For those of us who lived through the pain, dishonesty and frustration of the war in Vietnam, Afghanistan is shaping up as a passable recreation, but not for Clive Williams who, as he wrote this week on The Drum - Unleashed, wants Australia to increase its role in Oruzgan Province.

He concedes our real role for being there is to bolster the US alliance and that if we continue to shirk our responsibilities it will hurt the alliance, getting bigger and bolder is his answer. He also sees value in enhancing our role from a training perspective.

But then he marginalises these justifications for our involvement by asking, "Can we succeed in defeating religiously-driven Taliban zealots?" The answer is no because the causes behind the fighting in Afghanistan are more complex. Poverty and Pakistan would be good starting points. Then there is the uncomfortable fact that many Taliban leaders and their armed supporters were members of the mujahedeen, which US Senator, Charlie Wilson, made such great sacrifices for. Others are members of warring tribes, which in the absence of NATO forces will turn on each other over the share of spoils from the heroin trade.

Clive Williams argues that Australia might win hearts and minds in Afghanistan by deploying Australian Muslims to help run the civil aid program, as if being a Muslims was somehow a generic trait. I thought our level of understanding and sophistication was beyond that, but clearly not in the Australian intelligence community. He argues that Australian Afghans should be part of this Peace Corps. Afghans exist in the minds of western planners not in Afghanistan, where they are Pashtuns (Pathans), Tadjics, Hazaras and Uzbeks, the last three of whom at any point in time might get along with each other, but remain united in their hatred of the Pashtuns who treat them as second class citizens or slaves. And it is the Pashtuns that NATO both support in Kabul and fight in the provinces.

Clive leaves the questions hanging, what do we hope to achieve in Afghanistan, what are we doing there?

The US said the war in Vietnam was to contain the spread of Communism and thwart Chinese and Russian ambitions in South-East Asia. Never mind that the two were deeply suspicious of each other, the US had them in bed. For the US, Communism was monolithic and controlled out of Moscow.

The war in Vietnam consumed my generation in protest, fear of conscription or service in the Army. There was wall-to-wall media coverage with anti-war songs, literature and movies. The mistakes were there for all to see, except the US Administration and the military leadership. As always Australian politicians, the military, significant sections of the media and the churches, particularly the Catholic Church, went along with the US establishment.

The war in Vietnam produced search and destroy, which saw civilians killed, whilst the Vietcong and North Vietnamese regular troops went underground or in other ways made themselves scarce only to re-emerge once US troops had moved on. The US troops were able to hold towns and villages for as long as they could be supplied, but they were unable to hold the countryside. The best they could do was patrol.

The war in Vietnam also produced some notable statements such as, 'We had to destroy that village in order to save it.'

The democratic regime in South Vietnam was corrupt, so corrupt it was rotten. Young men did not want to fight for it. Torture of prisoners was common. Yet these were the goodies, the champions of a brighter and free future.

It all went pear shaped and for awhile, until 9/11, it seemed the only people in the free world who thought otherwise were George Bush and John Howard.

Bush let his dogs off the lead and they tore into Afghanistan, crushed a very surprised and unprepared Taliban and shot through with the blood of Iraq in their nostrils, but without the scalp of Osama bin Laden.

The Inter Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) recovered their balance and began training a new generation of Taliban fighters, which like the mujahideen before them, had many reasons for fighting but eventually were loosely united through the common enemy of a foreign occupying army, of which the US was the largest and driving force.

The US and its reluctant allies are locked into a war with no exit strategy. After 9/11 the US decided to go to war against global terrorism which they defined as radical and fundamental Islam. It is a rebirth of the mindset that fought radical and fundamental communism; America the knight in white armour, freeing the world from the evils of the Kaiser, Third Reich and Japanese militarism. With those considerable successes it took on world communism and helped the collapse of the Soviet Empire, but China lives on and prospers. Even so America has opened another front by taking up arms against international terrorism. Maybe it can win that war, but Afghanistan is not the place to do it.

The topography, lack of infrastructure, climate and a culture which rested on the use of arms defeated the British and the Russians. They were reduced to living in forts, which is what the US forces, NATO and other friends are forced to do now in Afghanistan and which also defined an aspect of the war in Vietnam.

The government in Kabul is chronically corrupt and would not survive the pull out of foreign forces. Yet one aspect of the hackneyed 'mission statement' is to bring freedom and democracy to the people of Afghanistan. The Kabul government doesn't give a toss about that and neither does the US otherwise they would not be droning to death innocent women and children and as in Vietnam creating new recruits for the forces they are fighting.

The US is looking for an exit strategy which involves everything but talking to their loathed enemy. For years it was the same in Vietnam.

This is a war of the insurgent, which means they live amongst and draw sustenance from civilians both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is little the US can do about that, other than kill civilians. To avoid being killed many flee as refugees, which is a concept beyond the comprehension of government in Australia, even though they have eyes and ears on the ground in Afghanistan.

Denial was a feature of the war in Vietnam and so it is in Afghanistan.

America learnt little from the war in Vietnam. Operation Moshtarak in Helmand Province in February 2010, which entailed the 'occupation' of the town of Marjah, is a case in point. A 'classic' search and destroy, where the Taliban fade away only to return when US and NATO forces withdraw to their vending machines at the Bagram Air Base.

Bruce Haigh is a political commentator. As a diplomat he served twice in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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What exactly is "balance"? Our society rightly strives for balance, and many issues are deservedly considered by presenting a balanced set of opinions.

There are however clear cases in which the only balance that matters is the balance of evidence rather than of opinion: Serial killer Ivan Milat's protestations of innocence should not — and did not — balance the evidence arrayed against him. The desire to cure AIDS with garlic and beetroot does not balance the medical consensus that the disease is caused by HIV and can only be beaten by retroviral drugs. And the current wave of sensationalism and distortion cannot balance the scientific consensus that climate change is real and is caused by human emissions.

The current descent of the climate debate into a cauldron of misrepresentations that are at odds with scientific reality must therefore be of concern.

It must be of concern that climate scientists can be publicly accused of having vested financial interests in their research, when in fact Australian research grants cannot be used to top up a researcher's salary.

It must be of concern when segments of the national media frequently distort and misrepresent scientific articles and scientists' statements in complete departure from accepted standards of journalistic honesty and decency.

It must be of concern when segments of the media echo the meme that "global warming stopped in 1998" when in fact all years since 2000 — that is 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 — are among the 10 hottest years ever recorded since 1880. The probability of this happening by chance is small.

It must be of concern that the current Leader of the Opposition has publicly dismissed climate science and instead cosily chats with a visiting British aristocrat who is a serial fabricator — an individual who has publicly misrepresented himself as a member of the House of Lords when he is not; who claims to have cured influenza as well as AIDS; who claims to have won the Falkland War by means of biological weapons; who accuses NASA of blowing up their own research satellites; and whose latest pseudo-mathematical pronouncements about climate change are at odds with past ice age cycles.

It must be of grave concern when the opinions of the same conspiracy theorists who believe that Prince Phillip runs the world's drug trade are given credence by the media when it comes to climate change.

No, balance in media coverage does not arise from adding a falsehood to the truth and dividing by two. Balanced media coverage of science requires recognition of the balance of evidence.

What then is the true balance of evidence on climate change?

Fact is that the most recent survey of thousands of Earth scientists around the world revealed a 97 per cent agreement with the proposition that human activity is a contributor to climate change. This peer-reviewed study clarifies that the present "debate" about climate change is not actually a debate within the relevant scientific community.

Fact is that a recent analysis of nearly 1,000 peer reviewed publications by a prominent historian of science revealed no disagreement with the view that climate change is happening and is caused by human CO2 emissions. If each of those publications were presented on a poster, as is common at scientific conferences, the line of posters would stretch across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and back again. Yes, there are a few dissenting papers that have appeared in refereed journals — but to date none have withstood subsequent scrutiny.

Fact is that there is a strong scientific consensus on climate change and its human-made causes that is exhaustively summarised in the nearly 3,000 pages of the most recent IPCC report that draws on more than 18,000 sources. Tellingly, the lone error about Himalayan glaciers on page 493 of the contribution from Working Group 2 was brought to the public's attention by … an IPCC lead author!

Anyone can experience this scientific consensus hands-on in a few seconds: Google "climate change" and you get nearly 60 million hits. Now go to the menu labelled "more" at the top, pull it down and choose the "scholar" option. 58 million hits disappear. The remaining scientific information will get you in touch with the reality on this planet, in the same way that applying the "scholar" filter after googling "sex" eliminates 500 million porn sites and leaves you with civilised discourse about sexuality.

Does this indubitable scientific consensus guarantee that the evidence concerning climate change is necessarily irrefutable?

No.

As with any other scientific fact, new evidence may come to light that can overturn established theories. Two core principles of science are scepticism and falsifiability — that is, scientific facts must be subject to sceptical examination and they must be refutable in principle. New evidence may overturn the current view that HIV causes AIDS, and new evidence may revise our expectation that gravity will have adverse consequences for those who jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Likewise, new evidence may force a revision of our understanding of climate change.

It is however utterly inconceivable that the current scientific consensus about climate change will be overturned by conspiracy theories that are inversions of reality.

It is utterly inconceivable that the consensus on climate change will be weakened by mendacious misrepresentations in the media that fail to accurately represent the strength of scientific evidence.

It is utterly inconceivable that all the arguments against climate change that have been falsified multiple times will rise from the dead and overturn scientific knowledge.

Instead, the very fact that many of the roughly 100 falsified "sceptic" talking points are continually reiterated in public draws a clear dividing line between healthy scepticism and arrogant denialism.

Sceptics seek answers and scrutinise arguments before accepting the current state of scientific knowledge as fact. Denialists dismiss sound arguments, solid data, and experimental evidence in favour of propositions that have long been shown to be flawed.

The world's pre-eminent scientific journal, Nature, therefore refers to those who cling to long-debunked pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories while dismissing the findings of thousands of peer-reviewed studies by their true label — denialists.

The potentially devastating consequences of denialism are brought into sharp focus by the sad history of South Africa's AIDS policies. Despite having one of the world's highest rates of HIV infections, the government of President Thabo Mbeki went against consensus scientific opinion 10 years ago and declined anti-retroviral drugs, preferring instead to treat AIDS with garlic and beetroot. Politicians even accused a leading South African immunologist of defending Western science and its "racist ideas" for his insistence on scientific treatment methods. According to a recent peer-reviewed Harvard study, this denialism cost the lives of more than 330,000 South Africans.

For that, President Mbeki and his associates are now held in richly deserved contempt around the world.

Precisely the same fate awaits denialists of climate change.

The laws of physics will relentlessly assert themselves, unswayed by public opinion, political shenanigans, or elections. Ultimately, the laws of physics will speak so loudly that no amount of wishful thinking can prevent them from being heard; but because any delay in taking action against climate change will increase the human and financial burden on future generations, it is our responsibility now to cease tolerating lies, misrepresentations, puerile accusations, and conspiracy theories that are unworthy of public discourse in a mature democracy.

Many spirited conversations about climate change can be had that examine the likely consequences for Australia and evaluate the best course of action — but those conversations must be firmly rooted in the core scientific principles of scepticism and falsifiability and they must not be contaminated by ignorance and denialism.

Stephan Lewandowsky is a Winthrop Professor and an Australian Professorial Fellow at the University of Western Australia.

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I thought ageism was a thing of the past. Not just because it unfairly discriminates but because of necessity.

The facts are: Australia has an ageing population, people are living longer and, the Government desperately hope, aided by lifting the retirement age to 67 by 2023 and incentives to keep older works employed, people will work into their 60s and perhaps beyond.

Yet, at 33 years old I'd never thought twice about my age, until recently. There are a few, some more trivial than others, reasons behind this change of heart.

The almost overnight sprouting of wiry, grey hairs is an annoying yet persistent addition to my once-sleek brown locks. The extra frown marks on my forehead are increasingly obvious but what was unexpected was a compulsion to remove birth date information from my CV.

The catalyst for this was when a recruiter ruled me out of a part-time role because, by inference, it was more suited to a Generation Y candidate. And, adding salt to the wound, a few weeks later, my green grocer told me that I better get cracking with my second child before I'm too old. Nice.

It seems ridiculous to be concerned about ageing so prematurely (or perhaps at all) but such experience made me think about ageing and general attitudes on the subject.

Perhaps the green grocer was trying to be helpful and alert me to the much-publicised fact that after a woman hits her mid 30s her fertility declines rapidly. Or maybe he thought (not too deeply,) I would like to be informed that I wasn't getting any younger?

I could put the shopkeepers flippant remark down to society's obsession with appearing youthful at any age but the recruiters' suggestion is much more alarming.

If I was in-fact discriminated against for being too old, how does a 50 or 60 year-old stand a chance?

Employers are generally subtler than the recruiter I came up against and it's difficult to prove a mature age candidate didn't get a role due to age alone but, as I found out, subconsciously or otherwise, ageism is alive in the workplace.

A recent press release quoting the Commissioner for Age Discrimination, Elizabeth Broderick, supports such concerns.

"We know that there are workers who are work-ready, skilled up and able to commence employment immediately, yet they struggle to find work because of unaddressed prejudice related to their age - that is, unlawful age discrimination," she said.

During the recent global financial crisis when a person older than 45 or 50 was made redundant, particularly in semi or unskilled work environments, the situation was portrayed not only as bad luck but a major crisis.

Such people it seems have few, if any, re-employment prospects and, with a greying population and with skill shortages in many areas, this is not only an ethical but serious economic dilemma in this country.

Treasurer Wayne Swan's recent announcement of a $43.3 million package to help retrain older workers and help support them to stay in the labour force shows just how seriously the Government is taking the issue.

Mr Swan also conceded that Australia is falling behind in mature age worker participation rates compared to economies like the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

But, the blame is not on employers alone. If life expectancy levels are rising and people are encouraged and entitled to work well beyond middle age, society's attitudes needs to shift in-line with such changes.

Yet mature aged workers themselves can perpetuate ageism.

Take for example a complaint made by a 48 year-old woman to the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission regarding a job ad calling for a "well presented younger applicant". The advertisement, for a receptionist, turned out to be written by a 50 year old!

And, the media isn't an innocent bystander in all of this.

If you, like me, take guilty pleasure in reading gossip magazines you may also be buying into ageist myths and stereotypes. Such publications position over 40 year old women like Madonna, Demi Moore and Jennifer Aniston as middle age role models.

Yet, equally successful (and perhaps more interesting) women that appear closer to their actual age such as Dame Judi Dench, Rachel Ward and Helen Mirren get far less attention. Go figure.

On a personal note, I'm happier and more confident than I was when I was in my 20s and I have a lot more professional and life experience to offer an employer.

Perhaps I should stop worrying out the grey hairs on my head and counting new wrinkles and reinvest the energy on my 30-year old strengths?

If everyone made similar efforts ageism could be a thing of the past although, I somehow doubt permanent hair colour companies will go broke any time soon.

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Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's address to the Australian parliament yesterday marked a very real change in Australia-Indonesia bilateral relations.

Much of the history of that relationship has been characterised by either problems or diplomatic distance, which President Yudhoyono frankly acknowledged. But his speech to the parliament illustrated how close the two countries have now become.

The main change in the relationship has been as a result of Indonesia's increasingly deep democratisation. No matter how close Australian political leaders might have wanted to be in the past, the fundamental contradictions between Indonesia's then closed political system and Australia's more open system meant that underlying problems would always surface.

In particular, the brutal nature of Indonesia's military was a constant source of trouble, from its role in widespread human rights abuses, as a primary source of corruption to political interference and public censorship. The Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI) is a more tamed beast than it was under President Suharto, but it is still much less reformed than even President Yudhoyono has said he would wish.

And perhaps that is the point, that President Yudhoyono is not just the political leader of Australia's sometimes fractious if increasingly democratic near neighbour, but that he is a reformer in the traditional liberal mould. The frankness of some of President Yudhoyono's comments, and his expressed appreciation of Australian frankness, showed the parallels that have developed between the political systems of the two countries.

There was a clear desire by President Yudhoyono for Indonesia and Australia to have a closer, deeper and wider relationship. As he noted, there is much to be gained for both countries if it works well, and much to be lost if it does not.

President Yudhoyono's commitment to having people smuggling criminalised was an important step for Australia, although the five year maximum penalty reflected a view in Jakarta that this is essentially an Australian, not an Indonesian, problem. But according with some of the wishes of a country one wishes to have closer relations with is part of the general give and take of that relationship.

Although not spelled out, it is likely that Australia will have to take a more active role, at least with the resettlement of asylum seekers. It will also have to help address the problems that lead people to flee their own countries for the perilous boat journey to Australia. As President Yudhoyono noted, in agreement with the Australian government, this is a regional problem, including the source, transit point and destination.

Perhaps the single biggest step was the announcement of an annual leaders' retreat, including foreign and defence ministers. This is a sign of genuine diplomatic closeness.

While President Yudhoyono was at pains to stress the positives in the relationship, he did not shy away from marking Australia's intervention in East Timor in 1999 as being the low point. That intervention still rankles with some in Indonesia, in part because there has been a lack of internal reconciliation about Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, the atrocities that were committed there, and its overwhelming rejection by the East Timorese people.

In this same vein, President Yudhoyono also noted that territorial integrity was paramount to Indonesia, citing the resolution of the Aceh war as a necessary step towards ensuring Indonesia's unity. The outstanding problem of West Papua was also mentioned, if not with reference to how that might be addressed.

While President Yudhoyono was keen to identify the strengths in the relationship and sought more, especially around two-way trade and investment, two matters remained off the public agenda. Those were the fate of the 'Bali Nine', three of whom potentially face the death penalty for drug smuggling, and investigations into the murder of the 'Balibo Five' in 1975.

No doubt President Yudhoyono is keenly aware of Australia's position on the use of the death penalty. However, appeals still have a final step to go through before he could consider clemency, and it would be - and be seen to be - judicial interference to comment on this before that final appeals process is completed. But the president does not have a history of granting clemency in such cases, and Australian citizens may be no exception.

Similarly, the Australian Federal Police investigation into the murders of the Balibo Five is a police, not political, matter and will have been identified by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to President Yudhoyono. However, with Indonesia making an exception to its close cooperation in other areas by not cooperating over this matter, it is unlikely to result in charges being laid.

If charges are laid, Indonesian judicial authorities are most unlikely to grant extradition to Australia. Both political leaders know this, and will let this issue quietly fade.

As President Yudhoyono noted, again quite frankly, with more occurring in the relationship there will be more that could potentially go wrong. This, he said, would need to be addressed in a constructive manner. All, then, seems well.

The one problem a little further down the track, though, is that democratic process is not a linear progression, and President Yudhoyono is in his second and last term of office. Australia can expect a strong relationship while he remains in office. The question will be what of his successor, with no similarly liberal presidential candidates yet to be identified.

Professor Damien Kingsbury holds a Personal Chair in the School of International and Political Studies at Deakin University.

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Decisions about how to go forward with climate policy in Australia, the United States and Japan will shape international climate policy in the coming months and years.

The United States, in particular it seems, has been following Australia's climate policy lead for a while now. It has seen a strong commitment to emissions reduction from its newly elected and popular leader founder in the legislature, even though there is apparently enough political capital to force the policy through.

Late last year, the Australian government decided to separate energy policy legislation from the emission trading scheme and secure passage of the former while leaving the latter to a later time. Democrats in the US Congress seem keen to do much the same this year. The climate policies of both countries appear to be at a crossroads.

The lessons from efforts to implement climate policies from around the world are starting to paint a coherent picture. In addition to the United States and Australia, Japan is also having to confront difficult challenges in its climate policies. While some are engaged in fighting battles over climate science, the real weakness of climate policies lies in the realm of politics.

To understand why this is so, consider the simple mathematics of emissions reductions in Australia. The Rudd Government has proposed that Australia reduce its emissions by as much as 25 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020. But this value was conditional upon broader international action.

A lower unilateral target was also proposed. But from the standpoint of decarbonising Australia's economy, this difference is not so significant.

Australia has a relatively high rate of population growth, and related to this is a relatively high rate of economic activity. Economic activity drives growth in carbon dioxide emissions. Since no government will last long of it tries to reduce the economic opportunities of its citizens, this means that efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions must either improve energy efficiency or decarbonise energy supply.

The targets of the Australian government imply decarbonisation of the nation's economy in 2020 to levels comparable to Japan today. Australia and Japan could not be more different in terms of energy.

Japan consists of a set of small islands with few domestic energy resources, and consequently has focused on advancing industrial energy efficiency and its significant reliance on nuclear power. Australia's vast territory, by contrast, is resource rich and the nation eschews nuclear power.

To think that Australia could achieve the carbon intensity of today's Japan in just a decade seems fanciful.

But to make the number more concrete, consider Australia's energy mix, which is about 44 per cent coal, 32 per cent petroleum and 18 per cent natural gas, with the balance of six per cent made up by hydropower and renewable sources.

To become as carbon efficient as Japan by 2020 would require replacing its entire coal energy with a zero-carbon alternative.

If energy demand increases by 1.5 per cent per year - a rate lower than expected economic growth - then Australia would need to build the equivalent amount of carbon-free energy of 46, 750 megawatt (MW) nuclear power plants to replace its coal generation. That is not going to happen.

Several of my colleagues in Australia didn't like the analogy, since, as they tell me, "Australia doesn't do nuclear".

So we can express the magnitude of the challenge in another way, in terms of the number of 10 MW solar thermal power plants of the sort found in Cloncurry, Queensland. To decarbonise to the level of Japan by 2020 would require 12,667 of these plants, or about 24 of them coming online every week over the next decade. That is not going to happen either.

We can play with the numbers and make different assumptions, but the results will be the same: the magnitude of the challenge implied by Australia's pending emissions trading legislation is huge, likely unachievable.

Last month the Sydney Morning Herald did a story on my analysis and asked Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change, for comment.

She replied that my analysis neglected "the important role international permits will play in Australia's low cost transition to a low pollution future".

The idea that tradable permits offer a meaningful path to emissions reduction is a sort of magical thinking that is common in the climate debate.

In the United States, Rick Boucher, a Democrat in the House of Representatives from Virginia, explained his support for emissions trading was due to the fact that it meant that coal energy had a long-term future in his state.

In Germany, environment minister Sigmar Gabriel commented last year that Germany could build 100 new coal plants and not see its carbon dioxide increase due to emissions trading.

All three comments reflect why climate policy is currently facing problems. Policy makers truly want to reduce emissions, but they have no idea how they are going to achieve those reductions in practice.

Emissions reductions targets are offered up with little understanding of the implications for energy supply or the economy. Complex legislation is proposed that obscures the simple math of decarbonisation.

When push comes to shove no politician wants to impose economic discomfort on his or her constituents, so they look desperately for magical solutions. Emissions trading has provided that illusion up to now.

Australia, the United States and Japan, in particular are at a crossroads in climate policy. The decisions that they make at this juncture will shape climate policy around the world, leading up to the summit in Mexico at the end of the year and beyond.

Will they continue in pursuit of magical solutions? Or will they start fresh, with an approach grounded in the realities of the simple math of decarbonisation?

The success or failure of emissions reductions efforts depends on their answers.

Roger Pielke Jr is a professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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It is regrettable that Australian politicians are denying the Australian Defence Force (ADF) the opportunity to take the leadership role in Oruzgan Province after the Dutch withdrawal. Our politicians seem to be running scared that leadership would mean an increase in our troop presence and an increase in ADF casualties. It does not necessarily mean either.

It is of course an election year and the government is trying to avoid discussion about an ADF deployment that has little popular support.

However we should not be ducking the issue - if for no other reason than national pride. In Iraq, our force, with its politically imposed risk-averse mission, was dubbed by some "The New French" and others as "Model Soldiers"- who looked good, had all the kit, but did little. This is clearly an affront to a force with such a proud military tradition.

We currently have about 1550 military personnel in Afghanistan. The main element of the force, about 1,000 personnel, consists of the Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force and Special Operations Task Group in Oruzgan.

Australian leadership in Oruzgan would mean some force restructuring to enhance the command element, but it is eminently do-able. We would also need to think about managing potential Muslim community blowback issues in Australia, and how we might improve our civilian contribution in Afghanistan.

Australia's stated reason for being in Afghanistan is countering terrorism. The real reason is maintaining the close alliance with the US. In fact, our military presence in Afghanistan is more likely to lead to acts of terrorism in Australia than prevent them. The terrorism threat to Australia, as the Prime Minister acknowledged when launching the Counter-Terrorism White Paper on 23 February, is home-grown extremists.

What drives our home-grown extremists? Mainly our perceived "anti-Islam" foreign policies and military involvement in Muslim countries. The terrorism threat is clearly not from global jihadists launching themselves against Australia from the back-blocks of Afghanistan.

Given our real reason for being there, we are more likely to score points with the US if we accept a prominent role, rather than hiding behind someone else's possibly less competent leadership. In fact, leadership by another nation in Oruzgan could, ironically, lead to more Australian casualties. Furthermore, any reluctance on our part to take on more dangerous tasks under new leadership could contribute to our shrinking violet image.

Do we have the people to provide the necessary military leadership? The simple answer is yes. A brigadier would be the right rank to command an enhanced role in Tarin Kowt. The officer selected would clearly benefit from the coalition leadership experience so essential to developing competent very senior officers. Promoting yet another major general, a trend we have got ourselves into in recent times, would overcook the command issue, especially given that we have a major general as the Commander of all Australian forces deployed in the Middle East Area of Operations.

The military emphasis in Afghanistan is now on counterinsurgency or COIN. In COIN operations the emphasis is not on killing insurgents, but on protecting the population while you engage in reconstruction work and promote honest and efficient local governance. We have considerable COIN experience from other theatres, and have proved in the past that we can do the hearts and minds stuff very well. Why then defer leadership to a probably less experienced coalition partner?

How do we take the domestic heat out of the "affront to Islam" issue?

The obvious way would be to involve more Australian Muslims in the Australian civil aid program to redevelop Oruzgan Province. It would then be much easier to portray to all Australians that our reconstruction efforts represent a broad-based secular Australian community effort. We should, in particular, encourage Australian Afghans to be part of what we are trying to do to make a difference in Oruzgan.

One of the positive national security developments under the Rudd Government has been to create an Australian civilian corps to aid with overseas post-disaster long-term reconstruction efforts. This should also involve members of our Muslim community.

In Afghanistan, we may have to accept that Western-style democracy is not the best governance model. Democracy in developing countries tends to dilute leadership resources and lead to widespread corruption. The most workable form of government for Afghanistan is probably a traditional shura-based system, with religion playing a prominent role.

Can we succeed in defeating religiously-driven Taliban zealots? Probably not in a conventional sense. The future is more likely to see local accommodations between the more moderate warring elements - but at least Australia could make a more substantial contribution to the improvement of life in Oruzgan Province which, in itself, could become a blueprint for social and economic progress elsewhere in Afghanistan.


Clive Williams is a Visiting Fellow at the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and an Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University's Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism.

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Tony Abbott clearly thought he'd blindside Labor with his "leaders' call" - the announcement of a curiously non-policy like plan for paid parental leave on International Women's Day.

Predictably, much of the media has fallen into line, breathlessly reporting that Abbott's initiative would be somehow 'better', because apparently more generous than Labor's position. Some have argued that Labor has been attacked from the left, and some commentators who should know better, including Bob Brown, have welcomed the latest installment in Tony Abbott's Getting of Wisdom.

So has the political world, as the ABC's Lateline report last night put it, been somehow turned upside down?

No, it has not.

Abbott's plan is very far from progressive. It's deeply regressive, and if the object of social policy is to redress existing inequalities, it does quite the opposite.

As a commenter remarked on Larvatus Prodeo, basing parental leave on income not need "simply entrenches existing inequalities, and will do little to benefit the vast majority of mothers and children".

While details are very thin on the ground, we can make a comparison between the two parties' positions.

The Government's scheme would pay eligible recipients the adult federal minimum wage ($543.78) for 18 weeks. Other benefits and transfers available would provide support equivalent to six months.

Abbott's scheme would pay someone on $150 000 a year $75 000 for six months. (The full replacement of the wage being the reason why his plan would cost close to $3 billion dollars rather than the government's $300 million a year). But someone on less than the current minimum wage would presumably only receive what they earn.

So if someone works casually for a couple of days a week, they might get, say, $250 a week from a Coalition government compared to $543.78 from Labor - because "all those employed with a reasonable degree of attachment to the labour force" - including contractors, the self employed and casuals are eligible under Labor. Or perhaps such workers would get nothing from the Coalition, as the entire tenor of the proposal seems geared to full time work. It's impossible to be sure, given the ad hoc nature of the speech in which he announced his intentions. But it's worth remembering that women are over-represented in the ranks of the insecurely employed, and under-represented in those of the full time and well paid.

The Coalition's plan would remunerate people, during the period they are on parental leave, at the same rate at which they are valued on the existing labour market. That is to say, the rate at which it's paid is entirely dependent on income, not need, and that income, in turn, is usually less for women than men, and 'flexibility' bears down hardest on those in the worst labour market bargaining position - the very reason why WorkChoices was rightly so unpopular with many working women.

The labour market is already littered with, and distorted by, a range of institutional and cultural factors which worsen inequalities in income and status as between men and women. Abbott's scheme preserves, nay reinforces, all these. It's hard to believe that an Abbott government would act to give flesh to the bare legislative bones of gender pay equity, or support moves afoot in Fair Work Australia to revalue the skills of women in low paid industries, and thus increase their relative compensation.

Tony Abbott might take from the rich, though the levy on big (and medium sized) business is largely a populist distraction, but he gives much more to those who already have than those who have not. Perhaps this "thought bubble" is based on another misunderstanding of a Gospel verse?

The point of the scheme proposed by the Productivity Commission was precisely to target public assistance to those most in need of it, and not to provide additional benefits to higher income workers, who were much more likely to have reasonable arrangements for parental leave in place, and much better economic resources to cope with a loss in income. The Productivity Commission rightly anticipated that those with employers who had a better capacity to pay, and employees with stronger market bargaining power, could access supplementary schemes from their workplaces.

Labor's policy seeks to level the playing field and enable those who are on lower incomes, whose attachment to the labour force is less secure, and whose resources for raising children are more straightened, are the appropriate targets of publicly funded income support.

So, the claim that Abbott's payment lasts for longer is untrue, and fairness or its alleged 'better' status is very much in the eye of the beholder.

It would be wrong to think that the welfare state is always the preserve of the political left. From Bismarck on, conservatives have supported and proposed some social policy measures for a range of motives, including containing class conflict and rewarding those who behave according to traditional social values. Abbott's plan has much more in common with the Christian Democratic model of the conservative welfare state, favoured in countries such as West Germany after World War Two, than any sort of progressive initiative which would respond adequately to the lived experience of working women.

Abbott's plan is a regressive, not a progressive scheme. And there is no good reason why any progressives should be tempted to support it for even a passing millisecond.

Dr Mark Bahnisch is a sociologist and a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development.He founded the leading public affairs blog, Larvatus Prodeo.

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There seems to be some 'confusion' about recent health spending. Kevin Rudd told a Q & A audience that the previous government 'took a billion dollars out of the public hospital system'.

While Chris Uhlmann, on Insiders, claimed that the Howard government had cut spending on public hospitals. This is an extraordinary claim. In Uhlmann's defence it looks like he has misinterpreted some statistics put out by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Paul Sheehan, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, has called the 'Howard cut health spending' meme a big lie and declared that anyone repeating this mantra is lying. That is a big call - it is also correct. Of the many criticisms we can make of the Howard government, not spending isn't one of them. Indeed, Kevin Rudd came to power promising that 'this reckless spending must stop'.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report that total Health expenditure by the Commonwealth increased from $21.8 billion in 1998-99 to $39.9 billion in 2006-07 - the last full financial year of the Howard government. Equivalent data for the states are from $19.7 billion in 1998-99 to $37.2 billion in 2006-07. There is no evidence the Howard government stripped money out of health in general. But what about public hospitals?

The ABS doesn't report down to that level of detail, but the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare does. Commonwealth funding of public Hospitals rose from $5.9 billion in 1997-98 to $10.7 billion in 2006-07, while state funding of public hospitals rose from just under $7 billion to $14.8 billion over the same period. There is no evidence to support Kevin Rudd's claim that the Howard government stripped money from public hospitals. The amount of funding increased in every year and did so by more than GDP growth.

What happened, as Joe Hockey indicated on Insiders, is that the states have dramatically increased their funding of hospitals. Afterall, public hospitals are a state responsibility. That increase is particularly noticeable after the introduction of the GST in 2000. In other words a Commonwealth tax passed onto the states in full is partly responsible for an increase in state funding to hospitals. It is that funding that the Commonwealth now wants to take off the states and earmark for health spending. It that sounds like a bit of a merry-go-round, that's because it is.

It is understandable that the current government wants to differentiate itself from its predecessor. It is not clear that it should do so by out-spending the Howard government. Ironically Howard has a reputation of being somewhat hard-hearted; yet the empirical record is very different. Andrew Norton of the Centre for Independent Studies has shown that Howard government spending on issues such as Health and Education rose faster than under the previous Keating government. He has labelled Howard a conservative social democrat.

All governments like to think that increasing the amount of money thrown at problems will solve that problem. But, as we now know from the Rudd government stimulus package, the quality of spend can be more important than the quantity of spending. So too with health - my IPA colleague Julie Novak has shown that the number of back-office bureaucrats has been increasing, while the number of hospital beds per 1000 population has declined. In the spending we have had over the past fifteen years, the bang for buck has declined.

The bottom line is this; billions of dollars from both the Commonwealth and states are poured into health and hospitals each year. The overwhelming bulk of that funding comes from the Commonwealth. More than 50 per cent of the health dollar comes directly from the Commonwealth through its own budget and another large proportion of it comes indirectly through the GST. It might be possible to show that the Commonwealth share of public hospital funding declined but only if we think of the GST as a state tax (as the Howard government did) and not, correctly, as a Commonwealth tax (as the Rudd government does).

Sinclair Davidson is a professor in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.

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Is this object circled in image A the body of Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine who with George Leigh Mallory disappeared high on Mt Everest on June 8, 1924 or is it the object found nearby on image B?

(images: copyright BSF Swissphoto AG)
As the climbing 'season' approaches on the world's highest peak, someone is certain to find out, and perhaps find further clues to fully solving the riddles of the longest running mountaineering mystery in history.

But it won't be the proposed UK expedition that was going to follow up the clues found through photo sleuthing by Everest historian Tom Holzel. It was planning to make a reverential and forensic examination of the objects, but its sponsorship raising efforts failed after it revealed its findings to the climbing community.

This means that from late April to early June, when conditions for climbing are optimum on the Tibet side of Everest where Mallory and Irvine disappeared, there is a risk of an episode of body snatching being played out in the so called death zone at more than 8000 metres altitude.

The photo survey Holzel relied upon was made by a chartered Swiss photo mapping jet for the National Geographic Society in 1984. He applied the latest photo forensic techniques to examine them.

Irvine is known to have carried a small folding camera with him on the fateful day, almost 86 years ago. He is the missing half of the mystery as George Leigh Mallory's body was found by a US expedition dedicated to that purpose in May 1999. It was carefully examined, and then buried on the ledge where it was found.

No camera was found on Mallory. His injuries showed that he suffered terrible abdominal injuries when the rope which attached him to Irvine broke under stress consistent with a fall. Both men were seen high on the peak, well above and beyond the location of Mallory's body on that day, as a snow squall overtook them.

Debate as to how high along the NE ridge they really were has since continued, although Holzel and others argue they had only reached the so called First Step, and may have been in the process of retreating not advancing when glimpsed through a gap in the clouds.


Irvine's body was sighted by the Chinese expedition that made the first ascent of Everest via the NE Ridge in Tibet in 1965, by another Chinese expedition in 1975, and by another climber in 2003. Each sighting was made by a climber who was seriously off their intended courses on the steeply sloping terraces of the Yellow Band. One was subsequently killed in an avalanche and the other two were unable to accurately pin point the exact location on what is a massive and complex part of the mountain and where each was in extremis from altitude and exhaustion when confronted with the sight of a body of a climber wearing the old fashioned gear associated with an earlier age of mountaineering.

Few seriously expect to find proof that Mallory and Irvine reached the summit of Everest on that fateful day.

But Irvine's remains may solve the riddle of the sequence of events. In 1933 another British expedition found one of their ice axes in the Yellow Band. Was it dropped, or was it put aside because it was no longer of any use to two climbers we know fell roped together at one stage in an incident Tom Holzel argues caused the death of Irvine when the rope between them caught on a rock flake (of which there are many in the particular area) and broke?

It was an age of thin, three strand braided hemp ropes, not modern stronger and more shock resistant nylon ropes.

Holzel argues this fall left Mallory dazed and lost as he continued to climb to the bottom of the Yellow Band where he most likely expected to find Irvine, dead or dying. On reaching this area which is less steep but nevertheless treacherous Mallory fell again, suffering a deep head wound and breaking an ankle as he came to rest face down in a typical 'self arrest' posture on a scree slope.

There he died, in a hollow that was to catch the unrecovered bodies of at least 12 modern era climbers who also fell from a much greater height down the Yellow Band, before finally stopping in the same area.

Ben Sandilands has been a reporter for more than 49 years, at home and abroad and divided between Fairfax publications, the ABC and in recent times as a freelance writer and broadcaster.

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Tuesday 9 March 2010
Mr Tony Abbott MP
Leader of the Opposition
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
RE: Invitation to meet LGBTI community / Federal anti-discrimination laws
Dear Mr Abbott

I write today on behalf of the Australian Coalition for Equality in regards to your recent comments on 60 Minutes and Lateline regarding your feelings towards homosexuality.

We are deeply concerned that the alternative Prime Minister of Australia says he feels threatened by and that this feeling is shared by "so many people". Further, we are dismayed that when provided an opportunity to clarify your remarks, your explanation was to suggest that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people Australians challenge "orthodox notions of the right order of things".

In response to your specific statements, we would like to take the opportunity to refer you to research conducted by Roy Morgan's National Consumer Poll that shows in 2008 only 29% of Australians believe "homosexuality is immoral". This is hardly a basis for your statement that "so many people" feel threatened, as stated on the 60 Minutes program. Indeed Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine was quoted in September 2009 as saying "What we've noticed over the last 10 years is that Australians are becoming more open-minded in their views about a lot of things, including homosexuality."

We note your further statements that you "try to treat people as people and not put them in Pigeonholes". While this is an admirable quality to possess, we are deeply concerned that your statements appear to imply that the majority of LGBTI Australians are somehow inferior or abnormal as they challenge the "orthodox notions of the right order of things", yet may be removed from this classification in some individual cases, based on treating the person as you find them.

In addition to being inconsistent with the view of a majority of Australians, we are deeply concerned that your comments have the potential to inflict unintended harm to a minority group within Australia.

We note that in the same Lateline interview in relation to comments on your new parental leave policy you stated "But I think that where circumstances change and your understanding deepens, the mature thing to do is to adjust your position, and that's what I've done". You noted that part of the basis of your change in parental leave policy was from discussions with "a number of people who I think are insightful in this area".

We thus write to you today to invite you to meet with members of the LGBTI community and discuss with them your views on the issues of homosexuality and more broadly bisexuality and sex and gender diversity. We hope that such a meeting could be conducted in the spirit of deeper understanding of each others perspectives. We would be prepared to work around your schedule to convened this meeting at a time and location of your choice, to ensure that you feel safe and unthreatened in the environment chosen.

We draw your attention to the 2005 paper Mapping Homophobia in Australia where the researchers comment:

"While not everyone who is homophobic engages in discriminatory behaviour towards gay men and lesbians they are more likely to contribute to a general attitude of intolerance. Thus derogatory and insulting remarks about gay men and lesbians by, for example, prominent radio personalities reinforce intolerance and appear to sanction discriminatory behaviour."
We believe that your recent comments have the potential to be interpreted by some within Australia as sanctioning discriminatory behaviour and while we do not believe your views have resulted in such discrimination occur, unfortunately there are still some Australians who share your sense of threat, and who, in some cases, treat LGBTI Australians unfairly.

In recent years the Opposition has shown bi-partisan approach to the removal of discrimination faced by same-sex couples. Indeed we note that the authoritative report that led to these historic reforms, Same Sex: Same Entitlements by the Australian Human Rights Commission was commissioned by the Howard Government. We again note our congratulations and thanks for the Oppositions enlightened approach to such matters.

Given that your comments were made in your capacity as the leader of the opposition we are alarmed that such comments may signal the end of this bi-partisan approach to key policy issues involving sexuality, sex and gender diversity. As such we respectfully request an opportunity for the Australian Coalition for Equality to engage in further dialogue with you about key policy issues remaining for the LGBTI community. There are a range of policy issues, but perhaps one of the key legislative issues is that of Federal anti-discrimination laws.

As you may be aware the Australian Parliament has discussed the issue of Federal Anti- Discrimination legislation since 1995, including a committee inquiry into a private members bill tabled in 1997. The recent National Human Rights Consultation report recommended that priority be given to anti-discrimination legislation and noted in its discussion that the absence of federal antidiscrimination legislation was of particular concern.

Federal laws prohibit discrimination on a more limited range of grounds than the state laws. There was a particular concern that discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people is not prohibited at the federal level.
Indeed the Australian Liberal Party national platform supports creating opportunities for Australians by committing itself to "oppose discrimination based on irrelevant criteria". In previous versions of the platform, where specific criteria were specifically included I understand the criteria of sexuality was mentioned.

In June 2009 the Australian Coalition for Equality commissioned national research as part of the Galaxy omnibus on the issue of Australian support for the introduction of federal antidiscrimination legislation on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The research found that 85% of Australians support such legislation being introduced, including 83% of coalition voters.

Mr Abbott, we hope this unfortunate recent incident provides an opportunity for meaningful and productive dialogue with yourself (and your office) on issues facing the LGBTI community. I look forward to hearing from you in relation to the matters raised in this letter and specifically your response to below key questions:

1) Will you meet with members of Australia's LGBTI community and their families to discuss your fears and feelings? We would welcome the opportunity to provide our community with an opportunity to convince you that we do not challenge orthodox notions of the right order of things or are a community that people should feel threatened by?
2) Will you publicly commit the Opposition to supporting the introduction of federal anti-discrimination laws on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity to ensure that all members of the LGBTI community do not face unwarranted discrimination ?
Please feel free for yourself or a member of your office to contact me on the details listed below should require anything further

Yours sincerely
Corey Irlam


Australian Coalition for Equality

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Malcolm Fraser made two mistakes. The first was that he did not grab John Howard's economic reform agenda when Howard produced his proposals in the form of the Campbell Report, which set out the path for the Hawke-Keating government that succeeded Fraser in 1983, and for Howard's government when it took office in 1996.

His second mistake was to resign from parliament when he lost office, thus depriving himself of a possible second term in the Lodge as Howard and Andrew Peacock fought over the leadership during the 13 Hawke-Keating years.

He made others, of course. I believe it was Harold Wilson that said governments only make mistakes. Put in another way, any decision while it might be to the liking of some, will be opposed by others.

So mistakes, in truth, are often enough decisions by another name.

Let me begin, therefore with what he got right, which will be not all that familiar, because contemporary history, that is to say, what gets into the newspapers is almost invariably written, in TS Elliott's words, by those who look too deeply and see too often the skull beneath the flesh.

His first, great achievement, was to win office and to steady the country after the chaotic years of misrule under Gough Whitlam.

His further achievement, which he might not himself count, was that his prime ministership demonstrated that the old ways ended when Bill McMahon lost office to Whitlam with inflation and unemployment both at two per cent.

There was to be no going back to that halcyon era without radical, conservative reform. It took a while to work this out.

I recall being invited over to the ANU to listen to a small group of academics talking about micro-economic reform. What are they on about, I wondered, having been raised, as was Malcolm Freaser, on Samuelson, Keynes and the big picture.

All I can say in my own defence is that what I was told stayed in my mind, and eventually ripened.

Fraser stopped sand mining on Fraser Island, although the greenies gave him no credit. The chap that wrote the book didn't even mention his name. You would have thought it was Gough.

He received a couple of union delegations, one comprising uranium miners from Mary Kathleen and another shipbuilders from Newcastle. Fraser gave them assurances of continued employment, and they sneaked off, as silently as they had arrived. They did not want anyone to know they had been to see Fraser, and that he had given them what they wanted.

He gave the Northern Territory self-government, but then introduced land rights for Aborigines and vast tracts were alienated. It was apartheid under another name, although land rights would be counted as one of Fraser's great achievements, which he first demonstrated as defence minister when Australia faced an open ended commitment to an experiment aircraft, the F-111, which had a structural weakness, and did not have the range and the load capacity Australia required.

He refused to return to Australia until he got an agreement, which came only after he had threatened to give evidence before a congressional committee. America, he concluded, was indifferent to Australia's interests and failed to consult an ally, even when arrangements were going ahead for negotiations on an end to the intervention in Vietnam.

His obduracy made him an effective negotiator. As prime minister during a visit to North America he negotiated access for Australian beef that was to be worth billions and age cows suddenly found a place in the American market for hamburger mince.

Fraser introduced a system of deferring taxation for farmers in drought. They could buy special securities from pre-tax income, which could be held against bad times and then sold, when they would incur tax. Hawke abolished these bonds at as one of his first acts, but it came back under the Howard government.

Fraser was the author of the remarkably successful programme of Vietnamese settlement. When the allies called it a day in 1975 there was a huge exodus from Vietnam. Whitlam called them the "boat people". Fraser called them refugees, which is what they were.

He negotiated an orderly process of interviewing and bringing in refugees from camps in Hong Kong and South East Asia. In proportion to our population, we took in more Vietnamese than any other country.

They tended to centre on Cabramatta, where they have formed a law-abiding community. Settling this community in Australia, seamlessly, is a Fraser monument.

Fraser belonged to that generation in Western Christendom who were in their early teenage years at the end of World War II, when the death camps were opened, and like his contemporaries Bob Hawke and John Wheeldon was always sympathetic to Israel.

He took a keen interest in the work of the intelligence agencies, ASIO and ASIS, and set up the Office of National Assessments to provide him each morning with a digest of the over night cables, both from the intelligence bodies and from Foreign Affairs.

It became fashionable after the end of his term for the truly superficial to discover that Malcolm Fraser was really a nice guy.

There was nothing in his administration of Australia that was not consistent with his being a nice guy who was as much at home in the public bar as he was in the Melbourne Club and whose every act was aimed at making Australia a better place in which to live.

He was immensely hard-working, as prime ministers must be and are. He drove his staff and his advisers who are in the kitchen standing in the heat because that is their choice.

He was also competent. His years in the Lodge were not marked by the blunders and debacles that we have grown accustomed to under the Rudd government. Fraser would have known how to install insulation without burning the house down. He was also a strong believer in prudential arrangements.

He chafed sometimes at the restrictions of office, remarking occasionally and with a smile, if there was a glitch in arrangements: "Don't blame me. I just do what I'm told".

He was accompanied always as prime ministers are by a Federal Police squad and got quite cross when on the way in to the Round House at the University of New South Wales he was mobbed. The squad closed around Fraser, and hustled him in, as they were supposed to, while the rest of his party had to fight. The Defence Secretary Alan Woods skinned his knuckles.

Fraser was embarrassed. He clearly wanted to have fought his way in along with Alan. Alas, Malcolm, you cannot have it both ways. You could be Prime Minister, and central to the stability of your country and your government, or a foot soldier and a target for silly kids.

Malcolm saw Howard's potential right at the beginning and should be given some credit for setting him on the course that eventually produced those 11 brilliant years.

It would have suited him to have two rivals in Howard and Andrew Peacock for the succession. He can hardly be blamed for the inordinate length of time for that rivalry to be resolved.

Fraser was not doctrinaire. He left the Liberal Party in good shape, well able to stand the strain of those years in opposition, until Howard led the coalition back into office in 1996. Howard's legacy was a Liberal Party that had no obvious successor, once Alexander Downer resigned from parliament and once Peter Costello opted out.

It was bitterly factionalised in the wake of Howard's decision to "intervene" in the NSW party on behalf of the "Right".

Fraser's political memoirs are nicely written for him by Margaret Simon, a journalist. He uses it to tell the stories of his conflicts with Prime Minister John Gorton from his own perspective, as you would, and does the same with the failure of his government to embark on the reforms which paid off so spectacularly during the Howard years.

John Howard is in the final stages of drafting his own memoirs, which, I confidently predict without knowing what Howard has written, will throw a different light on the handling of the reform proposals during the closing stages in 1983 of the Fraser years.

What does it matter, you might wonder. All this was 30 years ago, and what matters today is what Kevin Rudd is going to do about the economy, whose statistical measures are being pumped up by a huge increase in immigration and debt, and further, what Tony Abbott might do, now that he has rallied the Liberals, if he gets his hands on the levers of power later this year, and you would have a point.

Furthermore, it is one with which I concur.

But Fraser devoted 28 years to parliamentary service, eight of them as prime minister, and Howard gave parliament 33 years of his life, 11 of them as prime minister. Bob Hawke, who was a member of parliament from 1980 to 1992 and prime minister from 1983 to 1991, got his memoirs out in 1994.

So in due course we will have a rather special record of the years from 1975 to 2007, written by the men who occupied the Lodge, and if it proves difficult to reconcile conflicting accounts, then that merely adds to the challenge set for the reader.

As Fraser observed, life was not meant to be easy, a phrase coined by George Bernard Shaw for one of his plays.

Malcolm Fraser will be speaking about his new book Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs at a lunch event at the National Press Club in Canberra today.

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No sooner had the tears dried out on best director Kathryn Bigelow's cheeks than conspiracies were starting to pile up yesterday afternoon. Gee, went some of the messages flashing around the internet, Hollywood must HATE James Cameron!

After all Cameron's worldwide smash hit Avatar - the world's biggest earning film in non-inflation adjusted figures - had been considered equal favourite to win best picture Oscar with Iraq war movie The Hurt Locker, directed by Bigelow, his ex-wife.

Yet he came away with only craft prizes - for set design, cinematography and visual effects. This was payback, went a popular theory, for declaring himself "King of the world!" when accepting the best picture Oscar for Titanic, but that hardly holds water - most folks in Hollywood surely realised he was only quoting a line yelled by the movie's star, Leonardo DiCaprio, at the helm of the infamous ocean liner.

No, there were other, more obvious reasons why Avatar failed to be named best picture. Firstly, it represents the supreme example of the cinema of spectacle, which isn't exactly intellectually respectable, even among the mostly middle-brow Academy voters.

I suspect that, like the rest of the world's cinema-goers, 90% of Hollywood types really enjoyed watching Avatar, which offers a transporting experience, but afterwards felt kind of guilty about it due to what can be best summarised as the Cheese Factor. Remove yourself from the hypnotically beautiful visuals and surprisingly convincing motion capture (a cross between live action and animation) and Avatar can seem like so much pulp action mixed with New Age dopiness.

While you're watching the film, enhanced by its brilliant use of colour and ground-breaking use of 3D, this doesn't matter too much because Cameron is working primarily on the sensual level to create a present-tense, immersive experience. It's as if he's trying to put together a new form of entertainment - part video game, part virtual reality, part cinema. He lacks the subtlety to do subtext, ie. stuff you feel on a sub-conscious level, convincingly.

An Australian filmmaker messaged me this morning: "It's really weird. When I was in Hollywood and Avatar had just come out I was inundated with people telling me 'it's the greatest film ever made!', and 'it restores the Wow Factor back into movies', etc. The same people two weeks later were bagging it!"

One reason for the change of heart may be that Avatar's a science fiction film (you can tell because it's set on another planet). Genre films in general - with the rare exception such as The Silence of the Lambs - tend not to perform well with Oscar voters. That's especially true of science fiction. 2001: a Space Odyssey failed to even get a best picture nomination in 1969. In other years, Star Wars lost to Woody Allen's Annie Hall and E.T. was beaten by Gandhi.

Bigelow's win for The Hurt Locker is less a victory for female empowerment - her film positively drips with testosterone - than a victory for film criticism, that bastion of old-world media commonly said to be on its last legs. The Hurt Locker is an outright box office bomb - the lowest grossing title to ever win the best picture Oscar, according to Hollywood Reporter. In Australia its distributor, Roadshow, had even slated it for the ignominy of direct-to-DVD release.

But with the tireless support over several months of some of the most prominent critics in the US, the perception has somehow been created that it's not just an action film but a capital 'A' Art Film that speaks of serious themes - what it means to be a man at war etc.

The Academy Awards are a great example of the brilliance of the United States' use of "soft power" to prop up its global influence. The Oscars are partly about giving Hollywood the chance to feel good about itself, but also, even more importantly, about marketing the American movie industry to the world. The Hurt Locker ticks both these boxes with aplomb.

After films heavily critical of US policy and conduct in the Middle East such as Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, Body of Lies and Redacted, Bigelow delivered a safer option - an avowedly apolitical movie focused on the existential dilemmas of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq.

Well acted (it will make a star of the previously little-known Jeremy Renner), often tense and sometimes virtuosically directed, it also suffers from some serious flaws. Among these are an overly repetitive narrative (team disposes of bomb then does the same all over again) and a renegade hero who somewhat unbelievably is never called to serious account by his superiors for disobeying orders.

But the most serious flaw of all is not about its filmmaking technique but its attitude toward its subject. Here we have a film about the Iraq war in which - with one brief, token exception, a local boy befriended by one of the troops - Iraqis lack a voice. The locals aren't portrayed as three-dimensional people, they're all 'the other' - potential bombers or snipers. While that may be true to the experience of US soldiers, as a broader reflection of the conflict it's offensively skewed.

No wonder the Academy voters went for it, then. While Cameron's film takes allegorical aim at US military adventurism, the Oscar voters preferred to express solidarity with the nation's military while pretending to make a feminist statement (Bigelow, incredibly, is the first woman to ever win for best director).

Some The Hurt Locker supporters have expressed shock that Bigelow turned her acceptance speeches into hymns of praise to not only American military but everyone around the world in a uniform (which would appear to include totalitarian regimes and dictatorships including Iran, Zimbabwe, China and North Korea - and exclude their non-uniform-wearing opponents). Had they paid more attention to the film's contents, her militaristic sentiments would not been such a surprise.


Lynden Barber is a Sydney-based journalist specialising in film and music. In 2005 and 2006 he was Artistic Director of the Sydney Film Festival.

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Like many other working class Australians, I've spent the past few years thinking that I really should be doing a bit more for the environment. And like many others, I have come to believe that widespread individual action is the only answer to chronic government inertia. So it was with high hopes that I left my comfortable desk job last year, set up my own business, and trained to become a government-licenced Home Sustainability Assessor.

Three months later, I still haven't done a damn thing for the environment. I don't even have a licence. My family is surviving on credit cards, and I am edging dangerously closer to bankruptcy every day. So how did it come to this?

If you've followed the home insulation fiasco closely, you might have heard of another ill-fated Department of Environment initiative, the Green Loans program. The idea was to have a couple of thousand trained assessors going through people's houses, showing them various ways to reduce power bills, and thus reducing Australia's greenhouse emissions. If people wanted, they could also apply for an interest-free government loan to help install environmentally-friendly appliances, solar panels, and so forth.

Good idea? Maybe a bit too good. By the time I did my training in December, around 200,000 houses had already been assessed by some 5,000 trained assessors. The immensely popular program was supposed to cover another 160,000 houses before funds dried up sometime in the middle of this year. I figured I still had a good chance to make some money, establish a business foothold in this important new industry, and do something good for the planet.

What I didn't know was that another 5,000 people were rushing, like me, to meet the training deadline. Nor did I know that the program's telephone booking system was becoming clogged with calls; or that those in charge were about to shut up shop and take an extended holiday over Christmas and the New Year; or that companies were pressuring pensioners into getting assessments done; or that one company named Fieldforce, with a private pipeline into the booking system, was employing banks of telemarketers to line up work for their contracted assessors, who were each rushing through up to 25 houses per week, rapidly exhausting funds while bringing the whole program into disrepute.

In short, just like earlier government initiatives on insulation, water tanks, and solar panels, the Green Loans program was being rorted by cowboys around the nation chasing a fast buck. And like those other programs, the government wasn't doing anything in a hurry to stop them.

But of course, I didn't know that. I was busy setting up my company, building a website, buying business cards and colourful flyers printed with chlorine-free ink on recycled paper, all the while waiting for my assessor's licence to arrive. The weeks passed and the postman never brought my letter of registration. Queries about the extended delay did not elicit any response. Recorded messages warned me not to bother anyone, or my registration would take even longer.

Then one day an email arrived from the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA), who handle assessor registrations on behalf of the Department of Environment. ABSA were offering me a full refund on my registration fees if I chose to withdraw immediately from the program.

I had already spent well over $3,000, including $1,400 for my training course. A $650 refund was little compensation for all the time and effort I had already expended on this venture. And so, like most others in my situation, I told them in no uncertain terms that I wished to continue, as quickly as possible, please.

It's now over ten weeks since I completed my training, and I'm still waiting for that letter. Meanwhile, in the wake of the insulation debacle, the original Green Loans scheme has quietly been amended: assessors will now be limited to a maximum five houses per week; assessments will be subsidised rather than free to householders; and (somewhat ridiculously) the loans component has been abolished. The number of assessors has also been capped at a mere 5,000.

So what happens to the other 5,000 of us, most of whom who are still awaiting registration? Nobody seems to have a clue, and nobody seems to care.

A further 1,200 mysterious job contracts have been promised with the Department of Environment, but details remain non-existent. The Green Loans hotline could not advise me when or where those jobs will materialize, or when or if the predicament of would-be assessors like me would be resolved. Senator Wong has now taken over from Peter Garrett. There's another meeting on Wednesday this week, but still no guarantee of any firm resolutions.

Meanwhile, inquiries are on-going. When problems became apparent, Peter Garrett announced an enquiry. Then Kevin Rudd announced an enquiry. Then the Auditor General announced an enquiry, which is expected to conclude sometime around October this year. There's a good chance we'll have an election before then. Draw your own conclusions.

They say you should never go into business with the government as your partner. In hindsight, my great mistake was to take the Rudd government at their word, and not make alternative plans should things go wrong. Perhaps I should have suspected that this government's talk about climate change action is just more political hot air.

Perhaps the continuing silence about this Green Loans fiasco is due to the fact that many of those involved are terrified to think what will happen if the Coalition regains power. But what's the difference between a party with (quote) "no climate change platform", and a party incapable of delivering one? Ironically, many Australians say they would never vote Green because the party has no experience in government. Well, maybe that's a good thing, if this is how a modern government works!

The tragedy is that this Green Loans program was always a great idea, it just hasn't been implemented and managed properly. I despair for this planet when I think what will happen if we cannot overcome such basic human greed, stupidity, and incompetence. I am now being driven out of this industry, like many other well-intentioned, eco-conscious individuals. Unless we can receive due compensation from the government, many of us are unlikely to ever take them at their word again. That's not just a personal tragedy, it's a tragedy for the planet.

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What is Tony Abbott up to?

In the past few days he has smacked down gay and lesbian Australians with some of the harshest words we've heard from a national leader in years.

First on 60 Minutes he said he felt threatened by homosexuality. Then, explaining the "threat" on Lateline, he said homosexuality "challenges orthodox notions of the right order of things".

That's much more serious than John Howard's comment, made in 1996, that he would be disappointed if one of his sons was gay.

Abbott's use of the word "threatened" says there's something menacing, even predatory, about homosexuals. His phrase "the right order of things" echoes traditional religious and legal ideas about homosexuality as unnatural, sinful and "disordered".

These prejudices are out of step with mainstream values. In a 2008 Morgan poll only 29 per cent of Australians said they believe homosexuality is immoral.

Worse, Abbott's prejudices are deeply damaging to gay and lesbian people, their families, and the idea of an inclusive Australia.

Gay community representatives have rightly highlighted what's wrong with the Opposition Leader's views.

Anthony Bendall from the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has pointed out the negative impact Abbott's words will have on young gay people who already have a hard enough time struggling with prejudice and discrimination. We know that these young people are three to six times more likely to seriously consider suicide because of the prejudices Abbott has affirmed.

Corey Irlam from the Australian Coalition for Equality has written to Abbott inviting him to meet ordinary gay and lesbian people to see we don't pose a threat and some of us are quite "orthodox". Surveys show that as many as a third of same-sex couples are raising children. According to ABS stats there is an increase in the number of same-sex couples staying in or moving to precisely the suburban, regional and rural areas Abbott is trying to pitch to.

But what no-one has noted so far is that Abbott himself seems to have changed his tune, dramatically.

Two years ago, Abbott condemned former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, as "typically brutal and unfair" for saying "two blokes and a cocker spaniel don't make a family".

Abbott went on to declare"

"The love and commitment between two people of the same sex can be as strong as that between husband and wife. People should not be looked down upon, thought less of, or treated differently because they happen to be gay. Gay people are just as capable as anyone else of loyalty, selflessness and the capacity to take the rough with the smooth, the qualities that the establishment of lasting relationships require."

When did "people who should not be looked down on" become a "threat" to the "right order of things"?

Perhaps it was when Abbott became Coalition leader? He owes his position to Liberal power-brokers whose views on homosexuality are far closer to Abbott in 2010 than Abbott in 2008.

Perhaps it was when the nation entered an election year? The Coalition wants to corral those conservative Christians who "defected" to Rudd in 2007 over issues like asylum seekers and industrial relations. Kicking the homosexual can is the time-honoured way of frightening these people back into line.

But whatever the reason, Tony Abbott has shown he can be something far worse than a bigot. He can be an opportunist, willing to say whatever he feels he must to get ahead.

Despite this, I hold out hope that the Federal Coalition can emerge from this episode with a more constructive approach to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) human rights than we've seen recently from Tony Abbott.

An example of such an approach is to be found in Tasmania.

In the lead up to the state election on March 20th, the Liberal Party, led by social moderate Will Hodgman, has committed itself to tackling violence against GLBT people, reviewing outdated sections of the state's relationship and anti-discrimination laws, and providing greater recognition of transgender people.

The Federal Coalition could adopt a similarly policy based on tackling homophobic violence and adopting a national sexual orientation discrimination law. Existing state and federal discrimination laws fail to protect federal employees from unfair treatment on the grounds of their sexual orientation.

With 83 per cent support for this reform nationally according to a 2009 Galaxy poll, filling the gap between state and federal law seems like an eminently safe, gradualist and conservative thing to do.

But of course, that depends on your definition of "conservative".

The Australian Liberal Party seems torn between the tolerant and pragmatic conservatism exemplified by UK Tory leader David Cameron, and the strident ideological conservatism of most US Republicans.

How the Tories fair in the UK's June national election, and how Republicans do in America's November primaries, will have a significant impact on who's in and who's out in Australian conservative circles.

And the best barometer of which way the Party is tipping will be Tony Abbott's views on homosexuality.

If they shift back to what they were two years ago we will know common-sense conservatism has prevailed.

Rodney Croome is a long-time gay rights advocate.
Corey Irlam's letter is here

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Um, Tony, maate, I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but um, ah, you have to get yourself some, tcha, intensive speech therapy. Pronto.

You probably want to be judged on what you say, not the way you say it, but whilever viewers' and listeners' lawns grow faster than it takes for you to get your grab out, that is going to be difficult.

The umming and ahhing and that thing you do where your tongue seems to get stuck on the roof of your mouth and produces the tcha sound is irritating and time consuming. It happens at doorstops, in radio interviews, on 60Minutes - basically, infuriatingly, almost every time you appear in public.

You probably think this is trivial and gratuitous, and a little unfair, and you could be right, but you are in the business where you are judged on everything you say or do, how you say it and how you look when you say it. You have to get it all right, all the time, not just 90 per cent of the time. It's the other 10 per cent that can kill you.

Recent experience has confirmed this for me. I have stood in every position in different incarnations asking the questions, telling someone how to answer the questions, and latterly, answering them myself, I confess, with a few ums and ahs thrown in, but I'm not desperate to be Prime Minister, so if I mumble and stumble a bit it's not life threatening.

I know which is the hardest position to be in, and which is the most fun, and also what's a turnoff and what isn't.

Take Peter Costello's smirk. I devoted a couple of paragraphs to it in my book, basically saying I had written a note for my former boss, not long after I began working for him, telling him in effect to get rid of it because it was irksome. Anyway, after a bit of practice and some dental work, he did. I pointed out in the book that the smirk had developed because he was sensitive about his teeth and tried to hide them when he smiled, and not because he was satisfied with himself all the time, which is what people thought.

That's all it was. Two paragraphs.

There were a couple of hundred other pages in which I blabbed endlessly - or so it seemed to a few of my former colleagues and employers - about what happened behind the scenes on policies like tax and health, the leadership, the disaster that was the 2007 election campaign, asylum seekers, One Nation preferences, and so on and so on.

But guess what, as Kevin says (now there is a really irritating speech pattern), in my relentless round of promotional interviews for the book, the question which kept coming up most often, and the bit which has been reported most prominently is...the smirk!

Never mind that Costello had balanced budgets, reformed the tax system, strengthened the financial regulatory system and helped manage and deliver one of the greatest periods of prosperity in Australian history.

What people fixated on was the smirk. And why? Because they thought it was a sign of something else. Self satisfaction, smugness.

Same with your answers to questions. There is nothing wrong with speaking slowly and deliberately. At least it shows there is a thought process going on but, in your case, too often is too noisy and too time consuming. The lines are usually very good, but people soon find themselves yelling at you on the television to spit it out man.

Um, tcha, you have to eliminate the Victor Borge phonetic punctuation.

There's no shame in getting some help to get rid of it. Your favorite wrestling partner, the red bomb chucker has managed to tone down her nasal twang along with her hair color, and she has had some help there.

Even though you have made good progress in improving your stocks, this is by no means all you have to do to have a show of winning the next election. But it would help.

The insulation debacle has finished Peter Garrett's political career, whether he stays on the frontbench or not, and raised legitimate questions about the Rudd Government's competence.

It has taken the spotlight off some of the opposition's shortcomings.

Rudd's hospital plan, the one with the twin inbuilt self destruct buttons, has given him something to pretend to fight for even though it will never happen, and you now have your parental leave scheme which has upset business. That is no bad thing.

You still have to solve your major problem which is to provide a sound economic alternative. Thankfully for the Coalition, Barnaby Joyce has quietened down a bit, but how confident are you that he will behave himself every second of every day during an election campaign? Everyone on your side will be keeping their fingers and toes crossed.

If Malcolm Turnbull stays, and really there is no practical reason why he should, you will have to find something useful for him to do. He will never lead the Liberal Party again, and the most he can ever aspire to now is a senior Ministry, and that won't happen for a few years. The prospect of Turnbull as a not so humble backbencher is something which should make you very afraid.

Also, continue with your crawl to the centre. Labor will test your moderation with a series of policies to see how far you have shifted. Your faith will also be tested, but only in ways to determine if it influences your policies. There must be no whiff of that.

Rudd can and will parade his religion and hold doorstops outside churches every Sunday from now until Christmas and it might attract some comment about his cynical use of religion as a prop for pic-facs, but the minute you do it, it will become a major issue, and draw in-depth analysis of your motives, which of course will be suspect. Is the double standard because no one believes Rudd believes, or because they think you believe in it too much?

Finally, for now, you do not have to tell people what you are thinking all the time. Especially when it comes to sex. Leave some things to the imagination. And that goes for the speedos and lycra too.

Niki Savva was one of the most senior correspondents in the Canberra Press Gallery. Her book, So Greek, confessions of a conservative leftie, has just been published.

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It sounds like such a great idea for a TV show: five opinionated and articulate guests drawn from a wide range of orthodoxies and professional fields, facing-off against an engaged studio and television audience that asks tough questions which challenge each individual and spark heated debate amongst the group. Such a program idea promises insight, provoked thoughts, and a little bit of verbal biffo, which is the dream television combination for political tragics on a Monday evening. But if it's such a great idea why does its execution in the form of ABC TV's Q&A suck?

It's not just me that seems to think such unflattering thoughts about Q&A - a good chunk of the sizeable Twitter audience that discusses the show live via the #qanda hashtag regularly voices its dissatisfaction.

While each of those unhappy Twitter viewers has their own reasons for disliking the program, in my opinion the main problem is that Q&A tries to do and be so much that it completely loses focus and ends up doing and being much less. A lot has been said by many people about the composition of the studio audience, and whether it is stacked, biased, or whatever, but barring the facepalm first-year student politics questions read out by oh-so-earnest truth-seekers, and the incessant murder-inducing applause, the studio audience doesn't matter to me. My problem is with panels of guests that are too broad; and woeful interaction with the non-studio audience.

Being at the very centre of the concept of the program, the panel of guests is pretty crucial, but its composition seems terribly random and lacking any rhyme or reason - a government minister from one portfolio here, an opposition minister from another portfolio there; a journo or a think-tank boffin in the middle, and a random comedian or musician to pad out the sides. While the diversity, on the face of it, seems to promise an exciting variety of views, it often results in disjointed and confused discussion; too often panellists are obliged to comment on issues on which they have no informed or developed opinion. Not only must this be frustrating for panellists, but these forced contributions completely derail any flowing and constructive conversation that might be developing.

Or things go the other way completely and two or three panellists with strong and set opinions about a particular issue take over and talk at each other, drowning out all other participants before Tony Jones interrupts the exchange to invite a contribution from somebody else who doesn't really have one to make. Or the debate on a particular topic is developing nicely, with guests' contributions building on those that came before them, and then just as it's getting interesting the topic is changed completely by an audience question.

Sitting at home trying to engage in stop-start debate on a hyperactive rainbow of topics can be very difficult and even more frustrating. The show would work so much better if a theme was selected for each week's discussion - industrial relations, the arts, education etc. - and panellists were specifically selected for their interest or expertise in the theme. Cutting the number of guests down to three or four would also make the facilitation of discussion flow much smoother.

On the opposite side of the TV screen exists the other problem. At the start of each program Tony Jones eagerly spruiks the methods by which non-studio audience members can get involved, including SMS and Twitter. However, you've got to wonder why anyone would bother, with so few of these contributions ever making it to air and no real sense that those that don't make it to air have any impact on the debate whatsoever. Yet again, the show tries to involve everyone but dilutes its focus and ends up involving very few and disappointing the rest.

Especially frustrating is the producers' disinterest in the significant Twitter community that flocks to each broadcast. Q&A's social media following is huge, and it's exactly this kind of engaged and vocal online audience that other programs can only dream about. So why doesn't Q&A take greater advantage of it? For instance, it wouldn't take much effort for the production team to monitor the Twitter stream, select the choicest tweets, and note them somehow in the broadcast, perhaps running them as a continuous ticker at the bottom. Somebody could even count the pro-ALP and pro-coalition tweets to ensure an exact 50-50 split so trollumnists can't screech about a lack of balance.

It's a genuine shame that small but fundamental problems with Q&A's format prevent a program with such potential from being truly excellent, and judging from the rusted-on audience a lot of people want it to be just that. Let's hope that Q&A can answer the questions that its audience is asking.

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Trust a man to be more honest about women than we are. Of course we love children, shopping and fripperies and not necessarily in that order. Louis Nowra has uncovered a truth we would once have found uncomfortable.

Of course the world's shoppers and acquirers (women make the majority of a household's purchasing decisions) are likely to be innately in favour of capitalism in preference to command economies, bare shelves and hungry children and yes, well, we do like men, whatever Germaine exhorted us to do.

But there, dear Louis, your understanding of women and our relationship with Grumpy Greer must stop.

Honest you may be, but insightful you are not. By the way, demented grandmothers are off limits - there are at least as many of the other sex actually running countries and even killing people if you get my drift.

You see The Female Eunuch is simply a book that symbolised the modern us. We may or may not have read it but possessing it, dipping into it, standing by it was compulsory for modern middle class women of the day.

She gave us our idea of feminism. While we all knew her particular idea was barmy, Greer's eunuch taught women sufficient political self-consciousness to see ourselves as a group exploited, disadvantaged and denied our rights and entitlements.

Exactly what each woman draws from it and uses to change her life is between her and Germaine.

It is not just a book of course; The Female Eunuch is itself a wonderful title, while its cover shot of a disembowelled female torso on a hanger meant words were not necessary to make the point that women traditionally lived empty lives and not their own.

Up until then most of us hadn't thought of ourselves as oppressed, we just thought that was the way it was.

Greer is not just a writer of course and, as Nowra says, not a very good one. She was a performance. Rarely has a book been sold as comprehensively by the antics and arguments of an author of extraordinary wit, sex appeal and outrageousness (we are talking 40 years ago).

Young women around the world wanted to be part of that performance as well as the argument, but without giving up make-up or love for our sexual oppressors.

If there is one lasting piece of damage she did do (she did a lot of good in the self-realisation department) it was her determination to link the oppression of women with capitalism. Somehow she had missed the Soviet Union, China ancient and modern, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism and just about anywhere in the world with people in it.

It has been to Feminism's great loss that the socialist tradition continues to dominate its discourses and discourage the child and men-loving shopper section of human kind from getting behind it.

Fortunately, as she and others like her become distant memories, as the flesh rots off the bones of their frequently flawed arguments, the irresistible force of Greer's basic proposition that men and women must be equal will remain with us for eternity.

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International Women's Day will be celebrated in Australia and around the world on Monday 8 March.

On May 8, 1857 New York women employed in the clothing and textile industry finally took to the streets to demand better wages and conditions. Half a century later, in 1908, 15,000 women again marched in New York, and some went on strike, demanding better conditions and an end to child labour.

In Australia women were granted equal pay 40 years ago, and that should have been the end to pay inequity in this country. However in 2010, on average, women lag some 17 per cent behind in pay for equal work or work of same value and in some sectors, like finance and insurance this gender pay gap expands to a ripping 32 per cent.

Not surprisingly, 73 per cent of single aged pensioners are women, and women retire on average with about half the superannuation of men.

Australian women are world beaters in many fields from public service, to science, the arts, business, sport and politics. Australian women are ranked among the first in the OECD in gaining tertiary and other educational qualifications. However, the gender pay gap persists, and under Labor it is getting worse.

There are almost 5 million Australian women in the workforce and rates of participation are growing. Thirty per cent of small businesses are owned by women. As well, women commit thousands of hours and billions of dollars to the economy each year as the unpaid carers for children, the disabled and the elderly in their families.

Older women are the worst off as their careers have been interrupted or were never launched due to family responsibilities and met with little flexibility in paid work arrangements or paid parental leave. More frequent divorce today with worse financial consequences for women, combined with their fragmented or unpaid work, has too often locked them into an impoverished and welfare-dependent old age.

The gender pay gap is experienced at every level in the workplace in Australia, the land of the great Fair Go. It is regularly reported that the top 200 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange pay their female Chief Financial and Chief Operating Officers on average 50 per cent less than their male equivalents. Female CEOs earned 67 per cent less and women only occupied 7 per cent of the top five executive positions in these companies. Female CEOs are more likely to be employed in the not-for-profit sector. Women with disabilities are less likely to be employed than men with disabilities, and women are less likely to have the salary package add ons, like cars, phones and bonuses.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, describes poverty in Australia as having a feminine face. As she says, poverty should not be the reward for a life time of caring for others. Women and women's work cannot continue to be undervalued.

The ACTU has finally signalled that it is going to make gender pay equity a Federal election issue after decades of looking the other way.

The 54th session of the United Nation's Commission on the Status of Women is meeting in New York until 12 March to hear how much progress has been made in the 15 years since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Unfortunately Australia, as a developed nation, does not have a good story to tell and must do better.

The World Economic Forum's The Global Gender Gap Report 2009 on wage equality for similar work showed Australia ranked 60th globally in 2009, declining from 51st in 2007. In terms of women's economic participation and opportunity Australia slipped from 12th to 22nd globally from 2007 to 2008.

On March 8, International Women's Day, many will focus their attention off shore and be collectively disappointed at the lot of women that has not improved in 20 years in third world countries. And we should all be appalled at this. However, let us not forget about our own failures, with Indigenous and non-indigenous women who do not have equity in pay in the work place.

Many are in denial about the gender pay gap, or simply do not want to know.

The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act requires businesses to report on other matters but not the pay gap. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations "Making it Fair" report into pay equity tabled in 2009 has had no response from the Rudd Government.

Come on Australia, equal pay for equal work will make us a more productive nation, it will make us more internationally competitive, it will help to build women's sense of self worth and fair play, and it is just the right thing to do.

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On the 20th anniversary of Pretty Woman's debut, this Julia Roberts romcom is in re-release. To enjoy it is still a politically incorrect pleasure, especially if you're a sex worker.

I can't resist comparing Pretty Woman - the biggest grossing movie of 1990 - with The Girlfriend Experience, Steven Soderbergh's low budget film about a high-priced call girl played by Sasha Grey. Both showcase a striking brunette, but Sasha's long sleek hair and Julia's exuberant curls impress us in different ways.

Julia's character, Vivian, is an economic reformer, using streetwalker logic to show Edward, the corporate raider, the error of his ways. In THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, set during the 2008 financial crisis, Sasha's Chelsea is just a beautiful cog in the economy, hoping to survive its inevitable cycles by charging $2000 an hour.

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE is a cynical enough drama about the unsolvable problems of a Manhattan escort with her own website, while PRETTY WOMAN is a funny pre-internet fairytale in which a California hooker finds the ultimate solution - Richard Gere - out on the street. (Vivian looks like the kind of streetwalker who would use a cellphone to stay in touch with regulars, but she didn't have this option in 1990.)

When Chelsea falls for a client's romantic fantasy, he turns out to be a waste of time. PRETTY WOMAN is more satisfying, if less straightforward. Vivian's corporate raider is actually Prince Charming and love blossoms, even though our streetwise Cinderella at first refuses to kiss him.

Chelsea, on the other hand, maintains internal sangfroid while engaged in deep kissing, a service routinely offered. In case you're wondering, a girlfriend experience or GFE is industry jargon for the way call girls pamper their customers, but sex workers can't seem to agree on what a GFE should include. Ultimately, GFE says more about a prostitute's manner than her menu.

In PRETTY WOMAN, a streetwalker balks at the GFE, but tries it and likes it so much that it's no longer an act. The rich, kind customer you fall in love with is a common fantasy, though many hate to admit it, and PRETTY WOMAN allowed us to laugh about our contradictory desires.

Still, PRETTY WOMAN was reviled for supposedly glamming up a tough occupation and making street prostitution - the ultimate middle class taboo - look like the road to conjugal bliss. For a prostitute to experience romantic triumph is too much for some, especially if you view romantic love with suspicion.

Feminist critics who see Edward treating Vivian like one of his acquisitions have overlooked a crucial plot twist. Because of Vivian, he decides to stop raiding other people's companies. She not only rescues Edward right back, as the saying goes - she inadvertently rescues the company he was about to destroy.

This tale of mutual rehab doesn't work for everyone.

Jessie Abraham is a Darwin escort who documents her activism and lobbying at a site called Sex Work Is Real Work. "PRETTY WOMAN was all about the 'saved' escort having the 'happy ever after' ending," she told me. "Of course, when you are whisked away you can lose your independence. We don't want a man to think he has to save us."

Deluded customers and boyfriends who try to "rescue" us aren't always as nice as the reformed raider in PRETTY WOMAN. Jessie has crossed the line with three different customers, and found that a romance with a former client is as complex as any other, not some Disney fantasy with a fairytale ending.

Because of that happy ending, PRETTY WOMAN has been a snark-magnet for two decades. At the end of THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, Chelsea is no better off than she was in the beginning. The movie takes place during Obama's campaign for US president and ends on a wry note, with Chelsea servicing a very unsexy chap who urges her to vote for John McCain.

The session takes place in the back of his shop, not a four-star hotel, her client is hardly Richard Gere, and he's backing a loser.

Despite these downbeat markers, THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE stereotypes us (in ways that PRETTY WOMAN did not) because it takes upmarket escorting much too seriously. New York call girls generally have a sense of humor, but you would never know it if Soderbergh's film were your sole guide to luxury hooking.

PRETTY WOMAN winked at luxury - at the expensive clothes and smooth manners that are conventions of high class prostitution. As Vivian, Julia Roberts is irreverent, tomboyish, about becoming Richard Gere's "beck and call girl." Who better to put the call girl's mystique in its place than a girl he met on the street?

As for THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, if there is one deeply false note, it's Chelsea's passive conversational style. This might be acceptable in a high-turnover brothel where encounters are brief and physical, but a customer spending a languorous evening with an opinion-free companion would be totally bored. That's not how you become a successful courtesan, in any era.

A more relatable cinematic courtesan is Michelle Pfeiffer as Lea de Lonval, even though CHERI is set in Belle Epoque Paris. It's been called a period confection because it portrays an earlier generation of "girlfriend experience" practitioners.

"I love the idea of pampering older men all your life and ending up with a toy boy," Jessie told me. She is in the 12th year of a career that began in her teens. "These were strong, independent women and they never found love. That kind of scared me."

The biggest surprise in the film was Lea's courtesan colleagues having children with their clients, not unusual before the first world war. "We're so well known for using contraception," says Jessie. "It would be frowned on in Australia."

The first time she heard about sex workers having children fathered by their customers was actually in Kolkata, at a conference she attended as an international activist.

"People had children with their regular clients and brought them up by themselves. I was shocked," she admits, "until I got used to the idea. In India, it happens a lot."

But Jessie didn't think of this as a tradition also shared by the West - until she saw CHERI, a movie that speaks to 21st century sex workers in ways I had never expected.

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For managers in public hospitals (both clinicians and general managers), there is much to welcome in the government's proposed National Health and Hospitals Network - funding reform and operational autonomy are the major potential gains.

Increasing operational autonomy for hospitals is the one thing that has bipartisan support, with both sides in Canberra proposing a return to hospitals having boards of directors ('governing councils' in the language of the government's plan). This is the long-standing tradition in Australia, which all states but Victoria have abandoned in recent years, citing the need for stronger accountability to central office and the Minister.

Accountability is a good thing, but in this case, the remedy seems worse than the disease. The emerging consensus is that local managers lack sufficient authority to make operational decisions quickly, and there is a long and rusty chain of command from staff in a ward to head offices in capital cities.

Of course, local boards cause problems as well, but perhaps it's like the jury system - there's a lot wrong with it, but it's preferable to the alternatives. Victoria seems to be doing better than other states, and nimbler governance arrangements may be part of the reason.

The second good thing is funding reform, although we know from experience that there will be pain in the transition. Having lived through the shift to casemix funding as a hospital executive, I can tell you it hurt, and managers generally opposed it as hard as we could at the beginning. When both Victoria and South Australia moved to casemix in the mid-1990s, the state governments used that change to lower the effective price - the funding levels were not based on any measure of an 'efficient price', but rather a 'convenient price' - what can be afforded if X per cent is removed from the total funding.

Having said that, casemix funding has real advantages - it pays hospitals for services delivered. This is not the gold standard of paying for 'outcomes', but again, better than the available alternative, which was effectively to fund hospitals on the basis of what they spent last year. The main problem with casemix funding now is simply that state governments cap the volume of care they will pay for, while still requiring hospitals to treat everyone who comes to the door. And the challenge of reliably ensuring safety and quality (at whatever cost) remains to be met.

If the reforms mean that public hospitals will be paid for each patient they treat - like GPs, chemists and private hospitals - that would be good news for patients. Every patient would effectively bring their own funding, rather than competing for rationed resources. But this is not the intention. The Commonwealth might offer its open chequebook (as with GPs) but the states will still have to find their 40 per cent, so they will effectively cap the volume of services that can be provided.

The states will also be responsible for state-wide planning and should have the capacity to make rational decisions about specialised services - not every town can have an MRI; not every hospital can have a transplant unit.

The government's proposals leave some big questions unanswered - including the overall balancing of the roles of hospitals and other components of the system. By and large, we'd all rather stay out of hospital if we could, and there is evidence that this country could provide care at a lower total cost if community alternatives were reliably available. Integrated funding within the primary care system (enabling better coordination between GPs and others) is clearly on the agenda, but we await further announcements. And then we face the question of how to coordinate among primary care providers, aged care and hospitals. In many areas, particularly in the country, state-funded community health services are integrated with local hospitals - and no-one is suggesting that is a bad thing.

The government faces the major hurdles of convincing the states and then getting legislation through parliament. Labor governments have achieved major health reform twice before in our history - once in 1946 through a referendum (to give the Commonwealth roles in health care); and once in 1974 through a joint sitting of both houses following a double dissolution (which was how the Medicare system came about). Long suffering managers in the public hospitals need to get ready for a long and bumpy transition. And spare a thought for those 'bureaucrats' we love to hate - they also keep this wonky complex system we have going, and some of their skills are irreplaceable.

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What a week this has been. The first week of autumn was, appropriately enough, a week of new beginnings, yet one where we could not help being haunted by the ghosts of the past, or occasionally, the present.

As is so often the case, the biggest story of the week came out of Launceston, where city alderman Ivan Dean was mysteriously dubbed a "dickhead" by an anonymous colleague during a rowdy council meeting. The search for the unknown abuser has quickly been named "Dickhead-gate" in the Australian press's usual innovative way, and a stunned nation has begun to attempt to come to grips with the night it lost its innocence. Ald Dean, for his part, has threatened to resign, although we would caution against anything hasty, at least until the final report of the Royal Commission into whether he actually is a dickhead or not. Ted Sands finally owned up to the insult, but not before Dean instigated an investigation a la Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None; the task made easier by the fact all suspects were already on a remote island.

Surprisingly, there were other stories appearing in the news this week, and one man who was never in any doubt as to who was calling him a dickhead was John Howard, who this week stepped up to the plate to assume the vice-presidency of the International Cricket Council, and therefore become president in 2012. His nomination came despite his never having worked in sports administration, a rival contender in John Anderson with impeccable credentials, and the fact that by 2012 he will be approximately eight hundred years old. Howard, however, countered claims that he was utterly unqualified for the job by pointing out that he was eminently qualified to do jobs for which he was utterly unqualified, having experience in this field going back to 1977 and references from notables including Malcolm Fraser, Paul Keating and Peter Costello. Despite this strong rebuttal, doubts lingered among many who questioned whether Howard would be able to smoothly transfer from his current occupation - making speeches about the failures of the current government, most particularly its failure to be led by John Howard - to the radically different task of being ignored by rich Indians.

The current prime minister, meanwhile, may well have envied his predecessor his cushy new job this week, as he struggled to convince the electorate of the sincerity of his public apology, in which he expressed regret for his government's mistakes, its neglect, its arrogance, its unkempt appearance, its poor social skills, and its occasional offensive personal odour. Recognising that the failed home insulation scheme, delays over health reform, and Wayne Swan's personality have disappointed millions, Rudd issued a comprehensive "mea culpa" - Latin for "I am scum and deserve to die".

Even as he dissolved into bitter tears, removed his shirt and began lashing himself with cat o' nine tails live on national television, the first doubts began to emerge over whether the apology was an act of genuine contrition, a cynical political ploy, or simply the fruition of the warnings given two years ago that once a Prime Minister starts apologising, he'll never be able to stop.

Whether Rudd's rather-too-enthusiastic prediction of receiving a "whacking" in the polls comes to pass, his apology certainly seemed to encourage Tony Abbott, who crowed that the PM was "rattled" by his government's ineptitude, not to mention the Opposition's scintillating combination of intensive hard policy formulation and frank discussions of sexuality. This makes it approximately the eighteenth time Rudd has been rattled by Abbott so far, directly spawning the PM's new nickname, "Big Maracas".

Naturally, Rudd's apology was accompanied by action; nobody could ever accuse the man of being all talk. The government this week unveiled its comprehensive plan for health reform, including 60 percent federal funding for hospitals, and presented it to the states, who reacted with their usual calm and selflessness to the proposition that they get less money. Reasoned arguments against the plan came from WA premier Colin Barnett, who said the states needed to retain a voice in running hospitals; Victorian health minister Daniel Andrews, who said improved services would not result without an increase in total funding; and NSW premier Kristina Keneally, who said she could not commit to any reform until Joe Tripodi told her to.

Rudd, meanwhile, urged the states to "get with the program", a rather harsh demand, given state governments do have a lot on their plates at the moment - the Tasmanian and South Australians preparing for an election; the Victorians trying to develop a public transport ticketing system that behaves a little less like a race of malevolent Daleks; and the NSW government continuing the roll-out of its revolutionary and controversial "Ruin Everything" policy.

It hardly matters, of course, since in order to implement the health plan, even with state support, it would need to pass the Senate, which would mean Rudd will either have to convince the Opposition to stop opposing, or convince Steve Fielding, who will refuse to support the health bill unless it includes provisions for mandatory bibles for teen mothers, most likely making the demand in the course of a rambling parliamentary speech during which he will burst into tears as he recalls his childhood struggle with restless leg syndrome.

So in essence, Rudd should be gearing up for a lot more apologies in future. Fortunately for him, apologies have suddenly become all the rage, with his own this week being quickly followed by an apology from Victorian Premier John Brumby for being out of touch with voters, although in his defence it should be pointed out that property developers are voters too, so they're not completely out of touch.

Then of course came South Australian Premier Mike Rann, who made a heartfelt apology to anyone who had been upset by his failure to have an affair with a waitress, and promised that in future he would be far more discerning about whom he chose not to have affairs with.

And that summed up the week - seven days of people regretting the past and promising to try harder in future; seven days of donning sackcloth and begging forgiveness; and seven days of asking ourselves: who's the real dickhead? The professional footballer who shows photos of his naked mistress to all his friends, or the woman who willingly sleeps with professional footballers?

The answer, of course, is as always: Max Markson.

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Advocates for doing something expensive about global warming are fond of telling us that the science behind it all is settled, and in one very limited sense they are more-or-less correct. If humans insist on filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide then we can indeed expect the average temperature of the world to increase slightly. But the scientific consensus on the matter stops right there.

There is no great certainty that the increase will be large enough to be noticeable. There is even less certainty that it will be large enough to make a measurable impact on human affairs. There is virtually no certainty at all that an impact, if and when it occurred, would necessarily be disastrous.

Why then have climate scientists let the whole concept of disastrous global warming get to the stage where it has become the accepted wisdom of nearly all the politically correct people of the western world?

A small part of the answer may be that scientists, like everyone else, have to eat. Big social problems tend to release big dollars. Another part of the answer is that scientists too are human, and can be seduced as easily as anyone else by the pleasures of playing a lead role in well-funded campaigns against the forces of evil. But perhaps the biggest part of the answer is that scientists simply cannot believe that any of their colleagues would deliberately oversell a scientific conclusion for the sake of a political cause. As a consequence they can easily slip into a mode of public support, and indeed into a mode of public advocacy, for a broad scientific theory involving many distinct areas of research about which they personally know very little. They tend to forget how much of their support relies on procedures which have evolved over the years to protect the reputation of science in general. These procedures (peer review is one of them) are far from perfect.

The bottom line is that scientists have allowed themselves to be part of a huge propaganda machine that has developed to such an extent that they can no longer countenance any public expression of doubt about its origins. In particular they have been forced to distance themselves from the scepticism which is the very lifeblood of science as a whole.

The problem with propaganda machines is that the average man in the street has learnt to smell them, recognize them, and be highly sceptical of them. His distrust may be hidden for a while for various reasons of inertia and politics, but given some small encouragement by way of an obvious glitch in the system, he will rather enjoy tearing the thing apart. And such a glitch seems to have occurred in the climate game with the leaking a few months ago of thousands of e-mails and documents from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Among other things, they reveal how researchers may indeed go off the rails when they can no longer distinguish between research and political activism. The blogosphere (and, strangely enough, the main-stream media in the UK) is having a ball with what has become known as the Climategate affair.

The response of prominent scientists within the global warming establishment both to Climategate and to the subsequent emergence of a very obvious and very extensive degree of scepticism about their work is quite extraordinary. They have had control of public opinion concerning the disastrous nature of climate change for so long that they cannot even conceive of the possibility that sceptics may have a point. It seems instead that to return to their place in the sun it will merely be necessary for scientists to engage more powerfully in active promotion of a belief in climatic doom. To build a bigger propaganda machine in other words. It doesn't occur to them that it is exactly this sort of behaviour that got them into trouble in the first place. It is exactly this sort of behaviour that is ultimately likely to lose their battle for them. Perhaps more important in the long term, it is exactly this sort of behaviour that stands a good chance of ruining the hard-won reputation of science as a whole. And that'll learn'em!

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Irene Joseph
Mrs Joseph ("Irene") came to Australia from Sri Lanka in 1979. She and her husband came as migrants and were permanent residents. A short time after their arrival, Mr Joseph became ill and wanted to return to Sri Lanka. As his wife, Irene had little choice and returned with him.

In July 1997, one of Irene's other sons sponsored Irene for permanent residence as an applicant for an aged parent visa. These visas take many years to be granted and Irene was given a Bridging Visa to allow her to remain in Australia until the Aged Parent visa could be considered.

As the holder of a Bridging Visa, Irene was entitled to little in the way of Government benefits and, further, was not entitled to sponsor her son, Edward Joseph ("Edward") to come to Australia.

It is unclear why Irene applied for the aged parent visa in 1997 as, being a former permanent resident of Australia, she was entitled at that time to renew her status as a permanent resident.

If she had been given the correct advice, she would have applied for a resident return visa at that time rather than the aged parent application and would immediately have become a permanent resident; entitled to full social security and other benefits and, further, would have been entitled immediately to sponsor her son, Edward, to remain in Australia as her carer.

When I became her immigration lawyer recently, I immediately accompanied her to the counter of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship ("Immigration") offices in Melbourne and she was granted permanent residence over the counter.

Although her previous immigration status of permanent residence would have been on file, there is no suggestion that Immigration was obliged to advise Irene in 1997 that she was entitled to immediate permanent residence or that she received incorrect legal advice from an immigration practitioner. It is too long ago to know what really happened. Be that as it may, Irene has spent twelve and a half years in the wilds of status as a Bridging Visa holder and, further, lost her right to sponsor Edward as her carer from the very beginning.

At the time I became involved, Irene was about to be refused the aged parent visa as her other son, an Australian citizen, who sponsored her for that visa returned to Sri Lanka to live and, as a result, became ineligible to sponsor her. The grant of permanent residence on 15 December 2009 solved that problem.

Irene is presently a frail 92-year-old lady who is much loved by many people in her Box Hill community. Her friends visit her regularly at her tidy, well kept home where she is looked after by Edward. She is still able to go out and regularly attends her local Catholic Church. She is in the twilight of her life and does not want to return to Sri Lanka. She wishes to spend her remaining time in the company of her friends and the peace and security she feels as a member of her local church community. Edward has been her devoted carer for many years and it is only because of his presence that she has been able to live her current lifestyle in Box Hill.

She is in considerable mental anguish at the moment as Edward has been required by Immigration to leave the country on Friday next at 5pm. She is strongly attached to Edward who has been her constant carer for about 14 years and has decided after weeks of indecision that she will return to Sri Lanka with him despite the fact that she is now a permanent resident of Australia.

To remain in Australia would require Irene to enter an aged care facility. She is not in a strong financial position and this would reflect on the quality of the aged persons' facility she would be able to afford. She has a son in Brisbane and a step-daughter in Melbourne. Neither are able or willing to look after her. The step daughter is 74 years of age and in need of care herself. The son works full time and is unable to assist.

A return to Sri Lanka will be a traumatic experience for Irene as she is a virtual stranger to that country which has been the centre of a bloody and vicious civil war for many years. Indeed, the recent end of the civil war has now resulted in further turmoil and civil strife with the newly elected President arresting and charging his opponent, the General credited with the military victory.

It has been common ground for some time that Irene's health would not allow her to safely travel to Sri Lanka; a journey involving 11 hours flying time with a change of aircraft along the way. Nevertheless, she was recently called in by Immigration for a health examination and, despite previous opinions to the contrary, found to be fit to fly. She faces 11 hours flying time in an economy seat.

She is 92 years old and quite frail. Edward is extremely worried that she will not survive such a journey knowing what she is leaving behind and what is to come.

Edward Joseph
Edward Joseph ("Edward") came to Australia as a visitor in April 1996. Because of his background, he was subject to discrimination and harassment in his home country as a result of the ongoing racial conflict in that country. He unsuccessfully applied for recognition as a refugee (Protection Visa) in 1997 and has assiduously taken his application right through the Court system to the High Court and, further, has sought the intervention of the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship six times previously.

As a former head of the Refugee Review Tribunal, magistrate and lawyer practising in refugee law, I have examined his application and am of the view that the application was legally misfounded and never had a chance of success because it did not address the real issues required by the Refugee Convention to be addressed. This is a great pity as, if the application had addressed the real issues, Edward may have had a chance of success.

Be that as it may, it is fair to say that the Minister and his Department have been extremely patient and, if Edward has to leave, no real complaint can be made about his treatment. Indeed, a seventh application for Ministerial Intervention must be extremely rare and must be extraordinarily compelling to succeed.

I lodged the seventh application recently and, unfortunately, the Minister's officers have taken the view that they will not refer it to the Minister. My contention is that the recent grant of permanent residence to his mother constitutes new and compelling evidence which should be taken into account as Edward's impending departure has extremely adverse consequences for a woman who is a permanent resident of Australia and who, for whatever reason, would almost certainly be a citizen of Australia if someone had understood her real status so many years ago.

Given the history of this matter, it is understandable that the Minister and his Department do not view Edward favourably and I can well understand their position.

Surely, however, this view of the situation should not stand in the way of allowing a frail old lady to end her years in the comfort and security of what has become her home. I believe it is in Australia's public interest to allow Edward to stay and look after his mother.

Edward and his mother are leaving Australia today.

Murray Gerkens was legal adviser to Irene and Edward Joseph

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Somehow the tables have turned. For all the smears of big money funding the "deniers", the numbers reveal that the sceptics are actually the true grassroots campaigners, while Greenpeace defends Wall St. How times have changed.

Sceptics are fighting a billion dollar industry aligned with a trillion dollar trading scheme. Big Oil's supposed evil influence has been vastly outdone by Big Government, and even those taxpayer billions are trumped by Big-Banking.

The big-money side of this debate has fostered a myth that sceptics write what they write because they are funded by oil profits. They say, follow the money? So I did and it's chilling. Greens and environmentalists need to be aware each time they smear with an ad hominem attack they are unwittingly helping giant finance houses.

FOLLOW THE MONEYMoney for Sceptics: Greenpeace has searched for funding for sceptics and found $23 million paid by Exxon over 10 years (which has stopped). Perhaps Greenpeace missed funding from other fossil fuel companies, but you can be sure that they searched. I wrote the Climate Money paper in July last year, and since then no one has claimed a larger figure. Big-Oil may well prefer it if emissions are not traded, but it's not make-or-break for them. If all fossil fuels are in effect "taxed", consumers will pay the tax anyhow, and past price rises in crude oil suggest consumers will not consume much less fuel, so profits won't actually fall that much.

But in the end, everyone spends more on carbon friendly initiatives than on sceptics-- even Exxon: (how about $100 million for Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project, and $600 million for Biofuels research). Some will complain that Exxon is massive and their green commitment was a tiny part of their profits, but the point is, what they spent on sceptics was even less.

Money for the Climate Industry: The US government spent $79 billion on climate research and technology since 1989 - to be sure, this funding paid for things like satellites and studies, but it's 3,500 times as much as anything offered to sceptics. It buys a bandwagon of support, a repetitive rain of press releases, and includes PR departments of institutions like NOAA, NASA, the Climate Change Science Program and the Climate Change Technology Program. The $79 billion figure does not include money from other western governments, private industry, and is not adjusted for inflation. In other words, it could be…a lot bigger.

For direct PR comparisons though, just look at "Think Climate Think Change": the Australian Government put $13.9 million into just one quick advertising campaign. There is no question that there are vastly more financial rewards for people who promote a carbon-made catastrophe than for those who point out the flaws in the theory.

Ultimately the big problem is that there are no grants for scientists to demonstrate that carbon has little effect. There are no Institutes of Natural Climate Change, but plenty that are devoted to UnNatural Forces.

It's a monopsony, and the main point is not that the scientists are necessarily corrupted by money or status (though that appears to have happened to a few), but that there is no group or government seriously funding scientists to expose flaws. The lack of systematic auditing of the IPCC, NOAA, NASA or East Anglia CRU, leaves a gaping vacuum. It's possible that honest scientists have dutifully followed their grant applications, always looking for one thing in one direction, and when they have made flawed assumptions or errors, or just exaggerations, no one has pointed it out simply because everyone who could have, had a job doing something else. In the end the auditors who volunteered — like Steve McIntyre and AnthonyWatts — are retired scientists, because they are the only ones who have the time and the expertise to do the hard work. (Anyone fancy analysing statistical techniques in dendroclimatology or thermometer siting instead of playing a round of golf?)

Money for the Finance Houses: What the US Government has paid to one side of the scientific process pales in comparison with carbon trading. According to the World Bank, turnover of carbon trading reached $126 billion in 2008. PointCarbon estimates trading in 2009 was about $130 billion. This is turnover, not specifically profits, but each year the money market turnover eclipses the science funding over 20 years. Money Talks. Every major finance house stands to profit as brokers of a paper trade. It doesn't matter whether you buy or sell, the bankers take a slice both ways. The bigger the market, the more money they make shifting paper.

BANKS WANT US TO TRADE MONEY...Not surprisingly banks are doing what banks should do (for their shareholders): they're following the promise of profits, and urging governments to adopt carbon trading. Banks are keen to be seen as good corporate citizens (look, there's an environmental banker!), but somehow they don't find the idea of a non-tradable carbon tax as appealing as a trading scheme where financial middlemen can take a cut. (For banks that believe in the carbon crisis, taxes may well "help the planet," but they don't pay dividends.)

The stealthy mass entry of the bankers and traders poses a major force. Surely if money has any effect on carbon emissions, it must also have an effect on careers, shareholders, advertising, and lobbying? There were over 2,000 lobbyists in Washington in 2008.

Unpaid sceptics are not just taking on scientists who conveniently secure grants and junkets for pursuing one theory, they also conflict with potential profits of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, and every other financial institution or corporation that stands to profit like the Chicago Climate Exchange, European Climate Exchange, PointCarbon, IdeaCarbon (and the list goes on… ) as well as against government bureaucracies like the IPCC and multiple departments of Climate Change. There's no conspiracy between these groups, just similar profit plans or power grabs.

Tony Abbot's new policy removes the benefits for bankers. Labor and the Greens don't appear to notice that they fight tooth and nail for a market in a "commodity" which isn't a commodity and that guarantees profits for big bankers. The public though are figuring it out.

THE LARGEST TRADEABLE "COMMODITY" IN THE WORLD?Commissioner Bart Chilton, head of the energy and environmental markets advisory committee of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has predicted that within five years a carbon market would dwarf any of the markets his agency currently regulates: "I can see carbon trading being a $2 trillion market." "The largest commodity market in the world." He ought to know.

It promises to be larger than the markets for coal, oil, gold, wheat, copper or uranium. Just soak in that thought for a moment. Larger than oil.

Richard L. Sandor, chairman and chief executive officer of Climate Exchange Plc, agrees and predicts trades eventually will total $10 trillion a year." That's 10 thousand billion dollars.

ONLY THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE MATTERSUltimately the atmosphere is what it is regardless of fiat currency movements. Some people will accuse me of smearing climate scientists and making the same ad hominem attacks I detest and protest about. So note carefully: I haven't said that the massive amount of funding received by promoters of the Carbon Catastrophe proves that they are wrong, just as the grassroots unpaid dedication of sceptics doesn't prove them right either. But the starkly lop-sided nature of the funding means we'd be fools not to pay very close attention to the evidence. It also shows how vapid the claims are from those who try to smear sceptics and who mistakenly think ad hominem arguments are worth making.

And as far as evidence goes, surprisingly, I agree with the IPCC that carbon dioxide warms the planet. But few realise that the IPCC relies on feedback factors like humidity and clouds causing a major amplification of the minor CO2 effect and that this amplification simply isn't there.

Hundreds of thousands of radiosonde measurements failed to find the pattern of upper trophospheric heating the models predicted, (and neither Santer 2008 with his expanding "uncertainties" nor Sherwood 2008 with his wind gauges change that). Two other independent empirical observations indicate that the warming due to CO2 is halved by changes in the atmosphere, not amplified.[Spencer 2007, Lindzen 2009, see also Spencer 2008]

Without this amplification from water vapor or clouds the infamous "3.5 degrees of warming" collapses to just a half a degree — most of which has happened.

Those resorting to this vacuous, easily refutable point should be shamed into lifting their game. The ad hominem argument is Stone Age reasoning, and the "money" insult they throw, bounces right back at them — a thousand-fold.

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On March 1, there was a changing of the guard at ANZ Bank, when long-standing Chairman, Charles Goode, handed over the reins to John Morschel. The Australian reported that Mr. Goode's loss of $780,000 annual pay would be softened by some $8 million of ANZ shares accumulated over 15 years on the board and some $1.3 million in retirement benefits.

Timing is all-important. If he had retired one year ago, Mr. Goode's share portfolio would have been worth about half its current value, but, on the other hand, about 30 per cent less than it's worth before the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Interestingly, the ANZ share price is almost exactly what it was 5 years ago, before the latest boom and bust.


While it might be worthwhile asking the question what exactly did the Chairman of the ANZ Board do to deserve his not-inconsiderable annual remuneration and final pay-out given a fairly static share price? It would be churlish to pick on Mr. Goode alone.

For the Four Pillars of Australian banking, there have been many ups and downs in the last decade, unlike, it must be said, the regular increases in non-executive director remuneration, which, last financial year, averaged around $3.5 million per board. CEOs come and go but board members tend to have longer tenure, which is reasonable enough since they are responsible for directing long-term strategy. This means that most directors on bank boards have been around since before the GFC.

Advocates might claim that these directors have bravely steered their ships through turbulent times and hence deserve credit. They do, of course, deserve a pat on the back, but the state of the economy prior to the crisis and the actions taken by government during the crisis protected the banks from the financial tsunami that engulfed other financial institutions around the world. The biggest banks have been the beneficiaries of generous taxpayer guarantees, which incidentally also helped to drive smaller competitors out of the game. Board members can hardly take much credit for that?

On the other hand, the directors of the largest banks have overseen some howlers in the past decade, from the NAB Foreign Exchange fiasco, to the ANZ Opes Prime debacle, to the CBA Storm Financial storm and of course all of these boards were directly involved in the $1.7 billion settlement of the recent New Zealand tax evasion/fraud case. Hardly deserving of vast sums of remuneration?

If Boards only take praise for successes and do not take responsibility for failures, whom do shareholders turn to when their superannuation funds take a hit? No one it appears.

The issue of CEO pay is an extremely touchy subject that banking regulators are beginning, very slowly, to get to grips with, requiring a much closer link between remuneration given and risks taken. But who is monitoring director performance and who is looking at non-executive compensation versus risk taken by bank boards?

It appears no one, except the board members themselves - nice job if you can get it!

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The Productivity Commission's report on the not-for-profit sector has provided much food for thought for politicians, while they contemplate how they can best utilise a sector that has vast economic and social significance.

Not-for-profit organisations (NFPOs) employ eight per cent of the paid workforce, and contribute $43 billion to Australia's GDP. They cover everything from child welfare to social services, health, education, arts, sport, and housing.

It is no wonder politicians are taking an interest, much of the taxpayer's money ends up paying for these activities.

Government funds the not-for-profit sectors to the tune of $26 billion, but that's only a third of the cost. An astute politician might interpret this as a great deal - someone else is doing the work, and for every dollar spent you get three dollars of value.

In fact, the deal looks even better if add in 4.6 million un-paid volunteers. If we, as a nation, had to pay them, it would cost the tax-payer another $15 billion.

It seems curious then, that while politicians are taking an interest, they are not beating a path to the not-for-profit sector's door.

The United Kingdom was in a very similar situation in 1996. The then opposition, New Labour, used a similar report as the basis for its successful election manifesto which included the strap line of "Building the Future Together".

In stark contrast the incumbent Conservative Government responded to it with the "Rules of engagement". Labour won, and the Tories lost.

The use of the not-for-profit sector was very much in tune with Tony Blair's "Third Way". No longer was it a question of the state and the free market. Once in power New Labour formed partnerships with the not-for-profit sector and over the next ten years the sector doubled in size and New Labour benefitted from a similar multiplier achieving three pounds of value for every pound spent.

Many of New Labour's leaders were people who had worked or volunteered for charities and community organisations. They had on the ground knowledge and therefore confidence in their not-for-profit partners.

Accordingly the Government recruited leaders in this sector to work together on their new spending programmes including addressing youth unemployment and pre-school child care.

In contrast, the Productivity Commission report into NFPOs focuses on significant "known unknowns". Governments are notoriously reluctant to spend tax payers' money on things they know little about - they need evidence to justify public expenditure. It therefore seems logical that the Commission wants to develop a framework to systematically measure the contribution and impact of not-for-profit organisations.

The Commission also believes that the existing regulatory framework is ineffective and does not offer the levels of accountability required by either the government or donors.

To overcome this, the Productivity Commission suggests establishing a national registrar, and a single method of filing annual reports.

That also sounds like common sense. However 20 years experience tells me that poorly designed top down approaches will create new barriers to partnership and that ultimately the not-for-profit sector will not achieve its full potential.]

Firstly, NFPOs cherish their independence both from the state and the marketplace. They are the voice for many communities, and put the needs of the people they serve high above the demands of Government. They should therefore be treated as equal partners when Government is exploring solutions to social problems. They should also be treated like a good and trusted friend - the type of friend that you listen to when they are criticising you.

If consulted, NFPOs can help shape public services to deliver higher quality and more efficient services. Therefore Government has to develop effective ways of engaging with these organisations. By talking to them it can also learn a lot because these organisations represent voters, identifying and articulating the problems they face on the ground.

Secondly, NFPOs make unique and distinctive contributions because they can harness and combine resources which are not available to government agencies and business. This means that the standard metrics used by Government are inadequate.

For example, many NFPOs benefit greatly from the guidance freely provided by professional people and "experts" that sit on management committees and who often also invest some of their own wealth in these NFPOs. Labelling these people as volunteers is like categorising company directors and shareholders as workers.

Using a wage equivalent does not adequately capture the value of the organisational leadership these "volunteers" contribute.

The overarching learning from the UK is about the value of partnership and not using master and servant approaches. This suggests that the PC recommendations should be pursued by the politicians through a process of "co-production" - where the knowledge base is built on research with and not on NFPOs - and where regulatory mechanisms proactively involve NFPOs and all their stakeholders.

Every country is different but I believe that Australia can learn much from the UK's "successful" development of the not-for-profit sector. Australia now has a considerable advantage because it can build the knowledge base and regulatory framework using the latest web technologies which did not exist 10 years ago, these technologies will provide a platform for engagement, interaction and co-production with (and not on) the not-for-profit sector.

The challenge for politicians to chew over at Sunday brunch is therefore how to rapidly gain the knowledge they will need to partner with the not-for-profit sector and in doing so open up the potential to exploit the multiplier effect that the not-for-profit sector offers.

The task is made a little easier when you see the quality of the contributors to the Productivity Commission's report, which included many researchers and universities.

An astute politician may therefore look to these as a trusted go-between to develop knowledge and a mutually beneficial partnership with the not-for-profit sector.

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The Government's White Paper on counter-terrorism turned out to be not much more than some shiny new language during a week in which the Prime Minister was eager to distract attention.

While there is certainly a growing understanding of the inventiveness and adaptability of terrorists, too much of what we still do is reactively driven. The fulcrum upon which our domestic counter-terrorism approach rests on the hardening of the state's investigative and punitive powers ignorant to community programs aimed at addressing root causes.

The reality is that no one is born a terrorist and understanding terrorism is not the same as an understanding with terrorists.

Seeing terrorism as a learned behaviour or evolutionary progression is essential to understanding the root causes and progressing from viewing it as necessarily ideologically or religiously motivated - usually through scriptural ambiguities or messianic interpretations.

Terrorism emerges out of the relationship that an individual has with the wider society or milieu in which they live. Many learn their anger and the techniques for violence under the pretext of steadily escalating frustrations from feelings of political and social impediment.

Greatest emphasis should be placed on the importance of community-based programs involving police and other agencies as a way of building a reservoir of social capital by promoting inclusiveness and thereby limiting feelings of isolation or marginalisation.

These programs need to be sustained over long periods and directed at audiences which cross generational, religious, and gender divides. It is especially important that this is achieved in immigrant communities who may associate police and the wider bureaucracy with brutal and oppressive regimes.

The United Kingdom has already adopted this community philosophy for national security and it is gaining traction as they progress from a conventional international approach that has generally relied on 'hard' or 'exceptional' powers.

This is the direction in which Australia's counter-terrorism policy should be going.

Research from Monash University suggests multiculturalism in Victoria has been implemented differently and more successfully than in New South Wales. In Sydney, many social tensions generated by basic law and order problems are infused with a national security sub-text, with more young males retreating into belligerent and assertive identities as was evident with the Cronulla riots in 2005.

Muslim communities in Melbourne experience higher levels of employment, outward marriage, university entry and progression through the socio-economic strata into more fulfilling professions. A notable example is the marketing of the enclaves of Muslim identity in Melbourne to non-Muslims for dining or retail experiences.

The work of the Victorian Police Multiculturalism Unit is playing a part in this integration through programs such as placing Muslim girls in work experience roles out on the beat and the establishment of late night soccer tournaments for young Muslim males during Ramadan.

But more needs to be done.

Broadening the cross-cultural understanding of youth through the teaching of languages such as Arabic in our schools is one possibility. Expanding our teaching of values and religion is the logical extension of this.

Deterrent driven immigration camps with barbed wire should be finally scrapped in-lieu of community based placements. This would promote social inclusiveness with accompanying support services for individuals struggling to identify themselves within our Westernised culture and community.

Cultural festivals and other events should be embraced to aid our society's cross-cultural understanding. Religious ceremonies should become more ecumenical to confront religious vilification and discrimination within our society which is often attributed to a lack of cross-faith understanding. Furthermore, sporting events, especially in Sydney, should become less culturally secular with more lenient uniform codes in sporting clubs and schools to fully embrace traditional clothing without discrimination.

Unfortunately, the tough counter-terrorism legislation enacted under the Howard Government, including covert surveillance and secret intelligence gathering, continues to threaten to undermine these efforts to build links with culturally diverse communities.

Whilst the vast majority of communities have nothing to do with terrorism, the fact that some are alienated, often suspected and commonly targeted by official police and intelligence action as well as routinely harassed, leads to a sense of insularity.

If these powers are used in ways that are repressive or discriminatory, or in ways that are perceived to be repressive or discriminatory, they risk creating an environment conducive to the spread of terrorist sympathies. This dangerous potential also exists within values based initiatives such as citizenship tests and a more hardline nationalistic and patriotic approach to Australia's education, notably the history curriculum.

While the reasons for the spread of terrorism are complex and elude simple answers, a better understanding of the political psychology of terrorist violence and a greater willingness to incorporate that understanding into counter-terrorism policy approaches offers significant promise for better managing this threat.

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If you have an agonising pain in the middle of your chest, get to hospital - fast. As an instrument of high political drama, hospitals win.

Where does Gregory House MD do his bizarre and brilliant deeds as head of Diagnostic Medicine? Not in a community health centre and not even in a superclinic, but at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital!

For saving lives, easing pain, dealing with emergencies, curing cancer, fixing heart attacks, healing trauma and unravelling exotic diagnostic conundrums of the sort that 'Sherlock' House deals with daily, the hospital is the centrepiece.

So you would need to be a really dumb politician if you, too, did not go to hospital when you needed attention for your political flesh wounds and bruises.

Kevin Rudd's bravura presentation at the National Press Club lunch yesterday enabled him to begin to act to fulfill his promise to fix the hospital system. Since election, wisely and courageously in my opinion, he has established commissions of inquiry and encouraged wide public discussion about the future of the health system without 'doing things' as brainless activists advocate.

He has not jumped to hasty decisions. He has been carefully advised by his minister Nicola Roxon. He has gone on tour and spoken with patients and health care providers himself.

He is not reading a teleprompter. He knows the issues. But he also knows his politics and so started the path of reforming action with a good blast on the hospital horn.

The Australian Health and Hospital Network that he is proposing, a national entity to oversee the funding of the nations 760 or so public hospitals, is to have responsibility for allocating resources to hospitals, in continuing cooperation with the states (because they still pay for a third of the hospital costs and will have general oversight of their management).

He proposes changing the tax base for hospitals somewhat - an interesting move - by clawing back one third of the GST that currently goes to the states in return for accepting the kind of liability for future hospital costs that a majority shareholder has to accept.

He has used the third intergenerational report, rather as Peter Costello used the first, to beat up a storm about impending health costs as our population ages, using implausible scenarios based on continuing, unsustainable trends in health expenditure to allow him to rescue the state from financial extinction as a result of future health care costs.

To avoid this fate, it is clear that efficiencies will need to be brought in - not the let's-serve-the-patients-stale-devon-sandwiches-n-switch-off-half-the-hospital-lights variety, but the sort that follow from researching the most effective way to treat people, especially those with chronic illness who cost us 75 per cent of the health budget now, and then putting those insights into practice.

Far too many people end up in hospital being tested expensively when with good community care they could be at home, presumably watching House.

So Rudd's announcement about funding hospitals according to national standards makes great sense. It will prove difficult to do because the health system is a viper's nest of creeping and crawling competing interests. The blame game, whereby the commonwealth tries to pass responsibilities to the states and vice versa, is symbolic.

But it is by no means the full monty. There are the blame games played between managers and clinicians, between politicians and manager and clinicians, and between the private and public sectors.

Members of the proposed AHHN need to be of genius IQ with CVs that show how they were instrumental in negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, or finally reuniting all the disparate elements of Christianity into one happy ecumenical family.

But seriously, the non-financial functions - the quality assurance role and the quest for true efficiency that delivers better health without so much incredible waste - will be AHHN's tough tasks.

What else can we say after Wednesday's lunch? Rudd has promised a health reform agenda that is revolutionary, not incremental. He may well be right but I wonder if he realises what being right means? It means it will take a decade to get these changes bedded down, just as it did with Medibank/Medicare. This is a big and long deal.

Be ready for quakes if you tickle tectonic plates.

And beyond the hospital? The ideas floated on Wednesday about expanded community care, superclinics and better integration of community and hospital services all make excellent sense if we are to manage chronically ill people better - as we assuredly need to do.

There are no TV programs called The Preventivists or The Health Promoters and so don't expect to hear much about at future lunches. But note that the new federal agency has health and not simply hospitals in its title. Interesting things could happen.

Wednesday was about finance and governance. The feds are coming to a hospital near you with dollars. But there is a lot more to this reform agenda than meets the eye. As there should be.

Don't let House beguile you.

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Aboriginal people living in squalid camps and makeshift humpies cannot keep waiting indefinitely for new housing. Public housing cannot remain the only option in remote communities - the backlog in housing is simply too great.

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, has tried to put a positive spin on the work being done under the government's $672 million 'strategic' Indigenous housing program (SIHIP).

Yet, despite extensive consultation with Northern Territory communities the same tired designs are being recycled by white bureaucrats with no understanding of the way Aborigines live and no consideration for the 40 plus degree temperatures.

Two years ago, Northern Territory Housing Minister, Rob Knight, promised that under SIHIP design teams would take the Territory's outdoor lifestyle and climate into consideration.

But the new houses built in Wadeye do not reflect the local resident's wishes.

Residents have repeatedly said they want large verandas; outdoor living areas; and toilet access from outside.

Instead they get ugly grey rectangular boxes with bright yellow metal awnings - 'new' houses virtually identical to the old ones.

Residents of existing homes have also been ignored by the government, with recent refurbishments in Ali Curang falling far short of resident's expectations. Houses remain filthy and incomplete. New stainless steel benches have been installed but not much else, prompting concerns that the houses would fail to meet the standards of the Residential Tenancies Act.

Even more bizarre, given the chronic shortage of housing, is the fact that some refurbished and repainted houses have been left unoccupied for over a year.

Yet, while it is easy to criticise the much maligned SIHIP scheme finding workable alternatives to public housing in remote communities is much harder.

Private homeownership is undoubtedly the key to ending some of the housing shortages in Indigenous communities. But due to the communal nature of Aboriginal land, banks have been unable to provide financing for homes. Since there is no individual title, who owns the land and who is responsible for mortgage payments is not clear.

If residents of remote communities could access some of the 'dead' capital currently tied up in the communal ownership of land they could finance their own housing and decide for themselves what type of house they wanted. The new responsibilities inherent in homeownership could help break the cycle of welfare dependency and the over reliance exhibited by some on the government to meet their every need.

When she first came into government, Jenny Macklin argued that homeownership should be a choice available for all Australians. But she seems to have backtracked on this objective in favour of 40-year housing 'block' leases for public housing.

Converting communal land into individual title has proven to be a difficult and vexed issue. The 99-year township leases introduced by the Howard government drew a lot of criticism because the head-lease was held by the federal government and not communities. The perception of a 'land grab' meant that only the Tiwi Islands took up the option of a 99-year township lease.

However, creative thinking can get around these problems. The traditional owners of the Ilpeye Ilpeye town camp near Alice Springs have allowed the Australian Government to acquire their land and change the community lease to freehold title. Residents will finally be able to achieve the Australian dream of homeownership.

Unfortunately, this solution is not easily replicated in other communities where land rights legislation exists. Land trusts and councils hold land under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976 for the benefit of Aborigines entitled by tradition to use or occupy the land. Which means traditional owners from a number of different communities will all have to agree to some form of long-term lease arrangement.

This is difficult, though hopefully not impossible to achieve. In fact, the more public housing fails to deliver on government's promises the more attractive the idea of leases for private homeownership will become.

To date, empty words appear to be behind all the governments talk of homeownership. It is time for both government and traditional owners to get serious about implementing changes.

Carrying on with a business as usual approach will only continue the legacy of failure which has dominated Indigenous housing policy over the last 30 years.

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I'm increasingly of the view that the government, and indeed much of the classic 'environmental movement', are badly missing the point on climate change and energy security.

There's a lot of recent debate about whether an emissions trading system is the right model for putting a price on carbon - or whether a simple tax, or a fee-and-dividend model, would be better. We argue about whether climate change is happening, or if it's important, or whatever. Blah di blah.

There are also endless back-and-forth arguments about how much we need to cut our emissions by a given date, with no resolution. How many times have you heard an environmentalist cry "We must cut our carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2030 to avoid catastrophic climate change", only to have a politician or industry spokesperson say "Australia is taking an economically responsible course of action by aiming for a 5 per cent cut below 2000 levels by 2020". Who's right? How do you parse this?

The truth is that we can never be sure until after the fact. We can't be sure how hard we (and the rest of the world) must cut back on carbon emissions, and we don't know how fast we need to do it.

Current science says that humanity would be unwise to emit more than 1 trillion tonnes of carbon over the entire period of industrial civilisation, yet we've already used up about half of that long-term 'budget'. So, the sooner we start to cut, and the deeper we cut, the more likely humanity is to avoid really serious climate disruption and its many unpleasant consequences.

Further, we really don't know how fast or hard we CAN cut back, or how much this will cost. Sure, we can look at ways to increase the efficiency of our energy use, and we can consider the current economics of 'clean' (low-carbon) sources such as nuclear, wind and solar energy. But are these options scalable? Can we build them fast enough to replace fossil fuels and yet maintain a reliable electricity supply? Will the rest of the world follow our lead, even if we do succeed?

To have any hope of answering these questions, we need a realistic plan for implementation. Not just 'the market will fix it' dream, but an energy plan that achieves our desired goal, is likely to work in the real world (that is, it relies principally on established or demonstrated technologies), and is economically feasible. The plan then needs to be executed, via directed and sustained action.

Clearly, this will require bipartisan support - at least in terms of agreeing on the general need for implementation - even if the details are up for political 'fine tuning'. However, I'm confident that we can get agreement for reasons well beyond climate change - avoiding local and regional pollution, long-term energy security, avoiding peak-oil-related shortages and fuel price escalation, increased need for desalination and intensive agriculture to support a growing population, and so on.

What would such a plan look like? Well, I've certainly got one in mind, but it's probably rather different in detail to yours. Yet, disagreement doesn't mean that it isn't possible to get broad consensus on the desirable, pragmatic elements that are required for any workable plan.

First up, it can't bankrupt us. Actually, I'd go further than that. If we really want to guarantee that a plan will get majority support, it can't really afford to cost more than our current system. Here I'm reminded of a quote from a friend of mine, Californian entrepreneur Steve Kirsch:

"Pouring money into token mitigation strategies is a non-sustainable way to deal with climate change. That number will keep rising and rising every year without bound. The most effective way to deal with climate change is to seriously reduce our carbon emissions. We'll never get the enormous emission reductions we need by treaty. Been there, done that. It's not going to happen. If you want to get emissions reductions, you must make the alternatives for electric power generation cheaper than coal. It's that simple. If you don't do that, you lose."
Is it possible to find 'clean energy' alternatives that are cheaper than coal, oil and gas? Not immediately, no, but it should be possible - indeed, inevitable, when future supply constraints are considered - if we avoid unnecessary and unfair regulatory and investment burdens. I suspect that if a proposed plan requires massive, permanent subsidies to work (such as ongoing feed-in tariffs, purchasing mandates or energy certificates), it's probably a dead duck. Loan guarantees to kick-start private investment - which are not subsidies, but risk management aids - seem like one of the most effective forms of government intervention to making things happen.

Second, the plan must be logistically and technologically feasible. Massive transmission grids linking Australia to Asia to Europe might be a great concept, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon. Space-based solar arrays or fusion power are far distant prospects, probably well beyond our lifetimes. We need to get serious about what's here and now, or at least just on the horizon.

Finally, it must be technology neutral. All systems that meet certain underlying goals (low carbon, safe, able to effectively manage waste, sustainable, and so on) should be allowed to compete on a level playing field. A plan that says "no nuclear" or "no carbon capture and storage", or one that imposes severe regulatory burdens on some technologies but not others, is really risky. Why? Because there is a good chance that the cheapest and most efficient solutions will be ruled out on ideological grounds, or for short-term political convenience: always a bad idea.

My considered view is that nuclear power will end up forming the backbone of any effective real-world clean energy plan, but I'd be just as happy if other prospective technologies, such as concentrating solar power or enhanced geothermal systems, are able to take a major role.

Yet, even if you disagree with my plan (or anyone else's for that matter), you shouldn't seek to 'block' any qualifying technology. And if you wish people to take your plan seriously, you must be prepared to tell them how much it will likely cost, what sort of support it will need to be put into action, and consider its implications for electricity grid stability, energy storage and sustainability.

In short, real-world energy plans have to work in the real world. Does yours?

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I am as concerned as the next inner city liberal about right-wing militias in America.

The latest group to come to attention are the Oath Keepers: a militia made up of current and ex-military personnel and law enforcement officers who believe Barack Obama is on the verge of instituting martial law across the United States.

While I fear for President Obama and anyone working for a federal agency that these boys with guns will take matters into their own hands, I am neither surprised nor particularly shocked to hear of this latest movement.

Violent crackpots are hardly a new problem in the US. However, such groups often gain notoriety far beyond the reality of their power or how representative they are of the average American.

Oscar Wilde in a moment of moderation wrote: "English people are far more interested in American barbarism than they are in American civilisation."

In his play A Woman of No Importance one of Wilde's characters lampoons America asserting: "The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for 300 years."

This bon mot contains a strong element of truth: for a very long time every second scandal or violent act has been described as the breaking of American innocence (yes it is the case of the 400-year-old virgin!).

Wilde was essentially right on both counts: America is both civilised and barbarian and its youth is one of the most overplayed features of the nation. America is a vast land with 300 million people and, like in most places, some members of this populace are noble and some are serious fruitcakes.

Its innocence is a total myth - think of the treatment of Native Americans or African-American slaves, or the behaviour of scores of Scots-Irish immigrants who settled many a dispute violently.

Yet in modern times every new round of public irrationality or violence triggers shock and horror. This would seem to explain why so many people get excited over the madness of the "birthers" (the movement which believes Obama was born outside of the United States) and other assorted anti-Obama movements. And in our strange amnesic media world, American innocence is lost yet again and again in events such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the attacks on the Twin Towers.

The reason for this continuous ability to shock and disappoint is that, from the founding of the nation through to the latest Hollywood film, Americans have been excellent myth makers and propagators of the happy ending.

Think of the names of some of America's earliest towns: New Haven, Eden, Providence, New Hope, and New Jerusalem (shortened these days to New Jersey). Americans and non-Americans have lapped up these myths but not every new immigrant found it to be the land of milk and honey.

In his book Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens caustically satirised that in fact some would find it to be the land of swamps and sickness. Although a well worn literary trope "the unhappy immigrant" is an alternative reading - the mainstream story stars America as the land of opportunity and innocence.

In reality America is a land settled and conquered with great violence. It is also a land where the gun has special (although disputed) constitutional status. Given this history, surely the story of militias collecting a cache of weapons to supposedly defend the constitution and overthrow the federal government when it declares martial law should be seen as old hat with plenty of antecedents but this is not the case.

Instead such cases tend to be seen as a new phenomena provoked by a unique hatred towards Obama. However, any sense of American history should remind us that before the birthers were the Birchers in the 1950s, before the tea-party crowd was the Goldwater movement, and before the Oath Keepers were the Posse Comitatus and the Michigan Militia.

Of course in the case of the Oath Keepers it is disturbing that people paid by the government to defend Americans at home and abroad have formed a secret militia to overthrow the government if it becomes too powerful, too socialist (too "national socialist" to use their words), or unconstitutional.

However, although capable of terrible single incidents of violence, these angry young men are probably far less powerful than the rogue elements that existed within the CIA during the 1960s (think of the impact of anti-Castro extremists on American behaviour during this period). But I digress.

To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of these latest anti-government and anti-Obama movements - from the more extreme through to the tea party crowd - is the way they use the American Revolution and the US Constitution as their talismans and justifications in nearly any argument.

Americans are supposedly an onward and upward looking nation with little interest in history, a fact validated by Henry Ford when he said "history is bunk". However, the reality is contrary.

Like most nationalistic peoples history plays a very important role in the politics and identity of Americans.

Much of the anti-Obama crowd has an ultra-white view of history which looks back in yearning to America's glory days when it was a truly great land where apparently no one paid taxes, communities pretty much governed themselves, everyone had a gun but used it reasonably and people with names like Barack Hussein Obama born in Hawaii with an American mother and Kenyan father were entirely absent.

The best response to this right-wing fantasy version of American history is to remember America was never all that innocent and has been both civilised and barbarian and much that is in between since its birth as a nation.

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Australia's lucrative international education market is looking a little threadbare, like an expensive ball gown that hasn't been cared for properly, faded and worn, with loose strings in need of mending.

And who can possibly be surprised given we bought it off the rack, stuffed too many people in it, and then washed it in our old top loader and hung it out to dry? It never really dawned on us that we might need more space for this addition to the nation's multicultural collection, nor that it would require greater efficiency and accountability out of our old systems. So where's Australia's International Fairy Godmother to wave her wand over the embattled international education sector and turn it back from a stained and torn work dress to a fashionable frock of prosperity and cosmopolitanism?

Aside from the obvious offence of referring to Australia's diverse international student population as cash cows, there is also the fact that the metaphor misses the mark - it's more a case of the goose that laid the golden egg, as I once heard a certain faculty Dean say. Her point is valid, and one the sector and broader community need to carefully consider. It is in nobody's interest, clearly not the goose's, but also not universities' or private colleges', to allow the goose to starve to death or run off to more enchanting islands. Just as Australia has benefited for half a century from relatively high levels of immigration, which has led to a dynamic and diverse cosmopolitan society, so the constant flux of international students enriches our understanding of the world more broadly and our small place in it, as well as presenting daily challenges of how to live 'together-in-difference'.

And yet our ever-growing population, with addition of the temporary transnational population of international students, is stretching our most basic infrastructure to breaking point. Australia has an accommodation crisis, and the solution is not in furthering urban sprawl. In 2008, Melbourne's rental vacancy rate dropped as low as 0.3%, when a 'healthy' vacancy rate is said to be between 3 and 5%. People are offering above advertised rental prices to secure housing - never mind the legality of the practice. In the inner suburbs, a rental open house can attract as many as 100 interested potential tenants, and international students who arrive with no references, rental history or employment history in Australia are at the bottom of the priority list for landlords. But what can be done, we wonder, when locals are also facing cases of severe housing stress, as highlighted by the 2008-9 Student Housing Action Collective campaign in Melbourne, which saw a group of university students occupy four Melbourne University-owned terrace houses for 5 months in protest?

Monash University appears to be getting serious about assisting these students, who have kept the sector afloat in the wake of years of government under-funding of higher education, with a recent commitment to build housing for all first-year international students (and, presumably, also regional domestic students). But will others follow suit or will they simply continue to cry poor and blame the government? The constant blame-shifting is at the root of many of the issues facing international students, who meanwhile fall through the cracks in the system while those in positions to enact real change are too busy dodging responsibility. And housing is just the tip of the iceberg.

Exploitation of international students in Australia's workplaces is rife. The 20-hour work restriction is one of a number of complicated factors in what is a systemic problem. By refusing international students the right that domestic students have to work however many hours they require to survive, the government is exposing them to high levels of risk when they are forced to either find more work or starve or go homeless. Unprincipled employers prey on this vulnerable underclass, who have no mechanism to complain or defend their rights without jeopardising their visas.

The argument is frequently made that these students are here to study, not to work, and that lifting the restrictions would open the pathway to opportunists who are not genuine about their intentions to study in Australia. This claim elides the academic structures in place, and currently being strengthened via the Baird Review of the Educational Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Act, to ensure that students' academic progress is on track, with support and/or penalties in place for those who aren't 'making the grade', so to speak. This is an appropriate framework to deal with alleged abuse of student visas, not restricting a person's right to support him or herself if necessary.

Even those who work within their 20-hour allowance are all too frequently exploited in the workplace, where they cite employers' refusal to pay penalty rates for night and weekend shifts, and under award pay rates in the hospitality and retail sectors, with little understanding of the systems in place to protect their rights at work, or an unwillingness to seek such help. As one member said at a recent meeting convened by the Global Reconciliation Group to discuss the issues facing international students in Australia, unethical treatment of workers has been fundamental to supporting the suburbs through the global financial crisis. Where is Australia's collective belief in the 'fair go' in the face of these inequities?

The high costs of the capital cities' struggling public transport systems are another burden on students who come, often with a skewed idea of the cost of living here. Bad information from unscrupulous offshore education agents means international students all too frequently end up fitting double the number of permitted occupants into expensive rental properties, or living miles away from campus with a long commute exacerbated by full fare ticket prices. Additionally, their work, which is commonly piecemeal or shift work, exposes them to more night-time travel in higher risk suburbs than is usual for locals. That, combined with ever-present if minority racist elements of our society, is a dangerous cocktail, making international students much more likely targets for random street violence.

And so the Department of Immigration and Citizenship remains adamant that the 20-hour work restriction on student visas will not be lifted, while universities say they cannot afford to provide housing, which they argue is a 'non-core' service, and NSW and Victorian state governments refuse to offer concession travel to international (or postgraduate, in the case of Victoria) students. Meanwhile, NSW brings in some $7bn and Victoria some $5bn in revenue from international student fees, which the state governments claim they see none of, as it all goes to the universities, who say it's only fair since the federal government demonstrably underfunds the sector. Gillard's office is cited as 'deeply concerned' about the welfare of international students and awaits important reports on solutions to the plethora of issues, many of which will include very little in terms of a real mandate for improvement.

Strengthening the regulatory frameworks already in place to protect unknowing students from unscrupulous offshore agents, housing providers, and employers is essential, but is just one mechanism for transformation. Policing compliance is critical, and to date, has been conspicuously lacking. While the police are quick to issue fines to international students travelling without tram tickets, they are slow to pursue the perpetrators of harassment and discrimination in our cities. And while service providers allege innocence when their commission-based agents give misleading information to potential students, somebody must take responsibility for such wilful deception. The Residential Tenancies Act provides for some measure of protection for renters, but the burden is on tenants to be informed and willing and able to take action against a plenitude of suburban slumlords.

The final missing piece of this unravelling tapestry is national representation of Australia's 500,000+ international students. After the disgraceful takeover of the once highly effective National Liaison Committee for International Students in Australia (NLC) by an unscrupulous cadre of self-appointed officers, this vulnerable cohort has been left without an independent, representative voice. Whilst the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) and the National Union of Students (NUS) have been working with international students across the country to design and create a new independent body, government has progressed its many reviews with limited forms of student consultation, primarily with individual students such as those who applied for last year's Roundtable with the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) and were hand selected by DEEWR, rather than elected by their peers, and only later with CAPA and NUS's elected International Student Officers and Presidents.

If this is the brave new world of so-called Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU), then one must suppose that the Opposition's preferred model for stakeholder consultation is to choose those it would most like to hear from, which typically means those who will create the least fuss when things go wrong. I would respectfully suggest that too many of the nation's elected representatives of government have forgotten the very principles of taxation and representation. And while they pat themselves on the back for ridding the country of its so-called young Marxists and militant unionists, all the while claiming the frock is not really so tattered, we the people can see that the emperor wears no clothes.

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When I say the climate is changing, I do not mean, as many contributors to this site do, that anthropogenic global warming is destroying the planet. I mean that the politics of climate change is changing rapidly across the globe - most notably in Australia and the United States.

Whereas a few months ago, Ross Garnaut and Al Gore represented the conventional wisdom, today they're dissident voices in Canberra and Washington. Whereas once Liberals and Republicans were kicking against the trend, today conservatives have stolen the march in both Australia and the US.

And whereas once polls showed high levels of public support for saving the planet, today public support for costly policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions is collapsing on both sides of the Pacific.

What's happening? Why has the climate changed so dramatically in both nations that legislation to implement an emissions trading scheme - or, as the Americans call it, cap and trade - is doomed?

Several obvious reasons exist: the Climategate and IPCC scandals, which raise more legitimate doubts about the "settled science" of global warming; the Copenhagen fiasco, which showed how the flawed UN-Kyoto process gives more states veto power over collective action to solve global problems; the freezing cold northern winters, which reflect a decade-long trend in the flat-lining of the Earth's surface temperatures; and the EU experience, which has seen carbon emissions rise, the carbon price collapse and the ETS a victim of fraudulent traders.

But I suggest another explanation for the changing climate: opposition conservative politicians have had the gumption to question the Labor government in Australia and Democrat White House and Congress in the US over their proposals to legislate a flawed ETS.

By making the case against the Rudd and Obama climate agendas and spelling out the costs of a big new tax when rising polluters China and India won't follow our lead to reduce their carbon footprint, several principled Liberals and Republicans have changed the political atmosphere in Canberra and Washington to such an extent they now have a decent chance of making big inroads into Labor and Democrat legislative majorities this year.

Start with Australia. When the Garnaut Report was released more than 18 months ago, the accepted wisdom was that an ETS was a sure thing. It was deemed blasphemy for anyone, as my old boss Brendan Nelson quickly found out, to dare question Labor's grand ambitions. Kevin Rudd claimed that climate change was "the great moral, economic and social challenge of our time" and even indulged in conspiracy theories when he linked "climate change deniers" to "vested interests".

Meanwhile, the Liberals vacillated over the right response. When they finally established a policy under Malcolm Turnbull to back Labor's scheme, the party faithful revolted and the Liberal base crumbled. Throughout the process, the Coalition was badly trailing in the polls and heading towards electoral oblivion.

With Tony Abbott's rise three months ago, however, everything has changed. The new Liberal leader has not only subjected Labor's agenda to impose potentially crushing costs on business and consumers to some much needed scrutiny, he has also spelt out in the most forceful and coherent language the flaws of the ETS.

Today, the Coalition's direct-action strategy is far more popular than Labor's big tax that dare not speak its name, and government ministers are running away from a climate debate faster than Tiger Woods fled last week's press conference.

In early December, most commentators (not to mention Turnbull himself) predicted that Liberal opposition to the ETS would destroy the party at the next election. Today, without missing a beat, the same commentators say it is Labor that is in trouble over the ETS.

On the eve of the by-elections in Bradfield and Higgins in early December, other pundits predicted big swings against a Liberal party that had just rejected Labor's climate bills. Never mind that the Liberals had smashing victories in both seats.

The climate has also changed dramatically in the US.

Go back to 2008. As presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to slash carbon emissions to 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. His position reflected the prevailing wisdom in Washington. Al Gore's movie had been a box office smash and his book was a best seller. Top US corporations gave strong financial and moral support to the green cause.

Even Obama's Republican opponent John McCain championed a green agenda.

Today, however, the circumstances are very different. A climate bill which only caps carbon emissions at four-to-five per cent of 1990 levels by 2020, and with loads of subsidies and loopholes for the so-called big polluters, is stalled in legislative limbo, and there is every reason to believe the Senate will not pass it during this mid-term election year.

Wall Street is getting cold feet: late last year, the Chamber of Commerce withdrew its support for cap and trade, and this month leading corporations BP America, Conoco Phillips and Caterpillar defected from the US Climate Action Partnership, a pro-green business lobby group. The American people (and news media), moreover, rate climate change well below other pressing policy priorities, such as Afghanistan, health reform and reducing debt, deficits and double digit unemployment.

Although Obama this week made a last-ditch effort to link his climate agenda to incentives for nuclear power and the coal industry, the bill is dead. The reason is clear among conservative Republicans (and even many Democrats from states heavily dependent on coal and heavy industry): an ETS is economic pain for no environmental gain, especially when China and India keep chugging along the smoky path to prosperity.

It is precisely the same argument many conservatives here - Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Yours Truly -- have been making over the past 18 months.

American faith in the science of man-made global warming is almost in the minority - from 71 per cent a year ago to 51 per cent today, according to Gallup. (Intriguingly, in Australia, no recent credible polling of the science exists, but in Britain, the mood is even more pessimistic: according to a Guardian/Ipso Mori poll this week, the proportion of adults who believe climate change is a reality dropped by 30 per cent over the last year, from 44 per cent to 31 per cent.)

The point: like Canberra, Washington will follow the national interest as well as the electoral mood, and it won't be intimidated by the Ross Garnaut's and Al Gore's of the world.

It is clear that Labor and Democrat strategists - and indeed many political commentators - naively thought climate change would transform the political landscape.

People assumed that because the issue hurt John Howard in 2007, it would also hurt the Liberals in 2010 because they failed to support Labor's ETS.

But politics is never fixed; it is always in a state of flux. The only certainty is that the political climate always changes. And the wind, far from blowing conservative parties off the electoral map, threatens to turn into a perfect storm for both Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama.

The Rise of the Sceptics, a 30-minute film on the changing climate debate in Australia, runs this weekend on Our World on BBC World.

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Why are we in Afghanistan? Justifications for the war have long been a moveable feast, with the US and its allies providing an ever-changing list of reasons why the occupation must continue.

In the last week, however, we surely arrived at the nadir. For now we fight so as to overcome peace.

That is, a report in the Washington Post explained that the campaign to capture the town of Marja was driven not so much by any particular military objective but rather to convince sceptics to support the Afghan surge. A spectacular victory, it was thought, might persuade a doubtful public that the tide was turning, that they should give war a chance.

Then, a few days ago, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates launched an extraordinary attack on anti-war sentiment in Europe.

"The demilitarisation of Europe -- where large swathes of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it -- has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st," he said.

This new European peaceability could, he explained, embolden future enemies.
"…NATO is not now, nor should it ever be, a talk-shop or a Renaissance weekend on steroids. It is a military alliance with real-world obligations that have life-or-death consequences."

Given the context for Gates' remarks - the likely Dutch withdrawal from Afghanistan - the nature of those real world obligations was clear. The Europeans should beef-up their contribution, so as to convince the world of their willingness to fight.

The war in Afghanistan, in other words, is now less about Afghanistan and more about war.

That shouldn't be a surprise.

One of the key goals of the Afghan invasion was always to provide, in the wake of the 9/11 atrocities, a flashy demonstration of American military power.

That's why, in 2001, the US showed little interest in trying to insert a wedge between the parochial, tribal Taliban and the internationalist ideologues of Al Qaeda, despite the various offers to negotiate bin Laden's handover. The 9/11 attacks might have been planned and carried out by Egyptians and Saudis but policing operations against Al Qaeda there would not have sent the same strategic message. Afghanistan offered, by contrast, a theatre for a spectacular conventional war, and therefore an assertion of US might.

Or, at least, that was the idea. As it happened, the very poverty of Afghanistan contributed to the hardline neo-con determination to attack Iraq: according to the memoirs of counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, as early as 2001 Donald Rumsfeld was complaining that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which…had better targets.

With the ground war in Afghanistan underway, various other justifications came to the fore. From a fight against Al Qaeda, the conflict became, in quick succession, a struggle to liberate Afghanistan, a war for women's liberation and a war against drug production. The rise of the photogenic, well-spoken Hamid Karzai allowed the neo-conservatives to absorb Afghanistan into a narrative of free markets and democracies spreading throughout the region. As late as 2006, George Bush was lauding Karzai during a meeting as an apostle of democracy. "[The Afghan people] are inspiring others," the President explained, "and the inspiration will cause others to demand their freedom."

Since then, President Karzai has presided over one rigged election and is now laying the groundwork for another. That is, last week, he announced changes to Afghan electoral law to allow him to personally select the members of the electoral monitoring commission, thus removing any independent oversight from the forthcoming campaign.

As for women and poppy cultivation, Karzai supported an extraordinary law legalising rape in marriage and preventing women from leaving their homes without a man, and he's proved to have close ties with the drug lords (indeed, his brother is widely alleged to be one). Perhaps not surprisingly, the current Afghan government, a patchwork of tribal warlords from the Northern Alliance, has proved on most matters very similar to the previous Afghan government, a patchwork of tribal warlords from the Taliban.

That's why the most commonly heard defences for the NATO war are now quite different. We must stay and fight, the argument goes, to ensure that Afghanistan doesn't become a training ground for terrorists. In Britain, the 'we fight them there so we don't have to fight them here' chorus grew after the 7/7 subway bomb attacks; in Australia, it was the Bali bombings that produced the same effect.

Again, though, it's not a terribly convincing case. Most security experts now recognise that Al Qaeda has a greater presence in Pakistan than Afghanistan, while the 'underpants bombing' attempt last Christmas highlighted the obvious fact that there's no shortage of other countries where would-be terrorists could undergo training. In any case, the 7/7 bombers were British; militants in Indonesia are far more influenced by events in their own country than the nature of the regime in Afghanistan.

Most fundamentally, these days Al Qaeda exists less as a disciplined army of super villains than as a name and a vague set of slogans that local jihadists can adopt to their own purposes.

In fact, the hollowness of the security argument becomes apparent as soon as you think specifically about the withdrawal of the Dutch. Is it at all plausible that the impoverished Pashtun tribesmen fighting for the Talban will somehow now flock to Amsterdam to fight the Dutch at home? Does anyone think that ordinary people in the Netherlands will actually be more at risk if their troops aren't fighting in Afghanistan? Given that, to date, some fifteen Dutch soldiers have been killed in action, is it not much more likely that pulling out will lead to a dramatic reduction in Dutch deaths?

Indeed, the most severe consequences are likely to come from an entirely different quarter, as Robert Gates' speech implied. If the Dutch make good on their threat, there will be diplomatic repercussions from a US determined to stamp out any enthusiasm for peace

Precisely because the US entered into Afghanistan to demonstrate its power, it cannot now easily get out, since anything less than a spectacular victory would seem an admission of weakness. For that reason, it cannot countenance its allies withdrawing either, since cracks in the coalition cause political problems and place strain on US capacity.

So that's where we're at.

The war has become its own justification, with military operations launched so as to win support for future military operations, and a popular aversion to military force specifically seen as a bad thing. Robert Gates went so far as to denounce the NATO member states for spending insufficient resources on defence: even in crisis wracked Europe, it still should be guns before butter.

'For what can war but endless war still breed?'

Thus the Afghan conflict necessarily raises John Milton's famous query. And there's another, less rhetorical, question that follows. How much longer will we put up with this?

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The draft of the K-10 National Curriculum represents a significant improvement in large-scale online policy participation on an issue of wide appeal. And the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) have provided a model that surpasses all previous attempts at using the Net to facilitate public involvement.

The draft curriculum consultation has been well-marketed and May 23 provides a reasonable time-frame for the participation process. This is a great start.

But the policy process is a difficult beast to tie down. Some see it as a cycle where a policy problem and possible solutions are identified, followed by implementation, feedback, evaluation and revision. In a perfect world, the policy cycle enables continuous improvement to our collective approaches in dealing with society's challenges. But it is not a perfect world.

Others view the policy process as a chaotic political debate where interested parties compete to influence what does (and does not) get onto the policy agenda. Once an item is on the agenda, then political chaos continues until enough momentum is harnessed to get a new policy across the line. Often, policies emerge from this process barely resembling their beginnings.

In an online world, the potential number of participants, the ability to hide personal details and to generally increase the amount of feedback on a draft policy sends the chaotic nature of the policy process into over-drive. Given the current online environment, chaos is something that any government agency needs to minimise if online policy participation is to be more than just a placebo for those who want to feel like they are involved.

For example, the online world was recently beset by anonymous cyber-vandals, challenging the legitimacy of new media as a meaningful way to engage in public debate. Anonymity and easy access did not lead to positive outcomes. But it seems - amidst these challenges - that the ACARA has got it right.

One feature of the National Curriculum website I like is that it requires participants to provide their personal details and to login to view the content. Feedback can be published anonymously, but at least there is some back-end accountability for how people participate. It is one thing to have an opportunity to engage in public debate; quite another to say whatever one likes in a public process without being personally accountable.

Others might suggest that this is a bad thing. But I am fast being converted to the idea that if anyone is going to participate in public life, then their identity should be clear. Indeed, the anonymity of the Net is not as self-assured as it once was, as an 'anonymous' Perth reputation-slammer recently found out.

Conversely, recent attempts to restrict political comment by bloggers in South Australia were quickly terminated by a backlash of public opinion. But is political blogging the same as policy participation? I think not.

I argue that political blogging is more about the debates that occur before and after an item finds its way onto the policy agenda. But once an item is on the agenda, and indeed is about to be implemented, the rules need to change. Political bloggers and anonymous commentators can influence policy implementation and voters' decisions, but it makes little sense how anonymity is helpful when engaging in participation that is supposed to be meaningful.

It is one thing to live our private lives publicly (to paraphrase something I heard on the radio recently about social media), and another to actually participate in public life. Facebook are dealing with this problem right now.

But surely participation implies that others know who they are actually engaging with?

It might be appropriate for anonymity during the early stages of the policy cycle where a solution is being sought to a policy problem, but once an item is firmly being addressed by a particular policy, it makes little sense why anonymity should be necessary to take part in public debate.

Voting, surveys and opinion polls are obviously a different matter. And of course journalism and 'the fourth estate', as means of keeping governments in check, should not be confused with direct policy participation.

Clearly, there is a time and place for anonymity in the policy process. And there is certainly some way to go in enabling greater participation in deciding which policy problems find their way onto the policy agenda.

But now that the National Curriculum is approaching the implementation phase, the way in which the draft can be searched, commented upon and rated as one explores the document should be regarded as the benchmark for online policy participation. Participants can provide simple or detailed feedback on specific portions or the entire document via an interface that is not too difficult to navigate.

In short, the draft National Curriculum consultation provides a useful working model on how governments should facilitate public input on important policy issues. For me, the ability to search for particular issues quickly allayed my fears of government-mandated ideas infiltrating primary and secondary education.

Specialists and teachers may have a different view, but there is plenty of scope to target areas of concern without the expertise required of earlier attempts at citizen engagement.

While the online model for participating in the policy process appears to be sorted, it will be interesting to see whether this public consultation is more than just an elaborate placebo.

What ACARA actually does with the feedback remains a part of the chaotic nature of the policy process; an issue far removed from merely facilitating online policy participation.

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Let's get this straight: I don't really like sport. I have, however, watched heaps of it due to the fact that I live with a man who doesn't willingly surrender the TV remote - ever - unless it's because I want to watch sport. Which I don't. Ever. But thanks to The Bloke's remote control fascism I've seen just about every competitive sport on offer, including hotdog-eating and American lingerie football.

The hotdog-eating competition culminated in a tie which then required something called a five-dog eat-off (which sounds like a cross between an RSPCA matter and something you'd expect to see on the Adult Channel) and I've been unable to look a footy frank - or a schnauzer - in the eye again since.


The American lingerie football match was like the film Any Given Sunday meets a Bras'n'Things catalogue (although if I'd watched it in fast-forward I'm pretty sure it would've been just like an episode of Benny Hill) and it's the first time I've ever known garters and tassels to be part of an official team uniform.


Ridiculous? Yes. But they're true-dinks sports (and you, too, could be forced to watch them if you are married to a man who once began a conversation with the phrase "Let me tell you a story about the greatest dim sim I ever had.")

At the behest of The Bloke I watched a great deal of the Winter Olympics and because I respect you I can't actually repeat what I said when he told me about the recent push for Olympic pole dancing. Seriously - and this just after I'd just seen a guy win a gold medal while snowboarding in what appeared to be a pair of jeans.

Thousands of people have apparently signed an Olympic pole dancing petition, but I'd argue that it's not a real sport if you can do it on your buck's/hen's night. Think of it this way: you don't see drunk men and women attempting archery or luge.

According to Ania Przeplasko, founder of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association: "There will be a day when the Olympics see pole dancing as a sport" but to paraphrase an Aussie film icon, someone should tell her she's dreamin'. The day the IOC recognises pole dancing as a sport will be the same day they recognise nose-picking as one. Sure they're both activities that require a specific set of skills but would your mum be proud if you won gold?

I'm not ignoring the fact that in recent times, pole dancing has become more of a mainstream activity. But I refuse to support Przeplasko's assertion that "The Olympic community needs to acknowledge the number of people doing pole fitness." Do they really? Lots of people pull bongs too, but that doesn't mean they should be given the chance to do so for their country.

And just so you know: yes, I have seen pole dancing. Real pole dancing done by real professionals who looked as expert and athletic as any Olympic gymnast. But the trolley-boy at my local supermarket is also agile and muscular and I don't see anyone drawing up a petition to send him and his occy-straps to London in 2012.

Besides, Olympic pole dancing poses too many questions. Would they tuck the gold medal into the winner's g-string during the medal presentation? Would the Chinese put forward competitors who are clearly underage? Who would Channel Nine get to do the commentary? (My money's on Shelley Craft, or maybe Richie Benaud just for the hell of it.) And would it be a female-only competition (like synchronised swimming) or would men also get the chance to work a pole (like at Mardi Gras - yes, I said it. Feign outrage now.)

One thing's for certain: if pole dancing does make it to the Olympics, the only way I'll be able to get out of watching it is if I "accidentally" blow up the TV remote…

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Last week I took part in a debate entitled "The Great Residential Housing Debate - the next Bubble or a legitimate Boom?" at the annual conference for Perennial Investment Partners; I put the Bubble case and Chris Joye of Rismark International presented the Boom case (here is my paper and my presentation). As is well-known, Australia is one of the few countries in the OECD not to experience two quarters or more of falling GDP as a result of the GFC, and probably the only country that has not experienced a fall in its property market.


The conference was held twice, firstly in Melbourne on Wednesday February 24th, and then in Sydney on Friday 26th. There were roughly 400 people in the audience on both occasions, all of whom were customers of Perennial - with the majority (roughly 75%) being financial planners. The conference employed an electronic voting mechanism that let participants answer general questions, as well as rate the speakers. In our debate, it was used to work out where people stood on the "Bubble vs Boom" spectrum both before and after the debate. A "1" indicated a complete Bear who expected property to crash and advised getting out now, while a "10" was a complete Bull who advised "Buy, Buy, Buy".

Prior to our debate in Melbourne, the average score was 4.9. This surprised me, because I expected the audience to be generally pro-property; however a score of below 5.5 indicated that overall the audience was bearish on property (since the average of the ten numbers from 1 to 10 is 5.5).

After our debate, the score was 5.2 - a small move in favour of the bullish position, but still slightly in the bearish camp. Chris commented that this was "about even" and "too close to call" as he left the stage, which I thought was a fair enough summary of the outcome.

So I was stunned when Crikey asked me to respond to the report Chris had given them of the Melbourne debate ("Reflections on Cage Match Mk 1"), which included the statements that:

"So I think I pretty comprehensively monstered Steve Keen at our debate in Melbourne yesterday. That was certainly the feedback from those who attended (there were 500)... While I felt I was able to intellectually tear Steve apart limb-by-limb, I will say this: he is a lovely guy. Very diplomatic and humble in defeat..."; and

"Unfortunately, the electronic scoring in yesterday's debate was a bit convoluted: it measured the shift in the audience sentiment from bearish (Steve) to bullish (Chris) before and after the event. On that basis, I won. But I think a simpler Chris versus Steve voting system would have made the difference much more striking..."

Huh? The rest of the post was of a similar vein - though there were occasional caveats such as "As I noted in my presentation, Steve has made some valid criticisms of conventional economics, and its neglect of debt capital market imperfections. And he deserves some kudos for anticipating a credit crisis" (gee, thanks!), even this was immediately followed by "But whatever strengths he possesses are overwhelmed by his propensity to make silly statements."

I had no intention of commenting on the debate prior to seeing this hit a national news site, but of course this couldn't be ignored - though at the same time it didn't deserve to be taken seriously. So I took a facetious approach - opening my reply with "I don't know what Chris consumed after our talk at Perennial's conference yesterday, but if he has any spare I'd like to try it at a party tomorrow night", and concluding with the advice to Chris that, "Next time, after a conference, don't consume anything, just take a cold shower" (I also pointed out the statistical fact Chris apparently missed, that the middle point in scores from 1 to 10 is not 5, but 5.5).

Chris took this rejoinder very well - despite our fundamental differences over this issue, we get on well personally, and unlike some participants in this debate, he does have a sense of humour.

And so we proceeded to Sydney. There the audience was slightly less bearish than in Melbourne: the average score prior to the debate was 5.3, just slightly below the neutral level. But after the debate, there was a significant shift towards the Bear case. The post debate score was 4.6.

Chris had made the classic mistake of declaring victory at half-time, only to get a cold shower with the full-time result.

Chris in part attributed doing poorly in Sydney to a couple of personal mishaps that morning prior to the debate - and he did say that he expected not to speak as well as in Melbourne before the debate in Sydney took place. That would certainly have been a factor.

One other factor may be that I developed the numerical example used in this DebtWatch Report after the Melbourne conference. That gave the Sydney audience a clearer idea of why debt-deflation matters - and why the servicing cost of debt, which Chris insists is not high, is not the main problem with a debt-driven economy.

Of course, I dispute the argument that debt servicing costs are not particularly high today. As the next chart shows, even though the RBA's rate cuts have reduced the cost substantially from its peak, interest payments on mortgages in Australia today consume 7.5% of household disposable income. This is 1.65 times the average from 1976 till now.


Yet this "average" itself is almost as high as the debt servicing costs in 1990, when mortgage rates were an astronomical 17% - 2.5 times as high as today's rates. The primary driver behind this extreme rise in debt servicing costs is the factor Chris loves to ignore, the ratio of mortgage debt to income. This is more than five times larger today than it was in 1990 (130% of household disposable income versus 25% in 1990).

In Sydney, the audience was advised (after our debate) to make a large change to its previous number if they were persuaded one way or the other; this may have made the final swing larger in Sydney than Melbourne.

Finally, Chris later argued later that financial planners are inherently bearish on residential property, since they want to advise people to get into stocks instead. That is an argument that I would prefer to take with a grain of salt. Whether that is true or not as a general proposition, it appears that the people "Mum and Dad investors" might rely upon for advice about where to put their speculative dollars are on average telling them not to put them into residential property, which is the opposite advice to that one sees regularly in the Australian media today (sourced from commentators who clearly have no pecuniary interest in whether house prices rise or fall...).

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The nomenclature may have changed to avoid confusion but the Australian Curriculum sets out an ambitious national direction for history education.

From the practitioner's point of view, the most striking element of the draft curriculum is the volume of content that is aimed to be covered from Kindergarten to Year 10. By the end of primary school, mainly in years 3 - 6, students will have essentially covered the entire history of Australia including the history of first peoples, colonisation, federation and the cultural and social importance of national celebrations.

Having lofty expectations of students is not to be frowned upon. Students will have little trouble comprehending the stories associated with these histories but whether they will have the skills, or the time to develop the skills in order to understand these issues and events fully is questionable. And this is where the problem remains - too much content and covered at a superficial level will be the death of the subject.

Whilst the 'world history' approach (placing Australian history within a world history context where applicable) is sophisticated and commendable, the same problem exists at secondary level where it is planned that students undertake a series of so-called 'in depth' studies in the midst of a vast range of content.

For example, at Year 10 level, students will be expected to learn, and teachers to effectively teach, a history of nearly every major event of the twentieth century including the World Wars, The Great Depression, social and cultural movements all within 80 hours - a time allocation that has yet to be officially endorsed by the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs. It seems unlikely that this content can be covered in a way that the integrity of the 'world class' curriculum will be maintained or even realised at both primary school and secondary school levels as outlined in the rationale and aims of the curriculum document.

The volume of content to be covered was raised in earlier consultations with the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), but this concern does not seem to have been addressed fully in this draft. The promise that the draft would be accompanied by some annotated work samples has not been delivered. There are substantial concerns of the History Teachers' Association of Australia that the courses are not going to be feasible in light of a 2011 delivery - if there is little dedicated support for professional associations, education authorities and teachers to implement the Australian Curriculum one can assume that a fragmented approach to curriculum will remain.

Integral to the delivery of this Australian Curriculum though, of course, is the skills, interest and expertise of teachers themselves. The History Teachers' Association of Australia has argued continually that teacher training needs to qualify teachers who have the academic background and/or recreational interest in the discipline in order to deliver such rich courses. There is no use having a curriculum that endeavours to instil complex knowledge and skills without the expertise of professionals to teach it.

This is a draft document and therefore, in theory, has the capacity to be improved upon. No doubt, or at least hopefully, the support that classroom practitioners will need to deliver this program will also be more fully developed by the time the final draft is released.

The public are invited to provide feedback on all of the curriculum documents. The consultation website officially closes on 23 May 2010.

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In 1984, Patrick White was asked to lend his support to the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The nation's most dignified poof angrily declined. Even hopping mad, the great man of letters couldn't bear to end a sentence with a preposition. "A lot of screaming queens in Oxford Street will not help the cause for which we shall have to fight," he wrote. Imperfect grammar was a thing up with which he would not put.

I am powerless to maintain White's deference to the rules of English. His disdain for Mardi Gras, however, is something I can easily replicate.

It was not always so.

When I was very young, I marched in the parade. Back then, I didn't agree with White at all. Back then, I used words like "visibility" and "pride" and thought of myself, and the Mardi Gras, as a radical challenge to sexual identity.

Back then, it was.

Now, I am forty. And, people of forty tend to weigh the era of their youth unfavourably against the present. You've heard it before: the drugs were better; the music was better; man, the activism was so much better In My Day.

Back in My Day, by which I mean the 1990s, this parade of leather and labia had a purpose. An in-your-face demonstration of desire and esteem was sorely needed in the years when HIV was still known by conservatives as The Gay Plague.

Back then, Mardi Gras screamed: we're here, we're queer, get used to it.

The thing is: everyone got used to it.

This is not, by any means, to suggest that queer people have an easy time of it. We don't. It's been less than a year since a few dozen laws were revised to give my partner and I the approximate legal standing of a straight de facto couple who met in the pub last Tuesday. And, these amendments didn't translate to acceptance of the thing people will not stop calling my "lifestyle". I won't descend into a More-Oppressed-Than-Thou litany because, frankly, I'd bore myself stupid. I find pity as tedious and hollow as the word, "lifestyle".

So, although few have learned to accept the horror of my "lifestyle", many have become very used to Mardi Gras. Everyone knows the reliable imagery of dykes on bikes and hairy bears. Everyone in the western world has seen this spectacle to the degree that they are now blinded to its potency.

There is no longer anything radical about a man weaving up Oxford Street in a pair of reinforced high heels. There has been nothing confronting about a gang of gruff Lesbians on Yamahas in years. You can see this stuff in PG movies. The floats haven't changed in twenty years and nor has the activism that underpins the now pointless ritual.

Of course, if one suggests this to a Gay with a Lifestyle, one will hear two possible answers.

The first is, "It's harmless fun!"

I'd tell Mr Lifestyle he's wrong. For a minute or two on Saturday, I watched Mardi Gras on the telly. And there was another inane drag queen vomiting her fluorescent words direct into the lap of the "straight" population. Here was a little monkey giving mum and dad their dependable dose of Gay. This qualifies as harmless fun only if the sum of our queer hope is to be yanked back into a Danny La Rue chorus line.

The second is, "What about the gay kids it will save from suicide!".

I'd tell Mr Lifestyle that any kid who doubts their normalcy these days will simply Google "special new feelings" rather than waiting for an annual parade. Further, the spectacle of Go-Go Boys in hotpants riding through Darlinghurst on an inflatable phallus is unlikely to be the difference between life and death.

Once, Mardi Gras and gay activism did mean the difference between life and death. Once, leather queens and men in nuns' habits and women unafraid to cut their hair short did provide an immensely potent symbol. Now, they look like the artefacts of a historical society.

Gay culture has to take on board some blame. I don't know which Career Homosexual it is so intent on breathing life into the fossils of a radical past, but I'd like his email address so I could tell him that I disapprove of his Lifestyle.

In electing to stay with the imagery of the past, Mardi Gras fails to appear as radical within the broader culture. With these seventies blow up penises and mincing queens, it also fails to appear as "normal" within the broader culture.

None of this would matter if Mardi Gras did not also fail us queers.

Wed to a very fixed sexual identity, Mardi Gras, and gay activism in general, does not have a great track record with transgendered or intersex people. Without a pre-fab, Mardi Gras approved sexual identity, forget about representation that matches the intensity of your struggle. As for us bisexuals, they, like our parents, would much rather we just make up our minds.

No one, from my experience, is better at discrimination-on-grounds-of-sexual-orientation than The Gays.

Mardi Gras and its ready supply of easy-to-identify fags and dykes is so shopworn. It's time for a stocktake sale.

Does anyone want to buy an inflatable phallus?

Perhaps it could double as a headstone at the plot of Patrick White.

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Last Wednesday night a large group of online-organised Australians went down to their local curry restaurant and Vindaloo'd Against Violence, hoping to publicly condemn recent violent attacks against Indians in Australia that some say were racially-motivated.

Several observers of the event thought that it was a pointless stunt - and it certainly is pointless as far as preventing attacks or tackling racism goes - but I reckon there was an important point: the message it transmitted to Indians via the world's media.

To understand why such a message is so important we must first try to understand why tensions are high in the first place, and I reckon it all comes down to the differences between our two cultures.

A few weeks ago, at the end of a two month visit to India, I was in Hyderabad flicking through television channels when I happened across a local 24-hour news channel reporting on the violent attacks. Footage flashed across the screen of a Melbourne suburban train carriage through a CCTV camera, in which a group of young males were jumping over seats to attack a group of darker-skinned males. Although the picture was grainy and washed-out, the violence was in high definition; one of the attackers was kicking a victim in the head and others seemed to be punching the same target in unison. After a while, one of the attackers broke off, turned his back to the carnage, walked towards the camera, and revealed to millions of Indian television viewers his young, white, smiling face.

It was only on viewing this footage outside of Australia that I realised how desensitised we are to such incidents and images back home; as a Melburnian watching this snippet through Indian eyes I felt sick to my stomach. Two months out of the country had softened me to Australia's culture of violence and the culture of drinking that feeds very strongly into it. In Australia, evening news bulletins are full of stories of robberies, bashings, shootings and other things to which we have become so accustomed that we grumble about but grudgingly accept as part of life. While there is undoubtedly a violent side to India's traditional culture (which continues to this day, largely unreported), for such a large urban population there is proportionally very little violent crime. A bashing or two a week in the papers is just business as usual for us, but in India it's very big news.

But even taking into account the differing levels of violence there has undoubtedly been a gross and simplistic over-reaction in India to the attacks. This is partly due to the beliefs that many Indians hold about Australia and themselves, and partly due to the way that Australia has publicly responded to the violence.

Australia and India are two very different countries indeed. Australia's larger towns and cities embody the "cultural melting pot" cliché, comprising people from all walks of life who largely go about their day-to-day business without friction. India's population, however, is diverse only in terms of sub-strands of Indian people and a smattering of other south-east and central Asians, with white, non-tourist people being quite rare. Many Indians do not understand that an Indian student in Melbourne, amongst thousands of other non-Anglo Australians, is far more anonymous than an Australian could be in Chennai, and naturally assume that their prominence attracts unwanted and violent attention.

This is not helped by something that a letter-to-the-editor writer in the The Hindu, responding to the Indian media and public's over-reaction to the violence, summed up as "a persecution complex carried over from a colonial past". Indians are highly sensitive about the place they occupy in a modern, globalised world, and this attitude is obvious in some of the more hysterical claims of targeted and malicious racism.

Confusing matters further, the two nations' attempts to discuss this matter have mostly been lost in translation. Our meaningless Western corporate-speak, so beloved of politicians and public servants such as police chiefs, simply doesn't fly in India where the use of English tends to be blunter and more sensationalised. Things would've been so much simpler if Indians had turned on their TVs and heard an Aussie cop or politician just say in simple, unambiguous language that Australia won't tolerate the violence and will do everything it can to stop it. Full stop. Attempts at qualifications and statistical weaselling only give (quite understandably) the impression that Australia does tolerate the violence and has better things to do than stop it. Mind you, when Australia needs to constantly defend itself against furious and absurd accusations of national racism it's understandable that Simon Overland and Julia Gillard err towards defensiveness.

There seems to be little doubt that at least some of the violent attacks against Indians in Australia have been racially-driven, and Australia - just like any other country - has its fair share of racist people, but Australia is no more a country of racism than India is a country of over-reaction. So if a bunch of Aussies stuffing themselves with naan and Kingfisher beer gives the consumers of Indian media a little more faith that Australia is not an inherently racist and anti-Indian country, and consequently improves relations between our two nations at such a sensitive time, then mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned.

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Israel is a protected species in the international arena. Many Western states, including Australia, have long tolerated behaviour by the Jewish state that is condemned if committed by any other democracy.

This reality makes the current scandal over the alleged Mossad hit last month in Dubai of a senior Hamas operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, all the more fascinating. The Palestinian militant may be dead but Israel's reputation and credibility have taken a severe beating. The Israeli press are reporting that up to a third of a key Mossad hit squad may have been compromised.

Australia has a long history of bi-partisan support for the Jewish state but I can't recall another time when the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have expressed such public outrage over Israel's apparent use of Australian passports to cover their tracks in the Dubai murder. This is despite a Jerusalem Post columnist insisting that, "it behoves Western democracies not to lose sight of the fact there are instances in which ends do justify means".

In this case, Australia apparently does not agree. Smith said he told Israel's Australian ambassador, Yuval Rotem, that, "if the abuse of Australian passports was in any way sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials, then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend." Rudd was equally indignant though refused to specify what action might be taken if Israel did not co-operate. Senior ministers in both the ALP and Liberal party were equally vague on ABC's Lateline on Friday.

Perhaps an early indication of Canberra's anger was seen in a vote in the UN last week that saw Australia abstain from backing Israel against the serious allegations contained in the Goldstone Report related to allegations of war crimes in Gaza. This is a change from months of unqualified backing for Israel's onslaught against Gaza in late 2008/early 2009.

The headline of an article by Sydney Morning Herald journalist Peter Hartcher summed up the mood: "Betrayed PM should not be taken for granted by Israel". The Age's Diplomatic Editor Daniel Flitton argued that, "a long friendship is on the line".

Not so fast. Canberra is apparently upset that Israel has abused its deep friendship. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government probably presumed that a strong ally such as Australia would be unfazed by the abuse of its passport system or more likely hoped it would never become public. An Israeli official, anonymously of course, told the conservative Washington Times that the revelation of Mossad's behaviour in Dubai would not affect intelligence sharing between Israel and the West.

But a former Australian Middle East ambassador, Ross Burns, is pleasantly surprised by the Rudd government's strong line. It is time, he writes, that Australia matures and gets past its "smitten" love affair with the Jewish state.

It is possible that Australia will briefly downgrade its relationship with Mossad, as Canada did after the botched assassination attempt in 1997 of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal using fake Canadian passports, but backing Israel for Australia is too central to its complicity with the US alliance to seriously question or radically change.

A better example may be New Zealand in 2004, when then Prime Minister Helen Clark discovered Israeli agents trying to steal the country's passports and suspended diplomatic relations until an apology was forthcoming.

Countless reports have emerged over the years of Israeli allegedly using Australian passports as cover for covert activities but successive Australian governments have never fully pursued the leads. The public should ask why.

The Australia/Israel relationship is not based on shared values, as constantly stated by the elites in both countries. Instead, Canberra's usual blind backing of Israeli actions is directly related to the relationship with Washington. If US President Barack Obama suddenly cut all aid to the Jewish state due to its intransigence, rest assured Australia would follow. Our foreign policy in the Middle East is not independent.

But there is no doubt that Kevin Rudd, like most Prime Ministers before him, view Israel as a unique state deserving special privileges. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser said on the weekend that Rudd must take a much harder line on Netanyahu.

The Holocaust could no longer be used to justify acts of terrorism in the name of supposed security, he argued: "That happened 65-66 years ago and it cannot be used any longer to prevent proper discussion of Israel's policies when those policies are counter-productive to world peace. To suggest that those who are critical are anti-Semitic - I reject that utterly."

Others, such as The Australian's Greg Sheridan, applauded the murder of the Hamas leader but asked Israel to be more careful next time. In other words, don't get caught with blood on your hands.

Outright condemnation of Israeli actions has risen in the mainstream press. Amin Saikal in the Sydney Morning Herald accused Israel of committing state terrorism and The Age claimed Israel had "lost friends" over the scandal.

Extra-judicial killings are a central feature of the "war on terror" and Israel is only one of its supporters. The Bush administration (along with the Obama White House) strongly backed the concept of assassinating individuals deemed to be "terrorists" in countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Salon's Glenn Greenwald articulates the largely hidden program:

"Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose 'a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests.' They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations."

A robust democracy would not allow the executive to engage in wanton killing in the name of eliminating "terrorists" but little has been discussed in Australia that acknowledges the fundamental problems with this post 9/11 reality (despite the occasional exception).

Israel's actions over the Hamas murder are deplorable and must be fully investigated (and Washington pressured to join the hunt for clues). The image of Israel in the wider Australian society has inevitably taken a welcome hit but it remains highly unlikely that the political and media elites will implement the obvious implications of the latest affair; Israeli behaviour in the Middle East and the occupied territories are not the sign of a responsible or democratic nation.

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"Public loses faith in climate change" was the headline of a report in Britain's The Guardian newspaper last month.

According to a Mori poll, the proportion of British adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality has fallen from 44 to 31 per cent over the past year. And while only six per cent said climate change was not happening at all, the pollster suggested that because those over 64 were not polled, the survey exaggerates the share of true believers.

In the US, a recent Pew Poll had global warming rating last out of 21 concerns put to respondents.

The Obama administration has shifted cap-and-trade legislation into the impossible category. Meanwhile, the leading Republican on the Senate environment committee, James Inhofe, is seeking a Department of Justice investigation into research misconduct or criminal actions by the scientists including Dr Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and Dr James Hansen of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

In Australia the latest Nielson Poll still has a majority in favour of an ETS. But the majority has fallen by 10 percentage points over the past year, with respondents offering contradictory answers to questions on the respective schemes of the government and the Coalition.

And last week the Australian Industry Group whose CEO, Heather Ridout, has long been the chief industry cheerleader for the ETS, announced it was conducting a review of all climate change policy options. The Business Council of Australia is also reconsidering its support for the government’s ETS.

It is clear that in the space of the few months, since all the media attention was focused on green groups' Copenhagen street theatre, we have seen a marked turnaround in opinion.

So what has caused this?

There is certainly no new research into the costs of taking action on emission abatement, or the costs if no action is taken. There is no new data about climate trends. There are no new findings about species fragility, ocean levels, the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, or the likelihood of people in rich countries contracting heat induced dengue fever.

What we have seen is a slow drip of news that has punctured the deep faith that climate change is an urgent problem and the conviction, best expressed by alarmists like Professor Garnaut, that the world would arrive at a comprehensive agreement on how to tackle it.

The leaking of emails in October last year from the premier global centre of climatic panic, the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, provided evidence that scientists leading the charge on climate change were keen to avoid scrutiny. Even their most faithful journalistic mouthpieces at The Guardian and The New York Times could not avoid wagging fingers at their erstwhile sources of inside information.

Much of the rest of the media went on a feeding frenzy.
This was followed by a gradual puncturing of the sanctity of the IPCC data with its supposed endorsement by 3000 of the world’s leading scientists. A series of mistakes and exaggerations have been progressively uncovered.

These started back in 2003, when Canadian researchers McIntyre & McKitrick undertook statistical analysis of Professor Michael Mann's "hockey stick". Representing a one thousand year temperature trend, the "hockey stick" with its upward trajectory in the 20th century appeared to refute previous thinking that temperature trends were like the zigzags of an extended accordion.

McIntyre & McKitrick deflated the statistics behind the "hockey stick" which had been the poster child of the IPCC third assessment report published in the year 2000.
The IPCC quietly downgraded the "hockey stick" in its 2007 report.

But the Climategate revelations energised a new questioning of the accuracy of the science as presented by the IPCC and even the integrity of the scientists themselves.

What we have seen over the past few months is scientific evidence that refutes or undermines key elements of the 2007 IPCC report on which all the political urgency for action on climate change has rested.

We have seen the evidence of imminent Himalayan glacier retreat refuted in spite of sneering attacks on the questioners by the IPCC head, Rajenda Pachauri. We have seen evidence that the Amazon rain forests disappearance is exaggerated, that half of the Netherlands is not, after all, facing oceanic inundation, and that hurricanes are not increasing in intensity or frequency.

And those pesky polar bear populations are actually increasing, thereby defying the evocative pictures of marooned creatures drowning in a balmy Arctic Ocean.

Warming itself has appeared to have stopped, perhaps temporarily, a fact that even the defrocked high priest of the rising temperature trend, CRU's Professor Phil Jones, has been forced to concede.

And the IPCC estimated climate trend prior to 1980, which predates accurate satellite based records, is also under a new assault because crucial data has disappeared and many claim records are contaminated by local warming.

Copenhagen itself turned out to be far from the planned meeting, where the EU and US would have forced developing countries to join them in abating emissions. The developing countries themselves recognised this as economic suicide, and Copenhagen demonstrated a shift in the balance of world power to China, rapidly assuming industrial dominance while at the same time becoming the mortgagee of the US economy.

China's muscle was demonstrated by their refusal to allow German Chancellor Merkel to announce Germany’s own targets.
Where to from here? It seems inconceivable that global warming as a scare will abruptly go the way of Y2K.

This is because the research grants, taxpayer subsidies to renewables, public statements by political leaders and long lags before there can be certainty about the degree of warming that might take place. At the same time there will be no international emission restraint on the scale necessary to stabilise existing global levels of CO2.

But the vested interests promoting wasteful expenditures are well established. The impetus created by over a decade of poor policy is too strong to allow the sort of "peace dividend" like that which came with the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Instead we are likely to see only a gradual reversal of the wasteful abatement expenditures and investment risk measures set in train by the IPCC claims of catastrophic global warming.

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The question of how to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions has become a major preoccupation for the US and its allies, especially Israel.

Some political leaders and analysts have strongly argued in favour of a military option to nip the Iranian nuclear program in the bud. Others have cautioned against military action for fear that it could result in an uncontrollable regional inferno and have proffered a policy of sanctions and containment as the best option.

Given the complexity of the situation, what is the best course of action?

Those who have advocated military action include many leading American hawks, led by some discredited members of the former Bush administration, led by Dick Cheney, and Israel's right-wing political leaders, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Their argument is that Tehran is inching fast towards achieving a military nuclear capability and has reached a point that could produce a nuclear bomb in far less than five years, as predicted by many credible scientific organisations in the US and Europe.

Their preferred method is surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear instillations and major military bases in order to set back Tehran military prowess by a decade or longer. Most of them believe that despite the Iranian leadership's boast about the country's retaliatory capability Iran does not have the capacity to engage in anything more than a limited retaliation, with which the US, Israel and the region could cope quite effectively.

A predominant view among them is that a military action could expose the Iranian regime to more domestic opposition and result in regime change.

In contrast, the advocates of containment through diplomatic pressure and UN-imposed sanctions see little or no merit in the military option until such time that they are absolutely persuaded that Tehran definitely has a military nuclear program and is close to building nuclear weapons.

They include not only a number of democrats in the Obama administration, but also many leading figures in the West European capitals as well as in the Russian and Chinese governments, although the latter's reason is different from that of their Western counterparts.

An argument that has resonated well with President Obama himself so far is that neither is Tehran on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon capability, nor is the US in a position to engage in another military action or back a similar action by Israel that could possibly ignite another major conflict in the Middle East.

Washington's military preoccupation with complicated situations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, and its simultaneous financial and economic woes as well as its inability to achieve anything on the Israeli-Palestinian peace front and to follow up with concrete actions President Obama's conciliatory speeches in Cairo and Istanbul last year to smooth relations with the Muslim world have been serious issues for consideration in this respect.

The Obama leadership is well aware that whilst Iran may not be able to match American or Israeli fire-power in any confrontation, it has the capacity to cause a major havoc through its deployment of soft power- that is oil and alliances with radical sub-national Islamist groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine- and hard power - that is military (mainly missile) capability- to make any military attack on Iran very costly.

There is a group of fatalistic clerics and religious ultra-nationalists within the Iranian governing structure who are not bothered by the idea of a military confrontation. The supreme leader, Ali Khamanei and President Ahmadenijad are deemed to be included in this group.

This group, which has thrived on their anti-US and anti-Israeli posture, would view a military attack as a gift that they could manipulate to whip up Shi'ite religious fanaticism and invoke fierce Iranian nationalism in order to rally public support for the regime and suppress the moderate Islamist opposition to the regime which has gained momentum since the disputed results of the 12 June 2009 presidential election.

No easy choices really exist in dealing with Iran's nuclear program.

Ultimately, what could possibly work is a policy of political and economic engagement, accompanied with policies that could alleviate the fears that Tehran holds because of the traditional US policy of regime change and Israel¹s military supremacy. A combination of these could prompt Tehran to negotiate a mutually acceptable nuclear deal in the context of a wider regional regime of arms control to include Israel.

The Iranian regime may find a nuclear deal and rapprochement with the US in such a wider context advantageous for two important reasons.

The first is that it would result in the lifting of all sanctions against Iran and therefore flow of foreign investment and high technology into the Iranian economy that the regime needs to improve badly.

The second is that by re-establishing the US-Iranian relations it would undercut the importance of Israel and many surrounding Arab countries in the US regional strategic calculations, for Iran would be a bigger economic and strategic prize for the US than any of those states.

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The buzz-o-sphere was, well, buzzing like crazy last week when "news" filtered out of the Berlin film festival that Antichrist director Lars von Trier was planning to mount a remake of Taxi Driver, the 1976 classic that made Robert De Niro a star.

Most likely some mischievous film executive had failed to deny an internet rumour. Or - more likely - von Trier had been spotted having a coffee with the director of the original (and so far only) Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, in town to promote his latest, Shutter Island. I mean why else would two leading film makers meet for a chat if it wasn't to discuss a remake of the film that put one of them on the cinema map, right? For soon the story was officially denied as being abject rubbish, though not before it had been splashed across newspapers and websites all over the world.

What's interesting about all this is the readiness of so many people to believe it. The story was leapt upon not because there was any truth in it but because it told us what so many film commentators evidently want to believe - that Hollywood is creatively bankrupt and would rather remake classic films than dream up something new.

It's an easy conclusion to draw. We can be 99.99 per cent certain that no remake of a classic title, no matter how good (and they so rarely are), will ever match the impact of the original. Gus van Sant's curiously detached, almost shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho is probably the worst example of how badly wrong and insulting a remake can be - even if, as I suspect, van Sant was deliberately making an ineffectual film as a kind of twisted academic exercise. ("Look, shot-by-shot remakes can not ever match the original and now I've proved it", you could imagine him boasting.)

News of shockingly inappropriate remakes arrive regularly, the most notable recent one being a Hollywood makeover of the outstanding 2008 Swedish vampire love story, Let the Right One In. The original directed by Sweden's Tomas Alfredson is just about perfect down to the very last detail. It was scary and shocking and yes, even touching in ways that studio films just aren't allowed to be (sure they can be frightening or emotionally moving, just not both at the same time - that might confuse the audience). Who could possibly look forward to a retread when the reasons for it are purely financial?

The following are just some of the remakes or sequels (another sign of Hollywood bankruptcy) said to be in the works: Death at a Funeral, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Birds, Fahrenheit 451, The Dirty Dozen, Footloose, Dune, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Wall Street, Teen Wolf, Three Men and a Baby, The Crow, The Karate Kid, The A-Team and Mad Max. Of course reported projects may turn out to be as real as von Trier's Taxi Driver, but we can assume that at least some of them will end up hitting our screens.

Why? The reasons are obvious. Hollywood is a corporate business and "brand awareness" is thought to guarantee a minimum degree of audience. Ironically this kind of safety-net thinking is so often proven wrong at the box office. For every hit like Charlie's Angels there's a box office failure like Neil LaBute's The Wicker Man. The public so often sniffs out blatant crap before it's even hit the screen.

Meanwhile the world's biggest earning blockbuster, Avatar, is an original story featuring special effects of a type that that have never been seen before. Sure, it echoes movies like Dances With Wolves and James Cameron's own Aliens, not to mention - allegedly - one or two obscure science fiction novels, but the film is drawing audiences around the globe because of its novelty, not its familiarity. The idea that corporate entertainment giants shy away from risk is appealing but the true picture is a little more complex. Without original thinking we wouldn't have the splendid storytelling found in Pixar animations such as Wall.E and Up.

It's so easy to get caught up in jeering at Hollywood studios that we forget that remakes have been going on for a very long time. Just look at the career of the actor Peter Lorre, who either helped to inspire or appeared in several Hollywood remakes in the first half of the last century. Fritz Lang's chilling 1931 film M, in which Lorre played a child murderer in pre-war Germany, was remade by the same producer with a different director, Joseph Losey, and an American setting, in the early 1950s. The 1937 French film Pepe Le Moko, about an Algerian thief was remade the following year by Hollywood as Algiers, and again in 1948 as Casbah with Lorre in one of the leading roles.

It's not widely known that the classic 1941 Humphrey Bogart private detective tale The Maltese Falcon, with Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet as the story's villains, was the third big screen version of that story. The Dashiell Hammett novel had been previously adapted twice for the cinema and failed each time. It took a director of John Huston's talent to breathe life into the story.

This gives credence to actor Jude Law's theory that the best approach to remakes is to take a failed film and better it. (A pity he didn't follow his own advice when he agreed to appear in a remake of Sleuth). Steven Soderbergh found this a sound strategy when he took the hammy rat pack flick Ocean's Eleven, developed the storyline and upgraded it with major league stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Matt Damon.

Similar sentiments convinced Alfred Hitchcock to remake his own The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956 as a grand colour production with big stars James Stewart and Doris Day.

The idea of remakes would hardly shock William Shakespeare. Famously crap at plots, the world's most celebrated playwright stole most of his storylines from other sources. Hamlet, for instance, was based on a Norse revenge drama, lost to us now, known as Amlet. That phrase "revenge drama" nonetheless alerts us to what the Bard was up to. For his Hamlet was not so much a vengeful Viking as a bookish type with a touch of bipolar and a bad habit of delaying the deed.

I'd call this subverting the original - remaking in the best possible sense. If Shakespeare were around today no doubt they'd be calling Hamlet a "franchise reboot", perish the thought. But if the studios can successfully "reboot" Star Trek, as they did with last year's J.J. Abrams movie, they might successfully reboot Dune. It can hardly turn out any worse than before.

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What a week this has been. A week for taking responsibility, and trying to rectify the mistakes born of power and recklessness.

The week began with Tiger Woods suffering a grievous blow when it was revealed that respondents to the Sunday Herald Sun's online poll did not, on the whole, believe his apology to the world. Latest reports had Woods turning to drink in an attempt to numb the pain caused by the realisation that Brigitte Duclos will no longer be able to trust him. "If I've lost Brigitte, I've lost everything," a source close to the golfing megastar quoted him as slurring to the bottom of a whisky glass.

Woods was not the only one finding a distinct lack of sympathy in the general public this week. "Environment" Minister Peter Garrett continued to be lambasted by many for his cold and callous approach to the victims of his Federal Home Insulation And Manslaughter Rebate Scheme. Garrett's Tiger-esque approach to the problem was to ring the family of one of the victims to offer his condolences, although if any other murderer had done this it would be called "gloating". Garrett thus showed himself to be a man of some compassion, although Brigitte Duclos is said to remain unconvinced.

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, took full responsibility for the insulation debacle, using the traditional parliamentary method for taking full responsibility for things, i.e. by saying "I take full responsibility". He also admitted he was "disappointed in myself for not asking more questions" about the scheme, questions that may have included "Insulation: WTF?" or "Doesn't Garrett really creep you out?"

This came as a great relief to Garrett, who had been a bit bewildered by it all, considering that Kevin promised him when offering the job that he would definitely not have to be taking responsibility for anything, and Penny Wong would handle all the hard stuff. Fortunately for him, the insulation rebate scheme is now dead, and he can get on with his normal everyday tasks of approving uranium mines and looking nervous in public.

For his part Rudd, having taken full responsibility, announced that anyone who lost their jobs as a result of Garrett's bloodlust would receive assistance in re-training for new jobs, which will naturally result in a surge of shonky re-training providers rorting the re-training scheme, for which Rudd will take full responsibility.

Fortunately for Rudd, Garrett, and the world in general, there was more than just insulation in the news this week. For example, there was diplomatic outrage over the revelation that Israeli Mossad agents may have used Australian passports in their assassination of a senior Hamas militant. The Australian government has made it clear that if the allegations are proven, there will be consequences for Israel, a position that Israeli officials described as "almost cute, really". No doubt the "consequences for Israel" will be just as serious and hard-hitting as the consequences China's been suffering for human rights abuses. It has been reported, for example, that the Australian government has "reprimanded" Israel, which prompted the Israeli government to immediately begin sobbing into its Weet-Bix. For his part, Tony Abbott accused the government of failing to prevent passport fraud, and noted that if Stephen Smith were head of a corporation, he would be charged with manslaughter. "A passport is a precious gift," Abbott thundered, "and one should not give it away lightly."

Abbott was pretty busy himself this week, holding a meeting on Friday with community leaders to discuss policy challenges. Organised by "think tank" the Menzies Research Centre, as part of its scheme to distract people from asking what think tanks actually do, the meeting would, according to the centre's executive director Julian Leeser, provide the Opposition with a "surplus of ideas" before they took government. This admirable aim was questioned by those who claimed the problem is less Tony Abbott's deficit of ideas, than the strong sexual intercourse/housework themes that tend to run through the ideas he does have. It has been conceded, however, that many other members of the Opposition might benefit from having ideas, although in Barnaby Joyce's case this may require some kind of surgery.

There was another intriguing political story this week, from offshore, with New Zealand Housing and Fisheries Minister Phil Heatley resigning over misuse of expenses, having dishonestly claimed money for two bottles of wine and used a ministerial credit card to pay for a family holiday. In a statement, Heatley expressed his regret for letting down the NZ public, and expressed his hope that Brigitte Duclos would find it in her heart to forgive him. His resignation, a rare and commendable act of political integrity, showed both the potential that still remains for honesty in public life, and the reason why New Zealand can't really be taken seriously. Apparently the story of the politician who resigned over ministerial impropriety was circulated on the parliamentary email network under the subject line "Joke of the Day".

But as amusing as it was, Heatley's story really did sum up the week of responsibility. With the PM taking responsibility for governmental failures, the government trying to make Israel take responsibility for passport fraud, and Tony Abbott taking responsibility for the Herculean task of giving Liberals ideas, it was almost inspirational to see our leaders striving to ensure that accountability does not die. It gives one hope for the future, a burgeoning sense of optimism that was only enhanced by the news that the Senate had taken responsibility for our moral wellbeing by ensuring once more that gays cannot erode the foundations of our civilisation by gaining official imprimatur to their campaign to normalise perversion and seduce innocents into un-Godly and disease-ridden lifestyles, or as they put it, "getting married". Your children are safe, Australia, because our leaders have taken responsibility.

God bless them.

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Have you ever tried to talk about tuna catch quotas at a dinner party?

We've all no doubt experienced the uncomfortable feeling at a social gathering when the flow of conversation is ruptured by an ill-chosen change of topic. It does not have to be god, sex or politics that terminates the tête-à-tête. The chat can just as easily be cut by the introduction of a subject considered by common consent to be a little on the technical side, or not altogether in good taste.

Unless the soiree happens to be taking place in a fishing community, any sudden reference to the state of the world's fish stocks is a good bet for bringing the banter up short. Anecdotes about the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission tend to fall flat. Few seem interested in hearing about the latest efforts to reform the European Common Fisheries Policy. Ears rarely prick up at the mention of tuna catch statistics.

But fish stocks are also an uncomfortable topic, because it is our collective consumption that is the ultimate source of the problem. We love seafood, but our hunger for the fruits of the ocean is not matched by an appetite for discussing where our meal has come from or how it was caught. It is a conversation that we should be having, because the situation is grim.

Around the world, stocks of the big predator fish have been reduced by 90 per cent from 1950s levels, while two-thirds of all fisheries exploited in the same period have collapsed. The overall global catch has been in decline for twenty years. One serious international study predicts the demise of every single current commercial fishery before 2050.

We are fishing excessively and destructively. The world's fleet is estimated to be two and a half times what the oceans can bear. Huge nets scoop up indiscriminately and everything that is not marketable is dumped back into the ocean, dead or dying. Bottom trawlers scour the ocean's floor, destroying all in their path. Technology developed for military purposes is deployed to find shoals of fish in their every last refuge.

Around the world, policy makers in international regional fisheries management organisations and national fisheries bodies are aware of the problem of plunging stocks and emptying oceans. Unfortunately though, the talk too rarely gets translated into meaningful action. Fisheries management authorities routinely approve quotas well in excess of scientific recommendations.

In understanding the problem with global fisheries' management there are three key factors to appreciate. First, fish move, which means that international co-operation is crucial. Second, vested fishing interests dominate at both national and international levels. Why else in the EU, for example, would the council of European fisheries ministers approve catch limits that exceed scientific recommendations by an average of 15 to 30 per cent, depending on species? Third, fisheries science is complex and waiting for a more perfect understanding provides an all too convenient reason for inaction.

The current front-line in the battle to turn the tide on global fisheries management is the bluefin tuna, an extraordinary predatory fish of remarkable range and power which also happens to be sublime on the palette. Australians are most familiar with the plight of the plunging stocks of southern bluefin tuna, but the situation is no better for the northern bluefin which seems destined for commercial extinction.

So dire is the situation with the northern bluefin that Monaco has proposed the fish be listed as endangered under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which would mean a trade ban. The next CITES conference is being held in Doha in March and a range of countries, including Italy and France have come out in support of the listing. Nevertheless, the outcome is far from certain: intense lobbying continues. The bluefin is after all big business. Only last month a single bluefin sold at auction in Japan for more than US$175,000.

Worldwide, reforms are desperately required. We need to both change our fishing practices and to create a large scale network of no-take marine reserves. Acting like national parks on land, marine reserves would provide sanctuary for fish and other species to recover. Scientists believe that between 20 and 50 per cent of the world's oceans should be converted to marine reserves as a way of restoring the seas to life. At present the global marine conservation estate languishes at less than 1 per cent.

There are some signs of hope. In 2009 the film The End of the Line went some of the way in doing for overfishing what An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change. In Australia, the Save Our Marine Life campaign for the creation of new marine reserves is garnering significant public support. Hopefully this is a sign that the predicament of global fish stocks is a conversation that we are finally ready to have and an issue upon which governments the world over will be prepared to urgently act.

• Read all responses to this article

The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission has provided a great opportunity to drive national reform in a major area of disaster response: to get defence more involved in domestic disaster response.

Following the Commission’s interim findings last year, defence has changed a few of its operational activities around this task. But more fundamental changes are required.

While domestic disaster response is primarily the responsibility of the states and territories, when a disaster exceeds the resources of a jurisdiction it can seek recovery assistance from the Federal Government.

It’s not uncommon for a premier to place a request for defence help directly with the Prime Minister. Military assistance is requested because defence has capabilities that can’t be provided by other organisations at the required time and location, and in sufficient quantities.

During the 2009 bushfires defence had up to 850 personnel on the ground.

Last year’s Defence White Paper defined the principal task of defence as being to deter and defeat armed attacks on Australia by conducting independent military operations.

Supporting emergency response efforts is, somewhat confusingly, identified as a subset of this task.

While defence policy and culture is predicated on the belief that military disaster assistance will normally be provided as a last resort, this isn’t the expectation of the general public. The community considers that one of the key tasks of defence is to contribute to disaster-relief operations in Australia.

This was a key finding of the 2008 Community Consultation Report developed as part of the White Paper process.

In the future, defence is likely to be used more frequently to assist in Australian disaster tasks.

There will be larger and more frequent extreme weather events due to climate change; increased vulnerability of the growing populations in coastal development and in bushfire-prone areas; continual reduction per capita in the number of volunteers and emergency services personnel; and growing community and political expectations that military resources will be used to support counter disaster efforts.

The Australian Government directed defence to increase its domestic counter-terrorism role following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. It should now adopt a similar approach for domestic disaster missions.

The guidance should state that defence needs to have the operational preparedness, mobility, equipment, personnel and coordination ability to provide effective assistance to civil authorities in support of whole-of-government missions.

Being better able to respond to disasters won’t require the ADF to buy large water bombing planes. But it will give greater emphasis to dual-use capabilities and require some additional elements being maintained to provide better coverage.

Helicopter squadrons near our capital cities could, for example, be deployed to support emergency services and disaster management agencies. Many of the capabilities that would be required to respond to domestic disasters will be of use to the ADF in undertaking its other principal missions, especially overseas humanitarian and disaster recovery assistance

Defence should undertake a fundamental review of its domestic disaster assistance role to ensure it maximises its contribution to disaster management.

It’s necessary to re-examine a key assumption that underpins the defence approach to domestic assistance: that defence will be called upon infrequently due to the availability of emergency services, local government employees and the private sector.

State Emergency Services numbers have remained static, so per capita the ratio has decreased. They can’t sustain high tempo operations for long or very frequent deployments. Due to outsourcing, most local councils now have only a small day labour force. And most heavy machinery operation is now provided by the private sector.

Business capabilities are normally already fully engaged on existing projects and can’t always be deployed quickly to disaster zones

Defence and civil counter-disaster organisations should work together to facilitate the transfer of technology, research and development and other skills to strengthen the states' next-generation disaster management systems.

Civil disaster professionals know the problems with their existing disaster management systems: inadequate situation awareness, poor communication interoperability, insufficient focus on prevention, lack of inter-state qualification portability and poor transition from response to recovery operations.

However, they don’t have the time, skills and resources to develop the next-generation systems and leverage technology. Defence can use its skills and knowledge to help the states and territories do this through skills transfer and capacity building.

It’s now time for defence to become a major player in disaster management. The changes required include adjusting training and education to better prepare ADF personnel to work with the counter-disaster community, and providing more capability options that can be rapidly deployed as part of a civil disaster response.

A potential area for improvement is the use of reserves, a unit could be designated as a support group for countering large bushfires in Victoria and South Australia.

The Royal Commission has the influence and credibility to drive disaster management reforms across all natural hazards and across the entire country – not just bushfires in Victoria. It should use its power to improve the safety of all Australians by recommending that the military contribution to disasters assistance should be part of the core business of defence.

Anthony Bergin and Athol Yates are the authors of Here to help: Strengthening the defence role in Australian disaster management which is released today by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

• Read all responses to this article

The sustained assault on climate science, detailed in this series, spread from the loonier corners of the internet first into certain media outlets with an ideological axe to grind, and now into neutral news outlets too lazy or lacking in confidence to carry out some basic checking before reporting the same distortions.

There is no excuse for this as there are a number of websites with easy-to-read and up-to-date deconstructions of the lies and misrepresentations peddled by sceptics, including Deltoid in Australia and RealClimate in the United States.

But if in echoing denialist misrepresentations some journalists are naïve or too busy to check, others are willing accomplices. For several years The Australian newspaper has been the leading organ of climate denial in Australia.

The list of beat-ups is so long that blogger Tim Lambert keeps a catalogue of The Australian's war on science. It's a kind of archive of journalistic misbehavior that could be used in courses on media ethics. Let's consider a couple of them.

FranklingateEarlier this month, The Australian decided it wanted to challenge Climate Change Minister Penny Wong's "alarming predictions" about the effect of sea-level rise on Australia's coasts. So to which authority did journalists Matthew Franklin and Lanai Vasek turn to repudiate decades of scientific research?

There he was, featured in a huge photograph on the front page under the headline "Wong wipeout doesn't wash with locals", a 53-year-old bronzed man named Lee who said he'd been swimming at Bondi for 30 years and "was adamant he had seen 'no change' to the coastline". To augment his careful observations, Lee engaged in some projections too, declaring that there's nothing suggesting sea-levels at Bondi will change in the future.

Brilliant; give him a job at Australia's leading sea-level research outfit, the Antarctic Climate CRC in Hobart. There he could go head-to-head with Dr John Church, the world's leading authority on sea-level rise. He chairs the World Climate Research Programme's scientific committee on sea-level rise, was awarded the 2006 CSIRO's Medal for Research Achievement, and in 2007 won the Eureka Prize for his work on the measurement of sea-level rise. Mere trifles compared to Lee's common sense.

Franklin and Vasek did not ask Church or any other authority on sea-level rise what their research shows; instead, for "authority", they quoted Bob Carter, one of Australia's leading climate skeptics — a favourite of the Heartland Institute and a founding member of the Australian Environment Foundation, a front group set up by the Institute of Public Affairs and whose board has included Leon Ashby, now president of the Climate Sceptics Party.

The Australian's decision to pitch the opinion of a bloke with a tan against years of scientific research is a deliberate strategy of pandering to ignorance, of fuelling wishful thinking at the expense of science. As politics it's clever; as journalism it's risible.

Walkergate Jamie Walker writes beat-ups aimed at discrediting scientific claims that the Great Barrier Reef is seriously threatened by global warming. In a story earlier this month (front page again) Walker accurately reported research by the Australian Institute of Marine Science to the effect that some reefs did not experience the expected bleaching last summer due to the influence of storms.

This became the headline "Report undercuts PM's reef wipeout" because Walker made the ludicrous leap from the absence of bleaching for two years to a rosy future for the Reef into the indefinite future. One data point became that basis for rejecting a catalogue of research linking warming seas to coral damage.

Walker has form for bagging marine scientists. Last year a story by him headed "Scientists 'crying wolf' over coral" was based on the opinion of Peter Ridd, a physicist who is listed as the Science Coordinator for the Australian Environment Foundation front group.

WeissergateFor years, the opinion pages of The Australian have been turned over to every denialist who pops up anywhere around the world, with even the loopiest given free rein — Christopher Monckton, Andrey Illarionov, Ian Plimer, Bob Carter, David Evans, Jon Jenkins, Christopher Booker, David Bellamy, Brendan O'Neill, Frank Furedi and many more.

The last two, incidentally, are members of an anti-environmental Trotskyist splinter group called the Revolutionary Communist Party, showing that, for opinion editor Rebecca Weisser, it doesn't matter whether you are left or right as long as you loathe environmentalism.

MitchellgateThe man who oversees this travesty of reporting is editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell. Last year he was chuffed to receive the annual JN Pierce Award for Media Excellence for coverage of climate change policy from … wait for it … the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association, the foremost lobby group for the oil and gas industries. APPEA lauded Mitchell because his paper's

"in-depth coverage of a range of public policy issues affecting Australia's upstream oil and gas industry has been of a consistently high standard. The reporting has been thoughtful, balanced, analytical, well researched and a big effort was made to ensure that all facets of the issue were presented."
Astonishment robs me of words.

The Fox of printRupert Murdoch had a much-publicised change of heart in 2007 — thought to be stimulated by his son James — when he told his news editors that the planet should be given the benefit of the doubt and News Ltd would go carbon-neutral. There are now rumours that Murdoch has recanted and has rejoined the denialist camp.

Certainly that would be consistent with the virulent anti-science now being run by his media outlets — including the triumvirate of broadsheets based in London, New York and Sydney — led of course by Fox News. Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud said he spoke for other family members when he last month launched a breath-taking attack on Fox News. He said he is "ashamed and sickened by [Fox boss] Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard [for] journalistic standards".

Despite its high-brow pretentions, is not The Australian — with the same commitment to an ideological agenda, the same disregard for the separation of news and comment, and the same stable of bumptious right-wing columnists — just the Fox News of print? No wonder the paper's last reporter with any credibility on climate change, Lenore Taylor, has finally jumped ship.

Right now on campuses across Australia, The Australian is engaged in an aggressive marketing campaign to sign up university students, offering a year's subscription for $20. It would be comforting to believe that university students are capable of seeing through the distortions and manipulation of news that defines the national broadsheet. But that is wishful thinking and to the extent that The Australian's discount sale succeeds we risk seeing a generation of graduates whose understanding of climate science is grossly distorted by the newspaper's unrelenting war on science.

For years, scientific organisations have attempted to correct The Australian's misrepresentation of the science. So unresponsive is the newspaper that some, including the Bureau of Meteorology, have just given up.

Science's defendersThe trashing of the reputation of climate science spills over into the other sciences, so how has the profession been fighting back? After all, once the fury dies down it is likely to be many years before public trust in science can be rebuilt to previous levels. It would be a grave mistake for scientific organisations to imagine that this will all blow over and the world will return to normal.

One would expect that the employers and professional organisations of the scientists who are daily attacked as frauds, cheats and political zealots would be in the public domain defending them against these charges. But for the most part, they have been missing in action or engaged in skirmishes far from the main action.

The CSIRO is nowhere to be seen. Instead it has put the lid on its climate scientists, barring them from presenting their work, preferring actively to promote the commercial interests of the coal industry. The CSIRO's new Chief Executive, Dr Megan Clark (who transferred across from a senior executive position with BHP Billiton) should be out in public defending vigorously the quality of the organisation's climate research.

The Bureau of Meteorology, whose work has often been traduced, has tried to respond but seems to have capitulated in the face of hopeless odds.

The Australian Academy of Science includes fellows whose work has been called fraudulent and dishonest and who are the target of abuse and threats. Their treatment should be a matter of the first concern, not least because the esteem in which all science is held is under attack.

At bottom, scientists are not good at public relations, and most scientists would much rather bury themselves in their labs than face a microphone. Once this did not matter, but in the face of a sustained assault on their credibility by people who have an intimate knowledge of how to use the media to manipulate the truth, their unworldliness is causing lasting damage.

As expected, the response to this series of articles on the state of climate change denial has been strong. The dogmatic and vitriolic nature of many of the comments on this blog and others confirms that denial is only nominally about the science and really about ideology and cultural identity.
There are two or three charges against me that keep doing the rounds and for the record I want to make brief replies.
1. Using the term "denier" does not equate climate denial with Holocaust denial. The term is used in other contexts, such as HIV denial, as a descriptor for those whose minds are closed to evidence that contradicts their opinion, yet who maintain their opposition to empirical reality is based on evidence. It is not the same as scepticism.

2. I have not equated climate and Holocaust denialism. The passage quoted to "show" that I have is my description of an argument others might use to equate the two (known as consequentialism), but which I explicitly reject.

3. I have not argued that we need to "suspend democracy" to tackle climate change. I have said some people believe this, but I don't. I have said we must reinvigorate democracy.

4. Most bizarrely, some have said I should not be listened to because I have proposed shooting koalas for sport. This furphy came inevitably from Andrew Bolt. In an article titled "Cashing In On Koalas", I argued the opposite by ridiculing the free-market approach to conservation using the well-known rhetorical technique of pushing an argument to its extreme, in this case charging American tourists to hunt koalas on Kangaroo Island. For those slow on the uptake I went as far as to propose some koalas be put in cages to be shot at short range by those with poor aim, and, for the really slow-witted, I concluded by saying Wilson Tuckey had given the scheme his blessing. Andrew, it's called satire, you dope.

5. If a vote were held for the most vituperative blogger in Australia, Andrew Bolt would win hands down. Yet he has reacted to my criticisms of him with wounded outrage and by running around whingeing to everyone who will listen. We all met his type in the schoolyard, the bully who cries as soon as someone gives him one back. It's truly pathetic.

• Part 1: Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial
• Part 2: Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?
• Part 3: Think tanks, oil money and black ops
• Part 4: Manufacturing a scientific scandal

• Read all responses to this article

Although sceptics have been gnawing away at the credibility of climate science for years, over the last five months they have made enormous leaps owing to the hacking of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the discovery of a number of alleged mistakes in the benchmark reports of the IPCC.

While the "revelations" have been milked for all they are worth, and a lot more, the science remains rock solid. If instead of cherry-picking two or three that lend themselves to spin, you read the 1000 or so emails that were posted on a Russian server the picture that emerges is one of an enormously dedicated group of men and women doing their best to carry out research of the highest quality.

If there were a conspiracy among scientists to manipulate the truth, you would expect the evidence to be there in spades in these private emails. But it's not. Instead they show scientists working their backsides off to do good science, with email exchanges stopping briefly on Christmas Eve to be resumed on Boxing Day, with apologies to colleagues for taking time out to have surgery or get married, all with a sub-text of worry about the implications of their work for the future of humanity.

Rather than cover-ups, we read private emails from one scientist to Phil Jones, the CRU head who has been forced to step down pending an inquiry, saying he has been watching the sceptics blogs and, anticipating misrepresentation, says "this last aspect needs to be tackled more candidly in AR4 than in the SOD, and we need to discuss how to do this". Others show them bending over backwards to be open.

Before the leak of the CRU emails, one colleague emailed others in response to attacks by sceptics on Phil Jones:

"The sad thing here is that Phil Jones is one of the true gentlemen of our field. I have known Phil for most of my scientific career. He is the antithesis of the secretive, "data destroying" character the CEI and Michaels are trying to portray to the outside world."

And the emails reveal the enormous external pressure they were under. They show they were constantly accused of being frauds and cheats; their work was twisted and misrepresented; and they were bombarded with vexatious freedom of information requests orchestrated by denialists. In short, they were caught up in a hot political debate that they did not really understand or want to be part of, yet they were the target of savvy, secretive and ruthless organisations ready to pounce on anything they said or wrote.

This is the real story exposed of "Climategate". Instead, the scientists in question have seen their professional reputations trashed in the world's media for no cause, to the point where Phil Jones has been on the verge of suicide. It has been the most egregious and unfounded attack on the integrity of a profession we have ever seen.

Yet the science remains rock solid
Since the leaking of the CRU emails the worldwide press have reported a series of "mistakes" in the IPCC reports that have allowed the denial lobby to claim that the entire IPCC process and the body of climate science should be junked. It turns out that almost all of the mistakes are fabrications. How could this have happened?

The first and only significant error identified in the IPCC report is the claim that 80 per cent of Himalayan glaciers are very likely to disappear by 2035. This was a serious mistake for a scientific report that should not have got through the review process. But let's be very clear about its significance:

• The error occurred in Volume 2 of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), the volume on the impacts of climate change. Volume 1 reports and assesses the physical basis for climate science, including projections of warming. Chapter 4 contains an extensive discussion of glaciers, snow and ice. Projections for glaciers are also discussed in Chapter 10. No one has challenged any of the statements in these chapters, prepared by teams including the world's leading glaciologists, which carefully lay out what is known.


• The erroneous "2035" claim was nowhere highlighted by the IPCC. It appeared neither in the chapter summary, the report summary or the crucial Summary for Policymakers. In no sense was it a central claim of the IPCC report, as some newspapers have said.


• It was a glaring error that should have been picked up earlier, but it was so deeply buried in the report that denialists around the world, with all of their supposed scientific expertise, did not pick it up for two years. In fact, they did not pick it up at all; it was first pointed out by Georg Kaser and others. Kaser is an eminent glacier expert who was a lead author of Chapter 4 in Volume 1.

Although mistakes like this one should not occur, to suggest that it has any bearing on the credibility of the science of AR4 is absurd. The more remarkable fact is that so few errors have been identified in AR4, and none at all in the crucial Volume 1 which sets out the physical basis for climate change. On page 493 of Volume 2, where the "2035" mistake occurs, I count 20 factual claims that are falsifiable. Multiply that by the 3,000 or so pages in AR4 and you can see how utterly trivial that single mistake is.

But haven't many more mistakes been found in AR4? No. The only other claimed error that has any substance is the statement that "55% of its [the Netherlands] territory is below sea-level". This figure was supplied by the Dutch Government. It is slightly misleading because the correct statement is that 55% per cent of the Netherlands is at risk of flooding, although the Dutch Ministry of Transport says that 60% of the country is below the high water level. The confusion may have implications for the Netherlands' dike planning but has no bearing whatever on the science of climate change.

There are three additional "errors" in AR4 that have attracted press attention and sparked denialist frenzies. They are analysed on the Realclimate website.

• "Africagate" refers to the claim that AR4 overstated the potential decline in crop yields in Africa. The figures in AR4 have since been shown to be an accurate assessment.


• "Disastergate" is the allegation that the IPCC erroneously attributed some of the rising costs of disasters to climate change. In fact, the section in question is hedged around with caution and the expert whose work was said to be misused by the IPCC has declared that the IPCC has fairly represented his findings.


• "Amazongate", a story that opened with the claim: "A startling report by the United Nations climate watchdog that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise". The story is plain wrong, with the expert on whose work the IPCC relied stating that the information is correct, although the referencing is incomplete.

Apart from the fact that these three "gates" are beat-ups with no basis in their criticism of the IPCC, they have one feature in common - the stories were all written by Jonathan Leake, science and environment editor of The Sunday Times.

Leake has close links with deniers and in fact based these stories directly on wild and unsubstantiated claims by sceptic bloggers, as uncovered by Tim Holmes. In the case of Amazongate, Leake had been informed by another expert that, while the referencing was inadequate, the claim in AR4 is correct and, if anything, an understatement. But Leake disregarded this and quoted that same expert in his story to exactly the reverse effect, as if he were a severe critic of the IPCC.

On the role of Leake I can do no better than quote Tim Holmes:

"While it is wholly unsurprising that the denial lobby should be attempting to push baseless and misleading stories to the press, what is surprising is the press's willingness to swallow them. In this case, two experts in the relevant field told a Times journalist explicitly that, in spite of a minor referencing error, the IPCC had got its facts right. That journalist simply ignored them. Instead, he deliberately put out the opposite line - one fed to him by a prominent climate change denier - as fact. The implications are deeply disturbing, not only for our prospects of tackling climate change, but for basic standards of honesty and integrity in journalism."

Leake's stories have been reproduced in the other Murdoch broadsheets, The Australian and the Wall Street Journal and of course have been amplified on Fox News, and are themselves now being referred to as "Leakegate".

Bloggers and columnists, who attack climate science without ever opening an IPCC report or speaking to a real climate scientists, imagine that the body of climate science is a house of cards, and taking away one or two will cause it to collapse. In fact the scientific case for global warming is like a mountain built up by adding one rock at a time over many years. Even if all of the alleged errors were true it would amount to picking off a handful of rocks from the top of the mountain, leaving the rest unchanged and unmoved.

Yet these alleged mistakes - non-existent or trivial - with no implications whatever for the robustness of climate science have been deployed in a sophisticated campaign to blacken the reputations of the scientists responsible for alerting us to the perils of global warming.

Perception versus reality
Unfortunately, the chorus of declarations that the climate scientists got it wrong has had no impact on the earth's climate. Indeed, those who study the climate itself rather than the bogus debate in the newspapers and the blogosphere understand that climate science and popular perceptions of climate science are diverging rapidly, not least because the news on the former is getting worse.

Soon after AR4 appeared in early 2007, those familiar with the science began to say that as a result of the consensus process and the natural caution of scientists, the Fourth Assessment Report had seriously understated the risks from climate change, particularly in its selection of scenarios and its estimates of likely sea-level rise.

Rather than rehearse the evidence for these warnings, well known to those who follow the science, let me make mention of a number of developments in climate science that have been published or reported in the five months since the leaking of the Climategate emails. It is evidence that warming is more alarming than previously thought yet which has been buried in the avalanche of confected stories claiming that climate scientists have exaggerated.

• We have just had the warmest decade on record.


• A new study concludes that an average warming of 3-4°C (which means 7-8°C on land), previously thought to be associated with carbon dioxide concentrations of 500-600 ppmv, is now believed to be associated with concentrations of only 360-420 ppmv, a range that covers the current concentration of 385 ppmv, rising at 2 ppmv per annum. If confirmed by further research, the implications of this are terrifying.


• While news reports allege glacial melting has been exaggerated, the best evidence is that the rate of disappearance of glaciers is accelerating. The University of Zurich's World Glacier Monitoring Service reports that "new data continues the global trend in strong ice loss over the past few decades".


• The rate of flow into the sea of Greenland and Antarctic glaciers is accelerating, adding to sea-level rise. This augments the evidence that IPCC cautiousness led to significant underestimation of the likely extent of sea-level rise in the 21st century. The East Antarctic ice-sheet, previously believed to be stable, has now begun to melt on its coastal fringes. The West Antarctic ice-sheet continues its rapid melt.


• Sharply rising temperature in the Arctic has, over the last five years, caused a rapid increase in the amount of methane being emitted from melting permafrost. The limit of the Arctic permafrost has retreated northwards by 130 kilometres over the last 50 years in the James Bay region of Canada.

I have tried to find some new studies that go the other way in the hope I can counterbalance this bleak story, but have not succeeded.

Over the last five months, a vast gulf has opened up between the media-stoked perception that the climate science has been exaggerated and the research-driven evidence that the true situation is worse than we thought.

Just when we should be urging immediate and deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, the public is being lulled into disbelief, scepticism and apathy by a sustained and politically driven assault on the credibility of climate science. For this we will all pay dearly.


Tomorrow: Where are the defenders of science?

• Part 1: Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial
• Part 2: Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?
• Part 3: Think tanks, oil money and black ops

• Read all responses to this article

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described Bernie Banton as a great Australian hero for his tireless campaigning for justice for asbestos victims. But despite expert scientists and leading risk assessors warning that some products of nanotechnology could pose similar risks to asbestos, state and federal Labour governments have so far been reluctant to close legal loopholes that leave most nano-products effectively unregulated.

The failure to close regulatory gaps and to ensure that nano-products face both safety testing and appropriate labelling is a bad look for an industry trying to promote itself as clean, clever and innovative. It leaves the public, workers and the environment exposed to poorly understood risks, and the industry vulnerable to future compensation claims.

Nanotechnology, the science of the small is touted for use across many Australian industry sectors. The sector receives generous government funding, and nanotechnology research is identified as a priority area for Australian Research Council grants.

Manufactured nanoparticles are already used in hundreds of Australian products, including sunscreens, cosmetics, paints, clothing, furniture varnishes, food packaging, health supplements, building equipment, sports goods, cleaning products and household appliances. Yet regulatory gaps mean that most of these nanoparticles face neither safety testing nor product labelling before they can be legally used commercially.

Extremely tiny nanoparticles are used for their novel properties. In nano-form, nanoparticles of familiar substances behave in unexpected ways, changing colour, strength, solubility or conductivity. Yet in the rush to take commercial advantage of their novel behaviour, the new risks associated with nanoparticles have been largely overlooked.

In a parallel with asbestos, carbon nanotubes are widely touted as a modern day miracle material. 100 times stronger than steel and 6 times lighter, carbon nanotubes are also incredibly good conductors of electricity. They are used in reinforced plastics, specialty building materials, electronics and sports goods manufactured internationally. They are touted for future use in capacitators, pharmaceuticals, solar cells and defence applications.

The failure to ensure regulation and labelling of high risk nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes has attracted criticism from unions, nanotoxicologists, risk assessors and leading workplace safety lawyers. At least two studies have shown that mice exposed to carbon nanotubes develop mesothelioma - the deadly cancer previously associated only with asbestos.

Global re-insurer Swiss Re put it bluntly: "…some nanotubes are similar in size and form to asbestos fibres. The supposition that the potential for harm could be similar would appear to be obvious."

The ACTU has previously called for a mandatory register and labelling of all commercially used nanomaterials. To its credit, the previous Australian Nano Business Forum backed this call. Yet governments have yet to take any action to ensure that Australian workers are protected from unsafe nano-risks, and that the asbestos tragedy is not repeated.

Risky nanoparticles used in high exposure personal care products such as sunscreens and cosmetics also remain effectively unregulated. Studies showing that Australian nano-sunscreens contain ingredients that act as extreme photocatalysts have undermined public confidence in nano-product safety.

The Cancer Councils Professor Ian Olver recently told a Sydney newspaper that if nano-sunscreen ingredients penetrate skin, they could damage DNA, possibly even increasing the risk of skin cancer. Concern about nano-sunscreens has been made worse by the Therapeutic Goods Administrations refusal to regulate or label them.

My freedom of information request last year to obtain information from this government body about what sunscreens on the market used nanotechnology was met with a $4,000 invoice for information it said was incomplete or out of date.

Beyond being a liability to the industry's public reputation, the failure to regulate nano-products could leave nanotechnology companies exposed to large compensation payouts. A leading Australian occupational health and safety lawyer and partner at the law firm Deacons has warned: "We could be facing another epidemic in our industrial history of people, large groups of people, displaying latent symptoms from current exposures that are taking place at the moment."

Research into nanotechnology's health and environment risks is a growing focus of both international industry conferences and government programs.

At the bi-annual International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, held this week in Sydney, alongside many presentations about the commercial and scientific promise of nanotechnology, there is also a strong focus on emerging research results into the health and environment risks of nanoparticles.

In the Federal Government's new National Enabling Technology Strategy, launched in Canberra on Monday, and in the NSW Government's response to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Nanotechnology, the health and environment risks of nanotechnology were also identified as a key area of concern.

Yet research into the safety of nanoparticles, in the absence of mandatory regulatory measures, and after such nanoparticles are already used commercially, will not guarantee safety.

Without decisive government action to regulate toxicity risks and to ensure nano-ingredient labelling for consumer choice and workplace safety, this burgeoning industry faces a loss of credibility and an uncertain future.

• Read all responses to this article

It is how Dame Edna Everage greets her audience (victims?) as she sweeps on to the stage all glasses, flounces and gladdies - 'Hello Possums', she trills as she prepares to excoriate her loyal followers with all manner of unimaginable embarrassments for the next few hours.

The inference is that she doesn't like her 'possums' very much, and I have to say in real life, neither do I. The Australian brushtailed possum is undoubtedly a cuddly looking marsupial, but it would be unwise to take any liberties. It is also an extremely cunning survivor, co-existing very comfortably with humans and their habitation.

I live in a pole house on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, and the gap between the poles and the roof overhang was irresistible to possums, who took up residence - one at a time, they are very territorial - and proceeded to keep us awake at night by scampering across our tin roof, pooping and fouling our fresh water tank and generally being a nuisance.

The rules about trapping possums are very draconian. Having lured the pesky possum into a drop-door wire cage with with a bait of banana, carrot and bread, the rules allowed me to move the possum no more than 50 metres from where it entered the trap, or risk fines of up to $5000. Now possums can see quite well in the daylight as well as night. Having had a good meal at my expense, it hopped out of the trap, gave me a look I can only describe as scornful, and resumed residence on its pole-top eyrie from whence it had come.

I happened to be talking with a Tasmanian friend, Mark, who lives in a State which takes a fairly hard line on brushtailed possums. They have a legal possum skin and meat industry - yes it must be possible to obtain possum sausages although I have never seen any. Perhaps possums become pet food. Anyway my friend Mark exclaimed in astonishment when I told him my possum trapping story.

'You didn't let it go did you?'

'Of course, what do you do?'

'Shoot 'em of course!' I explained to Mark that this was difficult in a suburban environment and in any case I didn't have a gun.

I was reminded of a story I once read in the sadly defunct weekly newspaper The National Times about a member of the country squattocracy in outback New South Wales who was hosting a dinner party. There were about 20 guests seated around a long table where candelabras and fine silver and china marked a classy affair. Suddenly a scuffling noise was heard above the ornately decorated plaster ceiling, and face of the host - seated at one end of the table - became florid and suffused with rage.

'Bloody possums', he hissed, reached behind him to a bureau drawer and pulled out a revolver which he fired several times up into the ceiling. It was a bit of a conversation stopper, as small pieces of plaster drifted down to the tablecloth.

On the fourth shot there was a distant squawk of possibly marsupial origin, and the host beamed, and put away his shooter. 'Got the little bastard', he said happily and resumed his glass of shiraz.

Next morning the butler, clearly used to this performance, mended the holes in the ceiling with Spackle.

Poor New Zealanders, though, have inherited a terrible problem following the introduction of brushtailed possums from Australia in the 1800s for the fur trade - which the En Zedders presumably sanctioned, so they can't blame us. They are now a frightful scourge, among other things carriers of bovine tuberculosis, and have overrun the country in their millions, causing havoc in native forests and preying on the eggs and chicks of native birds.

You won't find the New Zealanders fining its citizens for killing possums - they'll probably get a citation. But poisoning and shooting seems to make no dent in the numbers of the rampaging Australian marsupials. They have been the genesis of one niche export industry though - possum wool socks, which are wonderfully warm and comfortable I must say.

Back to the wide brown land, and one of the few things you can do legally to rid your house of possums is to make them unwelcome. My problem was solved by stuffing the spaces between the top of the poles and the roof with chicken wire. But there is another way - and it is quite legal.

Phil Mann, from Sydney, was having his annual Christmas holidays with his family at Jimmy's Caravan Park, at Hawks Nest in the Great Lakes Shire, when he was alerted to the diverting spectacle of a diamon python up a tree preparing to swallow a possum.

The python had strangled it by wrapping its coils around the hapless brushtail, but was obviously having a problem with the prospect of swallowing it tail first. Phil got his camera and photographed the python as it retreated back up the tree to a convenient fork, turned the possum around, and proceeded to unhinge its jaws to swallow the brushtail head first.

Was such a thing possible? Well yes. It took some hours, but eventually the possum was engulfed and the python back up the tree, somewhat wider in girth, getting on with the job of digesting its rather furry lunch.

Does anyone have any spare diamond pythons? I know where they could find a good and welcoming home. Perhaps other Unleashed correspondents might share their possum tails [yes I know…].

After all, all the python did was what Dame Edna does to her captive 'possums' in her own inimitable way....

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The way we dress is no small matter. And it is a social matter as well as an individual choice.

The Algerian writer Frantz Fanon wrote in 1959 that "the way people clothe themselves, together with the traditions of dress and finery that custom implies, constitutes the most distinctive form of a society's uniqueness".

One of the most important protocols of dress and finery concerns how and when we cover - and uncover - our heads and faces.

In the past few years, passionate disagreements about dress have arisen around the question of the dress of Muslim women. Scarf, foulard, chador, jilbab, burqa, niqab: whatever the exact extent of the covering, the issue has become one of fervent argument.

Many concerns feed into the issue, one of the most central being that of discrimination.

Those who generally oppose these forms of women's dress tend to phrase their concerns in terms of women's equality and emancipation. That is, so the argument goes, the veil is discriminatory because women and women alone are forced to cover - and even if they are not forced, the choice still doesn't count as authentic because it flouts norms of democratic citizenship mandating equality.

On the other side, the argument is that the choice to cover should be respected equally with the choice not to do so, and that failure to extend such respect is discriminatory against Muslims and Islam more broadly.

Arguments on this issue often get caught up in the question of why Muslim women cover, and whether veiling is mandated by the Qur'an. Hence the spectacle of various non-Muslims holding themselves out as experts in theological interpretation, as farcical as if I ventured into pronouncing on what the Bible mandates that Jews do in regard to the laws of Kashrut.

What is less frequently examined, however, is why the motivation to dress in a certain way should be a matter of public concern at all. Granted, there certainly are legal and cultural norms about dress in our society.

The young man who conducted the experiment for a Tropfest film of "how far can you wear your underpants from the beach" pushed against the limits of those norms. But it was his dress, or lack of it, that caused concern, not his motivations for flying to Uluru in his undies.

Criticism of the dress of Muslim women, in contrast, seems to be primarily concerned not with the dress itself, but with the meaning of the choice to wear it.

When France outlawed the conspicuous display of religious affiliation by students in public schools, President Jacques Chirac characterised the foulard or headscarf as a form of aggression and political extremism, connected in turn to women's subordination.

In Australia, Bronwyn Bishop offered her own interpretation of the veil as "a sort of iconic item of defiance".

President Sarkozy now characterises the wearing of the burqa as a sign of "subservience".

But let's turn the question around: what is the meaning of moves to unveil women? What is an aggressive strategy of unveiling women the sign of?

The language of proponents of a ban on the wearing of the burqa, for example, is often phrased in terms of "tearing away the veil". This language at times turns almost pornographic, in its desire to see what lies "behind" the veil.

André Gerin, the chair of the recent parliamentary commission into the question of the veil in France, proclaimed that "there are scandalous practices hidden behind this veil", practices which Gerin is evidently determined to unmask.

There is a very long history of fascination with what lies "behind" the veil, and of how what lies behind it might be revealed. A favourite subject of Orientalist painters in the 19th century for example was a covered woman, with the veil pulled back suggestively to hint at a lascivious mystery in which the viewer was invited to participate.

Painters such as Delacroix and Ingres portrayed women of the East in order to reveal what was otherwise hidden or sheltered from their view. One of Ingres most famous paintings, "The Turkish Bath", is shaped like a keyhole through which the viewer can peep into an otherwise concealed scene.

With the advent of cheap portable cameras and of postcards, every tourist to the East could indulge in a similar voyeuristic fantasy.

Writing about French policy in Algeria in the late 1950s, Frantz Fanon had stressed the sexual frisson of the strategy of unveiling women. Fanon argued that the policy of unveiling was presented as a criticism of barbaric Muslim attitudes to women, at the same time as unveiling the Algerian woman was a way of "baring her secret, breaking her resistance, making her available for adventure".

A seductive conquest, in other words.

Too often even today, the language of unveiling has this undertone of violation, of a desire to lay bare what is private and hidden from view. Women as well as men writers speak of "tearing the veil off" or "lifting the veil" on Muslim practices, with little apparent understanding of the history of this type of language and the role it played in imperial conquest.

Perhaps it is time for proponents of unveiling to be a little more self-conscious about their own motivations for measures of unveiling.

Helen Pringle will moderate a debate on the wearing of the burqa tonight at the University of NSW.

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The Prime Minister was at pains to tell the insulation workers yesterday that he "gets it."

No-one makes the vernacular sound quite so forced and contrived as our Kevin. That aside, his main problem is that his response to the insulation scandal shows he doesn't "get it."

After a billion dollars in cost overruns, 90 housefires, a series of rip offs, endless dodgy installations, fly-by-night installers, an unknown number of death-trap ceilings, four deaths and the belated axing of the scheme, the Prime Minister is suddenly confronted with a host of disaffected businesses and unemployed Australians.

So what does he do? He throws another $40 million dollars at the problem and promises to get the pink batts moving again as soon as possible.

Until now the installers were paid, at taxpayers' expense, to throw sometimes sub-standard insulation in a sometimes unprofessional way into houses whether they needed it or not. Now they will be paid even when they are not installing. They'll be paid to hang around and wait for the new scheme, or while they do some training, or while they go and look for another job.

More taxpayers' money thrown out the door to solve a short-term problem, distort the marketplace further and provide a political fix.

Imagine the plight of the professional insulation company that existed before this scheme. They can't even return to the good old days because no Australian in their right mind would now pay for insulation. Insulation is something the government just doles out for free, apparently.

Kevin Rudd and Labor will not begin to recover from their current slump until they understand that taxpayers will never thank them for wasting money. Call it hypocritical, or call it simply human nature, but despite being happy to accept cash handouts last year, or free insulation in their ceilings a few months later, taxpayers are never going to applaud when they see how much of their money has been carelessly squandered.

Taxpayers are starting to see the consequences of the government's largesse laid bare through record debt, rising interest rates and talk of fiscal rectitude. And just at this time Peter Garrett has given them a blow by blow, embarrassingly detailed description of how he bent over backwards to shovel hundreds of millions of dollars of their money out the door for dubious benefits and with terrible unintended consequences.

At the end of which, the Prime Minister says Garrett is a "first class Minister" and stands by him. Then the PM shovels another $40 million out the door to tide the industry over until the pink batts start heading for our ceilings again.

Lord knows what happens when every ceiling is full of pink batts, or the money runs out. And Kevin Rudd trumpets this as a solution.

No Prime Minister, you don't "get it".

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Before the 2007 federal election Labor promised its approach to nuclear waste would be based on a "consensual process of site selection" with "agreed scientific grounds for determining suitability" and "community consultation and support".

What a difference three years can make.

Labor's Resources Minister Martin Ferguson this week announced his intention to locate a radioactive waste dump at Muckaty in the Northern Territory.

The former Howard Government first nominated Muckaty, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, as one of four possible sites for a nuclear waste dump in September 2007.

It was a controversial choice then and it remains controversial. The Commonwealth secured a 'voluntary nomination' agreement from the Northern Land Council. The terms of that agreement have never been made public.

Minister Ferguson claims the nomination has the "continuing support of the Ngapa clan" even though 57 Traditional Owners from the Muckaty Land Trust have written to him, inviting the Minister to visit their land and clearly stating they "don't want that rubbish dump to be here in Muckaty".

In Opposition federal Labor was highly critical of the NT dump plan and promised to end a decade of division over how and where to store radioactive waste.

Labor promised to repeal the undemocratic Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act and remove the threat of imposed radioactive waste dumps in favour of an open, transparent and inclusive process.

Sadly this clear commitment has not been acted on.

Traditional Owners continue to live with the threat of a nuclear dump. The gap between federal Labor's promise and performance is growing.

That gap has become a chasm with the introduction this week of Minister Ferguson's National Radioactive Waste Bill (2010).

This legislation fails to honour federal Labor's clear pre- election promise and existing policy position to establish a consensual process of site selection which looks to agreed scientific grounds for determining suitability and the centrality of community consultation and support.

The secretive process by which Muckaty was chosen is out of step with growing international support for genuine community consultation and consent in decisions about nuclear facilities, articulated in this way by the UK Committee on Radioactive Waste Management in 2007:

"There is growing recognition that it is ethically unacceptable to impose a radioactive waste facility on an unwilling community".
Imposing radioactive waste on the lands of Indigenous people in the 21st Century is not responsible management. It is shameful political expedience.

There are a number of furphies about the type of nuclear waste that is produced in Australia.

One furphy says because this nuclear waste is 'low' and 'intermediate' level it is not harmful to humans.

This waste may be produced in hospitals and university laboratories, but it is still radioactive and needs to be shielded from humans and the environment. If it leaks and gets into the air or water table it is dangerous to humans. It does emit radiation and can cause fatal cancers and other diseases.

Another furphy, this one directly peddled by the Minister, says access to nuclear medicine in Australia is dependent on putting a nuclear waste dump in the NT.

This is an emotive and improper linkage.

Most other advanced Western countries import the nuclear medicine they need. Australia should do the same.

Managing the resulting radioactive waste should be based on the principles of reduction at source and above ground dry storage.

Radioactive waste is a reality and a serious issue. Governments should not manage it using the carrot, stick and secrecy approach.

Unfortunately Martin Ferguson is continuing the processes initiated by the former Howard Government.

Anything less than full repeal of the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act and a site selection process that is open, transparent and consultative would be inconsistent with Labor's 2007 election pledges and would continue the old, failed approach to nuclear waste and Indigenous communities.

It is now time for the Rudd Government to honour its 2007 election commitments on radioactive waste and for our leaders to stop playing political football with a human and environmental threat that will last far beyond their limited tenure.

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Believe the technophiles, and a paperless revolution is upon us, with Apple's latest license to print money, the iPad, set to replace everything from books, newspapers and magazines to the glossy brochures in your letterbox.

While the iPad has proven once again that the human love of all things shiny knows no bounds, consumers need to tear their eyes away from the device's sleek lines for a moment and separate the facts from the spin and "green-wash".

Once again we’re seeing a frenzied round of predictions about the end of paper and print-based communications, a regular favourite ever since the introduction of computers first heralded predictions of the "paperless office". And once again these predictions will prove to be wrong, just as paper use has continued to increase in recent decades.

One reason for this is that unlike energy-hungry digital devices like e-readers, once an item has been printed, it can be referred to again and passed on without using additional energy. Everything you do on a digital device uses additional energy, most of it generated from fossil fuels.

Each time you open a document to read it on screen again, you use more energy.

Recent research demonstrated this clearly, using a 700 page book as an example. Printing it on paper created around 80 grams of carbon dioxide emissions, while for each hour the same document was read online at least 220 grams of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere. No matter what the device, it is powered by electricity and every time it is used, it chews up more and more.

And all that ignores the manufacturing of the iPad and other e-readers, which use a disturbing array of finite metals, plastics and chemicals, and create large quantities of e-waste as most of their components cannot be recycled.

There can be little doubt that computing and digital systems have changed the way we live, work and play.

Equally, there is no doubt these same systems have altered how we use paper and print. The commonly used example is the shift of immediate news content away from newspapers and onto online news services.

But interestingly, these changes in consumption patterns created by the advances in digitisation have not resulted in a decline in the use of paper and print.

In fact, over the past decade, more paper and print has been used every year in Australia. For example, according to research conducted for the Australasian Paper Industry Association, the average annual increase in printing and writing paper consumption over the period is 2.3 per cent per annum, slightly ahead of long term population growth.

For catalogues, brochures and similar communications, the rate of growth is a substantial 5.3 per cent per annum.

Of course, Australia is a mature market for paper and print, with one of the highest literacy levels in the world and an enviable standard of living. The rates of growth in paper and print in developing countries is far greater as incomes increase and literacy levels improve.

It is high literacy levels that sees the sale of books in Australia well ahead of population growth and that results in Australians reportedly reading more magazines per person than any other country.

And all of that is good news for the environment, because paper is made from a renewable resource. For every tree that is harvested, at least one more is planted, and each paper product can be re-used, passed on and ultimately recycled.

Paper is part of a sustainable environmental loop. This even includes the paper storing quantities of carbon long into the future, even when it is not recycled and is 'stored' in landfill.

That is why I like to think of libraries as part of the national carbon sequestration effort. When it comes to what seems to be the most testing environmental issue of the day - global warming and greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide - online digital book stores and news services burn it up, while paper and print help suck it up.

The next generation of e-readers and digital devices may be handy and they have their uses, but just like computers in general, when compared to paper and print, they are just not sustainable.

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'The Liberal Party,' I wrote once, 'is just a stage that good men go through on their way to wisdom at 62.'

Don Chipp left the Liberal Party at 52; John Gorton at 64; Peter Costello (effectively) at 52; Brendan Nelson at 51; Jeff Kennett to Chair beyondblue at 52, John Hewson at 48; Malcolm Turnbull soon I guess at 55. Bob Menzies, a tardy deserter, at 79, of the party he had founded, voted DLP in 1974 and '75. For all I know, Fred Chaney, now at 68, votes Labor.

And Malcolm Fraser? He lasted, I suppose, till Howard began turning the boats back and, at 71, left it forever. And now, like a beached whale, rots and reeks and sweats over all the current political parties, evincing noble, sneery, mordant common sense and a great heart, cracking.

He wasn't always such a kindly, embittered, magnanimous fellow and I suspect he isn't now. It's worthwhile remembering what, when he had power, he actually did.

He sent birthday-ballotted young men to war in Vietnam, many to their death and who knows how many suffered genetic mutation under Agent Orange. He did not resign over the Birthday Ballot, he administered it with vigour. A good few hundred Vietnamese probably died from his decisions, and piles of their ears proclaimed their lucklessness in his crossfire.

He overthrew his leaders Gorton and Billy Snedden and connived at the sacking of Whitlam, and so brought Australia to the brink of civil war. I was there in Parliament House that day, and saw crowds booing him and being filmed, and heard of the film's destruction at his orders. He ordered the parliament's doors closed when he did not have the numbers to do so, but the drunk John Kerr did not have the strength by then to deny him anything, and so the doors closed.

He used a dead senator's pilfered vote to hold up the Budget, and an obese, hag-ridden, alcoholic, bisexual sluggard Kerr to affirm this ramshackle coup without consulting the Queen, as he constitutionally had to do.

Blood was not shed because Whitlam did not call in the Air Force, which was on his side, against the Army, which was on Kerr's side (or so I was told a week after), and Fraser strode through the middle of the flames into ever-tainted power.

He was 45 years old, and had risked his nation's democracy and hobbled it for a time, and twisted it out of shape, to attain his early laurel crown, despite his Monarch's manifest displeasure.

Once in power he abolished Medibank, Whitlam's equivalent of Medicare, and out of its residual shambles built Medibank Private and the incompetent subsidised pawnshops of the private health industry, still plaguing us today. He ended Whitlam's plan to buy back all of Australia's mineral wealth for $4 billion. He decimated the ABC's money, accusing Four Corners and This Day Tonight of 'left-wing bias'.

He acceded to Indonesia's takeover of East Timor and the slaughter of thousands that followed. He employed Alan Jones as a speechwriter. He sought to boycott the Moscow Olympics because the Soviet Union had occupied Afghanistan, a dreadful thing to do, but many team members, defying him, went and competed anyway. He put Australia into massive inflation and then massive recession and then, inadvertently, drought, and the latter it was I think that did for him as Prime Minister.

In rancorous semi-retirement he became one of the Eminent Persons who sorted out Southern Rhodesia by putting Robert Mugabe in charge of it.

He disappointed many of his puritan supporters by appearing trouserless in Memphis, in a hotel foyer frequented by high-rollers and prostitutes, drugged and stumbling and haughty and uncertain where, but not who, he was.

And he made John Howard his Treasurer, a disastrous choice, at 38, a job the young dill made a hash of, leaving us in the equivalent, then, of a $25 billion deficit that year.

On the good side, he supported multiculturalism and created SBS. He restored many land rights to Aborigines. He let in many determined Vietnamese, risking their lives in leaky boats to come here as refugees. He was on the right side of history on Apartheid, and ahead of many of his contemporaries (Thatcher, Nixon, Bjelke Petersen) on black civil rights.

Out of active politics at 52, he began to think about things; and the arrival of the Nasties at the Liberal Party's tiller in the late 1980s and of his wriggling sycophant Howard in power in 1996, put him into a baleful, twitching melancholy.

By 2001 he had broken with his party over boat people, and Woomera, Hicks, Rau, Solon, Iraq, Naura, Haneef and the savage new terrorist laws propelled him into public mutiny.

He appeared hand-in-hand with Whitlam proclaiming, 'Maintain your Age'. He showed no sense of humour but a great, cracking heart.

His government was far to the left of Hawke's and Keating's. He was a protectionist, arbitrationist, libertarian, zealously anti-Soviet true believer in a free, democratic, multicultural fair-minded world. He was rightly suspicious of the Global Free Trade wet dream which has lately melted down into a Chinese world empire with India, Japan and South America not far behind, and the United States now out of the equation.

He was a fool in many ways, but also an Oxford man like Turnbull, Beazley, Gallop, Geoffrey Robertson, Hawke, Harold Wilson, and not as easily deluded by American smoke-and-mirrors as Howard, whose thinking stopped at Enmore High. He was a sceptic, a micro-manager, a nocturnal pest, making testy phone calls to ministers on even Christmas morning, an office bully, a petty tyrant, an atheist (a rare thing these days) and some large fraction of an idealist like similar bruised good men (Gordon Brown, Jimmy Carter, Willy Brandt) can sometimes seem to be.

His book is well written, and bespeaks the inner unease of the first Jew ever admitted to the Melbourne Club (his mother, Una Woolf, was a Jewess) and a tall shy intelligent man (like David Williamson) suspicious of kindness, edgy with friends, restless, lonely and midnight-wakeful, who felt himself forever, in power and out, a stranger in the world.

Each man in his time, it was once said by a dramatist, plays many parts. And the hectic superfluity of politics in a media-heckled age affords little time for reflection, which retirement supplies. Fraser is an example of one whose instincts were humanitarian but his urge to power so fierce that he risked a civilisation to get it.

We will see his like again, and that's a pity.

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Whatever other influences helped shape Kevin Rudd, his time as a diplomat clearly had a major influence.

Kevin can talk. I wouldn't say he mastered the use of the English language, rather he mastered the art of talking and saying nothing, which is a basic tool of diplomacy. He learnt the art of gift giving and the use of the media to gain maximum impact and as a representative of a middle ranking power, the art of spin.

He mastered the complexities of creating castles in the air with a match box in his pocket. He learnt the dangers of delegation to self promotion and the need to appear busy. He learnt that management by crisis kept criticism at bay. But above all he learnt that appearance and presentation enhanced success. As difficult as it was initially he learnt how to become a member of the elite and he has not forgotten.

It was drummed into him to keep every door open, to never discard an option or close an opening; matters of fact and substance to be avoided unless advantage is sought from rival or opponent.

Conservative and risk averse, the department of foreign affairs impressed upon him the need for distance; objectivity can only be achieved through dispassionate appraisal of a problem or handling of difficult issues.

He threw that advice to the wind when he apologised to the Stolen Generation, but it was only a temporary aberration. He is firmly back on track and as evidence we need look no further than his treatment of asylum seekers.

Rudd's desire to get some quick (and easy) kudos from his aid program to the Australian people in the form of ceiling insulation has badly backfired, damaging his government, himself and the minister notionally responsible.

The episode demonstrates how lacking in common sense and the practical arts is this government. Why did no one in cabinet ask the basic questions concerning delivery of the program? Rudd wants to be hands on without knowing how to drive.

Rudd talks the talk on Afghanistan, but the war is unwinnable in the American sense of winning wars. Bombing civilians creates more supporters of the Taliban both in Afghanistan and abroad. It creates more opponents of the United States military and foreign policy in exactly the same way that Israel's invasion of Gaza and the resulting deaths of innocents created more opposition to Israel. It is not difficult to understand, yet it seems to be for Kevin Rudd.

Australian departments and agencies have been dealing with issues relating to terrorism for the last four decades. For Rudd to try and beat up the issue at this time is little more than a diversion.

He understands nothing about the conservation and delivery of water and yet has muzzled Penny Wong to the extent that her pronouncements on the subject as the putative minister for water are mean and meaningless.

Water cannot and should not be sold. The licence system is not working; it will not and cannot deliver. Access to potable water is the right of every citizen. It is the responsibility of government to protect that right and to deliver water for the sustenance of life, sustainable agriculture and industry in that order.

Control of water is essential for government if they wish to retain sovereignty. Vested interests have no place in undermining the ability of government to meet the basic needs of people and to determine the best use of water in the national interest.

As important as mining and producing cotton is we have looked in vain for the government to give voice to the needs of people ahead of large vested interests. People are not impressed with the false and forced bonhomie of Kevin Rudd.

Things are not OK. Where I live social problems are increasing, not decreasing. No money has been spent on meaningful infrastructure, roads, railways, hospitals and schools for decades. The kowtowing to vested interests, failure to wrest control, plan and implement proper water planning on a national scale has seen communities and agricultural enterprises collapse.

The message is, Rudd spins, he cares about his career in politics, he doesn't care about people, he doesn't care about productivity, it is all words.

When all else fails trot out the hoary old terrorism fear campaign. More people will likely die around where I live from poor roads and an inability to access decent medical services than they are from an act of terror.

Grow up Kevin, get real and do your job as it should be done and as you are paid to do it on behalf of people. You are without clothes.

My suggestion would be that some of the many resources you deploy to spy on the ethnic communities, you deploy in all communities around Australia. ASIO should have a branch office in every major rural city. Your lack of action in meeting your promises, in addressing the major issues facing this nation and your lack sincerity or your cynicism in being so focused on yourself at our expense is radicalising ordinary men and women.

Be it on your head.

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The army of denialist bloggers and cyber-bullies is sometimes accused of being the tool of fossil fuel companies. Although there is certainly a concordance of interests, that is as far as the relationship goes. The bloggers are motivated not by financial gain (indeed, their activities may have a financial cost) but by political grievances and an anti-elite worldview at odds with the mainstream.

Nevertheless, it is true that the raw material that feeds their anger is generated overwhelmingly by a network of right-wing think tanks and websites in part funded by Big Carbon. These links, which have been heavily documented, are close enough to provoke the Royal Society to take the unprecedented step of writing to Exxon Mobil asking the company to desist from funding anti-science groups.

Yet the funding continues, often through foundations that in effect launder oil and coal money to make it more difficult to trace to its sources. One of the more important conduits is the Washington-based Atlas Economic Research Foundation. Atlas supports financially a network of some 200 libertarian think tanks around the world, including (according to an investigation by US magazine Mother Jones) the Institute of Public Affairs and the Centre for Independent Studies in Australia.

Atlas co-sponsored the Heartland Institute's climate sceptic conference in Washington last June attended by a number of prominent Australian skeptics. The Heartland Institute has received funding from Exxon Mobil and earlier received funding from Philip Morris to campaign against smoking restrictions. It has superseded Frontiers of Freedom and the Competitive Enterprise Institute as the foremost US "think tank" working to discredit climate science and stop action on climate change.

Black ops
The deployment of think tanks and sceptic websites to attack climate science has been a carefully planned strategy that was developed in the United States in the mid-1990s. It was refined with the advice of political consultant Frank Luntz who in 2002 urged the Republican Party to undermine the credibility of climate science by commissioning "independent" experts to "make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate". The strategy is comprehensively exposed by former PR insider Jim Hoggan in his recent book Climate Cover-Up.

The strategy's use of operations that fall into the "grey area" of political campaigning - such as the creation of fake citizens groups to advance the interests of fossil fuel companies - is well-known and continuing. Only now is light being shone on a far more sinister campaign of black operations.

The hacking into computers at the Climatic Research Centre at the University of East Anglia is only part of a more extensive campaign of black ops organised by elements of the denial industry in the run-up to the Copenhagen meeting. Others include break-ins to the offices of climate scientists, an attempt to infiltrate the computer system at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria by two people posing as technicians, and industrial espionage directed at US green groups.

The think tanks
Although Australia does not have the proliferation of well-funded conservative think tanks that have been so influential in US politics, local counterparts have served effectively as conduits for the stream of anti-science pouring out of their kindred organisations in the United States. They have also been instrumental in publicising and promoting the work of Australian sceptics such as Ian Plimer and Bob Carter. There are three established think tanks and a new one emerging.

Lavoisier Group: Perhaps better described as an advocacy group than a think tank, the Lavoisier Group was founded in 1999 by Hugh Morgan, then CEO of Western Mining Corporation and a former president of the Mining Industry Council, and his long-time political operative Ray Evans. Its board consists mostly of mining industry figures. Evans has close links with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, for some years the most active denialist think tank in the United States.

Evans, with Morgan's backing, had created a string of organisations promoting conservative causes, including the anti-union H.R Nicholls Society (with which the Lavoisier Group shares a postal address) and the Samuel Griffiths Society, committed to defending states' rights.

The Lavoisier Group brings together leading sceptics at its conferences, promotes sceptics' books, and publishes material such as "Nine Lies About Global Warming", penned by Evans and parroted by sceptical columnists in the newspapers. A book edited by Evans was last year launched by Senator Barnaby Joyce, now the shadow finance minister.

Institute of Public Affairs: The oldest think tank in Australia, and with close links to the Liberal Party, the IPA took up the denialist cause early. The IPA is coy about its funding sources, but is known to have received the bulk of its income from mining, resource and tobacco companies. In addition to promoting the work of Australian sceptics like Ian Plimer, the IPA has hosted international visitors such as Bjorn Lomborg and Mark Steyn, events attended by Liberal Party heavyweights.

The IPA also sponsored the visit to Australia of President Putin's former adviser Andrei Illarianov who fulminated against "fraudulent science" and described the Kyoto Protocol as a "death pact", "an interstate Auschwitz", "a sort of international Gosplan, a system to rival the former Soviet Union's", an argument bizarre even in the world of climate denial, but reasonable enough to be reproduced by The Australian.

Centre for Independent Studies: The CIS projects itself as a more moderate conservative think tank, but has not been able to resist promoting climate scepticism. After struggling in its early years, it was reprieved by a major funding boost from six mining companies, a rescue facilitated by Hugh Morgan. Among its board members is Sir Rod Eddington, a senior business adviser to the Labor Government. It has hosted a string of climate sceptics from overseas and Australia.

Brisbane Institute: The Brisbane Institute has for some years been a middle-of-the-road think tank but appears to have been taken over by climate sceptics. Some of its followers were shocked to hear that the Institute would host the Brisbane leg of Christopher Monckton's Australian tour.

Last year the Brisbane Institute hosted a public lecture by Dr Jay Lehr, Science Director of the Heartland Institute. As we saw, the Heartland Institute is now the most active climate denialist organisation in the United States. Lehr was presented by the Brisbane Institute as an "internationally renowned" scientist, which is simply untrue; he has been heavily criticised for distorting and misrepresenting climate science. He is better known for spending three months in jail for defrauding the US Environmental Protection Authority in 1991.

The Brisbane Institute is perfectly entitled to take the denialist road. The puzzle is why the University of Queensland, the Institute's primary sponsor, would support an organisation that promotes anti-science. Paying for Monckton and Fehr to trash climate science in Brisbane does not seem compatible with the University's aim "to achieve internationally-acknowledged excellence in all forms of research".

Several scientists from the University serve as authors or reviewers for the IPCC, a body attacked as fraudulent by Monckton and Lehr. The University of Queensland appears unconcerned about linking itself with climate denial. In 2008 it accepted a donation of $350,000 from a climate change sceptic, channeled through the IPA, who wanted it to be spent on funding doctoral research on climate change. Of course, the University said there would be no strings attached.

These think tanks are at the heart of the denial movement in this country. They provide funding and organisational capacity, they convene conferences and private meetings, they commission sceptical scientists to write papers, they publish and promote sceptical papers and books, they supply "experts" to the media and they lobby at every opportunity.

Every sceptical scientist, no matter how independent he starts out, is sooner or later drawn into the web formed by these think tanks. In Australia, Bob Carter is a favourite of the Heartland Institute and the Lavoisier Group, Ian Plimer is an associate of the Institute for Public Affairs and an adviser to Nigel Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation, and William Kinninmonth (the Australian sceptic with perhaps the strongest claims to being a climate scientist) allowed his book to be launched by the Lavoisier Group.

The links of these sceptics to political organisations with strong ideological agendas stands in sharp contrast to the vast assemblage of legitimate climate scientists who have no political connections. Yet it is the latter who are accused of being politicised.

Backlash against the 60s
Despite their financial support from Big Carbon, it would be wrong to believe that the conservative think tanks operate solely at the behest of the fossil fuel industries. Their objectives are principally ideological and they would still be campaigning against climate science without funding from Exxon Mobil and others; they would just be less effective. In the United States and Australia, it is probably true that they have received more funding from right-wing foundations with no links to Big Carbon than from oil and coal companies (although some, like the Scaife Foundations, owe their wealth to oil).

So, in the end, their motives are political rather than commercial. The arms of the denialist war on climate science - the bloggers and letter writers; the right wing columnists like Andrew Bolt, Christopher Pearson and Miranda Devine; the Murdoch broadsheets; and the conservative think tanks - are united by one factor, a hatred of environmentalism. Environmentalism is variously seen to be the enemy of individual freedom, an ideology of smug elites, an attack on capitalism and consumerism, and the vanguard of world government.

This antagonism towards the real or assumed ideas of environmentalism is spiced with a loathing for "green culture" represented by the image of the long-haired tree-huggers who want to impose their ascetic lifestyle on others.

Politically, climate denialism represents a backlash against the advances begun by the social movements of the 1960s and their destabilisation of traditional social structures and beliefs, including those of the right of humans to exploit the natural world, which helps explain why its activists are overwhelmingly older. Raging against climate science fits perfectly with the worldview, style and audience demographic of populist shock-jocks like Alan Jones, Australia's answer to Rush Limbaugh.

To turn back the tide of denialism, perhaps the most significant step would be for those conservative leaders who accept the science to speak out loudly and clearly about the need to take action. It is in their hands to break down the belief that global warming is somehow a left-wing cause.

Tomorrow: How to manufacture a scientific scandal.

>Part 1: Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial
>Part 2: Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?

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Last week, it was reported that Macquarie Group was launching a physical oil trading business in Singapore to capitalise on the "growth of substantial new refining capacity, feeding the region's high-growth economies".

Trading in 'physical' (or liquid) as opposed to 'paper' (or financial) oil is very risky as illustrated by the case of Metallgesellschaft Refining and Marketing (MGRM), which, in the 1990s, lost its parent, the German industrial giant Metallgesellschaft A.G., some US $2.5 billion (when a US billion was a lot).

Now I am not for a moment suggesting that Macquarie will not have learned the lessons of MGRM as they have a well-deserved reputation for excellent risk management capabilities.

But the announcement raises issues beyond a particular business opportunity of structure, policy and regulation.

Macquarie is an APRA regulated bank and the one thing that international investors now know with absolute certainty is that the Australian government will never let one of its big banks fail. Much has been made of the government's recent announcement withdrawing the funding guarantee for Australian banks and the unseemly haste of banks, including Macquarie, to grab one more dollop of dessert debt before the bowl is whipped away from the table. But everyone knows that any government, of either party, will step up to bail out Australian banks if required in the future (which, in the public interest, is not a particularly bad stance anyway).

The Macquarie announcement raises the very valid question, should Australian taxpayers be guaranteeing, even to a small degree, trading in volatile commodities in an overseas market?

If the management and shareholders of a bank wish to speculate in these markets, should they not float off their trading arms and get the resulting higher returns from the increased risk, leaving the rest of the 'boring' bank regulated in the public interest?

But we have examples of that not working too well in the recent past. Babcock & Brown and Allco, two 'mini-Macs' or firms based on the Macquarie model, imploded miserably at the outset of Global Financial Crisis (because they were not guaranteed?). It is an interesting hypothetical to consider what would have happened if Allco's bid for Qantas in 2006 had succeeded - would Allco then have been 'too big to fail' and have to be converted, like Goldman Sachs, into a commercial bank overnight?

If the management and shareholders of any bank undertaking risky financial trading do not wish to give up the safety of the implied AAA government guarantee then, like any economic rent-seeker, should they not be hit with a windfall tax on profits?

There is an argument, of course, that setting up a small trading business in Singapore, even if in a very risky commodity, is immaterial and not likely to impact the Australian economy.

Macquarie is smart and farsighted. They know that energy in all its forms (oil, gas, coal, solar, nuclear etc.) is the next Gold Rush, and with or without an ETS, energy markets are destined to grow exponentially in the next 20 years. Barclays bank has predicted that oil prices are set to jump sharply again as Asian economies come out of recession. And JP Morgan, rarely far behind financial trends, has just announced its intention to acquire a large energy trading business from a near-bankrupt UK bank.

Who would not want to be in there, making money? Maybe, taxpayers?

In speeches to bankers in Sydney last week, Jaime Caruana, head of the Bank for International Settlements, and RBA governor Glenn Stevens, admitted that asset price bubbles are inevitable in capitalist economies and that governments and regulators have to be more pro-active in managing so-called 'systemic risks'.

After the 'dot com' share market bubble of the early 2000, which, though large, was eclipsed by the sub-prime mortgage bubble that led to the GFC, who is to say that an energy bubble cannot be far behind? If it is coming, do taxpayers want to have to bail out any banks that had over-stretched themselves?

The sub-prime crisis was far away in Florida and California; the up-coming energy asset bubble might be closer to home in Queensland and WA. Governments in hot water already over energy policies might want to think about cooling down rather than heating up that particular pot.

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Let me just say up front — Miranda Kerr is more, much more, than just her perky bottom. It is, however, a very special bottom, which makes this particular day "a very special day".

I've never actually met Mr David Jones myself, and yet, he's invited me to his Winter Fashion Thingie. Perhaps I have a very special bottom too?

Special or not, my day begins much the same as any modern woman's: after eight uninterrupted hours of sleep, a quick shag, seven glasses of water, a cucumber eye-bath, a call to my stylist (who's returning from Savers Mega-Store in Brunswick as we speak), and a medicinal slap of ammonia from my beloved husband (What the hell are you wearing, baby?) I shower, dress, and cruise off down the road in my family wagon.

It's only after I've plonked my cloppers down the red carpet, and become trapped at security trying to explain the difference between a B O W D I T C H and a Bod-witch, that I'm forced to ask myself: what does all of this mean? If I do actually make it out of here alive, if I do follow this red carpet to its natural end, where will it lead me? Fame, fortune, un-told happiness? Or am I, as David Byrne warned me two decades ago when I was then, on the road to nowhere?

This question popped up a bit during my teens, when all I really wanted was to be loved = thin. Fortunately, my "Dolly Diet" never quite came good, and an initially difficult decision to postpone my modelling career in favour of becoming a secret under-cover agent really did pay off in the long run (and I also now work as a mentor at the Traditional Australian Academy of Shit-Stirring. I love my job!).

Now that I've revealed my true identity, there's a difficult truth I'd like to share with you. I really shouldn't: I'll probably never get invited onto a red carpet again and I did enjoy Mr David Jones' show-bag, and the hand-crushed watermelon juice from his "Sponsors".

If you've read this far, however, you're clearly a good person, and you deserve the truth, so here it is, and I'll say it quick: the-whole-red-carpet-thing-is-a-big-fat-lie. That's right: despite what you've read, despite what you think you know, red carpets DO NOT go faster than other carpets, and that's not just my opinion, that's a "clinically proven fact' (as discovered, and quickly buried by The Ponds Institute in the 90's. Remember The Ponds Institute?).

Now that we're square, let's get back to the party. I've finally convinced the security guard that I am a genuine B O W D I T C H, he's let me through the gate, and before I know it, I'm sitting in Row 2 (fair enough - been a while between drinks) fanning myself with my program, wondering if this might not just be the hottest winter ever! Fan fanfanfanfan.

That show-bag I mentioned? Inside it, a free, delicious, sweet-smelling nude lip-gloss, which I can only assume is made from freshly regurgitated ambrosia: yum! As I hold up the box to check the calorie content, I'm suddenly aware that not only Shane but also Simone Warne are sitting facing me in the row opposite. Look out! And who's that sitting down the very end of the aisle? By God, it's Megan Gale! And that must be Mr David Jones next to her! Now hang back a minute: where's Andy? Andy? Don't tell me something's happened? Not them too, Lord! How? Why? I'll just turn the page and…

Addictive little suckers, those tabloid magazines. I don't want to read them, really I don't: they un-complete me, and I know it. It's just that every time I'm in a doctor's office, or a supermarket, or when it's a Tuesday…well, let's just say, I've walked some long, dirty miles down "Crap Media Lane".

Which means that now, when I look at the real live Warnie, I can think only of text messages, and diuretics, and two words that rhyme with "Yeah yeah!", and worst of all, I have an uncontrollable impulse to stand up and yell them out loud.

Fortunately, a simulated lightening bolt slams me across the cheek, as does the paralysing sound of what can only be described as "dance music", and then, right before my eyes…Hello Ms Winter, it's her! IT'S THE KERR!

IN A FITTED LILAC JUMPSUIT!

AND I SEE NO SIGN OF HER UNDERPANTS!

OR BRA!

As the poor gentleman next to me teeters on self-implosion, I'm lulled out of my trance by the light sprinkling of simulated rain, falling (virtually) upon my head. By "simulated rain" I mean "a light-show that looks like falling rain". That shit ain't cheap! How much did this whole thing cost? More than the entire Tuvalu relocation budget, I assume. Oh bother, now I've gone and started thinking about climate change again. Fan fanfanfanfan.

I'm graciously saved from catastrophe by a repeat round of Miranda Kerr's bottom, and now the only thing on my mind is gravity, and why the average jaw opens a little whenever The Kerr enters the building? The only two audience-members maintaining their composure at this point are Jennifer Kyte — who's seen it all before — and the equally professional Megan Gale, who probably knows we're watching her watching The Kerr watching the cameras, and that's how she manages to sit with her chin so still, stubbornly refusing to do the 12 o'clock, six o'clock, 12 o'clock, six o'clock like the rest of the audience. Steady as a lioness. Is this why she ended up as Mr David Jones' girlfriend? I wouldn't be surprised if she really was Wonder Woman.

I too have a super-power. It's a little-something I inherited from my parents, who were both humans. It's called "Looking someone in the face, and understanding how they feel". And yet for some reason, whenever I'm in rooms with models and sunglasses and very young-looking older women, my powers fail me. I squeeze my forehead really hard, and click my heels three times, but I just can't seem to read their faces. It's like being at sea without a boat. Where am I? And why? Why is it so f*cking hot! Fan fanfanfanfan.

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Let's face it. Ministerial responsibility of the orthodox Westminster kind has gone out the window. Ministerial accountability has somehow morphed into a curious combination of relying on advice (however flawed that may be), and hoping the Prime Ministers "confidence" in you will remain.

The Prime Minister will remain "confident" so long as the damage of leaving a wounded Minister in place is preferable to giving the Opposition a political scalp.

In the case of Mr Garrett, weighing this up must be a close run thing. It beggars belief that a Minister who commissions an independent report on risk, fails to read it until the "proverbial" hits the fan and, knowing that the program is fraught with dangers including the risk of fraud, damage to property and, most frighteningly, injury or death, continues to blindly accept advice from a department identified by the said report as ill-equipped to competently manage the program in the first place.

Didn't the Minister hear alarm bells?

To my mind, this is a critical and fundamental weakness in Mr Garrett's defence.

To begin with, if the Government conducts a lolly scramble shovelling $2.45 billion out the door to anyone with open arms, it is entirely predictable that the problems that have indeed materialised would happen.

A competent Government with a Coordinator General responsible to the Prime Minister's Department would know this without needing an independent risk analysis to confirm it.

Common sense may also point this out, but that might be asking too much.

But it is far more serious than that.

Having commissioned the Minter Ellison report, the Government and the Minister, and presumably the Coordinator General, were on notice that the Department of Environment was ill-equipped to roll out such a massive demand driven program.

From that point on, the Department was likely massively compromised in the advice it gave the Minister, yet it was this very Department that then embarked on trying to plug the gaps.

As the problems unfolded and the warnings piled up, surely the Minister had reason to question the adequacy of the advice he was receiving.

Surely it must have occurred to Mr Garrett to ask whether the rollout should be delayed or the program abandoned. The fact that the Department did not tell him this until 30 September 2009 should not have excused Mr Garrett from coming to grips with the fact that the program was spinning out of control much earlier than he did.

Mr Garrett has so far not told us what steps he took to satisfy himself that the risks identified by Minter Ellison had been adequately addressed by the Department or whether more could have been done to better manage those risks. The emergence earlier this week of a second Minter Ellison "risk register" report, that the Minister admits he did not see until now underscores the point.

Tragically, this ham-fisted program has resulted in deaths, fires and electrified properties and will require months, if not years, of rectification at taxpayers expense.

No doubt remedial work will eventually sort out the mess, but it cannot restore loss of life.

A big risk now that has not been addressed in this sorry saga is that the Minister remains responsible for the clean up of the mess that has characterized his watch.

That Peter Garrett is undoubtedly an engaging man with decent instincts is not sufficient when it comes to managing the clean up of a huge demand driven program.

Any Minister who demonstrates so clearly that he is an uncritical captive of his Department, and so disinclined to question the quality of advice he receives, is the biggest risk of all.

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Government White Papers are curious documents. They are big on assertion and vague on detail. Unsurprisingly, these characteristics are particularly pronounced when the subject is national security.

In releasing his government's Counter-Terrorism White Paper yesterday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned that 'an attack could occur at any time' and added that 'the agencies that advise us on these matters have concluded that this threat is now a permanent threat'.

There are many who would challenge the unqualified nature of that last sentiment - looking to history, even the most seemingly entrenched terrorist movements have all met their demise in one way or another. While groups such as al-Qaeda certainly do possess distinctively new and challenging features, especially their global ambition and reach, it is no small thing to give them the credit that a claim of permanency involves.

Apart from anything else, it suggests a certain futility lies in any attempt to grapple with the so-called 'root causes' of terrorism, and that all our energy should go into more immediate measures. Of course, we must work at both ends of the problem but we should ensure we always keep sight of the long game.

This is made difficult by the pressure brought to bear by a powerful security lobby which stands to profit hugely from the sale of new technologies designed to thwart acts of violence. Just as an example, the announcement of a scheme of biometric checks for visa applicants from countries thought to pose a security threat to Australia is reported to cost $69 million over four years.

While the public might think that sounds a reasonable expense, they should consider that the enhanced visa process will apply only to 10 countries - presumably amongst them are Somalia and Yemen, described by the Prime Minister as 'newer areas of concern'. But given the geographically diffused nature of the threat, as portrayed by the White Paper itself, we are really taking a gamble on these particular hotspots.

If al-Qaeda is as organisationally competent as the government believes then the Australian biometric checks will be little more than an inconvenience to it.

Fortunately, the British and American visa check system is far more extensive and they allow us access to it.

The establishment of our own limited scheme may well be important, as Rudd says, in enabling us to give something back to the international co-operative efforts at counter-terrorism - to effectively secure our place at the table - but it does not come without consequences.

The most immediately obvious of those is the dicey diplomacy required when Australia informs the countries concerned that it views its citizens as particularly threatening. In some cases this will probably not be news and even of little importance to them - though it would certainly fuel a general sense of persecution from the Western world.

In others, notably Indonesia if it is amongst the 10 countries, broaching the issue may seriously impair co-operative efforts in counter-terrorism in the region. This scheme is a good example of a short-term security measure which, despite its immediate appeal, may actually make it harder to address the underlying tensions which groups like al-Qaeda feed on.

While a focus on aviation security and border checks is understandable, its prominence is a little incongruous with Rudd's comment, echoing the White Paper, that 'home-grown terrorism in Australia is increasing' with 'some of the threat we now face comes from the Australian born, Australian educated, and Australian residents'.

The government points to the 2005 London bombings as the moment the internal aspect of the threat from 'a distorted and militant interpretation of Islam' crystallised. That was certainly true, though the demographics and size of the United Kingdom's population, plus its geographical proximity to training camps in other hostile nation states, ensures that this is a much greater problem there than it is here.

The Commonwealth is on firmer ground when it points to the number of terrorism cases which have gone through Australian courts. Of 38 prosecutions, 37 involved Australian citizens of whom 20 were born here. The White Paper acknowledges the interplay of factors which may radicalise individuals and put them on the road to violent extremism - including real or perceived social and economic disadvantage; identity politics; international developments and Australian government responses to them.

But one of the big disappointments is how sketchily the White Paper lays out the necessary steps to build 'strong, resilient communities' which will prevent dangerous alienation in some vulnerable sections of the Australian public.

This is a shame since the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland has generally distinguished himself from his Coalition predecessor by emphasising the importance of social inclusion as a counter-terrorism strategy. This is crucial if we are to win the long-game against modern day terrorists.

The second undeniable component to success against terrorism and all it stands for, is an unwavering commitment to the rule of law, democratic values and human rights. A counter terrorism legal framework which undermines these things breeds community cynicism and distrust, is rarely effective in promoting security, and lets terrorists dictate how we should live - exactly their goal.

The White Paper certainly acknowledges all this, while also referring to the Discussion Paper McClelland released in September 2009 for reform of some of the controversial Howard government anti-terrorism laws. But the commitment could be strengthened.

The Paper discusses control orders and preventative detention orders in very positive terms but these are deeply invasive of rights and of negligible value (no Australian is subject to either order at present). These are not so much 'effective legal powers' as clear examples of superfluous controls introduced by the State under the cover of the terrorist threat.

Their continued availability is itself a danger to liberal democracy in this country.

Terrorism is a complex problem and the White Paper's rather scattered focus inevitably reflects this. There is no magic bullet as a solution. We need to take all reasonable steps to protect the community now.

But ensuring that the seeds of domestic political violence are not allowed to take root over the longer term, is our only chance of preventing the current threat from gaining true permanence.

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Something other than beds is burning around Peter Garrett at the moment. If Tony Abbott had his way it would be wood around the stake of ministerial responsibility at which Garrett would be strapped.

Abbott is doing what opposition leaders are supposed to do: make life difficult for governments and criticise them - but without appearing to be a constant painful whinger.

This is why he is making a big deal about pinning ministerial responsibility to Garrett for the home insulation mess. The idea is that a minister is responsible for whatever they and their department do.

This doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility sounds fine and has a partner in collective responsibility, which states that cabinets are responsible for their decisions and any minister who can't support a decision must resign from cabinet.

Together, they are rightly considered fundamentals of the so-called Westminster system that has underpinned our governments since the 19th century and that came to use as another inheritance from the Poms.

All well and good as democracy needs to have lines of accountability from the voter to the government through the public service, so that we've got somebody to blame come election time and to have our wishes met. However, the conception of responsibility passed to us from Brits, especially Walter Bagehot, who idealised the British system as a superior political model.

The actual workings of responsibility provide the no-man's land over which governments and oppositions battle to victory or exhaustion, as we currently see. There is always the question of how much the minister is responsible for when they head a department of thousands of people handling thousands of tonnes of paperwork.

Should a minister resign for a mistake made far down the bureaucratic hierarchy? Is it simply the responsibility of the individual minister, even though cabinet may have charged him or her with a policy?

In such blurry areas of an issue lay the fact that Westminster responsibility is something chased by oppositions and done by governments in fear of being caught out. It is not one model that stays the same through all time, although some journalists seem to naively assume that.

The same scenario plays out repeatedly and it all comes down to how long can the prime minister fight off the opposition attack before it becomes necessary to dump a minister before too much skin is taken of his government. (It's 'he' until we get a female prime minister). A lesson in this comes from John Howard's second time as opposition leader and first time term as prime minister from 1996 to 1998.

In opposition, Howard complained long and loud about the arrogance of Paul Keating as this was a theme picked up in Liberal opinion polling of voters. Therefore, there was no better way of exemplifying this than to attack Ross Kelly and Carmen Lawrence, two ministers who were compromised.

Kelly had revealed the existence of a whiteboard for funding of sports organisations that seemed to favour Labor, according to the opposition. Lawrence was tainted by a royal commission promulgated by the WA Liberal government into the death of Penny Easton.

Keating stood by his ministers and suffered politically for it. It contributed to the public distaste the Liberals were cultivating. I say contributed because there was a larger context of recession, transition to a more globalised economy and Keating's seeming disdain.

So ministerial scalps are good for oppositions to get but by themselves cannot down governments. They may contribute to a momentum against a government in the right circumstances - or they may provide a momentary blip in the polls for an opposition, especially in the first term of a government, like Rudd now and Howard in 1996-98.

Howard went into government promising to be purer than Keating with a ministerial code of conduct. But he soon learned the lesson that there is a difference between opposition and government, which is a point about ministerial responsibility.

It caught out three ministers and two parliamentary secretaries who resigned over claims of conflict of interest by opposition leader Kim Beazley.

Howard learned his lesson. His government's reputation suffered too much and it contributed to a view then that he was a weak leader. I know, it's difficult to believe that now but in that first term Hanson was riding high and many feared globalisation. Again, circumstances were important.

Howard watered down the code so it was never again a problem and he never lost another minister until the last couple of months before losing in 2007. On that occasion, it was to save government skin, a forlorn hope at that late stage of a long and terminal government.

Kim Beazley scored some scalps but it didn't help him become prime minister.

Generally, governments try to weather media storms, holding out for the media cycle to go through 10-12 days before some other big thing comes along to divert attention. That time is now up.

Rudd doesn't want to do a Keating and stand by a minister for too long and suffer. But neither does he want to do an early Howard and tarnish his government by a needless sacking.

From now, Rudd will be thinking of his government, which is his job, and if things don't settle or improve, then I think Peter will be gone by the weekend.

Timing is everything in politics.

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Peter Garrett is under fire because four people have died as a result of the Government's home installation scheme. A well-intentioned program; clear failings in implementation; the government received warnings from assorted groups that the scheme might lead to problems; four needless deaths. Answers? Shonky operators in the spotlight and the Minister in the dock.

Leaving aside the political and personal merits of the issue, how does it compare with other causes of death?

This year some fifteen thousand Australians will die because they smoked. That's the equivalent of nearly four thousand home installation scheme death tolls. Smoking also causes a vast amount of further disease and suffering, with the total economic costs of smoking for Australia estimated at over $30 billion a year. Since 1950, when smoking was known unequivocally to be a cause of preventable death, nearly one million Australians have died because they smoked. To adapt Joseph Stalin, four deaths is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic.

Tobacco companies are knowingly selling and promoting a product that kills one in two of its regular users when consumed precisely as intended. Smoking is also the cause of death for 20% of Aboriginal people - more tragedies, more statistics.

This would be bad enough if it was relatively new information, but it isn't. Report after report has confirmed the magnitude of the problem and the need for action. Governments have been sitting on advice and recommendations for decades. All parties in Government share the responsibility, and all Health Ministers, including Tony Abbott when he was Minister for Health. Both sides of politics (sometimes pushed by other parties and Independents) have taken various forms of action at both Federal and State levels, but never enough.

We know what to do - there clear evidence as to what works: a comprehensive approach, including price policy, adequate expenditure on well-run, hard-hitting, sustained media campaigns, tough pack warnings, an end to all forms of tobacco promotion - including on the pack, protection for non-smokers, and special attention to disadvantaged groups where smoking is highest. Failure to act over the years - as recommended by international and national health authorities and experts - means that literally hundreds of thousands of Australians have died long before their time.

In fairness, the present Government has recognised the importance of prevention. The Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, could not have been more explicit about the responsibilities of government to act when she said, "we are killing people by not acting", and has both taken a tougher stance and committed substantially more funding for tobacco control than any of her predecessors. There has at long last been a recognition of the importance of addressing the crucial issue of Aboriginal smoking with more than $100m and the appointment of a strong and highly respected Aboriginal leader, Tom Calma, to oversee the program. The Opposition have also supported proposals for a tobacco tax increase.

There are encouraging trends among both adults and children, but the international tobacco companies - "Big Tobacco" - which control the Australian tobacco industry, have done everything they can to oppose and undermine the work of governments and health authorities, and continue to do so.

The cowboys of the insulation business are rightly being exposed. Why do we not put the same kind of heat on the cigarette cowboys - tobacco company executives who know exactly what they are doing, and whose work results in thousands of deaths? Far from being shonky operators, they are skilled, highly trained practitioners. The deaths resulting from their work are no surprise to them or anyone else. And if we are to blame politicians for preventable deaths, why are successive health Ministers not standing in the dock for failing to prevent the deaths of almost a million Australians?

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The floods of offensive and threatening emails aimed at intimidating climate scientists have all the signs of an orchestrated campaign by sceptics groups. The links are well-hidden because mobilizing people to send abuse and threats is well outside the accepted bounds of democratic participation; indeed, some of it is illegal. And an apparently spontaneous expression of citizen concern carries more weight than an organised operation by a zealous group.

Without access to ISP logs, it is difficult to trace the emails to a source. However, it is clear that hard-line denialists congregate electronically at a number of internet nodes where they engage in mutual reinforcement of their opinions and stoke the rage that lies behind them.

Those who operate these sites retail the "information" that reinforces the assertions made by their followers. They often post highly personal attacks on individuals who speak in favour of mainstream science and measures to combat global warming, knowing from experience that they will stimulate a stream of vituperation from their supporters.

The posts on these sites often provoke an outpouring of the most outlandish conspiracy theories and vilification of individuals. There is no restraining influence and, in the middle of one of these frenzies, it would be a brave sceptic who called for caution and moderation in the ideas expressed or the language used.

In Australia, a handful of denialist websites stand out. They include the blog of Herald-Sun commentator Andrew Bolt, Bolt's stable mate Tim Blair at the Daily Telegraph, the website operated by sceptic Joanne Nova (a pseudonym for Joanne Codling), and the community forum site operated by the Queensland farmers' organisation Agmates. Denialists also flock to the e-journal Online Opinion.

On these sites discussion of the "global warming conspiracy" seamlessly segues into a hodge-podge of right-wing populist grievances and causes, including defending rural property rights, the martyrdom of farming hunger-striker Peter Spencer, the errors of the Club of Rome, blood on the hands of Rachel Carson for causing DDT to be banned, the evils of Al Gore, the plan by the United Nations to dominate the world, and the need to defend freedom and democracy from these threats. Sceptics are explicitly or implicitly portrayed as freedom fighters battling attempts by scheming elites to shore up their power or impose a world government.

Recently, this stew of paranoia has been given a boost by the media exposure granted to Christopher Monckton in his recent Australian tour. Monckton propounded his extraordinary theory about climate change being a conspiracy by communists - assisted by the Hitler Youth and a craven scientific establishment - to seize power through a world government hidden in a climate treaty. A few months ago a fantasist like Monckton would have attracted only eye-rolling from news editors.

I am not suggesting that the individuals and organisations I have mentioned are responsible for organising the cyber-bullying attacks on scientists and others. However, they do create an environment that encourages them. The effect of these sites is three-fold.

1. They supply the ammunition that confirms and elaborates on climate deniers' beliefs.
2. They provide a forum in which deniers can participate in a like-minded community that reinforces their views.
3. And they identify the individuals responsible for promoting climate lies, stimulating participants to make direct contacts with "warmists".

Andrew Bolt's blog deserves special mention both because it has become the most popular meeting place for deniers in Australia and because it is sponsored by a mainstream media outlet, Melbourne's Herald-Sun, a Murdoch tabloid.

Bolt specialises in posts of angry ridicule directed at climate scientists and any others who publicly accept the science. Recent targets have included Ove Hoegh-Guldburg, Andy Pitman, and the CSIRO as a whole.

Bolt has admitted that his posts bad-mouthing climate scientists have incited his readers to send abusive emails to them.

Mainstreaming denial
It might be thought that vilification of climate scientists and others engaged in the climate debate is confined to the nether-world of the Internet. In truth, the most influential source of misrepresentation and ridicule resides in the "heritage media" in the form of the Murdoch broadsheet, The Australian. I will consider its long-running war on science later, but here it is important to draw attention to its role in identifying hate figures for deniers and fueling their aggression.

As an illustration of the newspaper's tactic, at the Copenhagen conference in December an Australian named Ian Fry, representing the Government of Tuvalu, made an impassioned intervention from the plenary floor that captured the mood and made headlines around the world. Fry is a shy man who has for many years devoted himself to representing the tiny island state for minimal financial or reputational reward.

The day after his intervention The Australian published a story ridiculing his "tear-jerking performance" and suggesting he is a self-seeking hypocrite because he lives a long way from the sea. The story appeared on the front page alongside a photograph of Fry's house.

At a time when climate campaigners were receiving grisly death threats, the editors of the national daily decided to expose Ian Fry and his family to danger by publishing information about where he lives that enabled people to work out his address. When challenged, the journalist responsible for the story showed no understanding or remorse.

In 2005 The Australian used the same tactic on Indigenous leader Mick Dodson, publishing a photo of his house under a headline claiming he lived comfortably in the suburbs while depriving other Indigenous people of the opportunity to own a house. Dodson, already the subject of death threats, said he feared for the safety of his family.

The Australian's grubby tactic was unwillingly revealed by one of its journalists, Caroline Overington. During the last election campaign, a Labor candidate decided he did not want to be interviewed and photographed, so she threatened to send a photographer around to stake out his house. She sent the following text message:

"Either you say yes to a photograph smiling and happy and out campaigning, or we stake you out at ... Bondi Junction, and get you looking like a cat caught in a trap, in your PJs. Your choice."

What drives denial?
What motivates the legion of climate deniers to send hate-mail? In recent years a great deal of evidence has come to light linking fossil fuel corporations with organisations that promote climate denial, but it would be a mistake to believe that the army of sceptical bloggers is in any sense in the pay of, or directly influenced by, the fossil fuel lobby.

Climate denialism has been absorbed by an older and wider political movement, sometimes called right-wing populism. Emanating from the United States, and defined more by what it fears than by what it proposes, the movement's enemies were helpfully listed in a 2004 TV ad attacking Democrat Howard Dean, whose supporters were characterised as a:

"tax hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show."

Although the targets are adapted to Australian conditions, in both countries the movement is driven by feelings of angry grievance. Those who identify with it see themselves as anti-liberal, anti-elitist and anti-intellectual. They are resentful of their exclusion from the mainstream and at the same time proud of their outsider status.

Since the mid-1990s, anti-climate forces associated with the Republic Party and oil-funded conservative think tanks have successfully linked acceptance of global warming and the need for greenhouse policies with those groups despised by right-wing populism.

In more recent years, the denial movement has been joined by some hard-line conservative Christian groups, including the notorious Catch the Fire Ministries and its witch-hunting pastor Danny Nalliah. According to Paul Colgan, these groups were heavily involved in the lobbying to have Tony Abbott elected as Liberal Party leader.

As this suggests, becoming a denialist does not follow from carefully weighing up the evidence (that is, true scepticism) but from associating oneself with a cultural outlook, taking on an identity defined in opposition to a caricature of those who support action on climate change. It is the energy in this wider movement that has seen climate denialism morphing into a new form of political extremism.

Some active climate deniers possess a distinct "mindset" comprised of a certain worldview, including a narrative centered on secretive forces - variously encompassing elected leaders, scientists, scientific organisations, environmental groups and the United Nations - that are using climate science and climate policies as a cover to accumulate power with the objective of creating a world government that overrides national sovereignty and deprives citizens of their rights.

Those who hold to this worldview often feel marginalised and persecuted. It attracts the unstable and fanatical as well as those with more legitimate political grievances. For political leaders so inclined, the energy being mobilised by climate denial is a golden opportunity. Although it remains necessary for these leaders to evince a concern for the environment, and even to pretend to accept climate science, they can speak to the denialist minority using dog-whistling techniques to signal that they are really on their side.

This explains the decision by new Opposition leader Tony Abbott to meet Monckton when even one of the country's most conservative columnists wrote of the dangers of associating with his extreme views. Although he had been forced to repudiate his pre-leadership claim that climate science is "absolute crap", in meeting Monckton Abbott sent the message that his real views have not changed. Of course, he can respond to accusations of giving succour to denialism with the dog-whistler's device of "plausible deniability" - he is happy to hear all views.

A more subtle message was sent by Abbott earlier this month when he gloated over the recent recall of the Toyota Prius; for him and others hostile to environmentalism, the tarnishing of a green icon is a reason for celebration.

Tomorrow: The Exxon-funded think tanks that feed climate denial.
>Part 1: Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial

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Tony Abbott is a conviction politician. Famously, he trained for the priesthood; today, he's prepared to take unfashionable opinions if that's what his faith mandates.

Or, at least, so the story goes.

Last week, Abbott re-opened the old debate about capital punishment in Australia.

"I have always been against the death penalty," he said.

"I sometimes find myself thinking, though, that there are some crimes so horrific that maybe that's the only way to adequately convey the horror of what's been done…
"Well, you know, what would you do with someone who cold-bloodedly brought about the deaths of hundreds or thousands of innocent people? I mean, you've got to ask yourself, what punishment would fit that crime? That's when you do start to think that maybe the only appropriate punishment is death."
Here, you might think, was a man following the dictates of his conscience: a religious conservative musing on the supreme penalty, despite its unfashionability in most political circles. Yes, on moral issues Abbott cares less for the fads of men than for the rock of St Peter.

Well, maybe not.

You see, actually, the Catholic Church condemns capital punishment, as the Vatican website explains:

'The Holy See has consistently sought the abolition of the death penalty and his Holiness Pope John Paul II has personally and indiscriminately appealed on numerous occasions in order that such sentences should be commuted to a lesser punishment, which may offer time and incentive for the reform of the guilty, hope to the innocent and safeguard the well-being of civil society itself and of those individuals who through no choice of theirs have become deeply involved in the fate of those condemned to death.'
Thus the Catholic Australia website directs readers enquiring about the death penalty to Michael Costigan's pamphlet 'The Death Penalty: Why Catholics Should Oppose it', before quoting from the Evangelium Vitae:

'The nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.'
In 1998, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference put it like this:

'Capital punishment, which the Church's teaching now regards as unjustifiable in virtually every conceivable circumstance, continues to be practised even in otherwise civilized communities, often in the face of protests and appeals from members of the hierarchy, led by the Holy Father himself. The bishops of Australia would certainly oppose any move to reintroduce the death penalty in this country.'
It might be protested that Abbott framed his remarks with a protestation about his personal opposition to the noose. Indeed he did - but, as a seasoned politician, he could have chosen to leave matters there, to declare that coalition policy on the death penalty would remain unchanged. A dead-bat answer of that kind would have entirely defused the issue.

Instead, by speculating on the circumstances in which prisoners should be killed, Abbott was, as he must have known, giving the capital punishment can a good kick.

Imagine that he'd said something similar about abortion; that, in the midst of a wide-ranging conversation, he'd declared that, despite his long-standing pro-life views, he kept coming back to all the circumstances in which terminating a pregnancy seemed the best option. A statement along those lines would have been front-page news, with the mere hint of a reconsideration on abortion spurring speculation that the Opposition Leader was trimming his sails for the sake of electability.

On the death penalty, though, it's different, and Abbott felt able to deliberately open a debate that the Vatican wants closed down in a way that he never would have countenanced about abortion.

Religion in politics is a curious thing.

The great monotheisms - Judaism and Islam as much as Christianity - have, over the centuries, proved themselves almost infinitely protean, capable of adapting their meanings and messages to suit different times and different places. Catholicism was a faith shared by James Connolly and BA Santamaria. It inspired Franco's fascists during the Spanish Civil War; it provided succor to the Sandinistas who led the Nicaraguan Revolution.

Almost every holy book contains sufficient complexity to sustain a myriad of person and social interpretations. For instance, Tony Abbott's public discussion of the virginity of his daughters accord with the image most of us have of the religious politician, invariably preoccupied with sexual ethics (think of debates over gay marriage). Yet, as the American theologian Rev. Jim Wallis notes, the Bible devotes far more space to social justice than to sexuality, with, for instance, one in every 16 verses of the New Testament relating, in some way or another, to poverty. By contrast, there are only a small number of Biblical passages explicitly condemning homosexuality - and most of them can be found amidst Old Testament passages denouncing tattoos and the eating of shellfish, and advising on the best way to keep slaves.

In other words, it's equally (or perhaps more) viable to argue for a scriptural basis for the anti-war and pro-labour campaigning of a Martin Luther King than for the sexual policing of US-style evangelism. The fascination with gay marriage and chastity and the rest of it has more to do with the support base of the American churches than with inviolable Holy Writ. The practical implications of any religion are always a social matter, the result of political struggles between different interpretations.

Which brings us back to Tony Abbott and his convictions.

For all the talk about Abbott's religiosity, in politics, he's closer to the Gospel of Washington than the Church of Rome. Under John Howard, the Liberal Party learned much from the American Right. In particular, it discovered the utility of a right-wing populism, in which resentments about immigrants and Aborigines mobilised the economically marginalised against the ALP's inner city supporters. Furthermore, Howard recognised that he could speak to this new constituency through a code that allowed him to disavow messages even as he sent them. Thus, when Pauline Hanson first appeared, Howard never actually endorsed her or her message - but he made a point of publicly applauding the relaxation of political correctness that she represented.

And then everyone drew their own conclusions.

Such is the dark art of the dog whistle, a technique pioneered and honed by the Right in the US. Dog whistling allows you, rather handily, to say two things at the same time ('I have always been against the death penalty'; 'maybe the only appropriate punishment is death') and thus represents the antithesis of conviction.

But it's clearly what Abbott's doing now.

Yes, the Church might oppose capital punishment but Abbott knows that his socially conservative support base likes the 'tough on crime' rhetoric just as much as they disapprove of abortion. That's why both John Howard and Kevin Rudd, on occasion, flirted with the "hang 'em high" crowd.

Consider, then, the remarks of Archbishop Renato Martino, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations. In 1999, Martino argued:

'The discussion on restricting and abolishing the death penalty demands of States a new awareness of the sacredness of life and the respect it deserves. It demands courage to say "no" to killing of any kind, and it requires the generosity to provide perpetrators of even the most heinous crimes the chance to live a renewed life envisioned with healing and forgiveness.'
Yes, a statement from Abbott to that effect would have indeed required courage. Instead, the Opposition Leader showed that, Captain Catholic or not, his convictions extend no further than those of his contemporaries.

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Nobody should be surprised that there are problems with family law arising from the 2006 changes to the Family Law Act. Anybody who read the submissions back then, and listened to the witnesses during the Senate inquiry into the Bill would have seen what was to come.

The Howard Government knew exactly what it was doing when it carefully crafted amendments to change this legislation. It was quite clear that there was a de facto presumption of 'equal shared care' in the changes that were made - the claims that this wasn't the intent of legislation and has been a misinterpretation by the courts are bunkum. The way the amendments were written clearly encouraged this interpretation and sets up a conflict between the best interests of the child and the 'rights' of the parents.

It was also very clear at the time that the changes that redefined domestic violence and requiring a much higher level of proof for alleged abuse would scare women into not reporting or raising the issue of domestic violence during family court proceedings. Again, it was clear at the time that this was exactly what the Howard Government intended. It should come as no surprise to anyone that these changes have in some cases led to drastic and tragic outcomes.

Family law and domestic violence experts explicitly warned of these problems, which was highlighted in the Greens and Australian Democrats minority report. But the Coalition under Howard used their Senate majority to ram these amendments through the Senate … while many MPs kept their heads down and tried to dodge some vociferous lobbying. The Greens moved a number of amendments that attempted to address these serious problems, but these were rejected out of hand by the Government of the time.

The 2006 amendments do not put the interests of the child first. Recent claims by Mr Ruddock and others that they do are clearly misleading. The changes explicitly tell the courts that it is in best interests of the child to have contact with both parents, unless there is solid proof of domestic violence (something which, because of the nature of abuse that occurs behind closed doors, is notoriously hard to prove). By doing so these changes reduce the discretion of the court to consider the child's best interests and require it to consider the interests of the parents in ongoing contact. The legislation codified an 'entitlement' to spend time with the child, rather than focused on the child's individual needs and circumstances to determine where contact was in the child's best interests.

The operation of a presumption such as this, de facto or otherwise, is likely to lead to an inappropriate and harmful focus in determining what is best for children. Women's Legal Services Australia said at the time:

"…the presumption of contact has permeated family law practice and led to a pro-contact culture that promotes the right to contact over safety… [which] undermines the child's best interests in that it fails to properly prioritise the adverse effects on children of being exposed to abuse either directly or by witnessing the abuse of a parent."

Shared care arrangements are in most cases the best place to start, but there are instances where violence and abuse mean that the best interests of the child are not served by a presumption of shared care.

This problem is exacerbated when changes to the level of proof required for allegations of family violence, combined with large fines for parents who are unable to prove claims of abuse, leads to a situation where the courts are much less likely to hear about these risks and so are unable to take into account concerns for child safety or exposure to partner violence in assessing the child's best interests.

A stable environment encourages healthy child development but, shared care arrangements don't necessarily result in a stable environment. When everything is stable in the home life of both parents, there are no concerns about family conflict and no added complications with school attendance and families living long distances apart - then there's a good chance shared care arrangements will be in the child's best interests. However, there is no conclusive evidence to prove that working on the basis of a presumption of equal time, rather than considering a child's unique circumstances in each case, produces outcomes that are in the best interests of the child rather than the interests of the parents.

I believe that further amendments are needed to the legislation to address the ambiguity in shared care arrangements, to fix the definition of domestic violence, and to put the best interests of the child back at the start of family court consideration.

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Two years ago the Labor Party won a decisive election victory in part by riding a public mood demanding action on climate change after years of stonewalling.

The new Government promised to spearhead world efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Today it's on the run, retreating from a surge of militant anti-climate activism that believes climate science is a left-wing plot aimed at promoting elites, wrecking the economy and screwing the little man. What happened?

Part 1: Climate cyber-bullying
Australia's most distinguished climate scientists have become the target of a new form of cyber-bullying aimed at driving them out of the public debate.

In recent months, each time they enter the public debate through a newspaper article or radio interview these scientists are immediately subjected to a torrent of aggressive, abusive and, at times, threatening emails. Apart from the volume and viciousness of the emails, the campaign has two features - it is mostly anonymous and it appears to be orchestrated.

The messages are typically peppered with insults. One scientist was called a "Loudmouth, arrogant, conceited, ignorant wanker".

The emails frequently accuse the scientists of being frauds who manipulate their research in order to receive funding, such as this one to Ben McNeil at the UNSW:

"It's so obvious you are an activist going along with the climate change lie to protect your very lucrative employment contract."

They often blame the recipients of being guilty of crimes, as in this one received by Professor David Karoly at the University of Melbourne:

"It is probably not to (sic) extreme to suggest that your actions (deceitful) were so criminal to be compared with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. It is called treason and genocide.

"Oh, as a scientist, you have destroyed peoples trust in my profession. You are a criminal . Lest we forget."

Receiving emails like these is unsettling and at times disturbing, which of course is the point. They become worrying when they cross the line to personal threats, such as these sent to Professor Andy Pitman at the UNSW:

"There will be a day of facing the music for the Pitman type frauds... Pitman you are a f**king fool!"

And this one:

"If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you."

When Pitman politely replied to the last, the response was more aggressive:

"F**k off mate, stop the personal attacks. Just do your science or you will end up collateral damage in the war, GET IT."

All threats have to be taken seriously, and at times warrant calling in the police. The police are able to trace anonymous emails to their sources and take action against those who send them. The police are now advising those who received abusive and threatening emails to resist the immediate urge to delete them and keep them in a separate folder for future reference.

Climate campaigners have also noticed a surge in the frequency and virulence of this new form of cyber-bullying. The following was received by a young woman (who asked that her name not be used):

"Did you want to offer your children to be brutally gang-raped and then horribly tortured before being reminded of their parents socialist beliefs and actions?

"Burn in hell. Or in the main street, when the Australian public finally lynchs you."

Another campaigner opened her inbox to read this:

"F**k off!!!

"Or you will be chased down the street with burning stakes and hung from your f**king neck, until you are dead, dead, dead!

"F**k you little pieces of sh*t, show youselves in public!!!"

Greens Senator Christine Milne told me that senators' inboxes are bombarded every day by climate deniers and extremists, so that now they are running at least 10 to one against those who call for action on climate change.

She describes it as a "well-organised campaign of strident, offensive and insulting emails that go well beyond the bounds of the normal cut and thrust of politics".

It was widely reported that in the days before the Liberal Party leadership challenge last November, MPs were blitzed with emails from climate deniers. Some MPs were spooked into voting for Tony Abbott, the only one of the three contenders who had repudiated climate science. Australia's alternative government is now led by climate deniers.

Journalists hit
Journalists too have become the victims of cyber-bullying. I have spoken to several, off the record, who have told of torrents of abusive emails when they report on climate change, including some sufficiently threatening for them to consult their supervisors and consider police action.

One was particularly disturbed at references to his wife. Another received the following from someone who gave his name and identified himself as medical representative at major pharmaceutical's company:

"You sad sack of s**t. It's ok to trash climate change sceptics yet, when the shoe is on the other foot, you become a vindictive, nasty piece of s**t not able to face the fact that you're wrong about climate change and you're reputation is now trash."

Anonymous emails are usually more graphic.

"Your mother was a goat f**ker!!!!!! Your father was a turd!!!!!!! You will be one of the first taken out in the revolution!!!!!!!! Your head will be on a stake!! C**t!"

Few of those on the receiving end of this hatred doubt that the emails are being orchestrated. Scores of abusive emails over a few hours are unlikely to be the product of a large number of individuals spontaneously making the effort to track down an email address and pour forth their rage.

While some individuals act alone, increasingly the attacks are arranged by one or more denialist organisations. It's fair to assume operatives in these organisations constantly monitor the media and, when a story or interview they don't like appears, send messages out to lists of supporters, linking to the comments, providing the scientist's email address and urging them to let him or her know what they think.

One or two of the cyber-bullies have hinted at the level of organisation, with one following an abusive rant with the comment: "Copies of my e-mails to you are also being passed out to a huge network for future reference."

Net rage and free speechThe purpose of this new form of cyber-bullying seems clear; it is to upset and intimidate the targets, making them reluctant to participate further in the climate change debate or to change what they say. While the internet is often held up as the instrument of free speech, it is often used for the opposite purpose, to drive people out of the public debate.

Unlike the letters pages of newspapers, on the internet anonymity is accepted and the gate-keepers, where they exist, are more lax, so the normal constraints on social discourse do not apply. On the internet, the demons of the human psyche find a play-ground.

If a group attempts to have a considered discussion about climate science on an open forum it is very soon deluged with enraged attacks on climate science, sometimes linking for authority to well-known denialist websites. Most scientists long ago stopped attempting to correct the mish-mash of absurd misrepresentations and lies in web "discussions".

Is the new campaign of cyber-bullying working? Receiving a large number of offensive emails certainly wears most people down. Some scientists and journalists probably do change what they say or withdraw from debate. Others have strategies for dealing with the abuse-never replying, deleting without reading or swapping loony emails with colleagues, and cultivating a thick skin.

The effect of the cyber-bullying campaign on some scientists-including those I have mentioned-is quite opposite to the intended one. The attempts at intimidation have only made them more resolved to keep talking to the public about their research. Their courage under fire stands in contrast to the cowardice of the anonymous emailers.

Tomorrow: Who is behind the cyber-bullying campaign?

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It took the Roman Catholic Church 350 years to admit that Galileo was right about planets revolving around the sun.

Cold comfort for a man who was accused of heresy, tried by the Inquisition, forced to recant and lived the remainder of his days under house arrest. What was their evidence? Biblical references that said "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved, the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved and the sun rises and sets and returns to its place".

History is replete with examples of scientific discoveries that challenge popular beliefs, and consequently entrenched societal norms, being met with such conservative stonewalling. Over 100 years ago the Nobel prize winning Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius faced similar criticism for his discoveries on the effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on global climate.

It has taken almost a century for his work to filter through to popular consciousness. Will we have to wait another 250 years before the obvious is accepted as obvious?

In a 2007 paper 'Why do some people resist science?' psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg from the Department of Psychology, Yale University wrote:

'...both adults and children resist acquiring scientific information that clashes with common-sense intuitions about the physical and psychological domains. Additionally, when learning information from other people, both adults and children are sensitive to the trustworthiness of the source of that information. Resistance to science, then, is particularly exaggerated in societies where nonscientific ideologies have the advantages of being both grounded in common sense and transmitted by trustworthy sources...'
They go on to say:

'...The community of scientists has a legitimate claim to trustworthiness that other social institutions, such as religions and political movements, lack. The structure of scientific inquiry involves procedures, such as experiments and open debate, that are strikingly successful as revealing truths about the world. All other things being equal, a rational person is wise to defer to a geologist about the age of the earth rather than a priest or to a politician...'
You'll have gathered that I, for one, don't accept that there's any room for debate about a link between climate change and the global build-up of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. Reputable, independent scientific bodies in our own country - institutions worthy of our trust like the Australian Institute of Physics, the Geological Society of Australia, the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the Australia Coral Reef Society, the Australian Medical Association, and the CSIRO - seem to agree.

The point is that what should be a simple search for the truth, aimed at gaining knowledge to address what may well be an unprecedented disaster, is being derailed by an ongoing "debate" which in reality is a fatuous, never-ending, point scoring slanging match.

The "debate" has actually been set up a bit like a game: in the true spirit of popular sporting entertainment, the competing positions have been polarised by the media into two sides, with any intermediate positions being ignored, and then both sides have been radicalised as extremes (alarmists vs sceptics). The stage having been set, virtually their every utterance is sensationalised or misrepresented as the ball is hit back and forth. When either side "scores" there's a blaze of "news", and then it lapses back to the perpetual slog.

It may be an entertaining game, but when it peters out the assembled audience - which is all of us - will be left to shuffle home no better informed and no further ahead in terms of addressing the problems we face.

But if there must be a debate why don't we try to have a proper one right now, right here in Australia, on national television, and get it over and done with? Why doesn't Tony Jones moderate a Q&A discussion between the heretics, on the one hand, and the modern day orthodox theologians on the other?

The 'warmist fraudsters' are easy: they could be represented by the likes of Professors Matthew England, Penny Sackett and Ian Lowe.

For the "scientific sceptics" we could line up a multi-disciplinary team. From politics, Opposition leader Tony Abbott or Senator Nick Minchin spring to mind, and from the academy, Professor Ian Plimer. And to cap it off, who better than that self-proclaimed iconoclastic polyhistor, Andrew Bolt, someone who will "fearlessly cut through the myths and the spin to tell you the bottom-line facts behind everything from global warming to terrorism... No sacred cow of the New Age is safe from his scalpel...." (courtesy of ICMI).

So we can all sit back as Bolt slaughters the livestock (watch that scalpel Jonesy!) while the others grapple with hard hitting questions like: How can the mean temperature of the ground be in any way influenced by the presence of the heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere? Isn't current global warming just part of a natural cycle? And (ooh, a really curly one) doesn't water vapour account for almost all of the greenhouse effect? To enhance the debate's integrity (or perhaps to shorten it, or maybe even to add spice) all panellists should be asked for their primary sources each and every time they assert a scientific fact or quote anyone else!

So come on Jonesy, what about it?

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Doctor Who is a British TV institution. First airing in 1963, the TV show's continued success hinges on the clever idea that the lead actor can leave and easily be replaced by someone completely different thanks to the Doctor being an alien Time Lord who can regenerate and change appearance.

Last night, David Tennant's last episode as the good Doctor aired on ABC1. (Seven weeks after it was broadcast in the UK and the US but, hey, time is a concept the Doctor never lets hinder him.) Tennant will regenerate with Matt Smith taking on the job of saving the universe and the show will carry on regardless.

Is there an Australian TV show that continues despite the lead leaving? Of course there is. Media Watch.

Just like the actors who take on the Doctor Who title role, every so often the Media Watch host fears being typecast and moves on to new pastures. And each time it's a nerve racking affair for long time viewers as they assess whether the new host is up to scratch.

So who's Who?

Stuart Littlemore (1st Media Watch host, 1989 - 1997) is Tom Baker (4th Doctor, 1974 - 1981)


Media Watch purists claim they haven't watched Media Watch since Stuart Littlemore left in 1997. "It's just not the same," they whinge. "Nobody could ever be as good as Stuart Littlemore". Pretty similar to how some Doctor Who diehards regard the post-Tom Baker Doctor Who era. Nobody else could ever come close to rivaling their favourite in their affections, no matter how good they are in the role.


Richard Ackland (2nd Media Watch host, 1998 - 1999) is Peter Davison (5th Doctor, 1981 - 1984)


He tried. Oh how he tried. It was a tough act to follow. Who was this interloper fighting evil and villainy everywhere? Did he think we'd forget his predecessor so easily? Such was Richard Ackland's lot despite actually being rather good but underrated at the time. Ditto Peter Davison.

Paul Barry (3rd Media Watch host, 2000) is Paul McGann (8th Doctor, 1996)


Two tales of 'what could have been'. Paul Barry's tenure was cut short due to off screen dramas. Paul McGann was the best thing about a shoddy 1996 American produced telemovie that unsuccessfully aimed to relaunch Doctor Who after the BBC axed it in 1989. Like Barry, McGann showed promise but didn't get the chance to shine in the role and like Barry, also has fans who would welcome his return.

David Marr (4th Media Watch host, 2002 - 2004) is Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor, 1970 - 1974)


Jon Pertwee's Doctor was a man of action. Kids at the time loved the movie exploits of James Bond so the Doctor Who producers decided a bit more derring-do was the order of the day. Marr also doesn't mind a bit of verbal biffo. The fact that Pertwee's Doctor is affectionately known as "the cosmic Dandy" seals this comparison. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Liz Jackson(5th Media Watch host, 2005) is Christopher Eccleston (9th Doctor, 2005)


Liz Jackson's tenure as Media Watch host was a short one season, the same duration Eccleston decided to stay onboard the Doctor's TARDIS. She left "a tough gig" in 2005, as did Eccleston. In both instances producers insisted the departure was pre-agreed and amicable. They'll both still always be referred to as 'ex-Media Watch host' and 'ex-Doctor Who' respectively though; no matter how hard they try to shake off the tag.

Monica Attard (6th Media Watch host, 2006 - 2007) is Colin Baker (6th Doctor, 1984 - 1986)


Monica Attard found the Media Watch hosting gig "extremely taxing" and it possibly showed in a mostly serious onscreen demeanour. The majority of Doctor Who fans never really took to Colin Baker's arrogant and grumpy portrayal of the Doctor and he became the only actor to be sacked from the role by the BBC. At least Monica Attard left on her own terms.

Jonathan Holmes (7th Media Watch host, 2008 - present) is David Tennant (10th Doctor, 2005 - 2010)


Jonathan Holmes has brought some fun back to Media Watch, knowing when to be serious and when a lighter tone is more appropriate. There's a real sense of mischief about his delivery at times. David Tennant also brought some humour back to Doctor Who after his predecessor Christopher Eccleston's darker interpretation. Many reckon he's the best Doctor ever. Both will be hard acts to follow.

How good would it be if the ABC's budget could stretch to a regeneration scene for the introduction of the next Media Watch host? (Hopefully, not too soon.) A media geek/Doctor Who tragic can but dream...

Who is your favourite Doctor Who? Or Media Watch host?

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Last week Qantas announced to its investors that they are installing new seats and in-flight entertainment.

And they also mentioned that profits fell 72 per cent and dividends have been suspended.

Only three years ago some very bright private 'equiteers' authored a deal to buy Qantas for $11.1 billion. It fell through. Not long after, Qantas shares hit $6.06 and the business was being valued, by my arguably equally-bright fund management peers, at $12.3 billion. Today, Qantas shares are trading around $2.75 and Qantas has a market value of about $6.2 billion. Where did $6 billion go?

Air travel has become a commodity business. Competition is intense and people can quickly compare prices over the internet and choose the cheapest provider. While Mr Alan Joyce, chief executive officer of Qantas, insists that Jetstar is not cannibalising its premium brand, the reality is, his company is spending $400 million ripping out premium seats and whacking in economy ones. Doesn't sound like a bunch of people wanting to pay a premium to me. In aviation, distinguishing yourself by brand is almost impossible. And in a market that is saturated, revenue growth is equally difficult.

That's the top line, but that is only half the story. Before a profit can be generated costs have to be dealt with. Running an airline is expensive and there can be a lot of volatility in the costs. Fuel costs are a significant portion of an airline's costs and in recent years the price of fuel has fluctuated wildly.

On top of challenges to revenue and costs, airlines are very capital intensive businesses too. Qantas previously announced its intention to buy 43 new planes over the next two years at a cost of $4.4 billion dollars. That's intensive!

And where will they find the money? The Tooth Fairy perhaps? They just suspended their dividend because there are no franking credits. There are no franking credits because there are no profits. And no profits means no money to buy planes. It's basic home budgeting 101.

To get a big swag of the money, Qantas will have to issue new equity or increase their debt. But don't worry, it's accustomed to it. To produce last year's annual result of a $125 million odd profit, the company has raised something like $2 billion of equity and borrowed $3 billion from the bank over the last 10 years - in addition to the $1.9 billion of equity and $3 billion of debt it already had. That's a return of just 3.2 per cent on the money shareholders have invested. If the company borrows more money, the risk increases. And if it issues more equity, existing shareholders will be diluted.

This demonstrates the major problem of owning airlines. In order to remain competitive and maintain safety standards, aircraft fleets need to be upgraded constantly. The old Qantas fleet was purchased many years ago and so the depreciation charge in each year's income statement is a lot less than what is required to buy new planes. As the business is not generating high enough returns to fund the new equipment it needs to draw on new funds from lenders or shareholders.

It wouldn't be too bad if the new investment resulted in a large increase in earnings, but the reality is the opposite. Every time Qantas upgrades its seats, or in-flight entertainment - at a major cost to shareholders - the competitors eventually do the same and travellers are once again unwilling to pay a lot extra for their ticket. Revenues fail to grow materially.

Further, the depreciation charge in the income statement will rise considerably as new and expensive equipment now needs to be depreciated. Consequently earnings will most likely fall with the new investment, not rise.

Think of it another way. You buy a farm for a million dollars. You make a profit of $100,000 and we'll say your depreciation expense is zero because you are using an old tractor your uncle gave you. Next year the tractor breaks down so you borrow $200,000 to buy a new one. That year your harvest and other costs are the same, leaving you with an initial profit of $100,000. But then you have to deduct $20,000 in interest for the bank and a further $40,000 in depreciation for wear and tear of the tractor, leaving you with only $40,000 in profit. The reality is that your 10 per cent return on investment in year one did not reflect the true economic profit of the business as you were not factoring in the equipment necessary to derive that profit. A return of 4 per cent reflects the economic reality.

The economics of the airline industry make it very hard to run a highly profitable airline business, no matter how skilled the management team at Qantas may be. It doesn't matter how hard they row, the boat they are in is perpetually leaking.

It should come as no surprise that Qantas's dividend has been suspended and all you need to do is look at their announced capital expenditure plans to realise that there is a very real risk it will be some time before it's reinstated.

And as for the location of the $6 billion in value? It was never really there. It merely reflected irrational exuberance rather than the true economics of the business.

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What a week this has been. A week for farewells, and for those who refuse to say farewell. A week where the courage of Olympians was matched only by the courage of Opposition Leaders, and where the government continued its nightmarish implosion at the hands of the ferocious warrior-king Tony Abbott and his band of political commandos, who, if an election were held today, would win with a primary vote of well over 70 percent, according to the latest poll of News Ltd journalists and farmers.

The week began in earth-shattering fashion with the news that well-known ballroom dancer Pauline Hanson planned to leave the country, leaving a startled Australia to shake its head and emit a collective wail of "I didn't know she was still here - is she still here? Really? Huh."

The government, though, had bigger fish to fry, as the polls turned against them and Kevin Rudd's preferred prime minister rating plummeted to only 55 percent, a near-subterranean level hitherto associated with granny-beaters and livestock. No wonder Abbott, the number one choice of a muscular 27 percent of voters, claimed Rudd was "rattled".

And he has good reason to be, firstly because of the beleaguered Peter Garrett, who must now be regretting his decision to give up his career as a public epileptic to enter politics. The insulation nightmare persisted for Garrett, the Opposition maintaining the pressure on him, as the evidence continued to pile up that he had failed to implement proper safety standards, neglected to ensure a sufficient number of inspectors were employed, and had been seen leaving several suburban roofs carrying a candlestick, a vial of cyanide, and a bloodied machete.

Kevin Rudd, however, refused to condemn his minister until after the completion of the Senate inquiry, which has already found that there are over 400,000 homes with substandard insulation, much of it installed by homeless children. Garrett has remained defiant, however, denying that he is to blame and pointing out that the regulatory requirement for all pink batts to be doused in petrol before installation was standard practice around the world.

Steve Fielding also weighed in, claiming that the insulation rebate scheme had been a massive waste of money and that he had not been on TV for weeks. "How long must we put up with this?" he thundered.

Not that Garrett was the only minister under fire. The heat also turned up on Stephen Conroy, who was under a lot of stress anyway, what with his twin jobs of setting up the National Broadband Network Company And Labor Party Sheltered Workshop, and preventing the internet from unleashing the latent paedophile that dwells within us all. The revelation that Conroy had embarked on a skiing holiday with Channel Seven supremo Kerry Stokes prior to granting the free-to-air television networks a $250 million licence fee discount raised serious questions about ministerial propriety and whether the image of Stephen Conroy and Kerry Stokes whizzing down a mountain together was slightly off-putting.

For his part, Conroy claimed there was nothing untoward about the meeting, noting that it was perfectly normal for him to meet with senior communications stakeholders, referencing his parasailing weekend with John Hartigan, his orienteering trip with David Gyngell, and his romantic fireside fondue party with Rupert Murdoch. For his part, Kerry Stokes declared he found the ski trip "very enjoyable", which to be honest raised more questions than it answered.

However, given Senator Conroy's previously demonstrated proclivity for posting "position vacant" notices for the NBN exclusively in his family's Christmas newsletter, it was not a good look, and Abbott was right on the attack, demanding that Kevin Rudd sack Conroy. Or Garrett. Or anyone, really. "C'mon, throw a brother a bone," he was heard to beseech across the dispatch box.

And what of Abbott himself? His week was full of thrills and spills. Not only was he involved in a near-miss in country Victoria that, if not for the quick reactions of a skilful truck driver, could have seen him become the first Opposition Leader to die in office since Simon Crean, but he also showed just how courageous he was by deciding to take on the government over industrial relations, an issue that proved such a winner for the Coalition at the last election that John Howard still wakes up every night screaming "UNFAIR DISMISSAL!"

Of course, Abbott has been at pains to emphasise that WorkChoices is dead, although Liberal strategists continue to implore him to stop winking whenever he says it; but he has noted the need for "flexibility" in Australian workplaces. For example, if a teenager really wants to work weekends without penalty rates, why shouldn't they be able to? After all, a modern economy must be flexible, or how can it compete with those other aggressive, advanced economies, where employers and employees are free to sit down and negotiate a mutually beneficial agreement whereby the employers' wage bills are slashed, and the employee gets to stay off the streets and sometimes go to the toilet if they have been well-behaved that week. It is all about flexibility, and Abbott has cannily positioned the forthcoming election as a contest between the hard, unyielding, throbbing rigidity of Kevin Rudd, and his own entertainingly bendy antics. "Vote Flexible," he shouts. "Vote for the one party that stands up for the common man's right to be fired for no reason." There's no doubt it's sweeping the nation.

As, of course, is Olympic fever. The world's attention this week has been focused on Vancouver, where the 2010 Winter Olympics (motto: "The Olympics For People Who Enjoy Hurling Themselves Down Hills") have been enthralling the masses, carrying on the great Olympic tradition that began in 1924, when the people of the Northern Hemisphere decided to turn their tradition of committing suicide to escape the horrible weather into something more formal. Australia is not immune to Olympic fever, with many locals affirming that they have indeed noticed it is on, and public support at an all-time high for all our Australian Olympic legends: the Canadian AND the one who is a girl. This popularity just proves the old adage: sport is never better than when accompanied by a strong possibility of death and/or permanent disability.

And indeed, this week has been all about taking risks. Whether it be skiers flying through the air, Opposition Leaders reviving reviled workplace policies, ministers delivering brown paper bags to television moguls, or insulation installers entering dark roof spaces unaware of the sinister bald man waiting in the shadows, this was the week where Australians showed they were willing to risk it all to get the job done.

And I salute them for it. We can only hope there'll be a lot more risk-taking, a lot more courage, a lot more of what can only be called "politicians in front of trucks" as the election nears.

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A decade after the Sudanese Lost Boys have told their stories and have had their plight recognised, a new group of lost boys has emerged.

This time they are on Australia's doorstep.

While the Sudanese boys were sent running for survival when their villages were attacked and families killed, the Hazara boys' flight was precipitated by attacks on individual families as well as random killings for reasons of ethnicity.

Taliban killing and torturing of the male heads of Hazara households has seen desperate mothers hand over surviving sons to people smugglers as the only way to ensure their survival.

Melbourne lawyer Jessie Taylor and film-maker Dave Schmidt found 70 children and youths without parents or relatives locked up in detention prisons across the Indonesian archipelago. There are still others with whom we have not established contact.

These boys, under 18 and travelling without families, are classified as "unaccompanied minors" or UAMs in the parlance of immigration bureaucracy. Under the international laws and conventions they are entitled to special care - in reality they get none.

Three weeks ago a 14-year-old boy, who is living on the streets in Jakarta, told me that he went to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Jakarta to register but he could not get in the door. There were 60 people ahead of him and only five per day are being registered.

UNHCR opens its office on Mondays and Wednesdays for registration. Refugee applicants then wait up to six months for an interview and then up to 12 months for a decision on their status. UNHCR recognised refugees in Indonesia on current resettlement predictions are in a 40 year queue for a place to call home.

These boys are lost and vulnerable to the predations of adult exploitation.

The UNHCR is totally overwhelmed. They have classified a total of 640 cases of the 2504 people registered in Indonesia, finding them to be refugees requiring protection. However with no refugee intake countries offering resettlement, they are going slow on the others.

These boys are among this caseload. They are part of the 2504 people effectively warehoused in Indonesia at Australia's expense. Australia pays the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) to provide food and shelter at a basic level for refugees.

UNHCR are said to have a minors program for unaccompanied children but it can not be accessed without registration. Most unaccompanied children are locked up in the adult detention prisons because they arrive without family and are therefore classified as single males no matter how young they are.

A few escape imprisonment by hiding within another family whom they have met on the journey. This lie breaks down when they are interviewed and then they are on the streets alone.

Refugee advocates have waited for two years for the Australian government to reveal its policy on the future resettlement plans for the people piling up in Indonesia. Refugee advocates now have to face the fact that there is no policy, no plan for the future beyond using Indonesia as a giant human warehouse.

With the detention system becoming less acceptable in Australia, the Rudd government has outsourced an unpopular policy to our poorer Asian neighbours in the same way as the Howard government outsourced detention to Nauru and PNG.

Last year Australia settled 35 people from Indonesia. At this rate there is a 40-year queue for refugees hoping to settle in Australia.

Contracting out human rights obligations to a country which has not signed the refugee convention leaves these refugees in a dangerous and unprotected position.

The Howard government began the policy of paying Indonesia and IOM to warehouse asylum seekers quietly, even building detention centres to do so. Until now Indonesia was a comparatively benign environment for refugees. They were allowed to live in hostels in the community with local freedom of movement although no schools for the children or right to work and no future.

In the words of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl "we are fed and watered and housed just like cattle". The Rudd Government has increased funding to Indonesia and IOM with new rules. Now the system sees refugees locked up to prevent their departure.

However, with bribery endemic, many escape and find a way onto the boats. Some guards have a soft spot for the young ones and may turn a blind eye.

One 17-year-old boy arrived in Indonesia after his father was "slaughtered" by the Taliban for refusing to hand over his 15-year-old daughter to a 50-year-old Taliban leader. His five brothers are missing, his mother and two sisters travelled by donkey and on foot across the mountains to Quetta after the attack.

The village elders advised them to run and now the family is separated with the young boy locked up in an Indonesian prison having nightmares every night as he cannot block out the memories of what has been done to his family. He has a sister living in Australia who would sponsor him but her application like hundreds of others from family members sits in the bottom drawer of the immigration department destined to go into the 40-year queue.

Jakarta is the first UNHCR office open for applications between Afghanistan and Australia. The boys go to the office on arrival or wait in prison for UNHCR officers, wanting to enter a formal refugee process however they soon learn that this is a myth.

UNHCR is currently registering 10 Afghans per week out of hundreds on their doorstep every Monday and Wednesday morning. Some people even sleep outside the office on the footpath to try to get in the door.

The brute reality is that there is no lawful formal way for these boys to apply for refugee resettlement in Australia.

They are stuck with a risky boat the only escape.

If the Australian government really wanted to stop the boats they would put in place a lawful, formal process for people seeking asylum from Afghanistan or Sri Lankan, currently the highest refugee producing countries in our region.

While they refuse to provide a formal mechanism, the boats will continue to come and some will sink on the way.

According to current immigration and political reckoning, this lack of policy serves a useful political purpose in that it demonstrates that coming to Indonesia is hopeless. At an NGO gathering in Canberra it was pointed out that "an efficient, transparent refugee process in Indonesia is neither in Australia nor Indonesia's best interests."

However life in an Indonesian prison with the occasional bashing is still a better option than being beheaded in Afghanistan or being gunned down or knifed on the streets of Quetta.

Most are Hazaras, an ethnic minority despised by the brutal Taliban. Once they could hide in Quetta, Pakistan in the huge camp there. With the Taliban driven into Pakistan by western forces, Quetta is no longer safe.

The easily recognised Hazaras with their Asiatic faces are gunned down in the streets by Talibs. Ali, 62 years old said "they (Talibs) are professional killers, and they will kill my family as easily as they