Nothing.

We are in a modern age where men and women have equal opportunities. Whether they choose to take up these opportunities is a separate matter.

I will judge Julia Gillard the same way I judge any politician or person in a leadership or managerial role – through his or her policies and competence as a leader.

At the moment, I do not expect much to change, after all, she was a key policy maker under her predecessor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Perhaps now that she has a fresh start, she can change her mind and abandon bad policies without losing face.

Since taking up the role of PM, she reached a compromise with the big miners on the controversial Super Profits tax. A compromise was expected, considering that Kevin Rudd was brought down after adopting a hard-line stance. I never knew what the truth was about the need for a Super Profits tax – all I heard was propaganda coming from both sides, so I cannot say whether a compromise is a good thing or a bad thing. Time will tell.

I do like that she in an atheist, unlike religiosly devout Kevin Rudd. Perhaps religious lobby groups and ministers like Stephen Conroy will have less influence and his could spell the end for the stupid Internet filter.

She also appears to have taken a leaf out of former Liberal PM John Howard’s successful “Pacific Solution” as a means of deterring people smugglers and their boats. She has proposed the establishment of a processing centre for boat people in East Timor, instead of the former Nauru location. Naturally, this has already generated much controversy amongst her party, but it clearly will be popular amongst voters.

No related posts.

Men at Work is to pay 5% of all royalties on their song “I come from the land down under” earned from 2002 onwards, to Larrikin Music. This was far less than the 60% share that Larrikin were seeking.

In my opinion, this is a just outcome, because it upholds copyright law, but acknowledges the opportunistic nature of the case, which I described thoroughly in my previous post.

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1. Men At Work Should Pay Minimal Damages For Using “Kookaburra” Riff in Hit Song In a recent court case, the Australian rock band “Men At...

The lawsuit was launched by a company named Larrikin Music, who had purchased the rights to the Kookaburra song in 1990, following the death of its original creator Marion Sinclair – a music teacher, who wrote the song in 1934 for use at a Girl Guide jamboree.

Here are some media links:

• http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/1008582/spicks-and-specks-silent-after-down-under-ruling
• http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/larrikin-music-publishing-snares-land-down-under-royalties/story-e6frg8n6-1225826893478

I have been asked what I think of this.

The fact is that copyright law is very clear on the rules concerning the use of other people’s copyright works.  Colin Hay, the lead singer of Men at Work, has confirmed that the flute riff was a homage from “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree”. If Larrikin Music are the legal owners of the copyright, they have a case in law. The question is how much should they pay in royalties. To determine what is correct, we should consider the following:

1. The song “Land Down Under” was released by Men at Work in 1981. The creator of the original song, Marion Sinclair, never raised any complaints when she was alive. The song was very popular, and no doubt if she felt that it infringed on her rights, she would have said something.

2. It took 20 years for any members of the public to find a connection between both songs. Indeed, Larrikin Music only became aware when it was mentioned on the ABC TV music game show “Spicks and Specs” in 2008 , so one could hardly argue that the connection between the songs was obvious or significant.

3. The copyright was purchased by Larrikin Music in 1990, from the South Australian public trustee, following the death of Sinclair in 1988. According to media reports, they paid several thousand dollars for the song and now Larrikin music have suggested that they want to be paid between 40-60% of the royalites on Men At Work’s song in compensation. This certainly reeks of cheap opportunism.

4. Marion Sinclair did not enforce her copyright on the song, effectively letting it be sung without restrictions, leading to the song to come to be known in Australian society like a traditional ‘Aussie folk song’. It is sung regularly by children in schools who have never been asked to pay for royalties.

For these reasons, it is my opinion that Men at Work did infringe on the copyright, but any royalties should be limited to a token payment.

No related posts.

Detectives allegedly discovered large amounts of money had been stolen from accounts accessed at ATMs in Bankstown, Parramatta, Burwood, Chinatown and Haymarket in Sydney. It is assumed that these ATM had been fitted with sophisticated skimming devices that captured the magnetic strip of the cards and the PIN number entered on the keypad.

If you recognise them, please contact Wollongong Police on (02) 4226 7899 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000:

For more info, read the following articles:

• ATM Skimming Appeal: CCTV Footage Released
• Police Seek Three Men Over ATM Skimming

No related posts.

There has been some coverage in the Australian mainstream media, but most of it has completely ignored the meat of the issue, and instead focussed on ’computer hacking’ or how it could impede the Copenhagen climate summit. The most thorough coverage has been in the Australian newspaper and the blogs of News Ltd. columnists Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, emails contained in these archives strongly suggest that academics at CRU have prepetrated widescale scientific fraud and engaged in highly unprofessional, if not criminal conduct. Furthermore, it casts a strong shadow of suspicion and doubt on their conclusions of future global climate catastrophe.

These practices include:

• Suppressing the views of dissenting scientists
• Mathematically manipulating climate data to hide features of the curve that disagree with alarmist opinions
• Knowingly incorporating poor quality, unreliable data into their research
• Subverting the peer review process
• Withholding and destroying information in response to Freedom of Information requests

I have no doubt that ClimateGate played a significant role in increasing opposition to the Australian ETS legislation and the fall of Opposition Leader  Malcolm Turnbull.

Plenty of great posts have been written that explain the content of these emails and surrounding issues in depth, so I will just include the links:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/global_warming_fraud_and_the_f.html

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/23/media-missing-the-plot-on-climate-gate-its-the-fraud-stupid/

http://uddebatt.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/climate-gate-%E2%80%93-all-the-manipulations-and-lies-revealed-15/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/

http://fascistsoup.com/2009/11/25/more-on-the-climategate-source-code/

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I agree that this is offensive for a number of reasons, but should this be another scandal? I say no.

Kyle Sandilands is a SHOCK JOCK  – not a diplomat, politician, church leader or anyone with an important public role of responsibility. His job is to say offensive things on radio. Some radio listeners are entertained by his frequently crude and offensive remarks, and that is why he is there.

Whilst I am here, I also commend Magda Szubanski for her achievement of losing 36kg, lowering her weight from 121kg to 85kg – She is a great role model for other obese individuals who want to lose weight.

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A young couple in Queensland, aged 19 and 21 respectively, have been commited to trial for using abortion drugs to ‘procure a miscarriage’. The story goes that the police, whilst searching their home for another undisclosed reason, came across the used packaging for the abortion drugs RU486 (Mifepristone) - commonly called the ‘Abortion Pill’, and Misoprostol. Due to meddling by religious conservatives in parliament, RU486 is not easy to obtain in Australia, even though it is widely available in other countries, including our neighbour New Zealand and most European nations.

Here are some newspaper links that tell the story in depth:

• Couple Face Trial for Procuring Miscarriage
• Doctors threaten Queensland Abortion Test Case
• Queensland Abortion Law to Spark Vexed Debate

One can infer from the above that the Queensland police did not find what they were really looking for during the search, and just so that would not leave empty handed, they came up with another petty reason to charge the couple. Apparently, this is the first prosecution for this offence in 50 years! If convicted, the woman may face up to 7 years prison and her partner may face up to 3 years.

What beefs me even more is that if the couple had gone to a public hospital or private clinic for a surgical abortion, that would have been perfectly legal, but because they took the drugs of their own initiative – obviously because it was faster, cheaper and less traumatic than surgery – they now face prosection.

In my opinion, there is no greatly cruelty than to give birth to an unwanted child who does not have parents with the will or means to look after them.  This young couple had mutually agreed to abort their pregnancy and they knew they were not ready. Furthermore, they had the support of both their parents.

In what way does society gain from prosecuting this young couple?

No related posts.

The federal government will spend $2 million attempting to turn Australia’s high school students into science nerds.

This is the opening paragraph of ninemsn’s article on the Australian Government’s new $2 million initiative to improve the participation of year 9 and 10 high school students in science, named STELR – The Science and Technology Education Leveraging Relevance program.

Although the journalist was probably attempting to be funny, his or her choice of phrase to “turn high school students into science nerds” perfectly sums up the anti-intellectual attitudes towards scientific pursuits in Australian society, and exposes the heart of the problem: image conscious high school students who want to be cool do not want to be labelled as “science nerds”, hence choose not to study science in years 11 and 12, and do not pursue scientific careers.

I praise the Government’s initiative as a very positive step. $2 million is far too little, but any step forward is a good one. I also praise the decision to target the year 9 and 10 age group as this age group is still young enough to be impressionable, are very conscience about their self image, yet are starting to consider their future after high school. If this program succeeds, it will allow sufficient time for these students to choose science electives for years 11 and 12.

I wish to suggest some further ways to enhance this initiative:

• Extra pay for teachers who hold masters degrees and doctorates

When I was in high school, some science teachers had science degrees, but many didn’t.  Even those who did made few efforts to update their knowledge. I can’t blame them completely – there was no incentive or recognition for those teachers who went beyond the bare minimum required to do their job.

• Advertising and promotional material featuring handsome/beautiful scientists

Yes, they exist and I have met them. In fact, a female scientist I know who works in the pharmaceuticals industry has graced the covers of a woman’s fashion magazine.

The old and tired stereotypical nerd with horn-rimmed glasses and a speech impediment promoted on TV and in movies must be destroyed once and for all.

• The right slogan

Science must be promoted as an empowering field that gives a person understanding and control over the world – to save the world, or to make it better.

What are your thoughts?

No related posts.

That means that ASIC would be responsible for investigating and uncovering insider trading, market manipulation and other fraudulent practices that occur on financial markets.

This responsibility was previously assigned to the market operator, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Since the ASX demutualised and became a publicly listed company in 1998, it has been argued that there is now a conflict of interest between its duty to supervise the markets and its duty to maximise profits for its shareholders. That was the government’s reasoning for ordering the transfer of powers.

My answer is that I agree that there is a conflict of interest, but I do not believe ASIC is competent enough to carry out its new duty. ASIC is under resourced, inefficient and has a culture of apathy and incompetence. In addition, they lack the ASX’s technological know-how. The government did not mention how much extra funding they were going to allocate, if any.

I want to hear more about plans for extra funding and a cultural purge before I would have any degree of confidence in the new arrangements.

No related posts.

What this means to you is that if this mangled, complicated and utterly useless ETS legislation is passed, food prices WILL increase by 7%, as farmers, wholesalers and retailers will have a solid excuse to justify their profiteering.

Such price increases occurred when the 10% GST was introduced in the year 2000, and you may remember when a cyclone hit a banana-producing region of Queensland, ALL banana prices went up by up to ten times – 1000% for almost a year, even though other banana producing regions were unaffected and we could have easily allowed cheap imports from New Zealand.

I am conservative when it comes to my belief in human nature. Most people will pretend to believe in something whilst they believe it is socially beneficial [cool] or financially beneficial to do so. People are happy to make token gestures like sticking a ‘go green’  bumper sticker to their car or have a fun day out at a protest rally with friends, but when it comes to pulling money out of one’s wallet, people show their true selves. We are seeing increased voices in the media questioning the basis of evidence for catastrophic predictions of climate doom.

The proposed ETS legislation, that has been the subject or negotiation (horse-trading) between the major political parties and independents is complicated and full of exception clauses for all industries with powerful political lobbies.

Its phasing in has been drawn out over a number of years to try and stem public outrage. I question whether this legislation will result in a single molecule of CO₂ from being generated. If there are any savings, the CO₂ emission growth of our crucial trading partner China will cover them within a week.

If talks over this legislation collapse and resulting an election. I know who’ll be getting my vote - the party that promises to rip up this worthless piece of paper.

Oh yes – the disclaimer - I will take a complete U-turn on my position once I see:

• Falsifiable scientific evidence proving that human CO₂ emissions have a significant and detrimental impact on climate – i.e. an experiment that makes a clear prediction that can be tested.
• Evidence that any plan to mitigate this will be effective and based on sound science.

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I am 100% certain that if Ms Naggs were male, and the participant were female, Ms Naggs would now be in the slammer getting ready to be the participant in another inmate’s act.

Most members of the public who commented on this case (see the article linked above) have also expressed outrage at the verdict. This article analyses the case and discusses other instances of sex discrimination in law.

Under Victorian state law, the simple act of penetration without consent is sufficient to constitute rape.

The following facts of the case are not under dispute:

• The man advised the stripper beforehand that he did not consent to penetration
• Following the strippers use of the sex toy, there was bleeding from the man’s anus, which indicated that there was more than a ‘slight penetration’
• The man immediately expressed his displeasure to the female stripper
• He reported it to the police promptly the following morning

Ms Naggs’s attorney said that “any penetration was accidental”. Frankly, I consider this to be a load of nonsense, and it would never pass in any other case. The stripper was not drunk and she was a professional performer who knew what she was doing.

This was a jury trial, so the verdict is not the fault of a rogue judge - the jury were members of society who have been conditioned to accept a double standard, and that it what makes this case all the more troubling.

The most common argument by others who support the acquittal of Ms Naggs are along the following lines:

“The man agreed to participate in the stripper’s act by getting undressed - what did he think was going to happen?”

This is exactly the same as those who say to a female rape victim ”you dressed up in skimpy clothes and went to his place – what did you think was going to happen?”. 

No consent is no consent. Everything else is irrelevant. The man clearly stated to the stripper that he did not want any contact with his anus.

I fully support equality of men and women under the law, and equality in employment opportunities and career progression. Sadly, the legitimate quest for equality by feminists appears to have evolved into a quest for revenge – indiscriminate and untargeted, and that is wrong.

Sadly, this case is not an isolated incident – I have seen in the media a number of cases where men were defamed or convicted for sexual crimes in circumstances that were fraudulent or at least very far from being clearcut.

In the Australian media (and other Western media), men have often been portrayed as predators or deviants, and woman as helpless and innocent, e.g. the TV campaign “Violence against Women – Australia says no!”, when in fact, men are often victims of domestic violence.

Recently, a naive 18 year old Belgian girl asked to have one side of her face tattooed with 56 stars. Her father did not like it, so to escape his wrath, she concocted a story about falling asleep in the tattooist’s chair and stated that the male tattooist misunderstood her instructions and grotesquely defaced her. It was perfect fodder for an attention-grabbing theme - ‘Evil looking tattooist turns innocent girl into a freak’, except one element of the story lacked plausibility – falling asleep during the procedure. As anyone knows, getting tattoos is painful. The girl, when confronted, admitting to making it up and the reputation of the tattooist was restored.

Another more serious case is that of the Duke University Lacrosse team, who were falsely accused in 2006 of gang raping a black stripper.  Inconsistencies were found in the stripper’s statements. The accused had strong alibis and the prosecutor was ultimately convicted for malpractice.

But sometimes, justice comes too late. The most tragic is the case of the ‘30 second rapist‘ that took place in 1987 in Western Australia. A man named Kevin Ibbs lived with his wife and her female friend. One day, his wife and her friend decided they wanted to get him out of the house, so they concocted a plan - the friend would have have sex with him, and then change her mind halfway through, in order to take advantage of a newly passed WA law that made ‘continuation of sexual penetration without consent’ a crime. Ibbs was sentenced to prison after the judge ruled that he continued to have sex 30 seconds longer than he should have. He eventually proved his innocence – it took him over $1 million and 14 years to clear his name. His former wife and female friend received a paltry 6 months in prison. The man never recovered following the ordeal – he had lost most of his friends and his career as a tradesman, and he committed suicide a few years ago.

Other more frequent cases include men convicted after having sex with women who consented whilst drunk.

I propose the following reforms to be made to laws concerning sexual crimes:

1. Sexual harrassment laws must indemnify a person who asks another for consent to a sexual act in ALL circumstances, until they receive a response from the other party. e.g. you should be able to ask someone directly “Do you want to sleep with me?” This will help ensure that there is no misunderstanding when it comes to consent.

Only if someone pesters you continually to the point of annoyance following refusal of consent, may the provisions of existing laws apply. “I do not want to sleep with you and my decision is final. Do not ask me again”.

2. Many times cases of disputed consent involve one person’s word against anothers. I say that a person who does NOT consent to a sexual act should say it at the earliest possible opportunity, even before the other party has made a request, e.g. “OK, I’ll come over to your place to see that movie, but I won’t sleep with you. Are we clear?”. They should note the time that they refused consent, and if appropriate, have witnesses present.

3. A person who has consumed alcohol in a public place should NOT be considered to be of diminished capacity to consent. Unlike with motor vehicles, people do not breathalyse each other to see if they are above “the limit”. Drinking is one of the main reasons who people go to bars and clubs, so individuals should be held personally responsible for the amount they drink. Such a reform would deter people from drinking to excess.

What do you think?

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Quite rightly, there has been a huge uproar amongst the Australian public, over the treatment of the young girl, the decision of the mother to bring her along, the nature of the contest and the comments made by Kyle Sandilands in response to the young girl’s admission.

The above hyperlink links to a newspaper article containing a transcript of that portion of the segment, including the response from Kyle and Jackie-O.

In my opinion, blame should be apportioned in the above order, starting with the mother. What sort of mother would sell out her own daughter in exchange for concert tickets?

Disciplinary action may be appropriate against those who approved the airing of this segment. The management of the station should have imposed clear guidelines on the sort of topics and people who who are allowed to be on this show. I would suggest that for sexual topics, contestants must be over 18, and all parties must consent.

There have been many calls for Kyle Sandliands to be sacked. I do not agree.

He and Jackie were caught by surprise by the young girl’s statment and did not know what to say. Kyle nervously made the comment ”Right. (Pause.) And is that the only experience you’ve had? “

I do think that Kyle is untalented (or rather, his sole talent is speaking in a crude and offensive way), and ask why he is in the position he is in, but that is another matter.

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As part of the Australian Labor Government’s measures to try and stimulate the economy, the Small Business and General Business tax break legislation went into effect on the 22nd of May 2009.

The allowance in a nutshell is this:

if you run a small business with a turnover of less than $2 million and buy an eligibile depreciating asset costing over $1000, you can make an additional one-off 50% tax deduction. This is in addition to the all the normal tax deductions on assets used to earn an income.

If your business is bigger, you still get an additional deduction, but it’s only 30%.

Full details can be found here on the Australian Taxation Office’s website:

The website smartcompany.com.au has a well-written explanation in their article “New details on the 50% small business tax deduction“.

Some examples of tangible depreciating assets include new computers, peripherals, furniture, vehicles and tools. Computer Software does not count as it is not considered tangible and does not depreciate.

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According to a Bloomberg article, the contract will provide “engineering and advisory services” including  ”training Egyptian nuclear engineers, advising on which technology to use and best construction locations”.

I have very strong reservations about this deal.  Egypt is an Arab-Muslim country. At the moment, the current Egyptian Government is somewhat friendly to the West and uses overwhelming force to prevent its home-grown Islamic fanatics taking control, but this could change overnight.

There are many different designs for electricity-producing nuclear reactors, some of which are designed to avoid producing weapons-grade nuclear fuels as by-products. A the moment, I have no idea what sort of design Worley Parsons plans to recommend to the Egyptians.

My fear is that the reactors could be converted to allow production of weapons grade nuclear fuels, or that Egypt will learn enough to be able to build new reactors specialised for this purpose. The last thing we need is another Islamic regime with nukes.

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Recently in the news, there has been nothing new, just repetitions of the same themes over and over – economic bailouts, corporate fraud and distraction politics. As a result, I have become desensitised and no longer feel any shock.

I will comment on two piece of related news: Bernie Madoff’s $50bn Ponzi Scheme and Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. How are they connected? They are both scams.

Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme

For many years, New York investment manager Bernie Madoff  operated a hedge fund that consistently returned 12% per annum to investors for many years.

Early this month, it all fell apart when investors wanted out. The fund turned out to be a Ponzi Scheme that merely used new investors capital to pay distributions to previous investors.

This has been described as the “world’s biggest corporate fraud by a single individual”, resulting in estimated losses of $50 billion US dollars. I personally doubt that he acted alone.

Incredibly, the alarm bells were raised as far back as 9 years ago when an analyst named Harry Markopolous sent a report to the SEC titled “The World’s Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraid”. It is not clear if the SEC took any action on this.

How did he get away with it? I’m not sure, but he did have many friends in high places – after all, he was a former chairman of NASDAQ.

Regulators generally don’t care about small investors, but now that some  rich and prominent people got hurt, perhaps the SEC will start taking corporate transparency seriously.

Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set a token 5% Carbon Dioxide reduction target for the year 2020. Expectations were as originally as high as 15% and some were demanding a reduction of 25%.

Clearly, he wanted to maintain his popularity by doing something to appease the Climate Change believers,  but not dare risk anything to further exacerbate our economic problems.

So what was has been achieved by this? Apart from the fact that Global Warming Alarmism is bullsh**, China’s own CO2 emission growth will of course outstrip our savings within several months. Even if we ignored China, the flawed computer models (that others believe in) indicate that a much much larger cut would be needed to reverse a warming tread.

No related posts.

I respect the old man, but he is really out of touch with the realities facing young people today. Are today’s Australian university students struggling more than students in previous decades? I say yes.

Degrees Are Worth Less Today

Contrary to what Ross Gittins says, having a degree these days does not even guarantee a job, let alone a high salary.

Tertiary qualifications are now the baseline

Decades ago, the Australian workforce had a vastly different composition – Many students left high school before before year 12 and without receiving their Higher School Certificate (HSC). There was a lot of unskilled work and many more people learnt a trade. There were also far fewer women in the workforce. Only a small elite chose to attend university to get a degree, and these people were snapped up by employers.

Today, things are very different. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics report on statistical trends in education for the state of NSW in 2007, 85% of students complete their HSC, and almost 40% of those between 20 and 25 years of age are enroled in post-secondary education. Degrees, Diplomas and TAFE Certificates are now assumed knowledge for a majority of careers.

Teaching Standards Have Fallen

The Government has cut university funding since the late 1980s, whereas during the same period, private sector salaries increased greatly. This has led to talented Australia academics deciding to quit academia.

In their desperation for money, Australian universities have increased their reliance on full fee-paying Interational students, mainly from Asia and the Middle East, who pay lots more than locals for the privilege of an Australian degree.

University course content, assignments and exams have been dumbed down over the years to help ensure that people finish and ’get out the door’ with minimum delay.

An Oversupply of University Graduates

Due to the large number of people that have degrees and the lowering of teaching standards, graduates face far more scrutiny when seeking employment.

Today’s employers want candidates to have practical experience in a commercial setting, objective proof of competence and demonstrated achievement in their field.

One of the greatest ironies is that due to the shift towards university education, there are now shortages of tradespeople in Australia. Bricklayers and plumbers now earn more money than many degree-qualified professionals.

Living and Educational Expenses Have Increased

Gittins is correct in stating that HECS [university course fees] can be deferred, and are only repayable once a student has an income greater than a predefined threshold (about $41,000 per annum). However, there are many expenses that cannot be deferred.

Textbooks and Course Notes Are More Expensive and Frequently Updated

We live in an age of rapid obsolescence and changes in the legal and political landscape.

New editions of textbooks are released almost every year and these can cost up to $200 per book. Some courses require multiple textbooks. For a full-time university student who studies four courses per semester, this can amount to $2000 per year.

Learning Tools and Equipment

Today’s students need modern learning tools. Although Universities say that they are optional, in practice no student wants to be disadvantaged compared to their peers. Such tools include laptop computers, mobile phones and broadband Internet access.

Amortised over the period of a degree, these tools can cost anywhere between $500 to $2000 per year.

Accomodation in Capital Cities is Expensive

Some students can continue living with their parents. Others can’t – this may be because their university is not close to their home, or they have a partner, or simply want their independence. These people require accomodation.

Most of the large reputable Australian Universities are located in capital cities. Over the last 10 years, the asset price bubble pushed capital city property prices to atmospheric heights.

Relentless immigration coupled with a slowdown in new property development have resulted in rental costs exploding. In the eastern suburbs of Sydney, a 1-bedroom apartment now rents for $500/week.

Previous generations certainly did not have to deal with this.

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Paternity Tests Prove Hundreds of Men Duped

SMS after DNA test: You’re not the father

Australian men’s group seeks tests before child support

There is no doubt that the decision of a man and a women to have intercourse requires considerable understanding of the potential consequences.

The obligation of a father to financially support his child is clearly established in law. The retired tennis champion, Boris Becker, learnt this valuable lesson after being forced to pay millions of dollars for a child conceived during a brief liaison with a waitress in a restaurant broom closet in 1999.

Similarly, the responsibility of the woman to be truthful about her relationships is equally serious.  A women knows exactly whom she has slept with and would certainly know if there is any doubt about paternity.

To extract money out of an innocent person by making false claims of paternity is a very serious matter which also has serious consequences on the other party, both psychological and financial

• It is a gross betrayal of trust
• It is traumatic for the man and the child. The man may have formed a close emotional bond to a child, only to find out that he is not the father
• A man may be deprived of his livelihood for almost two decades until the child reaches adulthood and becomes independent

Apparently, some feminist groups are up in arms stating that the only person that will suffer will be the child. To this, I say that the same argument could apply to a woman who obtains support money by robbing a bank or stealing from her workplace. Does this make her any less culpable for the crime? Of course not.

So not only do I fully support this reform - I feel it should be made even stronger in the following ways:

• In the case of false paternity, child support money must be repaid WITH INTEREST to compensate for the man’s lost opportunities
• Mandatory DNA testing of both parents and children must be performed in all custodial disputes
• Where there has been a proven element of deception or fraud on the part of the woman who has falsely claimed child support, she should be subject to all applicable criminal law concerning fraud and theft
• In the above case, the man should also be entitled to seek civil damages as considered appropriate for the case

What are your thoughts?

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$500 million of this money will be set aside for a ‘Green’ car innovation fund, to produce environmentally friendly vehicles.

The intentions of this plan are certainly noble. Australia has a proud history of automotive production. The industry employs many people who hold a lot of valuable know-how.

These are the problems I see with the plan:

1. It’s a large amount of money and it may only temporarily defer the problem. Foreign manufacturers will milk the government funds, artificially boosting their profits, then shut down the factories when the money has been exhausted.

2. Australian automotive tariffs are set to fall from 10% to 5% making it harder for our local industry to remain viable in the presence of low cost German, Japanese and Korean imports. Would we be merely sustaining an uncompetitive local industry out of pride?

Here are some possible alternatives:

1. Assist Australian entrepreneurs in buying out the local arms of these manufacturing firms, to ensure that the industry is under Australian ownership and that profits remain in this country.

Perhaps a new Australian company can focus on producing low cost, energy efficient vehicles that would offer something unique and provide a competitive edge on the market.

2. Use the money to pay for redundancies for these workers and retraining to allow them to get job in other industries where their skills can be adapted, e.g. Agricultural technology, military vehicles

What are your thoughts? Your comments are most encouraged.

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The Australian Labor Party Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, has put together a plan to censor all Internet traffic in Australia with the stated intention of protecting children from pornography and blocking “illegal material”.

It is my opinion that this plan is completely unnecessary and serves merely as a distraction from the real issues affecting our country at this point in time. It is also a huge waste of money, with $44 million being budgeted in this financial year alone, with more to be spent in the following years.

The are a number of readily available options available today to concerned parents. These include PC software packages, routers with in-built filtering, and Internet Service Providers who offer optional filtering services on a per-account basis.

Australians will not be able to opt out of this scheme - we will only be able to choose between a ‘child-friendly’ setting or an ‘illegal content’ setting. What is illegal or child friendly will of course be determined by the government. It has not been discussed how one would get an incorrectly blocked site removed from the list.

The adoption of Conroy’s plan will result in web browsing being slowed considerably due to the overhead of filtering.

Filtering technology is known to be highly ineffective. A recent Tasmanian trial showed that a significant number of innocent pages were falsely blocked, and similarly, a significant number of ’child unsafe’ pages (1 in 13 clicks) got through.

Apart from the inaccuracy of the filtering, its overall impact is highly limited – it appears that the filter will only be applied to HTTP (web) traffic. P2P networks such as BitTorrent will not be filtered. Even the HTTP filtering can be easily bypassed using any number of off-shore anonymous proxy servers and VPN gateway.

If you don’t want Internet censorship forced upon you, contact your local Federal MP and let them know. If you don’t know who that is, this site should help:

http://apps.aec.gov.au/esearch
 
And if you want to complain to Senator Conroy, here is his contact page:

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/senators/homepages/senators.asp?id=3L6
 
The following sites are leading the campaign to oppose the filtering scheme and have detailed information:
 
http://nocleanfeed.com/
http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/

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Pardon the sparseness of my posts in the last fortnight. I have been reading and thinking very hard. For me, it is important to try and say something meaningful rather than contribute to the endless media waffle concerning the current financial crisis that does nothing more than waste time and confuse people further.

As first glance, many ASX stocks look incredibly cheap based on historic valuations. There are now heaps of shares that have P/E ratios less than 10, and offer fully-franked dividend yields greater than 10%. These are not just the battered property trusts who have high debt – many of these companies are in other sectors and are still reporting record earnings growth. So why aren’t these companies’ share prices going up?

The reason is that sentiment is very very poor. The market is anticipating future drops in earnings over the next few years as the financial crisis runs its course. People lack accurate, trustworthy information, so they are expecting the worst.

I personally see reasons to be positive. Emerging markets like Brazil, China and India are still growing strongly, and many Australian companies have exposure to these economies. There will still be demand for cheap consumer goods. Plenty of money will still be made in biotechnology and agriculture.

My share portfolio has been battered heavily – I have many small cap stocks which naturally are more volatile and lack liquidity, but they’ve all been paying their dividends like clockwork and most of these dividends are higher than last year. I do not buy shares that do not pay a good dividend – I see the dividend as a mark of business stability and compensation for periods of stagnation.

Right now, I expect the market to see-saw up and down for a prolonged period. I am looking at ways to take advantage of this. One area I am reading up on is the investment technique known as Value Averaging. Most people are familiar with Dollar Cost Averaging, in which one regularly invests a fixed amount of money into a share or managed fund, regardless of the price. 

With Value Averaging you vary the contributed amount depending on the value of your portfolio at the end of each time period, in order to reach a pre-defined target. The end effect is to buy more shares when prices are lower and buy fewer shares when prices are higher. Research has shown Value Averaging to outperform Dollat Cost Averaging about 95% of the time. I plan to write a post on this in the near future. If you can’t wait, click on the above link.

In other news, on the 12th of October, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd surprised everyone by announcing a package to provide an unlimited  guarantee on bank deposits. The financial markets reacted like an agitated grizzly bear hit with a tranquiliser dart – there was a day of temporary euphoria, followed by a swift return to instinctive behaviour.

A week later, Kevin realised that the package may have been overly generous and he announced that the bank deposit guarantee would be limited to $1 million. Beyond this amount, bank account holders would have to pay for insurance.

I question the wisdom of this scheme. Although this may have allayed consumer fears about the solvency of banks, it may have had the unintended side effect of further fuelling an exodus from shares and other asset classes into this newly created ‘perfect safe haven’.

Furthermore, in the event that the financial crisis worsens and a bank does become insolvent, where is the Government going to get the money to meet their guarantee obligations? Probably by printing more money! This will cause increased inflation and devalue everyones’ wealth. Nonetheless, this is probably far more emotionally palatable than going to your bank and being told that your money is gone.

Speaking of inflation, the Australian Bureau of Statistics stated that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) will reach a 13-year high of 5% this year. The current interest rate on Australian bank deposits is around 6%-6.5% per annum, so people who have their money in cash will be treading water.

In contrast, corporate earnings are more resistant to inflation. Assuming that demand remains constant, corporate revenue rises with inflation. For this reason, I see better value in making defensive investments in defensive low-debt stocks than blindly putting money in the bank, unless you need to access your money in the short-term.

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