Stop Internet Censorship in Australia
Filed under: Australian News, Australian Politics, IT News
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/
Satirical US Election Campaign Videos
Filed under: International News, International Politics
I found these satirical US election propaganda videos earlier today. The first, I’m Voting Republication, was released by Democrat supporters a while ago. The latest video, I’m Voting Democrat, was released in response by Republican supporters a few days ago.
For those of us outside the USA, we can poke fun at both sides.
Selling Australian Uranium to India
Filed under: Australian Foreign Policy, Australian News
India is upset with Australia because we refuse to sell them Uranium. We currently have a ban on selling Uranium to all countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Australian reserves hold 30-40% of the World’s Uranium, so this business is very lucrative for the country.
In principle, I support the sale of Uranium to India – they are a rapidly growing economy and they face huge increases in domestic demand for electricity. They are a democracy and I consider them to be a peace-loving people.
I presume that India is hesistant to sign this treaty due to their ongoing disputes with Pakistan, and as a counterbalance to their large nuclear-capable neighbour China.
The NPT is certainly important, but it should not be the only factor in the decision.
Last year, during the APEC summit, former Prime Minister John Howard signed an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin to sell Uranium to Russia. Unlike India, Russia is a signatory to the NPT and under the terms, Australian Uranium would not be used for military purposes or exported to third parties.
BUT as other people astutely pointed out – with Australian Uranium, Russia can divert its own domestically produced Uranium to weapons use, and sell it to hostile countries like Iran, whilst keeping within the terms of the NPT. Is this a desirable outcome?
Perhaps we can negotiate some other sort of agreement with India which would commit them to using Australian Uranium purely for nuclear electricity production, with some sort of Australian supervision. If such a thing can be done, this surely would provide a better outcome for all.
Sydney North-West Metro under Axe
In what must be an absolute surprise, the new Premier Nathan Rees stated in an interview with the Fairfax media that he is ‘pulling back’ from the much hyped North-West metro link. in light of the ‘surprise’ $1 billion budget shortfall discovered a few days ago after the cabinet reshuffle.
NSW State Government Turned Upside Down
I really have little more to add to what has been reported in the media, but to recap recent events:
Following John Watkins resignation last Thursday, Premier Morris Iemma sacked Treasurer Michael Costa following the failed power privatisation bid. Iemma then resigned, after being challenged by newcomer Nathan Rees, who was appointed the new premier of NSW.
In one of his first acts as premier, Rees appointed a new cabinet, which resulted in the dumping of the highly unpopular planning minister, Frank Sartor.
All I can add is that I could not think of a more appropriate bunch of people to get rid of.
I do wish Mr Rees luck in his new job as he still has to face some major problems. NSW is in debt with no money to spend on vital infrastructure and its economy is in recession.
An obvious first step is to convince the Federal Government to give NSW its fair share of GST revenue. It has been previously reported in the media that GST revenue raised in NSW is being used to subsidise other states. Anecdotal reports suggest that this could provide up to $2 billion extra annually to the NSW budget.
Watkins does a Carr
Yesterday, the NSW Transport Minister, John Watkins, resigned from office partway into his term. He says he will be leaving politics to spend more time with his family and become the CEO of the Alzheimers Association of NSW.
His tenure will best be known for what he did not do:
- Attempting to make Sydney trains run on time by reducing the frequency of rail services.
- Repeatedly announcing plans for grandiose rail projects, e.g. new rail lines and high speed trains, then cancelling them
- Failing to deliver a new Integrated Ticketing System after many years of delays
- Not dealing with the systematic corruption and inefficiencies in Railcorp and related entities
- Frequent media appearances to apologise for rail disruptions caused by poor maintenance
Good riddance.
WA Opposition Leader Troy Buswell Steps Down
Yet another politician’s career has been ended by committing a social faux-pas. In this case, the WA Liberal Opposition Leader, Troy Buswell, was forced to step down, due to a chair-sniffing incident with a female colleague back in 2005.
His colleagues may have had good reason to take offence, but it was a private matter that should not have concerned the media or the public, and they should have been able to resolve it between themselves.
Why this had to resurface 3 years later is anyone’s guess. I wish we lived in an age where politicians were forced to step down due to their incompetence, poor planning or managerial skills – things that actually affect the electorate!
$12b Sydney Metro a “disaster”
According to the front page of today’s Sydney Morning Herald, a ‘buried report’ commissioned by the State Government indicated that the proposed $12 billion Sydney Metro line would be a disaster. The article has some logical sounding arguments explaining why the proposed route is unsuitable.
It is my personal opinion that the State Government did not issue this plan in good faith. On a number of occasions, they have announced so-called plans to dazzle the media and boost their popularity with voters, only to scrap them later.
$12 billion is a lot of money. The State Government simply does not have it, and it would not have the stomach to raise the money through a massive bond issue. They could not even manage to implement a new ticketing system which is a comparatively trivial task. It would be more prudent to fix the problems with the current system, that is used by lots of people, rather than spend lots of money on new poorly planned infrastructure.
I do have a word of advice for the Premier, Morris Iemma. Instead of demonstrating your self-proclaimed “strength of character” by forcing through a power privatisation that nobody wants, why don’t you instead deal with the corruption in Railcorp and State Rail, and break the power of the Transport union, so that additional drivers can be hired? Maybe then, our trains will arrive on time.
The Case for Public Ownership of Infrastructure
Disclaimer: This post is not designed to be a conclusion, but to draw attention to a few things that I feel have been overlooked in the media. I am not a natural writer, so please forgive the structure of this post – I just want to get my ideas out.
The term Natural Monopoly refers to industries where it often considered impractical to have multiple providers. Utilities such as Railways, Power Lines, Water, Sewage and in the past Telecommunications have traditionally been called natural monopolies, but more and more, we see these notions being challenged.
Technological advancements such as Fibre Optic cables and spread spectrum wireless communication have opened up Telecommunications to many competitors, and there are few people who long for the days of Telecom Australia.
The establishment of the National Electicity Market in 1998 and the interconnection of all Southern and Eastern States (every state except WA and NT) started paving the way for private participation in Electricity generation. In NSW, all generators are still publicly owned at the moment.
The other utilities, more or less, still fit the definition of natural monopolies.
Funding
Goverments have a great advantage in that they can raise money by issuing bonds. Government bonds pay lower interest rates than enterprise would have to pay if they borrowed the money from banks or issued their own corporate bonds.
Funds can also be raised by issuing new shares via an IPO, but it likely to receive a cold response unless investors are convinced that there are realistic earnings expectations.
Hence, it is significantly cheaper for a government to fund the construction of expensive infrastructure.
Indirect Profits
Privatised infrastructure can only make money through the direct operation of the infrastructure, i.e. by pricing electricity, water or rail tickets at a healthy profit that is considered acceptable to shareholders.
With public infrastructure under government ownership, the government can still make a net gain, even if the specific infrastructure operates at a loss. If the infrastructure enables economic and population growth, it will lead to increased taxation revenue.
For example, a new power plant could increase the productivity of miners who extract metals from ore (indeed, BHP’s Olympic Dam mine in South Australia is expected to consume half of the state’s supply following its expansion).
New railways could reduce transport bottlenecks, easing labour movement, reducing unemployment as people are more easily able to get to areas with opportunities.
Profitability
Private enterprise wants profits from day 1, or at least as early as possible. There is little incentive for private enterprise to expand infrastructure to an area that is not currently experiencing growth, or may not experience growth for an extended period – e.g. 10 years.
As we have seen here in Australia, Telcos have been reluctant to provide service in the bush and the government has been forced to consider legislation to compell them.
In fact, this can worsen an existing situation where people will move away from an area with poor infrastructure and increase the burden on infrastructure elsewhere, leading to urban sprawl, traffic congestion. As someone who enjoys the convenience of working in the Sydney CBD and having a short rail commute from the East, I would not jump at an employment opportunity in North Ryde, for which I would need to buy a car, fill it up with expensive petrol and maintain it.
Operation of Infrastructure
I am not sure what is the best way for infrastructure to be operated, but here are my thoughts:
Operate Publicly
This is where the government is responsible for everything, including hiring employees. One could expect all the associated problems traditionally associated with government ownership, such as low productivity work culture, and frequent threats of union action.
Lease out the infrastructure to private enterprise
Potential private operators would issue tenders to operate the infrastructure for a given period of time, and would be responsible for day-to-day operation.
The advantage of this is that a bad operator can be evicted and replaced. The disadvantage is that the private operator has low incentive to improve the infrastructure. Any expensive upgrades or technological enhancements would have to be approved and funded by the government.
Other Issues
In order for Public Ownership to succeed, the following would preconditions would have to be met
- We would need intelligent bureaucrats who know where to put the infrastructure
- The bureaucracts would have to perform a sensible Cost-Benefit Analysis to ensure that there is a net gain.
Examples of poor analysis – the NSW Cross-City Tunnel and the Airport Link for which ticket/toll prices were considered unreasonably expensive by Sydneysiders. They were only patronised by a fraction of the expected number of commuters, and both facilities have gone into receivership.
Public-Private Partnerships
If handled correctly, these could possibly work, but recent history have shown the State Governments to be have been incompetent negotiators working against their constituents. Both the the failed NSW Cross-City Tunnel and the Airport Link were Public-Private partnerships.
Privatisation is Not for Everyone
We’ve been hearing a lot about privatisation lately with the Iemma government’s determined plan to privatise the NSW electricity sector (Iemma powers ahead with electricity sale) despite widespread opposition within his own party.
I personally oppose the creation of private monopolies. Consumers realise no benefits from capitalism without the presence of healthy competition.
Another event took place that is likely to steer this debate further:
Today in the media, it was reported that the New Zealand government reached a $555 million deal with Toll Holdings to nationalise its railways. They were originally government owned, but had been privatised in the early 90’s under a previous government.
According to the article, under private ownership, the railway lines have been poorly maintained and many services reduced or cancelled, so the government saw no other option but to repurchase.
