The Adventures of Max U in Crazy Land

Victorian State Election...what's all that about?

2010-10-18T11:54:00.005+11:00

Sorry for the interlude. I was completely drained by the Federal Election and have been pursuing other projects so haven't written much recently. Whilst this blog is not intended to be a politics-only blog, the Victorian Election is coming so it's likely to be my theme for the next month and a half.

What is the State Election about? The Australian Constitution (and if you remember Howard you may be forgiven for thinking otherwise) gives only limited powers to the Commonwealth. Beyond what's specifically mentioned in Section 51 of the constitution everything else is the responsibility of the six Colonies that became the States when the country formed.

Section 51 gives the Federal Parliament responsibility for
- international and interstate trade including tariffs and corporations
- national taxation (income tax but not stamp duty)
- defence
- communication services including postal and phone (hence NBN)
- marriage and divorce
- pensions and other benefits
- immigration
- the currency including "paper" money,
- banking
- weights and measures, quarantine, meteorological and astronomical observations, the census and statistics
- intellectual property
- anything else the States choose to refer to the Commonwealth

Though it seems like a long list the States are responsible for a lot of the real issues that will be debated over the coming election. The largest are health, law and order, primary and secondary education (tertiary education is a Federal Responsibility) and transport.

Other issues that are likely to emerge are planning (where the Government frequently gets involved), gambling, the state's environment plan. A lot is likely to be made of the desal plant, water management, the potential closure of the Hazelwood powerplant, public transport and myki, late-night violence and maybe the government response to the bushfires.

I sadly doubt that much will be made about a real economic issue for Victorians which is that our biggest export industry, tertiary education, is under threat from attacks on international students. Not because of the attacks themselves but because of the impression this generates in, say, India. While tertiary education is the (chronically ignored) responsibility of the Federal Government there's a lot that the State Government can do to support the major resource we have in place of mineral deposits (brown coal not withstanding).

In the realm of non-issues I'm sure we'll also see some scaremongering about the Greens holding the balance of power, some discussion of the disillusionment with people in both parties but I think, tragically, we won't see the "Kennet For Premier" speculation/fantasy that has been fun in previous years. Though, given he apparently got shot at last time, he may have a legitimate excuse.

Emails to my local members re: euthanasia

2010-09-22T19:07:00.003+10:00

The Greens, heartened by their recent success in the Federal Election seem to be sending up euthanasia private members bills like they're helium balloons at the school fete. I felt inspired to put my feelings out there and wrote the following emails to my Federal local member, Michael Danby tonight -

Dear Mr Danby,

With a debate on voluntary euthanasia heating up, I felt it was important to pass on my thoughts to you, as my local representative in Federal Parliament.

I support making it legal for a terminally-ill human, in unbearable pain, to choose to end their life painlessly with the assistance of a willing doctor. I feel that this is a debate about allowing Australians freedom over every aspect of their lives as far as it doesn't harm others.

Conservatives will argue that human life has an inherent value. I respond that quality of life has greater value and that life's value is best determined by the individual living it. As a society we shouldn't interfere with rational individuals choosing how they die any more than we interfere with them hastening their deaths through smoking, drinking too much or exercising too little.

Others will claim that euthanasia has become involuntary in other jurisdictions where it's legal. I suggest that their evidence is selective and even if Dutch legislation is flawed it only compels us to create better safeguards.

I know you're passionate about relieving the oppression and suffering of those under China's totalitarian regime. On an individual level how much more oppressive and totalitarian are the effects of terminal cancer? Terminal patients can explain their plight only briefly before they mercifully pass away which makes their need of advocates greater.

I hope in the coming debates you support the ability of Australians to make a full range of end-of-life decisions. There will be a lot of opposition from vocal minorities but the opponents are not being compelled to die or help a sufferer die, their rights are not being curtailed, they're seeking to impose their beliefs on those who don't share them and haven't chosen them.

If you'd like to discuss this or any other matter in more detail please feel free to contact me.

Kind Regards etc.

Having put together a heartfelt position I figured I could make the most of it by sending some along to my Victorian MLCs to help the local Green's motion to send the relevant Act for review with the Law Reform commission (yes, less inspiring, I know) -

Dear ,

I notice that a motion is going before the Legislative Council to refer the Medical Treatment Act to the Law Reform Commission for review. This review is going to be closely concerned with this State's position on euthanasia. As you're one the Members of the Southern Metropolitan Region where I live, I thought it was important to pass on to you my feelings on the matter of review and euthanasia.

I strongly support the review because I strongly support voluntary euthanasia. I believe it should be legal for a terminally-ill human, in unbearable pain, to choose to end their life painlessly with the assistance of a willing doctor. I feel that this is about allowing Victorians freedom over every aspect of their lives as far as it doesn't harm others.

There will be opposition to the motion from conservatives that fear the review because they know the result will be that voluntary euthanasia has popular support in Victoria and is ethically right.

These are the same people who will argue that human life has an inherent value irrespective of the popular opinion or the position of academia. I respond that quality of life has greater value and that life's value is best determined by the individual living it. As a society we shouldn't interfere with rational individuals choosing how they die any more than we interfere with them hastening their deaths through smoking, drinking too much or exercising too little.

I hope you will support the motion in the face of vocal minorities who oppose it because review is democratic and these minorities oppose an open-minded approach to euthanasia not because they will be compelled to die or help a sufferer die, not because their rights will be curtailed but because they're seeking to impose their beliefs on those who don't share them and haven't chosen them.

If you'd like to discuss this issue with me in more detail please feel free to contact me

Kind Regards etc.

Always worthwhile to get some grass-roots opinions out there. If you feel inspired to contribute to the debate, feel free to crib from my letters.

The Nope T-Shirt

2010-08-29T09:43:00.010+10:00

This is somewhat unrelated to the normal subject material of Max U but it's the easiest place to publish it. We got into silk-screen printing a while ago and when the election came around I was sent this picture, based on the Barack Obama one -

I've never done a three-colour print, let alone one with the colours sitting next to each other, like they do above. I thought I'd give it a try though, put it on a t-shirt and wear it on election night. Well, blogging and life got in the way but I finished it this weekend. This is the process (excuse the angle, I'm better at printing than photography)-

and a wide angle shot to put it in context -

Now I'm just crossing my fingers that the post election uncertainty continues for a bit so I don't look either unable to accept reality or too gloating when I wear it.

Also, I use acetate sheets for the stencils, so I could, theoretically, reproduce the shirt.

Tools for Critical Thinking: Part 1 Logical Fallacies

2010-08-27T20:03:00.004+10:00

Recently we've seen a lot of opinion flying around, especially with the election on. I want to put a few of critical tools out there to help you differentiate bad logic from good and refine your own points. There are hundreds of these, just do a search on Google, but I wanted to throw a few of my "favorites" out there.

Argument from Incredulity..."I can't believe a man could fly by flapping his arms"
This is really a failure of the speaker's imagination rather than your argument. "That contradicts the laws of physics" might be a more valid response.

Argument from Ignorance..."You haven't proven there's no invisible pink unicorn, therefore it exists"
Just because something hasn't been disproved, doesn't make it right by default. Try providing evidence that something is true rather than criticising evidence that it's not.

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence..."The Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist because there's no evidence of it's existence"
Of course, lack of evidence might imply something doesn't exist but don't make too much of that. In the example above thorough but negative sonar sweeps of the Loch are evidence of abscence.

Argument from Authority..."black holes can't exist because Einstein said they don't"
Just because an respected expert or celebrity makes an argument doesn't mean that they can't be wrong, as Einstein was. An expert is likely to be correct about their own field but arguments should be judged on their own merits.

Argument from Popularity..."50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong"
Just because an belief is popular doesn't make it right. To invoke a (false) cliche "everyone used to believe the world was flat". Much like expert opinions, popular opinions should be judged on their own merits.

Correlation doesn't prove Causation..."Greens members are more likely to smoke marijuana, therefore joining the Greens causes people to start smoking weed"
There might be a correlation between membership of the Australian Greens and using pot. It doesn't prove that one causes the other. It might imply there's a causative link but, as in this case, I'd suggest that there's a third factor, a liberal outlook, that causes both.

False Dichotomy..."You're either with us or with the terrorists"
The speaker is incorrectly stating there are only two possibilities when there are many. Of course, in this example you could be opposed to both jingoistic Americans and terrorism or completely neutral.

Straw Man Arguments..."Environmentalists want to send us back to the Stone Age so we don't use any energy"
The speaker has constructed a weak argument, that can't defend itself but still looks like the real thing and is beating it to death. Obviously they haven't addressed the actual issues but they'll claim victory anyway. Always be careful that the other side actually understands the issues before you invoke straw man.

Circular Reasoning or Begging the Question...

"the Good Book is a good book because the Good Book says it's good" - Tim
Minchin

The argument is self supporting because the starting point assumes the answer, once it's got rolling it doesn't really need any outside evidence and can keep building on its extremely unstable base. Be warned though, these can be very subtle.

Arguments from anecdotes and experience..."All the women I've dated used me, therefore all women use men"
These aren't logical fallacies per se (except as sweeping generalisations) but they constitute very weak evidence. There's absolutely no evidence that you or your experiences are "normal", average or common, even if you've compared them with your friends. You may have seen something unique, have a selective group of friends or had someone's story misreported. Aggregated experience, in the form of surveys or studies, are far more powerful.

Being aware of logical fallacies gives you a set of simple tools that can be applied to other people's beautifully crafted, but fundamentally wrong, arguments to bring them crashing down. I find it's both helpful to be aware of them and also extremely irritating when I see them deployed by people who should know better. Most of the examples you'll encounter are more subtle or mixed in together but if you want to practice recognising logical fallacies try reading through an Andrew Bolt column.

Ausvotes, The Aftermath: Katter-clysm Pt 2

2010-08-25T08:33:00.003+10:00

Last post I discussed some of my issues with Bob Katter's protectionist attitude. Here I cover some problems with his attitude to climate change and promoting ethanol fuel.

Climate change denial
The concern I have about Katter's climate change denial is it isn't based on a considered assessment of the science, comparing and contrasting the arguments and coming to the minority answer. It's an argument from personal incredulity:

"I mean, if you could imagine 20 or 30 crocodiles up there on the roof, and if all that roof was illumination, and saying that we wouldn't see anything in this room because of a few croco-roaches up there,"

Who knows how this analogy works, or what it means? I imagine that "croco-roach" is a cockroach and yes, 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide is very little.

Carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour etc. are greenhouse gases because of the shape of the molecules, there is a change in the dipole moment when struck by infrared (heat) radiation which allows them to absorb heat which they later emit to everything else. The vast majority of the gas in the atmosphere is di-atomic, N2 (78%), O2 (20.9%) and Ar (.9%), which is unaffected by infrared, but it doesn't make the carbon dioxide any less effective. The best analogy I can think of is driving a car 575 metres into a brick wall. The 575m of air doesn't do any damage but the wall certainly does. Obviously there are all sorts of other factors that influence global warming but it's not acceptable to be incredulous about the fundamental cause when you don't understand it properly.

Ethanol production
In the early part of this decade ethanol seemed like a wonderful source of energy to reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on foreign oil. A fairly simple molecule of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, common elements, you can make it out of all sorts of plants, especially potato, manioc, corn (maize) or even waste plants. Heavily subsidised in the US, production of ethanol fuel tripled between 2000 and 2007 consuming more of these valuable staple food crops and leading to a significant increase in the world food price over this period, painful for Americans, devastating for the third world. Ethanol the way the US was doing it, out of maize, is especially expensive because for every unit of fossil fuel you put in you only receive 1.3 units of ethanol fuel. It was determined that if the US turned over it's entire crop of corn (the largest in the world) to fuel it would only meet 12% of it's fuel requirements.

Bob Katter's proposal isn't as doomed as the US one was, not quite anyway. Sugar cane produces ethanol 6 times as efficiently as corn, it's how Brazil, one of the leaders in ethanol use, sources its fuel stock. It wasn't used in the US example because it requires tropical conditions to grow and, therefore couldn't allow domestic production of fuel. Australia has tropical conditions and grows a lot of sugar cane in Katter's electorate of Kennedy. It doesn't mean that we don't face the same effects of increasing biofuel production, they're just less pronounced.

If the Australian Government focuses on ethanol fuel, through subsidising ethanol and mandating a particular amount of ethanol added to fuel the price of sugar will go up. If Katter's other proposal, 15% tariff walls, is implemented the price will probably rise the same amount before international sugar surges over the tariff wall to meet our demand. All the money will be diverted from Australian drivers and consumers to the cane farmers of Kennedy, who will have done nothing to earn the windfall. If bio-ethanol is a solution to some of our greenhouse gas emissions, by all means use it, but this really is a cynical cash grab from a man who doesn't believe greenhouse gases are a problem.

I've discussed three of Bob Katter's most prominent attitudes, I also have misgivings about his concerns about the depopulation of the bush and misogyny and homophobia are never acceptable. The man represents a fine advocate for his way of life and his constituents, but his ideas on many things beyond his immediate sphere of knowledge are wrong. I'm very concerned that if he is the key negotiator for the loyalties of the three country independents that concessions will be made to his ideas and the country and the world beyond will suffer disproportionally for it.

Ausvotes, The Aftermath: Katter-clysm Pt 1

2010-08-24T09:33:00.004+10:00

This post is fairly polemical at Bob Katter, for a more balanced introduction try Carefully Scripted Remarks

Democracies are said to elect the government the people deserve and this election result seems to be no exception. My impression of the election is that both major parties were petty, venal and visionless. Judging on their past performance, rather than their display in the last eight weeks, I think Julia Gillard is the lesser of two evils, so I'm quite discomfited to see Tony Abbott with an even chance of forming Government on the decision of three independents.

I'm also quite surprised that of those three independents, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor buck my stereotypes of country MPs as socially conservative and environmentally insensitive. Bob Katter, the third, seems prepared to make up for that. He's homophobic, misogynistic, supports protectionism, is worried about the de-population of the bush, denies climate change but supports ethanol production and the idea of him controlling the country's fate is quite frightening. But lets look in detail at some of his likely points of conflict.

Banana Protectionism
Bob Katter seems very concerned about cheap bananas from the Philippines flooding the Australian market. He mentions banana diseases that aren't present in Australia being one argument and that's reasonable enough, if there's a chance that preventing the import of bananas from the Philippines will protect our crop. But the context is surrounded by an anti-free market screed complaining about Filipino workers on $9 a day. He wants 15% tariff on imports.

What's the issue with tariffs? Simple answer, more expensive bananas. If you make Filipino bananas 15% more expensive by putting an import tariff on them then Australians are forced to pay up to 15% more for bananas, wherever they come from.

It's a little more complex than that though. If the bananas are 10-15% more expensive then that's profit that goes to Australian farmers. However, there are a small section of the population that would buy a kilo of bananas at $2 but not at $2.25, because they don't like bananas quite that much. If you make it impossible for them to buy bananas at $2, they're missing out on all the benefit of eating those bananas.

And here's the first year economics graph mainly to prove I can still draw them -

Another issue is that it's not just bananas. We've worked hard as a country to lower tariffs which have given Australian's access to lots of goods produced cheaply and efficiently overseas rather than expensively, if at all, here. Free trade goes both ways and if we add a tariff to bananas then what's to stop China raising a tariff on mineral exports from here. It could do more to damage the mining sector than a RSPT.

Also, if Filipino farmers can't sell their bananas overseas they go out of business. Life for an unemployed Filipino is far worse than an unemployed Australian and their profits are no longer developing their country and raising their standard of living towards ours. If Australian farmers, with all their technology and capital, can't produce bananas more cheaply than Filipino farmers perhaps it is better that they leave the land and find a job in a mine or the service sector, etc.

In a wider argument Katter argues for Government support on the basis that if Government set up the mining, sugar, aluminium, car industries then free-market approaches must be wrong. What he doesn't acknowledge is had the Government not set up these industries other industries would have emerged, perhaps not a large but able to stand on their own feet, rather than siphoning money from all Australians into the hands of a limited few, like the 6000 banana workers he mentions. I agree that some developing industries ought to be mothered by the Government to survive but they're mature now and can't move back home because it's tough in the real world.

Of course, all this assumes that banana farmers are struggling and this isn't a cynical grab for cash by Queenslanders.

But I'm not finished here, stay tuned for Pts 2 and probably 3 of Katter-clysm

Ausvotes, The Aftermath: Proportional Success Pt 2

2010-08-23T11:17:00.005+10:00

Everyone gets very caught up in the big swings between Labor, Liberal and Green because they define the landscape of Parliament, particularly the House of Reps. But as we've seen over the last two weeks there are a myriad of smaller parties who have developed policy platforms, without any real hope of election, to put their viewpoint out there.

I find it personally interesting how the Senate race results reflect the support for some of these minor policy platforms and the fortunes of their parties. This is far better reflected in the proportional swing to and away from each party than in the raw numbers of voters so I'm going to look at the proportional change of the parties that stood in 2007 and 2010 to find winners and losers.

The parties in order of magnitude:

Liberal Democratic Party
As discussed in Part 1 they were the biggest winner in Victoria, 1588% growth thanks to Liberal confusion. In NSW they had a ten-fold, QLD twelve-fold and WA 24-fold increase!

Socialist Equality Party
The SEP had a 258% increase in their vote from 2007, I've blamed their A-Group position. In NSW Socialist Alliance had the top slot and they improved their result by 575% to the SEP's 60%.

Secular Party
A New Atheist party, the Secularists improved by 156% on 2007. Part of this is being able to put the party name on the ballot paper. You would think that the heat of New Atheism having cooled slightly may have an effect. I also wondered if the Global Atheist Convention 2010 in Melbourne, where John Perkins, party leader, spoke, had an effect but apparently not. Their vote increased by a significantly greater proportion in Queensland and WA.

Democratic Labor Party
These guys are big winners because they look headed for a Senate seat taken from the Liberals, a shift to the right. My feeling is that confusion played a role in their success as they subtly changed their name on the ballot paper to emphasise Labor.

Shooters and Fishers Party
This party doubled its vote from 2007, where it was just the Shooters Party. I think this mainly comes down to an expanded supporter base. Unfortunately there are no clear analogies in the other states. In Queensland, the Australian Shooters combined with the Fishing Party after 2007 and the new party and the Fishing and Lifestyle Party increased their vote, about as dramatically even after the merger. Attention was raised about the ALP expanding Marine Parks which may have contributed to this expansion too.

Christian Democratic Party
The CDP increased their vote by a significant 73%. This is a little more than they achieved in the other "Family First states", Queensland (50%) and SA (66%). Just speculating but in those two states Family First improved more dramatically than in Victoria so perhaps there was a Victorian backlash against Steven Fielding in particular and the religious right in general. religious right but non-Family First voters could have shifted to the CDP.

Australian Democrats
The Party with the largest shrinkage this election, the Democrats lost 70% of their vote. It was more dramatic in Victoria than in the other states but this Party is becoming less and less relevant. I imagine many progressive voters in Victoria think of the Greens as a better hope to influence the country than the Democrats, even if they are less centrist.

Citzen's Electoral Council
These crazies actually grew by 43% on 2007. Far more parties grew this election than contracted and as I'll discuss, the parties that did shrink, like the Democrats are already in their death throes. I think that there's a significant benefit to the minor parties in terms of protest votes against the homogeneous and visionless ALP and Coalition. The CEC is in a particularly good place to capture this as they sound so innocuous, this would tally with my anecdotal evidence. The 500 or so extra votes aren't genuine believers, they're just fed up with the major parties. It could be worse, in WA they tripled their vote and in Queensland it was quadruped. In the NT, where they'd benefited from donkey votes in 2007 they shrunk savagely.

The Anarchists
Joseph Toscano's vote shrunk this year by 43%. I'm not sure why. Declining ratings on CPR? More people familiar with his politics since Higgins and Melbourne Council? Genuine anarchists heeding Mark Latham's advice and leaving their ballot papers blank in protest?

The Greens
The party already has a moderately large base so expanding their votes by a third moved them from just missing a Senate seat after preferences in 2007 to having a quota in their own right. The reasons for Green success are well publicised, growing disappointment with the major parties, persistent concern about the environment, asylum seekers and gay marriage. The national share of the vote comes to 13%, around what we were polling in the last few moments of the campaign.

Carers Alliance and Socialist Alliance
These parties had 19% and 15% growth respectively. I think here we're seeing the effect of protest votes from the ALP and the Liberals, rather than any internally-driven improvement in the parties' own standing.

Senator Online
This party floundered around a bit nationally. They picked up massive relative swings in Queensland and Tasmania, thanks to coming top of the ballot. They lost votes in Victoria (-18%) and WA and gained in SA and NSW. I would have expected some sort of desertion from an idea that had underperformed in 2007 but that's obviously not the case across the board.

One Nation
Another party in their death throes in Victoria but there aren't as many alternative parties for racists as there are for ex-Democrat progressives, possibly explaining why their demise is more sedate. Nationally the party actually rallied slightly, thanks to NSW and Queensland. Maybe the beat up about the boats benefited at least one right-wing party?

Family First
As discussed above I think Family First benefited from the protest vote against the major parties but that national frustration with Steven Fielding led to some Victorians' efforts to vote him out. These factors cancelled each other out so all up, virtually the smallest proportional change over all.

Liberal and Labor
Victoria swung slightly Labor in the election so they lost less in the backlash than the Coalition did, 5% to 11%. Particularly in the Senate, two party preferred is less relevant, if not outright unpopular, thanks to John Howard. I know I had a lot of Labor voters taking the ALP HTV for the Reps and the Greens for the Senate (not that it's hard to find the box labelled "The Greens" above the line).

Ausvotes, The Aftermath: Proportional Success Pt 1

2010-08-23T09:05:00.005+10:00

As discussed above the AEC's swing really isn't very informative when it comes to how a party came by extra votes from ghost parties or lost them to new ones. Proportional improvement is also very relevant. The table below indicates the proportional improvement for each existing party based on redistributed values.

Looking at the proportional improvements there are clearly a few exogenous factors at play here too. Firstly, if you compare the Socialist Alliance with the Socialist Equality Party, from the same
2007 result (0.08%) Alliance improved by .01, ~15% while Equality improved by .20, 258%. You can probably put this down to Equality drawing position A on the Victorian Senate ballot paper, meaning in 2007 the Climate Change Coalition were probably punching a little above their weight. The ballot papers are drawn separately for each state so expect to see this advantage shared around on a national level.

Second exogenous factor, confusion. The Liberal Democratic Party improved their vote by 1.55% of the total, a fifteen-fold growth from their 2007 result! I was lucky enough to personally witness why as one of the Liberal volunteers at my booth was abused by a mother because her 18 year old daughter, voting for the first time, had got the LDP confused with the Australian Liberal Party. There may also be a small bump from observers of the UK election but you'd think anyone that political-tragic would be aware that the free-market idolising LDP are different from Nick Clegg's band. Kudos to the LDP for confusing ignorant young Liberal voters for their own advantage but I forsee a protest to the AEC.

The DLP also went from "D.L.P. - Democratic Labor Party" to "Democratic Labor Party (DLP) of Australia" not as significant as the LDP's name change but maybe a factor here, they're likely to score a seat out of it either way.

Third factor, endorsement. The Secular Party in 2007 wasn't endorsed so you had to know who John Perkins and Andrew Conway were. They got about 1200 votes. In 2010 under the name "Secular Party" they secured over twice that, indicating a benefit to having a Party name on the ballot paper. In this case there may be some other factors in play but I'll discuss those in another post

Fourth factor, amalgamation. The Shooters and Fishers are the last party with a growth of 100% of greater. This may come down to their merger with the Fishing Party and the expanded supporter base.

This is now quite long enough for a single post so I'll have another to discuss those who won and lost on their own merits.

Ausvotes, The Aftermath: The Legacy of Ghost Parties

2010-08-23T08:56:00.004+10:00

We're all familiar with the AEC's swings giving the percentage of all voters that have switched from one party to another. What they don't seem to take into account is how many voters switched from a party that no longer exists. The swing also doesn't reflect the proportional improvement to the party. A swing of one percent of total voters from the Liberals to Family First is fairly minor for the Libs but suggests that Family First have increased their appeal significantly.

I've spent a little time modifying the Victorian 2007 results to take account of several factors that would affect the expected Victorian result in 2010, ceteris paribus.

Firstly the parties that the AEC refers to as "ghost parties", that contested the 2007 election but not the 2010 election, namely the Climate Change Coalition (CCC), Conservatives for Climate Change (C4CC), Non-Custodial Parents Party, What Women Want and various independents. I assumed that the voters of the CCC would flow directly to the Greens, that C4CC would redistribute themselves to any party that was conservative or neutral and pro climate change or neutral, this included Liberal and Labor. The C4CC garnered such a small share of the vote that it made absolutely no difference. The other three groups were all redistributed proportionally between the remaining parties, therefore if the Liberals scored 39.5% of the vote in 2007, they received 40% of the ghost parties' results.

The next step was factoring in new parties cannibalising existing parties' voters. For instance the Sex Party would have cannibalised voters who were progressive or neutral but were unlikely to have stolen many Family First voters. I redistributed their votes from parties that were progressive or neutral. I also factored in the Climate Sceptics stealing votes from the Climate Change deniers or neutral parties (Labor and Liberal being neutral). The result was the table below (including the swing based on redistributed values), redistribution has mainly affected the ALP, Libs, Greens, Democrats and Shooters & Fishers.

Even though the redistributions are untested and untestable, I think they're more relevant when assessing how well or poorly each party did in the Victorian Senate race. The method is also perfectly applicable to the other states, I just used it here because I'm familiar with the parties involved.

Doing my bit for the Greens

2010-08-22T11:45:00.002+10:00

Yesterday, I handed out how-to-vote cards (HTVs) for the Greens at the Domain Polling Place, the National Herbarium, tucked away behind the Shrine on the edge of the Botanical Gardens. I can really recommend the experience.

As booth captain I was responsible for setting up the sandwich boards, the endemic Greens Triangles and the balloons. We'd been told that the major parties would be setting up from 4am so when Jane and I got there at 7am we were surprised to find the site deserted. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) were there but not a sign of the ALP or Liberals. Taking advantage of the situation we colonised as much as possible with our meagre supply of materials, padded out with 31 green balloons I'd painstakingly picked out from a mixed tub the other day.

The major parties showed up at 7:40, 20 minutes before polling started, and they were snarky as. "Don't talk to them, Mum" the ALP booth captain snarled when we tried to make pleasant, though slightly smug, conversation. Setting up their own material they were relatively respectful, though the ALP did insist on dumping their sandwich board to block ours. It's not a clever move, Greens preferences typically go to Labor, they'd have been smarter to block the Liberals and maximise both our votes.

I have to admit both groups settled down and there really wasn't much jostling, Jane and I even got to keep the spot closest to the booth entrance. It's important because when your HTV gets taken last it's usually on top, first thing the voter sees. We were all freezing in the shade of the building and eventually conversation resulted. The Greens are lucky, particularly in a Labor seat, the Liberals view us as their allies trying to bring down the incumbent, the ALP feel ideologically pre-disposed to us. The Liberal volunteers were quite happy to bag their Leader and his policies, which I found gratifying. When the Labor booth captain went on a coffee run we were offered coffee too. Jane got to play with the Liberal puppy. We shared our (mint) Tim Tams with everyone.

The voters were typically quite crusty, this being a staunch Liberal corner within a Labor seat. The blue-bloods of South Yarra would take the Liberal HTV and then squint at our proffered Greens HTV before sneering "No." Some were too polite to refuse but shuffled us to the bottom of the pile. The younger voters, many jogging the Tan or walking their pedigree puppies, were more friendly. It was always warming to watch them glare at the Liberals or better yet, to scout for us personally. No one really got any grief over their allegiance. On the subject of puppies, I suggest the Botanical Gardens raises money next election, not with a sausage sizzle (which there wasn't anyway) but by offering puppy minding while people vote.

Jane and I worked from 7am-10am before we were relieved. Everything's quite simple so I didn't need to work the day through. There were very few hiccups, a replacement turned up a little late, some of the balloons popped, but no real harm. While we were gone the booth got a visit from the ALP incumbent, Michael Danby, who completely snubbed the Greens. At the end of a two-hour shift you feel a little over it, but not so over it that it takes away your sense of achievement. When we took the last shift, the guys before us stuck around for an extra two hours.

The last shift it started raining. We were pre-prepared with green ponchos I'd spent two hours trying to buy on Thursday. The Liberals were reduced to tying their party t-shirts over their head as hoods while the ALP tried to balance umbrellas and HTVs very unsuccessfully. It was dead so we got chatting politics with the other party workers, and the Liberal candidate, Kevin Ekendahl, who also visited. I respect the man as a polished politician from the small 'l' end of the Liberals. I would happily have preferenced him if that didn't involve preferencing Abbott as Prime Minister.

The result? Melbourne Ports returned to Danby, though both major parties lost out to the Greens. We had a 6.2% swing to us. In our little booth of Domain the results were less impressive but it's a booth in an older area where votes are far more established. The Greens candidate for the House of Reps, Sue Plowright, got 20.3% of the vote, +3.5% swing. In the Senate the Greens took a quarter of the vote, only slightly down on the electorate total of 26.4%. What's more exciting, in the Domain the Greens' Senate vote beat the ALP, the first time ever for the booth and better than the result for the electorate as a whole!

I'd absolutely recommend helping out on election day. If you have no plans and you want to support a party, there's really no excuse not to give up a couple of hours. If you want to give more than that they'll probably promote you to booth captain. If you're working for the Greens you won't get much physical material to promote yourself with. Supplement it with balloons tied strategically to prove you're there. Dress in as much green as you can. The major parties are visually (and ideologically) indistinguishable on polling day in black with small badges and blue HTVs. Most importantly, go there to have fun, joke with the voters, the other workers and the polling officials, it's not personal.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2010-08-21T01:42:00.003+10:00

A brilliant man has created belowtheline.org.au for all you political junkies who aren't prepared to leave it up to your chosen party to allocate your vote, should they be eliminated. It saves you some of the angst of counting and recounting your preferences (for Victorians the answer is 60).

In imitation of Carefully Scripted Remarks I offer you my preference flows and if you've been following us you'll know we're a little more informed than the less-obsessed on who to vote for.

The Bad

56-60 Family First - Won't someone please think of the children!
This party is my antithesis: they're barely concealed Christian Fundamentalist, I'm a proud atheist, they're concerned about families and children, I'm a DINKs guy who resents subsidising other peoples' life choices. They're anti-climate change, homophobic, anti-choice, pro-censorship and conservative. I'm an environmentalist, pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, pro-free speech and progressive. Steven Fielding is an especially stupid man so I've preferenced them in reverse order.

55 Stephen Conroy - Internet Censorship isn't just for China
I know Steven Conroy is the patsy for the Internet filter and as second on the Labor ballot will almost certainly get back in, but this is my protest against censorship and throttling our Internet with a completely ineffectual filter. The Government should protect children by enforcing our existing laws and helping parents take responsibility for what their children are browsing.

53-54 Christian Democratic Party - Theocrats R us
There's very little that makes this party "better" than Family First, other than that they are openly theocratic, won't get much of a vote in Victoria and haven't exploited the balance of power for the last three years to prevent action on climate change etc. That said, they quote the Bible in their Constitution . Their economic policies are also slightly less distorted than Family First.

51-52 One Nation - I studied these nut-bars so you don't have to
I find racism as repellent as religious bigotry but these guys are just tragic. I'm not sure if racism is dying out or more mainstream in Australia, the major parties make it confusing, but either way we don't have to fight it as hard or we can't fight it at all. One Nation's policy proposals are appalling but you can't expect much from such an amateur operation.

48-50 Democratic Labour Party - Reviving Australia's Golden Age, the 1950s
Jane stopped looking at this party after reading the second line of their policies and I think that's fair. The 1950s were a wonderful time but mainly in comparison to the 1930s and 1940s, I wouldn't want to go back there socially or economically. They're radically conservative, pushing "Christian" values which aren't always good. They made it this high because the other parties are so terrible, not because they're any good.

46-47 Climate Sceptics - Fingers in ears, "la-la-la", as the rising sea reaches their knees
Scepticism is good, evaluating arguments with reason and evidence, it's part of good science and scholarship. Climate scepticism is making arguments in spite of reason and evidence. There is scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change and the need to reduce emissions. Just because your single year of tertiary science doesn't allow you to understand isn't enough to imagine an enormous lefty conspiracy. These attitudes are dangerous to those who will be most
affected by global warming.

44-45 Citizens Electoral Council - Dear old Lizzie's pushing pot
These guys are unhinged loons, they should be counselled and released into society under close supervision. Thankfully everybody else sees that too. I can't put them any lower, they'd take up worthless spots others deserve more.

42-43 Shooters and Fishers - Fighting for the right to arm bears
It seems the Fishers here are a nice bunch of chaps who don't want the Government to interfere with their hobby, a little misguided about the Greens but alright. The Shooters are rednecks acting under the misapprehension that they're in Kentucky. You don't have a right to bear arms, guns are exciting but even Shooters should be able to think of people whose access to firearms they'd like to control, including fellow Shooters.

38-41 The Liberal/Nationals - Please, just dump Abbott!
I'm a small 'l' liberal and I think there's a lot of merit to the idea of maximising freedoms and growing the economy. I know there are lots of members of the Liberal party who agree with me. Unfortunately, they're overshadowed by the conservatives and people who believe the bush should come first. I think that among my acquaintances a majority would re-evaluate the Libs if Turnbull was leader again. Tragically, it's not to be so the Liberal/Nationals round out The Bad.

The Ugly
36-37 Ungrouped AKA Grant Beale and who? Glenn Shea?
While I'm sceptical of party politics I'm even more sceptical of Independents who don't seem to have an ideology or platform. I don't know these guys personally, how can I trust how they'll vote? Grant Beale has a strike against him because he's anti-Green, not that you'd know it for all the publicity he's generating. Glenn Shea, it was revealed in breaking news tonight, is an Aboriginal activist but given it's taken six weeks to discover that I'm not sure about the "active" element.

34-35 Socialist Equality Party - The People's Front of Judea
I think Socialism is a nice idea and all, if humans weren't so, well, human. Beyond the economics they have some nice social ideas so they're not amongst The Bad. The Socialist Equality party, comes second because I once lived with a guy in Socialist Alliance. Nothing personal.

31-33 Socialist Alliance - The Judean People's Front
As for the SEP, but bonus marks because Chris was a nice guy.

28-30 Joey Toscano and Co. - Anarchism, not what you think
I have the same misgivings about Anarchism that I have about Socialism, namely humans ruin a nice idea, though at least with Anarchism I get more liberties.

24-27 Australian Labor Party - So much potential squandered
The ALP wind up in The Ugly because that's what their performance has been, policy as well as politics. I don't have an axe to grind over Rudd, he wasn't getting the job done, but Gillard didn't do any better. They had a mandate for the ETS that was ignored, they're exploiting the latent racism of bogans and they're not providing genuine progressive policies. At the moment they're a preferable alternative to Abbott's Liberals but that's it.

22-23 Building Australia - By Builders, For Builders
I'd love more detail on this party's policies but I like the concept of improving the business environment for the construction industry. They're ranked above Labor for their potential but I reserve the right to knock them down in future elections if they're too self-interested.

20-21 Stephen Mayne - If it worked for Nick Xenophon...
Mayne's anti-pokies policy is one I'd support if I thought about it, I also see the advantage of (qualified) additional immigration and more diverse company boards. I don't think that monopolising a Senate seat for six years is the most efficient way to achieve these objectives and I have the same misgivings about Mayne that I expressed for Beale and that other guy.

18-19 The Carers Alliance - The caring single-issue party
This is a party to raise awareness of carers' issues, not to reshape the country in the image of carers. I'm interested in the National Disability Insurance scheme and I'm glad it's been referred to the Productivity Commission. A lot of their other policies make sense. I don't think they need a seat in the Senate which is why they don't make The Good.

The Good - AKA people I don't mind in the Senate

16-17 Senator Online - What do I think?
I really like the SOL concept, I'm pretty sure that came through in my post. I'm a little worried that there's no information improving the decisions being made, it's relying on the involvement of the voters which isn't always terribly evident. I want to rank them higher but have to take into account the lowest common denominator.

14-15 Liberal Democrats - Free-dom!
When discussing radical political philosophies libertarianism makes more sense to me which is why this party ranks higher than the Socialists. It's not an unqualified advocacy and I still have some concerns about how far this party pushes the envelope. I think if they had complete control we could have some inequalities and friction that would harm the national utility but I could imagine having one of their candidates in the Senate.

11-13 The Australian Sex Party - NOT the More Sex Party
The ASP are a great progressive party on a narrow band of important issues that I agree with. I'm not as concerned about sexual freedom as I am about the environment or secularism so these don't make it into my top three. It also doesn't help them that the Greens, Democrats and Secular Party offer me all of the freedoms I support while also having an economic, environment and broad social policy.

The top three, in no especial order

The Secular Party
Having the well developed sense of persecution that most New Atheists share, secular issues are important to me. I see any of the freedoms I support being curtailed by the religious right. I'm also heartened that they have good policies on other issues like the environment. The Secular Party offers a remedy to the malign influence of conservative religions. I'm not completely enamored with their leadership and wouldn't want them to control the Senate but I think they deserve votes.

The Democrats
This party represents a real balance between my social, economic and environmental positions. Unfortunately the party is essentially defunct which means I'd rather join and vote for a party that can take action by being in Parliament. We need action on climate change and social liberty now, not when the Democrats have managed to scrape together enough candidates to have another go.

The Greens
I'm a proud member of the Greens. They're the party that I think is most likely to get the laws made that I support. I agree with their position that the original ETS didn't go far enough and they were right to hold out for more, given the circumstances at the time. They have solid social policies. I think that as they transition to a major party they'll need to adopt more responsible economic policies, closer to the right, but that's why I've joined at what I think is a critical point in their existence.

Meet the Candidates: Family First

2010-08-20T16:30:00.004+10:00

Family First exists "because families are the most important thing in our lives and no other party gives families top priority". They were founded in 2002 in South Australia and have a Senator, Victorian Steven Fielding, who was elected in 2004 due to some extremely fortunate (or as many have argued, regrettable) preference deals with Labor, with less than 2% of the vote. They are deeply involved with conservative Christianity, while nominally on-denominational.

Philosophy

Family First is a socially conservative and believe that families are the building blocks of society. They feel raising a family is challenging and that something should be done to reduce the "crippling" number of family breakdowns. They claim to represent commonsense and mainstream values. Family First defines a family in terms of grandparents, mum, dad and their children, they believe that the best environment for children is with a mother and a father. Family First are also pro-small business, because of that sector's close affiliation with families. In spite of a broad range of policies advocating Government intervention they want small government.

Policies

Economic Policies

Family First want to reorganise the tax system to raise the tax-free threshold to at least $13,000, a subsistence level, and then higher based on the number of children in the family. They want to reduce the petrol excise as they argue it has a disproportionate effect on those in the suburbs and regional areas.

The party is passionate about reducing bank fees and penalties to cost-recovery levels and forcing the banks to offer credit cards that don't allow cardholders to exceed their limit. They want all Australians to have access to fast, affordable broadband, irrespective of geography, but their wording suggests they oppose the NBN as a reckless misuse of taxpayer dollars. They're concerned about the Government's attitude to Telstra reducing the value of its shares but maintain that the Universal Service Obligation should continue to exist and Telstra should offer fairer wholesale prices. They cite figures that paint an unfortunate picture of our communications network, relative to the rest of the OECD. They want mandatory filtering of the Internet at the ISP level to "prevent porn peddlers from accessing children and adolescents", funded by a levy on all end users, irrespective of whether they have children or want their Internet porn cut.

Industrial Relations Policies and Small Business Policies

"Parents in the paid workforce are parents first and workers second". Family First advocates "more jobs and higher wages", which economics tells us is quite achievable with higher inflation. They remind voters that they voted out Work Choices and amended the Fair Work Act "to help protect small businesses against the threat of union bullying and intimidation". They also introduced legislation to give penalties of at least time-and-a-half for days in lieu of public holidays, overtime and "anti-family hours". Family First stand for job security and minimum working conditions, including overtime.

Family First support small business, they want a "genuine level playing field" and incentives and assistance for small business owners, including reduced bureaucracy. Again they tout their record here, introducing legislation to strengthen ACCC powers to stop mergers and predatory pricing. That said, their actual policies for creating the "genuine level playing field" are a little thin on the ground.

Environment Policies

Family First's outlook on the environment involves mothering statements about the importance of preserving the environment for generations to come. They don't believe that the science of climate change has been settled, oppose introducing an ETS until "the big emitters of the US, China, India and Brazil" sign up to a deal. Their position on a carbon price is that the cost shouldn't be borne by families, either directly or indirectly through their employment, they use frightening phrases like "financial ruin" to discuss the plight of low income families faced with a price on carbon. They suggest that any revenue from the sale of carbon permits should go to subsidise families' power bills and help make the transition to energy efficiency.

Their affirmative policies include a container deposit scheme (think SA's bottle return scheme), adopting European car emissions standards with assistance to help our car industry make the transition, Federal Government investment in public transport, a broader efficiency rating system for home appliances and more dams for water storage.

Family First's water policy is concerned that government is failing to provide water and is shifting the cost on to consumers, in the form of water markets that benefit "big business farms" who have more cash to spend on water. They're unhappy that the Government is helping farmers leave the land through water buy-backs which damage local economies. They don't want the water needs of the regions to come second to the major cities. Their solution to the shortage of water is more dams and large scale infrastructure projects to help irrigators irrigate more efficiently. Environmental flows in the rivers they intend to dam is only briefly discussed.

Family Friendly Policies

Family First want to introduce Family Impact Statements to law making based on principles that privilege families in society and assume heterosexual two-married-parent nuclear families. Family First are concerned about the 40% failure rate of marriage, especially for their effects on children, though they do admit that less than half involve minors. They recommend a national scheme of Family Relationship Centres to mediate rather than litigate in the event of divorce, however, they'd prefer to have more focus on preventative measures, not that they list any. They believe that the courts should assume that children of divorced parents will reside with both parents.

The party believes that stay-at-home parents have the toughest and most important job of all. They want family policy to be child-focused (rather than adult- or market-focused). They're concerned that societal opinions and actions don't reflect this, and say so in lots of mothering statements. Their solution is to establish community self-help groups and telephone advise lines.

Family First also want a "$10,000 Bumper Baby Bonus, to encourage more children", but this is for the third and subsequent child. Family First's "Bumper Baby Bonus" is slightly less than what the ALP is offering in paid parental leave for every child. Family First discusses paid parental leave and support it as long as it doesn't contradict some of their other positions like the importance of stay-at-home mums or their misgivings about child-care for children in their first two years.

Health Policies

The party's position on health is interesting in that they share a Greens policy, universal affordable and accessible dental health. They want the Medicare system reevaluated to focus on affordability, not just choice. They propose increasing the number of medical places and increasing focus on mental and children's health.

Family First want to curb binge-drinking, they'll do this with a zero-tolerance attitude, establishing an equivalent body to the TAC or QUIT, health warnings on bottles and stringent restrictions on advertising and sales.

Education Policies

Family First believes "parents are the most important teachers of their children". They advocate choice between government and non-government schools and that schools should be accountable to parents. Both types must be funded according to need, taking into account the incomes of local parents. They believe in equal funding for children with disabilities in private and public schools. They believe the current costs to students of going to university are unreasonable and that access should be based on merit, not ability to pay.

Social Policies

Family First is opposed to abortion and wants to increase support for women who choose to have an abortion due to financial and emotional reasons. They're opposed to euthanasia but completely misunderstand the community debate; suggesting it's being advocated as a solution to suicidal thoughts, bereavement, mental illness or job-loss, rather than as a choice for those suffering from excruciating, terminal and incurable disease to die with dignity. They believe that palliative care is sufficient.

The party opposes the cloning of embryos for research as they are "new human beings". They argue that no cures have been found using embryonic stem cells and therefore we should keep to adult stem cells, in spite of scientific evidence that embryonic stem cell research will be more fruitful once it has overcome this exact form of hampering.

Family First is opposed to softening the Government's stance on drugs, they're opposed to harm-minimisation, including free heroin to addicts, injecting rooms and abolishing penalties for possession. Their preferred message is that drug use will never be tolerated. They want more money spent on rehabilitation and more Alcoholics-Anonymous style programs.

Family First's position on Aboriginal affairs pushes for more funding for health and education but places the responsibility on parents to see that children attend on the threat of having their welfare quarantined. Medical students will have their HECs debt abolished in exchange for two years service in Aboriginal communities. Binge drinking is seen as an especial problem in Aboriginal communities and Family First have some additional measures to address that. They also support home ownership for Aborigines to lead to "house-proud families and better communities".

Preferences

Family First preferences the Christian Democratic Party, followed by the Climate Sceptics, in a fairly telling demonstration of their ideology. Their preferences then flow through the minor conservative parties to the Liberal/Nationals. Based on their 2007 performance the minor parties they preference probably won't see any advantage as Family First will be eliminated well after them. Family First has done well in preferences from the minor conservatives but their greatest advantage is that they're directly preferenced by the Liberal/Nationals which may give them a great boost.

Prospects

This has been supplied by Steven of Carefully Scripted remarks, he does have the gift of psephology. Family First have a similar chance to the DLP in Victoria. They'll need to gain their quota from a combination of their own vote the Democratic Labor Party and the remainder of the Liberal/Nationals 3rd quota. Unless they can get up towards 7% or so themselves they’ll need the Coalition to fall to about 35%. It's unlikely.
In Queensland Wendy Francis, in spite of her high profile won't be elected unless there's a dramatic change in her own and the Coalition's vote. In SA, Family First's state of origin, the situation is dicey as Nick Xenophon's full quota could go anywhere, especially given he hasn't endorsed any other candidates. The Family First candidate has deep pockets and could do well.

In NSW and WA the CDP will do better than Family First and Tasmania is unlikely to see a CDP member elected.

In the long term the prospects of the party depend on how this election pans out. If they have no parliamentary representation they may languish as other minor parties have in the past. If the Liberals lose and shift back towards the left Family First may pick up some of their old conservative supporters, prominent Liberals have a history of jumping to the minor right parties. If the Liberals win and continue right they'd have to erode the Family First support base.

Tony Abbott: Categorically unfit to govern

2010-08-17T18:29:00.004+10:00

Last night on the ABC's Q & A Tony Abbott demonstrated, once again, why he is literally unfit to lead this country. Each election we form opinions on who would be our preferred PM. We also all have misgivings about each of the candidates, past and present, Howard, Rudd, Nelson (remember him?), Turnbull, Gillard and Brown. This goes beyond that, Abbott ought to be disqualified by who he is.

Tony Abbott doesn't understand Australia's business environment

Tony Abbott: ...most of the people who you see making use of these services at the moment are doing it via wireless technology. I mean, all of the people who are using their Blackberries or their iPhones for Facebook.

I completely accept that the number of new connections to wireless Internet are greater than the number of new connections to the physical network. It's being driven by the phenomenal take-up of smart phones in the last 3 years. But smart phones aren't how Australian business delivers IT products, smart phones aren't how Australian workers telecommute and or where people study, research and engage with the online world.

Technology companies need faster connections so they can deliver a better product faster in a world where other countries who have been blessed with denser population rates (and therefore cheaper roll out) are installing this technology already.

No matter how fast wireless gets, and Tony Abbott's been told he's ignoring the laws of physics with his proposal, we will eventually reach a bottleneck where our firms can't get the same quality product out. To borrow another analogy from Q&A we could have built a national tram network rather than a national train network, and that would be acceptable for people taking a jaunt into town or down to the beach, but there's no way all the commuters would get to work or every Australian firm could get it's goods to the stores and the ports and on to the wider world.

Tony Abbott doesn't understand economics

Tony Abbott: ...we do have policy out there...it involves going to the market and buying abatements through soil carbon, through tree planting, through businesses that are prepared to change their processes to less emitting ones. It will reduce our emissions by five per cent by 2020, so we will achieve our targets

The fundamental problem with Abbott's "policy" comes from first year economics: "people respond to incentives". Under Abbott's scheme the tax payers are buying the abatements so the burden of offsetting our emissions is spread equally over those who try to live low carbon lives and those who don't care.

If I'm running a polluting business what incentive do I have to keep my pollution low, let alone reduce it? It's a little costly, tax-wise, but far far less costly than if the other, cleaner companies and all Australians share some of the load. No one has to pay for their pollution directly so everyone can run up a massive bill in abatements which gets shared around equally at the end of the year, for those who ordered the lobster and those who ordered just salad. Tony Abbott's scheme will cost everyone more than if we all pay our share now and start making the reductions because no one will emit more than they can afford and some will recognise the savings.

Tony Abbott scorns science

Tony Jones: ...if you don't believe that the biggest element of this is human induced...what is your theory as to what it is? Is it warming due to sunspots, cosmic rays? I mean these are the two other theories that are prominent.

Tony Abbott: Alien invaders. I mean come on start putting some more propositions to me, Tony.

It's was fairly obvious Tony Abbott is in some degree of denial about climate change, even if it's just to the extent that humans contribute to global warming. What concerns me is that Tony Jones put two other real scientific theories, however implausible, and Tony Abbott laughed it off as a joke. Respect the science. People have spent their lives studying these phenomena, if you're going to disagree with them you're obligated to give them the consideration they deserve and treat their theories with respect unless you can summon a more plausible response. Your ignorance of science doesn't make it go away. Gravity didn't suddenly come into effect the day we covered Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation in Year 9.

If you don't believe as Tony Abbott does, you have no beliefs

Tony Abbott: I don't think that my particular religious convictions should be held against me in this campaign any more than the prime minister's lack of convictions should be held against her

The Prime Minister, like all atheists, has a religious conviction that there is no God. Not only was Abbott lying about the Prime Minister's convictions he was implying that Gillard has no convictions, that she can't be trusted, can't act morally, etc. If anything, in a nominally religious country Julia Gillard's convictions must be greater. Without a Book to tell her how to behave, based on the circumstances of a desert tribe 3000 years ago, her morality is more sophisticated and more relevant to the modern problems we face. Without the fear of eternal damnation Gillard's moral behaviour is more admirable than someone who's frightened into acting with respect and compassion to his fellow humans.

Tony Abbott doesn't have an alternative understanding of economics, he has no understanding of economics. He doesn't understand the situations real Australians face. He isn't respecting minority scientific opinions, he doesn't respect any scientific opinions. Tony Abbott doesn't hold a different moral paradigm, he disregards all other moral paradigms. This man is not suitable to lead anyone anywhere, let alone 20 million Australians in the 21st century.

And Mr Rabbit, what is a "tertiary hospital"?

Meet the Candidates: One Nation

2010-08-16T11:56:00.004+10:00

One Nation is Australia's troubled far-right nationalist party, founded by Pauline Hanson (with Davids Oldfield and Ettridge) in 1997. The party's racist anti-immigration and anti-Aboriginal policies caused conniptions amongst the established parties as they worried that this reflected a significant proportion of the public wanted and how that was playing overseas. After winning 22.7% of the vote in the 1998 Queensland state election the party destroyed itself with internal struggles and law suits attacking irregularities in their electoral registration. Their electoral results slumped but they lingered on. With Hanson having left politics and the country the notoriety the party had has gone too.

Previous results
The high water mark for One Nation was in the 1998 Queensland state election, in the same year the party secured 9% of the national Senate vote in the Federal election and got a candidate in. By 2001 they were down to 5.5% of the vote, 2004 it was 1.7% (3.4% in Qld, less than Hanson's own ticket). In 2007 One Nation reaped 0.4% nationally and 0.17% in Queensland, though again, Pauline Hanson was running against them. In Victoria One Nation scored 0.72% in 2004 and 0.42% in 2007.

Policies
One Nation supports education based on the three Rs, will institute aptitude testing to direct students studies and add subjects on "Christian Values, Patriotism and Morality." They believe in universal health care, reinstating elected public hospital boards and public funding of GPs' consultation fees.

They'd like to re-industrualise Australia, training Australians rather than importing skills, cancelling our free trade agreements so we can (sic) "compete on truly level playing field". For One Nation "globalisation means Australians giving up their country and we oppose it" Further they are committed to removing the effect of OPEC, foreign exchange and excise taxes from the price of energy "we will control our energy resources...and provide nation wide uniform fuel pricing". They also want to stop farmers leaving the land and reinvigorate our rural sector. GMO crops will be banned.

One Nation want to develop cleaner energy technologies, retreat from Kyoto etc agreements, which are a "disaster of international pseudoscience, and dangerously interfere in the climate system." They oppose a carbon tax, declare carbon dioxide harmless, and feel that only three politicians understand the real threats from climate change, Martin Ferguson (ALP), Barnaby Joyce (Nats) and Steve Fielding (FF). One Nation's main environmental concern is fixing salinity and "Watering Australia"

One Nation are tough on all crime, have zero tolerance for drug use and will cease free needle distribution "and other forms of encouragement". They will ensure that (sic)"its the criminal that suffers not the victims, and people have the right to defend their property..." They'll restore the authority of the family, "eroded by frivolous legislation [and] UN treaties".

Multiculturalism and the Racial Discrimination Act will be abolished under One Nation. They want zero net migration with the right to discriminate to protect our economy, social cohesion and cultural heritage. Immigrants must assimilate and embrace Australian cultural values, lifestyle and language.

"Australians of mature age" will be classified as seniors and will all receive a full pension and free health care if they've contributed to social security. They will be encouraged to supplement their income in retirement. One Nation also advocates Citizens Initiated Referenda and a people's bank. They'd also like to replace all taxation with a Debit Tax of 1% collected on each bank transaction. They believe it will triple government revenue with no apparent ill effects.

Preferences
One Nation's preferences are directed through the conservative minor parties first, starting with the DLP. Family First rates just below the anarchists. They've preferenced the Liberal Nationals first of the major parties, just behind the Sex Party. Their vote last election hadn't fallen to completely insignificant levels in Victoria but the trend has been downwards.

Prospects
I'd like to think One Nation still hasn't reached its nadir. Their vote has trended dramatically downwards for the three elections as they've become increasingly irrelevant. Judging by their website they ran out of money and professional assistance in the early part of this decade, you'd be forgiven for assuming it was hosted by Geocities. That said, their brand is stronger than their product and there aren't any new far-right parties contesting this election so maybe their last few rusted on supporters will get out and vote for them.

Meet the Candidates*: Senator Online

2010-08-16T09:03:00.007+10:00

*A tour of the minor parties and their policies, in conjunction with Carefully Scripted Remarks

Senator Online (SOL) is an attempt to introduce direct democracy to a country as large as Australia through the Internet. Their Senators will be compelled to vote according to the results of an online poll conducted on each piece of legislation. They justify the Internet as a medium because 80% of Australians have Internet access through home or work. SOL contested the 2007 Senate election and are standing in all six states in 2010. They are only interested in the running Senate candidates as the Senate is a "House of Review", where the people can take the time to consider and vote on each bill.

Previous Results
In 2007 SOL stood candidates in the 5 mainland states and took an average of 0.06% of the vote. Their result peaked in Victoria where they took 0.1% of first preferences.

Policies
SOL doesn't have policies. Their procedure is that each bill will be polled on their website. Australians on the electoral roll can create an account and cast their personal vote on the bill before the Senate, which can be changed up to the Senate ballot. If there are 100,000 votes cast with a 70% majority this would indicate a mandate for the SOL member to vote that way. If those totals aren't reached a clear majority will be taken as a mandate. If there's no mandate the Senator will abstain. These are done on a state by state basis so it will be possible to have two SOL senators voting against each other on, for instance, the RSPT. Their FAQs also detail the safeguards they'll have in place, the procedure seems credible.

There is also a process for proposing laws that have the endorsement of 10,000 electors so I can see their Senators tackling issues the major parties won't touch or aren't aware of.

I notice there's no attention given to informing voters how each Bill will affect the economy, the environment or society, which I feel throws doubt on whether their brand of direct democracy will be truly effective.

Preferences
SOL have done preference deals that informed their flows for the minor parties and have placed the major parties last. They bitterly comment that not all their preference deals were respected by the minor parties. With the major parties they rotate the order across the state tickets to maintain their neutrality. In Victoria their preferences may help Family First or the Sex Party but will ultimately run into the ALP.

Prospects
This is by far the most viable form of direct democracy I've seen and harnesses the enormous power of the Internet for collective action. I wouldn't be surprised, as acceptance of the Internet and disenchantment with the major parties increases, if their vote increases this year and onwards. That said, they don't have the support or the preferences to get a Senator up so it will continue to be a theory for a long time yet. Perhaps their chances would be better if they named themselves iSenator?

Meet the Candidates: Building Australia

2010-08-15T21:22:00.005+10:00

The Building Australia party is a new political party emerging out of the construction sector to advocate for the industry. They were only registered this year and are standing candidates for the Senate in NSW, Victoria and SA as well as three Lower House seats. As well as focussing on building industry concerns they support commonsense, a bipartisan approach to policy and reducing waste and regulation.

Policy
Building Australia's policy platform is to increase affordable housing by standardising regulations and reducing council building approval times. They want to reduce "overregulation" through an Independent Building Commission. Council building approval is onerous and the construction regulations maybe bureacratic but their policy page (and it is only one page) doesn't discuss specifics so it's difficult to assess whether their objectives will benefit society at large or just the building sector. They also want to reform Home Owners Warranty Insurance to make it more comprehensible.

Addressing the interests of the construction sector Building Australia wants to introduce an industry based Workers Compensation Scheme, at present this is implemented through the major insurers and regulated by Work Cover. They want the government to increase the number of trainee and apprentice positions. They also want to reform licensing and registrations "to be a recognition of skills, not just a form of consumer protection", again there are no details but I imagine that it involves raising the bar on registration to reflect skills and experience.

Preferences
The preference flow of Building Australia is quite novel, their first and second preferences go to the first candidate of the Democratic Labor Party and the Liberal Democratic Party respectively. Neither party has preferenced them especially highly. They preference Family First above the ALP, but there's no ideological pattern to their preference flow.

Prospects
The construction sector employs nearly a million of the 14 million voters, more, if you consider partners and adult children, so it's a significant constituency. However, this party has neither the profile or the breadth to adequately attract their votes, particularly when the influential CFMEU supports the Labor party so strongly. I doubt that this party will manage to collect more than half a percentage point in any of its Senate races, or have a significant effect on any of the parties.

Meet the Candidates: Christian Democratic Party

2010-08-14T20:19:00.004+10:00

Led by Fred Nile, the Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) (CDP), describe themselves as "the only national Christian political party in Australia", their mission is to "ensure that all legislation is brought into conformity with the revealed will of God in the Holy Bible". The party has had at least one member in the NSW Upper House since 1981.

Philosophy
The CDP are avowedly Christian and believe that Australia is a "Christan Commonwealth". They "believe the Holy Bible to be the inspired, inerrant, written Word of God and the final authority above all man's laws and government" and that government should be under the authority of God, that "decision-making processes by civil government must not contravene Biblical ethics". They're "pro-family, pro-child, pro-moral, pro-life, and pro-Australian". Their outlook could be defined as theocratic, where God is recognised as the ruler of the state.

Previous Results
The CDP's home base is NSW and it's there they do best in the polls. In 2007 they took just less than 2% of the NSW Senate vote, down from their 2004 Federal Election result where they attained 2.6% and only just missed out on a seat. In WA they took 1.76% of the vote. In Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, where Family First managed more than 2% of the vote, the CDP failed to achieve much more than a quarter of one percent. In the last NSW state ballot (2007) the CDP took 4.4% of first preferences.

Policies
The CDP website lists their 2007 policy platform, their 2010 policy platform is "in its final stages of preparation".

Economic policy
The Christian Democratic Party has a fairly middle of the road economic policy, supporting a balanced budget over the cycle, they recognise that the government should provide health, prison and communication services but notably not education. They want to move to a subsistence level tax-free threshold and a 30% top tax bracket, indexation and a home-makes grant to prevent both parents having to work. They accept that "a degree of protectionism is often warranted" from cheap labour in developing nations. They want the government to encourage executive salary restraints and social obligations in the corporations they deal with. The CDP want to broaden the definition of GDP to include volunteerism and housework. They're also opposed to Sunday trading.

Education policy
Choice is the watch-word of the CDP, they believe all parents should have "the right to choose the school for their children that supports the beliefs, traditions and values of their home life" and advocate investigating a voucher system for school funding. All schools should have chaplains and no school should be "used for social engineering experiments such as the promotion of alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality". Sex education should omit safe sex and teach abstinence only and fidelity within marriage.

Health policy
The CDP advocate a "zero-tolerance approach" to illicit drugs, a national Alcohol Advertising Code. They oppose euthanasia and abortion, wanting to remove the Medicare rebate and offer pro-life counselling. Infanticide by omission (for instance, in critically ill new-borns) should be illegal. Due to the number of fertile embryos that are discarded or fail the CDP has misgivings about IVF, even for infertile married couples. They claim the major cause of HIV transmission is homosexuality and sex education should be changed to reflect this. They support the Government assisting in the provision of essential dental expenses. The CDP also wish to increase the number of student places and scholarships in health and also the immigration of "well qualified medical practitioners and nurses from other English-speaking countries".

Environment Policy
Presenting the climate change debate as equally balanced between two groups of reputable scientists, the CDP remains agnostic. They refuse to commit themselves to a course of action which would damage the economy "if the hoped-for benefits to the environment are uncertain or disproportionately costly", for instance signing the Kyoto Protocol or an ETS. They call for a "more balanced media treatment" of climate change. They would like sustainable forestry and a program to deal with agricultural salinity.

Social Policies
The CDP support mandatory detention and want to prioritise refugees most likely to integrate into Australian life, i.e. persecuted Christians. They would like a ten year moratorium on Islamic immigration which they see as part of a plan to Islamicise Australia. They're opposed to an R rating for video games, support an ISP-level Internet filter to filter anything above an MA15+ rating. They want to privilege the ability of the Christian Church to spread its beliefs in Australia and for Christians to fully exercises their beliefs (they give the example of refusing to rent to a homosexual couple). In the past Fred Nile has called for the repeal of the homosexual anti-vilification law. He's also introduced a private members bill in the NSW Legislative Council to ban the burqa. The CDP oppose recognising sharia or traditional Indigenous law.

Preferences
In Victoria the CDP preferences the DLP, followed by Family First, Climate Sceptics and the Liberal/Nationals. The Greens and Sex Party come last. Surprisingly, the Secular Party comes above the Democrats and the Socialists. In NSW they directly preference the Liberal/Nationals and in WA they preference a dozen unnamed candidates before their preferences go to the Climate Sceptics. In NSW their preferencing of the Liberals and Nationals might be quite valuable to one of that party lower-ranked candidates dependent on when they're are eliminated.

Prospects
For their part the CDP receive the preferences of the Liberal/Nationals and the Shooters and Fishers and, after a few minor parties, the DLP, meaning they could potentially do quite well in this Federal NSW Senate race. There are some factors that may point to a long-term decline for the CDP, recently there has been some disorder in the ranks and the Niles are not getting any younger, also Family First, a less radical and potentially more palatable party, has been getting more coverage and may begin to erode the CDP's party base in NSW and WA.

Meet the Candidates: The Secular Party of Australia

2010-08-12T23:40:00.004+10:00

The Secular Party of Australia (SPA) is a relatively new party in the landscape of Australian politics and while they formed in 2005 and stood candidates in 2007, they were only able to officially register as a party in June 2010. They're a direct result of New Atheism in Australia and stand in opposition to Family First and the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL).

Philosophy
Secularism is the belief in a public space free of religious influence. The Secular Party claims the Humanist ideals of the Enlightenment, "finding human solutions to human problems without resort to the notions of the supernatural" and has a strongly progressive policy position. However, they go beyond humanism to characterise religion as "fostering social disharmony" and threatening global peace and security. By way of it's naturalistic world view and the profession of party president, Dr John Perkins, an economist studying global warming and resource depletion, the SPA is also concerned about solutions to climate change.

Previous Results
The 2010 election will be the first time the Secular Party has stood as a registered party, with their name on the ballot paper, however, in 2007 they ran candidates in all States. In NSW the candidates took .05% of the first preferences, in Victoria the total was .04%.

Policies
For what's a fairly single issue party the Secular Party has a fairly wide policy base:

Secular Policies
The SPA supports the absolute separation of Church and State, it wants to remove tax exemptions for religion and tighter scrutiny of church charities and to close loopholes in anti-discrimination laws. They hold that there should be one law for all citizens and oppose Sharia or traditional Aboriginal courts. They advocate replacing Religious Education with comparative religion and ethics and exchanging school chaplains with counsellors.

The party challenges the default assumption that we swear by Almighty God and wants to replace religious oaths and prayers in Parliament with affirmations. The monarchy is a religious institution and they therefore support a Republic. They believe faith-based morality is an imposition on the freedoms of the entire population, without reference to their own beliefs and therefore advocate personal freedoms for same-sex marriage, abortion, voluntary euthanasia and stem-cell research.

Environmental Economics Policies
The Secular Party supports a price on carbon. Their scheme is a modest International Coal Tax that increases by an equally modest amount annually. While this is a proposal that addresses climate change I'm concerned that tariffs have led to smuggling in the past and a black market would develop in coal (pun somewhat intended). They also advocate the development of renewable energy sources for base load power.

The party's population policy is based on an understanding that global population growth is a problem, that Australia has the wealth to support a larger population within the constraints of its economic and environmental resources. They believe in compassionate treatment of refugees and insist on all migrants accepting Australian values.

Progressive Policies
This is also a theme in the policy platform, the SPA support the return of civil rights taken in the war on terror, oppose censorship and see rehabilitation as the purpose of incarceration. They claim to support a balanced, centrist economic policy but want to reorganise enhanced public funding for health and education, including an "adequately funded tertiary education sector". Under their health policy the Secular Party call for tighter regulation of complementary and alternative medicines. They support a resource rent tax on "excessive profits from the mining of non-renewable resources".

On the occasions I've encountered him, I've found the president of the Secular Party, Dr John Perkins, to be somewhat anti-religious, more in the spirit of Richard Dawkins than Phillip Adams. When I considered joining and attended one of their meetings, I felt that they'd rather take an extreme stance rather than finding fellow-travellers within the religious community.

I think that for the non-believing voter, unless you're an ardent follower of Dawkins and Hitchens, the Greens and Democrats offer the progressive secular politics you're looking for, in two different flavours of environmentalism, without excluding the majority of Australians.

Preferences
The Secular Party preferences the Australian Democrats followed by the Sex Party and then the Greens, which reflects their progressive bent quite nicely. They receive the preferences of the Sex Party but I'd be surprised if they're still in the race at that stage. At the bottom of their preference flows are the Christian Democratic Party and Family First and I have to wonder if Family First only "won" because they avoided the C-word.

Prospects
I don't have the gift of psephology but I can't seeing this party doing well in this election. Certainly with a name people can search for on the ballot paper they may get more new atheists voting for them than they did in 2007. They've had very little press, possibly even less than three years ago. I think they could be ecstatic if they out-polled the CDP in Victoria and Family First in NSW (i.e. not each party's "home" state), though this would represent an multiple of 6-10 times their 2007 vote.

Meet the Candidates: The Citizens' Electoral Council

2010-08-11T19:56:00.006+10:00

Let's be up front, the Citizens' Electoral Council (CEC) is beyond the fringe. They'd accuse me of being brainwashed or a pawn of the Queen (yes, as in Elizabeth II, constitutionally-constrained monarch of a past world power) but I'll try to present their policies straight up and you can judge for yourself.

In spite of their tiny party and minuscule support they are standing Senate candidates in the mainland states (except SA) and in the Northern Territory. They also have a sprinkling of Lower House candidates.

Philosophy
Ideologically the CEC embraces the philosophy of Lyndon LaRouche who has prophesied a worldwide economic Depression, suggested some unconventional methods to avoid it and repeatedly run for US President in an attempt to implement them. LaRouche, and by extension the CEC, believe that the British Monarchy sponsors international terrorism and genocide through it's control of the drug trade. World leaders past and present, including Mussolini, Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama are part of the British conspiracy.

Generally the CEC pushes a return to an earlier economic structure which defies easy categorisation, it certainly doesn't fit on the standard socialist-free market continuum. The party explicitly calls Global Warming a hoax.

Previous Results
In the 2007 Senate race the CEC secured .05% of the vote in Victoria, a mere 1,697 first preferences. The only party that did worse in Victoria was the Non-Custodial Parents Party. The CEC did similarly in NSW. Nationally they reaped .07% though this was buoyed by the Northern Territory, where they took 2% of the vote. In the Territory they were also top of a very short ballot paper. Their overall result in 2007 was down on the previous Federal election.

Policies
The CEC want to reorganise the global financial system around the US, Russia, India and China to wrest control of the world from the "British imperial monetarist system". They want to reintroduce the Bretton-Woods system that made the dollar exchangeable for gold and fix exchange rates, allowing speculative markets to collapse in favour of physical commodities. The general idea is that the majority of wealth in the world is a fantasy and that the ensuing collapse of the financial system, while catastrophic, will correct this. It's a view of value that directly contradicts modern economic thinking where goods are worth what people will pay for them, but they're entitled to their view. They're not explicit what Australia's role is in this.

Further economic reforms include the repeal of the GST (which they reasonably argue is regressive), eliminate the pro-competition policy of the Government (which the CEC believes has the opposite effect), reversing privatisation, including nationalising all mineral reserves, including oil and gas "for the Common Good". Nationalising minerals transfers the wealth from the "Anglo-Dutch raw materials cartel" (presumably BP, Shell, Rio Tinto and BHP-Billiton) to Australians, especially relevant in their post-collapse, physical economy world. The CEC also want to establish a National Bank which will give out loans at an (very low) interest rate of 2% to agriculture, industry and infrastructure, while at the same time putting a stop to foreclosures on homes and farms to protect people during the debt reorganisation.

The CEC want to "dramatically" increase infrastructure and health, including nuclear power, high speed trains and an Australian space program which will target the Moon and Mars. They feel infrastructure development will allow us to link into the Eurasian Land Bridge which will run from Rotterdam, along the Silk Road and down to Indonesia. The CEC's immigration policy is to massively increase immigration (a population of 40 million is mentioned) to resolve the skills shortages they envision, but they're opposed to multiculturalism.

Other CEC policies include a call for a republic, with a directly elected President who will control the economy and issue money. They also want "a real war on drugs...fought with all the weapons of war", bombing the poppy fields of Afghanistan, though I note that America has been fighting a
conventional war on drugs for years which they have been losing. The CEC also have a strong civil-libertarian bent, promising to repeal the "anti-union, anti-terrorism, and racial vilification laws". They're opposed to violent video games. The CEC believe that Global Warming is a cover for genocide in the Third World with the Royal Family heavily involved, they oppose any measure to limit energy consumption, including carbon taxes, and advocate nuclear and fusion power.

Editorialising for the moment, even if you ignore the conspiracy theories, which means most of their platform, this party has no handle on economic theory. The changes they propose are so revolutionary and irresponsible that not only would it, almost by definition, destroy the economy the recovery wouldn't be worthy of the name. The world has moved on from the economics of the early 20th century and this party should too.

Preferences
The CEC's preference structure seems to take a tour of the minor parties, starting with Family First and probably ending with the Liberals/Nationals. Their share of the vote is so tiny I very much doubt it will make any difference to anyone in its very long journey on Election Night.

Prospects
The CEC, thankfully, won't be elected to the Senate anywhere, as even in the Northern Territory where they do "well" the hurdles for them to pass are higher. They will probably be the first party to be eliminated in Victoria, not that this seems to have discouraged them in the past, I'm sure they'll be peddling their conspiracy theories for your vote in 2013.

Meet the Candidates*: Joseph Toscano

2010-08-10T16:53:00.003+10:00

*in conjunction with Carefully Scripted Remarks

Joseph Toscano is the omnipresent anarchist candidate. He stood for the Senate in at least the last four Federal elections, as well as standing in Higgins in the 2009 by-election and for Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 2008. Readers of The Age will recognise him for generating a fair number of letters to the editor, he also broadcasts on 3CR.

In Toscano's own words "Anarchist society is a voluntary non-hierarchical society which is based on the creation of political and social structures based on direct democratic principles, in direct contradiction to parliamentary democracy." "Anarchy" means without rulers, in fact power is created by and a form of violence. Anarchists believe that without a formal government or other hierarchies, like big business, society will be improved, everyone will be equal and self-fulfilled. In anarchist society wealth is held in common for common use. Taken to its fullest anarchism goes beyond the libertarianism of the Liberal Democrats (which respects private property) and collectivises possessions. Anarchists have an optimistic view of humanity, believing that they're inherently co-operative rather than competitive.

Previous results
Joseph Toscano's Ticket I earned 0.18% of first preferences in the 2007 Federal Election, putting them between the Carers Alliance and the Christian Democratic Party, but higher than the other unnamed groups. That was a 360% increase on his vote in 2004, where he captured .05%, but I wouldn't award that much significance. Standing as one of three independents in the Higgins by-election Joseph Toscano scored 0.78% of the vote.

Policy Positions
Toscano is standing to draw attention to the "radical" alternatives to the existing system. His policy document is very brief at two pages long and proposes the reorganisation of superannuation so all Australians can take advantage of the Government superannuation program and 10% of super will be used as seed money to found collectives to "begin the task of creating an economic and social system based on cooperation not competition". This is anarchism at it's purest.

The private sector will lose out under Toscano's regime with Government subsidies being exchanged for equity and funding of private schools and hospitals being redirected to the public system. He'll "tax polluters out of existence". He supports a resources rent tax on revenue, rather than profit, which would ruin marginally profitable companies. He proposes the creation of a People's Bank, similar to the original Commonwealth Bank, that will invest in (mainly environmental) projects for the benefit of all Australians. His health policy is to increase the levies imposed for Medicare, the TAC and Work Cover to fund a single no-fault compensation scheme for all Australians, Health funding is boosted by a 5% levy on corporations and those earning more than a million dollars.

His environmental policy is science-focused, accepts climate change and starts by establishing an environmental carrying capacity, followed by promoting renewable energy, reforestation and water recycling. The sustainable population then controls the immigration policy that prioritises refugees and family reunions, substituting for skilled migration by training Australians. Toscano's social policy is progressive along the same lines as the Greens, supporting gay-marriage and voluntary euthanasia, but he goes further by decriminalising drugs. Indigenous people would gain more recognition with the foundation of Mabo Day, a treaty and by directing resource taxes to their benefit. Toscano would also extend social housing.

Joseph Toscano's most significant policies refer to the structure of the Government. He wants to make our democracy more direct by allowing citizens to recall under-performing politicians and introduce their own referendums. He expects politicians to conduct surveys of the population before voting on controversial issues. His greatest reform is to organise a referendum to abolish the states and replace them with 50 regional councils organised along the lines of direct democracy. To put this in context there would be ten of these councils in Melbourne, about three times the size of the current municipalities. This would still be ten times the voting population of Ancient Athens when it was a direct democracy and larger than the average Swiss canton. In Joseph Toscano's vision these councils would end competition for international sporting events and industries and make decisions in the country's best interest.

Preferences

Joseph Toscano has two running mates, Jenny Wharfe and Andrew Sadauskas. His preferences are then directed to the Greens, they're the closest party ideologically to his own likely to get a seat. Labor appear over the Liberal/Nationals. Family First is last on the preference flow and is preferenced in reverse order, a nice little "take that!".

Prospects
His own website sums it up nicely "The chances of me being elected as a Victorian Senator are a snowflake’s chance in hell". It's unlikely that he'll even make much difference for the Greens in their efforts to get Richard Di Natale into the Senate.

Poly-Alchemy: When There's Chemistry Between Many

2010-08-07T18:52:00.003+10:00

I'd like to write a blog on gay marriage but I worry that I'd have trouble doing such an important topic justice. However, one of the objections to gay marriage is that if the "definition" of marriage is expanded to allow a man marry another man or a woman another woman there would be nothing to stop polygamous/group marriage. My question is, why is that a problem?

Multiple partners isn't unknown in the practice and history of marriage. Polygamy is practised in some native cultures. It's well known that Islam allows a man as many as four wives. Even within Judeo-Christian beliefs Jacob/Israel had two official wives and two concubines and King David had eight wives.

From a biological stand point poly-amory may be expected for humans. Sexual dimorphism is a physical difference, often size, between the sexes of a species. The more pronounced the sexual dimorphism the more likely a species is to be polygamous. The slight sexual dimorphism between the human sexes has been linked to a slight tendency towards polygamy, though it's nowhere near as pronounced as in gorillas, for instance.

Biological make-up and alternative religious definitions of group marriage typically argue for a single male with multiple female partners. These make sense from a reproductive* or patriarchal point of view. Today we live in a society which respects women's equality with men and where social norms and contraception have separated partnership from breeding. There's no compulsion for a poly-amorous relationship to be between one man and several women. The group marriage I'm discussing is a relationship where the gender balance is irrelevant, it's like conventional marriages before the law, the partners are people first, equal within the relationship, not bound by gender into particular roles.

I'm not advocating group marriage or poly-amory for everyone. I'm not interested in having multiple partners and I know that I'd be too jealous to share my partner with another man. I'm also not interested in personally marrying another man. I do, however, recognise that in both cases there are people who would be fulfilled in these kind of relationships. If consenting adults want to formalise their relationships and have public recognition of their love, as long as it doesn't reduce overall well being across society I have no objection. I don't think the internal dynamics of the relationship are important, whether it's a man who shares his wife with another partner, without a romantic attachment to that other person or a group where each partner is romantically involved with every other.

I think for stability the nature of the relationship ought to be explicit at the outset, it would avoid any party being deceived. A man having two wives, each unknown to the other, isn't poly-amory and by definition can't be consensual. On the subject of stability my initial response to polygamy is in a three-person marriage you've increased the number of relationships by a factor of three, in a four-some by 6. Even if the majority of monogamous marriages were stable each bond needs to be functional for the viability of the whole. A polygamous marriage, increasing the number of bonds also increases the chance of failure. Of course, that's an opinion without any evidence and a study on poly-amorous marriages in the Netherlands found they had the same failure rate as monogamies.

It's significant that most polygamies have to-date been patriarchal where we'd see men exploiting their wives. This obviously needs to be guarded against as much as spousal abuse in any other relationship. There are also going to be challenges to the children of polygamous marriages in explaining to their peers why they have two mothers or fathers, but advocates of polygamy point out that polygamy provides novel parenting challenges, there's also no evidence that children's well being suffers. Not that that's evidence to the contrary.

Just for amusement some utility-based arguments made supporting polygyny are that it empowers single women by increasing the relative number of single men vying for their affection and that successful men have more children, increasing the genes for intelligence and health in the gene pool. I'm not sure I call them compelling.

My opinion of polygamy is guided by my liberal beliefs, that it should be permissible unless there are proven arguments that it causes harm to others. Permissiveness ought to guided to limit detrimental effects and unintended consequences but the misgivings of established religion or conservative definitions of marriage shouldn't be binding on non-adherents.

*Multiple male partners don't make much sense for a female, given the relative portion of child-bearing. A male can raise children with several partners because his contribution is low and he can spread his genetics wide with very little effort. Once that's done there's a constant temptation to leave. For a female multiple male partners only offer potentially better genetic material. It's less likely that she can force them all to contribute to child-rearing. This is a thumbnail sketch, if it piques your interest you must read Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, it's imperative.

Vote Craig Emerson for a PG Internet

2010-08-03T07:58:00.002+10:00

Last night on Q & A Craig Emerson, Labor minister for Small Business, stated that he supports an Internet filter "insofar as it is effective in preventing the access of people to pornography and such matters". For a second I thought he'd missed the "child" in front of "pornography" but he followed it up with this statement "I'd never support the downloading of material that children should not see".

This should send shivers through the spine of any Australian with adult, not pornographic, interests, starting with any Australian who's ever enjoyed an M-rated movie.

I agree that child pornography is reprehensible and the perpetrators should be tracked down and prosecuted and their material shouldn't be accessible. However, on both the supply and demand side it's very simple to get around the Internet filter as presently proposed. Further, the filter doesn't just block child porn, it blocks Refused Classification (RC) material, which includes

"matters...[that] offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults".

It immediately cuts out a lot of fetish material which, while I and the majority of Australians are not interested, is consenting behaviour between adults that should be accessible for those who would gain utility from it. RC also includes material that "Promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence", for instance euthanasia, which is a crime even though it's supported by the majority Australians. RC could presumably be extended to cover dying-with-dignity advocacy sites.

I also agree that pornography shouldn't be accessible to children. I can see the argument that the warped view of sex that porn portrays is likely to distort the expectations and behaviour of teens who don't have experiences to compare it to. Which isn't to say this society shouldn't be more open about sex and that parents shouldn't be able to explain the "Want longer lasting sex?" billboard to kids without embarrassment. Kids will get access to porn but their parents and teachers should take steps to avoid that happening and, if possible, make sure that they understand that it's not a representative sample.

Emerson seems to want a PG-rated Internet. That's what the Internet would look like if it was bereft of material that "children should not see". It's an Internet stripped not only of porn and fetish material but adult discussions of sex. Violent content would be removed from the Internet, the word "fuck" and worse would be banned, drug use is unlikely to be acceptable. A large portion of Wikipedia would be blocked. I'm sure you can think of other material children shouldn't see but is completely acceptable to reasonable adults and hurts no one.

This is a major danger of the Internet filter, mission creep. What's being touted as a way to stop child pornography already excludes material that the majority of Australians would have no problem with and doesn't violate the harm principle. Government ministers already want to push out the boundaries so that no one can access Internet porn. By all means prevent children from accessing material that would be rated M and above but do it by making effective "net nanny" programs available to parents and reminding them of the need to supervise their child online. The Internet is not a purpose built education tool or baby-sitter, it's a microcosm and mirror to the world that is predominantly populated by adults, with adult opinions, activities and demands. The liberty of those adults shouldn't be constrained by a state that is not prepared to place responsibility where it is deserved.

Election Blog Day 11 - We don't need anymore PPL

2010-07-29T21:02:00.003+10:00

My drive to blog daily on one of the typically underwhelming party policies has faded which is why I've missed a few days. I am interested in expressing some views on paid parental leave (PPL) which the government has given us recently and the Coalition has committed to expanding.

In my ultra-libertarian moments I'm concerned by the attitude that parents deserve subsidies, collected from society at large, for having children. I'm not anti-children though I have no interest in having any of my own. I do feel that parents have a responsibility to ensure that their choice to raise a child doesn't negatively impact my life. I recognise that children will grow into the next generation that will continue our society. However, in a modern nation with easy access to contraception and many potential immigrants there's no obligation to have children. I believe responsible parents should only have children when they are in a financial and emotional position to suitably raise a child in their own right, anything less is burdening society and to the detriment to the child. I'd like to qualify that I don't include a public education as a subsidy, it benefits the child directly and is an investment in everyone's future, if anything it should be strengthened.

That framing aside I wanted to look at the PPL policies in a broad way. The Government has passed a law recently to grant paid parental leave to those who had worked for 10 of the last 13 months. The parent on leave receives the minimum wage, $570 a week, for 18 weeks. The policy is funded from consolidated revenue, so every tax payer contributes something. The previous situation was 52 weeks of unpaid parental leave which continues under the PPL scheme. The leave makes it cheaper to have a child as it represents $10,260 that the parents don't need to have saved, or cut out of their life-styles, before the birth. If it's cheaper to raise a child more people will have children and those who would have children anyway may bring them up better. Proportionally, PPL represents a greater benefit to poorer families as the minimum wage is a greater share of their income. The scheme is most likely to increase the birth rate in the poorest families. I find this concerning, socio-economic status is inherited, the children of poor families grow up to be poor themselves, for a whole variety of reasons including education, nutrition, role-models and a nurturing environment. These are obviously generalisations but statistically compelling.

The Coalition has offered an alternative scheme, 26 weeks of paid parental leave at the primary care-givers salary. This scheme is paid for by adding a 1.7% levy on "big business", those with more than $5 million in taxable income, our 3200 largest companies. Like the Government's scheme, PPL is not available to those who make more than $150k but you could conceivably have a couple reap $74k, raised from our largest producers and employers. Ultimately these taxes will spread nearly as far across the economy as the Government's plan. Because the Coalition is offering more to people on every level of income the scheme will be an even greater inducement to have children than the Government's scheme. The significant difference is that the Coalition PPL scheme is an equal inducement to all couples meaning that more children will be born to wealthier couples.

I'm very sceptical that a PPL is worth it's cost to the community. I think that some of it's objectives are worthy, especially relieving monetary stress during the first few months of a child's life. It's an investment in that child's development. That said I don't think we need any policy with the intention of increasing the population of the planet when we can safeguard our economy with immigration.

Election Blog: Day Eight, We Will Decide Who Comes To This Country

2010-07-26T20:38:00.004+10:00

The Liberal Party has put forward a population plan which has stolen the march on Labor; giving a figure for net migration over their first term, 170,000. They're touting it as a significant decrease on the close to 300,000 that would have been the net migration target in 2008-09. The Minister for Sustainable Population, Tony Burke, has pointed out that the Coalition target is greater than the predicted net immigration for 2011-12, 145,000, making it an empty promise, but let's have a look at the policy itself.

Immigration is sourced from four sources: skilled migrants who immigrate because they have abilities business needs, family reunion migrants who are the partners and children of existing immigrants, student visas who are temporarily here to study and humanitarian visas, legitimate refugees. The Liberals have explicitly stated that they won't cut the number of refugees, though if they reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas I wonder how the permanent immigration status of the very few unauthorised arrivals will be counted. They've also committed not to cut the number of skilled migrants.

The Liberals are going to actively encourage settlement of skilled migrants in regional Australia, especially Queensland and WA, by prioritising business-sponsored applications in those states. They are also offering to "liberalise" the application process for temporary skilled migration (457) visas to make them more available to small business. This element of the policy is encouraging. Anything that makes accessing the necessary skills easier for small business is a beneficial policy, particularly as small business doesn't have the resources of corporations to create global recruitment programs. The overwhelming majority of businesses in regional areas are SMEs.

I am concerned about the categories of immigration that are going to be cut. In the case of family reunion visas these are the families of skilled immigrants. Imagine a foreign national who's come to Australia to support his or her family, if their family is overseas they will send some of their pay-packet home, to be spent overseas. If their family is here more of their income is spent here and feeds the Australian economy. A migrant with their family is also more likely to settle permanently where they find work. If this is regional Australia then the regions are more likely to develop a permanent population with a greater range of services and a broader local economy.

The other category of immigrants to be choked are student visas. Education is Australia's third largest export. Student visas have such stringent limitations on work that they must bring large supplies of international funds into the country. A significant factor in the immigration debate is the strain on urban infrastructure that population growth is causing. While our educational institutions are concentrated in the major cities most students live on or close to campus, take up less housing per capita than permanent residents, use public transport rather than drive, ultimately placing far less burden on infrastructure and services than other migrants. International students also subsidise Australian students and encourage a superior standard of education. If student numbers were to fall NSW and Victoria would be the hardest hit. NSW reaps nearly $6 billion from education services, Victoria nearly $5 billion, Queensland makes just over $2 billion and the other states far less.

Today, Abbott added an element of racism to the population debate by stating that there is a difference between the children of "Australians" and migrants as if the former was inherently superior. These statements ignore the devotion migrants feel for their new home, the significant economic benefit they bring, their strong work ethic, their demographic advantages of coming to this country at a productive age and typically not bringing retired parents. If friction arises from integration that should be addressed directly rather than closing the nation's door. Migrants create jobs and keep cost of living low by maintaining downward pressure on wages while maintaining productivity.

This population sustainability debate is a necessary one but I feel that it's more important to emphasise "where" not "how many". We should be focusing on developing regional areas, especially where there is surplus population capacity. The Coalition's focus on numbers is going to hamper business, damage our current account and the education of all Australians.

Election Blog: Day Seven, Cash for Clunkers

2010-07-26T08:02:00.002+10:00

The Government wants to help you buy a new, more efficient car. Julia Gillard yesterday announced that households with a pre-1995 car, who bought a new car with a greenhouse rating of 6+ (220g of CO2e per kilometre or less), would be given $2000 when they scrap their old car. The program is capped at 200,000 cars (probably an important lesson learnt from the oversubscribed insulation scheme). At the "present value" of the funds the ALP is expecting the program to cost $394 million. The obvious goal is to reduce the greenhouse gases produced by cars.

The principle of the plan is reasonable. Cars produce 9% of Australia's emissions, older cars produce more and are less fuel efficient. $2000 would make smaller, more efficient, cars more attractive relative to V6s etc. Eligible cars include Priuses, smart cars, Honda Civics, Volkswagen Golfs. Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons don't make the cut. The only Australian made cars are the Camry and it's Hybrid version. The Government is also pointing out the savings to the public derived from the fuel efficiency of the new vehicles.

The most obvious comparison is to the US Cash for Clunkers scheme in 2009 which was offering $3.5k-$4.5k per trade in, depending on fuel efficiency of the new car. That program went through 3 times its initial budget in half the expected time. However, there have been several studies and criticisms of the plan, not least of which that, after taking into account the benefits of the scheme the economic cost was $2000 per car. Doing a very rough calculation using the same principles of the study above Australia's cash for clunkers should actually break even or offer a slight net benefit, taking into account all of the benefits of fuel efficiency and reduced pollution.

What is concerning about this plan is how the ALP plans to offset it. Because the promise to return the Budget to surplus within 3 years overrides everything the ALP have offset the program by taking $520 million from the Solar, Carbon Capture and Storage and the Renewable Energy Bonus Schemes. It equates to 35% of the original funding across the three schemes. As I've indicated before, CCS is a risk that may not pan out, on the other hand Solar and general Renewables are being developed, need more investment and have genuine economic pay-offs. I have seen analysis that this policy represents a cost of over $300 per tonne of carbon removed from the atmosphere. It could very easily be that the scheme is a failed policy, simply because, though it's economically neutral, it costs us the opportunity for far greater gains from the funds it uses.

Election Blog: Day Six, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics Applied to Policy?

2010-07-24T15:07:00.003+10:00

Julia Gillard released Labor's long-awaited climate change policy yesterday and I'm fairly sure everyone was disappointed. The policy involves several elements; the creation of a Climate Change Commission "to explain the science of climate change and to report on progress in international action"; $1 billion, spent over ten years, on connecting sources of renewable energy to the grid; a specification that any power stations planned from now must be clean-coal and Carbon Capture and Storage compliant and a citizens assembly of 150 Australians to examine over 12 months the evidence for climate change, action and an ETS.

The Climate Change Commission is just another Government enquiry into a global phenomenon that's scientifically proven and has driven countries around the world to act further than we have.

The infrastructure project is quite delayed in it's implementation, the first $100 million will be spread over 4 years. It's difficult to find the cost-per-kilometre of power transmission cables. Based on the underground cable Murraylink, a project can cost $500k per kilometer. A billion dollars will get you 2000km of cable, Melbourne to Rockhampton or would connect the West Australian grid with the rest of the country. I worry that the funds are going to be a little lacking, a few major energy projects will be connected but not the vast majority of the country.

Cleaner power plants is probably a minimum standard for the Government. A lot has been made of the fact that any existing dirty coal plants will go ahead but to force them to meet these standards may be prohibitive.

The Citizen's Assembly is the real disappointment. It's a focus group, a toe in the water. The Government might create excitement about an ETS but it's such a tentative step it's hardly moving forward towards a price on carbon. The original, mis-shapen and weak CPRS is still the proposal under discussion. The whole Citizen's Assembly doesn't provide any certainty to business, it doesn't reassure those who already recognise the need for a price on carbon and those who don't are casting it as a stalking horse for the CPRS. Labor deserves to be pilloried for this proposal.

I can only presume that the ALP is trying to buy time with this policy, time to convince the nation, repair the lost "consensus" on climate change. I worry that to those who see the election as a two horse race, who feel that something should be done on the environment but aren't convinced that it's a carbon price, the Liberal's policy will seem more attractive.

The ALP has no environmental credentials, this is a policy to come up with a policy. Vote Green and hope that a Green vote of 15-20% or more will scare the ALP into some, dare I say it, real action on climate change.

Election Blog: Day Five, Great New Tax on Big

2010-07-22T18:26:00.008+10:00

In the name of balance I'm having a look at a Greens Party policy; this election isn't just a two horse race.

The Greens' policy proposal is a 1.5% levy on junk food and alcohol advertising to fund better diet education and sponsor local sporting clubs. Companies can avoid the levy by including nutritional health information in their own advertising. Junk food companies spend $165 million on advertising annually and $109 million is spent promoting alcohol. The levy should net $4 million. It's based on an identical French levy that's been in place since 2004.

From an economics perspective this levy is an example of a Pigovian tax. Too much junk food advertising leads to too much junk food consumption, causing costs to the community in the form of obesity-related diseases. According to the Greens' press release obesity costs the country $58 billion and alcohol use $15 billion. By making advertising more expensive the amount of advertising produced will be reduced and there will be a better result.

From some perspectives this is a clever levy. Junk food is consumed disproportionally by the poor. A tax directly on junk food would fall predominantly on them. The costs of this proposal will be borne by the junk food companies.

In spite of the elegance of the levy the quantity levied by the tax is probably far too small to make a significant difference. The Government burnt through ten times as much advertising the RSPT, and 30 times as much with the ads for Workchoices. Because of the nature of junk food consumers any advertising that targets them is best directed through expensive methods like TV and billboards which will quickly deplete the fund. $4 million dollars is also not going to go far sponsoring community sports.

The policy could be more effective if the levy was higher, though this would obviously be more politically difficult to pass. An alternative policy could target obesity directly by taxing junk food in the same way that cigarette and alcohol taxes are levied on those products. The revenues can be channelled into the Health Department so the people who cause themselves health issues simultaneously fund the system that heals them. Though, as above, this would disparately penalise the poor.

The original French levy has obviously not been effective. French rates of obesity, while low (9.4% of French are obese versus 21.7% of Australians) are still climbing. Recently, France considered increasing the sales tax on junk food from a 5.5% baseline to 19.6%. In final verdict it's a cute little policy but a bit undernourished.

Election Blog: Day Four, Twelve Days Worth of Cuts to Spending

2010-07-21T21:18:00.006+10:00

The Liberal Party, as part of their slogan to cut Labor's waste, has announced $1.2 billion worth of savings they'd implement if they came to power. Government savings are valuable because, as I mentioned yesterday, Government spending makes it harder for business to grow. The Liberals have made a slogan of Labor borrowing $100 million a day. To come up with this intimidating figure they've divided the budget deficit over the 2010-11 financial year ($39.6 billion) by 365 and rounded for punchiness. To put these savings into context I'll try and put the savings in terms of days, hours and minutes worth of Labor's borrowing*.

The Liberals have put these savings in terms of Government programs they'd cut. I'll reproduce the whole list below, but here are some examples.

Discontinue additional funding for the State Infrastructure Fund, $400 million or 4 days of borrowing. This is a top-up to projects funded by the RSPT/MRRT for developing regional infrastructure, especially in Queensland and WA, like roads, rail and ports to facilitate mining in the States. The funds are available to start the projects now, rather than wait till the revenues from the MRRT start to flow. Infrastructure is vital to allowing business to function, getting the ore, machinery and labour between the mines and the rest of the world but if the Liberals are going to drop the tax it's not worth spending the money to get the roads 7% of the way there.

Abolish the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, $300 million, 3 days of borrowing. The institute coordinates research and development into technology that could capture some of the 65% of global carbon emissions created by power generation and industrial processes. It's very early days and the technology is unproven with a very long time to fruition. Though there are many international partners the Australian Government funds the project. Development of this technology could make our large coal deposits valuable in a low-carbon economy but the money could also be spent, with less risk, to develop renewable energy which we also have in abundance.

Enterprise Connect - Amalgamation with AusIndustry, $101.6 million, 1 day and 23 minutes of borrowing. Enterprise Connect provides management consulting to small businesses in the form of Business Reviews, "a holistic analysis of the [Small Medium Enterprise]'s business. These reviews can make these companies more efficient, creating more value for the Australian economy. AusIndustry is the Government's business program delivery channel to provide incentives to business to conduct R&D, grow, take up technology and commercialise products. The two organisations have different but related functions, as long as the service-provision isn't compromised and Enterprise Connect isn't subsumed into AusIndustry this could represent a valuable saving of administration expenses.

Discontinue Funding for USO Co - Universal Service Obligations Co. is the Government's new entity for delivering the unprofitable services that Telstra was obligated to, namely payphones, emergency call handling and the National Relay Service. It would remove a weight from around Telstra's neck, increasing its share value. The balance of the funding was probably going to be by levy on the industry. There's no indication of whether a Liberal Government would leave that weight on Telstra or divide all the costs of funding USO Co. between the telecommunication providers.

Discontinue Funds towards the Retraining and Redeployment of Telstra Staff - This retraining and redeployment relates to the Government funding of the National Broadband Network. The Coalition would cut the NBN, a poor decision in my opinion, aborting a valuable and profitable infrastructure that is just as important to business in the 21st century as road and rail was to the 20th. Of course, much like the State Infrastructure Fund, there's no point in training staff for a project that won't go ahead.

Discontinue Funding for Community Cabinets - $40 million, 9 hours 36 minutes of borrowing. Community Cabinets are an opportunity for Government ministers to meet directly with Joe Public and hear their views and ideas. They've got to attract a lot of loonies and zealots but they are an expression of democracy and consultation that the Coalition would like to do away with.

Recover the full costs of industrial elections from the unions - $25.4 million, 4 hours of borrowing. A lot has been written on this because it flies in the face of Abbott's commitment not to change the Fair Work Act that guarantees compensation for the unions for holding these ballots. There are good reasons to create impediments to casual industrial action and I agree this is a valuable cut, if not a great saving.

Discontinue Funding for Africa Law and Justice Frameworks - $12.9 million, 3 hours 6 minutes of borrowing. The African Law and Justice Frameworks is a program to assist African nations to improve their security and stability. It represents valuable international aid to the most unstable countries on Earth. Stability is the basis of development and this is investment in developing the economy of Africa.

Reduce COAG meetings to two and to be held in Canberra - $300,000, 4 minutes 30 seconds of borrowing. This isn't a significant saving but does demonstrate a lack of Coalition interest in negotiating and communicating with the States, undermining Federalism.

There are some reasonable cuts here, some if only because the Coalition plans to cut the overarching project anyway, other cuts are a valuable clue to the Liberal Party's attitude to democracy, the environment and human rights.

A full list of Liberal cuts, click to expand...

* The savings are over the entire period of budget estimates, four years, so some of this "borrowing" doesn't need to be done this year, some spread over four years or can be put off to next year or even 2014.

Election Blog: Day Three, Interest Rates and Inflation

2010-07-20T18:21:00.002+10:00

On Sunday Tony Abbott committed that interest rates would be lower under the Coalition. It's a well-worn promise that dates back to Howard. There are two ways to interpret this, either he's speaking in absolute terms, in which case he's wrong, or in relative terms, in which case it's an empty promise.

The Reserve Bank sets the cash rate, the interest rate that banks borrow from each other at. It feeds through the private banks to the public interest rates. The Reserve makes this decision based on their prediction of future inflation in order to achieve their one target, keep the inflation rate between 2-3% per annum. This has been their one goal since 'the recession we had to have' and they're very good at it (at least until the GFC threw a small spanner in the works). They are completely independent of Government because there's an incentive for Government to increase inflation to stimulate the economy in the short term at the expense of long-term growth.

There are three major inputs into interest rates. The first is international interest rates. The second is the national economy which, if it's growing too quickly, can drive up inflation as wages and prices climb and force the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates to put the brakes on and meet their 2%-3% target. The final and arguably least factor, is Government spending. Tony Abbott can only control one of these. If the world recovers faster than expected from the GFC or if we experience another housing boom interest rates are going climb, because the Reserve is out of Abbott's control. He simply can't make that commitment.

The third factor which Abbott's alluding to, is that government spending reduces the available funds for the private sector to borrow, called crowding-out. The effect of increasing spending increases demand for the remaining funds, and therefore raises the interest rate. The traditional claim is that right-wing Governments spend less and therefore interest rates remain lower. Of course, it's a minor effect in the scheme of things and there's no guarantee that under a Liberal Government spending will be lower. In fact, given we can't run a side-by-side comparison of Australia under Labor and Australia under the Coalition for the same set of economic circumstances, the hypothesis is untestable and therefore useless. As it is, the interest rates are lower now than under the Coalition in 2007 but because we recognise there are multiple factors we recognise the impact of the GFC and don't credit Labor.

Abbott's exacerbated this one commitment with a rider that inflation will also be kept low. Now, as we saw above, higher interest rates are used to keep inflation down as the economy grows. Inflation is also linked to another key economic factor, employment, through the Phillips Curve where inflation and unemployment have an inverse relationship, e.g. if inflation goes down, unemployment goes up, at least in the short run. Of course, once the economy grows again and people find work inflation will go back up and interest rates will follow. Ultimately Abbott can deliver low inflation and low interest rates but only at the expense of Australian jobs and growth.

Of course you'd expect these undeliverable promises from someone who once said he was bored by economics.

Election Blog: Day Two

2010-07-19T20:24:00.009+10:00

Yesterday Julia Gillard released the first policy of the election, Building Better Regional Cities ,a fund to improve housing affordability in Australia's regional centres. $200 million is to be divided between 15 regional cities. There are about 46 potential candidates, each with over 30,000 population. Each city will bid for up to $15 million from the fund, based on their plans to increase the number of affordable houses in their city. The money is intended for infrastructure to support housing developments, specifically "connecting roads, bridges, drains and community centres". The goal is to create 15,000 new houses.

The ALP is promoting the plan as alleviating the shortage of affordable housing in regional centres which are looking to grow their population. At the same time the plan is to relieve some of the pressure on the capital cities, their underlying infrastructure and ecological services. Overcrowding in capital cities is driving populist concerns about the current rate of immigration.

In terms of funding the policy is not huge. It's the amount the Government is spending on its latest skills training program. It's 8% of what was spent on the insulation scheme. It's $13,333 per house. If successful it will go a very small way to house the 150k-300k annual immigrants to this country. That said the ideals behind the policy are valid, Australia does need to relocate it's population growth rates from the four major cities that house half the population and are outgrowing their water supplies and infrastructure. The policy is sufficiently generic that I'm sure it's been appropriately modelled to ensure it will achieve it's goals and matured in a drawer somewhere.

If the plan is credible there needs to be relatively low unemployment rate in the regional centres, otherwise there are no jobs to entice people to resettle. It's also worth looking at the local housing prices, relative to the state capital, as a very quick and dirty indicator of attractiveness. High percentages indicate the demand to move to those centres is high and they may be relatively unaffordable.

I selected 6 regional centres, one in each state. The results are in the table below. Of course, a single city can't accurately reflect an entire state but they do provide examples.

In the case of Townsville and Launceston there's a clear desirability, given house prices in both areas are 80% of their capital cities, unemployment in the region is very close to their capital city. There's a strong argument here to increase the affordability of housing. In Wollongong and Albany there is less demand for cheaper housing. In the case of Wollongong there's a strong argument to create an alternative to Sydney but at 68 kilometres from the NSW capital it could become a commuter town, which won't reduce the congestion of Sydney. Ballarat is a good example of a city that wouldn't benefit from the package having low house prices and unemployment rate 2% higher than Melbourne.

Looking at 5 other regional centres across Victoria it's very clear that housing affordability isn't a real issue in this state. For Victorians this policy may not be as attractive as it is in Queensland, WA and New South Wales. Victorians need jobs in our North and West and something more sophisticated to attract us to our regional centres. Of course, the ALP isn't as concerned about votes in regional Victoria which may explain why the limited budget for promises has been directed this way.

Election Blog: Day One

2010-07-18T16:57:00.001+10:00

So the election was called yesterday and to keep engaged I'm going to try and blog each day on the policies involved. It's not a commitment, probably not gospel truth but it's a little stronger than something said in the heat of verbal combat. I worry that it will make me obsessed and boorish, but really, how's that different from usual?

Nothing got said yesterday, well nothing on the policy front. Both leaders wheeled out their slogans and repeated them endlessly so you could pick them out from the rest of the fairly fluffy statements they'd made.

Julia Gillard's slogan, as repeated 20 something times, is Moving Forward. As the Spill-obsessed media are touting it is moving forward from Rudd, but also emphasising that Abbott is a conservative who'd rather stand on the spot or even move back to the dark days of Howard. She defined The Election Issues in terms of children's education, a sustainable Australia, tackling climate change through "record investments in solar power and other renewable energies" (which gives you an idea about the climate change policy), budget surpluses, stronger protection of our borders and health. None of these are really novel issues. Economics, health and education are perennial issues. Climate change, immigration and asylum seekers are the controversies of the day. She also talked around the RSPT/MRRT by mentioning the benefits it pays for.

Gillard attacked Abbott's history as Health Minister, his threat to cut Government services, invoked Work Choices and denigrated the Opposition position on The Issues.

Tony Abbott's slogan is Real Action (said twice), it may be a dig at the "spin and incompetence" of Labor, it may also be an appeal to those who expect the Government to directly tackle the problems, rather than the underlying causes. Real Action on Climate Change is the Green Army, Real Action is cutting Government spending to improve the economy, Real Action maybe the Coalition's plan to tow "the boats" back to sea. He spent most of the first part of his speech attacking the Government's history, suggesting they couldn't be trusted to keep promises, harping on the "execution" by "the faceless men". On health and education he hinted at giving communities more control of schools and hospitals. Abbot wanted to bring tax in as an Issue, suggesting the Coalition would stop the new taxes but still repay the debt. In questions afterward he committed (in a formal written statement) that he wouldn't change the Fair Work Act in his first term but will go to Fair Work Australia to tweak some issues that are hampering individual bargaining. Interestingly he also only mentioned the paid parental care scheme in the responses too, but described it as an "emblematic policy". Odd that he forgot it then.

Finally, because I think the Greens could be emerging as a significant power in Australian politics, either by dint of the two major parties tepid attitude to climate change or the luck of holding the balance of power I'll quickly sum up Bob Brown's speech. He pointed out his stable (and seemingly eternal leadership), he stated moving forward involved a carbon tax, bringing home Australia's troops (not an Issue because both major parties support it), universal dental care, protecting the environment (well, duh) and humane treatment of asylum seekers, implying a response 400 or so miles from anything the major parties offer. His product is an alternative to Abbott controlling the Senate.

Urban Planning in the 21st century - Part 3

2010-07-18T08:40:00.004+10:00

When I envisaged the Urban Planning series I wanted to cover several arguments supporting higher density living before I put any proposal out there. A heated conversation last week caused me to speed to the end of the road but now I'll go back and fill in some details.

The transport sector makes up about 17% of greenhouse gas emissions in Victoria. Of that, car use makes up the majority. When I say "car use", I mean cars, not light commercial vehicles, not trucks or buses, not motorcycles. At 9% of all emissions across Victoria (Department of Climate change and Energy Efficiency), journeys in cars are prime candidates for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Public transport also emits but it emits less per passenger-kilometre and can be more easily offset because train infrastructure is already electric and can be powered with renewables, as opposed to the vast majority of existing cars.

Looking at full economic (including social and environmental externalities) costs of public transport, relative to road use, UTS' Dr Garry Glazebrook found that in Sydney (population density 2058/km2) trains cost 47c per passenger kilometre, buses 57c/p-km and cars 86c/p-km. Public transport looks expensive in the budget because the government pays high upfront costs for roads but then motorists pay for the rolling stock and the fuel. On the other hand the government pays for (nearly) everything in running public transport.

What would make public transport more usable? Because public transport doesn't have the option of running "door-to-door" like a car, the routes need to be within walking distance to be attractive. Think of how attractive public transport is in the inner-city, where train and tram lines converge, than in the outer suburbs. Higher population density increases the number of people who can live within walking distance of a train-line, increasing the number of passengers. Each passenger adds a tiny marginal cost to providing transport while bringing in more revenue, making it more likely that the train system will break even. If you plot the population densities of cities, compared to the profitability of the train system there's a clear correlation. Train systems don't need to make a loss.

Melbourne uses a radial train system but the system would be more usable with interconnecting lines. With less of the population in outer suburbs driving in to work we could stop the expensive freeway projects that ultimately don't reduce congestion. Using electricity, rather than petrol, to move people will also improve air quality, especially beneficial to senior citizens and those suffering respiratory diseases. With more useful public transport more households could choose not to own a car, another significant capital expense with ongoing running costs. Other, more sustainable, forms of transport become more attractive if the population density is increased, walking and cycling for instance. If everything is geographically more compact it becomes easier and more efficient just to walk it than worrying about public transport, and improves your health. The benefits of exchanging cars for train are many and compelling.

Urban Planning in the 21st century - Appendix - Response to detractions

2010-07-17T21:36:00.004+10:00

This follows on from my last post and the following comment

I grew up in Thornbury in a three-bedroom Californian bungalow, I had a cubby house and sand-pit, a trampoline and a washing line which was great for my family of four children, but most families today don't have four children. The vast majority of the activities you've suggested can be done in any public park, under the supervision of parents, which is exactly what parents should be doing, even in the family backyard. If anything communal play grounds, sandpits and swimming pools are better because children whose parents can't or won't afford to supply them can enjoy them anyway. Also, think of the important social skills those children are developing by spending their play time with new children. I also think it's important to remember that reading and computer games, or even, shock-horror, TV are valuable learning tools and shouldn't be dismissed.

I will concede that the "bored and delinquent" line was a little hyperbolic. I had hoped that looking at juvenile crime statistics in Sydney would bear me out but the evidence is mixed. The area with the highest juvenile crimes are the fifth and sixth most dense areas (of 36) but the very densest areas have lower juvenile crime rates than the far less dense outer suburbs. People who've grown up in the outer suburbs confirm that children, specifically "those between 13 and 17" are bored "because there's nothing for them to do" and turn more frequently to drug and alcohol use, teen sex or crime for entertainment. This is also borne out in regional centres.

This social isolation continues into adulthood. Because of the extra travel time involved to get to a friend's, a cafe, a cinema or the City the "costs" of meeting up are just that bit higher and the amount "consumed" just that bit less. Friendships in the suburbs are drawn from a smaller pool and suburbanites' social lives are slightly less interesting and rich for that.

Extra travel time for suburbanites is a significant drain, you can fill in a commute with audio books or listening to the radio but your choice is limited. You can't knit, if that takes your fancy, you can't exercise, you can't spend that time with your children or partner (unless you're lucky enough to be heading in the same direction), you can't spend that time sleeping in. That choice has a value, a real economic cost that is inflicted on people who can't afford to live in the inner city.

There is a clear demand for higher density housing.

"Demand for housing increased between 1991 and 2001 by 22%; the demand for high and medium density housing was higher (around 40% for both) than for separate houses (18%)." - Department of the Environment etc

The last decade would be no different. You can also see the demand for housing in the difference in price between an inner city unit and suburban house. Looking at the recent auction prices, the mean price of three Melbourne CBD, two-bedroom apartments, sold recently, was $635k, by comparison 3 two-bedroom houses in Preston went for a mean price of $561k, in Glenroy three-bedroom houses go for $514k, in Caroline Springs four-bedroom houses go for $430k. The significant price difference between an apartment and a house in the suburbs shows there's clearly more demand for city units.

The price disparity makes it very difficult to buy in the inner city for those who want to. If height limits on the inner city were released the cost of accommodation would fall to the point where people had a choice to live closer and, more importantly to be able to buy their own home. Instead, people are forced to rent and students and young professionals share accommodation to make it possible to live close to Uni or work.

I completely disagree that taller buildings reduce amenity, space, light, colour and nature. I refer you to a wide variety of examples of buildings and cities (here, here, here and here) that maintain all of those while having a higher density. I agree that monolithic steel, concrete and glass structures are unattractive when packed together which is why I maintain that we need the interspersing parkland. I also feel that most suburban houses are very unoriginal, monotonous, disordered and crowded.

Aesthetics don't enhance utility "no end". There's a finite amount people are prepared to spend on aesthetics before other considerations take over. Ask enough people in a realistic way and you'll find people are prepared to live in a window-less concrete box if it's sufficiently cheap, especially fashionable, particularly environmentally sustainable or if their life depended on it. People balance all sorts of considerations when they choose a home.

People have all sorts of preferences when it comes to housing. My proposal is to let market forces provide a full range of choices, where sufficient high density housing can be built so that people can make an equal choice between living close to the city or living in a suburban bungalow. There's even an option for someone to pay enough to put a McMansion on the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth, if they have the money. I'm not advocating rounding up suburbanites and marching them into high-rise flats but the residents of postcodes within 10 kilometers of the city shouldn't be able to hold all Victorians to ransom through litigation and legislation.

Urban Planning in the 21st century - Part 4

2010-07-14T11:30:00.001+10:00

Australia needs to grow its population to solve the looming liability of retiring Baby Boomers and to redress skill shortages. We also, arguably, have a moral obligation to take some of the refugees created by the conflicts in foreign lands, especially those that we have contributed to directly, or through our non-trivial contribution to climate change. The question is where we put these immigrants. Our existing strategy seems to be building sprawling housing estates in the far outer suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney.

There are significant negative externalities involved with our current strategy. Firstly, large amounts of pollution are produced by people driving from outer suburbs where the population density doesn't justify a rail link, the services or employment to make cars unnecessary. Not only do these commuters pollute, they waste their free time and productivity sitting for hours in traffic. Secondly, our cities were originally founded surrounded by good agricultural land, as our cities sprawl that land grows nothing but grass. Thirdly, people in the suburbs are socially isolated and their children are bored and delinquent.

The situation has arisen because of the effect of special interest groups like the Parkville Association who lobby government to maintain planning limits that enshrine their personal aesthetic preferences. As I argued in an earlier post, special interest groups are effective because the argument is so asymmetrical. They gain a large amount of personal utility that, though outweighed by the combined disutility of everyone else, triumphs because there's no independent assessment of the relative costs and benefits. By applying pressure to the government they prevent people who'd like to live in the inner city, in an apartment to buy out in the deepest suburbs, purely because there are no reasonably priced apartments available close to the city.

There is a demand to live closer to the city in high-rise residential, otherwise developers wouldn't build the buildings they couldn't sell. The market is going to demand more apartment housing in coming year as smaller families predominate, the population ages and we no longer need as many three bedroom Californian bungalows with enormous lawns for our 2.3 children. I recognise there's a countervailing preference for living in those exact bungalows which is why I propose the following - let the market solve the problem. Government raises the height restrictions to a reasonable level for a sustainable population density. Governments put in place appropriate planning to create the social services and parks (because we need and can have more parkland with smaller residential footprints). Developers can buy houses on the market, compensate their neighbours for the loss of market value and justifiable amenity and build the development that is not only in demand but also removes many of the negative externalities.

There will be developers who will cater for the demand of Californian bungalow-aphiles and create purpose-built suburbs with bylaws that prevent higher density development. People who want to stay in their existing inner-city terraces or bungalows can do so, knowing they're forgoing a far higher price from the developer who wants to turn it into an apartment complex. There is genuine value in preserving some heritage and the Government can heritage list a few special streets with the consent of the residents.

My proposal isn't going to turn the city into a replica of down-town New York in a fraction of the footprint. We can triple our population density in the inner city by limiting height to 6 stories, the same as inner city Paris, even if every second block was a park. At triple the population density we could support public transport system as effective as London's which will break even, rather than being heavily subsidised by the government. People, closer together, would create a far more vibrant culture rather that of the suburbs, which would be fortunate because people would be living closer to work and have far more free time.

Initial Thoughts on The Spill and Julia Gillard

2010-07-07T19:13:00.004+10:00

I meant to write this article about two weeks ago, it's now, unfortunately tinged with retrospection.

I was concerned last month that the ALP could lose the coming Federal Election. The Rudd Government seemed bogged in a series of policies that, while meritorious, lacked the popular support to overcome opposition, specifically the ETS and the RSPT. What the Government had achieved had been bought at great cost, e.g. the Health Care reforms. The policies weren't radical but their inertia came down to the Government's lack of effective explanation. Why did we need these policies? What would they achieve? How would they achieve it? None of these details were clear and the public fell for the Opposition's appalling rhetoric of "Great Big New Tax". The fault was Rudd's inability to communicate and the penalty would be an Abbott Government.

Julia Gillard offered a new start. She seemed a good communicator, gave the impression of being able to deal with Tony Abbott, she was from the Left so some progressive Rudd policies like the ETS and asylum seekers policy might be reinvigorated, she would be the first female PM, she was an unmarried childless atheist. When the spill came I supported change because whether Rudd was going to lose the Election or not, Gillard was going to do a better job. I felt it was irrelevant that Labor had been spooked or forced by the "factions" of "faceless men", because the country would have a better Prime Minister. I was impressed at how cleanly and efficiently the coup was completed, certainly far better than the demise of Malcolm Turnbull (even if in recent weeks the press still hasn't caught up).

On the morning of the leadership change I expressed my fantasies "New PM, the world seems full of light, hope and potential..." I expected a relevant ETS, I expected the RSPT to be compromised but passed in a recognisable form, asylum-seeker policy would be reasonable, singles and DINKs would be respected, not used to subsidise families, progressive agendas could be advanced, e.g. rational drug policy, gay marriage or euthanasia. Tony Abbott's "Liberals" would be smashed in the polls. Over the course of the day I watched the press conferences and was worried by the lack of a timetable on climate change, that asylum seekers were brushed over and a lot of unionist rhetoric. I was impressed by Gillard cancelling the RSPT ads to reboot the negotiations with the miners.

In the last three weeks I have been disappointed by the compromise on the RSPT. The negotiated solution seems to have transformed the tax from Esmerelda into Quasimodo. The ETS has been postponed until there's universal consensus, i.e. never. The Government's new asylum seeker policy seems cobbled together and panders to the right. Gillard has personally ruled out gay marriage. She'll thrash the Liberals in the polls but I'm sure we'll rush to the election before she's exhausted her honeymoon.

I still think we have the better PM and the better contestant for the Federal Election. I think Australia will be run very well from the perspective of working families and middle Australia. The optimist in me, who imagines Australia becoming a progressive liberal society, believes Gillard is waiting for a majority in both houses or enough credibility to push a progressive agenda but my hope is fading...

Special Interest Groups: Robbing You While You're Not Watching

2010-07-05T18:04:00.005+10:00

Pure market economies aren't perfect, reality intrudes and there are market failures. Examples of market failures are the Tragedy of the Commons, natural monopolies and public goods. All these market failures distort the economy, twisting and pulling it out of shape. Governments exist to correct the failures, make sure enough people are employed in Defence, that firms pay to clean-up their pollution, engage in research that is too expensive or not marketable. From an economic perspective Government actions should be directed to remove the distortions, tweaking the economy back into shape.

The government has a few tools to do this. It can ban things like pollution outright but sometimes you need to pollute a little to produce a lot. If something is taxed, less will be demanded or produced, think alco-pops. Conversely, handing out money in the form of subsidies will increase production, i.e. the Baby Bonus. Government can spend it's own money to provide a service that no one will produce otherwise, e.g. defense. It can also supply information to help individuals and firms make better decisions - smoking causes cancer.

The easiest tools are taxes, tax breaks and subsidies. They can slash the profits for the targets or be extremely lucrative. But how and where should the Government apply them? Government relies on information and feedback to decide where to tweak. A lot of the feedback is supplied by groups interested in the subject and no one is more interested in the subject than the people who make their livelihoods from the industry. The information these special interest groups is inherently biased by self-interest.

The difficulty with taxes and subsidies is that the arguments between special interest groups and the common good are so asymmetrical. If we take the example of agricultural subsidies, where the government pays farmers a bonus for each unit of crop they produce and sell, the benefit to the few farmers is huge but the cost is spread out over the whole population. The farmers will argue hard for the thousands of dollars in subsidies while for the population it may represent less than a dollar a day in taxes. It works in reverse too, where the cost of the RSPT was concentrated on relatively few mining companies the benefits were spread thin over all the other companies in the country. Setting aside the validity of the tax, the outcry from the special interest groups was going to be enormous.

In the name of balance I should mention that many special interest groups do some good. Support or advocacy groups draw attention to their member's plight, some industries genuinely need assistance to become established. But there's an inherent problem of perception for these groups, their problems are so much more relevant and pressing than others'. If they're lobbying for funding a 20% increase makes a significant difference to them but isn't make-or-break for taxpayers.

The public need to critically consider the effect of special interest groups and the Government needs to independently establish the validity of their claims. The trivial personal costs of subsidies add up. Not only that but if the government is collecting extra taxes to pay farmers to keep their prices low or to "stay competitive" money is wasted in the process to pay bureaucrats who don't produce anything. Some industries should fail, the Tasmanian government could subsidise "Tasmanian mango farmers" to grow hot-house mangoes but the market can get us mangoes more cheaply from Queensland. We need to be prepared to discount the arguments of special interest groups. If the government's taking money away from a limited sector of course they'll squeal like stuck pigs, but is it for the general good? Could the forceful lobbying for a subsidy or concession boil down to a greedy inflated claim by special interest groups? Ultimately are these tax breaks, tariffs and subsidies just distorting the economy further and reducing our well-being?

Estate Tax

2010-06-27T16:43:00.003+10:00

It's generally accepted that the Government should collect tax. Tax funds government services, goes to transfer payments like the dole or pensions and is used to adjust for market failures. The Western system of liberal, democratic capitalism values individual work and tends to support various conceptions of equality, typically equality of opportunity. Inheritance undermines some of these tenets, children become wealthy for no effort of their own, wealth that becomes self-perpetuating, feeding inequality within the community. Socio-economic status is inherited, through education and upbringing, inheritance exacerbates that inequality.

A significant tax on estates would go a long way to lessen the effect of inheritance. Some inheritance is too small to accentuate the social distortion and a lower threshold on the rate should protect that. Some possessions aren't "wealth" or have sentimental value, the family home or heirlooms for instance, and these too should be protected through appropriate measures. Some bequests are charitable, which achieves a similar purpose to the tax and should also be exempt. Going business and farming concerns should also be exempt, but not any wealth the beneficiary derives from selling them. The rest should be subject to tax. The tax shouldn't be channelled into consolidated revenue but channelled into offering to less fortunate children the opportunities that wealth brings to those lucky enough to be born into wealth. The greatest proportion of the revenue should be spent on Government schooling to raise the standards towards those of private schools. The tax could also be used to improve children's health and provide small-business grants to first-time entrepreneurs.

There are countervailing arguments to estate taxes. One significant criticism is that if some of your wealth is going to be passed to your children there's less incentive to work and grow that wealth. This is a valid criticism and why the tax shouldn't be set at 100%, it's probably reasonable that the government shouldn't take half of the wealth but not much less. I'm less accepting of the attitude that there's some sanctity to the wishes of the dead or that tax exacerbates the tragedy of death, the wishes of the dead shouldn't be valued over the well-being of the living. There's also the belief that the tax is on money that's already been taxed, but so is sales tax or council rates etc. If it makes the critics feel better the tax could be levied (with significantly more difficulty and bureaucracy) on the recipients, rather than the estate, who haven't paid any tax on this income. Finally, there is the argument parents want to help their children in the world, an estate tax doesn't prevent parents from providing children with a great education or experiences, to help them make the most of themselves, while they're alive.

Ban the burqa?

2010-06-23T10:17:00.004+10:00

Belgium's doing it, France is considering it, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi has suggested it and Fred Nile is trying it by tangential means, should we ban the burqa? First a quick definition, a burqa's the full garment covering the head and body, Afghan burqas include a semi-transparent panel to see through, a niqab is virtually the same but the eyes see through a slit in the veil. Wearing the burqa is an extreme interpretation of the requirements of hijab, dressing modestly within Islam. It should be pointed out that the interpretation is cultural as well as religious and that burqas predate Islam. Christian church father Tertullian, writing 400 years before Mohammed praised Arabian women for covering their face. Very few women in West wear burqas or niqabs. The BBC estimated that of the entire Belgian Muslim population of half a million, 30 wore burqas.

The reasons given for the ban include that concealing the face cuts the wearer off from society, intimidates other people, oppresses women, runs contra to national identity and creates a security risk.

The security risk argument is disingenuous. There's nothing that you can conceal with a burqa that couldn't be concealed with a coat and a balaclava, mask or motorcycle helmet and people have been doing it for years. Burqas have been used in several recent hold-ups overseas but I'm sure the thieves would have been just as likely to commit the crime in motorcycle helmets if the burqa had been banned. I think the association between "Islamic garb" and "security risk" reveals the mindset of the people suggesting it.

Running contra to national identity (the French reason) is a step on a slippery slope. The French have a strong tradition of secularism to the point that they have suppressed overt religious displays like "large" crosses and Muslim headscarves in schools. I know I'm biased on the subject but I don't believe national identity is something that should be set in stone or given precedence over the rights of individuals. The idea of a monolithic nation led us to two World Wars and countless smaller ones before then. Traditional cultures are not the societies with the greatest standards of living or economic growth. There is no logical end point to defining "the nation" and there's nothing to say that it might eventually define mosques or socialists or homosexuals as outside the national identity.

Many people cut themselves off from society or intimidate other people. Poor dental hygiene can achieve that. We don't force people to brush their teeth any more than we force monks or agoraphobics back into society. Feeling intimidated is really in the subject's mind and more than punk or motor-cycle colours, a burqa's only intimidating for it's unfamiliarity and the prejudices people hold against Muslims. If you're intimidated try to remember that virtually all Muslims in the West have no interest in blowing you up or expanding the pan-Islamic Caliphate, in fact they're probably as opposed to it as you.

Oppressing women is a valid concern. I've heard Muslims spout some fairly disturbing opinions about the importance of hijab to protect women from rape. Men have such uncontrollable lust they can only be contained by women dressing in sacks. There's also a fairly strong theme in religion and traditional cultures about suppressing sexuality, especially women's sexuality and the burqa provides one more system of control. Banning the burqa is not a solution to this. A woman who can't leave the house in a burqa is not likely to leave it without one. These women shouldn't be punished for their husbands' oppression, we should reach their husbands through education and the law and resolve the situation that way.

Very few women wear burqas or niqabs and all the anecdotes I've seen are women who choose to burqa, often over their Muslim husbands' objections*. These are the women I'm concerned for. I think the core idea of liberalism applies here, the harm principle - if you're not harming anyone you're free to act as you see fit. The state only has the right to interfere where your actions are damaging someone else. I don't believe in privileging religion or culture but there's no other reasonable argument for banning or allowing the burqa. There may be popular support for banning the burqa but there's no reason to dressing the prejudice and paranoia of the majority in the arguments I've mentioned.

A caveat. There's a dangerous clause in Fred Nile's legislation before the NSW Parliament; covering your face is banned and religion is no defence. Constitutionally, Australia's not a Christian nation and it's a dangerous precedent for the Christian Democratic Party to open the door to taking away peoples' religious rights.

*I strongly recommend you read this piece by a friend of mine who wore a burqa for a week and this article in The Age from a Muslim convert who wears the burqa.

Why Governments Spend and Why They Save

2010-06-12T21:34:00.004+10:00

In response to a question about what I though of the austerity measures of the British Government and whether it was even possible to spend one's way out of recession-

I'll say straight up this is a very simplified, high-level answer. There are deep underlying mechanisms that have controversial effects.

If economic uncertainty strikes people stop spending as much, saving their money in case they lose their job. If no one is buying anything businesses stop making things and sack workers, their suppliers stop production etc. Less is created and people lose their jobs in a vicious cycle.

John Maynard Keynes identified that the government could stop the cycle by spending money, employing people to do anything, money they'd spend on goods, saving businesses, employing more people etc. to reverse the trend and create a virtuous cycle. Ideally, the money can be spent on infrastructure that benefits everybody but it can be spent on employing people to dig holes and other people to fill them in (to use the famous example that Keynes didn't quite give). Our government tried it by handing out $900 to every tax payer. At the time I pointed out several reasons why this wasn't a good idea.

For the government to hand out money they have to get it somewhere. As people lose their jobs they stop paying taxes and businesses don't make profits so the tax base shrinks. Tax isn't the answer. The government used to be able to print money which has it's own issues like inflation and political corruption, so they've handed control of the amount of money to a central bank like the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank or the Fed. The only option the Government has remaining is to go into budgetary deficeit, to borrow money like any business or private individual. Which is where the problems start.

If the government borrows money it represents far less risk of not repaying than private borrowers. It means governments usually have no issues borrowing but if the government takes a large share there's less left for everyone else. The price of borrowed money (the interest rate) goes up and it becomes more expensive for companies to borrow. It's not an issue if the companies aren't trying to borrow to expand etc. because they're not going to benefit from growing. If firms are trying to expand major government spending will throttle growth, not least of which because private business uses the money better than the Government does.

Government still needs to repay the money it's borrowed with interest. If government deficeits grow too great or go on too long the government may no longer be able to pay back the debt (using taxes) and will default. Greece came very close (they were only really saved by the EU bailing them out). Everyone who's lent the British Government money will be encouraging the Government to make cuts in spending to avoid them defaulting. The more the Government borrows the higher the interest rate will be on its debt too, making it more important to get spending under control soon.

If the British Government cuts it's own debt business confidence (in their ability to sell more product and grow) could be sufficiently high that they take advantage of the lower interest rates and borrow themselves. Rather than the government spending the money businesses spend it and the economy gets back on track.

Alternatively, British business isn't confident about the future and doesn't expand to fill the gap that the government leaves. The government has just made millions of Britons unemployed or poorer, withdrawn funding from thousands of projects and the economy will collapse again.

Obviously, these are two extremes. The government can slowly cut back on its spending but this may prolong the damage to the British economy in the long term or avoid a scare to confidence.

The question is "Where is British business confidence at?" That's an assessment for people who pay far more attention and have far more training than I have. For guidance you can look at the FTSE 100 (a gauge of the London Stock Exchange) or the value of the Pound on days when the Government announces cuts. If they go up it's a good sign. Be aware that they're assessments of total expectations, they take into account other factors, for instance the US economy or unexpected disasters, like BP screwing up in the Gulf again. Consider they may be pushed one way or another by surprises.

Support the Machines!

2010-06-12T16:25:00.005+10:00

A friend of mine works at Woolworths and opposes the new self-checkouts that have been installed. In solidarity with the ticket sellers at Hoyts she abuses me for using the touch-screen kiosks to buy my movie tickets. Her catch cry is "Support the Humans!"

Technology is growing exponentially, in the case of computing power, it doubles every 18 months. Some technologies improve on existing technologies, increase production or create new products. MP3 players improved on the Walkman, a loom makes it possible to produce more cloth than by hand weaving, mobile phones were unprecedented when first introduced. Some technologies do the jobs that previously had to be done by humans, even the most basic ancient plumbing brings in fresh water and carries out waste, which once had to be done by hand and bucket.

Technology typically increases standards of living, it gives us new conveniences or opportunities, it increases production, making products available to more people or it makes goods cheaper. When a human job gets replaced by technology because the technology is cheaper the cost of producing that service becomes cheaper. Some of those savings will get shared between customers, some go to the owners of the business, the price of the technology goes that producer. The human loses their job.

Taking the case of the self-scan checkout, what if the machine is slower? Even if the machine's slower, say half the speed, Woolworths can install twice as many machines to serve the same number of customers. Yes, it costs twice as much upfront, but in the long term they save on wages. It just takes those savings longer to balance out the cost of the terminals. With enough starting capital the real limit to installing terminals is space and maintenance costs, which
will eventually outweigh the cost of a human. If you can install enough terminals to serve more customers for less you can serve people who wouldn't have bought from you in the past and save everybody time in lines.

But back to the human, what will they do now? Living is slightly cheaper for them because of the savings technology makes for the world, but given they have less/no income that's not a help. In the long-term some workers would rather do something other than work as much as they do. Now it's slightly cheaper to live they can cut down on work, go back to study or put their savings into that great business idea they once had. The down-shifting worker or entrepreneur's job is now available or maybe their start-up needs someone to work retail. The human finds work!

Furthermore, machines can be improved far more easily than humans. I've already noticed that the Woolworths' checkouts beep at me less when I don't do things their way. In time the machines get faster, more convenient and efficient without putting more humans out of work. These are benefits everyone can enjoy but they are benefits that we'll enjoy only if it's profitable to improve the machines. If no one uses the machines checkouts will stagnate with an eternal cycle bored humans doing the same job with as much skill as the last generation.

There's a small caveat, the jobs the machines take from humans are low-skill jobs, things that people don't want to do forever but are great jobs for Uni students or people with limited skills/experience. Many of the jobs that become available in the long term will require a higher skill level which may make them inaccessible to the unemployed humans. Jobs that will be with us for a while are those that involve lateral thinking, creativity, communication and emotions, things the machines aren't quite ready for yet. Also, as Baby Boomers retire or as the population stabilises or shrinks many jobs are going to fall vacant and when the dust settles those will be jobs at the bottom end of the skill range.

This reaction against machines has been around for centuries. 200 years ago groups of textile workers sabotaged the new steam-powered looms which threatened to make them unemployed. Since the machines were invented everyone enjoys cheap, quality clothing, far more outfits than we would have with hand weaving. The name of the groups of workers? Luddites. Technology offers so many improvements to our standard of living: support the machines!

Ethical dilemma of the night...

2010-06-10T12:04:00.004+10:00

Last night I was discussing the upcoming John Edward show with a stranger (those of you who know me will know how this came up). She told me that she'd recently lost her father and told me some of the clearly quite painful and raw circumstances. She also mentioned that her mother had died in the past too. She'd decided to go to see John Edward with her sister. She was very fixated on getting a position close to the stage so Edwards would talk to her and contact her parents. The tickets are about $100 each.

John Edward claims to be a psychic who can talk to the dead. He is a fraud who's been criticised by sceptics like James Randi. He uses cold reading techniques like making generic or ill-defined statements that are bound to be true, playing the probabilities, reading involuntary responses from his subjects for confirmation. Some people have pointed out he's not even very good at it. I've even seen evidence that he uses audience plants. His TV shows are edited "for time" and conveniently concentrate his apparent hits rather than his multitude of misses. And he makes a very healthy sum doing it.

There's nothing psychic about what John Edward does. I've seen the exact same techniques used as part of a stage show where the performer was perfectly open about not having special powers. There were no edits and I didn't notice any misses though I'm sure brilliant stagemanship covered for any.

I have spoken to people who didn't give me a reason for going to see John Edward so I can pretend it was to enjoy the performance, rather than anything woo, he is a very polished speaker. But what should I say to someone who is vulnerable, genuinely looking for communication with the dead?

On one hand I know that she's vulnerable to being taken advantage of and may go from one psychic to the next looking for reassurances about her dead (which means no-longer-existing, non-conscious and non-communicative) parents, costing her real money for false comfort. Does truth also have an inherent value?

On the other hand, however false the basis for the comfort, belief in an afterlife will make her feel better. There's no hope she's actually going to get a reading. People, confronted with the arguments against their fantasies often reject the truth. Who's to say this isn't a one-time fling?

I didn't tell her my opinion of John Edward. I didn't make a decision and there were other factors involved. I'm just wondering which would result in the most utility.

As for John Edward, if he'd like a job where he isn't scum, why doesn't he try professional poker? It's great for people who play probabilities, can read non-verbal clues, maintain a calm exterior and he can still take money off people pursuing a fantasy.

"and that is how the Muslims are going to take over Australia"

2010-06-10T11:22:00.002+10:00

The comment above was part of a discussion on branch stacking around the Sunday roast which was already veering wildly into racism before my grandmother dropped that bomb. Between that comment and my outraged response it put an end to the postprandial conversation. But it's not an isolated idea, it's up there with a (Greek) customer's outrageously historically inaccurate "Muslims have been oppressing us for 2000 years" and Liberal senator Cory Bernardi's attempts to ban the burqa, amongst his reasons, that it allows criminals to disguise themselves and that concealing your face is un-Australian.

I want to bring a few facts to this paranoia about Muslims in Australia. In the 2006 census Muslims made up 1.7% of the population, Christians 64% and those of "no religion" (the fastest growing group) 19%. Muslims weren't even the second largest minority religion, which was Buddhism. By comparison, Canada is 2.5% Muslim, the UK 3%, Germany 5% and France is 9%.

Combined immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, based on the country of birth stats from the 2006 Census, come to less than 500k, only slightly more than New Zealand (477k) and less than half of the British immigration (1.2 mil). However, this is counting Malaysia, Indonesia and Bosnia (Islam is the largest religion) which make up 200k of that 500k. I differentiate these three states because I challenge my grandmother, the Greek customer or any bigot on Cronulla Beach to name the largest religious group or to differentiate the nationals from these countries. Middle Eastern appearance is how these people differentiate "the Muslims" from everyone else.

Ancestry is similar, Lebanese make up less than 1% of Australia's population, Turks make up 0.3% of the population, others even less. The Lebanese example is relevant because, although the population is 60% Muslim, 39% are Christians who make up proportionally more of Lebanese emigration.

These raw figures ignore that immigration maybe proportionally less Muslim due to religious oppression, Muslims from "non-Muslim" countries, conversion between religions, the fact that most adherents of all religions are fairly ambivalent. It also ignores the fact that "the Muslims" only share a religion, their culture, ethnicity, history and personal objectives are, often viciously, divided.

I think it's terribly hypocritical for prceeding waves of immigrants, be they 10-pound Poms, descendants of Italians or Greeks, having prospered here and enjoyed the bounties of living in Australia try to slam the door behind them. They're trying to shut out people who in many cases have come from worse situations or who have had to strive harder to get here. Immigrants create more jobs than they "take" and often they do the jobs other Australians aren't willing to do.

If we take an exclusionary position on followers of Islam or people of Middle Eastern heritage they will associate only with fellow immigrants, strengthen their adherence to their parent cultures and attempt to wrest power and self-determination that is denied to them, peacefully or violently. We can't allow people entry to the country and then remove their rights to dress as they feel compelled or participate in democracy.

Australia's not going to be dominated by a religion or ethnicity that makes up a mere 2% of the population. Cultures that follow Islam will make a valuable contribution to our pluralist society. We should be heartened that immigrants are so enamored with our country that they're trying to do their bit to shape and guide it rather than being resentful that they succeed in the face of our political apathy.

A Non-believer Explains Death, War, Suffering and Hunger - Part 3

2010-06-08T11:05:00.005+10:00

Continued from A Non-believer Explains Death, War, Suffering and Hunger - Part 1 and 2 by way of this response -

...I'm not sure I follow your logic. Your scientific explanation of death, war, suffering and hunger was spot on but I don't quite get how you can still call them bad. You have spoken of your personal preference and how you believe ...they aren't good but other than that I feel like there are more assertions than arguments. How do you hold together the idea that we are merely products of natural selection but that we are also equal? How can we rise above survival of the fittest without making (potentially unscientific) metaphysical statements?

We're essentially discussing ethics, how to act morally and how to interpret what is good. To phrase my assertions as more of an argument -

Human beings make decisions and those decisions usually include choosing one alternative as better than the other.

Humans live within family groups and small communities. Hobbes' State of Nature is a fallacy, in our "natural" state humans aren't solitary, antagonistic creatures.

For small groups to cohere the behaviour of individuals within the group has to be predictable by the rest of the group and that includes the value set that decisions are made on. The value set needs to be broadly consistent across the group so that the individuals work towards group priorities. In fact, natural selection will eliminate groups that don't have behavioural norms because they'll be less efficient at production and survival activities.

If there is no supernatural power to grant an external universal system of value (i.e. good or bad) the source must be within the natural world.

If the source of a universal system of value is within the natural world it must be based on a phenomenon that is universal and adequately differentiates alternatives

Pain/Pleasure is a universal physical phenomenon and therefore can form the basis for a system to differentiate good and bad. Unnecessary pain is universally avoided and typically indicates something deleterious to survival.

If pain/pleasure is taken as the basis of an ethical system it needs to be applied uniformly for the system to be internally consistent. Within the society if the evaluating pain/pleasure structure for making decisions isn't applied consistently societal cohesion breaks down, indicating a defective ethical system fails the purpose of the original value set.

Reciprocity strengthens the principle of a universal code of values but isn't integral. If we expect others to consider the effect of their actions on us, we'll consider ours on them. Anyone who we come into contact with can affect us, so the net is cast very wide.

Within humanity, physical and mental differences between groups are smaller than the differences between individuals within groups. This is applies to strength, intelligence etc. and makes a mockery of any attempt to discriminate between people on the basis of race or sex. Studies into childhood development demonstrate that gender and culture are environmental, an accident of how and where we're bought up. If the differences between groups is less than the differences between individuals it's arbitrary to make a distinction between one group (say our community) and another when two individuals from different groups could be transposed at birth and not be differentiated on the basis of their relevant personal characteristics.

Genetics and evolution make it even more clear that the line between those who's suffering we consider when we make a decision and those who we don't is fuzzy and can't be fairly drawn between two siblings of a common ancestor. One sibling may found the line of humans and the other a line of chimpanzees but for centuries after this distinction the two lines will share vast amounts of DNA, physical and mental characteristics and will be able to cross-breed.

We should consider all non-human animals when we make a decision because they experience pain and pleasure and we can't adequately demarcate where to stop. Some animals don't have the mental capacity to suffer emotionally or feel deprived of the future to the same extent as humans, some don't have the physical capacity to experience as much pain as we do. We discount these appropriately when we decide whether their death or suffering outweighs our happiness derived from it. We should certainly avoid exacerbating that suffering.

Avoiding unnecessary suffering and death is a principle that's demonstrated when someone picks a spider up and takes it outside the house. They don't owe the spider any social consideration or reciprocity, it could hardly be less human, it could be a potential threat to our survival and breeding, if you hit it well it will die nearly instantly but none-the-less we go to some personal inconvenience to avoid killing it unnecessarily.

In summary, ethical systems foster the survival and prosperity of social groups. Pain and pleasure are physical phenomena which are experienced universally, they can be compared to establish the value of an action and therefore form the basis of a viable ethical system to promote survival and success of individuals and groups. Human characteristics are distributed within a continuum not distinct groups and, given they can't be discriminated against as part of a group, individuals deserve consideration of their suffering and joy. Similarly, the genetics and physical characteristics of animals form a continuum with humans and deserve consideration appropriate to their abilities to suffer or experience pleasure.

I hope this has elucidated how physical science can lead to utilitarian ethics.

Laughing At Racism

2010-06-07T09:02:00.001+10:00

I make racist and sexist jokes. I've made jokes about women belonging in the kitchen and the International Conspiracy of Jewish Bankers. I can only imagine the reaction I'd get from some people. I'm sure many would be deeply offended, particularly the "targets" so I'm very careful about the company when I make the jokes. But I'm not ashamed of the humour, I'm worried that it would be misunderstood.

When I suggest that a woman ought to be in the kitchen I couldn't be further from that opinion. I'm taking on the persona of someone who'd think such a sexist thing. I use the same voice when I read the particularly ignorant and stupid letters to the editor of the Herald Sun. I'm not mocking women, I'm mocking sexists. I'm holding their attitudes up to ridicule. The shocked "we're going to Hell" response from the audience reinforces our opinions against these attitudes.

I make the same type of jokes to pillory cultural snobs and rednecks.

Racism and sexism should be mocked wherever they're found. The people who have these mentalities aren't going to change them in a stand-up argument and certainly don't deserve a live-and-let-live response.

Economic Profit and Super Profits

2010-06-04T21:12:00.001+10:00

The Resources Super Profit Tax raises a question. What is a Super Profit?

Imagine the first bakery in a town. The townspeople have never had bread before and there isn't a lot to go around so they're prepared to pay a lot for it. The first baker is raking it in. A second townsperson decides to open a second bakery. There's more bread so the price drops a little but even with both bakers working overtime there still isn't enough bread to go around and they still make a major profit. More people open bakeries and those who already have bakeries buy better equipment and hire more staff to make more bread. The price of bread drops further but each baker will still cover his costs and take home a little extra.

There is a bank in the town and it offers 6% interest on a year-long term deposit. Yet another person is considering opening a bakery. He's got enough savings and he asks a friend of his who already is a baker how much it costs to run a bakery and how much he earns. When they take into account rent and equipment, flour, water and yeast, electricity, paying wages (including his own reasonable salary) etc he makes about 6% of the cost of starting the bakery each year.

What makes more sense? Saving the money at the bank or opening a bakery? Either way you still make a 6% profit.

It's not until you're making more money than you would just keeping your money in the bank or
spread over the stock market, invested in a house etc.) that you're making "economic profits". The cut-off for economic profits isn't necessarily 6%, I chose that figure because is resonates with the RSPT. The figure changes over time based on expectations about the rate of growth in the economy, e.g. what returns you can expect on investments. How you use the money still has to be better than the (next) best use of it AKA "the opportunity cost".

Because in a competitive market, like this town, there's nothing stop anyone from starting their own business to try and make economic profits eventually people will pile into the market until the economic profits disappear. If you can stop that happening, for instance by asking the mayor to limit the town to two bakeries, having a uniquely efficient bread mixer or by keeping a secret of how to make bread you can keep making economic super profits. You can also make super profits if you're getting something valuable for (realtively) little.

A Non-believer Explains Death, War, Suffering and Hunger - Part 1

2010-06-04T15:07:00.003+10:00

I spotted this on Facebook (why do I bother?) from a Christian

The biggest ones that non believers need to answer are death, war, suffering and hunger. The only consistent answer they can give is that they just are. They can't explain their existence. They can't provide a solution.

After overcoming my visceral frustration with this statement I felt it was necessary to prove to this Christian that I could-

The answer is biology, not God or the Devil as you're implying. I'm going to assume the existence of life and acceptance of evolution by variation, inheritance and natural selection, if you want to dispute that there are some books I can refer you to.

Death. Organisms die because structures and processes decay and cease over time (ageing) or are interrupted by external forces (e.g. a falling rock or carbon-monoxide binding to haemoglobin and preventing it carrying essential oxygen). These are natural processes that are a result of the laws of physics and chemistry.

We fear death because natural selection favours individuals who have the instinct to avoid dying before they breed as successfully as possible. It's bound up with fear of the unknown and avoiding pain (both good survival instincts).

Suffering (sorry, I'm going to take these out of order). Pain is nerve signals that we're being damaged. It's another result of natural selection. If you avoid the source of damage, you have children who do the same thing. If you don't, you die out. Mental anguish is an emotional response to losing something valuable like food, a mate, offspring, security etc. Like physical pain the correct response to suffering (aversion) benefits your progeny so genes that elicit this response are the ones that survive today.

Hunger is your body telling you that you need food. If you don't eat you die and don't breed. It's like pain.

War. There aren't enough resources to go around because individuals keep breeding, they can't help it. If there's only enough to support your friends and relatives you'd rather they lived than the competition so you kill the competition. Humans fighting is no different from troops of chimpanzees or baboons. Humans are more intelligent so they find better ways to win the conflict. Humans are also capable of more sophisticated communication so they fight on a larger scale.

Death, war, suffering and hunger are all a result of the natural laws and a by-product of our existence.

A Non-believer Explains Death, War, Suffering and Hunger - Part 2

2010-06-04T14:57:00.004+10:00

Continued from A Non-believer Explains Death, War, Suffering and Hunger - Part 1 where I respond to a Christian's statement that nonbelievers can't explain death, war, suffering and hunger.

What I think you're actually asking is how non-believers consider these phenomena bad (I'm going to avoid the loaded word, evil)? We think they're bad because humans share the biology that allows us to feel pain and enjoy comfort, security and plenty. We can all agree that pain should be avoided and pleasure promoted. We are all equal, we're all capable of reason, none of us has an especial purpose, we have extremely similar biology etc. and we deserve equal consideration when deciding who should suffer and who should be happy. Ultimately, a good action is one that promotes pleasure/happiness/utility and reduces suffering. It doesn't require God to bring us to that conclusion.

What is the solution? Reason and communication will resolve wars started by prejudice and misunderstanding. Science and technology have been multiplying the resources humans enjoy. Our standard of living improves even while the population grows. The global population is beginning to stabilise so it's foreseeable that in the future no-one will need to kill someone to live and everyone will have enough that they don't need to be hungry.

Pain and suffering won't be resolved any time soon, they're innate. But what we can resolve are the reasons why we suffer by making decisions and acting to promote utility.

I question that death needs a "solution". That life is short makes living more valuable than an eternal existence. Death will be delayed through science and by promoting peace and plenty so that we can use the time to find more fulfillment.

A final point. I've demonstrated that there are explanations that don't require a belief in something except what you can see and reason. Christianity is an explanation that requires something that you can't demonstrate or prove. It leaves the possibility that, if there's no God, Christian explanations fall apart.

Nationalisation by any other name?

2010-06-04T09:22:00.005+10:00

Though the Cold War and history ended two decades ago, we in the West live under the shadow of Soviet state factories and collective farms eking out a few Ladas a week and just enough vodka to keep us sedated. So when Western Governments interfere with the running of private companies through limiting bonuses paid to blatantly hopeless executives or trying to retain some of the value to national resources someone on the right is going to scream "Nationalisation!".

So what is "Nationalisation!"? In spite of what some Young Liberals think, nationalisation is where the government takes over the assets and running of a private company, e.g. takes possession of the mine, the equipment, starts paying the workers' wages, opening and closing projects, selling the metal and pocketing the profits. Adding a tax or regulation to the industry isn't nationalisation.

Why is it such a bad idea? Why shouldn't our Government run profitable companies? The problem with the Government running companies is that they're notoriously bad at it. Think of Centrelink or your local school or hospital and how badly it's run, how inconvenient to deal with, how inefficient. Because corruption is such a terrible problem but a big temptation for Government workers on all levels enormous bureaucracy exists to prevent exactly that. It doesn't make for a company that handles customers, clients and business quickly and efficiently. Because the owners of Government companies can't sack or reward bosses as easily as the shareholders of private companies there's no incentive for Government bosses to make the improvements that would make a private company more profitable. It's almost a truism that anything the Government can make a profit from a private company can make more, at the same prices, for the same wages.

So why don't we privatise it all? There are a few things that the Government should have a hand in running. One is natural monopolies where it doesn't make sense to have two companies in the same business. Australia Post is an example, you could have two postal companies but there's not enough business to justify duplicating all the delivery centres and mail boxes. You could turn it over to a private company but in a monopoly a company can charge higher prices and cut unprofitable services to remote communities. So we put up with a degree of Government bungling in the name of cheap and fair post. Fairness also comes into why we don't create Centrelink Pty. Ltd. or VicPolice Private. There are also public goods where no-one can stop you using it and everyone can enjoy it without reducing anyone else's enjoyment, national defense is the classic example. Because you can't prevent anyone from enjoying the safety the Army creates there's no way to turn a profit, so if the Government doesn't provide it it's unlikely anyone else will.

Governments are beginning to retreat from some of the examples above as natural monopolies erode or arrangements can be made to take advantage of a corporate efficiency without losing service. With courier companies, fax and email the British Government is looking to privatise the Royal Mail. Metro, and previously Connex, run trains for the Victorian Government with ticket sales, topped up by Government funding, allowing room for profit as long as services are delivered. Of course, privatisation doesn't always mean the Government avoiding losses and being able to offer tax-cuts, it also means a cash lump sum at sale to pay for the next round of pork-barrelling.

I think the focus shouldn't be on "what should Government privatise?" but "how can Government be reformed to imitate corporate efficiency?". When you consider the strictures on Metro or Telstra , how are they in a different situation to a Government statutory body? Why couldn't the Government run these services and capture more benefits?

Reviving Max U

2010-06-03T18:18:00.003+10:00

It's been nearly a year since I gave up blogging but recently there have been a couple of coincidences that have tempted me to dust off Max U and launch him up-up-and-away again. Firstly, Carefully Scripted Remarks has inspired me to action. Secondly, my Twitter account is fixated on what I'd discuss here anyway and being limited to 140 characters is a little frustrating when I could get my point across better in 140 words. Thirdly, we have a couple of elections in the near future and, while I'm not one for commenting much on politics, political struggles generate policies and ideas which beg for a critical assesment of how much happiness they offer. So here we go...

The Glass is Half-Full...of Air

2009-06-13T16:25:00.003+10:00

The analogy of a glass is often used to describe optimism and pessimism, in terms of seeing the glass as half-full (optimism) or half-empty (pessimism). Alternatively, optimists are said to believe we live in the best of all possible worlds. Isaac Newton's arch-nemesis, Gottfried Leibniz, believed that if God was all-powerful and all-good, that the world he created must be the best of all possible worlds and that all evil in it was purposeful. To me this seems like an argument from incredulity, Leibniz couldn't conceive of a better way to derive positive human traits like courage so this must be the best world. I think it's a little extreme to discuss whether the world is the best or worst of anything. Each of us could tweak the world to make it objectively better or worse, save an innocent child from famine or steal the child's meagre meal. The world just is.

Back to glasses because they're simpler. The glass also just is. The contents just are. If within the analogy, fullness is positive, arguing about the direction to approach the contents is a waste of time and self-deluding, you see extra value or extra loss where there is none. What's significant about the glass is not the contents but that there is still half the glass that can be filled. The potential is a positive. We fill the glass through our efforts and things get objectively better.

We have the world, it's imperfect but we can conceive room for improvement. In time the level will go down as well as up. We focus on increasing the up, the happiness and well-being out there, and celebrate the improvements. This is far more worthwhile than fixating on how good or bad it is at the moment.

Tattoos and Other Permanent Marks

2009-06-03T20:46:00.003+10:00

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.

(- William Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", Act 1 scene 4)

Some of you who know me may be surprised that I have a problem with self-confidence. A few years ago I came across that quote and decided it had an especial resonance, that it was inspiring. I had a girlfriend who was very proud of her tattoo and the idea of permanently incorporating a rejection of self doubt into my body had appealed. I rolled the idea around my head for a couple of years and eventually was satisfied by the idea. I had it tattooed (without the attribution) just below my shoulder on my 24th birthday. Over time the novelty of my tattoo has worn off and it's no longer at the front of my mind but I'm still proud of it, it's still relevant and it still jolts me to action.

I know someone who's threatened to throw her son out of home if he gets a tattoo. He wanted to express his atheism with an inverted cross tattoo. His mother doesn't share his beliefs but is concerned about having them permanently etched into his skin. "Wars have started over religion". It is true, wars have started between religions and a lot of other things besides but a tattoo isn't your only permanent mark. Lots of information is floating around about you. The government could composite a dossier on you. Googling my name brings up a letter to the editor I wrote to The Age at least a year ago. Internet sites don't often get cleaned off. I just found the online diary entry an ex-girlfriend posted the day we broke up...10 years ago. Internet caches go back further. In the pogroms of the grim future a teenage tattoo is the least of your worries.

Which brings me back to this case. An inverted cross? I wouldn't recommend it. Apart from anti-religious sentiments an inverted cross represents Satanism (and if you don't believe in God why would you believe in his equally fantastic opponent) and also Saint Peter, who was crucified upside-down because he felt unworthy to die the same way as Christ. Atheism isn't just a rejection of Christianity but a rejection of all gods. Use a positive symbol of your disbelief, a reference to Reason or something neutral, like a Scarlet A. Something that in later years, when your beliefs have more sophistication, won't seem like just a rejection of your parent's religion. Think about it for a couple of years and get something you're sure you'll be pleased with for the rest of your life.

Why I Don't Believe What I Don't Believe

2009-05-31T20:55:00.003+10:00

I'm an atheist, I don't believe in any god. But I feel it's important to justify why; it's not a default position. Firstly, I don't think there's any evidence for God in the universe. I believe science explains or has the ability to explain everything that exists in the world.

Our Universe began in a Big Bang modelled in mathematics, physics leads to the formation and reformation of galaxies, stars and planets. On our planet chemical processes form a variety of increasingly complex chemicals, including some that can reproduce themselves. Inheritance with variation and natural selection allows early life to evolve into more complex life, eventually giving us the biological variety we have now. As our understanding of science increases God is squeezed out of the gaps so we need no god to explain the rising sun, thunder or any other aspect of the universe. Modern science isn't incompatible with God, He's just unnecessary.

Though I am most familiar with the Judeo-Christian God, I disbelieve all gods. We can dismiss ancient nature gods, super-humans with magical powers and very human traits, like Zeus or Thor, created by man to explain the weather. All modern gods I'm familiar with are described as omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent (all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good). My problem with these gods is that they're incompatible with the world I see. This is the Problem of Evil, if God is perfect then evil can't exist. I'm not discussing human-created evil like the Holocaust, believers wriggle out of that by invoking humanity's divine free-will. This is the gratuitous pain and suffering God causes or allows in natural disasters and even by the very construction of the Universe. He knows it will happen, He can stop it and He wants to prevent suffering and yet it still exists.

Believers argue that God allows evil to allow free-will but I'm sure an omniscient God could have conceived a world with free-will and less, if not no pain. The other argument I'm familiar with concerns pain as an opportunity for us to learn and grow. What does a 9 month infant washed away by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, a disaster without human cause, drowning or battered to death, learn as they're robbed of life and perish in agony?

If you claim your God is perfect then I'm within my rights to expect the highest standards of His moral behaviour. You reply your God is mysterious and ineffable, that I can't comprehend his plans. But you also claim that I'm created in his image, presumably that includes similar moral sensibilities. Surely the actions of a perfectly good God appear good to everyone, no matter how small-minded they are. You can't escape the fact that the pain, suffering and misfortune in the world doesn't appear the work of an all-good God, God is either capricious, uncaring, cruel or doesn't exist.

Well that about wraps it up for God. I will concede that there could be another variety of god, one I haven't encountered or is less than perfect. Such a god is unnecessary to explain the world. I've seen no evidence of any sort of god. Taking all this into consideration, on the balance of probability, I choose to disbelieve in gods.

Maintaining the Population Age Balance

2009-05-16T17:58:00.003+10:00

Discussing reducing the fertility rate in Australia today (see Are You Sure You've Had Enough?) the issue of our "aging population" came up. As the birth rate declines the population will fall but the average age will also increase as more babies were born in the 1980s and 1990s than the 2000s and those babies will live longer reaching 90, 100 and beyond. There will be more and more retirees and proportionally fewer and fewer tax-paying workers to fund their pensions. In the 1950s this could have been a major problem and is often described as one.

I think there are a couple of issues here. Firstly is the retirement age. In the 1970s and 1980s you could retire at 65 and live for another 5-10 years before you died in your 70s. By the time Gen X (born 1961-1981) and Gen Y (born 1980-1995) get to retirement age they'll have 25 or 30 years of retirement ahead of them, with modern medicine, particularly if stem cell therapy pans out, most of that life will be extremely high-quality. There's no reason why these individuals can't be expected to work into their 70s, as long as they remain capable, willing and interested in accruing retirement funds.

The second issue is this idea that Australian pensioners need to be supported by Australian-born workers. This country has a history of immigrant workers being incorporated into the culture throughout the later half of the 20th century. Birth rates in developing nations will take longer to fall than in developed countries, no matter how effectively we improve living standards and education, meaning the countries of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Oceania and South America will continue to be overpopulated even as populations in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand fall. In a globalised world there's no reason not to allow greater levels of young adults with skills and ambition to migrate and support our social security system. In time global birth rates, population densities and incomes will stabilise, aided by the movement of immigrants, and will reach sustainable levels.

There's a silent (and sometimes not-so-silent) nagging fear, particularly from the right, that immigration will change the look and feel of the country, that somehow we'll stop being Australian if a large chunk of the workforce was born overseas. It was in the 20th century...and haven't we moved past the White Australia Policy and White Anglo-Saxon Protestant? I feel it's important that some of our culture is inculcated in immigrants, our principles of secular, liberal democracy, for instance. Beyond that as I'm enjoying the fruits of my career I look forward to retiring in a sophisticated riot of multiculturalism where talented and ambitious people value opportunity and appreciate the benefits of living in the First World.

Locus of Control

2009-05-16T07:01:00.001+10:00

You have a job to do. What's going to make the most difference in how well you do? If you name anything outside your skin you probably have an external locus of control. If you named yourself your locus of control is likely internal. Locus of Control (LOC) is a personality trait all about where you place responsibility for outcomes in work, study and life. I've simplified it, it's a continuum between internal locus of control where outcomes are solely dependent on you and external locus of control where outcomes have nothing to do with you, it was luck, other people for better or worse, the way the system is set up. Everyone fits somewhere on that continuum, I'm close to the internal end.

As someone with an internal (LOC) I get frustrated with people who don't seem to take responsibility for their work and their life. If they fail at something, the circumstances conspired against them. The circumstances conspire against all of us but some of us choose whether we'll let that affect us, push through, work harder and beat those evil circumstances or even choose to give up and recognise that that was our choice. Equally I don't want to be commended when I fluke a good mark doing any work in because I recognise that the result should reflect the effort not just the bell curve.

I enjoy looking for the locus of control in other people (because I'm sad and have no life) and it can explain a lot. Ultimately though it's hardwired personality, there's no point in remonstrating with someone who is psychological unable to see themselves as anything other than a cork on the waves and currents. At the same time recognising your own locus of control gives you more insight on your own actions, opinions and whether everyone else will understand the situation the same way.

Jumps Horses and the Ban on Steeplechasing

2009-05-09T13:23:00.002+10:00

Several horses have been put down as a result of injuries sustained in steeple chasing in Victoria this year. Elements of the horrified (or awakened) public have called for steeple chasing to be banned. Rob Hulls, the State Attorney General, has ducked the issue and referred it to Racing Victoria. Trainers of horses have threatened to put their horses down if the sport is banned. One threatened, rather barbarically, to send the heads to Hulls.

I think the threat to kill the horses should be completely ineffectual in the debate. If the sport continues all of these horses are going to reach the end of their racing life sooner or later. Some will be bred from or sold to enthusiasts, the rest will be euthanised. Some will be lucky enough for that to happen in a stable or paddock. For many it will be writhing in pain on track when they just failed to clear the jump they were driven over, probably after a career of beatings, strains and injuries. At question here is the suffering of future horses with lacerations and bones broken until a vet brings merciful release and the additional pleasure of the punters because they can see a steeplechase rather than a flat race. The money spent on "the racing industry" will get spent elsewhere, the punters will find substitute sports but the horses will be spared that pain before death.

Death comes to all living things, it shouldn't be vainly delayed because some people find the concept frightening, particularly not at the cost of pain and suffering.

A Rant About Prams

2009-05-09T09:52:00.001+10:00

This isn't a carefully reasoned argument, though I think I have a point. Parents should expect more from themselves and their children. Parents' prams/pushers/strollers are an inconvenience, they clog footpaths, transport and shops. They're inherently slower than foot traffic and because they're so wide, near-impossible to overtake. Parents, wandering along in their breeding bliss, act completely unconcerned by the imposition they're creating.

Here's a reality check - children should either be carried or expected to move fast enough to keep up. They're evolved to do so. There were no baby-buggies on the plains of Africa or crossing the Bering Land Bridge. If they couldn't do either they were lunch for lions. A nomadic tribe following the herds can not wait for Junior because he's a bit foot-sore, they'll starve.

You could argue that modern diet and sanitation has allowed kids to grow bigger. True, but so have you, put the child in a papoose or equivalent and carry it. I don't know how the balance of costs and benefits stacks up for eliminating prams, but there's certainly advantages in expecting a little more from your offspring.

Studies Have Shown...

2009-05-07T11:32:00.001+10:00

Did you hear the one about the people who signed up for a free horoscope reading via a Paris newspaper and were then asked to rate the accuracy. 94% responded that it was accurate, 90% of their family and friends agreed. They'd all received exactly the same horoscope, that of the French mass-murderer Dr Petiot. Says something about belief in astrology. Have you ever wanted to check what studies have shown about, say birds and wind turbines? You could Google it but is that going to give you an efficient answer?

I'm proposing a website where users contribute the findings of scientific studies and polls, much like Wikipedia. Attached to the results are details to make them relevant to idle browsers and academics alike. The citation to the original article is essential. An indication if the article was peer reviewed. Related studies are linked, details of whether the study has been replicated or discredited by further studies. How often the study has been cited in academic papers. Basic details about the method are relevant, at a bare minimum the sample size. Some of these functions can be achieved through web bots, search engines and academic databases, others by enthusiastic users.

I think as a resource for interested amateurs and students studieshaveshown.com would be invaluable, even if only as a starting point and another website that students are warned against citing in First Year (who would be stupid enough to reference Wikipedia, really!). I only lack the computer skills to build it. If you can, go for it, the site's worth more to me than the credit.

Urban Planning in the 21st Century - Part 2

2009-05-07T10:56:00.002+10:00

Wandering around our one bedroom, inner-city flat this morning I realised one concern with increased housing density. Multi-storey, multi-occupant buildings lack some of the possibilities of suburban houses for retro-fitting resource efficiencies. We rent so our possibilities are even more limited. We can (and have) changed our lights for compact fluorescents, we recycle, we catch our shower water which is used to flush (via a bucket), our heating is a by-product of my computer, otherwise my father always told me to put on another jumper, so that's not an issue. We've asked our landlord to fix our leaking taps, install an efficient shower-head and turn down the hot-water service. Beyond that there isn't much we can do.

If we owned the place we could install double-glazing, better curtains, a small water recycling plant, or rearrange the plumbing to improve grey water usage, better water fixtures, sensor lights would also be possible. But that's where the options end. My parents' house can have solar panels on the roof, rain tanks, improved insulation, composting for their kitchen waste, all a little difficult to retro-fit onto a block of flats.

With the current attitudes towards multi-star environmentally-efficient buildings it's certain that new housing built in the inner suburbs to increase housing densities will include the latest affordable efficiency improvements. It is the nature of technology to be superseded and convincing a body-corporate to lift the standard may be a challenge for the few environmentally-conscious residents. In the medium term we could defray some of our environmental efficiencies.

Orange Bellied Parrots and Wind Farms

2009-05-06T22:10:00.003+10:00

The Orange-Bellied Parrot is synonymous with wind farms, its endangered status was a major argument against building a wind farm at Bald Hills on the Victorian coast. That and the "visual amenity" of some coastal NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard). Wind turbines kill birds. The tips are moving at hundreds of kilometres an hour and they're steel. It's estimated that in spite of birds' tendency (well publicised by the wind energy industry) to avoid them, each turbine kills between one and three birds a year.

But if you listen to the opponents you'd believe turbines are the only thing that kills birds. Cats take a decent number, fiddling some Government figures, 50 million in Victoria a year. To kill that many birds Victoria would need 16 million wind turbines. I don't know where we'd put them all. Then there's all the power lines, cars, trucks aeroplanes and skyscrapers they fly into.

I'm going to preface this paragraph by pointing out that wind turbines alone won't save the world but they are a growing part of a scheme of clean energy sources to reduce global warming. A Nature article forecasts that with mid-range estimates of climate change a quarter of species will become extinct by 2050, easily within my life-time. I'm not saying a few wind farms will make the difference but where a handful (around 150) of parrots can prevent a step in the right direction, is this how we'll fight climate change? Let's face it, they've probably got a greater than 1 in 4 chance of going extinct anyway. There are arguments from biodiversity but are the few parrots left really playing their allotted role in the ecosystem?

But how many parrots will all the proposed turbines in the area kill? The Government organised a study, it's thrilling reading if you care about the chances of an Orange-Bellied Parrot making it across Bass Strait or how often they try to dodge an enormous fan. The most extreme estimate is 1.35 parrots a year, out of 150. The report acknowledges that it probably won't even be noticed against the normal rate at which the little bastards drop out of the sky.

Losing My Religion

2009-05-05T18:17:00.001+10:00

My parents invited the Mormon missionaries in when they came knocking. Based on the missionary "lessons" they joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and soon I was born. An early memory of my father was as the bishop of a Mormon ward (equivalent to a priest of a parish) in Sydney. My parents were heavily into the Church so I went to Primary (Sunday school), was baptised at eight (at eight an LDS child is considered accountable for their actions and can be expected to avoid sin) and received the Aaronic priesthood at twelve. The Church runs an early-morning Scripture study program for teenagers and I attended from thirteen, getting up at 5am four days a week. The ability to cope with early mornings has been a really useful skill since.

As a child and teen I had a decent knowledge of the Bible and the additional LDS Scriptures. I felt "the presence of the Holy Spirit". I got up in front of the congregation and bore my testimony of the Church. I went to the Temple in Sydney and was baptised for the dead. I occasionally even paid tithing (the LDS Church requires 10% of your income). Of the dozen or so teens in the ward I was probably the most devout.

By my mid-teens I was too big to pick up and put in the car on Sundays and my compulsion to attend Church early in the morning and on Sundays diminished. I still believed and kept the right side of most of the Church's moral prohibitions. Around sixteen I began to swear, take the Lord's name in vain and break the chastity rules but the guilt was massive. I also had some openly atheist and agnostic friends. I avoided thinking about my beliefs because I didn't have the basis to reject the Church and my ingrained "beliefs" and the threat of eternal damnation were set up against the guilt of the sins I was committing, it was very angsty. First year university wasn't the big social/hedonistic eye opener for me but Philosophy 101 laid out some of the arguments against God. The angst kept me from using these tools but I started to consider myself as agnostic.

Since Philosophy 101 I broke most of the rest of the rules and became comfortable with my "sins", the guilt was diluted and dissolved. My ideas about right resembled Liberalism and Utilitarianism more than religion. I eventually decided that by ignoring religion and identifying as agnostic I was being intellectually lazy and decided I was an atheist. I suffered a relapse on my tour of Europe, the shoulder of an Italian motorway is only a foot or two from death for a cyclist and I tried to squeeze an omnipotent protector between me and the traffic, bringing back the angst. I thought hard on it on the long kilometres later and got a little help from a friend and rejected God utterly. An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being is just inconsistent with what I see in the world. The more I read, think and discuss it with both sides, the more convinced I am.

World Government - Part 1

2009-05-05T17:06:00.001+10:00

What does your government do for you? How much of that is unique to you and how much of that is universal for every other human on the planet? Do we really need 193+ separate institutions providing the same function?

Are there any universal human values? Could the values we share form the basis of a deeper unity? Are the values that hold us apart innate or artificially created? Are these divisive values giving us any benefit? Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

What are the practical effects, positive and negative, of having 193+ separate countries sharing the same planet? If there was just one what could it look like? How would we get there?

I'm going to capriciously and idly entertain the idea of world government, whether it's desirable, whether it's possible and what it would look like. It's deeply speculative and I know for those who care there's a massive difference of opinion. Again I'm not going to get through it in one post but hopefully I'll occasionally add something to a discussion. If you care post something, whether an argument for or against, a question, or thought. It doesn't have to be an almighty slab of reasoned debate. I thrive on discussion almost as much as I thrive on loudly proclaiming my opinion and while I know you're reading this I don't see much evidence.

Urban Planning in the 21st century - Part 1

2009-05-05T11:18:00.000+10:00

At the moment there's some debate about the urban development of Melbourne and where we are going to house the growing population particularly with increasingly limited water resources (the city's dams are at 27.7% of capacity). One letter to the editor recently asked when Melbourne's residents agreed to welcome another million people (the predicted population increase by 2030).

They're coming whether we like it or not. Immigration is increasing the Australian population and that immigration is likely to increase as global warming raises sea levels, creating climate refugees. One example, a 20cm rise would create 740,000 homeless Nigerians. Bangladesh is even more populous and more low-lying. Global warming will also expand deserts forcing those living on the marginal lands at the edge to find new homes. Melbourne is taking more immigration than Sydney and growing faster. The effect is compounded by the tendencies of immigrants to have higher fertility rates than those born here meaning more first-generation Melburnians.

Another relevant factor is the trend of urbanisation locally and world-wide. Worldwide about half the population live in cities, this will be 60% by 2030. In Australia 60% of the population live in the capital cities alone. If environmental damage continues to destroy our agricultural land the rural population will continue to move to the cities to find profitable work.

There's obviously far more to consider than I can type in a single post or than you'd want to read. So with this and with a couple of other major topics I want to explore several interesting factors in what is the most beneficial course of action. It'll never be the definitive work but it could make an amateur's guide. While I'd like to be presupposition-free I'm human so I suspect the answer is increased population density. That will also give you Devil's Advocates something to comment about.

Probably the most relevant figure I want to leave you with for now is 1566 people per square kilometre, the current population density of Melbourne (ABS).

Swine Flu - Attack of the Zoonotic Sources!

2009-04-28T09:19:00.000+10:00

The Age (because where else would I get my news?) irresponsibly published a completely unhinged letter from the CEO of the Australian Association for Humane Research today linking the outbreak of swine flu to xenotransplantation research, essentially putting bits of animals into humans, organ transplants to treat medical conditions.

The author uses a lot of scary-sounding scientific words the foremost being ZOONOTIC!, which really just means originating from animals. HIV/AIDS, bird flu, BSE and swine flu all have ZOONOTIC! sources (that is come from animals). But what she ignores is that zoonotic disease is not a product of modern technology and weird human-animal hybrids but agriculture. If you live in close proximity to hundreds of animals there's lots of chances for naturally mutating viruses and bacteria to acquire the ability to infect humans. Other examples of zoonotic pandemics include cholera, the Black Death and plague which predate our fancy technology.

If anything, the advantage that our technology gives us is better medicine to combat serious illness. Part of this medicine is developed through animal experimentation by scientists who are careful to reduce the unintended consequences, like new diseases, and the suffering of their experimental subjects. Other benefits include transplants to treat organ failure, diabetes and Parkinson's. The advantages of Australia studying these technologies is that developed nations working within a framework of procedures and safeguards is that ZOONOTIC PANDEMICS! are less likely to occur while many lives are saved.

If you want to reduce your chance of dying in a ZOONOTIC PANDEMIC! take care of your body, see a doctor if you're sick and reduce the quantity of meat you eat to limit that agricultural human-animal contact but don't be scared by the fear mongers.

The Malthusian Principle of Population

2009-04-26T17:58:00.003+10:00

Chris Berg, writing in The Age today (Depopulate and Die of Boredom), scornfully made reference to theoretical limits to population growth and overcoming them through innovation. The most infamous limit to population growth was suggested by Thomas Malthus, writing at the end of the 18th century. Malthus pointed out that improvements to agriculture resulted in a constant increase in the amount of food mankind produced (a straight line) but that human population growth makes increases on the increases (think compound interest) resulting in exponential growth. No matter how regularly food production expands population growth will outstrip it. Obviously when population is greater than food supply there's going to be trouble.

The Malthus Principle often gets applied to oil production and environmental conservatives respond by pointing out that Malthus' predictions never came true. I think there's a fatal flaw in Malthus' model. Agricultural improvements aren't constant. Technological innovation is a function of a variety of things, e.g. culture, economics and communication, but all things being equal, population is the fundamental driver of innovation, a larger community will invent more things than a smaller one.

As the population grows to consume all the food the increasing population increases the rate at which agricultural improvements are discovered, increasing the increases in food production. Read it several times until you make sense of it, or just look at the graph. Malthus' classical theory is in white with the population without food in red, to emphasise the point. My alternative idea of food production is the green. The population and their food supply will never intersect. Assuming the limits to growth can be solved through innovation.

Unfortunately there are signs that innovation is not going to keep us ahead of the curve forever. Malthus' principle is very simple, when you add other factors there are all sorts of curves that drive food production down and limit the capability of innovation. Some of those curves are exacerbated by population. Malthus predicted that when the population did outgrow its food supply the results would be catastrophic. Famine is the most obvious. Disease becomes more serious without adequate nutrition. Then there's War over the limited resources. Unfortunately these are still on the cards.

The Tragedy of the Commons

2009-04-26T12:37:00.003+10:00

Without turning this into a purely economics blog I do feel the need to put out there some simple economics concepts that inspire thought and explain some phenomena. Today's lucky concept is the Tragedy of the Commons, which originates in post-feudal Britain where villages had common land for the (otherwise landless) peasants to graze any livestock they might have. These commons were stripped bare because each peasant squeezed as many animals as he could on to the land, combined there were far more animals than the land could support and so none of the livestock had enough.

If you're not really interested in the minutiae skip this paragraph. Common goods are anything where you can't stop people from using it (because it's available to anyone) but using degrades it. Everyone will get whatever they can out of it, because it's something for nothing, if you don't squeeze the last bit of potential out of it someone else will and you miss out. Tragedies of the Commons can be resolved by regulating how much people use of the resource, hoping "norms" will spring up so society limits what people take or by "assigning property rights", giving ownership to someone so that person (or people) will care for the common good, limiting the short-term yield for long-term sustainability.

So what is the relevance of the village common today? No one owns the fish in the sea and if one commercial fisherman leaves enough fish to replace the ones he takes another fisherman will just take that breeding stock. Soon we have 75% of fishing stocks being fished at their limit, over fished or depleted. There is now more capacity to fish the seas than there are fish to catch. If a river doesn't belong to anyone (for instance it flows through several properties, states or countries) then everyone on that river will use it for irrigation or as a sewer, well beyond it's capacity. A quick admission, recently I suggested that the Murray-Darling Basin is a Tragedy of the Commons, it's not, there are property rights assigned over the water in the Rivers, the situation is far more complex. The final and largest Tragedy of the Commons is Earth's atmosphere which no one country owns but every nation dumps pollution and CO2 into at will creating a common problem of global warming which no individual has a responsibility, ability or sufficient incentive to solve.

Things They Should Have Taught You In School

2009-04-24T07:15:00.000+10:00

There is a certain frustration amongst my friends that people are stupid. Maybe not everyone, just a majority. I disagree. Most of the time. A lot of people make foolish decisions and have silly opinions. I think it's fundamentally a problem of ignorance. But it's a serious concern in a democracy and a society where knowledge has a significant effect on quality of life. High school really is our last opportunity to reach everyone so I'm going to suggest that certain subjects should become compulsory at a stage when the students can reach a sophisticated understanding of them.

Politics, if you want to scare yourself about the state of democracy, work for the Australian Election Commission at a polling station at the next election, at $300 it's good money for a day. Many people don't understand that in the seat of Batman they can't vote for Kevin Rudd and there is no way that many people really support the Citizens Electoral Council (http://www.cecaust.com.au/). A semester of politics means that Australians can vote effectively, having understood the issues, decided whose policies will result in the best country for them, possibly even adequately communicated their own opinions to their candidates.

Economics (don't roll your eyes at the business graduate), if you're going to spend money you should understand it. People complaining that my company charges a handling fee when nothing is actually handled clearly don't understand that if we removed the handling fee that they'd get charged more in the mark up. It's not that we're greedy, I'm not sure we're even that profitable, we need money to continue providing a service or else we'll exit the market. I feel that there's an astonishing amount of support for the K Rudd Stimulus Package that is generated by uncritical greed, not even thinking where the money is coming from. An informed populace should be immune to such flagrant vote buying.

Most importantly though, Critical Thinking. Not a conventional subject, I know, but a course that would teach how to assess claims, how to gather and weigh evidence, how to construct a logical argument and how to defeat an illogical one. How many better decisions would be made by someone who understands that correlation doesn't imply causation, what a straw-man argument is or the difference between $100 now and $200 in two weeks? Even two semesters of Critical Thinking will immunise citizens against the worst Ponzi schemes, spurious claims of ideologues, superstitions, deceptive politicians and help them to test their own thoughts for veracity. Sciences and Liberal Arts will become open doors which the students can step through at will. Everyone will be equipped to make the best decision for themselves. It's something that should be elevated from a theme that is conveyed dependent on the skill and time of the teacher to the most important thing you'll learn in school.

Diminishing Marginal Utility

2009-04-20T19:19:00.001+10:00

I've always intended to use this blog to argue for Utilitarianism and Liberalism, and their practical applications, but I'm not feeling quite up to that yet. This post introduces an important concept which is worth thinking about, Diminishing Marginal Utility. Utility is the happiness, welfare, well-being, benefit that we derive from an object, process, experience or decision. You can compare the benefit that you get from eating a chocolate bar to the benefit you get from eating a Brussels sprout. It covers nourishment, enjoyment, physical and mental satisfaction. Most people would agree that the benefit of the chocolate beats the benefit of the sprout.

Diminishing Marginal Utility (DMU) is the concept that the more you have of something the less benefit you get from an additional unit. E.g. your first chocolate bar tastes great, your second is still nice but by the time you've eaten twenty you'll be begging to stop. No matter how much you like chocolate. DMU applies to so many things, e.g. food, exercise, leisure time and personal wealth. DMU works backwards too, to get the same total enjoyment that you got from your first chocolate bar you'll have to eat two or three more.

The concept has all sorts of important implications for real life - Do CEOs with seven-figure salaries appreciate performance bonuses that make us green with envy? Who would derive more benefit from $50 that I could give to charity, me or someone living on $2 a day? (Note, I'm just thinking, not arguing for radical redistribution) Will you really get the full benefit of that fifth chocolate bar? If you had a thousand chocolate bars, how many would you swap for just one Brussels sprout?

A Quick Commitment to Intellectual Honesty

2009-04-14T08:04:00.000+10:00

Given that I'm dealing in rational conclusions drawn from facts rather than intuition, I want to make a commitment to intellectual honesty here. It's something I try to do in life (yes, statistically it doesn't appear that the Baby Bonus is encouraging teens to get pregnant for the money, the greatest effect is in the fertility rates of older women).

All the facts I publish are correct to the best of my knowledge. Already a couple of posts haven't gone up because I couldn't find stats to support what I thought was true.

I encourage debate between competing view points to find the right answer, the wrong one will reduce utility. If you disagree with me comment, if I can't refute your points or my facts are incorrect I will post a retraction. A caveat, personal anecdotes don't constitute evidence.

Registering Bikes

2009-04-13T18:05:00.000+10:00

The Age yesterday (13/4/09) covered a proposal to register bicycles like cars. Bicycle Victoria, as a cycle advocate rejects registration. BV is concerned that enforcing registration would reduce the prevalence of cycling which, they argue, has benefits that outweigh those to be derived from registration. Half of motorists, Neil Mitchell and miscellaneous others support registration, and I agree, even though I'm a cyclist and, I think, still a member of BV. Registration makes road users accountable, defrays the cost of maintaining and expanding the road system and includes a component to fund the TAC which insures everyone against harm caused by road users. These are all worthwhile benefits as long as the registration costs are appropriate.

As a cyclist I agree that I am entitled to the same rights and respect as anyone else on the road and not just the ones afforded me by physics. I agree that I'm also bound by the road rules and should be punished if I break them. I'll admit that I've very occasionally run red lights and once even broke the speed limit. But when a driver complains about those lawless cyclists or worse yet, uses their behaviour to justify driving dangerously around me, I'm not the ones they're talking about. I don't have any fraternal loyalty to cyclists who compulsively run reds, ride on footpaths or text and ride (yes! it happens). The self-regulation BV advocates obviously isn't working, if those cyclists were fined off the road the other 90% of cyclists would get more respect and be in less danger. But they'd need to be identifiable.

So how much should it cost me to register my bike? Bicycles use the same roads and take up less road space and less wear and tear than motorcycles so the annual registration fee should be even less than the $35.60 to register a private motorbike. The TAC fees on a sub-60cc motorbike for a year are $70.40 but remember a lawless cyclist killed an old man in 2006? We should take into account the number of people killed by cyclists yearly. So that's one in the 3 years, 2006-2008, in the same three years another 971 people have been killed on the road not by cyclists. You presume the injury figures should be similar. When registering a car it costs $415.80 in TAC charges. If we divide that by 971, the ratio of cyclist-caused death (and presumably injury), cyclists should pay about 43c! I'd be happy to pay the $36-$100 annually, with a once off $30 for plates, to get more respect and safety on the road.

Neil Mitchell argues that the new $115 million State Government should be paid for by registering bikes but it pales in comparison to spending $750 million on a little extra road around Frankston. What he doesn't take into account is the cost savings to the public health budget from the regular exercise cyclists get, the reduced carbon emissions, the reduced petrol imports etc. We should probably be funding cycling improvements out of savings to the budgets of the health, sport and environment sectors, I think we'd have some change over.

I'm A Journalist, Give Me What I Want

2009-04-10T07:05:00.002+10:00

Working as a supervisor I get a lot of people insist on speaking to me because they're not getting what they want from my staff. I don't know why they bother, a) the staff member's usually already checked with me how far they can bend the rules, the latitude's not going to change just because the customer speaks to me, b) I'm employed to manage staff, part of a long hierarchical chain, it doesn't give me super-human abilities to go and break rules for people who think they're special or dispense the company's profits willy-nilly. But it does mean I hear a lot of swearing, wheedling and threats during the day.

My favorite one is people who assure me they're a journalist. I had one quite recently, "I work for The Age. I know how [this] works." I checked her account, she was a controversial columnist swinging for New Atheism and the left wing, whose work I typically enjoy. But it does highlight a point.

If you announce you're a journalist, you're either expecting special treatment because you're a member of some self-defined but sadly waning Fourth Estate. Ironically, your profession typically drags down the elite of society, points out the hypocrisy of certain citizens getting special treatment.

Failing that, you're threatening to rubbish me and my company in the press. You're expecting me to bribe you into silence by breaking the rules? Now that's not ethical. If you feel the public cares about the level of service we provide and you control vast publicity resources then surely you can report on the "poor" service everyone gets without giving me a warning.

Journalists, next time you think to flash your Press Card think a little longer about what your editor would say if I called her and related what your "journalistic standards" are like.

Divorce Lawyers who've forgotten all their contract law are another favorite...but that's another post.

The 80% Paradox

2009-04-08T14:17:00.003+10:00

Australia is currently struggling with three major social-moral issues; legalised abortion, gay marriage and voluntary euthanasia. Each issue has predominantly ethical ramifications, the economic and environmental effects are virtually irrelevant to the debate. Each issue concerns an individual's choices over their own life and (with the extremely debatable exception of abortion) doesn't have a significant long-term effect on the lives of anyone except the people making the choice. In each case approximately 80% of the Australian public supports the right to choose.

In this democracy why aren't voluntary euthanasia and gay marriage legal? Abortion on request isn't available in five of six states. In Victoria, the exception, only 60% of parliamentary members voted in favour. I considered three reasons why there is a disparity between what the public wants and what our representatives have allowed us.

The first is the disparate number of politicians drawn from rural areas. Little known fact: rural electorates have about half as many voters as urban electorates. If you live in the city your vote counts for half as much. There are twice as many rural politicians per head of population and as the country is typically more conservative these members will tend to multiply the effect of the 20%.

Secondly is that politicians tend to be older than the average population. When personal beliefs interfere with representing the population older politicians will have a more conservative outlook.

Finally, we come to the effect of religion on the debate. Typically, organised religion opposes gay rights, end-of-life choices and abortion. In the 2006 census only 19% of Australians stated they had "no religion". Religious leaders can claim they represent the remaining 81% of the population when opposing choice. However, as only 20% of people participate in religious or spiritual groups annually can religions really claim that great a mandate? Clearly at least some of the "faithful" disagree with their religious dogma. Perhaps politicians view the 20% of religious attendees as a threatening voting bloc that, passionate and easily mobilised from the pulpit, will punish them for backing the "wrong" side.

I'm writing this entry not because I think the public will is the most compelling argument for allowing choice, I think there are far better. I also don't have any solutions short of redesigning aspects of our democracy system. I can't hope that the readership of this blog will ever grow to more than a drop in the bucket. I can suggest writing to your federal member, explaining how you agree with allowing people a choice when making a decision about their own life and their own body. If you're religious, read up on the arguments and evidence for choice and ask your
religious leader or congregation to justify why they hold an anti-choice position or haven't stood up to be counted. Don't accept "God says...", how can an all-loving God put such unreasonable constraints on Creation? Ultimately I'm writing because this disparity between what we want and what we are allowed passes unremarked so often and I hope I'm not the only one concerned.

The $900 Handout Is A Bad Idea

2009-04-06T15:54:00.002+10:00

Many people I know are looking forward to receiving a $900 handout from the Australian Government over the next month. K Rudd and his Krew have decided in these times of economic uncertainty that the economy can be propped up by increasing consumer spending. Money spent by consumers pays for more employment or at least keeps some people in jobs for a little longer and increases their confidence and their spending in one big virtuous cycle. K Rudd's chosen method is by handing some of our tax back to us.

It's a bad idea. Conduct a quick poll of people you know and how they're spending the money. I think you'll find at least two thirds of the people will be spending most of it going on holiday, on consumer goods, especially consumer electronics (which is how all Government bonuses seem to get spent) or they're saving it. I'll deal with saving in a moment but holidays and consumer goods means the money goes directly to Indonesia, NZ, the US, China or Taiwan, do not pass Go, do not stimulate the Australian economy (not directly at least). The other nations of the World need to get back on their feet to really stabilise our economy but Australian money could be more efficiently spent on Australians. Sending money overseas includes using the money to pay off credit cards that were used to buy these things. If the money gets saved, which is what studies I haven't read say happens with most of a one-off payment, the money doesn't drive consumer demand and the Government could have saved it just as efficiently. Only a fraction of this money is being spent to save Australian jobs and stabilise the Australian economy.

A far better idea would be K Rudd handing out vouchers to the Australian people, that can only be spent on Australian goods and services. You can't save a voucher and you can't spend it on an iPod or in Bali. But that's probably going to be a hassle to set up. You could hand out vouchers limited to services, which are far more likely to be performed by Australians. It would distort the market but my government economist girlfriend suggests that it's so distorted no one's likely to notice.

Or if all that really is too hard then spend the money on large-scale infrastructure project, something the country needs. An example might be public transport, clean power projects, establishing secondary industries or irrigation improvements. The money will pay Australian workers, won't be frittered off overseas and benefit the country at the same time.

After all this carping, what am I doing with my $900? I haven't decided whether to save it or to send it back with a letter of protest. I worry the sending it back would be a futile gesture.

For those who have studied economic history, yes, this is naked Keynesianism in the short term, but if we're going to spend this money to drive consumer demand why don't we do it smart.

Yes, I Am A Vegetarian

2009-04-02T20:27:00.002+11:00

It comes as a surprise to many people, but I am a vegetarian. It's something that my girlfriend and I started doing about a year ago. It has nothing to do with the cute little baa-lambs or having issues with eating anything with a face. I have read Peter Singer's book, The Ethics of What We Eat, and I am concerned about the amount of suffering involved producing meat but this has never been sufficiently compelling for me to stop eating it all together.

from meat requires 10 calories/kilojoules worth of We have chosen to go vegetarian because we feel that the production of meat is inefficient and environmentally unsustainable. Just a few of quick and common examples. Each calorie/kilojoulevegetable matter into the animal. Meat requires twice to six times the water to produce, compared to the equivalent amount of soybeans. Animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions (compared to 13.5% from all the world's transport).

If we did without farmed meat we could better feed more people, on less land, with less water and greenhouse gas emissions. We'd avoid much of the global warming, environmental degradation, resource shortages, starvation and resulting conflict. Vegetarianism may not be possible for everyone but where it is shouldn't we each take a personal step to saving the world and its inhabitants?

Just a small caveat, while we try to explain why we are vegetarian we do occasionally eat meat and its byproducts. We will eat meat if it would otherwise be socially...disruptive to refuse. My grandmother would have difficulty coming to terms with us not eating Sunday roast and the girlfriend's father would never accept it...he farms sheep.

Are You Sure You Have Enough?

2009-03-31T12:09:00.003+11:00

Evolution favours creatures that have the greatest number of offspring. Genetically, we're predisposed to having the maximum children we can expect to reach adulthood. Humans are fortunately in a position to weigh alternative considerations when having children. We're also in a position where with modern technology we're able to safely limit the number and timings of kids we have.

The population of the world is 6.76 billion. The ecological footprint of humanty currently is 1.3 planet Earths, i.e. we're consuming the Earth's resources including clean water, energy, clean air etc. at a level beyond the ability of Earth to replace them. That's with the Developing World at their limited levels of consumption. If they were consuming at the same rate as average Australians we'd need nearly four Earths to sustain consumption. We have one.

There are several ways to reduce total consumption, one of them is be reducing per capita consumption. But is it just to deny the Chinese equal living standards to the West because Earth can't handle it? How do you propose to do that? Technology can increase efficency but it's uncertain and the world's economic systems don't fully represent the benefits of costly technologies. Ultimately we need to reduce the world's population so the rate of consumption isn't multiplied to unbearable totals.

Reducing the world's population can (and will, given unsustainable consumption) be done violently but it's ideal that the reduction comes from negative populaton growth, fewer people having fewer babies. 2.1 babies per woman is replacement level in the developed world. To reduce the population each woman has only one or two babies. Overall, the birthrate in the West is sub-replacement but the developing world is still growing and this needs to be counteracted. Limiting your family to two is a responsibility that everyone has. I'm not proposing a legal limit to family size but the ramifications of unsustainable family size needs to be communicated to people. The Government certainly doesn't need to bribe families to add an average .2 children each. Society needs to stand up and ask those with families of three and more "Are you sure you have enough?"

You Don't Owe the World Your Concern: Part I

2009-03-28T20:31:00.004+11:00

I have a secret (there has to be more than one) of happiness - You don't owe the world your concern. I'm not suggesting that we don't owe the world some attention or consideration in how we act (I hope it will come out that we do) but rather the opinions of a few thousand people that you'll encounter for a fleeting second in the course of a day aren't worth worrying about. Your fellow passengers on a train carriage shouldn't make any difference to whether you laugh at something funny in your book just because they'll think (at worst) you're an unhinged loon. Accept that you're just not relevant enough to them for them to remember.

"But what if I go for a job at their company?" Really? Describe three people out of the hundred in the last train carriage you rode in. Conclusively, so I could pick them out from a bunch of interviewees. Human memory is just not that good. We're so busy trying to remember our passwords and PINs, how to do our job properly or what we need to know for that next exam that we just can't waste that memory capacity on who was a little kooky on PT this morning.

"But what if there's an accident and they decide not to save me because I'm weird?" Really, what's the probability of that? That amongst the screaming and carnage that anyone coherent enough to help their fellow passengers will take the time to judge their character based on fleeting impressions?

The opinions of strangers are irrelevant but so much anxiety is generated by worrying that they are, there's so much restraint required to remain anonymous, robbing us of simple pleasures and valuable opportunities. If you release the delusion that you should care what the world thinks you'll find yourself far happier. I'm not saying it's easy but it's worth it.

A quick caveat: Your effect on strangers is relevant. Please, don't sing on the train. By exercising the freedom to sing you impact the happiness of other commuters beyond generating a poor opinion. Their opinion doesn't matter but their enjoyment of life does.

The Death of Remains

2009-03-25T16:44:00.004+11:00

In the last half century various words have been erased from the lexicon of social English because they've failed to meet the sensitive and encompassing tone that we aspire to for our language. A moment's thought will bring to mind some relatively-recent examples; "dumb" has unfortunate school-yard connotations for someone unable to speak, "Miss" or "Mrs" suggests that a woman falls into one or another category created by a patriarchal, Western conception of male-female relations and that her relationship relative to a particular man is even relevant, "crusade" is considered too ideologically charged especially when the subject is remotely religious.

I'm not taking the position that political correctness is a bad thing. I agree that words are nothing but symbols we hang meanings off, but I agree that the meanings everyone else gives those words is relevant. There's nothing inherently inappropriate about the letters H, I, S and T or any combination of them but one set is considered offensive by some people and it is worth bearing that in mind.

I think that using politically correct expressions are a positive way of demonstrating our awareness of social issues and respect for anyone in earshot who isn't be male, straight, white, Christian and middle class. I think some forms of political correctness are foolish, eg the debate about "Christmas" v "Xmas", Whether Xmas denies the origin of the holiday or whether X is a symbol for Christ with historical precedent. On the other hand there is a suggestion that the "Christ" in "Christ-mas" isn't even acknowledged, let alone pronounced. I also think that some forms of verbal linguistics have become so protracted that they will be reserved for special occasions, like a dinner jacket. "LGBT" certainly keeps growing to include the entire alphabet; Q (Queer or Questioning), A (Asexual) etc.

All this is a long preamble to my point; as a Secular Humanist I reject the use of the word "remains" for a dead body.

"Remains" refers to what is left when something has departed, gone elsewhere. I feel the word assumes the existence of a departed soul, which I utterly reject. When you use "remains" you're assume everyone shares your supernatural beliefs, and I find that offensive. I think exactly the same thing about the term departed and, via the Latin, deceased.

I pitched this to some friends, one responded that life has "left" and the body is the remains. But life is a process not an object to leave. You wouldn't refer to a broken-down car as the "remains" of a car. Maybe you would if you took the engine out but then something has literally left.

Other friends suggested that I was taking political correctness too far. I will admit that's fair but I'm merely pointing out the assumptions in your language and suggesting you consider them. If you don't want to imply I share your supernatural beliefs use "body".