The Watermelon Party - probably as dangerous as terrorists

What's the Watermelon Party I can hear you asking?  It's the correct name for the Australian Greens.  They are all, like a watermelon, green on the outside and red on the inside.  I'm getting really tired of the watermelons telling me what I can't do and trying to restrict further what liberties I might have left.  Restrictions are usually from Stalin or Mao's policy manuals and are often dressed up with a green jacket as an attempt at justification.

Take the Greens policies on human rights and global governance.  In a nutshell, the Greens want to cede as much power as possible to the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.  An organisation that even the Greens recognize is un-democratic.  Both these institutions are heavily Euro-centric and are run by the same sort of guys who run that bastion of transparent decision-making, FIFA.  Both these policy documents are keen to remove Australian citizens from the creation of Australian laws, foreign policy and governmental actions overseas.  How can anyone ever vote for this?  The UN will always be a spineless gravy train for essentially useless bureaucrats as member nations will always act in their own interest and will never allow a restructure that removes the individual power of a nation in the assembly.

How about Industrial Relations?  The watermelons want to return to industry-wide pattern bargaining.  As part of this they apparently support freedom of association (ie you won't have to join the union) but you will have to pay them for bargaining on your behalf.  I hope I don't contradict myself in the space of 250 words.  Oh and they want to legislate minimum wages and conditions, but want industry-wide awards to be in excess of the minimum.  So not much room for negotiation there (and your spreadsheet will shit itself with the circular reference!).  Good luck running a business with more than yourself as an employee - you'll be up to your eyeballs in red-tape, union recruiting days and strikes - right before you go broke!  I do like their last point about 5 weeks annual leave though.

When it comes to the economy, you can expect to be taxed.  If you earn a lot or are a company you can expect to be taxed even more.  All this money is needed to pay for nationalisation of monopolies and essential services, further regulation of fisheries, forestries and mining, and free kindergarten and university for all.  My favourite part of this policy is this:

Economic Governance and Industry Development

32. implement triple bottom line accounting measures at all levels of government to incorporate social, environmental and financial impacts into policy development and assessment.
33. introduce broad measures of genuine national progress to supplement the current measures of GDP, including the production of a comprehensive national balance sheet that reflects this.
34. require all listed companies to report on standardised social and environmental indicators in their annual reports.

Sounds great, but you can expect you'll have to go to Tolerance camp if you don't measure up to the watermelon's standard of a good society.  What the hell is a social indicator anyway?

When it comes to the forestry policy there's this gem:

12. implement a national wood products industry plan that will complete the transition from native forests to existing plantations, including retraining and other assistance for workers and the development of sustainable alternative fibre industries.

Sounds like taking over the logging industry to me!  Plus the last phrase is absolute crap.  Try googling "alternative fibre industries", other than a link to the greens website, you might get a mention of hemp - which is an illegal product in this country I'm pretty sure.  And you farm it like trees!

Lastly a quick excerpt from the Planning and Transport policy:

12. a nationally agreed sustainability charter with targets across all industry sectors.

So under the banner of sustainability, they want to control all industry sectors in some way.  Doesn't remind me of Lenin at all!  What the hell is a sustainability charter?  How can you legislate for how a business operates.  How many patents and other intellectual property could you possibly ruin?  How can you employ enough bureaucrats to oversee such a program.  Plus what counts as sustainable?  You get told to use timber to build your house as it is a "carbon sink", but then you get told that you're contributing to deforestation or salinity or loss of habitat for some for of pigeon-toed rat.  Makes no sense at all.

Watch out for the Greens.  They're just watermelons wanting to control your life.  I'll admit, much of their policy documents contain reasonable ideas like don't waste stuff and we need better public transport, but as always the devil is in the detail.  In this case, if you enjoy liberty, then the devil is the detail.

All Greens policy is from their website (which is easy to use and informative):
http://greens.org.au/

Sports stars are greedy and too many agents and administrators encourage it

Two of the three biggest sports in North America are in industrial dispute.  The NFL lockout has been in effect since March 11.  The NBA lockout began at the start of July.  In Australia, the AFL are at loggerheads with the players association over a new collective bargaining agreement.  Looking at European soccer we see players who are pampered beyond belief and move clubs at thes suggestion of more money.

What makes it worse and relieves the players of some blame, is that owners and administrators are prepared to offer stupid and unsustainable wages to attract 'talent'.  This is the cause of most of the NBA teams being over the notional 'salary cap' and 17 making losses last year.  Many European football clubs have similar problems, but have a sugar-daddy to cover the loss.  In Australia, as in many parts of the world, the governemnt is heavily complicit in all this.  Governements here provide stadiums, training facilities and various other ridiculous grants to professional sports teams.  As a taxpayer I find this unconscionable.  If they can get a multi-billion dollar media rights deal, then they can build their own stadiums.  The public utility is bugger all.  This has started to happen in North America and is part of the current NFL dispute.  Team owners have to pay a bit more than rent for their stadiums and it's cutting profitablity.

The pampered children that are known in sports talk as the 'playing group' always want more.  I think they forget that all the sports science, hotel rooms, buffets and gyms cost money too.  The continual argument is that a sportman doesn't have a long career and needs a lifetime's worth of money is crap.  Most people change jobs and industry during their life.  The top graduate at a law firm doesn't get upwards of $200K on potential like a professional athlete.  Never mind if you're hopeless at being a footballer, you'll still see all the money from the contract.  No accounting grad has that luxury in their first two or three years.

I don't ususally stick up for the default Aussie (the tradesman), but they run a risk of injury every day at work, the are involved in physical activity every day, but they don't have a nutritionost telling them what to eat.  They don't ask the Master builders Association for a pension fund.  Amazingly their unions understand that there is superannuation and the government pension already in existence.  Maybe the difference is that tradies don't have a greedy manager taking 5-10% and encouraging risky investments in businesses they don't understand.

Many in North America can't believe that there are millionaire versus billionaire lockouts in two sports at a time when the economy is so bad.  The guy selling hot dogs at stadiums is in for a tough time.

So suck it up pro-sports people.  I defend your right to put your hand out for more, but sometimes you need to be aware of the bigger picture.  Wages can't always go up, especially when you are asking for other lurks and perks.  Owners and managers - try running your business properly.  I don't know why company directors don't ever get jail time when they bankrupt a sports team by paying negligent wages.  Lastly, governments should spend money on sports participation, not spectators and pampered professionals.

Federalism in Australia: Time for a rethink?

Federalism in Australia does not work.  Some obvious reasons are large land mass, small population, strong party allegiances of elected "representatives" and the ever-growing vertical fiscal imbalance between levels of government.  Then there's the structure of the Senate and abuse of constitutional powers by Federal governments.  Add to that the unscrutinised decision and deal making that occurs under the COAG banner.  It adds up to elected but barely representative government.  This problem is of course compounded at each opportunity by the media and the major federal political parties.

After 110 years since the constitution was enacted, the structure of the Senate no longer serves the electorate.  Each state has 12 senators who each sit a six year term.  Six are elected every three years.  Each territory has two senators whose term mirrors that of the House of Representatives.  So 40 senate seats are on the line at each federal election.  The problem is that to be elected in Tasmania a candidate needs a sixth of the vote which equates roughly to 60,000 votes.  A candidate in NSW needs over 770,000 votes.  Not a particularly representative system with today's population.

This vast discrepancy would be fine if Senators actually represented their states when exercising their powers and duties.  In practice Senators vote along party lines and Independent Senators tend to come form the less populous states (fewer votes) and run their own agenda for the whole nation.  However, I'm yet to hear of a Senator crossing the floor for their state rather than ideology or more importantly when there is a chance their vote may determine the outcome of the division.  There's no chance of the WA Labor Senators voting against the proposed mining tax (should there ever be legislation for this thing we've been hearing about for 14 months) because it would be better for WA to not have the federal tax imposed.

The continued existence of the states is in increasing jeopardy as the continued expansion of Federal powers continues un-abated regardless of which political party is in government.  Since the passage of Income Tax Act 1942 and the States Grants (Income Tax Reimbursement) Act by the Commonwealth in 1942, the states have not been able to raise sufficient funds to meet their spending commitments.  They are instead reliant on handouts pursuant to section 96 of the constitution:

96. During a period of ten years after the establishment of the Commonwealth and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provides, the Parliament may grant financial assistance to any State on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit.

This is what enables the Commonwealth to encroach on state responsibilities like healthcare, education, emergency services and transport.  It is coupled with the high court's generous interpretation of the corporations powers under section 51 of the constitution.

Further erosion of the states is caused by the states themselves as the cede powers to Canberra and through COAG negotiate uniform legislation across the country.  Every time this happens the Commonwealth passes a bill which through the clauses of the constitution over-rides any concurrent state legislation.

With the continued centralisation of government and the unending love for socialist style handouts and government by the electorate, the question arises as to whether we need to keep paying for state governments at all?

The solution would need to involve the merger of many local councils and far better mechanisms for keeping councils operating within their necessary realm.  Recently Sydney city council decided to revise history and refer to the British colonisation of Australia as an "invasion" in their official documents.  Completely unnecessary waste of local government time and effort.  It clearly reflects the skewed personal agendas of the seven councilors who voted for the motion.  Revising national history is not an issue for a government with only 180,000 residents.  Councils operate libraries and collect rubbish.  Copying elements of the county system used in the USA for rural areas and creating large councils covering the metropolitan areas of the big cities would probably work.

The logical path for Senate reform would have to be towards true proportional representation.  Based on 2010 election results, a candidate would then need about 335,000 votes to get elected.  Having this method would also bring the double dissolution back into play as a means to force legislation through a hostile Senate.  The double dissolution gets talked about a lot, but will never happen in practice.  Too few votes would be needed by minor party and independent candidates to gain a Senate seat: this is very unattractive to the major parties.

Never thought I'd support the death of the states, but it seems practical, cost effective and would allow for far better representative government.

Unfortunately, you can't blame Gillard for the Carbon Tax

Before Kevin07, John Howard (with Malcolm Turnbull as Environment Minister) announced that Australia would be having an emissions trading scheme.

www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/17/1980126.htm

After 30 years in parliament, Howard did not make announcements like this without having had the bureaucrats do the homework on at least the basics.  Unlike Kevin07, Howard liked to have his ducks in order before calling a press conference.

Malcolm Turnbull was able to introduce the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 which passed the parliament in September 2007.  This act's purpose is 'to introduce a single national reporting framework for the reporting and dissemination of information related to greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas projects, energy consumption and energy production of corporations'.  It's no wonder Turnbull the opposition leader supported Rudd's thrice defeated CPRS legislation - he laid the foundation for it.  The CPRS was defeated as it was unpalatable to the opposition as a big new tax and not harsh enough on polluters for the Greens.  Had Combet's speech in  2009 (http://www.climatechange.gov.au/~/media/Files/minister/combet/2009/Speeches/May/cprs_bill.pdf) included more than a passing reference to compensation and welfare system change, the CPRS may not have been so easy for the opposition to attack.

Judging from these events I think we can assume that an ETS of some form has been in the bureaucratic pipeline since 2006.  This concept has therefore survived a change of government, another election, a change in the balance of power in the Senate and is on it's third Prime Minister and god knows what the count is for Climate Change/Environment Ministers.  Which really begs the question: Can the bureaucracy make policy a fait accompli? 

I think it can.  It appears they have just had to wait for a decent sales pitch for an ETS to get through.  The elected representatives spend so much time berating each other and pseudo-campaigning that they probably don't have time to actually drive much in the way of policy.  They just tinker at the edges.  The short electoral cycle makes this problem worse as the stable and incumbent bureaucracy can be the only ones with a long term outlook.  It took the Hewson/Howard Liberal party three elections and seven years to get a consumption tax past the electorate, but treasury and business had been crying out change before Hewson lost the 'unloseable election' in 1993.

The GST and the Carbon tax are big ticket, major reforms.  How many minor pieces of legislation are driven through because the wheels of bureaucracy push it?  We hear very little about it in the sensationalist press.  Is this where plain tobacco packaging has come from?  It's a nothing act whose biggest effect will be for do-gooders to pat themselves on the back when it passes.  I'm sure this is how Victoria got a charter of human rights.  No one campaigned on the issue.  It just got introduced.

So it appears that faceless, unelected bureaucrats are the real drivers of some policies.  The politicians just have to mould the package to sell it to an ignorant electorate.  It appears that Howard's ETS became Rudd's CPRS which has become Gillard's Carbon Tax.  It should be noted that the Carbon Tax is VERY similar to the CPRS.

Still just because it's got fancy paper and a ribbon wrapped around it, you're still pretty disappointed when someone gives you a turd.

I read the carbon tax policy document this evening

Just a short one tonight.  I have just finished reading the overerly long document that supposedly explains the Carbon Tax.  I'll give you the link as it took a little bit of searching to find it on the government website: http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/clean-energy-future/securing-a-clean-energy-future/#content01

AS with all these sort of things it is highly repetitive and could've been half the length but for the low brow sales pitches and examples.  Large chunks of this policy are also just extending existing programs and boosting their funding into the future.  If you want the facts go straight to Appendix A as everything is there without all the crap and ugly pictures.

Some of the interesting points that I picked up that I haven't seen in the newspapers:

• It is consistently called a Carbon Tax for reducing Carbon pollution.  At no stage is the word dioxide or gas used.  Some of the graphs do have CO2 on the axes though.
• Administration of the system will cost over $100million from FY2013-14
• Many elements of the tax/trading scheme will be subject to Productivity Commission review every two or three years.
• The economy-wide pollution volume cap will be set five years in advance and announced in the budget. (This obviously won't apply to the first five years of cap and trade which will all be announced 12 months prior to the start of trading)
• Real Gross National Income per capita is projected to grow at 1.5% per annum under the carbon tax plan between now and 2020
• At least three statutory bodies will be created to advise gpvernment and administer the trading and assistance schemes.  This is on top of the department of environment and  department of climate change.
• The announced tax cuts are below those recommended by the Henry Tax Review (http://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=html/pubs_reports.htm)

Now I know the details, I plan to critique the Carbon Tax (that name really annoys me) in the next few days, especially in the light of the Henry review and prevailing economic conditions.

Football commentators - not even worth the beverages they consume

It will come as no surprise to any of you that I watch quite a bit of football.  I watch games on all three broadcasters each weekend.  Truth is that football is the only program I watch on the Seven network such is my contempt for their programming.  Occasionally I also watch one of the many midweek football commentary shows.  It has become routine for the football personalities involved in these shows to be either hopelessly biased or often plain wrong.  The other problem is that most of the drivel oozing from their gobs adds absolutely nothing to the picture on the screen.

The role of the commentator is to add value to what the viewer can already see on the screen.  In the world of AFL coverage this should involve explaining umpiring decisions, identifying correctly the player with the ball/making the tackle/etc, informing the viewer of things not on screen.  The last point is a big deal in the zoomed in coverage we are forced to live with as the viewer can't see the zone defence or open space.  The use of statistics both historical and current needs to be relevant and in context.

Instead of this we are forced each week to listen to over-used superlatives about 'special' kicks and 'clever' handballs.  Endless in-jokes and back-slapping between commentators is a sure sign that networks employ too many.  Channel Seven refuse to show live Friday night football as they claim they don't make any money broadcasting football.  Here's a saving of probably $250,000 a year (just in wages I reckon) - retire Bruce McAvaney and trim the commentary team to two in the stand and maybe one on the ground.  Sorry Richo, you're one of my all time favourite players and you've a great dry wit, but if I ran Seven sport you'd be out on your ear.  Network Ten and Foxsports are no better for excessive wage bills. 

Too often the bulk of the 'commentary' is a radio-like description of events.  Hello!!! we've had TV for over 60 years now.  I can see what's happening - although sometimes Seven's lack of HD broadcasting challenges this.  Time to figure it out: either stop babbling and congratulating each other on your latest bad pun, or add to the picture by telling me the name of the player with the ball, the guy chasing him, the bloke he's kicking it to, complemented with the odd statistic.  Commentators don't need to talk every minute of the game.  Especially now the umpires are wired for sound.

This year we have a substitute, yet even with a commentator sitting on the bench, it still takes the broadcaster and commentators a couple of minutes to announce the substitution.  Most knowledgeable viewers already know it has occurred as the fresh man has been seen in the play.  This drag, coupled with the awful 'repeat after me' interviews at quarter and half time involving players and coaches add nothing.  Sell another ad instead!  Lose the commentator on the bench.

Football and the footy media are a fairly small industry, so some conflicts of interest by commentators can be forgiven, but player managers whose sole purpose seems to be to talk up their stable of players need to go.  Goodbye Liam Pickering and Alastair Lynch.  On top of your general comments being bland, you just talk up your boys.  One club players and one-eyed supporters should not commentate on their own teams.  This would have spared us Eddie McGuire when Nine had the broadcast rights and would remove Malcolm Blight (Nth, Geel, Adel, GC) from a heap of games, not to mention Michael Christian (Col), Matty Lloyd (Ess), Steve Quartermain (Haw), Jason Dunstall (Haw) and McAvaney (Adel).  Oops, think I named the whole of Ten's commentary stable there!  Shameless barracking as perpetrated by these guys should be reserved for Rugby internationals.  Then there's Tim Watson and Essendon with his son as captain...

Commentators butcher the language, use the wrong word and convey a meaning entirely different to that fitting the situation.  On top of those grammar and vocabulary problems there is "footy speak".  Danny Frawley has been using the phrase 'chop-out' for about 18 months.  I still don't know what it is supposed to mean given the variety of situations he uses it in.  Spud is also guilty of bringing the um alternative yeh/no into common usage as the start of an answer.  Why can't the plural word players be used instead of playing group?  How has the word 'shorts' become a verb describing a short kick?  Commentary verbal diarrhoea can be blamed for the worst of it.  Thankfully 'substitution activation' that I heard a lot at the start of the season did not take off.

The last and most important bug-a-boo with football commentary is how often they are allowed to be just plain wrong.  Tony Shaw needs his eyes tested - often.  He can mis-identify a player about 10 times a quarter.  Confusing blonds with brunettes and big blokes with little blokes is pretty poor stuff.  Even worse is getting it wrong when watching the replay!  For the third time!  Shaw is not a lone member in the "struggle to perform the basic functions of my job" club either.  What kills me is that if the kid on the counter at KFC was wrong as often as Tony Shaw, he'd probably be relegated to mop and bucket for life, but Shaw is there year after year spouting cliches and the wrong player's name in the same breath.

So broadcasters, save some cash.  Sack most of your commentators and employ professionals to call the game and add to the picture.  Either that or give viewers the option to turn off the commentary and keep the crowd noise and umpires.

I've got a blog, what the hell do I write about?

So I've spent the past few days musing over the topic for my next blog posting.  I started with politics/economics but wasn't planning on specialising.  Becoming a Canberra/Spring St commentator wasn't really what I had in mind.  My hope had been to write on numerous topics in an informative manner and maybe get the readers thinking.

Some of the topics I've considered (mainly since they are currently in the news) are organ transplants, a review of the new X-Men movie, more on the carbon dioxide tax or perhaps a great rant on the never-ending encroachment into our lives of the government.  No doubt I'll tackle these in the next week or two when the health is a wee bit better and I can do any necessary research.

Tonight I'll give you a quick review of the X-Men: First Class movie and ask that if there's a topic you think might be good for a Bushnell Report please add it in the comments.

I saw X-Men last night at Village Glen Waverley.  I was ripped off to the tune of $18 to sit in a 15 year old cinema lacking a digital projector.  This did make the original news footage from the 60s used in the film look authentic!

Points go to the cast for dealing with an average script quite well.  Kevin Bacon has a good future playing the bad guy as he steals the show in First Class.  Rose Byrne is excellent.  I have to wait for the credits in every movie to know it's her.

Without giving away too much story, the film is set in the time of the cu ban missile crisis.  Some of the digital effects used make you forget this at times.  The film covers the key points of the X-Men back story: the friendship of Xavier and Lensherr and its failure, the early involvement of the dark side of the US government and the introduction of other key characters.

Most of the key plot holes can be explained away by mutant powers, but the key fact that Lensherr and Xavier are well known to the CIA and treated as hostile at the end of the movie can't be.  Prequels can't cause story anomalies like this.  For this reason plus a couple that I won't mention: 6/10.

More on Monday...

The Carbon Tax - actually taxes carbon dioxide

Where to start on this dreadful thing?

If you accept the human-induced global warming theory it's bad.  If you take the opposite argument, and like me, are known as a climate change denier then it probably feels worse.  I'm not going to argue which is correct as the point is now somewhat moot.  If you feel warm and fuzzy and think that you're changing the world then maybe you're the one who likes this terrible bit of proposed legislation.

It's disgraceful how a controversial environmental issue is being used as probably the biggest change to the taxation and welfare systems in our lifetimes (that's right I expect its impact to be greater than the introduction of the GST).  If the leaky sieve that is cabinet is to be believed thus far, the policy will not do enough to change the behaviour of Australians in a manner that will help meet the 2020 emission reduction target.  We'll still build everything out of concrete, drive our cars to the shop 300m away and do all those other things that produce CO2 (breathing is one of my favourites).  The government is going to give you some welfare payments - that you'll probably just spend on booze, smokes or a personalised number plate - so that you can ignore the price signals created by the tax.

Meanwhile the government will now have a new, ever increasing source of tax revenue.  Just think of how the ALP can squander it all.  Hot water heaters for sports clubs, building at schools that are about to be closed, Kevin Rudd's travel bill, more public servants to think up new taxes and laws to stop you having fun.  Sounds great.  They won't spend it on anything that takes more than 2 years to build or that will last 100 years.  Doesn't suit the 24 hour news cycle at all.

I would also like to point out that the Carbon Tax will have a massively regressive impact.  Low earners likely live in older houses that are poorly insulated, buy cheaper, less energy efficient appliances, work in energy intensive industries and are reliant on their cars to get anywhere.  Clearly worse than the GST on this front as the GST was far less threatening to people's employment as it taxes consumption not production. 

An economy-wide tax on carbon dioxide as a starting point is a mistake.  Why not follow Europe and pick selected industries and go straight to a cap and trade system?  Measurement of emissions and transitional assistance to those industries would be far easier to administer and would allow for adjustments to the system to be made without creating massive shocks in the economy.  This approach is more likely to have better environmental outcomes as the 'dirtiest' industries are cleaned up first and attract plenty of the necessary policy, advice and assistance.  There is no shame in copying a system that already exists and tweaking it to local conditions.  It is more palatable to the electorate and it has already been tested.  Victoria could have bought an existing transport ticketing system but chose to develop one from scratch.  It was years overdue, hundreds of millions over budget and still doesn't do all that it was supposed to.  What happens if the Carbon Tax is the federal government's MYKI?  How difficult will it be fix the whole economy when it is under massive structural stress?

Wake up members of the House of Representatives - this Carbon Tax will cost you your job too if you vote for it! And it will do bugger all for the environment as it is too soft.