It’s The Thought That Counts

EDITORIAL FRIDAY 09.04.10.
I am reminded of the old song that goes, “I woke up this morning, I felt so sick I thought that I was dead.” I think it was actually a comedy song by Bill Oddie of the Goodies, but I cannot be certain. Nevertheless, I woke up this morning and read in the Herald that obesity is now more deadly than smoking. I was immediately tempted to give up eating and start smoking again instead. After all, everybody knows that smoking helps to suppress the appetite, and is an essential part of the well known supermodel diet of coffee, cigarettes and cocaine. Obviously, supermodels have no problem with obesity at all. But somehow I think that I may have misinterpreted the message.

After clearing my head with a strong black coffee (but no cigarette and certainly no cocaine), it gradually dawned on me that one was not necessarily linked to the other. It’s probably just a coincidence that the increase in obesity has occurred alongside the gradual decline in smoking. Just because we are no longer sucking on the fags doesn’t mean that we are going to automatically stuff our mouths with MacWhoppers instead. More sensible appraisal has led me to the realization that smoking never made me thin when I was a puffer, and so it probably wouldn’t do anything to help me now. Besides, the social life of a smoker has been severely curtailed in recent times so it’s just not the fun it used to be anyway.

What we do know however is that over the past forty or so years we have cut the level of smoking down from about three quarters of the population to just over 15% today. By comparison, more than 60% of Australian adults are now either overweight or obese, and becoming more so every year. Obesity, if you will forgive the obvious pun, is an expanding problem. So much so that it has now overtaken smoking as the leading cause of premature death and illness in Australia. Despite decades of community education programs advising us to eat healthier food and to exercise more, we just seem to keep on getting fatter. Something is just not right.

Why is it so hard to keep ourselves at a healthy weight? This is a complex question with no simple and easy answer, no matter how many well intentioned health Nazis might tell you that no fat people came out of concentration camps. And before you take offence at such a politically incorrect observation, let me explain that I am quoting the exact advice that was actually given to me once by a doctor. The truth is that metabolism, genetic predisposition, environment, lifestyle, and a range of diverse factors all play a part.

But wait, there was one more thing that I read this morning. A British news service reported on a woman who had lost about 40 kilograms after being hypnotized to believe that she had had gastric band surgery. Without any other treatment she lost almost one third of her body weight simply because her mind believed she could not eat more than modest servings. The power of the mind is a miraculous thing, and I am wondering if perhaps, with the right attitude and maybe a little hypnotherapy, I might be able to lose weight just by thinking about it. So I have been thinking about losing weight ever since I read that article this morning, and you know what they say… it’s the thought that counts.

The Rich Get Richer…

EDITORIAL THURSDAY 08.04.10.
We’ve all heard the old saying that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. It’s an expression which has the ring of familiarity to it, but is it actually true? The short answer is yes but no. While the rich do indeed on the whole become richer over time, aside from the occasional market crash or global financial crisis, the poor also often become less poor. It is safe to say that it is far better to be poor in today’s society than a hundred years ago thanks to improved social welfare, better health and modern technology. But the real hitch is that any improvements in the living conditions of the poor are vastly outstripped by the advances made by the rich, with the gap becoming wider over time.

Research from the Australian National University working with Britain’s Oxford University has shown that since the 1980’s the share of total income going to the top 1% of taxpayers has consistently grown. The most recent figures show that the top 1% of people took home almost 10% of the available income in the 2008 tax year. Interestingly, that puts it at the highest level it has been since the 1920s, and we all know what happened in 1929. Following the Wall Street crash at the end of the twenties, the gap between rich and poor actually got smaller until the eighties when the recent growth in executive salaries took off. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that record levels of income growth for the top earners have been recorded just before both of the two biggest financial disasters of the past one hundred years.

Perhaps there is also a connection between the growing wealth gap and the plight of low income earners who are now confronting the choice between feeding the family and paying the power bill. The price of power has already risen significantly, and the recent ruling by the Independent Pricing And Regulatory Tribunal means that it will increase even more, perhaps by as much as 60% over three years. Leaving aside the potential impact of an emissions trading scheme which may or may not be introduced, the bulk of the price rise is supposed to pay for the maintenance, upgrade, and expansion of the distribution network. It’s money that must come from somewhere if we are to continue using electricity, but the real question is why provision has not already been made for this known expense out of the massive dividends already paid by the power companies to the government over the years.

The fact is that over the last decade and a half, the New South Wales government received about $11.4 billion from electricity suppliers through taxes and dividends. The suppliers have been amalgamated, corporatized, and now are in the process of being privatized. Throughout this process the insidious philosophy of bottom line thinking has driven a process of maximizing apparent profits at the expense of proper maintenance and provision for future supply. The people at the top have sucked the money out for their own purposes, and now that the system needs to be fixed they expect the people at the bottom to pay for it.

That’s just one more way that the rich keep on getting richer, while the poor keep on getting… well you know the rest.

Why Interest Rates Are Going Up, Even Though It Hurts

EDITORIAL WEDNESDAY 07.04.10.
The decision by the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates was not unexpected. Even those who believed that the Bank might leave rates unchanged acknowledged that such a reprieve would be temporary. It was never a question of if, only of when. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the outcry today in response to the increase. Obviously, mortgage holders will feel the pinch, with record levels of mortgage stress already being registered, as well as business groups expressing concerns that the series of rapid increases in rates could undermine what is quite clearly a fragile economic recovery.

There seem to be two main reasons why the Reserve has taken the decision it has. One is the ongoing minerals boom, driven by demand from China and other developing countries. Mineral exports are so strong that the overall economic figures are given the appearance of robust growth. Unfortunately, that is a distortion, because most of us don’t have a direct stake in the mining sector, and the real economy, the retail economy which does affect us all directly, is still showing signs of weakness. Retail sales are thin, and while unemployment has been kept to reasonable levels, it is concealing an underlying problem with underemployment.

The second contributing factor to the Reserve Bank’s decision has been clearly articulated by the Bank’s Governor Glenn Stevens in that past few weeks. He has repeatedly expressed his concern about house prices, and the speculative investment bubble which seems to keep driving them up. While others are talking up the property market, including the government which has a vested interest in staving off a price collapse because of all the first home buyers it encouraged into ownership, Glenn Stevens is one of only a very few who are prepared to tell the truth about house prices.

The truth is that house prices are too high, and the only solution for that dilemma is for them to fall in relation to average incomes. Such a fall is of course a disaster for those who have already bought into the market, especially those who have borrowed heavily to do so, but the truth is that propping up those prices can only lead to an even greater disaster ahead. Already it is impossible for a family on an average income to buy an average house. While prices keep rising, speculators will keep chasing profits, leaving ordinary Australians who just want to buy a home for the family frozen out indefinitely, unless they are prepared to take a gamble and risk everything by borrowing beyond their means to achieve the Great Australian Dream.

Of course, that is exactly what the government has encouraged by providing the recent boost to the first home owners grant. Total mortgage debt is now 85% of Gross Domestic Product, as compared to 20% twenty years ago. That means that more Australians owe the banks more money than ever before. That means that the supernatural price of property has been overinflated by a big fat balloon of debt. That’s the problem that Glenn Stevens has been talking about, and that’s the problem that he must address by discouraging us from taking on any more debt. The only way he can do that is to put interest rates up.

The trouble is that already 40% of first home owners are now experiencing mortgage stress even before yesterday’s rate rise, and you can bet your bottom dollar that will only get worse over the coming months.

Thinking Big

EDITORIAL TUESDAY 06.04.10.
Federal opposition leader Tony Abbott is not one to shy away from an opportunity to create a clear point of difference between his position and that of the government, so it should be no surprise that the latest point of contention is population policy, or more to the point, the lack of it. But is the opposition leader genuinely concerned about the question of sustainable population growth, or is he exploiting an undercurrent of xenophobia for political advantage? The opposition’s hard line on the asylum seeker issue has clearly enjoyed some success with many in the voting public, so could it be that the broader question of immigration, currently at historically high levels, is now being dealt with in the same way?

It is true that there are legitimate concerns about whether or not Australia’s natural resources and built infrastructure can sustain a population projected to reach 36 million by mid century. Water in particular could be a major problem for such a large population. The trouble is though that we just don’t know for sure. What has been missing has been any kind of rigorous examination of just what a sustainable population growth path would be. All we have had is Kevin Rudd observing that he thinks a “big Australia” is a good thing, and an opposition partial to taking a contrarian position on everything.

Now that the issue has become front page news, the government has allocated a minister to formulate population policy, while the opposition has supported a proposal for the Greens for an independent study. The fact is that population growth is taking place right now, so it would be prudent to start asking the sensible questions about natural resources, built infrastructure, population density and distribution now, and coming up with answers based on more than a gut feeling. It may well be that a population of 40 million is feasible, or even desirable, but the point is that we don’t know if we don’t do the study.

Without any kind of empirical assessment, all we have is politically driven ideas based on seeking votes. On the one hand we are told that a big Australia is the key to economic prosperity and national security, while on the other hand we are told that excessive population growth will reduce our living standards as more people compete for jobs, houses, and water. Throw in the temptation to appeal to fears of cultural invasion and it’s easy to see how the debate could very easily become driven by political expediency rather than any kind of rational assessment of just what is the best plan for our future.

Net Censorship Not An April Fools Joke

EDITORIAL THURSDAY 01.04.10.
Look at the date. It’s April fools day. Perhaps that explains the latest barrage from the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. In an interview with Fairfax Media he has once again mounted a vigorous defence of his plan to censor the internet. It is Senator Conroy’s plan to introduce compulsory filters at the service provider level to block websites on a so called blacklist. The list would be compiled in secret and kept in secret, but it would be supposed to consist of websites known to include child pornography, bestiality, pro-rape content, and extreme violence. Such websites would be categorized as “refused classification” and it would be illegal for them to be accessible in Australia.

While it might be perfectly reasonable to hold genuine concerns about the availability of extreme material on the internet, especially for young users, there are significant problems with the plan. First of all it won’t work. It is an attempt to apply the same censorship system that is used for books, magazines, film and TV to the very different environment of the internet. But those are all published media, where as the internet is not. The point is often made by service providers that they are more like the post office or a phone company and cannot be held responsible for the material which is circulated. In truth, the internet is not exactly like the post office either, but is a kind of hybrid combination of a communications medium and a publishing platform.

While a book or a movie might be classified by the censorship authorities, the process is done openly and everybody knows the book has been censored. It is a process which is open to dispute and appeal. On the other hand, Senator Conroy’s plan calls for the censorship process to be secret, with no recourse for anyone to appeal the decisions. If the government decides that a website should be blocked, that’s all there is to it. Everybody else, including the owner of the website is kept in the dark. The problem is that the government could conceivably decide to ban anything they choose and we would be none the wiser.

The accuracy of filtering has also been called into question, and although Senator Conroy insists that his filters are “100% accurate – no overblocking, no underblocking, and no impact on speeds”, we know that just isn’t true. There has already been a trial run of this form of filtering and it has been well publicized that among the websites blocked were sites for a dentist and a school tuckshop. Sites relating to sexual health information and historical war material also get intercepted. Technical experts have advised that filtering will in fact impact on speeds, regardless of anything Senator Conroy might claim. And on top of that, the experts are clear that filtering will not stop extreme content from appearing on the web, and that anyone who really wants to bypass the filtering can do so quickly and easily.

But perhaps the most sinister aspect of what Senator Conroy is proposing is the secrecy. The framework that will be put into place, if Senator Conroy succeeds, will make it possible for any future government to intercept and censor anything it wants on the internet, including political criticism. And all in secret, without us even knowing we have been censored. That’s the sort of thing you might expect in China or Iran, but not in a free and democratic country like Australia. That may not be the Senator’s intention, but that is the likely outcome of pursuing this path.

Throw Another Shrimp On The Barbie

EDITORIAL WEDNESDAY 31.03.10
There is nothing like Australia. That’s the latest tagline developed by Tourism Australia to promote our nation as a tourist destination. We all know it’s true, and we all have our reasons for believing that there is nothing like Australia, and Tourism Australia is relying on that knowledge to help them get the message across to the rest of the world. From the middle of next month we are all invited to upload our photos of our favourite holiday spots with a brief explanation of why we think they are so good, and why there’s “nothing like Australia”. Up for grabs is a prize for a winner from every state, as well as a grand prize of a $25 000 ultimate Australian holiday.

It’s a good idea to get the people of Australia to contribute to the tourism campaign, because that way we are less likely to start criticizing the slogan. Previous efforts have met with mixed success. Some have been the target of tidal waves of criticism, antipathy, and even apathy with some campaigns achieving an unprecedented level of instant forgettability. It’s not so long ago that Baz Luhrmann, the director of the film “Australia”, invited foreigners to “Come Walkabout” with an implied promise that the experience would change their lives. Looking more like they were designed to sell sedatives, those ads might have been more successful if more Americans had actually seen his movie at the time.

Before that was the delightful Lara Bingle, who through no fault of her own is remembered by Australians for asking “where the bloody hell are you?” as well has her more recent escapades. Unfortunately, whether the Japanese and the Americans actually remember it or not, they failed to understand it. It really wasn’t poor Lara’s fault, and in retrospect perhaps it would have been better if she had merely winked at the camera and said something like, “Come on over and we’ll show you a good time…” At least, the damned Americans would have understood that it was actually an invitation, not a complaint.

Does anybody remember the “Naturally Free Spirited” campaign? No, neither do I, but apparently that ran for almost ten years. The one campaign which everybody remembers, not only here but right around the world, is the one that ended more than twenty years ago. When Paul Hogan advised American viewers to “throw another shrimp on the barbie”, tourist visitor numbers doubled. It remains our most successful tourism promotion ever, and it still works for us today because even though the ads are long gone, people still remember Paul Hogan. Maybe that’s what he was talking about when he claimed that the tax office should be paying him, rather than pursuing him for alleged evasion of taxes.

It’s true that there is “nothing like Australia”, but it remains a challenge getting that message across to the rest of the world.

Not Everyone Who Drinks Is A Threat To Society

EDITORIAL TUESDAY 30.03.10.
The New South Wales Police Association, along with the Australian Medical Association, the New South Wales Nurses Association and the Health Services Union have renewed their call for a dramatic change to alcohol trading regulations to combat alcohol related violence. Under the plan, closing time will be no later than 3am, with a universal lock out from 1 am. Strong alcoholic drinks like cocktails and shots would be banned after 10 pm, and all alcohol sales would be stopped 30 minutes before closing time. Sales to individual customers would be restricted to no more than four drinks at a time, meaning that if there are eight people in your group of friends, two of you will have to go to the bar.

The plan has been put forward after a trial of these restrictions in Newcastle which has been widely seen as very successful in terms of cutting down on violent incidents and injuries. The police association says that the two hour reduction in trading hours has resulted in a 30% reduction in assaults and other incidents. Many of these restrictions have also been applied to venues around Sydney that have been deemed to have a problem with violence, but the so-called “frontline coalition” of police, doctors, nurses, and ambulance officers want the restrictions applied right across the state.

There’s no denying that closing the doors will prevent people from drinking too much and becoming violent. If the pub is closed, obviously nobody is getting drunk or causing trouble. But it is also preventing everyone else from having a night out for a few drinks too. The difficulty is that imposing restrictions across the board penalizes everybody, not just the minority who become aggressive or anti social when they drink. People are supposed to be free to go out and enjoy themselves without bureaucratic bullies telling them that they can’t have a martini after 10pm.

Already we have seen occasions where well intentioned authorities are clamping down not only on genuinely dangerous behavior, but also on exuberance, good natured skylarking, and anyone who gets a bit rowdy. Just having a few drinks doesn’t automatically make someone a problem, but it seems that some of the authorities are starting to look at things that way. But just because there are a few idiots who have the wrong attitude shouldn’t mean that everyone who enjoys a drink should be treated as a threat to society.

As I have said many times before, it’s the attitude not the alcohol. If everybody had the appropriate attitude, it wouldn’t matter what time the doors were closed.