Darkness at Noon

More often than not Victorian politics is boring. Bracks is about as controversial as a teddy bear. He tries not to offend anyone and does his best to minimise the damage done by tolled freeways – hardly life or death stuff.

In a sense this is why I’m not particularly fond of him. He’s a conservative so nothing much changes.

Then he busts out this one:

CHILDREN as young as 10 could be strip-searched in public by police of the opposite sex without their parents’ knowledge under Victoria’s proposed new anti-terrorism laws.

Draft rules state that strip-searches of children aged 10 to 18 — and of the intellectually impaired — must be conducted by a person of the same sex, in private and in the presence of a parent or guardian, “unless it is not reasonably practicable”.

Thank god. He’s finally out raged me (actually he outraged me in September 2000 but that’s another story). These measures are beyond absurd but I’m not overly surprise – with an election coming at the end of the year it’s time to look tough, not inoffensive.

Thankfully there are some in the ALP ranks that are pissed off (although I’m yet to read a response to this particular policy):

IN A blow to Premier Steve Bracks, celebrity chef Stefano de Pieri and high-profile youth worker Les Twentyman are set to run as independent candidates at this year’s state election.

Both are disillusioned with the Bracks Government, which they accuse of failing some of Victoria’s most disadvantaged people.

It should make for an interesting election, particularly with the factions teetering on the edge of full scale war and the Greens poised to take control of the Upper House thanks to a new voting system (which was long over due).

Moreover, it looks like Evan Thornley will most likely be selected and win a seat in the Victorian Lower House making this little outburst quite interesting.

I also wonder what it will mean for GetUp which many, rightly, or as I suspect, wrongly, already think is simply an ALP front group.

Maybe I’m missing something here. Maybe I shouldn’t be so skeptical of innovations from everyone’s favorite multi-national – McDonalds. Maybe they do really care about workers rights.

Somehow though, I can’t seem to be able to swallow the latest move by McDonalds to ‘family-size Mac-Jobs.’

‘No you can’t receive sick leave, send your brother in to do your shift!’

Please let me know if I am missing something.

On Invasion Australia Day, it is certainly worthwhile taking a moment to reflect on the genocide that Indigenous Australia has suffered since 26 January 1788 when Arthur Philip landed with the First Fleet.

As a nation, Australia has much to be proud of, but this imperialist genocide is not one of those things, nor is our continual failure to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty.

The Australian Republican Movement, as most of you will know, has launched its Mate for Head of State campaign. There’s been a lot of criticism of the campaign for a range of reasons, but I’ll be lending it my support.

I’ve always advocated Australia being a republic with the President being nominated by parliament or a similar body. However it seems that the general public (and the ARM) would much prefer a popularly elected President. Which is more democratic? Hard to say really.

If this happens I’d like to see the head of state stripped of some of its power, in particular Commander-in-Chief. My fear is an American system where the head-of-state was meant to be largely ceremonial but, because the office was politicised through popular election, he (as there has never been a she) has more power than was initially envisaged.

So lets sign a treaty with Indigenous Australia, dump the Queen as head-of-state, replace Australia Day with Republic Day (to be celebrated on the day we become a republic, not 26th Jan) and make Mabo day a public holiday (to be celebrated on the day of the Native Title Claim which I believe is in May sometime) to replace the Queens Birthday weekend holiday. I’m not loosing a public holiday out of this!

Ok? Good, as you were.

In a report by Brandchannel.com, Firefox has rated alongside Google, Apple and Starbucks as one of the most powerful brands in the world in 2005:

Brandchannel.com, a Web site for marketing professionals run by global branding consultancy Interbrand, asked over 2500 readers during November and December which brands had the most impact on them that year. Firefox was voted as the eighth most influential brand worldwide in 2005 — the first time that a piece of open source software has featured in the top 10 list in the five years that the survey has been carried out.

Not bad for something Open Source, and even better for something that’s non-profit.

I commented over here about my love of the Dead Kennedys and Jello Biafra (their front man).

This post by Shaun Cronin over at LP notes that:

The rise of the ‘Idol’ concept suits record companies well as they can spread the cost of new talent around with a TV network and generate a hell of a lot of publicity. Talent is not nurtured or sustained but thrown to the lions of the quick buck. Given the fickle nature of the audience the Idol concept is aimed at, the Idol winners and runners up will be barely remembered in about 5 years. It is all about short term gains.

It reminds me of the Dead Kennedys’ song ‘MTV get off the Air’, in particular the lyric:

But sales are slumping
and no one will say why
Perhaps they put out one too many lousy records
MTV get off the air
Now!

In the wake of Julian McGauran’s switch to the Libs, Crikey note:

These numbers underline the key fact about the Coalition dynamic: the real threat to the National Party is from its own partner. As Katharine West remarked 40 years ago, the Country Party (as it then was) “has more to fear from the Liberal than from the Labor Party which can defeat it but never render it superfluous.” The Nationals have always understood this, and have always fought much harder in Coalition negotiations as a result.

I’ve argued for some time that the best thing the Nationals can do at this stage is to break away from the Coalition and become a minor party that look out for the interests of Rural and Regional Australia. Otherwise they are irrelevant. Whilst I suspect the likelihood of this happening is slim it would be the most politically honest thing to do – but when has that ever counted for anything?

Plenty of commentary elsewhere: here, here, here, here, here and here

CCH reports that:

NSW’s biggest business lobby groups are to merge, forming a new organisation they hope will put added pressure on the state and federal governments.

Australian Business Limited (ABL) and the State Chamber of Commerce today announced they would join forces in February, pending endorsement by their respective memberships.

The new organisation will be known initially as ABL State Chamber, although a final name has yet to be determined.

Needless to say ACDJ will be keeping a close eye on these guys in the future with our Lobbyocracy campaign

Some months back I wrote a piece for the New Matilda called Right-wing mobilisation and left-wing conscience raising. In the piece I argued:

We are now faced with something I’ve been trying to deny for a long time: the right are quite good at this sort of mobilisation. Apparently, better than the left.

I would appear that it is happening again with the RU486 enquiry. The religious-right has sent in over 4000 submissions to the enquiry, half of which won’t be considered because they failed to meet the terms of reference. It is clear as day that these people are using this as a platform for their anti-abortion agendas. 4000 submissions is unheard of so irrespective of whether they deal with the terms of reference this is an astounding amount of pressure. In relative terms, it is a particularly strong voice.

Why doesn’t the left do this? We’re obviously not good enough at mobilisation which is supposed to be our specialty.

There is now little doubt of the growing influence of the religious right in Australia. I’m not sure why this is but I suspect it is the increasing dislocation felt by a lot of these people in a globalised world amongst other things.

More here and here.

At the risk of sounding like an echo chamber for Lawrence Lessig’s blog, he has drawn my attention to Anime Music Videos. I haven’t had a good chance to look through it yet but being a big fan of both remix, music and Anime I’m excited.

Of course it’s also the new frontier of the IP battle which Lessig has an article on here.

At least the French are making some sense in the per2per debate.