Thursday, 2 July 2009
Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2009 [transcripts]
Seven years ago the Council of Australian Governments commissioned a steering committee to produce regular reports against key indicators of Indigenous disadvantage.
Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2009 has just been released
Full transcript of and tables/appendices to this Australian Government Producivity Commission report can be downloaded from here.
Overview Booklet 65 pages.
Newspaper porkies for sale in the Clarence Valley
Oh dear, The Daily Examiner editor is at it once more.On Tuesday 30 June 2009 he proclaimed he never did it - yet again.
Forgetting established chronology (the first published article appeared on 11 June and the first letter some four or five days later) he blames the Grafton-based APN newspaper's readers.
Unfortunately for Peter Chapman his previous words and those of the newspaper's journalists live on and show the heavy-handed, hearsay-ridden attempt to link crime, Beachside, Ngaru Village and "men of aboriginal appearance" as well as "Young people running around the streets staging break and enters and smashing property".
Here are two of those The Daily Examiner articles from 11 June and 12 June 2009:
Click on images to enlarge
Blame it on the bloggers!
Chairman and CEO of News Ltd John Hartigan had a simple message to deliver as part of his televised address to the National Press Club on Wednesday 1 July 2009.Pared down to the basics it went like this: Journalists good, bloggers B-A-D. Hard copy and online newspapers very good, blogs even B-A-D-D-E-R!
Just last month ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden writing in The Washington Post opined that the blogosphere was partly to blame for a CIA analyst withdrawing his nomination for U.S. Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence.
Australian Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy obviously doesn't know what to make of bloggers and oppressive regimes world-wide try to silence the most politically vocal of them.
One gets the general impression that the blogosphere must be doing something right.
Image from Google Images
Update:
The Herald Sun has obligingly published the full text of Hartigan's address.
Migaloo the 'white fella whale' has survived another year!
Despite Japan turning the Southern Ocean into its own private killing fields, Migaloo the brilliant white albino humpback whale was sighted travelling north towards Byron Bay waters on the NSW North Coast last Tuesday.Migrating pods sighted this year appear to be getting larger with some groups containing up to ten whales.
Photographs: ABC.net.au & Cairns.com.au
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Parliament begins its inquiry into the relationship between the banks, Storm Financial, Opes Prime & MFS
In all the hullabaloo about the Federal Leader of the Opposition's political nosedive, there has been little mention of the fact that last week the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services began public hearings in its Inquiry into Financial Products and Services in Australia.
The basic terms of reference are:
1. the role of financial advisers;
2. the general regulatory environment for these products and services;
3. the role played by commission arrangements relating to product sales and advice, including the potential for conflicts of interest, the need for appropriate disclosure, and remuneration models for financial advisers;
4. the role played by marketing and advertising campaigns;
5. the adequacy of licensing arrangements for those who sold the products and services;
6. the appropriateness of information and advice provided to consumers considering investing in those products and services, and how the interests of consumers can best be served;
7. consumer education and understanding of these financial products and services;
8. the adequacy of professional indemnity insurance arrangements for those who sold the products and services, and the impact on consumers; and
9. the need for any legislative or regulatory change.Hopefully those who lost their life savings when Storm Financial spectacularly failed will receive some answers as to why financial advisers are apparently so under-regulated that they can act like irresponsible cowboys.
As yet the transcript of the 24th June 2009 has not been posted. Perhaps because that first hearing day appears to have been taken up with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission explaining itself and its track record.
There have been over 110 submissions to this inquiry so far. Mostly from ordinary individuals, some with sad tales to relate.
The next hearings will be held:
| 26/08/2009 | Melbourne, VIC | ||||
| 28/08/2009 | Canberra, ACT | ||||
| 02/09/2009 | Townsville, QLD | ||||
| 03/09/2009 | Brisbane, QLD | ||||
04/09/2009 | Sydney NSW |
Costello still leads by a length in the political stakes
He may have announced his impending retirement from politics, but as the dust settles in the wake of Ute-gate, former Howard Government treasurer Peter Costello still leads Malcolm Turnbull as preferred Opposition Leader according to The Australian online opinion poll results last Monday morning.In the Grafton post code results he leads by at least two lengths.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
This is the company the Rudd Government wants Australia to keep?
This Open Net Initiative map indicates countries which are known to censor their citizens access to the Internet:
This are the categories of Internet content they censor:
Free expression and media freedom
Political transformation and opposition parties
Political reform, legal reform, and governance
Militants, extremists, and separatists
Human rights
Foreign relations and military
Minority rights and ethnic content
Women's rights
Environmental issues
Economic development
Sensitive or controversial history, arts, and literature
Hate speech
Sex education and family planning
Public health
Gay/lesbian content
Pornography
Provocative attire
Dating
Gambling
Gaming
Alcohol and drugs
Minority faiths
Religious conversion, commentary, and criticism
Anonymizers and circumvention
Hacking
Blogging domains and blogging services
Web hosting sites and portals
Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
Free e-mail
Search engines
Translation
Multimedia sharing
P2P
Groups and social networking
Commercial sites
Can Prime Minister Rudd guarantee that, if his government introduces mandatory national ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet, no future federal government will expand this proposed filtering beyond the vague limits that Senator Conroy presently alludes to?
No, of couse he can't.
Chasing the winter sun.......
Car's loaded with the travelling chattels, mutt's in the passenger seat and I'm off chasing the sun into Bananaland for the next four weeks.
No phone, no newspapers, no Internetz - bliss!
I'm sure the blogosphere will continue to keep the balfastards honest while I'm away.
Monday, 29 June 2009
It's official, Malcolm Turnbull was run over by a little white ute with Queensland number plates
Image from The Brisbane TimesFederal Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, did a little political jay walking over the last fortnight and was skittled by a little white ute and a fake email.
His political standing has been shattered according to recent polls and this has given rise to these headlines and graphic:
The incredible shrinking leader Brisbane Times
Polling smashed Turnbull The Australian
Turnbull weaker than when he began The Sydney Morning Herald
Turnbull hammered by voters Brisbane Times
MalcomTurnbull is the big Ute-gate casualty: poll The Herald-Sun
It is being reported that Malcolm Turnbull's response to this disaster is not to reassess his own leadership but to reshuffle his front bench.
Yes, the lack of good political judgment continues........
Update on Communications Minister Conroy's plan to censor the Australian Internet
If the Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy gets his way and imposes a national mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering scheme on Australia, it won't just be the usual filtering software players who will be looking to make capital out of this censorship by encouraging function creep.
Perhaps this report on current day Iran gives some indication of who else might also want a piece of the commercial pie.
From the Wall Street Journal online 23 June 2009:
Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections.
Instead, in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.
The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.
The "monitoring center," installed within the government's telecom monopoly, was part of a larger contract with Iran that included mobile-phone networking technology, Mr. Roome said.
"If you sell networks, you also, intrinsically, sell the capability to intercept any communication that runs over them," said Mr. Roome.
The sale of the equipment to Iran by the joint venture, called Nokia Siemens Networks, was previously reported last year by the editor of an Austrian information-technology Web site called Futurezone.
Meanwhile, this month a spokesperson for the Minister appears to have confirmed that video games suitable for adults will also be blocked online by ISPs under the national filtering scheme, as well as websites which offer downloadable versions or sell physical copies of these games.
Which according to The Orstrahyun means that the Rudd-Conroy filtering scheme will likely block eBay and Amazon.
Does Conroy realise just how many Australians of voting age make a bit of pin money using these sites? Has he even thought of the many in rural and regional areas who regularly use these sites to long distance shop?
Disquiet continues about the lack of defined goals for this proposed $44.5 million scheme.
What will probably be my favourite political quote of the year
From ABC TV Insiders on Sunday 28th June 2009:
"ANTHONY ALABANESE, LEADER OF THE HOUSE (LABOR):
The Member for Wentworth knows a dead cat when he sees one. But this one has got no bounce.
I could have sworn I was witnessing the ghost of Mark Latham. It was all there, Mr Speaker. It was all there. The jaw jutting out. All the fake aggression. All the machismo. All the "We're going well!"
Past 'sins' and present failures all rolled into 9 sentences and lobbed across the House of Reps chamber amid hoots of derisive laughter.
And not one word could Opposition Leader Big Mal Turnbull respond to with threats of kitten-based legal action.
No-one deserved it more.
Pic from Google Images
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Stephen Conroy nominated for UK Internet Villain Award
Image from LOLConroyClick to enlarge
The UK Internet Industry Awards sponsored by ISPA will be announced at a gala black-tie event on 9 July 2009 in London.
The Australian Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy has been nominated, but not for an Internet Hero award.
The award category he is included in is Internet Villain.
Internet Villain
The Internet Villain category recognises individuals or organisations that have upset the Internet industry and hampered its development - those who the industry loves to hate. The ISPA Council will select the shortlist and eventual winner of the Internet Villain award.
2009 Nominees
European Parliament - "For supporting an amendment to the Telecom Package on cookies which could yet bring the internet to a standstill"
President Nicolas Sarkozy - "For his continued commitment to the HADOPI law, which advocates a system of graduated response, despite repeated arguments suggesting the law is disproportionate from a number of important groups including the European Parliament"
Baroness Vadera - "For excluding a number of ISPs and Rights Holders in agreeing a Memorandum of Understanding that was exclusive and ineffective in progressing relations between the two industries"
Stephen Conroy and the Australian Government - "For continuing to promote network-level blocking despite significant national and international opposition"
A cooking tip that amuses...
Seen in a local book store:
I always cook with wine. Sometimes I even put a little in the food.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
