Julia Gillard accepts News Limited mischaracterisation of Anzac Day centenary study, tries to distance herself from it

And now Julia Gillard says she "disagrees completely" with the "findings of the report" which supposedly "said marking past military conflicts could cause tension in multicultural Australia". I doubt she even knows or cares what's in the actual report, and just wants to try and be on the "friend" side of the "friend/enemy" divide that News Limited has created. It's self-defeating of course, since her government paid for the report and can't really appear to contradict it without looking like she spent money on it for nothing. A stronger government might have fought back against the misleading spin and described what was actually in the report. Oh well.

The Anzac Day centenary study: just how huge a Murdoch beat-up is it?

It's this huge: the tiny section of the study that's getting so reported on starts like this:

There are four areas of potential concern surrounding the commemorations. None of these are definitive problems, but rather points that should be explicitly considered in order to ensure that they do not introduce unexpected negative complications

So we have frothing-at-the-mouth online commentors complaining that this "government research" (actually a government-funded study performed by an independently-owned market research company) has suggested that the Anzac Day centenary itself is a problem, when all that it's suggested is that there might be possible concerns, which are definitely not an obstacle to the actual commemoration going ahead.
And those concerns?

1. Multiculturalism: contrary to the misleading reporting about how "multiculturalism" is somehow an inherent obstacle to the Anzac Day centenary itself, the one and only point raised as a multicultural "issue" was this: should Anzac Day be an opportunity for commemoration of non-Australian military service by people who immigrated to Australia? That is the ONLY "multicultural" issue that was raised as potentially divisive, precisely because public opinion is divided on that one narrow issue. The total other issues related to "multiculturalism" raised in this report? ZERO.


2. The balance of Commemoration versus Celebration: of zero interest to News Limited, this is an issue that may not have been highlighted if this study had not been done. In my original drafts for these blog posts, I often used the word "celebration", until I realised by the Anzac Centenary report's use of the word "commemoration" that I wasn't actually celebrating the contributions of my father and grandfather to the Australian army, I was commemorating them. This fundamental understanding of what Anzac Day is really about is important, and it's a good thing that the difference has now been highlighted. News Limited makes no mention of this positive contribution of the report


3. Current events: the report makes clear that this is a minor issue, and even then only of concern to younger people:
   

   Though only suggested in the research groups, and mostly by younger participants, the potential impact of current events should be considered

   
   This is not a reference to any specific current event, but any possible future event that may or may not be happening come April 2015. It was suggested that an unpopular conflict may reduce community engagement with Anzac Day. This possibility of reduced engagement was seen as a BAD thing. At no point did News Limited mention this desire on the behalf of the study authors to improve, not detract from, Anzac Day commemorations.


4. Veterans' standards of living: as the son of an elderly veteran, this is important to me, and I'm glad it's being raised. We can and should ensure that commemorations honouring service are backed up with actual results for veterans in the area of health especially. Again, this is something that will improve engagement with Anzac Day. Again, News Limited does not mention anything about this goal of the study authors in improving, not detracting from, Anzac Day commemorations.

Oh, and that alleged quotation about Anzac Day being supposedly "just a party for drunk yobbos?", the headline for the Daily Telegraph story on the issue? It doesn't appear to exist. What does exist are concerns expressed by the focus group participants themselves - NOT by the government, and NOT by the market research group that conducted the study - that bad behaviour on Anzac Day is becoming a problem, and that this is not what Anzac Day stands for. Those complaining about this part of the study, instead of shooting the messenger, should instead perhaps ask why this perception of some bad behaviour occurring at Anzac Day exists in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, because there is some? Or is it too "politically correct" (and therefore unmentionable) to even dare to suggest such a thing?

The full text of the report is in fact publicly available: Department of Veterans' Affairs: "A century of service" Community Research. The kicker? This study is from 2010. Why all the bluster from News Limited about an "exclusive" report on information that, as it turns out, has been in the public eye for the past 2 years?

The Anzac Day centenary study: what you won't read in the Murdoch papers

On pages 48-49 of the government report How Australia may commemorate the Anzac Centenary, a listing of the findings of the "government" study (which was not actually performed by the government but by independent market research group Colmar Brunton) that the Murdoch press has reported on with such sensationalism can be found. As I've seen many online commentors falsely claim that the $370,000 spent on this study was only spent in order to address some imagined conflict between multiculturalism and the very idea of Anzac Day itself, here are some of the facts about this study that News Limited did not mention:

• The research was undertaken in part not because of concern that Anzac Day involvement was a problem, but that a possible LACK of involvement was a problem, and how this might be addressed:
  

  The research outlines community perceptions and expectations in relation to invigorating the memories of the past and identifying the mechanisms that will take them into the future



• Anzac Day, and commemoration of military service was seen as very important by the focus group members:
  

  It is almost universally recognised that commemoration of our military history is important

  
  News Limited selectively decided to focus on a minor part of the report that outlined possible problems, while failing utterly to mention the strong support that the study gave for commemoration of military history in general, and of Anzac Day in particular


• News Limited spent a lot of time reporting on alleged suggestions that some people didn't like the idea of being part of Anzac Day, but failed to report on those people who DID very much want to be included in Anzac Day but didn't feel that they were, namely Indigenous Australians:
  

  Many Indigenous Australians view Anzac Day as 'a party that we have not been invited to attend'. Indigenous service and the service of Australians in Vietnam were identified as two important areas for redressing the perceived lesser commemorative honour that the past has provided those groups



• Finally - and ONLY after these positive and important messages from the study in question are presented, do we get concerns about "the potential for both unity and division in commmemorating our military history in a modern multicultural Australia". This dual consideration of cultural concerns is a far cry from the one-sided slant presented in the Murdoch press that "multiculturalism" is somehow an obstacle to the very existence of Anzac Day. In particular, it raises the concern about how celebrating military action in foreign countries may look to people whose cultural heritage includes that country. This is NOT a statement that such people object to any Anzac Day commemorations, only that we don't actually know how they feel. This is called "risk assessment", and is a perfectly logical thing to do in any area of endeavour

After going through the "How Australia may commemorate the Anzac centenary report", the Executive Summary of the Colmar Brunton study reported on by News Limited is included as Appendix 7. It will be interesting to see how the News Limited quotations match up with what's actually in there.

The News Limited Anzac centenary "multiculturalism" beat-up

Nearly every newspaper owned by the Australian arm of the Murdoch empire appears to have published a story about a "government" study that has committed the unpardonable sin of being less than 100% supportive of every single thing that anyone might ever do on the centenary of Anzac Day. Worse these "bureaucrats" have supposedly "attacked" this Australian cultural icon in the name of "multiculturalism".

The Daily Telegraph: Anzac centenary commemorations should be culturally sensitive, government research claims

FEDERAL government-commissioned research claims commemorating the centenary of Anzac Day is a "double-edged sword" and a "potential area of divisiveness" because of multiculturalism.

The Herald Sun: Gallipoli anniversary could divide Australia, Federal Government warned

THE Federal Government has been warned that celebrating the centenary of Anzac Day could provoke division in multicultural Australia - and told there were "risks" in honouring our fallen soldiers.

The Herald Sun is also running a poll with the question "Will celebrating the centenary of Anzac Day cause racial disharmony?"

The central online presence for News Limited news.com.au: Anzac Day 'just a party for drunk yobbos' - Aussie attitude study.

FEARS Anzac Day is nothing more than a bogan day of work-free drinking have been revealed in an intensive study of Aussie attitudes.

A study for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to determine community attitudes ahead of Anzac days 100th centenary used 36 focus groups of eight people totalling 288 participants from all age brackets 18 and over at a cost of $370,000.

These stories have been reprinted by other News Ltd outlets including Perth Now, the Courier Mail, and Adelaide Now.

The online outrage has already started, about how "government bureaucrats", in the name of "political correctness", are somehow trying to prevent any commemoration of the Anzac Day centenary from taking place at all. The omissions and distortions in the News Limited "news" reporting certainly help give that impression. But in trying to look into the actual facts instead of News Limited's invitation to unthinking outrage, a few things become interesting:

1. Nowhere in these "news" articles do we discover the name of the study, or any details about how to find it on our own. In fact all we are told is that it is "government-funded" by the Department of Veterans Affairs to the tune of about $370,000, that it consisted of 36 focus groups, and of course that it said all these horrible things about the Anzac Day centenary apparently being a "potential area of divisiveness", with the addition by the journalist (NOT the study) that this is because of "multiculturalism".
   
   I believe that the research study in question is a study mentioned on pages 48-49 of the How Australia may commemorate the ANZAC CENTENARY report, released today. It was NOT "bureaucrats" that did this study, but a private company who got paid by the DVA to do it. Thia private company, Colmar Brunton, describes itself as "the largest independent Australian owned market research agency". Any fulmination about "politically correct government bureaucrats" supposedly writing things in this study should check their facts: no "government bureaucrat" wrote anything in it at all.


2. From what I can tell from News Limited's highly selective quoting of the study in question, at no point does the study suggest that Anzac Day centenary commemorations should not be held at all. True, as the News Limited "reporting" occasionally bothers to note, there is some concern about the way in which Anzac Day might be commemorated. Despite the angry rantings of more than a few online commenters, this is an entirely fair concern. Or are we just supposed to accept that there is no wrong way to think about Anzac Day, so that we should support disgusting things like Jim Wallace using Anzac Day to attack Muslim and gay Australians as not entitled to consider themselves included in what Anzac Day stands for? Is it "political correctness" to object to something like that? Or just basic Australian decency?
   
   So it is quite deceitful of News Limited, in particular the Herald Sun, to run their poll saying "Will celebrating the centenary of Anzac Day cause racial disharmony?", as if anyone has even suggested that it's the mere existence of the centenary commemorations that is concerning. The News Limited "reporting" admits that the report expects the commemoration to continue, noting guidelines for how celebrations ought to be conducted, not whether it should be conducted at all:
   

   Commemorations should be "culturally sensitive and inclusive", the paper states.



3. Of course, there will be those who insist that "culturally sensitive and inclusive" means "not allowed to engage in Anzac Day traditions". Unsurprisingly, the News Limited "reporting" says nothing about what the study itself actually means by that. I suspect it means that you don't denigrate the culture of the people you have fought against. But absent a first-hand examination of the report, it's impossible to know for sure.

It's only a matter of time before other news outlets pick up on this. Unfortunately it's unlikely that this story is attracting attention because of important and salient facts, but because it has been reported in such a way as to cause maximum outrage. And just as unfortunately, the study which is being selectively quoted in this New Limited outrage manufacturing campaign is not readily available to the public. I will try to look for it, but I don't expect much success.

Bob Katter's anti-gay ad: the "gay couple" portrayed

I think the most offensive thing about this ad is the image used to portray gay people. Because the chests were pixelated out, I thought the two men were naked, and this was some sort of sexualisation of the issue. That's not the case as it turns out, and I'm now unsure if the original ad aired with the pixelation effect or not, or if later people added that because they thought was actually being depicted could be considered offensive.

What was actually depicted was imagery that I found on a website that provides stock photos for the depiction of homosexual couples. The pictures in this case are from a series entitled Portrait of a Homosexual Pregnant Couple Expecting a Baby. The part that was pixelated out shows the younger man of the portrayed couple with what looks like a white sculpted set of breasts and a distended belly, obviously not real but intended to evoke the appearance of a pregnant woman. Both partners are bare-chested, and both are wearing jeans.

So, two questions: (1) Why intentionally censor this? (2) Why use these images? The sculpted belly and breasts may be a tad racy, but both chests were censored in the ad, so I really don't know what's going on. The use of the images seems a bit more clear to me, as a means to demonstrate that what same-sex couples are really doing is pathetically aping "genuine" (heterosexual) relationships i.e. ones where one of the partners actually can get pregnant. By neglecting to mention that this is an artistic photoset, the ad dishonestly implies that gay men do this kind of dress-up as a serious activity. The pixelation kind of spoils that message, though.

Was the ad pixelated in this way when it was originally shown on television?

Election 2010, final thoughts until the actual result

And so, after an election in which we often heard about the unfairness of a Prime Minister being chosen by backroom deals rather than the majority of the Australian people, the election itself has not produced a government chosen by a majority of the Australian people, but chosen by whoever manages to offer the sweetest deal to the independent and Green members who hold the balance of power in the House of Representatives.

I'm greatly tempted to just ignore all Australian political coverage for the next few days, since I can pretty much guarantee that most of it will be a lot of bluster and trash talk about why one party should gain the support of the minor members and why the other party shouldn't get it under any circumstances, with little actual substance behind them. A few final comments for this election, then, before I switch off until we actually have a result...

I can hear the echoes of British and American elections gone by in this Australian election. The UK 2010 election was described to by me as one person that it showed that the UK public wanted Labour out, but didn't want the Tories in. I think a similar result can be read here: The Australian Labor party was voted out, but the public has not voted the coalition in. I am reminded also of the pain that occurred when the split between Bush and Gore in 2000 resulted in a victory for Bush by judicial ruling, which I suspect has greatly contributed to the hyperpartisanship in that country which persists even 10 years later. I doubt the result here will be decided upon by a judge, but I suspect the process of forming a minority government will be messy enough that some people will be sore enough to consider the declared winner illegitimate.

But in any case, there is no way that the government - whoever that may be - will be able to have things all their own way the way Bush and the Republicans managed it during their run. Even if the minors in the House of Representatives don't keep the minority goverenment accountable, come July 1st 2011, the Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate. Issues-wise, that's probably the most interesting thing that's happened in what has been, issues-wise, an extremely uninteresting election. The implications of this have yet to be felt, by I expect them to be quite far-reaching when they finally do become clear.

The 2010 election and the illusion of reality

In this election, if there's one word that has really stood out for me in the sheer amount of its use by political parties of all types, it is this one: real.

The Liberal party slogan is "stand up for real action". In my local area, the blurb on handouts from the Greens in my area is "Let's really move Australia forward". The blurb on the flyer for sitting Labor MP for Grayndler (my electorate) is "real solutions". And of course there was the emergence of the "real Julia Gillard" a few weeks in after the Labor campaign was well under way, an open admission of the fakery that routinely goes on in election campaigns if ever there was one.

Why has the need to be "real" become so important in this election? It would be nice to think that this standing up for "real" whatchumacallits is a reaction to a public that's fed up with all the stage-managed spin and PR that is the basis of so much of what passes for political presentation these days. But it seems to me that what we're seeing in this election isn't a triumph of truth over political PR, but political PR that's trying to present itself as truth. As a very cynical aphorism puts it: "the key to success is sincerity - once you can fake that, you've got it made".

The act might be more convincing if so many of the political attacks by these clamants to truth weren't about things of highly questionable reality. Julia Gillard just claimed on ABC TV that if Abbott became Prime Minister on Sunday, WorkChoices would be back on the agenda on Monday. Um, not really: the Liberal party won't commit political suicide a second time, certainly not as quickly as within a single day, and the chance of WorkChoices-style legislation getting passed through what will probably be a hostile Senate is basically nil. Then there's the supposed "disaster" of Labor's economic record as claimed by the Liberal party, a record that's seen Australia get through a global financial crisis in a way that's the envy of the developed world. These exaggerated claims aren't the actions of people truly concerned with being "real".

So we have political parties insisting that they stand for something "real", but the behaviour suggests that this claim is just more spin. I guess that makes this the first truly post-modern election in Australia, where even trying to be real is just another illusion spun through the media. No wonder there's a feeling that this election isn't really about anything.

Julia Gillard's first interview, my first impressions

So we've established that Australia's new Prime Minister is both a woman and a ginger, but might it just be possible to go a tiny bit deeper than that? Prime Minister Gillard gave her first interview on the 7:30 report last night. It's hard to get much more than stylistic impressions from these things, but two pertinent factoids did seem to stick out.

First, the style: Gillard seemed, for a politician, relatively straightforward about her answers. She didn't answer some questions but in each case that she didn't answer she made it clear that she had no intention of answering, usually saying something like "I'm not going to disclose the contents of private conversations with my work colleagues". She was also fairly forward about challenging the editorialising that from time to time came from Kerry O'Brien's questions, eg Kerry: "So after working with Kevin Rudd for so long, was it hard to stick the knife in?" Julia: "Well I certainly don't accept that characterisation of events, Kerry...". Her technique at taking questions as input and then massaging the meaning into one that offers Labour talking points like "our Government has been good for health, for education" as output, was also fairly good, without coming across too much as trying to dodge questions. Gillard talks slowly, which could get slightly annoying over the long term

More substantively, the new PM flat out stated "there will be an election this year". So the government will be calling an election before they would be required to in March/April next year.

The second more substantive point is on refugee policy. Gillard sort of danced around the question, stating that "Australians want to ensure that the borders of this country are well-managed", without actually ever stating what "managing" the borders effectively would entail in her government. She also stated something along the lines of "I understand that the Australian people are anxious to know that the country's borders are being managed, but it's irresponsible for the Opposition to increase those anxieties for political gain".

She didn't exactly accuse Tony Abbott of fear-mongering on the issue, since that would entail the politically risky move of claiming that the fears Abbott is tapping into are groundless, and no voter wants to hear that their concerns are not taken seriously. She doesn't like the politics of fear on boat people, though. Gillard seems to be walking a fine line here, and my initial impression is this is the thing most likely to give her the most trouble the soonest.

I haven't checked the headlines today to see what else has happened, so this is just my initial impression based on a first look at our new Prime Minister in a press environment. I'm sure impressions will change at a fairly quick pace, how ever they may do so.

Nick Minchin on tobacco addiction, 1995

It came up on the ABC show Qanda tonight that Senator Nick Minchin (he of the "climate change is a left-wing anti-industry beat-up" view) allegedly claimed in a government report that cigarette smoking was not addictive and that passive smoking was not real. Minchin claimed on Qanda that his statements were taken out of context, and that this was part of a larger argument that people should be free to smoke or not smoke as they see fit, without government interference.

The report in question wasn't hard to find: The Tobacco Industry and the Costs of Tobacco-Related Illness. A final section starting on page 119 entitled "Dissenting report by Senators Nick Minchin and Sue Knowles" does express a lot of disagreement with regulatory proposals out of a desire to see less government interference in general life. However, a comment on page 120 by Nick Minchin (and it is explicitly made clear that this opinion is only the opinion of Nick Minchin alone) reads as follows:

Senator Minchin wishes to record his dissent from the Committee's statements that it believes cigarettes are addictive (1.25) and that passive smoking causes a number of adverse health effects for non-smokers (1.34).

So....not a denial, but it seems to me a response of "not all the evidence is in yet" on the issue. I wonder if he still feels that way?

The dissent goes on:

The Committee's terms of reference did not ask it to reach conclusions on these controversial issues, and nor was sufficient evidence from both sides of the argument brought to bear. These are medical conclusions which it is inappropriate for this Senate Committee of inquiry to reach.

Senator Minchin briefly referred to this part in his Qanda reply when he claimed that his comments on smoking should be disregarded because the Senate Committee wasn't convened to address medical issues. This seems like a half-truth: to my eye, it's only the dissenters Minchin and Knowles who took issue with the scope of the Senate report's medically-informed decisions, specifically because they didn't believe that there was sufficient medical evidence of the reality of nicotine addiction and passive smoking. In 1995.

This might be worth keeping in mind when Senator Minchin makes claims about the supposed unreliability of current climate science on the question of anthropogenic global warming.

Conroy not going to budge

Say what you like about Senator Conroy (and believe me I do), I've got to admire sheer testicular fortitude when I see it. He's refusing to back down from even the toughest opponents of his censorship scheme, including opponents as powerful US government and Google. From those articles, it looks like Conroy's gone on the attack for Google but isn't saying anything about the US government just yet. I wonder if he will?

India and Australia, racist attacks or moral panic?

The paper ran a cartoon depicting an Australian policeman wearing a pointed white hood associated with the US racist group the Ku Klux Klan. The officer was shown saying "We are yet to ascertain the nature of the crime."

That was, apparently, the actions of a newspaper in India called the Mail Today, in response to the murder of 21-year-old Indian student Nitin Garg. When I found the site of the Mail Today to check, the first thing I'm greeted with is a pop-up asking for my feedback in response to the question "SHOULD INDIA PURSUE THE MATTER OF AUSTRALIAN RACISM IN AN INTERNATIONAL COURT?"

It worries me that the single biggest source of the claim of a dramatic increase in racist attacks against Indian people in Australia appears to be the sensationalist media, and that the same media is making calls for special action to address the claimed problem. I'm currently trawling for actual statistics of crimes, but in the absence of reliable, verifiable statistics demonstrating an upsurge in demonstrably racist violence against Indian people, and with the role that the media is playing right now, I have to wonder: is this a moral panic? Is "racist Australia" here playing the role of a folk devil perceived as threatening the virtuous and vulnerable youth of India?

I have found one claim of of a clear and dramatic increase of attacks against Indian students as reported in the Indian media: both the Mail Today and the Siasat Times claim that a "government report tabled in parliament" said that "The number of Indians attacked in Australia in 2008 was 17. In 2009, 94 Indians were attacked till November 20. A total of 100 attacks on Indians, including students, have been reported in Australia during last year". If true, that would be an extraordinary upswing.

Unfortunately I don't know what this report actually is, or how these claimed statistics were compiled. I would need that information, I think, before I could accept the figure as accurate. So....moral panic or genuine upsurge in racist violence that specifically targets Indian people? I'm not really sure at this point, although I do find it odd that Indian people, and only Indian people, would be experiencing such an upsurge. I think that believing such a situation to be possible gives Australian racism far too much credit - it's far too broad to expect it to be targeted solely at one non-white group.

Conroy and the Australian Christian Lobby make sweet, sweet love together

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has started the political process of spinning his upcoming report by meeting with Jim Wallace, managing director of the ACL, to discuss..something or other about the proposal which ABSOLUTELY WAS NOT any details about the upcoming report on the ISP filtering trial, shortly after which Jim Wallace said that he believed he'd "found out" enough to know that ISP-filtering would work.

Nobody else has been in any such discussions about...something or other which ABSOLUTELY IS NOT details about the upcoming report on the ISP filtering trial, particularly ISPs and free speech supporters who might be motivated to scrutinise the data a little more closely than uncritical cheerleaders like the ACL. The Greens have noticed this funny business, and would like further details. I suspect they won't get any, but it's nice that somebody is asking.

Australian Christian Lobby's misleading press release on GetUp's "misleading" ad

GetUp was planning to run some satirical ads opposing the Australian government's proposed mandatory Internet filtering scheme on Qantas fights in Canberra. Qantas has now refused to run them, citing a long-term ban on running "political advertising". While Qantas and GetUp tussle over the exact definition of the term "political advertising", the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has put out a press release entitled "ACL Welcomes Qantas move to ditch misleading GetUp ad".

The supposedly "misleading" ad is not misleading at all. It is ACL who is being misleading in their press release. The ad itself briefly makes mention of Iran and the alleged cover-up of a rigged election there, prompting the response from the ACL:

We have been concerned that people might be responding to GetUp's plea for money to screen its ad because of the misleading claim that the Rudd Government's clean feed for kids election promise might lead to Iranian-style political repression,

Yet again, proponents of Internet censorship misleadingly try to dodge the real problem with Conroy's filter: that under his scheme, Internet censorship will be mandatory for adults. It is the ACL, not GetUp, who is misleading the public by trying to suggest otherwise.

I thought "Christians" weren't supposed to bear false witness?

Strange arguments from supporters of Conroy's censorship proposal

The backlash against Senator Conroy's proposed Internet filter for Australia made the New York Times. Two supporters of the filter were quoted in it.

Clive Hamilton, described by the Times as "a senior ethics professor at the Australian National University and a supporter of the plan", said "The laws that mandate upper speed limits do not stop people from speeding, does that mean that we should not have those laws?.....We live in a society, and societies have always imposed limits on activities that it deems are damaging.....There is nothing sacrosanct about the Internet."

Mr Hamilton seems confused about the difference between a legal restriction like laws against speeding and a technological limitation like what's being proposed for the Australian Internet. This filter is not like passing a law - is Mr Hamilton not aware that child pornography is already illegal in Australia?

The correct analogy to Senator Conroy's proposal in the context of speeding would be as if the government started requiring all cars manufactured in Australia to be made in such a way that they could not go over the speed limit at all. Needless to say, no cars in Australia are made like this, and no car maker would ever accept such a stupid and technologically ignorant demand. I admit I don't fully understand the technical details that make such a thing unachievable in today's cars, but I trust the people who do understand when they say that cars need to be made the way that they're made: with the ability to let the user violate speeding laws. It is the task of the user, not the car, to respect the law and refrain from doing so.

And yet when the people who understand the technology that drives the Internet say that requiring an ISP to filter Internet traffic won't work and is a technically ignorant demand, their expertise is ignored because the answer "it can't be done", no matter how accurate and no matter how well-informed the person giving the answer, is not the answer that Senator Conroy wants to hear. And we get subjected to quotes from ethics professors who confuse the issue with inaccurate analogies.

The other supporter was the group ChildWise, who said filtering child pornography on the Internet would be "a victory for common sense". I guess ChildWise is still in denial about the (lack of) effectiveness of the proposed filter.

GetUp joins opposition to Australian Net filter

I'm aware that a lot of people have been trying to bring the Net censorship threat to GetUp's attention for a while now. They've finally weighed in. They're talking pretty big, too.

GetUp says it plans to run mainstream ads and offline action that will be as elaborate as its free Hicks campaign. In just a day, a petition on its website has attracted over 22,000 signatures; GetUp said it had received more emails urging them to act on this issue than "any other campaign in recent history".

With both the Opposition and the Greens opposed to the filter, I believe that means that the government will have to look to Senator Fielding of Family First and to Independent anti-pokie campaigner Senator Nick Xenophon to get any legislation on this through the Senate. Hello nationwide restrictions on all gay-related and gambling-related content? A bit much perhaps, but who knows what the two Senators will demand to be put on the blacklist in exchange for their votes?

The trial of the filter is scheduled to start on December 24, although it can be postponed if need be. That doesn't leave a lot of time to fight it.

Taking part in Conroy's censorship trial: wise?

Michal Malone, the head of Iinet - the ISP that I use - has decided to take part in what he calls the "ridiculous" trials of Senator Conroy's Internet censorship program. Malone's stated intention is to demonstrate "how stupid it [the proposed filter system] is" using "hard numbers". I'm sure Mr Malone's intentions are good, but I'm not sure if what he's doing is such a good idea.

See, in most tech-oriented situations like I assume Mr Malone would be familiar with, statistics are viewed as useful mathematical tools, essential to understanding any number of issues. But in politics, statistics aren't tools. They're weapons. They're not used to describe reality, they're spun and cherry-picked and massaged and then quoted to give the veneer of "mathematical" legitimacy to a political claim.

I'm concerned that this trial isn't really about gauging the effectiveness of the filter system. I think it's not about having real-world workings to examine, but statistics to cherry-pick. I recall that Senator Conroy has already shown he's willing to do something like this, saying that there was a "successful" lab test of his filter system previously when the results actually showed that it slowed internet speeds down significantly, and didn't block P2P content in the slightest. If Mr Malone is serious about exposing the filter system as flawed, I hope he understands that to do that, he's going to have to consistently and repeatedly get out in front of any spin that Senator Conroy puts on the results.

On a semi-related note, I see that according to this article, ISPs taking part in the test will be doing the testing by asking for volunteers from their own subscribers to try the system out. I guess it'd probably be too much to hope that absolutely no subscribers bother to volunteer.

Channel Seven reneges on airing GetUp ad, doesn't give straight answer why

Australian Internet activist organisation Get Up is fuming that Channel seven didn't broadcast the ad that they bought time for, intended to draw attention to the situation in Tibet, during the Olympic opening ceremony. Seven's excuses have so far been, in sequence:

1. GetUp hadn't actually paid for the ads to be broadcast. When GetUp produced spreadsheets showing that the ad had indeed been bought and paid for, Seven switched to:


2. The ads weren't shown because the Olympic opening ceremony ran overtime. This somehow extended to bookings made with Seven's regional broadcasting partner, Prime Television, to broadcast the ad in timeslots before the ceremony had even started. Seven has pulled a Sergeant Schultz on that one and claimed to know nothing about what Prime may or may not have allegedly possibly chosen to do or not do. Prime has released no information whatsover. Seven has since shifted position again, and is now claiming that:


3. GetUp supposedly ambushed Seven by claiming that they'd booked time to air their Fuelwatch ad rather than the Tibet ad. The beauty of this of course is that there's simply no way for GetUp to prove their innocence of the charge, making the issue now one of who you believe is telling the truth. I would point out that Channel Seven has already stated on verifiable lie when they falsely claimed that GetUp had not paid for airtime for an ad which they had actually paid for.

GetUp meanwhile is again soliciting donations to run their ad on channel seven. Hopefully. It may be difficult to convince people that the ad will not again be refused for arbitrary and shifting reasons. That may discourage donations in my opinion, unfortunately.

In political theory class today I was intrigued to hear the opinion of many of the youth there that while they were concerned about abuse of government power, they believed the power of transnational corporations was at least as worrying, if not more so, than that of government. I'm vaguely interested in the question of whether the GetUp situation is an example of the Chinese government's abuse of power, corporate abuse of power by Channel Seven, or some combination of both, but I definitely believe that this dishonest approach to the issue by channel seven is a deeply disturbing manifestation of an abuse of power.

Where's that credit card....

Bill Henson, "agenda-setting", and the strange malleability of politics

For all the talk of new media changing the media structure, blogs still tend to be more reactive than proactive. It's still the mainstream media and political leaders that set the public agenda of what's discussed, on blogs as much as anywhere else.

I haven't really felt inclined to discuss the Bill Henson situation because I feel like it's an issue that's been dragged kicking and screaming onto the public agenda. I did see some of Henson's work, photos of adolescents' bodies, when doing cultural studies at uni last year. I think it says something about the hysteria around the issue that I honestly cannot remember whether the adolescents in the images that I saw were completely nude or not. Either there was no full nudity, or the context was such that the question of exactly how much clothing was not being worn simply had no reason to stick in my mind.

The only real reason I'm commenting now is because Malcolm Turnbull has recently voiced his support of Henson and artistic freedom, condeming the raids that were done on the art gallery. Meanwhile, the previously linked news article says that the Prime Minister is standing by his initial criticism of the gallery display.

Just to re-iterate: it's the Labor Prime Minister that's currently advocating censorship on the grounds of sexual immorality, and it's the Liberal front-bencher currently defending freedom of expression in the face of that censorship. Weird.

Um, why?

From the coverage of Rudd's overseas adventures in this news article:
"The day before he [Rudd] had met United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, advising him of Australia's plan to seek a permanent seat on the United Nations' Security Council in 2013/14."

We're seeking a what in the where, now?

Bush and Rudd at a press conference earlier today, plus Iraq

The Whitehouse website helpfully offers a transcript. Allow me to summarise Bush's introductory remarks somewhat:

Kevin Rudd is a straight shooter. I'm from Texas. Texans like people who are straight shooters. Being from Texas, I like straight shooters. So I like Kevin Rudd.

*facepalm* I'm not sure exactly when I started to get really annoyed at Bush's folksy reminders to everyone that he's from Texas and he's what Texans are like. At least the Australian public had the sense to realise last election that the nerdy policy wonk was a better choice as leader than the old guy running on a platform of "I'm just like you, my fellow Australians! PS: Tax cuts!"

Yay human rights and the rule of law. Yay free trade. China and India are the main obstacles to international co-operation on the environment, not us. Technology has cures for what ails the environment, so buy our technologies and don't put up tariffs that will obstruct our buyers. Rudd's fully committed to keeping troops in Afghanistan. Did I mention the importance that Australia and America both put on the commitment fighting in Afghanistan? Afghanistan is very important because we're promoting freedom and democracy there....oh shit, I'm going to have to say something about Iraq, aren't I?

Rudd has a "campaign commitment" about Iraq. He said he'd pull troops out, so let me pull my "I like straight shooters" schtick to show that I'm okay with him doing what he said he'd do. He did ask us nicely first, so don't make it like he's putting his own people's desires above what America says he should be doing, that would make me look bad. The commitment of Afghanistan is not to leave Iraq alone; it's to change mission.

That last sentence is a direct quote. Whatever could it mean?

See how Kevin Rudd helped out Nouri Al-Maliki? He believes in what I'm doing to Iraq, really he does. Ignore the "campaign commitment" to withdraw troops and focus on the money he's giving to teach Iraqis how to do dry-land farming properly. And on a final note: BOO! IRAN

Doing that to Bush's ideological grandstanding makes it so much more bearable.

On a more serious note, there's some good overview in there that clarifies a few policy positions held by Rudd, and even some of those held by Bush. Rudd for instance is fully committed to global trade, and is hoping that the upcoming Doha talks will be a good thing. He's hoping for what he calls a "a psychological injection of some confidence in the arm" to the global economy from a positive outcome there, however "positive outcome" is defined.

I really dislike my ignorance on the matter of global economics, you know? Wish I could elucidate on that comment from Rudd more.

Rudd has also promised to give a $165 million dollar assistance package "a large slice of which will go to how we assist Iraqis train their people better in agriculture and in the wider economy." There at least I have a slightly better understanding of the underlying theory driving Rudd's actions. As mentioned elsewhere, Rudd believes "that it's failing economies" that "cause social and political instability". The idea is a common one on the Left and goes back to Kennedy's time: that social transformation comes about through the economic drivers of building infrastructrure, funding education, reducing unemployment and so forth. The success of such an approach is arguable at best.

I do hope that someone's keeping tabs on that $165 million as well. The last thing we need is to see something similar to the AWB's corruption in the oil-for-food scheme.

As might be expected, the questions from the press mostly focused on the situation on Iraq, particularly the Iraqi government's crackdown on Basra. I don't really buy Bush's line that this is a simple case of the good guys (the Maliki government) cracking down on the bad guys (unspecified "evil-doers", but basically it seems like the main target is Moktada Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army). I do find it interesting that he claimed ignorance about why Maliki did what he did: "And so I'm not exactly sure what triggered the Prime Minister's response. I don't know if it was one phone call. I don't know what -- whether or not the local mayor called up and said, help -- we're sick and tired of dealing with these folks. But nevertheless, he made the decision to move. And we'll help him."

One popular theory is that Maliki cracked down on Basra not at the instigation of Bush, but of Dick Cheney, based on the fact that Cheney visited Iraq not long before this crackdown occurred. A less America-centric version says this is Iran's show, based on Ahmedinejad's recent visit to the region. That last link explores the various theories in more detail.

Iraq is, as usual, confusing. But I feel obligated to try and make sense of it given my belief that it was naivety and ignorance of the Iraq situation that brought me down on the wrong side of the question of the Iraq invasion initially. I try to follow as best I can.