Thank God that's over!

The national parliamentary session has finally come to an end and it's goodbye to all that rancour, pettiness and negativity for a month or so.  Even the looming Silly Session appears attractive, when compared to the disappointing reality of this year's politics.  In other countries where voters have returned 'hung' parliaments (the UK, for example) politicians and the media have  managed to accept the consequences of the people's vote and to get on with their job in an adult, mature way.  Perhaps their more diverse media might even have conceded that the passage of over 250 pieces of legislation by a 'hung' government deserved some modest recognition, rather than today's depiction of the government's achievement as  'a political year riven by crisis... and that ends that way'. (The Australian).  It was left to an amateur blogger (Greg Jericho ) to attempt a more considered analysis of the political year's passage.  See here.

And it is to the public broadcaster that we have to turn to find an invaluable data-set with which to inform the debate on coal-seam-gas mining.  Using the tools that computerised data-mining provide the ABC has come up with an innovative web site (here) where multiple sources of information have been aggregated  to show in map form all 4000 sites, where coal-gas-seam mining currently occurs.  Interrogating the map allows readers to find information about all sites and has been prepared in anticipation of an expected expansion to 40,000 sites. 

Would that more journalists would follow this model!

Plumbing the depths

Can there be anything more unedifying than politicians haggling over which of their 'tough' policies would have prevented the latest tragic boat-people disaster, where desperate men, women and their children have lost their lives trying to get to Australia?

Retribution

The fall of a tyrant is once again filling our TV screens; this time in savage reality as Moamar Gaddafi is dragged from a drain, pummeled, man-handled, and his half-naked, bloodied body delivered up to his captors.  Shortly thereafter he is shot dead.  Humiliation and brutal, unexpected death.  Retributive justice ? execution ?  But no mercy.   Having lived by the sword he died by the sword, like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden before him.

No mercy for these tyrants the last of whom died this week, at a time when we commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Siev X disaster. There was no mercy for the hundreds of men, women and children who perished on Siev X in the sea ten years ago, either.

And no justice yet for these innocent victims.

Pyrrhic Victories?

Against all the odds the PM has legislated to impose a price on carbon (a task attempted without success by four previous political leaders).  This was a considerable achievement.  However, the Opposition leader has 'pledged in blood' (!) to repeal this legislation as soon as he achieves office.

In the meantime the PM has had to give up on her plan to maintain off-shore processing of asylum-seekers arriving here by boat, after the High Court ruled this processing illegal.  The Opposition refused to support new legislation to empower executive government to maintain off-shore processing, even though they support off-shore processing  too.  Not sure who failed here.


We will have to wait to see the repercussions of the actions of the PM and the Opposition leader his week.


But if the Opposition is elected to government in 2013, it would appear that the PM's carbon pricing legislation will  be repealed, rendering today's achievement meaningless.    But an Opposition victory on this matter could prove to be messy and difficult to realise and will bring with it its own painful, political price.  Perhaps we will see new tax slogans appear, as the compensation for the costs of the clean energy legislation are withdrawn.


And could it be that, if the Opposition comes to government, it too may have to embrace some sort of 'Malaysian solution' as the only off-shore processing option available to them to stop the boats in the face of the inevitable court challenges to Nauru?


Pyrrhic victories all round this week, except for the asylum-seekers, of course.

Australia fair?

A 14 year old Australian is arrested in Indonesia for possessing cannabis and this makes headline news here, causes Ministerial statements and considerable public anxiety over the imprisonment of a minor, while his actions are investigated.  Meanwhile, back in Australia, 79 under 18 year old boys are arrested off our shores, sent to an isolated Australian centre in the middle of nowhere and imprisoned there in high security, under guard 24 hours a day.  Their crime ---seeking refuge in our country.
But their imprisonment and future fate hardly raise a murmur here.

UPDATE:
Pure Poison doesn't want to suggest that 'we have more sympathy for an Australian boy imprisoned in Indonesia than an Indonesian boy imprisoned in Australia (who’s not even alleged to have committed a crime) out of anything so base and repugnant as racism… but '.....
     Read More

Of Things Being Various

Yesterday an award-winning collection of poetry Of Things Being Various (40 Degrees South Publishing) was launched in the Hobart Bookshop in Salamanca Square.   This book showcases accomplished and engaging poems from Karen Knight, Liz McQuilkin, Liz Winfield, Christiane Conesa-Bostock and Megan Schaffner. 
Yet more evidence of the vibrant arts scene in Hobart.

Quip of the month

People who live at the foot of a mountain seldom climb its slope.

  (Trudeau)