovering apparently little-known facts, this one being the derivation of ‘capital punishment’, which is from the Latin ‘caput’ literally taken to mean decapitation.

There are a few fundamental flaws with capital punishment, the main one being that it has been shown on many occasions that innocent men (and women) were executed by mistake.

Many books have been written on this subject and more than 50 mainstream movies made, including The Green Mile, Dead Man Walking, Monster’s Ball and 12 Angry Men. People have marched in the streets over this issue, just as they are doing now in Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Nonetheless, we find ourselves in an era where conservative/right wing governments prevail. For governments of this ilk, capital punishment appeals as a deterrent. It is also a symbol of the strong hand of populist government, getting tough on crime, when the real issues are racism, poverty and the control of wealth in the hands of a few.

I’ll get off my soapbox now, as there seems no need for it in a supposedly enlightened first world country that is highly unlikely to ever re-introduce capital punishment. Federal, Territory and State governments have enough on their plates with high rates of suicide and deaths in custody. There are also emotive cases where governments are called on to defend Australian citizens convicted of crimes in countries that do have the death penalty.

Diplomatic interventions and other legal challenges failed to save convicted drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. These two members of the now-infamous ‘Bali Nine’ were both executed by firing squad in April 2015. In the 1980s, convicted drug traffickers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers were executed in Malaysia.

There have been others and there are certain to me more, given the human potential for risk-taking.

Amnesty International says there were at least 690 executions, in 20 countries, in 2018, a decrease of 31% compared to 2017 (at least 993). This figure represents the lowest number of executions that Amnesty International has recorded in the past decade. There are 106 countries where use of the death penalty is not allowed by law, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and South Africa. However 56 countries, most in Asia and the Middle East, still retain the death penalty. Amnesty says that just four countries accounted for 84% of the executions (Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). This does not include China which keeps its statistics secret. Amnesty estimates China executes thousands every year.

Twenty-nine of America’s 50 states hand down and carry out death sentences, even though authorities have admitted that 10 people who died were ‘probably’ innocent. More worryingly, 140 people who were on death row were subsequently exonerated.

Now here is something all Australians need to know (whether you agree or disagree). Twenty Australian political parties were asked before the 2019 election about their political stance on the death penalty – yes or no. Three parties – One Nation, United Australia Party and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers – answered yes. The three major parties answered no and 11 parties did not respond to the survey.  

The death penalty is a subject that is always up for debate,. From an ethical and moral standpoint it is indefensible. It can also be argued that by using capital punishment as a deterrent (which it isn’t), the countries who use it are clinging to concepts dreamt up in much less enlightened times.

Some of you may have seen the ABC’s Australian Story interview with former state executioner for Virginia, Jerry Givens. Givens says he is on a mission to highlight the decline in capital punishment in the US (executions fell from 98 in 1999 to a low of 20 in 2016 (25 in 2018).

This is long and far from cheery, but it is intriguing to read about capital punishment from the perspective of the ultimate insider. Givens legally executed 62 people from 1982 until forced to resign in 1999 over criminal charges which saw him serve a stint in prison.

State executioners are almost always sworn to secrecy so their place in society is rarely known about or discussed. Givens said even his wife did not know until it came to light in reports of his own brush with the law.

All up, 15,760 people have been executed in the US since 1700, with lethal injection now preferred over past methods including electrocution, hanging, gassing, firing squad and burning. It does make you think about the men and women involved in carrying out their official duties.

“So, Grandad, what did you really do at the Correctional Centre?”

Australia’s record looks comparatively benign, although executions were commonplace in the early days of settlement.

An Institute of Criminology report states that in 19th century Australia, as many as 80 persons were hanged each year. The crimes included murder, manslaughter, burglary, sheep stealing, forgery and sexual assault.  Since Federation (1901), only 114 persons have been legally executed in Australia.

Maybe so, but that’s too many to have on our collective conscience.

 

We’ll need a huge crowd to stop war against Iran

Stop-Adani-rally
Image: A Stop Adani rally, courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/stopadani/

I’m not good with crowds – not since the early days of journalism in Toowoomba when I under-reported numbers at the annual Carnival of Flowers parade. “Next time check with the police,” I was told and mostly continued to do so, on occasions when crowds gathered for newsworthy events.

It is not always a given that members of the constabulary will give you an accurate-enough figure of crowds. Police under-estimated by 50% or so the size of street marches in Australia’s capital cities in 2003, protesting John Howard’s involvement in George Bush Jnr’s unjustifiable war with Iraq.

Oh, we remember that! Mr and Mrs Outraged Parents of One joined 99,998 others on February 16, 2003, marching from Roma Street, along Adelaide Street and down Edward Street to the Botanic Gardens. It was a steamy Brisbane day and there were concerns for the health and hydration of toddlers and the elderly.

On the same day, rallies in Adelaide, Darwin and Sydney attracted 200,000 people while two days earlier, 150,000 marched in Melbourne. This was part of a co-ordinated global protest on the same day, when, according to the BBC, between six and 11 million people were involved in more than 60 countries. Rome broke a world record for the biggest single-city anti-war protest, with three million participants.

It might say something about the relative futility of protest in that the ill-advised invasion of Iraq in March 2003 led to ongoing conflict until the withdrawal of 170,000 US troops in 2011. Although their tenure is uncertain, there are 5,200 US troops in Iraq as part of a security agreement with the Iraq government. Along with US-employed contractors, this brings the ‘friendly fire’ equation into any strike on neighbouring Iran.

It seems you need really big protest numbers to get governments to back off even a little bit. An estimated 2 million people thronged Hong Kong’s streets this month.

When a quarter of the population protests, you can understand city authorities putting an unpopular plan on the back-burner. Protesters feared that Hong Kong’s economy and society would be irretrievably damaged by a proposed extradition law (allowing visitors and residents to be sent for trial in China). Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam was forced to suspend the draft legislation. You may recall mass protests and sit-ins in Hong Kong circa 2014 as residents took part in the Umbrella Movement’, to complain about China deciding who will govern the city.

Meanwhile civil disobedience (نافرمانی مدنی) is ramping up in Iran, despite a brutal crackdown by the State’s security police. Prior to 2017, years passed between bouts of people marching in Iran’s capital, Tehran. Nevertheless, people took to the streets of Tehran for three days in a row in 2017, protesting largely about economic hardship and alleged corruption within government. Protests continued in 2018 amid what Amnesty International called “a year of shame”.

Thousands were arrested as authorities sought to crush dissent, as protests continued against poverty, corruption and authoritarianism. Amnesty International said more than 7,000 people were arrested, many arbitrarily. Protestors included students, journalists, environmental activists, workers and human rights defenders.

“Hundreds were sentenced to prison terms or flogging and at least 26 protesters were killed. Nine people arrested in connection with protest died in custody under suspicious circumstances.” 

Amnesty director Philip Luther said the scale of arrests, imprisonments and flogging sentences revealed the extreme lengths the authorities have gone to in order to suppress peaceful dissent.

And while Australian journalists wax indignant about the Australian Federal Police raids on the national broadcaster, this is what can happen to scribes reporting the facts in Iran.

In Australia, attempts at repression are mostly left to conservative politicians and like-minded social media commentators. Last week, two Extinction Rebellion protestors glued themselves to a zebra crossing in Queen Street during a Stop Adani rally, prompting Federal MP Ken O’Dowd to post on Facebook. He cited a Courier-Mail article which quoted Police inspector Geoff Acreman as saying: “The stunt was a ridiculous waste of resources.”

“I’m sure we will all agree,” said O’Dowd, to which 98 people responded with comments like ‘‘make them a speed bump’’, ‘‘leave them there overnight’’, or ‘‘take away their dole money’’. Discourse cuts both ways, thankfully, and this post also attracted comments from people who see the folly of ignoring the climate crisis.

While glueing yourself to a public road does seem an extreme form of dissidence, it is important to remember that Australia does not have a national charter of rights.

While Victoria, the ACT and Queensland have each introduced a State-based charter of rights, in other States, the pendulum is swinging the other way.

Human Rights Law Centre executive director Hugh de Kretser writes that there have been attempts by State governments in Tasmania, New South Wales and Western Australia to curb the power of protests. Mooted changes to State laws include severe penalties, excessive police powers and the creation of ‘broad, vague offences’.

Mr de Kretser says protest has defined a number of key social advances and environmental saves in this country. Without protests we might not have the eight-hour day, women’s right to vote, protection of the Franklin and Daintree rivers and advancement of Aboriginal land rights. Protest also stopped our involvement in the Vietnam War and ended the criminalisation of homosexuality.

He says these issues will come into sharper focus in coming years, with increased attention on climate change, workplace disruption and the implementation of the Uluru Statement.

When, we wonder, will Americans start to push back against the hawk-like Trump administration that has taken the world too close for comfort to an armed conflict with Iran?

For now, President Trump appears to favour increased sanctions against Iran, but experts on armed conflicts say these are parlous times.

South China Morning Post opinion writer Rob York asks the question: where are the mass protests in the US about President Donald Trump first threatening North Korea and now coming close to armed conflict with Iran?

York recounts the nervous days in 2017 when Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong-un played a high stakes game of chicken. This was thankfully hosed down by conciliatory summits in 2018. Now York asks why there are no mass demonstrations about a potential strike against Iran by the US.

“Since June 9, the world has watched Hong Kong’s protest movement closely. The mood of Americans in my social circle turned from dread to relief and then to awe as Hongkongers took to the streets, making it difficult for a government they feel no longer represents them to function.

But Americans are hesitant to do the same. So what if their country sleepwalks into a wholly unnecessary conflagration?”

As commentators have pointed out, Trump has a lot to lose if the US stumbles into a war with Iran, not the least a pre-election promise to the contrary.

As always, Trump’s habit of tweeting in the early hours of the morning comes back to haunt him. Thanks to Mr Shiraz for unearthing this.

“Don’t let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war to get elected – be careful Republicans” – The Real Donald Trump on Twitter, October 23, 2012.

The last word goes to David Bowie’s chillingly appropriate song, used in the credits to the 2016 TV drama, Berlin Station. It’s an earworm.

 

Facebook – does it really matter if they share our data?

first-facebook-postSince we’re discussing Facebook and who has the rights to personal information you’ve posted, I wanted to show you my ‘Wall.’  People used to call their Facebook page their ‘Wall’, though that has become passe. As walls go, this one would be ‘liked’ by Shirley Valentine fans (cultural reference), as it suggests romance and sun-bleached beaches.

    I joined Facebook in 2009 (apparently) as this is the first image I posted. At the time we were renovating the downstairs bedroom, rumpus room laundry and ensuite. Apart from hiring a guy to lay tiles throughout, we did all the work ourselves. If I’d known better, I’d have first put a coat of sealer on the besser brick wall as it took four coats of paint until it matched the hardboard on the opposite wall.

    I resisted joining Facebook for such a long time and then when I did, my posts were few and sufficiently opaque to resist understanding by all but my inner circle.

    Facebook has proved handy in terms of keeping in touch with younger family members around the world because, as we know, they don’t write letters. So too I’ve formed loose ties with musicians around the world, which can either be a way of sharing the passion or fishing for a gig.

    Later, Facebook became a good way of spreading the news about folk music events in our small town, some of which we promote.

    Dani Fankhauser’s history of Facebook on mashable.com charts the development of Facebook from its launch in 2004 and the 18 features it used to have and either changed or discontinued. I had no idea the original idea of the ‘wall’ was that people could use it like a whiteboard, leaving messages for their friends. You could change or delete what was there and replace it with your own messages. As Dani says, at one stage it was cool to ‘de-virgin’ someone (be first to post on their wall).

    The wall disappeared and Timeline took its place. Other critical changes since Facebook was launched includes the controversial and constantly changing News Feed and the over-weaning Like button which turned social interaction into a competition.

    Dani writes that Facebook used to be like a journey down the Rabbithole, being diverted down unexpected paths to discover new and interesting worlds. Now it’s like standing in front of the fridge with the door open, not quite sure what you’re looking for. Five years ago she wrote that – has anything changed?

    The hoo-haa about fake news and private data being manipulated by computer data experts should surprise no-one. If you are on Facebook, you are the content.

    You have probably read one version or another of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Guardian Weekly ran a two-page expose this week so if you really want to delve into it, here’s the ultimate link.

    The fall-out when this news broke was most noticeable on Wall Street. When the Observer revealed that Cambridge Analytica had harvested millions of people’s user data for political profiling, Facebook’s stock plummeted. It fell 17% between March 17 and Easter, wiping $US50 billion off the company’s value. Regulators in several countries are investigating Facebook and may try to limit how the company makes money from data.

    Meanwhile,Google, Apple and Amazon are like little kids who played a joke on someone and are now hiding behind a tree, giggling. The laugh might be on them, according to this broader story.

    There is a social movement (#DeleteFacebook), but social media analyst Andy Swan, writing for Forbes magazine, said the spike in Facebook deletions – the highest since 2004 – peaked on March 21 and has been in decline ever since.

    Most of the outrage stems from reports that Donald Trump’s campaign consultants, Cambridge Analytica, used ‘psychographics’ which allows personality traits to be manipulated.

    But what about our music pages, Mark?

    In January this year Facebook began changing the algorithms that influence what users/members see in their news feed. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the changes were made because of feedback that public content – posts from businesses, brands and media – was ‘crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other’.

    Changes started last year and as Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post, will take months to implement. “As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content (in your Newsfeed) like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard – it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

    This must be a deeply disturbing trend for mainstream media, which has hooked its disintegrating business model to the hems of social media’s skirts.

    Our local paper, the Sunshine Coast Daily (now owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd), recently ran a 150-word ‘news story’ – Keep News #1 in your Facebook feed. The article suggested Daily readers keep up with the latest local news by ‘making a simple adjustment’.

    This means first find the SCD page on Facebook, like, click ‘follow’ then click ‘see first’.

    Well yes, it works, but it didn’t take long for the stream of sensationalist stories to ‘clutter up’ my news feed and the same could be said of choosing this option for other media outlets. Beware the Paywall!

    Just for the mental exercise, I downloaded my Facebook data. It has always been possible to download your own data and if we were smart, we’d all do it every year so we at least can find copies of the photos we posted then forgot about. Just go to your profile page and click on settings (the link is at the bottom of the page).

    Just downloading your data file does not mean you are deleting your information from Facebook. Leaving, closing your account and demanding the return of the original data is not so easy.

    But it was illuminating to trawl through this 136MB file. There is an exchange (a thread) between me and a former colleague. I wished to write something about him in my blog, about the merits of academic ambition when one is supposedly past student age. Within the conversation, my former colleague revealed quite a lot of detail about his school years, what work he did on leaving school and how he came to study journalism. I used hardly any of this information in the blog which was eventually published. But it is sitting there quietly, within my (private) Facebook data files. Let’s hope it stays that way.

    So what does the Cambridge Analytica privacy furore mean for folk who just want to post photos of their cats, dogs, partners and kids? Not much, I suspect, unless you have a ‘brand’ page like the ones I use for pur stage name, The Goodwills and this blog.

    I thought it would be fair play to share Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook post. It is interesting for his over-use of marketing-speak and the sometimes snarky comments which follow his ‘community-oriented’ explanation for making business, brands and media pages less visible.

    I’m with the people who asked why couldn’t Facebook users simply curate their own news feed without having it dictated by algorithms.

    Meanwhile, if you want to keep the Bobwords brand page at the top of your news feed, click on the link, like and follow.

    Or not!

     

     

    Censorship, guns and the right to arm bears

     

    guns-bears-censorship
    This image is classified (S) for satire under FOMM’s censorship guidelines

    I was idly wondering if I should have a go at George Christensen for pulling that silly, anti-greenies gun stunt at the firing range but self censorship kicked in. What if he knows where I live? I blanched. The process known in journalism school as ‘self censorship by osmosis’ still kicks in, even 18 years down the track.

    You may have assumed I was about to jump into the very deep pool of acrimonious discourse about mass shootings, guns and gun control. Actually, no, there are enough rabid views out there from one side and the other. Perhaps you will have seen Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young’s repost of the kind of vile trolling one can attract by advocating for the environment (if not, don’t bother looking it up – Ed.)

    Instead, I thought we should look at a worrisome instance of censorship; where a respected economic analyst/journalist had an article taken down by the national broadcaster, the ABC. Emma Alberice’s reasoned piece about corporate tax cuts was removed by ABC management, reportedly after complaints from on high about its alleged lack of impartiality. Alberice’s article argues there is no case for a corporate tax cut when one in five of Australia’s top companies don’t pay any tax.

    After public criticism, the ABC deflected cries of ‘censorship’ saying removing the analysis and an accompanying news story were ‘entirely due to concerns about Ms Alberici’s compliance with ABC editorial policies that differentiate analysis from opinion’.

    The analysis has since been scrutinised by experts and given the seal of approval. It has even been re-posted at a public affairs website owned by the eminent Australian, John Menadue, AO. You may recall Menadue. He started his working life as private secretary to Gough Whitlam (1960-67), before forging a career in the private sector then returning to public service in the mid-1970s. He has since led a distinguished career in both public and private life, most notably as an Australian diplomat.

    Mr Denmore, one of Australia’s more incisive commentators on media and economics, wrote this in Alberici’s defence:

    Mr Denmore (the pseuydonym of a former finance journalist), sees this issue as plain old-fashioned censorship.

    He concludes that Alberice was merely offering insights, which have got the nod from some serious-headed economists, as ‘uncomfortable truths’, which those in high government office and boardrooms found too confronting.

    Now, a week later, the ABC has reinstated* Emma Alberici’s analysis, albeit with some passages removed. As former ABC journalist Quentin Dempster reported in The New Daily, the author and her lawyers negotiated an agreed form of words for the reposted analysis.

    The removal of Alberici’s original analysis coincided with a planned US visit by a high-level delegation of Australian business and government leaders.  The latest advocate of global  of ‘trickle-down economics’,+ President Donald Trump, will meet with PM Malcolm Turnbull today. No doubt Mal will be taking notes on the US president’s ‘open for business’ approach of slashing corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%. Australia’s more modest proposal, which is currently blocked in the Senate, is to reduce the corporate tax rate from 30% to 25%, over a decade.

    +A term attributed to American comedian Will Rogers, who used the term derisively, as did later opponents of President Reagan’s ‘Reaganomics’.

    The nation’s top business leaders, under the umbrella of the Business Council of Australia, will also meet with US governors and top-level US company executives. Australian State Premiers, including Queensland’s Annastasia Palaszczuk, will also attend.

    Business Council head Jennifer Westacott told the Sydney Morning Herald she feels that Australian business is “in the weeds of politics” and

    “Meanwhile in the US they’re getting on with it.”

    Westacott and Council members support the Australian corporate tax cut proposal as the only policy that can deliver jobs and growth.

    Opposition leader Bill Shorten is taking the hard line – a corporate tax cut cannot help ordinary people, at a time when companies are using tax havens and keeping wages low. Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen admits there is a case for company tax cuts, but said the LNP’s plan is unaffordable when the budget is in deficit.

    The attempt to gag debate on this subject is, however, more worrying than the toadying going on in Washington. Australia ranks 19th in an international survey of countries judged on press freedoms. Reporters without Borders (RSF) maintains the list of 180 countries, many of whom oppress the media in far more serious ways than plain old censorship.

    Australian media freedoms pursued by stealth

    At first glance, 19th from 180 sounds good, but Australia has some issues, not the least of which is concentration of media ownership. The risk of self censorship is high, given the lack of job opportunities elsewhere. The 2017 survey notes that new laws in 2015 provide for prison sentences for whistleblowers who disclose information about defence matters, conditions in refugee centres or operations by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization.

    I sometimes fret about a FOMM I wrote before these laws were introduced – an eyewitness account of US Marine movements after a chance encounter at a Northern Territory roadhouse.

    “Aw shucks, we all just stopped to use the latrine, Ma’am.”

    There’s more: a new telecommunications law has opened the door for surveillance of the metadata of journalists’ communications. Federal police raids on Labor Party parliamentarians in 2016 violated the confidentiality of sources. The Reporters without Borders report says the latter showed that authorities were “more concerned about silencing the messengers than addressing the issues of concern to the public that had been raised by their revelations”.

    Meanwhile, a new draft national security bill seeks to restrict foreign interference in politics and national security. It contains secrecy and espionage provisions that could result in journalists being sent to prison for five years just for being in possession of sensitive information.

    Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk, called the draft bill “oppressive and ill-conceived”.

    “If this bill were passed, journalists receiving sensitive information they had not sought would automatically be in violation of the law. If this law had existed in the United States in 1974, the Watergate scandal would never have come to light.”

    The free-wheeling nature of social media ensures that dissenting discourse does not stay banned for very long, though often exposed to a much smaller audience.

    You may censor me, but never my T-shirts

    I suppose now you want me to explain the relevance of the Right to Arm Bears T-shirt, eh? This now threadbare item was bought from a tourist shop on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls in 2010. I have been trying to find and purchase a replacement online. The manufacturer (Gildan) has similar T-shirts but none as fetching as the grumpy-looking bears wearing hunting jackets.

    Wearing a shirt that makes a political point, however ironically, is an individual’s right in a free country to express an opinion. In my case it succinctly states my position on American gun laws, just as another T-shirt bought from a stall at Woodford, depicting a full-masted, 17th century sailboat (”Boat People”) says a lot about my attitude to refugees. Perhaps I should replace it with a Save the ABC shirt. Seems like the ABC needs all the friends it can find.

    *Read Emma Alberici’s revised analysis here:

    More on press freedom.

    Take me to your leader – the quest continues

    leader-politics
    (Leader image, old man in park taking time out from politics and spin), Bob Wilson circa 1978

    Imagine a flying saucer lands in your back yard and an alien (drooling or not) alights.

    “Take me to your leader,” it telepathically commands, as it is from an advanced civilisation, intent upon savings ours.

    “Aw yeah, mate.” (pointing). “That’s our leader over there, the one in the striped designer shirt, mingling with the homeless folk.”

    If you dig around on the Internet long enough you’ll find lists of world leaders people would rather not introduce to their granny, never mind to an alien. The lists are usually described as ‘the 10 or 20 worst world leaders’ and include despots like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir.

    Alas Malcolm Turnbull, PM of Australia; the only list I found him on was the ‘hottest heads of state’ leader ladder, languishing in 12th place behind total spunks like Canada’s Justin Trudeau, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, France’s Emmanuel Macron or Haiti’s Jovenal Moise.

    One ought not to touch on politics when striking up conversations at Christmas parties. At one such event, I ventured that the Australian Federal Government was having an ‘Annus Horribilis’ and seemed incapable of making firm and sensible decisions.

    I had voiced what I thought was a commonly-held theory, but soon found out what I should have known; on average, at least one-third of people voted for that motley group of indecisive dual citizens who went to work on just 64 days in 2017.

    “So what do you think about Turnbull’s piss-weak energy policy?” I began at another Xmas do, when I probably should have said, “Strange weather for this time of year, don’t you think?”

    That person moved away, but left me a clean run at the cheese platter.

    From my point of view, the LNP in Canberra blundered from one disaster to another in 2017, momentarily making itself look good by introducing marriage equality laws, which in truth should have been enshrined in 1980-something. The poll was estimated to cost the taxpayer $122 million and then we endured weeks of angst while the same-sex marriage law was debated, after 61.6% of the 79.5% of people who voted had told them that’s what they wanted in the first place.

    The great shame, or should I say sham, is that the Turnbull government, deliberately or not, distracted the people from more serious issues (climate change, the Adani coal mine, Manus Island), by turning the same-sex marriage debate into an expensive, non-binding referendum-style exercise. They could have used one of those 64 sitting days to have a free vote. We’d have achieved the same result and deployed the $122 million to more laudable outcomes (like finding emergency accommodation for the 6,000 or so Australians who sleep rough each night).

    We’ve seen from recent State elections and Federal by-elections that the people are not happy with the mainstream parties. The drift towards the Greens on one side and One Nation on the other mimics the rise of populism the world over.

    Political commentator Michelle Grattan, speaking at the launch of The Conversation Yearbook in Brisbane, said so many people in Australia are disgusted with politics they are ‘‘tuning out”

    “People think (politicians) are behaving badly, because they are behaving badly. They (politicians) alienate the public – they are aware of it, but it’s beyond them to regain the people’s trust.”

    Grattan said focus groups in north Queensland, ahead of the State elections, saw through Malcolm Turnbull’s ploy to cancel a week’s parliamentary sittings. This was ostensibly to allow the House and the Senate to resolve the citizenship issue and to work through the same sex marriage debate.

    But here’s the thing: the NQ focus groups didn’t much like Malcolm Turnbull, but neither did they warm to Bill Shorten as an alternative leader.

    The Queensland election continued a national, if not international trend: voters are fed up with mainstream parties and are casting their votes elsewhere.

    In Queensland, 30.9% of first preference votes went to minority parties, while the informal vote was higher than average, at 4.58%. In the Bennelong Federal by-election, 10 minor parties grabbed 19.15% of the first preference primary vote, although that did not stop the LNP’s John Alexander (45.05%) taking the seat.

    So what else happened in 2017?

    While it wasn’t a party political issue, the rise of the social media hashtag #MeToo movement had its high point when Time Magazine chose #MeToo as its influential “Person of the Year”.

    If you had been living under a rock, #MeToo is a movement where women who have been harassed, assaulted, bullied and otherwise vilified (primarily by men), came out and stood with their sisters.

    The movement started with casting-couch revelations about Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein and flushed out similarly bad behaviour all over the world. The Australia media chimed in, outing former TV gardening host Don Burke for a series of alleged indiscretions. Sydney’s Telegraph made an allegation about Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, who responded with a writ for defamation.

    On a more positive note, 2017 turned up an unlikely winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize went to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The organization received the award for drawing attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.

    There were other examples of positive news in 2017, amid the political scandals, terrorist attacks, humanitarian crises and natural disasters.

    A December 19 report by Katrina Sichlau, News Corp Australia Network, found that renewable energy employed 10 million people worldwide.

    (Aside – that makes the Queensland Premier’s contested claim that the proposed Adani coal mine would employ 10,000 people look rather sad).

    The same article said France and Britain had launched a Clean Air Plan which will make sense to people who have visited either country this year or last. In a year when Queensland’s land-clearing reached Brazil-like proportions, Pakistan planted one billion trees.

    If I may add to this optimistic list, New Zealand elected a woman in her 30s as Prime Minister (Jacinda Ardern), largely at the whim of (Queen)-maker Winston Peters, a veteran politician who saw sense in forming an alliance with the savvy young Labour leader.

    Probably the less we say about Donald Trump the better, as he seems to thrive on publicity, be it good or bad. Trump continues to use Twitter like a flame-thrower, this year setting diplomatic fires in North Korea, Israel, and Germany and within the US itself.

    Trump reportedly plans to go ahead with a visit to the UK in 2018, despite the recent twitter row with UK PM Theresa May. If you’ll recall, Trump retweeted videos posted by radical right group Britain First, inaccurately blaming Muslims in the UK for terrorist attacks.

    There has been much misreporting about Trump’s ‘working’ visit to the UK. The White House at one point thanked the Queen for her “gracious invitation” to meet with President Trump at Buckingham Palace. The Guardian Weekly reported on December 15 that a formal state visit was not envisaged. “The Queen is likely to be preoccupied with preparations for a Commonwealth summit.”

    As myth-buster Snopes points out, there is a long standing tradition that the Queen does not intervene in political disputes.

    We wish you all an ‘annus mirabilis’ in 2018.