A Female Prime Minister for Australia – So What?
What do I think of Australia having its first female prime minister?
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.
Justice Done In Opportunistic Lawsuit Against Australian Band Men at Work
In followup to my previous post Men At Work Should Pay Minimal Damages For Using “Kookaburra” Riff in Hit Song, the judge has ruled on damages.
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.
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 Work” were found to have infringed on the copyright of a famous Australian folk song, “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree”, by using the melody as an accompanying flute riff in their hit song “Land down under”.
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.
Help Identify These ATM Skimming Suspects
The people in the following CCTV security video are wanted in relation to a large ATM-skimming operation in Sydney and Wollongong. Here, they are shown using illegally cloned ATM cards to withdraw money from Commonwealth Bank ATMs in Burwood and Bankstown.
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:
Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid Dies
Filed under: International News, International Politics, Middle-East Affairs, Religion
The former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has died in hospital at the age of 69, after a prolonged illness. His presidency commenced after the fall of dictator Suharto in 1999.
Wahid’s leadership and policies attracted much controversy amongst Indonesians. Eventually, he was alienated within his own party and removed from office in 2001.
During and after his presidency, he promoted religious and ethnic tolerance. He wrote a seminal article published in the Wall Street Journal on December 30, 2005 titled “Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam” in which he called on “people of good will of every faith and nation” to unite to defeat the ideology of religious hatred that underlies and animates terrorism. He advocated for relations with Israel. When the Iranian government held a Holocaust Denial Conference in 2006, President Wahid convened a counter conference in Bali to promote the true historical view.
Outcomes of Copenhagen Climate Summit
Filed under: International News, Politics and Policy
The only certainty from the climate summit was that in the process of hosting the summit they would spent a lot of money, generate a lot of CO2 and attract a lot of crazy people.
I must say that I am half impressed with the outcome – I was half expecting that the summit would be terminated by a walkout by disgruntled countries, but I am sure they realised that would be bad PR.
Instead, they have announced a non-binding declaration – a US-brokered deal with India, China, Brazil and South Africa – that they say will limit global warming to 2 degrees.
Here are a couple of links:
http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_copenhagen-climate-summit-comes-to-an-end_1325458
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-draft-accord-agreed-20091218-l1jo.html
I am trying to work the meaning and impact of the declaration. My understanding is that they have a few pledges from countries to achieve certain drops in CO2 emissions by 2020, but the specific figures have not been disclosed.
Also, they may impose additional tax air and sea travel to raise billions of dollars yearly to assist island nations who believe that they are at risk of being submerged.
Naturally, most opposition and criticism is coming from countries that don’t thing the measures go far enough, and other countries who do not want to harm their economies atoning for the sins of the developed world.
More to come as things are clarified in the media.
ClimateGate: What It Means
Filed under: Australian News, Australian Politics, International News, International Politics, Science
‘ClimateGate’ is the name given to the controversy surrounding the leaking of emails belonging to the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia that took place in late November. This institute is a major research centre that played a key role in promoting Global Warming Alarmism and contributing to the IPCC report on Global Warming.
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://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/
http://fascistsoup.com/2009/11/25/more-on-the-climategate-source-code/
Barack Obama Did Not Deserve A Nobel Prize
Nobel Prizes have traditionally been awarded for ACHIEVEMENT in a certain field, not INTENTION or ENCOURAGEMENT.
Barack Obama might have grand plans for his own vision of peace, but he has not made any sort of measurable achievement that deserves this kind of recognition.
In my opinion, the Nobel Prize for Peace completely lost all credibility long ago, judging from the long list of recent questionable [undeserving] recipients: Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Yasser Arafat, Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger & Le Duc Tho.
My advice to the Nobel Committee: stick to prizes for solid science.
Aspiring Egyptian Book Burner Loses Bid To Head UNESCO
Filed under: International News, International Politics, Middle-East Affairs
Long-serving Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny has lost his bid to become the new Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation – UNESCO. The position was instead won by former Bulgarian Minister Irina Bokova, who received a majority of the final vote 31-27, amongst the 58 delegates.
Farouk Hosni’s campaign was hampered by a threat he made in the Egyptian parliament last year to personally burn any Israeli book he found in Egypt’s famous Library of Alexandria.
According to the linked article, “Critics also said that Mr Hosni was unfit to be UN guardian of culture because he censored books and films and stifled media freedom to support the authoritarian Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak”.
In true Arab Muslim style, he blamed his election loss on a “Jewish Conspiracy, cooked up in New York”.
The Final Word on 2Day FM Shock Jock Kyle Sandilands
Kyle Sandilands is in the news again, this time for his jibe that Australian TV comedienne Magna Szubanski could lose more weight if she were placed in a concentration camp. He has been suspended from duties at 2Day FM.
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.
