The Dead Roo

                                              click here to see cartoonist Peter Nicholson’s animation of “Beds are Burning”
“Whatever happened to the revolution?    We all got stoned and it drifted away”    So sang Skyhooks in the 1970’s about the demise of the anti Vietnam war movement.
The 70’s revolution may seem to have disappeared in a puff of strange smelling smoke but it […]

 Whoops! - the picket was previously advertised as “next Wednesday” which is incorrect.  The date 29/8 is correct. - sorry.
 Please pass this link to friends and networks in Brisbane.
There will be a picket on Wednesday, the 29 August 2007 at 9.00 am. outside the Brisbane Magistrate’s Court, 240 Roma St. Brisbane to demand reform of […]

The Palm Island store is currently owned by the Queensland Government. It charges inflated prices to subsidise the transport of goods to other Aboriginal communities in Queensland. The government has recently announced that the store is to […]

The Australian Government Architecture Reference Models (AGA RM v1.0) distributed through AGIMO (a part of DOFA - Finance and Administration), and launched 2007-06-18 by Gary Nairn (Special Minister of State) is a grave disappointment, and shows that DOFA either:

Thinks senior management and executives in Australian agencies are stupid
Don’t have a clue what Australian agencies actually […]

New calls for public comments on the AccessCard have been made, with submissions open until 2007-08-21.
At first glance, very few of the recommendations from the Senate Inquiry have been included in the redraft.  This is not surprising as it has not been that long ago that it was sent back for redrafting.
Well, at least […]

With any scandal about ministers (see for example the issues with Thwaites getting freebies at ski lodges The Age 2007-06-15 Political Hubris), a Premier of Victoria should ask themselves one simple question:
What would Dick Hamer (Lib), Lindsay Thompson (Lib) and John Cain (ALP), all extremely honorable premiers, do?
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So the Federal Government wants a tougher testing and punishment regime for drugs in AFL players? What about putting the pollies on a similar testing, suspension and prosecution regime, and throw in liver-function tests to see whether they are addling their brains with too much alcohol?
After all, what is of more importance to the community, […]

Colonel Kelly as the ALP candidate for the litmus seat of Eden-Monaro opens up the promise of improvements of administrative process, and perhaps, successful prosecutions.
Even without a win in Eden-Monaro, the ALP will get intelligence on one end of the paper trail that ties into three scandals:

Abu Ghraib human rights abuses,
Material aid ($300 million) to […]

The sick puppies at The Economist applaud the choice of Zimbabwe as chair of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development with the perverse but brilliant reasons that "making bad countries run good causes is actually a promising notion" (2007-05-19 p13), and citing the taming of Libya from its chairing of the UN Human Rights Commission.
The […]

Recent cyberattacks, most likely from Russia, against both the Estonian government and a Swedish-owned bank, should prompt questions about Australia’s preparedness for similar threats.
While the Estonian troubles are being labelled the world’s first cyberattack by and against nation-states, it is merely the first obviously destructive attack where the victim has an interest in making the […]

Party-political fatigue setting in?  Time for a look at FFI (Freedom From Information) issues that beset (or protect) governments of all persuasions, make journalists uptight, and (in a different context) cause inefficient businesses.  The good news is that things can be improved fairly cheaply, even though a complete fix won’t happen without a bit of […]

Hot on the heels of his plan to reduce South East Asian rain forest destruction in response to electoral concerns about climate change, hundreds of placard-waving pulp mill protesters have called on Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull to reject Gunns Limited’s plans for a pulp mill at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania.
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Spending on security-related issues by Canberra is increasing dramatically, but is not improving capability, instead fattening the wallets of overseas consortia.  Weapons-systems choices are severely criticized (e.g. by Hugh White of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute) as expensive and misdirected, and there have been numerous audit reports about poor-quality equipment supplied by DMO because of […]

Justice Michael Kirby presented a speech on the 80th anniversary of the Australian Law Journal. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but at fourty three pages I can understand why few will.
When one of the countries preeminent jurists says these sorts of things about the state of law in Australia, I feel a discussion is […]

I’m going to differ from my standard post format (you know, a pretense at independently verifiable information and sourcing) and just post some random thoughts on the topic.
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