Yes folks, the Crikey subscription is back at the top of Troppo for ONE WEEK ONLY as we’ve just been issued with the link – which will enable you to sign up. It’s here!.
As aficionados will be aware, Troppo funds its entire garage of imaginary vehicles (including the latest acquisition – Bronnie the chopper) from its annual group subscription to Crikey. Continue reading
I recall when working as a staffer for the Hawke/Keating government, how Labor staffers wore their disdain – bordering on contempt – for the Democrats with the same kind of pride that economic rationalists had for their own disdain for businesses leaders arguing for special handouts. It went beyond reasoned disagreement and was driven by tribal affiliation – something which sadly dominates so much that passes for intellectual activity today. (Surely this is a growing problem in our post ideological age?).
Why did they hate the Democrats so much? Well partly for the same kind of reasons that hatred of the Greens runs so strongly in the ALP today – they’re competitors. (As they say, in politics you’re opponents are on the other side, but your enemies are on your side!). But they also harboured a kind of Olympian disdain for the politics the Democrats pursued. They were a left of centre party that couldn’t admit its closer affiliation to the ALP than the CLP. (Rather like the ALP now can’t do the same with the Greens!). Of course they couldn’t do that – as their independence was part of their electoral schtick – just as any political operator tries to ‘position’ themselves to advantage as we say these days.
And their method of campaigning was often to nit-pick at the end of the policy process to deliver something for ‘the people’. It was the usual media management kind of malarky. Each party does it in different ways suited to their circumstances. But the ALP staffers luxuriated in the thought that they were making the big decisions. Controlling the big levers. They were the Cool Kids.
Now the cool kids are ganging up on the others again. That crazy system whereby we end up with micro-parties – the Broccoli is the Best Vegetable Party, the Imaginary Vehicle Enthusiasts Party and the Just Because you’re Extremely Fat doesn’t Mean you have to be Extremely Silly Party. Of course the way these people manage to acquire their seats in the Senate is extremely silly. But the question of whether that’s better than the alternative (where pretty much everyone but an established independent like Nick Xenophon would be from one of the three Extremely Sensible Parties) is certainly no lay down misère.
The strange but compelling Harold Mitchell has weighed in against running these independents out of town. I agree with him. The randomistas – and not just the ones who are congenial to me – have been a force for good. After all, apart from what are usually some very parsimonious platform issues (which didn’t seem to bother the EFNES party) the randomistas can make up their own mind. That’s not true of the Cool Kids in the established parties whose platforms used to be governed by broad ideologies, but are now largely governed by the principles of brand management. Continue reading
Paul Frijters’ fascinating post analysing Turkey’s successful employment of ruthless realpolitik tactics is fairly depressing. But maybe there’s some qualified good news hidden amongst all the cynical manoeuvres. Reported arrangements between the EU and Turkey for dealing with the massive numbers of Syrian and Iraqi asylum seekers currently flooding into Europe might form part of a viable and humane new international refugee treaty to replace the current badly broken Refugee Convention 1951.
There is fairly general agreement among human rights experts that the Refugee Convention is a deeply flawed document. The main reason it hasn’t been scrapped is that the general belief until now is that in the realpolitik world of the early 21st century any agreement capable of achieving widespread international acceptance would almost certainly be much weaker and less humane.
The problems inherent in the current Refugee Convention are fairly obvious, if seldom discussed in the mainstream media. It covers only a small proportion of people fleeing their home country in genuine fear of their lives, and creates perverse incentives for both asylum seekers and destination countries to game the system.
I visited Turkey in April last year, traveling through the country, witnessing the troubles of the leadership of the ruling AKP party: it had just lost a general election that left it without a workable majority in parliament and only 40% of the popular vote; it was sucked into a war in Syria from which millions of refugees were flooding the country; it was in open warfare with the large Hizmet\Gulen movement that leaked videos and recordings of the many nefarious deals the AKP leadership got into; and its dynastic and dictatorial tendencies were openly derided by the press in Turkey that never ran out of stories of huge palaces and rampant nepotism.
One year on and that same AKP leadership is riding high: they no longer suffer embarrassing media stories inside Turkey; they have a large parliamentary majority following new elections; they have over 50% of the population behind them; the Hizmet movement has largely backed off and is suffering blow after blow; the EU is promising it billions of euros, favourable visa arrangements for Turks, and accelerated negotiations for EU membership. NATO has promised it continued support; and the economy is doing well. Wow!
How did they achieve this remarkable turnaround? The answer is sobering: they started a civil war, abused state power to crush internal opposition, and openly blackmailed the EU with millions of refugees. They have now been handsomely rewarded for all three of these audacious choices. As an object in realpolitik, a student of politics and human nature can hardly find a better modern example of ruthless and successful power-politics than the choices of the AKP leadership. They have been inventive, bold, and relentless.
How did these choices help them?
The civil war that the AKP started with the Kurds mid 2015 brought it many related benefits: it galvanised support amongst the non-Kurds around the AKP party and thus gave it a majority in newly called elections; it divided the opposition that included a nationalist party that preferred continued AKP rule over a coalition with the Kurds; it kept the army busy, which had previously been a source of opposition; and it opened up a lot of jobs available to its own supporters that were previously taken by Kurds. It is hard to find a cleaner example of a war that benefited those who started it. Of course thousands of deaths and disruptions of whole regions inside Turkey were the result, but such humanitarian costs have not affected the ones who started it. Continue reading
I don’t stay on top of many of the latest issues. After all, they’re complicated, time is limited, so I’ll just satisfy myself with starting, largely ideological reactions (and of course not opine too strongly given my state of ignorance) about any number of public issues. Is climate change real? Buggered if I know but it would take a long time to come to a better view than I have now which is that it may be a disciplinary bubble of self-righteousness. It’s happened before. But given the preponderance of apparently reasonable people who know vastly more than me, it probably isn’t and given even a small chance that they’re right, we should do something. There! Job done. I can get on with something else.
Anyway, I always approved of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) on similar grounds. Since the ‘marginalist revolution’ from 1870s on, ours has been a discipline based on the metaphysical notion that it’s good to satisfy human wants and that urgent, deeply felt wants are more important than whether I drive a Holden or a Ferrari. And apart from the technocratic notion of the diminishing marginal utility of money, there is our Christian heritage. I was hungry and you fed me – that kind of thing. There. Job done. Slam dunk really. The NDIS is a Good Thing. And if it’s not fully funded, and if its costs blow out and if it has its share of snafus (all of which I expect are more likely than not), we’ll cope with them, like we cope with falling iron ore prices and with farcically designed VET Fee HELP schemes and the like.
Anyway, the Australian Centre for Social Innovation has been getting involved in some work for the National Disability Insurance Agency. So I spent last weekend reading the Productivity Commission’s report that gave rise to the scheme. And it’s a marvellous document. It seems like a well thought out scheme though as I’ve said above, it will have its share of snafus – these schemes usually do. We’re trying to set something up which by rights would take ten years, in about three. But it’s a great national crusade to make the world a better place. And it’s the old story. With economists being probably the most important profession in tackling slavery, so here it’s economists who managed to snaffle for themselves the prestige to propose something as audacious as this – and everyone went along with it. Equity and efficiency together – what’s there not to like? Continue reading
National policies take varied approaches to encouraging
university-based innovation. This paper studies a natural
experiment: the end of the “professor’s privilege” in Norway, where
university researchers previously enjoyed full rights to their
innovations. Upon the reform, Norway moved toward the typical U.S.
model, where the university holds majority rights. Using
comprehensive data on Norwegian workers, firms, and patents, we find
a 50% decline in both entrepreneurship and patenting rates by
university researchers after the reform. Quality measures for
university start-ups and patents also decline.
by Hans K. Hvide, Benjamin F. Jones – #22057 (PR)
Rosalie Blum (Opening Night)
This week’s announcement by Pangaea Resources that it is suspending its NT onshore gas exploration drilling program and laying off 140 workers, following the Labor Opposition’s indication that it will impose an indefinite moratorium on fracking, has provoked predictable responses from the Giles government and some mining industry types.
However you don’t need to be a one-eyed greenie to doubt the extent to which Pangaea’s announcement was actually caused by Michael Gunner’s fracking moratorium announcement. Only 6 out of a planned 25 onshore exploration wells were drilled throughout the Northern Territory during 2015, and oil and gas prices have fallen further since then. Only a very naive person would fail to realise that rock bottom oil and gas prices are the dominant factor in Pangaea’s decision. Nevertheless, Labor’s announcement may have been a subsidiary factor, if only in the timing of the announcement. After all, Labor currently looks odds on to win government in the Territory come August’s election, so if you’re a resource company now is the time to exert political pressure.
Whether Labor should take any notice is another question.
Andrew Elder John Quiggin Crooked Timber OpenDemocracy Harry Clarke CoreEcon Bill Mitchell Skepticlawyer Kyle McDonald Constitutional Critique (Anne Twomey) The Conversation (G8 unis)