Rants and Tantrums

Case study of democracy: the Australian electoral system

2004-11-09T17:27:00.000+11:00

I am absolutely amazed by what I have read on the net regarding the administration of the US Presidential Election. I cannot believe that a country which (rightly) prides itself on being one of the world's first democracies is willing to tolerate a electoral system with such gaping flaws (IMO) within it.

A quick summary of areas where I think the Australian system works better than the US system (as far as I understand it):
1. an independent national electoral body who is in charge of voter registrations, running the polling (including absentee voting and pre-polling), and setting the boundaries of the electorates/boundaries - ie. no govt (esp state govts) get to decide how the voting is done
2. Compulsory voting - and I know this is a controversial point to many. As an adjunct to this, I think that holding the election on a Saturday is better than holding it on Tuesday.
3. consistent voting/balloting systems across elections at all three levels of government
4. ease of voting (largely thanks to point 1) including short waits to vote (less than half an hour), sufficient ballot papers for all (no electronic system), and ability to vote anywhere in Australia, rather than being required to vote at one particular booth
5. the role of political party participants as scrutineers during the counting process, and reconciliation of ballot papers outgoing to ballot papers which are counted

Below is explanation of how the Australian electoral system works, as a way of illustrating the administrative requirements of running such a system [if I have made any mistakes, please let me know and I will edit accordingly]:

There are a number of fundamental differences between the Australian and US system. First is that voting is compulsory - if you are over 18, then you must register to vote, and you must vote. There are fines for failure to vote, though AEC will accept excuses (eg. if you are overseas or sick).

Second is that we don't have a President, so we do not have a Presidential election. We have a Prime Minister, who is elected by the House of Representatives - so the party in power in the Parliament is always the same as the Prime Minister (leaving aside the possibility of minor parties controlling the balance of power in the House, which hasn't happened for more than sixty years). The system of voting for the House of Representatives is quite similar to the US House system, I believe - there is a preferential voting system, which means that you must number all the boxes on your ballot paper. If your first preferred candidate is eliminated from the race (ie. they get least votes in the first round of voting), they will count your vote towards your second preferred candidate; if your second preferred candidate is eliminated, they count your third preferred, etc. The Senate is also similar to US Senate - that's because we copied the US system.

Third, There are independent electoral bodies - the federal one is (not surprisingly) known as the Australian Electoral Commission aka AEC - the AEC oversees the federal election as well as some local council elections (there are three tiers of government in Australia - arguably too many for a nation of approx 20mill, but that's another issue altogether). There are similar bodies running the state elections - for example, in Victoria we have the Victorian Electoral Commission or the VEC which runs our state elections.

These bodies are publicly funded, and have responsibility for a number of functions. For one, they handle all the voter registrations, they employ people who hand out ballot papers (as opposed to 'how to vote' cards) at each polling station, and they also employ people to count the ballots. I believe that the people who work as election officials have to sign a declaration that they are not a member of a political party - the AEC site says "not politically active", though that's somewhat ambiguous IMO.

One of the most important things that the AEC do is that they draw up the boundaries of the electorates (or districts, as they are called in US parlance) - there are rules about how often redistribution (as it is termed) has to be done (at least once every 7 years) and the redistribution is intended to create a relatively even number of voters in each electorate - at the moment, I believe the average figure is around 80,000 or so voters for federal electorates? The AEC do try and draw up electorates which make common sense - for example, they often use creeks or other natural geographical features to delineate borders.

I mention this because up until the AEC was given this role, the governments in each jurisdiction had control, and there was an deplorable practice known as gerrymandering. Gerrymandering basically involved drawing up boundaries in a way which favoured the incumbent political party. Conservatives in particular relied on the fact that the population is much denser in the city than in the country - and they created the same (geographically) sized electorates in the city and the country, with the result that a country Member of Parliament (MP - more likely to be conservative) might be elected with 10,000 votes, whereas a city MP (who was more likely to be liberal) might need 30,000 votes to be elected. Many governments stayed in power for decades on the basis of such policies - Sir Henry Bolte in Victoria stayed in for 17 years and left on retirement, whilst Joh Bjelke Peterson was in power for 11 years and essentially allowed endemic police corruption to flourish in Queensland.

Voting in Australia is done on paper ballots - unlike US, we do not have state propositions at the same time (in fact, I'm unclear what propositions are - referendums at a state level?). Generally there is one ballot paper for the House of Representatives, which may have around 3-8 candidates - there's no specific number, but I find there tends to be five or six candidates. There is also a Senate ballot paper, which is horrendously complicated. The Senate ballot paper may have sixty or more candidates on it and there are two ways of filling it in. First is to number every box below 'the line' - if you get this wrong, your vote is informal and not counted. Otherwise you can put a '1' in one box 'above the line' - there is a box for each political party, and if you put a 1 above the line then the preference order is done as registered to that political party.

Voting can be done in a number of ways. First, you can get a postal vote, which is equivalent to the US absentee ballot - this is usually used by the elderly or people who are travelling on the day of the election. Second, for several weeks before the election there are 'pre-polling' stations open in each electorate, usually during business hours - J uses this method because he is Jewish, and can't actually vote on Saturday. For institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes, they may also have a polling official go along one day before the election and have people vote there. For people overseas, they can vote in the Australian consulate or embassy.

On the day of the election, you can go to any polling place and vote. For most people, there will be a polling place within walking distance. Officials prefer you to go to a booth in your own area, but even if you are in another electorate (or interstate) you will still be able to vote. When you rock up to vote, you show some photo id, they cross you off and give you the ballot papers. There is very rarely any waiting to vote - perhaps ten minutes if you are voting at the end of the day? I was listening to coverage of the US election, and an Australian girl said that the longest she had to wait was twenty-five minutes. The polls are open 8am to 6pm - there is no extension of this time, though I don't know what would happen if ever they had a situation where there were dozens of people waiting to vote outside. I've never seen it, in any case.

In most cases, counting for the House of Representative seats is finished on the night - the biggest polling booth will only have a few thousand votes, which isn't that much. Candidates are allowed to nominate 'scrutineers' to go in and watch the polling officials do the counting - they are not allowed to touch the ballot papers, just watch while the sorting and counting is done. They can pipe up if they think a vote has been put in the wrong pile, or if they think that a vote ought (or ought not) be counted as informal. It used to be considered a big deal to have scrutineers around, but I'm not so sure. If the election is so close that a dozen votes would matter, then usually there's a recount, in which case the best scrutineers will be there. I have scrutineered in a number of elections and never seen anything that I thought was suspicious - sometimes people put ballots in the wrong pile, but that's just a mistake it's easy to make at the end of a long day. A small booth may take an hour to count; a large booth may take three or four hours.

Making Volunteer Work Tax-Deductible

2004-05-19T14:00:00.000+10:30

This is the product of reading an article about a woman who, whilst not currently 'working' in the sense of being paid to do so, is doing a lot of different types of volunteer work. It is also a product of an journal entry I wrote around two years ago about the work-life balance, in which I suggested that we should be reviewing our ideas about what should constitute a full-time job... my suggestion was that we should have a four day working week, and then the remaining three days could be used either for rest, for doing all those things we now outsource (such as cooking, cleaning and gardening), or for doing volunteer work, such as parents helping out in their children's school canteens or whatever.

Here is one possible viable method of making it work.

I know that a number of European countries - such as France - have mandated a shorter working week. Sweden has just started a trial of shorter working weeks to see if it will improve workers' health. But I don't know whether people are really ready for that in countries such as Australia, US and UK, which has a very different culture surrounding work. Perhaps it's the whole Protestant work ethic thing, or the distrust of government interference, but unless our society changes dramatically in the next few decades, I cannot imagine the Australian Govt legislating for a shorter working week.

So here's an alternative - provide an incentive for people to do volunteer work, in the form of tax deductions. My model would be based on a set hourly rate of deduction - eg each hour of volunteer work done is calculated to be worth $9-$10 of deduction. For example: Alex works 21 hours a week (or approx three days per week) at a paid job for $20 per hour, and earns $420 before tax. Alex then spends 15 hours (two days a week) providing administrative assistance to the RSPCA, calculated at $10 per hour. That means that at the end of the week, Alex's assessable income (not taking into account all the other possible deductions etc) will be $420 - $150 volunteer deduction = $270 assessable income.

I'm not pretending to come up with a water-tight model - I'm neither an economist nor an accountant, so balancing the exact figures is not my aim. Obviously, the hourly rate may not be as high as $10 per hour (or there may be a variable rate depending on the type of work being done). Where the value of volunteer work done exceeds the value of paid work, the rest of the value will be null. There would also need to be monitoring of volunteer work, in terms of records kept by volunteer organisations - a sort of volunteer payroll system set up. Furthermore, there would be a limit in terms of what kind of volunteer work is deductible. But this last point is relatively easy to achieve - look towards the current deductibility of charitable gifts, which includes a list of charities which are registered and deductible.

Why set up such a system?

Tax, whilst being a source of revenue, is also a way to implement public policy. That's why there are such high duties on tobacco and alcohol. That's why there are rebates available for families. That's why basic food products are exempt from GST. The tax system as it stands provides a system of incentives and disincentives. This suggestion is an attempt to add an incentive to work as a volunteer into the system.

My tax lecturer would probably scoff at the idea, arguing that manipulation of the tax system is not the way to encourage people to volunteer (if indeed we agree that this is a social good that we are encouraging - which I am not taking for granted). His view is that the tax system is complicated enough as it is, without adding more burdens, exceptions, administrative difficulties. However, this is possibly the most gentle way of providing an incentive to volunteer. For one, it gives people a wide choice. They can choose to do paid work 80 hours a week and be taxed accordingly. They can choose to do paid work for 20 hours a week and be taxed accordingly. They can choose to combine paid and volunteer work.

The rate of deductibility has to be set low enough that people will not volunteer merely for the sake of tax alone. I am not saying that we should be driving people towards volunteer work, but merely avoiding the punishment of those who choose to help the community via unpaid work. My guess is that most people will continue to work a 40 or 50 hour week, or whatever it is they work. But there will be some people out there who will welcome this as a way for them to combine a sense of civic obligation with their personal interests.

Bricks or bouquets? I am especially interested in hearing from anyone who has experience in developing tax policy. I would also like to know whether, if such a program was available, whether you would take advantage of it by doing volunteer work.

Pornography through the eyes of a 21st century feminist

2004-05-06T20:46:00.000+10:30

Warning! This entry is very graphic and disturbing. I will be discussing stuff that you don't want to read whilst drinking your coffee or having your morning tea; nor is it likely that you will want to read this in an office or computer lab environment. Whilst I won't be treating the material in a salacious way, the fact is that an article about porn is not for the soft-hearted. On the other hand, if you have somehow found this via Google or some other search engine whilst looking for porn, and somehow think you will get a kick out reading this... you won't.

You have been warned.

Pornography is an vexed subject. This is especially true for people, like me, who regard themselves as feminist as well as a social liberal. By this I mean that as a feminist, I feel strongly that women are equal to men (and vice versa) and that anything which attacks that ideal is wrong. By social liberal, I mean that pretty much my sole rule in terms of morality and sex is that as long as there is real consent, then it's okay. So beastiality, necrophilia and paedophilia are all obviously out, because there can be no real consent in such situations. But if people get their kicks out of foot fetishes, auto-erotic asphyxiation, having sex in a tree, or bondage, then it's their business and their business alone.

Is pornography inherently immoral? Should it be legal? Is it okay for women to enjoy it? Is it okay for men to enjoy it?

I was led into considering pornography through a range of recent experiences. One was reading an article by Catharine MacKinnon which argues that international human rights law privileges the type of abuse which men habitually go through (eg. in a prison) as opposed to the type of abuse which women habitually go through (ie. in the home, by their partners). The traditional feminist argument about pornography is encapsulated graphically and passionately in this excerpt:

"Almost universally, women are battered, raped, sexually abused as children, prostituted , and increasingly live pornographic lives in contexts saturated more or less with pornography ... If a woman exists to be sexually used, to what sexual use is the proper man not entitled? Sweden, the United States and Japan are all saturated with pornography" ("On Torture: A Feminist Perspective on Human Rights" in Mahony and Mahoney (eds), Human Rights in the Twenty-first Century pp 25-26)

There is an instinctive reaction to recoil from the violence and strength of her words - but ultimately, the argument is that pornography degrades women; that pornography portrays women as sexual objects, chattels which can be used by men; that pornography is dangerous because it leads men to think of women in such ways. Is that true?

Within the same article, MacKinnon also describes the abuse and torture inflicted on Linda Marchiano to force her to perform in porn movies - many would recognise her screen name, Linda Lovelace. Perhaps the best way to describe her treatment is to quote again from the article, this time from Linda Marchiano's perspective:

"I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed ... I was brutally beaten whenever I showed any signs of resistance or lack of enthusiasm for the freaky sex he required me to act like I enjoyed ... Each day I was raped, beaten, kicked, punched, smacked, choked, degraded or yelled at"

Not easy to confront.

The second experience was having a discussion with friends who had recently seen Sex: The Annabel Chong Story, in which a female porn star undergoes a "gang bang" (even writing the words makes me queasy) for a porn movie, and is despised, exploited and cheated by those within the porn industry whom she works with.

The third was that I was referred to two websites: one known as Something Awful which has sections on "Horrors of Porn" and "Reviews: Hentai". The Hentai game reviews are by far the most disturbing, with X-rated games which pretty much all seem to be focused on the joys of violent rape and incest. I know that these games are the worst of the worst - that's why they're reviewed on a site known as "Something Awful".

However, it is worrying when, in defence of a game for which the reviewer gives -50 and warns that "To give you an idea of just how debauched and vile Possession is, the opening sequence of the game features Yosuke fantasizing about raping his sister in graphic detail. Only minutes later he was raping his step-mother." someone from the company releasing this game justifies it on the grounds that "A large part of playing these games, which are known as bishoujo games ("pretty girl games") in Japan, is doing through a virtual computer game what you'd get in trouble for doing in real life. Thus they provide a safety valve for society. If you want to touch a girl's ass on a train, you can do it through a game like this. And just for the record, he's not related to any of the women by blood." My mind boggles at how many men there are out there who have such desires for violently raping their step-mothers and sisters that they need a game for this?!!

The other website is of the art of a man called Dolcett - to summarise, he is a visual artist who, amongst other things, draws adult X-rated comics including gynophagia (the eating of women), and asphyxiation as forms of eroticism. [I would warn you not to visit the site unless you are willing to see some disturbing pictures - and I would also warn you not to visit the site at your workplace or school.]

This brings me, via some very graphic and disturbing ideas, to the central issues of this article. The first is: is pornography inherently degrading for women? The second is: does the porn industry, in practice, degrade women, and can this be changed?

Is pornography inherently degrading?

I shall start off with a blindingly obvious statement, which is that there are many different types of pornography. There is pornography which portrays "vanilla" sex - ie. missionary, male on female. There is gay porn, lesbian porn, bondage porn. Porn gets increasingly 'hard-core' (for want of a better term), leading up to stuff like gang bangs, bukkake, etc. There are also X-rated computer games (which I would include with the porn) which generally involve trying to turn on a computer game character with various items (eg. feathers, fingers, dildoes etc) - again, in some of these games the characters are willing and eager; in some they have to be persuaded (either while tied down or not). In some, as in the hentai game mentioned above, consent is null and void. So let's start off talking about the porn that's easier to justify - where the people involved at least seem to enjoy the experience, where there is consent, where there are no uneven power situations as occurs when there are twenty guys and one woman.

The first argument is that if pornography is inherently degrading to women, it must be inherently degrading to men as well. Apart from (pseudo-)lesbian porn (mostly watched by men), porn generally involves men as well as women. So as a starting point, if porn is inherently degrading apart from the actual content, then it should be equally degrading.

[As an aside, I have always found it strange that male porn stars are always so impressively hung. If it were me, I'd rather watch porn involving women who at least looked something like me, in terms of physical attributes. Why do men get off watching guys with massive penises? Do they secretly think that their penises are that big? Is it a matter of admiring the 'alpha male', 'pulling the chicks'?]

MacKinnon argues that men and women are inherently different, and that treating them as the same in fact is a way of keeping women down, because it means that women have to live with men's standards, rather than the reverse. I think that it is an argument she has to make to be consistent with her 'pornography is a form of abuse to women' thesis, and it is a very interesting idea. However, I don't think it necessarily applies to porn. Men are not the only ones who enjoy porn; there are women who like watching porn as well. Granted, more men watch porn than women; however, there are probably more women who read erotica than men. These are different means of receiving sexually arousing material - why is one okay and the other not? Perhaps it is because porn uses real people; but hentai and anime are drawn - and it is arguably more degrading to see women drawn with tentacles going into every orifice, than to see a real man and a real woman having sex.

Perhaps porn is degrading to women because things are always being done to women. But that's not true either - look at gay porn, for example. Further, I don't have that much experience of the wide range of porn available, but I'm sure there is porn which caters to heterosexual men who enjoy being the 'bottom' in terms of S&M, and B&D sex. Again, why is it so degrading to women but not to the men involved? What about women-on-women porn, which is watched by men? Why is that so degrading? Is it somehow not degrading if it was made by lesbians for lesbians?

I think that there is porn out there which is degrading to women. My personal dislikes/aversions include bukkake and gang bangs, as well as the sort of rape and incest games that I referred to before. To some extent, it is a power question. The fact is that the world is still organised along patriarchal lines; that men have more power than women financially, politically and socially; and that men, on average, can outpower women. For me, gang bangs (by which I'm not talking two guys, but ten or twenty - or even 251, in Annabel Chong's case) reduce women to a mere thing - and same goes for bukkake. As for rape and incest, I'm not really sure that I want games which perpetuate those sorts of fantasies; nor do I think that these games discourage men who enjoy them from acting out those fantasies in real life. I think that if anything, seeing or acting out these role-play fantasies can deepen their hold on a person's psyche, and normalise the fantasy for them.

Where do we draw the line? Even accepting the lines where I've drawn them, there is a lot of gray in the middle. What men to women ration before it becomes unacceptable? What about games where women are tied down and aroused against their will? Keep in mind that it is not only men who find some of these scenarios exciting - there are also women who find the fantasy of violence against them arousing. See, for example, this review (by a woman) of Dolcett's art.

I have no answer on this, I'm afraid.

Does the porn industry degrade women?

From the accounts given by Linda Marchiano in MacKinnon's article; from Annabel Chong's story, it would seem to definitely be a yes. On a sidenote, check out this article about porn actors testing positive for HIV - certainly raises issues of occupational health and safety standarsd for porn actions, doesn't it?. I am, again, not an expert on the porn industry, and from what I have heard, top female porn stars get paid a lot more than top male porn stars (though men who are willing to be 'bottom' in gay porn can aparently receive quite large amounts as well). But it would certainly seem that there is a dark side to the porn industry. At the extreme, this means rape and abuse like that suffered by Marchiano; still disturbing, though not as horrifying, is the exploitation of porn actors like Annabel Chong.

For me, this is an argument towards increased regulation of the porn industry, rather than criminalisation. This is just like every other decriminalisation argument - that it will be better than driving porn underground where there can be more abuse and that it is better to give porn actors rights and unions so that they can fight for minimum standards (like condoms on-set, HIV and other STD tests before commencing films). Further, there should be government regulation - for example, monitoring to ensure that actors are over 18 (or whatever the legal age is) and that they are not being coerced into the industry.

In many ways, porn has become a matter-of-fact industry populated by professionals. I would find it inconsistent to be opposed to pornography, but not prostitution - both are in fact very similar industries, and attract the same sort of dangers, arguments for and against. There is a danger of paternalism in the argument that porn actors or prostitutes don't really want to do what they're doing. There are those who are forced into it (there is a furore at the moment in Australia about women brought into the country and being forced into prostitution to pay off their 'debts' to the people smugglers); there are also those who are happy with their choice and feel empowered by their choice of profession. There are those who are exploited and those who earn a good living out of their work. In that sense, porn and prostitution are not that different from many other industries such as textiles - it's just that the subject-matter is so controversial.

Finally, I would add a disclaimer. I am aware that in some ways this has been a fairly simplistic set of arguments - but the fact is that in order to include all the arguments, I would need more time, inclination and knowledge than I have now. I have neither the language nor the research to really make a strong academic case on this. This is an exploration of my views on the matter, and I would be interested in hearing what other people think as well - especially if you disagree.

Postscript: please go read this article about the degrading effects of porn on the viewer. Very thought-provoking indeed...

The real issues with HECS

2004-04-05T15:52:00.000+10:30

I've been hearing a lot of discussion about HECs over the past two weeks, but especially yesterday at a conference I was attending. There's no point rehashing most of the discussion, which is pretty repetitive - but here's a few points that don't seem to be considered very often:

1. With all this talk about HECs rising, why doesn't anyone focus on the threshold repayment level? At the moment, this stands at $24,365. I think that when you start repaying has a lot more real impact than how much you repay. For example, if people had to repay the amount of their uni degree (which I imagine would be over $100,000 in most cases), but didn't have to start repaying it until they earnt more than $100,000 in any given year, I imagine that there wouldn't be as much fuss.

Surely the biggest issue is to push up the repayment threshold? I would be happy to be charged more HECs if the repayments didn't kick in until... say, $60,000. I think it's absurd that people who are earning less than $25,000 a year are expected to begin repaying their HECs - I mean, it's not exactly a massive amount to be living on as it is. One of the rationales for the user-pays university system is that students are meant to gain a higher income by getting a degree - so surely the Government should wait until they have that higher income before asking for the money back?

2. What is university there for? There is all this talk about how education is a human right, and I've heard people suggest that all education - up to a tertiary level - should be free. But why? There are two elements. First, there are professions or careers in which a university degree is useless - if you want to become a plumber or an electrician, you're better off leaving school at 16yo and getting an apprenticeship. Even many white-collar jobs don't really require a university degree - I don't see how a university degree is going to help you if you're employed as a personal assistant, for example. There is a danger that with all this focus on universities, people are over-valuing a university degree as opposed to other forms of experience or learning. For example, TAFE courses are affected as well as university courses - but where's all the media and protest focused on? Universities. What's so special about universities?

Second, part of the value of a university degree lies in its exclusivity. The more people get a university degree, the less valuable it becomes. It's important to ask, as a society, what university is there for? It seems absurd to me that people now need degrees to get most jobs... I mean, why bother? There are clashing philosophies, one of which sees university as a universal right, and one of which sees university as another step which most people do not need to take - like PhDs. I think there is a danger that people just assume that university is there and therefore everyone should attend it. The current paradigm that university should be as broad-based as possible, but the fact is that university is not suitable for everyone, and it's not really necessary for everyone either. People who put forward this argument are called elitists - but that's only true if you believe that a university degree is better that other forms of experience. Personally, I don't.

3. I have also heard people arguing that higher HECs rates disadvantages those who are really poor. It doesn't. Think about it. If you're talking about the most impoverished people in Australia (eg. Aborigines), their main concerns will be more to finish primary and high school, let alone university. And the biggest obstacle in their way has more to do with day-to-day survival - adequate food, shelter, healthcare. And even at university, their main concerns centre around the amount that Youth Allowance/Austudy/Abstudy provides; the cost of amenities fees and textbooks; and other associated day to day costs, not how much HECs they'll eventually have to pay off.

There was also another argument I heard that poor people can't attend university because they have to find a job and support their family. Again, irrelevant to HECs. HECs is meant to be a delayed payment scheme... if you want to talk about social equity and equal access to education, talk about the amount of Youth Allowance that's payable. Talk about how much text books cost (it's pretty monstrous). Talk about upfront fees charged by the university such as amenities fees. Talk about universities limiting access to resources such as the internet. But don't talk about HECs.

I was having a discussion of this with my brother and cousin last night, and my brother suggested a radical alternative - that students not only pay back what they owe, but pay double the amount they owe - and that the extra money be directed as research grants by the Government. I believe that it was a model to provide strong incentives for universities to do good research, and use market forces thus... Now, I've probably explained the model wrong and I'm not a fan in any case. The point I'm making is that there is this assumption that the current situation, or free education, are the only equitable alternatives. They're not. People need to start thinking outside the square - start consider why the government funds education, how it does so, and what the most equitable model is.

To have or not to have

2004-02-03T22:10:00.000+11:00

I think not wanting children is like being gay in the sense that society assumes that everyone is heterosexual until they say otherwise, and society assumes that everyone (well, at least all women) want to have children unless they say otherwise.

The difference being that even perfectly liberal, accepting and open-minded people will still say things like "oh, you'll change your mind" when it comes to having children.

I've just been reading a Salon series about whether or not to have children... there were a number of points that struck me, but one was that scientists (the generic 'scientist') have found a gene present in female mice who are nurturing mothers, and absent in female mice that aren't nurturing mothers. Now, of course, a piece of research is only as good as its methodology, and I don't have a clue whether that was a valid finding or not - but it is interesting, is it not? Maybe that explains why when I see little kids, I don't find them particularly cute, and babies don't appeal. I've worked with kids, and I find that I tend to treat them in the same way I treat any other person.

I know about all the hormones and stuff that are released when the child is born, that lets its mother/father bond with him or her... I've heard about how everything else shrinks in importance once you have a child and how people who always thought they didn't want children change their mind once they have one (generally men in these stories, but also women). But I've also heard about post-natal depression, and all sorts of other horrors involved with having children. I know lots of stories about bad parents. There are also stories about parents who in hindsight might have chosen the alternative [usually anonymous - it would be a pretty big slap in the face to your own children, to say you wished you hadn't had them]. I would not want to risk having a child that I don't feel the urge for, based on this nebulous "oh, but you won't regret it".

I don't hate kids, and it does annoy me that there is this assumption that anyone who doesn't want kids must dislike them. I love the idea of being this fantastic auntie who buys cool presents and doesn't get in the way (really the best you can hope for as a oldie, really)... but I just don't want one, or two or whatever. I could reel off a number of reasons why I don't want to have kids (eg the environmental-population issue), but the fact is simply that I'm not interested. I don't feel any differently looking at kids than at any other human being. I don't long to have one, and that's the crux of it - I think that you should really want a child before you have one. You shouldn't have a child because it's expected of you... in fact, I don't even think you should have a child in the attempt to hold your relationship together, or because you think it will solve all the problems in your life. I think that you should only have a child if you are willing to put the time and effort into raising them, willing to take on such a commitment and responsbility.

Furthermore, whilst I don't generally mind being told that I will change my mind (after all, it won't be the first time it's happened), but it does annoy me when there's a hint that I'm being a bit self-centred by not having children. As one person wrote on Salon, it's strange that people can think you're selfish for not wanting something. It's strange that everyone is meant to want children. Sure, most people like tomatoes - but would you be selfish for not wanting to eat tomatoes? It's not like we need more people in the world; nor is it likely that the money, time and energy I save on having children would be devoted on myself. In fact, it seems to me that people who want to have children to perpetuate themselves are being more selfish... people who drive around in 4WDs to protect their children at the risk of every other road-user out there is being selfish. I'm the one who does volunteer work and donates money to charities, not the one who voted Howard back into government because he's giving more money to private schools.

Hmm... that was a bit ranty, wasn't it?

The truth is that although I do accept the well-meant "oh, you'll change your mind" with good grace and acceptance that it may well be true, I also get incredibly tired of it. There is nothing else on earth that people have such sublime confidence in... no-one says "oh, you're not lesbian? You'll change your mind" or "oh, you like watching Test matches? You'll change your mind" or "oh, you don't like John Howard? You'll change your mind". [Although I have been told "oh, you don't like cheese? We'll make you change your mind". :-D] Of course, the main difference between the decision to have children and every other decision you make in your life is... you can't back out of it, and ultimately, it's a choice you're not only making for yourself, but also your child.

And I don't see the sense in taking that risk unless you're really want to, going into the process with your eyes open.

Non-discrimination at the Third Level

2003-06-23T18:03:00.000+10:30

Okay... xenophobia to equality to equity...

I think I used to be able to say this better.

I think that there are three levels of thinking about such things as discrimination... first, bias, is easy. So easy. Everyone knows how to be biased. Everyone knows how to go about mocking those who are different - to be scared of them and yet contemptuous at the same time.

The next level up is to conscious equality - to ask yourself, "why should I treat this person differently? Like me, they are human - I should treat them as I, too, would be treated". This was, for a long time, my attitude... I thought about sexuality in terms of my sexuality, and I figured that given I was unable to change my own sexuality, that I shouldn't expect anyone else to be able to change their sexuality either.

This is not bad, so much as incomplete. Incomplete, because there is an assumption here that everyone really is the same, except for the very essential question of whether one prefers one's own sex, or the other sex (or maybe even both, as the case may be).

The problem with this sort of thinking is that it can cause otherwise unbiased people to get indignant when the specific 'cultural' group doesn't act according to their expectations. Because they are still expecting everyone else to be like them, they cannot accept that someone can be fundamentally different - without being bad. For example, taking my example of gay/lesbian people - this kind of thinking would come out as "they have a perfect right to be gay - but they would all be monogamous and in partnered relationships (just like straight people) if only they had the chance"

I'd like to think that I never thought quite that simplistically - but that's not to deny that I might have.

So the third level - and this one requires quite a bit of mental work - is to accept difference as an equal, not greater nor lesser than any other. To say - "yes, customs are different - but as long as the golden rule is not broken, then it is not wrong, merely different".

It is a tightrope traversing a wide chasm... it is not an easy stage to reach. I was helped along in my thinking not only in continuing acceptance of my own cultural heritage - but also in looking at others' lives through web blogs, and other forms of media, as well as looking at my own friends and acquaintances.

Perhaps it could be argued that this is just an excuse for discrimination - I don't believe so, having thought it over. There is a difference between equality and equity. Equality is giving everybody the same amount of food, regardless of how much they need. Equity is giving each person the amount of food they need, even if that differs from person to person. Similarly, in treating everyone as 'equal', it is possible that 'equity' is not provided.

I would love to hear any examination of this idea, critical or expansive.

Something is rotten in the State of Australia

2003-03-22T16:09:00.000+11:00

For those people who don't live in Australia, you will not know about the wonderful events occurring in federal politics at the moment... over the past month and a half, actually. Let me recap:

1. the whole 'children overboard' affair was revealed to be fake, and it seems that at least one of the three ministers involved (the Prime Minister, Immigration Minister and Defence Minister) misled the public by not giving them the true information when they discovered it - before the end of the federal campaign.

The Prime Minister has refused to say he was wrong, has refused to apologise for the slander to the refugees accused of throwing their children overboard. Furthermore, he says that he knew nothing about it, and had accepted the advice of his Defence Minister without checking further. He has also refused to resign over the issue; nor has the then-Immigration Minister resigned. The Defence Minister left at the last election already.

The Prime Minister has said that he was not informed of the matter by his staff... the Defence and Immigration Ministers have made similar excuses.

2. Dr Peter Hollingworth, the former Archbishop of Brisbane and current Governor-General, became enveloped in controversy when it was alleged that he had covered up sexual abuse by priests in his congregation... and in one case actually assisted someone accused of child abuse to gain a position on a committee on child abuse. This situation worsened when, in an effort to defend himself, Hollingworth went on tv and essentially blamed the 14yo involved in one case for 'seducing' the 26yo priest who had abused her.

He has since made full apologies both in public and also personally to the girl, incidentally. The Prime Minister has been under pressure to sack him, but has refused to do so.

3. Two ex-Ministers who left Parliament at the last election - the ex-Health minister and the ex-Defence minister (as mentioned above) have taken up jobs with firms or consultancies working in their particular former ministry. The former Defence Minister is on contract with the defence firm Tenix - I think he is a consultant and lobbyist for them. The former Health Minister is acting as a consultant for the College of General Practitioners. Opposition parties have put forward proposals limiting where ministers can work immediately after leaving Parliament (eg. one or two years) - the Prime Minister has said that he sees no need to change the status quo. On the other hand, there have been moves to relook at a $5 million grant to the College of General Practitioners made just before the last election.

4. It has been revealed that the Treasury have lost an estimated $5 billion in currency markets in the last few years because they gambled that the Australian dollar would not fall against the US dollar - and it has done so to a ridiculous degree. The Treasurer has sought to blame the former government for the debt... he certainly doesn't take responsibility for the loss, and in fact argues it's not a loss because it has not yet been realised.

I'm not a commerce student, but ... HUH?! I don't get it.

5. This is slightly out of order, but never mind... the Defence Signals Directorate was discovered to have bugged the Tampa, a Norwegian cargo ship that started off a whole lot of debate over the refugee issue when they brought a group of asylun seekers into Australia's territorial waters despite being ordered not to do so by the Australian navy or whoever is authorised to deny entry.

6. It was discovered that the Defence Department had asked ASIO to bug the Shadow Foreign Minster's office...

The Prime Minister denied having any hand in this... and said that if it was done, it was done by a very junior member of the Defence Department.

7. Senator Heffernan, a Parliamentary Secretary and 'close friend and confidant' of the Prime Minister, got up in the Senate and essentially accused High Court judge Michael Kirby of a conflict of interest in terms of child abuse cases, as well as alleging that Justice Kirby had misused Comcars (Commonwealth funded cars used to chauffeur MPs, High Court judges, visiting dignitaries etc) to 'trawl for rough trade'. Heffernan deliberately waited until the end of his speech before he named Justice Kirby - while parliamentary privilege protected him from being sued, he was aware that he was breaching the standing order regarding besmirching the repuatation of the judiciary.

Amid wide-spread controversy regarding this sort of use of parliamentary privilege, Heffernan claimed to have new evidence that the police had not examined (they had already examined previous allegations and found them baseless). Several days after this speech in Parliament, it was revealed that one of the two pieces of 'evidence' that the Senator had was forged. The Senator was forced to apologise to the Senate and to Justice Kirby, and has quit his Parliamentary Secretary position.

During this whole time the Prime Minister did not stand up to defend Justice Kirby, and in fact further used parliamentary privilege to read a letter making further allegations against Justice Kirby. The Attorney-General, who is meant to be the defender of the judiciary, refused to fully back Justice Kirby, and in fact argued that Senator Heffernan's attack was a personal issue not touching upon Justice Kirby's abilities as a judge - when in fact the allegations in part were that he was biased as a judge and therefore not fit to sit on certain cases.

After the truth was revealed, Howard asked Heffernan to apologise and to resign... Howard himself, however, refused to apologise for not backing Justice Kirby up. Similarly, the Attorney-General Daryl Williams has denied that it was his role to defend the judiciary against such attacks.

And yes, this has all happened in the last six weeks... it's been the most insane sitting of Parliament I have ever heard of. The Coalition will be relieved that they now have a six or eight week break from parliament.

[Incidentally, Howard has a habit of starting off his electoral terms badly - I recall that the last two times he won, a number of ministers resigned just after because of various types of misconduct.]

I'm thinking that perhaps we need some sort of short course for MPs coming into Parliament, into simple things like what parliamentary privilege is meant to be used for, what the role of the Attorney-General is, and most importantly, the principle of 'ministerial responsibility' in the Westminster system of government we use.

Here it is in essence - ministers are responsible for their particular department, and anything done by that particular department. If it does something wrong and you don't know about it, then it means you're not managing it properly. If it does something wrong and you do know about it, then obviously you should fix it. The department is not meant to keep information from you, even if it's information you may not want to hear. They are meant to be impartial and honest.

You cannot blame your department for not informing you or acting in ways you do not know about. You cannot step aside from that responsibility for your department, because the buck stops at the minister.

If you cannot discharge your duties as a minister, then you should resign because you are obviously not fit to be minister.

This sort of irresponsibility, this sort of unwillingness to apologise for one's actions, is setting a terrible example and precedent for future governments. I just hope that it is a once-off.

The Iraq War - What Is It Good For? Part II

2003-03-13T16:09:00.000+11:00

I haven't done a rant on a political issue for awhile... probably because I was so awash in politics that I didn't actually have time to think very much about it.

I just wanted to make a few points about the proposed war on Iraq... I think there's plenty of debate out there for people who are interested in the issue, most of it written by people with much more skill than me.

I don't want to debate whether Hussein is evil enough to wipe out now, whether the innocent lives that will be lost in a war would be outweighed by the innocent lives lost during his regime. I don't really want to discuss whether the US's past actions render it hypocritical and wrong to act now - there was a very well-written piece recently along the lines that "just because US has been bad in the past doesn't mean it should continue along the same path". I find these topics deeply engrossing on a basic philosophical level, actually - it brings into question the tenets of utilitarianism. But not now.

All I wanted to point out was that despite the push and pull, despite one group saying that the US should go to war even without UN backing, and others who say that US shouldn't go to war even with UN backing, there are those such as myself who believe in the UN as an institution. Yes, it's somewhat ineffectual, very politicised, and controlled by a very small group of very powerful nations. Like any institution, it is imperfect. But it is just about the closest thing to a legal process that we have on an international level.

I oppose the US going to war with Iraq because the UN Security Council have not sanctioned it. If the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorising use of force against Iraq, then I would support it, even though I may wonder whether it was, strictly speaking, necessary. I think that the US is being terribly hypocritical for critising Iraq for not complying with UN resolutions given it itself is willing to ignore the UN to pursue its own goals.

One thing that has become absolutely anathema after WWII is the invasion or attack of another country with no provocation whatsoever. We have learnt to be very suspicious of initial aggressors. That's one of the reasons why Iraq was so comprehensively defeated when it invaded Kuwait in 1990 - because there was such a weight of international opinion behind the operation.

The thing about law, and legal processes, is that sometimes they don't lead to the optimal outcome in every single case. For example, there may actually be occasions on which capital punishment may be the best option, for whatever reason. But they will lead to more justice over time than ad hoc decisions will. If the US is able to attack Iraq now, without UN backing, without any provocative action from Iraq, then what will stop the next state from doing the same thing? Each breaking of a rule, or a process, weakens it, like acid on a wall.

By doing this, by acting like a petulant child, the US greatly risks destroying one of the few areas of consensus held by all nations in the UN - the idea that you don't attack another state except in self-defence, such as when they have attacked you.

The Iraq War - What Is It Good For? Part I

2002-09-13T09:55:00.000+10:30

This isn't going to be a long entry (damned people who actually make me work! :-p)...

I'm just slowly getting more and more annoyed by all this 'let's attack Iraq' stuff. The part that riles me is when Howard and Bush try to argue that a pre-emptive strike should happen because Iraq 1) has the capability to build nuclear weapons in a short period of time, 2) has contravened UN resolutions, and 3) it's part of the war on terrorism.

I mean, what the heck? First of all, there are a helluva lot of countries out there with the 'capability' to build nuclear weapons - including Australia! All it needs is nuclear material (tick) and engineers who know how to do it (tick). But that doesn't make us into a US target, does it? Why? Because we're all cosy with America. Now, I don't like Saddam Hussein any more than the next person, but being capable of building a nuclear weapon is not a big deal. Period.

Apart from that, there is something so wrong about the US saying 'we're allowed to have nuclear weapons, and you're not'. In addition, they are also saying 'Israel is allowed to have nuclear weapons (which they do have, even though it's officially denied - it's the worst kept secret in international relations) but someone who doesn't like US isn't even allowed to have the capacity'.

Second thing is that loads of countries contravene UN resolutions - including the US and Israel, to pull two convenient examples off the top of my head. For the US to tell other people off for ignoring the UN is just laughable, or would be if it wasn't so infuriating. I'm with Saddam on this particular issue.

Finally, it's somehow part of the war on terrorism... how? Iraq is one of the more secular states in the Middle East... Osama Bin Laden was from (US ally) Saudi Arabia, not Iraq... in fact, apart from what it does to its own citizens, Iraq hasn't done anything since it invaded Kuwait more than ten years ago. I really just don't get the linkage.

I guess what really drives me mad is the fact that these politicians, who should know better, are using these reasons to terrify people into supporting them. Howard and Bush know that reasons 1) and 2) are shite reasons - but ordinary people can't be expected to know that. They're basically misleading the Australian and American populace by giving the impression that having the capability to build nuclear weapons is really dangerous, and that contravening UN resolutions is like paedophilia, when it's more like adultery - it's not nice, but a lot of people do it.

I even heard some idiot on the radio suggest that Iraq was evil because it had 'attacked Kuwait and Iran'... now, it did indeed do both of those things, but perhaps it would be appropriate to note that the United States had funded and supported the Iraq war with Iran - had given them the self-same weapons which they then went on to use in Kuwait a few years later.

It may also be appropriate to note that there is still some speculation as to whether Iraq actually communicated the fact that it intended to invade Kuwait to the US, and was not given a red light, even if they weren't given a green light. In other words, there is a possibility that the US knew that Iraq would invade Kuwait and had an opportunity to send a clear message that this would be unacceptable, and that they did not send that message. The suggestion is that one of the reasons why Iraq succumbed so quickly in Kuwait is that it didn't actually expect any force from the US to come into Kuwait.

As someone who has studied international relations, specifically strategic studies, as well as having done a bit of US international relations in particular, I just think that the current excuses for attacking Iraq fall under the category that I would term "piss-poor".

Taking the Moral Low Ground: Australia and the refugees

2002-08-02T17:48:00.000+10:30

In a series I am reading at the moment, the hero is often urged by all and sundry - friends, acquaintances, enemies - to take the easy path... to be pragmatic and act in ways that he finds morally repugnant, in order to succeed in his goals. You know - the Machiavellian strategy. He refuses to do so, he finds his way through... and he succeeds because he has stuck to his guns.

I wish stories in real life ended so satisfactorily.

I start with a note that a number of the asylum seekers who went through the refugee application process off-shore - in the 'Pacific solution' - have been found to have legitimate claims. The government and various other sources have triumphantly broadcast the fact that most of the Afghanis were rejected as refugees; but failed to mention that this was because the Taliban had been overthrown in Afghanistan, rather than because of the asylum seekers' inherent 'shiftiness' or 'deceitfulness' in trying to claim asylum.

I was listening to the radio this morning, and there was a discussion about whether some families should be allowed to live outside the detention centres while their claims were being processed... at the moment, there is a program where the children and mother are allowed to live in the township close to Woomera, but the father stays in the detention centre as a ... well, let's face it, as a hostage against the possibility of them fleeing. And apparently, the Department of Immigration's committee on this area has recommended that a number of fathers also be allowed to live with their family, subject to discretion.

And I heard Ruddock discussing this idea and saying something along the lines of 'it would be better if the entire family lived together' with a bit 'but' hanging on the end of that sentence... I was thinking about the opinions of ordinary Australians... and it made me think that there are a lot of people out there thinking about the refugee issue along the lines that 'the ends justifies the means'.

Like, 'well, they're entering Australia illegally (which they may not be), so we can treat them like shit and it doesn't matter'.

Like, 'well, keeping children in detention is wrong, but we don't want their families to escape into the community'.

I don't know whether I'm describing what I mean with any degree of coherence, let alone eloquence... but what I'm trying to say is that many Australians seem to be trying to say that it's okay to have awful conditions in detention centres; it's okay that they are kept in such conditions for years; it's okay to keep children in detention, because they deserve it.

I thought we moved beyond this idea that people 'deserve' to live in awful conditions because they'd done something wrong. We don't put criminals into rotting hulks on the Thames, or ship them to another country anymore. We don't whip people or indulge in capital punishment. We don't do these things because they mean sinking to a level on par with the criminals themselves. And let's remember that asylum seekers are not criminals - despite what the government says, they do not commit criminal acts. They do not murder, rape, steal, when they sail on a leaky and overcrowded boat with their families and any remaining possessions - they do no more than try to protect their family and themselves, and that holds true for economic refugees as well as political refugees.

It's dangerous for people to ignore their own conscience when deciding on anything. Despite what people say about politics and pragmatism, the first wave feminists were right when they said that 'personal is political'. Expediency is never a good trait or a good method for deciding policy.

Why people don't like politics: Object Lesson I

2002-04-29T17:45:00.000+10:30

There's been one of those "human interest" stories running on and off in the past few days about "Big Brother" the tv show... it's been about how one of the... what are they called? One of the housemates (I nearly said inmates) of the house is apparently a Young Liberal, and apparently there was a concerted campaign by Young Libs to prevent her from being kicked out of the house in the first week, in response to which some Young Labor people got up a campaign to get her voted out of the house. There was a short thing on 3LO this afternoon about how the "Young Labor" people were victorious because Katrina (the name of the Young Lib) had been kicked out, blah blah blah...

Bullshit.

This is exactly the sort of behaviour which makes people cynical about politics. Side A "stacks" the phone lines in order to make sure that one of their 'own' stay in the contest, and Side B respond by doing likewise. Neither group pays any attention to the considerations of merit, or the spirit in which the game is played. All that matters is that one's own side wins and the other side loses - whether that is a 'good' outcome in the general scheme of the things doesn't come into it at all.

I'm not trying to say that I particularly wanted her to stay... nor that I think that it's a particularly big problem that either side got 'their people' to vote lots of times in order to rig the result. It's a game show, and let's face, those things tend to be rigged anyway. Frankly, I don't give a toss who stays in the Big Brother household and who doesn't, and as I've mentioned in an earlier entry, I hate those types of shows anyway.

But this just seems, to me, to be symptomatic of some of the problems inherent in our current system of politics - which is that very little, if anything, is done on the basis of merit, and everything on the basis of who your friends are. Let's face it, it's a problem in wider society anyway - who doesn't know of instances where favouritism was shown? Even the concept of 'networking' plays up to this sort of nepotism (in the broader sense of the word) - the idea that it's who you know, rather than what you know, that's important. Furthermore, it also demonstrates and supports that sense of cynicism people have regarding the way political parties 'rig' results to suit themselves - so that the outcome might suit Side A or Side B, but it never ends up suiting the public.

From my point of view, on the basis of the little I've heard through the media, this girl was unpopular with the wider public anyway because she was full of herself, arrogant and treated the other housemates with disrespect. That's why the housemates nominated her as one of the possible evictees, after all. If anything, that was why she should have been voted off - not because of some petty and stupid battle between two groups of people who surely have better things to do with their time than make dozens of phone calls about such a trivial issue.

I mean, really. Get a life, guys.