On the 18^th of January, you may have found yourself unable to access a number of American-based websites. Internet staples from Lolcats to Wikipedia blacked out their pages in protest over the Stop Online Piracy Act. Designed to combat “rogue websites” that prevent the “profits from American innovations go(ing) to Americans,”¹ the act has drawn the ire of Silicon Valley and all who value a free and open internet. For an Australian comparison, it’s Conroy’s internet filter times a thousand, aimed at shoring up the profits of Hollywood rather than keeping children safe.

The United States has not yet lost its will to maintain international order. After many failed wars and a trillion-dollar debt, one could be forgiven for thinking their ambition might fade, but alas. The act specifically targets foreign websites like The Pirate Bay, who some representatives claim are dedicated to stealing American property. It’s being driven by lobbyists from the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, who in honour of Nicola Roxon I’m going to label “big movies” and “big music” respectively. But the act is vaguely worded, with heavy-handed provisions: five years in jail for streaming illegal content, the ability for the US government to seize IP addresses and domain names as well as cease payment services on an infringing website before accusations can be proven, and burdensome requirements that every single piece of user-generated content be policed on sites like YouTube and Wikipedia. At this stage, the bill is likely to fail.

While property rights are the foundation of capitalist society, the internet and digital intellectual property have made policing the matter infinitely harder than it used to be. Without physical material to be possessed or transported, acquiring such property is almost instantaneous. The MPAA and RIAA claim that this theft means “US worker lose $16.3 billion” annually.² Apart from their having mistaken “US workers” for “massive US companies that own the rights to what the workers create,” we can probably halve this figure, as it assumes every counterfeit product purchased or downloaded is a forgone legitimate purchase. As someone who’s been guilty of traversing the torrents for free content, I can assure you it’s not.

That’s not at all to say that stealing is a-ok. Software is the new manufacturing battleground, and given we’d call the cops if someone stole our car we shouldn’t view intellectual property any differently. But we do – Australia as a nation is one of the biggest downloaders of pirated or illegally copied content in the world, with an estimated cost to the domestic industry of almost $1.4 billion a year,³ although a halving might again be in order. In various polls, up to 45% of us have admitted to downloading content illegally, with real the real figure likely higher. As internet speeds start to ramp up in Australia (think NBN – 100Mbps, up and down) the problem is sure to get worse.

So how to stem the flow of bits and bytes? If legislative attempts to expand the legal rights of multibillion-dollar companies can be destroyed by one day of internet activism,⁴ then other solutions must be sought, not just in the US but here. The internet’s culture of free and open access to knowledge has seeped into the commercial realm of entertainment, with which it is incompatible. If Stephen Conroy weren’t so busy trying to stop us watching porn he might have coined an idea by now, but in lieu of that I’m here to help.

Given that such a high percentage of Australian households access this media illegally, and that almost every action online can be tracked and accounted for, I’d like to propose a “bandwidth tax” of sorts. No, it’s not really a tax on bandwidth, but rather a GST-like percentage charge placed on top of the internet bill of every household and business. Treasury could determine a fair levy based somewhere between reality and the claims of the companies, which the government could then pay out to the various organisations we’ve unwittingly stolen from. The tax rate from year to year would change with the stats.

The open-endedness of such a scheme might unsettle some, but my (very rough) estimate of $700 million a year would be but a drop in the ocean of the Commonwealth budget. If we ask nicely, the federal government might even take care of this whole mess for us, sans tax. In the likely event that fails, maximum deviations written in law would smooth out spikes in the tax rate if we have “a big year,” so to speak. Using ABS and census figures, it amounts to an average yearly charge of about $115 if paid only by households with the internet. That’s $9.60 more a month with your bill, adjusted in line with your total internet expenditure. Nothing compared to recent hikes in the electricity tariff.

Australians don’t download pirated content because we’re a pack of evil convict bushrangers – there are multiple and prominent reasons. We get high-rating television shows months later than America and Europe on average. When content is available to stream online, Australians are generally prohibited from viewing or listening to it because of licensing and copyright restrictions, as is the case with most music videos. The extortion we often face at the bricks-and-mortar retail level has been covered extensively in the media, and “big movies” should by now see the irony in sitting through 15 minutes of trailers and anti-piracy warnings – but only on legitimate copies. Add to that the pitiful internet transfer speeds we’ve only beaten in the last four years and you see that Australia’s had a pretty average deal when it comes to the globalisation of media. No wonder we’re now exploiting these tools beyond their potential.

Unfortunately any new tax is bound for the political dustbin, especially after the carbon tax, mining tax, alcopops and ciggie taxes and whatever else the Gillard government bleeds from the nation between now and their inevitable defeat. It may be a bit out-there, but this method of taxation and compensation would allow Australian (and possibly foreign) media companies some recompense for our dirty downloading without criminalising everyone who’s ever used Napster – although technically, many are already classified as such. It would break down international boundaries that, despite the web’s best efforts, remain stubbornly and artificially in place, and it would keep Australians at the forefront of international entertainment and culture whilst getting the industry off the censorship bandwagon for good. It’s gotta be worth a shot lest downloading illegally become lodged in our collective psyche, at which point the debate will degenerate into an anti-big-business bash-fest. By that time it’ll be too late, and cultural industries will no longer do business in, or with, Australia.

P.S. Seriously… what else are y’all planning to do with a $40 billion broadband connection? Watch low-definition home videos on YouTube? Call of Duty? Come On…

Three protesters were captured by a Japanese whaling vessel off the coast of Western Australia recently. The Japanese have branded them “eco-terrorists” and “racists,”¹ whilst the Sea Shepherd’s crew have responded in kind with the more traditional “terrorists” label.²

Whaling has been occurring for centuries. For what is essentially a hunting practice, it’s a uniquely divisive issue, at least internationally. Humans have been harvesting cetaceans for oil and food since 3000BC, and went commercial around the 1700s. At least 50,000 were killed annually by the 1930s, leaving the industry in a clearly unsustainable position. In 1986, the International Whaling Commission, a volunteer cross-country organisation founded to regulate the practice of whaling, caved to societal and ecological pressures and placed a moratorium on commercial whaling.

Though non-member states are not bound by IWC regulation, the big three (Japan, Norway and Greenland – what a useful phrase!) are all members. In order to hunt, they rely on aboriginal subsistence rights or “scientific research,” or in the Scandinavian case, simply choose not to recognise the limits – of zero – and so set their own. Where the IWC, like most international regulatory bodies, fails miserably in its task, Greenpeace and similar activist groups have stepped in. Much of it is peaceful protest, but every now and then there’s a belligerent hippie who thinks trespass laws don’t apply to those with a certain brand of (highly relative) ethics. The inevitability of their vigilante attitude – thanks largely to the uselessness of the IWC – notwithstanding, the more the international community badgers Japan, the more they will dig in and cling to their national sovereignty. Can we really demand (or expect) otherwise?

Many countries besides Japan are engaged in whaling. Norway and Greenland have an average yearly harvest of 590 and 175 whales, mostly minke, which combined with Japan’s 730 makes for a total of 1495. They come from an estimated population of over 100,000 – a big improvement on historic levels.³ It’s easy to label the spear gunning method barbaric, but outside of captivity it’s pretty difficult to instantly and painlessly kill such a large animal from a boat, short of poisoning the water. Aboriginal populations across the world hunt for subsistence, and the fact that the animal may suffer pain during the process doesn’t necessarily render it barbaric. Outside of an abbatoir-like situation, death without pain is rare. That’s how the animal kingdom works, and as carnivores, it’s not a massive surprise that that’s how some human populations work when heavily integrated with that kingdom.

All that said, whaling sucks. Given the huge variety of meats available and the relative ease with which they are farmed (and replenished), it’s clearly not necessary in 2012. It’s violent, and it stirs up international hostilities. But that doesn’t give anyone the right to shit all over a centuries-old cultural practice and the people engaged in it, let alone board their vessels to yell at them. Let’s not let the fact that most of us have a particular admiration for them resurrect destructive rhetoric. Let’s not get racist over what animals we eat, and let’s not confuse a 2-odd percent yearly cull with the incredibly destructive force the industry used to be. Koreans eat dogs,⁴ Indians eat rats⁵ and Australians eat kangaroo. Though they may not be as impressive as whales, all animals must be killed and cut up in order to be eaten.

P.S. Given that having a “mature discussion” hasn’t worked for almost 30 years, surely we can use all that “scientific research” to find a way of exponentially increasing whale stocks..?

As a student of political science, I read a bit about Canberra’s relationship with the states. Public comment on the matter ranges from disparaging to downright vitriolic. The states increasingly call upon Canberra for solutions or money or both, relinquishing a wide range of responsibilities in the process. Some say the era of state government is drawing to a close.

Quite contrarily, the states are inseparable from Australia’s future. They still make crucial decisions in transport, social services and education to name a just few areas, even if they are dependent upon unfair and inefficient taxes and charges. Diverse geography, industry and culture demand localized attention federal parliament is simply not capable of giving – I’d rather be lining up at McCrae Plaza with a question for the education minister than negotiate the federal web that is Chris Evans, Kim Carr and Peter Garrett. As well, short of scrapping the constitution and starting from scratch, the dissolution of any state parliament is a constitutional nightmare and a political impossibility.¹

Any way you look at it, the economic inefficiency associated with 3 tiers of government is depressing. Many responsibilities overlap, and bureaucratic largesse follows. Such waste is by no means insignificant – up to $30 billion every year – but it’s not a trigger for dissolution. “Blame game” issues could be resolved by scrapping arrangements of shared responsibility. The Commonwealth could administer social security and welfare, education, defense and the air environment, with states having power over health, transport and the land. This policy mix is interchangeable and clearly incomplete, but you get the point. If you spread responsibility, you inevitably disperse accountability.

Like us, the USA has a three-tier system of government – federal, state and municipal. Though their power sharing arrangements differ vastly from ours, the public sector is just as thirsty for cash. But 290 million more people underpin their economy and tax base.² That’s not to say it can’t be done – it can and it must – but we’ll need to get serious about cutting bureaucratic overlap. If three tiers of government are to be effective here then every last bureaucrat and politician must be working in perfect synergy. As it stands, there are toes everywhere, and if the states don’t tread on them Canberra will.

I’m hardly a nationalist; I’d sooner identify as Victorian than Australian. This has drawn mockery from peers that I believe to be misguided. Pride in one’s state is hardly shameful, immature or anachronistic. National uniformity in certain areas has irrefutable benefits, but our differences are a point of celebration.

I’ve only lived in two states, but I have set foot in all of them; Western Australia sees pelting rain or glaring sunshine with little in between. Their laid-back, liberal lifestyle is second to none in Australia. The Northern Territory, egregiously denied official statehood to this day, hosts our gateway to Asia through Darwin. As home to the largest indigenous populace in Australia³ and the iconic Uluru, its cultural potential is phenomenal. My pal Mitch Burke recently moved to South Australia, home of defence research and development. Its capital Adelaide is one of two on the mainland not lacerated with freeways, with the city centre completely surrounded by parkland. Queensland – the Gold Coast, Great Barrier Reef and Joh Bjelke-Petersen,⁴ a three-way contrast that speaks for itself. New South Wales was our first state. It’s currently one of our most diverse economies, with agriculture, mining, energy and finance (and, like everywhere else in Australia, small business) all playing a critical role. To the loathe of Melbournians, Sydney’s city scenery and suburban way of life are what we exhibit to the world. Tasmania gave us a legendary (although sadly extinct) tiger and Bob Brown. The United Tasmania Group was the first established “green” political party in the world, and with Bob gets a partial credit for the advent of global environmental politics.⁵

Finally, Victoria. I’ve spent most of my life here. I don’t buy into petty Melbourne-Sydney rivalry because it serves no purpose. Both are vibrant, modern cities in vastly different states. Both face modern problems. There is no “better” here – just different. Different lifestyles for different cultures participating in different industries. Rather than wasting time on their abolition, let’s accept the fact that the states are here to stay and put some serious energy into trimming the overlap. Maybe we can even find room for another one or two, but there’s not much point unless the confusing power drain to Canberra stops. The states will survive, but they’ll stay relevant only as long as democratic judgment over their control has any meaning, and knowing to the letter who is in charge of what is of great assistance. $30 billion in savings between the various levels of government would go a long way, too. Being Australian is what unites us, and there’s so much we’ve done that would never have been possible as a collection of colonies, but it’s our differences that make us unique.

Smokers are now used to being castigated by the non-smoking public and health officials. As the negative health impacts became public knowledge, smokers became easy targets for anyone with a public bone to pick. It’s also a guaranteed (read: addiction) winner for the tax office with yearly revenue of about $6 billion.¹

But to argue for smokers’ liberties is a little contentious, as second hand smoke is pretty much guaranteed to ruin the day of those nearby. But rather than negotiating agreed outcomes where each party’s utility is maximized, a balanced perspective is too often thrown out the window in favour of hysteria.

Wait a second – why are we talking about smoke? Tobacco can be enjoyed in many ways, just a few of which require inhaling the dangerous byproducts of burning plant matter. It can be used orally, by vapour action, even by sniffing a finely-ground powder. Most of these methods pose significantly less risk to health than smoking, yet none are available in Australian shops.

The only way Australian smokers can get a helping hand out of the habit is from the pharmacist. Legislation enacted by Michael Tate, the minister for Justice and Consumer Affairs under Paul Keating in 1991² prohibited the sale of all oral forms of tobacco. Why? The Sydney Morning Herald has reason to believe it was “part of Australian efforts to reduce avenues for the expansion of the tobacco industry.”³

If true, this has got to be the most pathetic reason for enacting prohibitive legislation in the history of governance. It assumes tobacco corporations to be inherently evil, as if somehow different from the thousands of other multinationals focused solely on profits. Though tobacco companies were indeed notorious in their attempts to alter perceptions of the health impacts, their lobbying nowadays is hardly different from that of the alcohol, gambling or indeed mining sectors when faced with a threat to profits. There’s been no such attempt to limit the expansion of these often dangerous industries – just go to a public sporting event with your kids.

But it’s more than just a contradiction in policy terms. When the government attacks a market sector with excessive regulation, they inevitably restrict its ability to innovate. On face value that hardly seems to be a problem – what possible benefits could come from “big tobacco”, as it is so lovingly called by our overbearing health minister, Nicola Roxon?⁴

The obvious reaction from any industry facing repeated threats of regulation due to health impacts is to make their products or services “safer”, so to speak. This happened throughout the 70s and 80s, where brands competed by lowering the tar content in their major brands as much as possible whilst attempting to maintain the original attraction of the habit. All capitalist industries react like this because it’s in their interest. Even the horse-racing industry tried to make jumps safer to forestall a permanent ban on the sport. I’ve been over the folly of naming restrictions on cigarettes, so I’ll skip right ahead to moist snuff.

Innovate is the wrong word – oral tobaccos have been around in one form or another for at least 500 years.⁵ In the mid-1800s, the Ettan brand of moist snuff in Sweden became the first to use a steam pasteurising method instead of fire-cooking, leading to a product with a consistency more like clay, with a very different flavour profile.⁶ The health benefits are only now coming to light.

This well precedes Australia’s ban on snuff tobacco, yet for the better part of two centuries it’s been Sweden’s secret weapon against smoking-related illness: tobacco use there is among the highest in Europe, yet smoking-related illnesses are among the lowest.⁷ Whilst any use of tobacco is still believed to be harmful, in 2005 the Swedish government removed the requirement for a cancer warning on snus (Swedish for ‘snuff’) cans. It’s been replaced with a statement that snus can “harm your health and is addictive”.⁸ But, like the toasted American variety, continuous and repetitive use can cause the gum line to recede. The drip some varieties produce can upset the stomach if swallowed, and there’s a slightly elevated risk of contracting pancreatic cancer from the nicotine itself, compared with those who don’t use tobacco at all. Yet next to a box of cigarettes, these issues are comparatively minor.

Even the liberal United States have come around, with many major brands releasing varieties of “snus” sold alongside regular snuff products. Combined with projects barely out of R&D – like dissolvable tobacco – these products give American addicts (or casual or social consumers – not everybody smokes a pack a day) a real choice when it comes to the potential level of harm versus enjoyment. The vanity associated with choice of brand remains – people can quit smoking without heading to the pharmacy like a frail opiate addict in search of methadone (it has been noted that smoking can be more addictive than heroin).

It’s difficult to have an objective discussion on tobacco these days. While our health ministers can feel morally superior for their valiant attempts to homogenise even those with private health insurance, the effects of unnecessary and illogical restrictions are being felt in the lungs and wallets of those unfortunate enough to still smoke. A similar situation exists in the European Union, where Sweden and Norway are the only countries with an exception to the EU ban.⁹ The idea of cramming one’s upper lip full of moist tobacco mud might be patently disgusting to most Australians, but they deserve the choice. No second-hand smoke, no reduction of fitness… sounds like a pretty good public health argument to me.

P.S. Public health and civil liberty on the same side??? Surely not.

P.P.S. This year, get online and make a resolution to switch. Your lungs will thank you.

The noun, not the drug. It’s a favoured concept among authorities in Victoria for the simplicity of its message and its ease of enforcement, especially so during the holiday season. The sound-bite the day after a sting operation is often familiar: there is “surprise and dismay” at the quantity of drivers breaching a particular rule, the message “still not getting across.” It can be applied to virtually any offence or statistic. This creates political license to toughen enforcement penalties or increase policing resources in a particular division.

But is it an appropriate method of identifying necessary and legitimate safety improvements? The primary message from the Transport Accident Commission and VicRoads over the past decade has been “speed kills.” It can be seen on the homepage of the TAC safety website (as well as the corporate site), on billboard trailers beside freeways and in VicRoads literature of all sorts. And yet, taken on face value, it’s false.

To say that speed kills is akin to saying violent media cause school shootings. It’s a little more complex than that; road surface, traffic density, weather, light, car condition, driver capability and attention all play similar if not fluxing roles in traffic accidents. Road surface and traffic density can’t be mentioned – they implicate the government at the local or state level. Both weather and light are variables; we may be able to predict, but ultimately have little control over them. It’d be justifiably offensive to mention driver responsibility in cases where there’s even a chance of other contributing factors, which just leaves the condition of the car.

All vehicles in Victoria are required to undergo a roadworthy check upon transfer of registration, unless it’s within the immediate family. But this check does nothing to test the vehicle’s safety at speed – indeed it’s not a legal requirement that the car be driven.¹ Nothing in the current bureaucratic mess of checks and inspections tests the vehicle’s stability at speeds, say, over 80km/h. They’re certainly not driven on freeways; you know, those high-speed, dedicated vehicle corridors most of us use to get to work or school. Our licensing system could use a polish, too. We’re still not tested on how to merge and exit properly, even on that high-tech video-based computer exam at VicRoads.

But our (generally) pathetic excuses for first cars are hardly up to the task anyway. Perhaps this is the reason we have cameras flashing at 105km/h, when modern vehicles are capable of doing 150km/h safely.² But rather than punish those who risk exceeding their vehicle’s capacity, why not bring testing practices up to the task? Legal limits should line up with actual limits rather than forcing everyone onto the lowest common denominator and punishing those who exceed. It’d surely be acceptable to have a minimum and maximum speed of 90 and 130km/h respectively on limited access roads, with certain vehicles and drivers restricted as per capability? They do it for drivers in New South Wales, where L-Platers are restricted to 80, red P-Platers to 90 and greens to 100km/h. Qualified mechanics could place similar restrictions on the legal speed at which a vehicle may travel; these could be affixed to the registration label or licence plate.

I fear it may be too late – the promotion of traffic-focused assistant commissioner Ken Lay to the top policing job in Victoria is likely to bring a renewed interest in road safety, and you can bet that’ll mean blanket judgements on the issue of speed. Sorry, Ken, but that is the nature of police-public relations in Victoria, and yes, I’m going to have “a bit of a whinge” about the unjust oversimplification you’ve been responsible for. Speed made the state almost half a billion dollars³ last year – as if you wouldn’t milk that. But perhaps it can be done in a fairer and more equitable manner, one that doesn’t simply take the stick to drivers for slight infringements on speed limits set by some guy in an office. It doesn’t have to be arbitrary, as it so often is now. There are several school zones begging for a safety camera, so let’s get them off freeways designed purely for lots of cars going fast. That’s where a real contribution to road safety begins, and that’s when we’ll be able to once again listen to our state government and policemen and women trying to instill what really is a necessary and valuable message. It helps a lot if the message is backed up by facts, and that doesn’t mean a crash report stating that “speed was a factor.” That information, in itself, is worthless. If we’re going to spend public billions cutting swathes out of our countryside and then painting it with tar, there’s no excuse not to aim for absolute maximum utility.

A leniency of 10% or more on fixed camera speeds wouldn’t go astray either. Any politician attempting such a move would likely be castrated by the nanny lobby that seeks responsibility for our decisions, but it would show a renewed interest in actual policing rather than technological reliance coupled with bureaucratic rigidity. People make mistakes, but is it worth $153 and a strike every time, at a bare minimum? As a driver, sometimes it’s as important to watch the road as it is your speedo.

The European Union will never be the same again. Austerity measures have scalped two national governments to date, with more on the cards. The very existence of this sovereingty-sidestepping amalgamation is threatened by continuing economic instability, and if nothing changes there’s no telling how long Europe’s latest recession will last.

The Australian political system is far from perfect, but it is what it is – at least we still get a choice between two (at times) bitterly competitive parties. But round two of the global financial crisis, tentatively titled the European financial crisis, has seen a sharp devaluation not in domestic currencies, but in the importance of the principles of democracy and self-determination. Brendan O’Neill puts it well, saying the governments of Italy and Greece have been “swept aside” and replaced with “gaggles of unelected experts.”¹ What he’s referring to, of course, is the resignation of prime ministers Silvio Berlusconi and George Papandreou, of Italy and Greece respectively. This occurred under the pressure of elite EU operatives, keen on stabilising their currency (indeed, maintaining its existence) at any cost. Neither prime minister was particularly popular domestically anyway, and it’d be foolish to lay the blame wholly at the feet of an organization with partial credit for lasting peace in Europe. But it’s the aftermath of the resignations that should be of grave concern to any European who values their liberty and their vote.

When George Papandreou took the EU’s austerity measures home for a referendum, he was politically smashed by European parliamentarians. It was the last straw. Judging by the riots in Athens, the vote would almost certainly have been to reject the bailout, leaving Greece to be expelled from the Eurozone and resurrect a massively devalued currency. German and French banks would’ve had a very tough time recovering from write downs, and the European Union itself would be at risk. Good riddance to George then, right? At least the bailout holds the prospect of resurrecting growth this decade.

But a referendum is the ultimate act of democratic determination. The ensuing economic pain would no doubt have forced the government into severe austerity eventually; capital would flee to safer European nations and be very difficult to lure back. But Greece’s destiny would forever be its own, rather than that prescribed by French and German politicians. Ironic – the EU was supposed to prevent European nations from imposing their will on each other.² Their new prime minister is former vice-president of the European Union’s very own central bank, with a deputy that served as a European commissioner.³ A troupe of technocrats has taken control of the nation’s finances, and they’ve actually been forbidden from holding an election for 100 days. Any austerity measures will be aimed squarely at placating the EU, and the balance between domestic and international obligations is lost. The birthplace of democracy is looking like its death bed.

This is the stuff Greeks should take to the streets for. Who do voters punish at the ballot box should instability continue? Will they actually get to the ballot box? Who’s to say when the economy has picked up enough to warrant an election? Looking to punish they surely will be, with 20 per cent of the population’s wages coming directly from government coffers, public sector jobs will be first on the chopping block.⁴ 

But at least Greece’s technocrats are members of parliament. Italy’s new prime minister is Mario Monti, an economist and, unsurprisingly, also a former European commissioner.⁵ He was parachuted in by “designation” to deal with the economic crisis Silvio Berlusconi left in his wake. He’ll be choosing his entire ministry from outside parliament, too. Italy has become, for the time being, a technocratic state.

Are the problems that led us to this point those of capitalism or social democracy? Neither – it’s our inherent propensity to revert to defunct economics of John Maynard Keynes in hard times.⁶ Keynesian economics would stand a chance of success if governments could spend big only in hard times and save hard in big times, but politics inevitably trumps all. When administrators worldwide decided to step in and save collapsing financial institutions rather than letting investors (many, many millions of people) wear it as “raw” capitalism might instruct, the debt incurred was extreme. Nonetheless, it would’ve been tolerable to the theory of Keynes had these governments been thrifty earlier. No prizes for guessing they weren’t.

So the options were to have the finance sector fall apart and take with it sizeable chunks of the voting population, rich and poor; or the government, on behalf of the citizens, takes on a massive burden under which it may collapse. Personally, I would’ve taken the first option, despite its political unpopularity. There were certainly no signs of bank failure in Australia. Regardless, we must now realise that if we tie our money up in any sort of investment or even a simple bank account, there’s a chance that money will never be seen again. No matter how improbable such a financial collapse is in reality, we have to factor it in, rather than running palms open to the government for handouts and security, like bank deposit guarantees (not that anyone asked for that, and it was not without its unintended consequences). At least that way, when round two comes along for us (and eventually it will), they’ll have a little more cash, somewhat fewer obligations… and the total failure of a nation is a little less likely.

Victoria has joined up with most of the developed world by making it illegal to consume alcohol while driving. The traveller, a uniquely Victorian take on the beer after work, is no more. This is no doubt surprising to the many who’d assumed it was already illegal. Anyone flaunting it in front of police is likely to be over .05 anyway. The removal of such an ‘anomaly’ is a wise message to send, especially as we enter the most dangerous time of year to be driving on Victoria’s roads. But if it’s the message our state government is most concerned with, it has a whole lot of catching up to do.

Driving south-east on the M1, you only need to glance at the billboards littering the skyline to be bombarded with booze ads. They’re not just on medium density apartments, either – they hang directly above the freeway, targeting drivers. Advertising’s primary goal is to impart a message, and it probably does a better job than drivers sheltered within a car. The irony of those actually promoting drive-in bottle shops is poignant.

Speaking of, doesn’t the very existence of drive-in bottle shops send the wrong “message”? They seem to think so in the United States. Drive-ins are literally non-existent and all alcohol being transported in a vehicle must be sealed in its original package to avoid DUI charges. In Victoria, by contrast, most bottleshops have a drive-in. The drink-driving issue hit America hard, and their cultural relationship with alcohol is vastly different from ours; there’s no need for us to follow suit just yet. There will always be one or two morons who take things too far and surpass the legal limit, but the lack of an explicit drinking-while-driving law has, until now, been a testament to Victorian freedom and responsibility – no crash or new statistic triggered this change.

Small-l liberal Ted Baillieu has, in just a few short days, seen to it that this unique aspect of our state’s cultural fabric be ironed out. Nobody asked for it, and it certainly wasn’t a visible plank of any election promise. No disrespect to our premier – I voted for him and I’m a member of his party – but random, dictatorial and slightly sneaky moral crusades are not what people expect of a Liberal government. Think for a moment: plain packaging, alcopops, ‘road safety’ cameras… these are the policies of an overly concerned Labor party. If the Liberals take that path then voters are left with a pretty crappy choice: Labor, and Labor with economic management credentials.

P.S. It was never legal to drive over .05 (Actually it was, but ages ago).

The United States of America is, to repeat an Obama cliché, our most important ally. It’s been the case ever since Britain ceded control of the seas after World War II. But it’s not purely selfish; American troops aren’t just our mercenaries. Take a look at our lofty and, on occasion, futile contributions to Afghanistan. The latest development in the lasting international friendship is a troop rotation for an Army base in the Northern Territory. For six months only, every year, there will be up to 2,500 U.S. marines living on campus,¹ so to speak, just outside of Darwin. Fairfax Media participants may have been misled in that an entirely new and permanent military base was the plan.² It wasn’t. What is the plan? Training, excercises, cooperative research and development, the usual stuff nations that aren’t openly hostile to one another do.

Modern warfare is less physical than it once was. Technology and information play a greater role than military presence, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole U.A.V. thing takes over all modes of transport, civilian and military, in the visible future.³ It begs the question as to why physical military interaction between our two nations is on the rise rather than falling, if not largely for political effect. Nevertheless, it’s happening, and some of our senators are outraged. Nick Xenophon only considers the U.S. an ally under a Democratic (the party, not the concept) government. Obama is fine, apparently, but any future Republicans might be tainted with the influence of the Tea Party, the smaller-government-greater-freedom sideshow to the right-of-centre Republican Party. Nothing against Barack, but his polls aren’t looking crash hot right now, even if the Republicans don’t have a lot to oppose him with – the senator may yet have to deal with that dreaded situation. It’s just the sort of petty political argument that would destroy the decades-old alliance were Xenophon allowed anywhere near the executive levers of government. But seriously, does anyone believe the U.S. is in a position to finance more combat? Anywhere?

Bob Brown reckons this deal will compromise our chance for “independent foreign policy.”⁴ He fusses over details like how many airfields will be occupied, and whether 2,500 soldiers is actually the limit. Aside from the fact that our foreign policy will only ever be as independent as our politicians, whether there’s 2,500 troops or 250,000 troops somewhere in the N.T. will make little difference to the Australian citizen. In the grand scheme of things, it’ll also make little difference to the power of the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region, given that nations posing a threat to stability, like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, are increasingly involved in intelligence and cyber warfare.⁵ As for the argument it’ll piss China off, I’d say our oldest friends are more important than an emerging trading partner, not that any reasonable neighbor would have a problem with you and your mates hanging out in your own back yard. This is to say nothing of the fact that the American government is actually representative of its people, whereas China’s leaders lead by prohibiting democratic competition. For all we know, China’s government could be run by a couple of elitist hacks with iron fists, with the people screaming for change. We’ll never find out – the Communist Party has the media, too.

That last one is so pertinent a factor as to transition me from indifference to positive desire. With U.S. marines in our back yard, China’s two guys (or whoever really runs the show) will be annoyed, yes; but they will also be slowly coerced into adopting liberal democratic principles if they want to maintain regional trade ties. Whether or not that constitutes some sort of convoluted violation of national sovereignty ultimately matters little without local sovereignty for Chinese citizens. It would certainly be a violation of our sovereignty were China to dictate our military proceedings. The more (serious) allies in Asia the U.S. has, the fewer communist dictatorships supporting China’s government’s will and the more likely their people will eventually have a real choice. We’re hardly China’s biggest issue, either strategically or economically, so this announcement is unlikely to temper their ambition, but if it goes even some way to drawing China into the global liberal-democratic circle then it is, undeniably, a good thing.

The hate of the left wing surfaces every time the issue of war is on the agenda. Much of it is cold-war hangover from the U.S.A.’s aggressive and often reckless foreign pursuit of capitalism. Fair enough, but the world has globalised, and the international political system is now more finely tuned, rather than strictly hegemonic. While George Bush did the West no favours, there are more pressing issues toward which such hateful energy should be directed. America’s already paying heavily for its mistakes, and will be for decades. We don’t need to drive the boot in by kicking them out.

The internet has done much for the 21^st century. Citizens are no longer just consumers of information but broadcasters. It’s been difficult to accept the idea of government regulation here. Still, the fervent Labor Party hatched a plan: to keep a government finger on the pulse of the web, forever. The internet filter was born.

Sigh, politics. Won’t somebody think of the (people who aren’t) children? In 2007, the Liberal Party came up with a voluntary filter system for parents.¹ With an election campaign underway, it would’ve been rude for Kevin and the ALP not to play a game of one-upmanship. Bigger and better equals everyone and mandatory, and once again we’re saved from ourselves.

All for the spare change of $125 million. But remember, it’s “particularly for children.”² In spite of this (dubious) claim, the government must know the stigma such a course has attached to it. Why even attempt to wrap bureaucratic tendrils around the force that is the internet? It’s a vain and misguided attempt to keep the kids marginally safer. There are better ways, one or two of which might not have freedom-of-speech implications.

The 5 or 6 Australians who do intentionally view child pornography on the internet will be able to bounce off servers in other countries to get around the censorware. Given that most data traffic of that nature goes through more subversive and complicated means than a simple “http” website, that’s hardly a surprise. But Conroy and the Australian Communications and Media Authority have forged ahead regardless, developing a list of around 2000 websites (squeezed down to 1200 at last count) that will be blocked at the ISP level by law.³ Guess what: WikiLeaks made the list.⁴ Need any more proof that such controls can turn political at the drop of a hat or a stroke of the senator’s pen? Get caught providing access to blacklisted sites, even incidentally, and you face fines of $11,000 per day.⁵ That little number five puts me at risk, but it goes to show how much wider the implications are than just the blocking of illegal porn.

The cost and responsibility for implementing the scheme has been dumped on ISPs, some of whom Mr. Conroy’s been telling abject lies about in relation to their support of the policy.⁶ This means the onus will be on them to pressure search engines to restrict results that might link back to any of the banned websites (or any website that tells you what websites are banned). Not only will these pages become inaccessible through their http gateways, they’re likely to disappear entirely from search engines. Google’s default content settings already remove the worst of the results. They can be altered. Stephen Conroy’s position can’t.

Buried amongst the torrents of pornography (the majority of which, it should be said, is not of the child or animal variety) on the infamous list are things like gambling, drug and abortion websites. The instant the genre of banned websites moves away from child porn, the argument becomes completely subjective. Does a senator or government have the right to cast somewhat religious views over the whole country because they don’t like reality? Not to mention it’s completely contradictory to Conroy’s support of an R18+ rating for video games. What exactly do you stand for, Senator? We know you’ve been in discussions with the Australian Christian Lobby on this issue⁷ and your pathetic attempts to woo us with your ‘knowledge’ of the topic have failed.⁸

As someone who regularly deals with these “spams or scams that come through the portal,” it’s incredibly patronising (…matronising?) to be told by this guy that I’m too naïve for the spooky world of the internet, or that my kids would become prey without his intervention.

I make no apologies for speaking out against restrictions on the flow of information. I liken it to freedom of speech (which is essentially what it is) – the very worst of what’s out there has to be accepted with the very best. No ideas can be excluded from the information sphere if we are to evolve as a society of our own accord. As well, no politician should ever seek to control the information we use to construct identity in a high-speed, globalised world. The world of communication is complex, fascinating and massive, and has many battling schools of thought;⁹ any government or individual that says they understand this world is lying. Terrible, disgusting or otherwise abhorrent content, even if left unviewed, serves to educate us; it helps us actually define the worst segments of society in an effort to become something different. No one’s ever forced to view such pages and it’s certainly not necessary. Nonetheless, it’s important to know that the decision not to view deplorable images is our own, not the government’s.

Not only does such decision positively reinforce our identity, it’s a valuable lesson in responsibility that everyone can and indeed, should learn. John Howard was the most socially conservative prime minister we’ve ever had by his own admission,¹⁰ yet even he didn’t dare interject in such an abrasive manner à la Senator Conroy. A return to his opt-in system could give parents a handy tool in teaching some of these lessons, that is, if we really feel parents and children aren’t capable of working through these issues without it. In any case it’s somewhat comforting that the Liberal-National Coalition will block it if it’s ever synthesised in legislation, so it’s unlikely to make it through both houses of parliament. The senator’s plan would otherwise lock us in to Chinese-style regulation that will forever hold the potential for political interference.

The internet is only going to become more relevant, and if we want to be free from politicians like Stephen Conroy we might have to start proving our responsibility. A new privacy tort is a step in the wrong direction – if we want to deny secrets to our government in as many areas as possible, we should learn to live without them in some areas ourselves, or at least extend an olive branch. Surveillance is more commonplace now than at any time in our history, especially in our cities, so the reality will probably catch up with us anyway.  The internet, on the other hand, might be the last conceivable place that we’re truly free from government interference. Can we keep it that way? Please??

It started out as a Howard government initiative to extend satellite internet coverage, predominantly to the less profitable markets of regional Australia.¹ Then we turfed John in favour of Kevin07 and his $15 billion scheme, a mere 5 of it to come from the government. Then Labor cannibalised Rudd, and we are left with Stephen Conroy’s $36 billion National Broadband Network.

The network setup is called “fibre to the premises.” An optical cable will run from the end user’s house through a series of splitters and hubs into the pipes of the worldwide web. Make no mistake, the design of the network really is world class.² It’s modular, making future expansion relatively easy. Speeds will reach up to 100 megabits per second (Mb/s), with downloads approaching 10 megabytes per second (MB/s).

Cool, huh? But what do Australian households really need a 100Mb/s connection for? Given that current DSL speeds approach 15Mb/s, which is more than enough to stream full 1080p high definition video from YouTube (down, not up), I’d suggest not a whole lot. Rather, this is another example of Conroy’s cronies massively overreacting to a perceived market failure. Technically speaking, the market hasn’t failed at all – lower density areas and regional towns are by nature much more expensive to service with such infrastructure, with the difference in pricing between the cities and the regions reflecting this. Even so, the original goal way back in 2006 was simply to get affordable broadband to regional areas served only by satellite. True to type, the Labor government decided to exponentially expand this amicable objective to make sure everyone feels included.

Then comes the business model underpinning the whole thing. It’s been kept tightly under wraps until recently but we do know one or two things. Each premise connected to the network costs NBN Co Ltd just over $5,000. Given what’s involved, that’s to be expected. What isn’t is the decision to resurrect Telstra’s regressive per-unit charges for data transfer.³ This model is last decade’s lovechild of a telecommunications monopoly providing wholesale services to its competitors whilst competing at the retail level. It was always dodgy – not only is it an artificial charge not based on any actual costs, but it directly contradicts the NBN’s reason for being. If businesses and households are going to use the network, and use it to capacity (which given the scale of the project, you’d really hope was the case), how much sense does it make for entry-level retail access plans to offer a mere 30GB quota on 12Mb/s? Most suburban homes can already get such a service via DSL. The rather expensive “premium” 100Mb/s NBN plans will be relegated largely to business consumers.

But apparently the NBN doesn’t work as a business model without such charges. It was also necessary to legislate a split between Telstra’s wholesale and retail arms and then buy out their proprietary copper network, at a cost of almost $14 billion.⁴ Optus pay-TV is gone too – $1 billion. There will be savings by renting pipe tunnels and tubes from Telstra rather than purchasing them, but the increase in overheads will sort that out eventually. That’s right folks, Conroy had to buy up the competition and shut it down just so the NBN would get off the ground. 10 years ago the best we could squeeze out of a copper line was a paltry 56kb/s. Speeds have increased almost 40-fold since then, and are continually accelerating. Prematurely closing down a source of innovation in the telecommunication sector is a terrible idea in any country, but especially so where we rely on these technologies to overcome the tyranny of distance. It’s yet another exercise of picking winners in an unpredictable market.

Internet users have spent the better part of a decade waiting for the tempering of Telstra’s dominance. I was one of them. The time came and we rejoiced, only to discover it would be replaced with a monopoly the likes of which make Telstra seem insignificant. By Rudd’s own admission, it’s the “single largest nation-building infrastructure project in Australia’s history.”⁵ We all know how Labor’s big ideas tend to fall apart when it comes to implementation.^6,7,8,9,10 It’ll be a refreshing surprise if this one goes off without a hitch.

P.S. I’d take a 56kb/s dial-up connection over 100 government-filtered megabits any day. Stay tuned.