Women’s Voices In Parliament – Shut Up and Make Me A Cuppa Tea!!
"Gosh! I'm So Grateful To Be Serving Another Male Chauvinistic Pig!"
The Liberal Party of Australia has come out – testosterone blazing – to defend it’s chauvinistic record on women MP’s getting to say anything at all during parliamentary question time.
A clever party, facing accusations their equal opportunity principles are laughable, would find among it’s MP’s a nice intelligent and assertive woman to reassure the people of Australia that this was untrue.
A clever party would.
But what would a party without a real equal opportunity platform they truly believed in do?
They’d do what the Liberals have done and trot out a blokey back bencher – Jamie Briggs – to declare the whole thing a “…storm in a tea cup.”
Yes, in deference to its illustrious history of advancing women – like Alexander Bummer’s Downer’s “joke” about “…the things that batter…” when speaking on domestic violence and women, the conservatives have quickly affirmed their understanding of ‘Lady Voters’.
It goes something like this:
“Be a good girl and when you finish voting for me, go make me a cuppa tea.”
Labor’s Amanda Rishworth, took aim when she stated “…there are strong women in the Liberal Party … that deserve to have a say.”
She claims: …”the coalition was not doing enough to promote the roles of women and was severely out of touch.”
Of course they are! The problem here is the Liberal/National Party coalition has an old saying:
“Behind every great man is a… Hell! We only have great men!”
This is because in the world of the Tories – mired deeply in 1956 – “a woman’s place is in…why are you asking? She should already know her place!”
They ought to make a movie about themselves, with a catch phrase:
“There can be only – men!”
Updated: 11:00 pm 15/09/2009
This article was written prior to the Australian Liberal party declaring Peter Costello’s parliamentary seat of Higgins – a safe Liberal seat – was “not a seat for a woman“. Not satisfied with silencing their elected female members, the old boys club of the Conservatives wants to make sure their male buddies are guaranteed a safe seat too. Strike a light! They must find women extremely threatening.
Go get them ladies!
Scott Kane
Uluru Is A Sacred Site – Stop Treating It As A Toilet!
Disrespecting aboriginal culture seems to be a national pastime.
Most Australians know aboriginal people regard the monolith – previously known as Ayers Rock for international readers not familiar with the correct indigenous and official name – as a significant sacred site.
Reports that it is still being used by tourists as a toilet is sickening. This is disgraceful at a number of levels. It is insulting to indigenous Australians. It is disrespectful to a unique landform and to Australia’s geological heritage.
Tourists climb the rock and once at the summit, whip out the dunny roll and take a dump!!
At the tender age of 17, in a school group, I climbed the rock (the day Azaria Chamberlian went missing). We didn’t use it as a toilet though!
That was three decades ago. I know better now. Climbing Uluru is disrespectful and quite dangerous. Just read the plaques that adorn the base of the rock commemorating those who have fallen from the giant.
Andrew Simpson, general manager of the Anangu Waai tour company told Tuesday’s NT News.
“When people climb up the top of the rock there’s no toilet facilities up there.
“They get out of sight … (and) most of them have a toilet roll tucked away.
Let’s end this nonsense. The view from “sunset strip” alone is worth the cost of going. We dont tolerate tourists climbing our cathedrals and civic monuments.
We need to stop people climbing the rock!
Scott Kane
Australia Has Copyright Laws – Flouting them Deters Innovation and Creativity.
The Intellectual Property Problem
affects just about every small business in Australia today, particularly if you have a website. The goodwill in your business is a form of intellectual property too.
It’s a matter ignored by politics and poorly understood in the community. It is also a highly emotive issue, both for and against.
But it is an issue Australia can ignore no longer.
This is not going to go away and involves crimes that touches each and every one of us.
To avoid the inevitable and irrelevant discussion on the nature of the crime, let me make this perfectly clear.
Every country in the Berne Copyright Convention – and yes, Australia is a signatory – has copyright laws. While these laws vary slightly, they are consistent in respecting creativity and innovation. Generally, using works – including everything in the digital domain – without the permission of the owner:
1. Is a criminal offence.
2. Infringes or violates the rights of the owner or creator of the work.
3. Can lead to jail or large fines or both.
4. Allows the holder of the work at their option to seek damages using civil law for loss or hardship, and to institute criminal proceedings.
So, the law internationally sees it consistently as a violation or infringement of rights if any person uses or takes items so covered without permission of the copyright owner. This includes: books, movies, music and software, poetry, photographs, images, data in some instances, substantial text, paintings, sculpture, pottery and so on.
Copyright in Australia requires no registration and exists from the moment of “creation” of the work. This is regardless of whether a copyright notice is placed, claimed or referred to and regardless of whether or not the © symbol is used or displayed, unless the owner specifically states in writing that such rights are waived.
For the lovers of semantics the reference to “substantial text” can be applied to any body of work, regardless of it’s perceived quality.
Glib comments disparaging the quality of a work and concluding therefore it has no protection under copyright are merely childish.
A sentence is not copyright – though it may be covered by Trademark – whereas an article such as this is automatically extended copyright cover.
Organized Crime
Iincreasingly, individuals illegally downloading content with file sharing tools like Limewire, Kazaa and torrent tools like Azureas are being detected and prosecuted in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. It is only a matter of time before prosecutions become more common in Australia. The stakes (and the losses) are too big for companies and individuals producing intellectual property to ignore.
An ironic benefit, to the average person, from this enforcement is that by not using tools such as these they limit their exposure to viruses, trojans and malware which literally fill the services that offer cracks, keygens, serial numbers (often written serialz) and circumvention of DRM – Digital Rights Management, all of which aid in the copyright circumvention of owned music, video and software.
It is not illegal to have these downloading tools on your computer. They do in fact have legal and valid uses.
But it becomes illegal when they are used to access items without the permission of the copyright holder.
That many of the circumvention tools – cracks, keygens etc – are created by organized crime groups such as the Russian Business Network or RBN is also significant.
The Arguments Against Intellectual Property Protection
Objections to copyright protection seem to be most strongly voiced by those who hold no creative works. Whereas those who do and are affected are among the most passionate supporters of copyright law.
Most arguments against IP revolve around semantics. Every time the topic is discussed, it seems, its critics throw out:
1. “It’s not theft because nothing tangible is stolen”.
2. “It’s not piracy, piracy means rape and plunder at sea”.
3. “Software is different to music and films”
4. “The statistics for IP infringement are wrong, I do not accept them.”
On the last point they generally refuse to produce any evidence to back up their dismissal of evidence. Then they move to announcing they’ve “won the argument” by resorting to their first point. This is circuitous logic. It becomes infantile to debate this when they insist on using these arguments – which is entirely the point of them using them.
The first three points are entirely irrelevant. It’s the act that is illegal and remains illegal no matter how desperately one tries to align it to other crimes – comparing apples to oranges is simply futile.
With point four – software is no different to music, movies, books or art. It meets the requirements of the Berne Convention and the individual laws of countries that apply it – such as Australia.
To argue about a magical perceived “difference” is to divert the argument – a rather common technique employed by people on shaky legal ground. This argument does not hold up in a court of law.
The simplest argument for justifying the protections of Copyright Law, for which one never receives a reply (with the possible exception of those who burst into expletives in rage) is -
“As soon as you and everybody else goes to work for free, and that doesn’t include a government pension, and manage to eat, pay for a roof over your head and care for your family I’ll consider the possibility of doing the same.”
This infuriates opponents as they are being asked to do exactly what they demand of those who make a living through the creation of intellectual property.
In other words “putting their money where their mouth is” or “eating their own dog food”.
Those who claim “Intellectual Property wants to be free” are operating under a severe deficit. They don’t really believe this though. It’s merely a way to express a socialist doctrine: that the creative process should not be a business endeavor. An inverted piece of socialism that borders on anarchy.
The Need For Intellectual Property Protection
It doesn’t matter whether you’re creating paintings, pottery, books, magazines, movies, music or software, individuals need strong and enforced copyright laws and in specific instances patent protection.
Without those laws and their committed enforcement no one can make a living on the Internet – the commerce channel of now and the future.
In practice, our legal system is soft on intellectual property prosecution. It does not always recognise the extent of the problem of intellectual property violation online.
In order for these protections to work, our court system must enforce the law and its reparations.
If the court system treats it lightly the community will too. If a crime is free of consequences, then the seriousness of the crime is diminished.
Simply put there is no data these thieves are prepared to accept. Not past, present or future. Copyright holders, small businesses and large cannot have a reasonable, logical discussion with them while the antagonists of copyright law engage in this stupidity.
But make no mistake here. They do not give a flying fig for you, your family or small business – including your children and your children’s children should they choose to earn an honest living through the creation of intellectual property.
A Concern For All Australians
Copyright protection affects us all, whoever produces the material.
We are entering an era where the internet plays an enormous role in the economy, much bigger than now.
Unless the work of those who make the things we use are properly rewarded, the collective possibilities of the internet will be permanently diminished.
Small business and individuals – too small to influence government and the opponents of copyright laws – who do not have recourse to a legal system to ensure their right to earn a living will have to seek employment in other fields.
That means the end of new music, videos, art, software and books.
Creators do have to eat.
Current Penalties
For readers who do not appreciate that stealing creativity is a crime, below I have reproduced two extracts from Copyright Australia as a brief introduction and by way of conclusion to this article. I have merely scratched the surface of this matter. It is deep, complex and worthy of further consideration.
The extracts below link to further documents. I highly recommend you read them.
Note that in at least one instance an Australian citizen was extradited to the United States for copyright infringement.
Scott Kane
NT Aboriginal Housing – Consultants Make Hay – Australians Pay – Heinous For Indigenous People.
That sickening, disheartening immoral Aboriginal housing scam being perpetrated on Aboriginals and Taxpayers that goes by the acronym of SIHIP simply won’t be righted, will it?
For too long the policy of the Federal and Northern Territory governments has been ‘shoot the messenger’.
Nothing has changed it seems.
Now, the consultant who warned them the aboriginal housing scheme under the $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program was seriously off-track has been removed from his position by the NT government.
Isn’t that what consultants are supposed to do?
He warned them the scheme:
It is demonstrably a bad move for consultants to provide fearless advice to the NT government if it upsets the gravy train!
And a gravy train it is too…
Kerry Gearman and Bronwen King were employed as remote audit building managers by the Department of Planning and Infrastructure, later seconded to work with the scheme in charge of public housing in the NT.
They said they were paid $71,000 each and in an interview with a News Corporation paper reported they:
Apparently the couple quit their jobs in disgust at the wastage and mismanagement they witnessed.
Quite right too!
“Rivers of money” are flowing into the NT to address the terrible struggle of indigenous people, but little of that money benefits the misbegotten.
What A Disgraceful Mess
The very people with integrity – as measured by their resignations or dismissals – bear the brunt of the Australian Labor Party’s standard approach of “bring in the consultants for a cash smorgasbord” in running states, territories and this country. What a disgrace.
The Chief Minister should hang his head in shame and retire. And it is only reasonable to call – again – for the federal minister – Jenny Macklin – ultimately responsible for this consultant “love in” to also resign in disgrace. That is what is expected under the Westminster system of government.
Disgusting!
Scott Kane
Mandatory prison sentences, terrorist laws and the criminal justice system – an IANAL* view.
There is a lot of loose talk and sloppy thinking going on – a natural stance for tabloid newspapers and radio shock jocks – about ‘fixing’ our broken criminal justice system with harsh anti-terrorist laws and mandatory sentences for violent offences.
Oh, really?
The purpose of terrorism is to provoke a society to self-destruct. For example, the main consequence of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre was to erect a gigantic, expensive, pervasive, intrusive, unproductive security system that checks people for nail files. And while my heart goes out to the victims of the WTC atrocity, the act did not reveal a glaring flaw in the law.
Terrorists are criminals. No more and no less. They must be tried as such.
A century ago, society was threatened by ‘anarchists’ and ‘incendiarists’. Marvellously, the criminal justice system found it had the tools to try, convict and imprison these deluded fools.
When a terrorist is driven by political or religious fervor to commit an outrage, nothing is more devastating to his misplaced idealism than to be tried as a common criminal.
Judges can impose life-long sentences for vile, premeditated criminal acts. And they do.
Despite the posturing of media outlets in search of an audience, the judiciary doesn’t want harsh new laws that limit their flexibility, moderation and power to heal.
What the judges have made abundantly clear is they really, really want genuine sentencing options to keep teens and young men guilty of minor crimes out of the prison system. They know prison destroys whatever moral fibre these offenders have.
Be very skeptical when you hear calls for harsh mandatory sentences and fresh laws to deal with terror. The judges don’t want them and nor ought you.
* I Am Not A Lawyer
Australia’s NBN will be aerial, not wireless; cheap not secure. Feed Senator Conroy to the Possums!
Australia desperately needs the new National Broadband Network. Our business and social communications labor under two impediments: the tyranny of distance and lousy internet speeds. Lousy!
The cost of the NBN is staggering – $43 billion and rising; the cost of not installing it promises to be higher. Our ability to play a meaningful role in world affairs utterly depends on the quality of our communications network.
Minister for Communications senator Conroy has found a way to cut the capital outlay: aerial cabling.
That’s right. Slung underneath the minimum five wires of three phase power and Foxtel’s cable that pass every house in built-up areas, will be our broadband connection.
So every street tree will have to be pruned even harder (remember the tree vandalism when the Foxtel cables went up). With our big houses, small blocks and extensive paving, street trees are usually the most important shading and cooling feature we have available.
The US Defense Department designed the internet’s decentralized network to survive a nuclear war. Your connection will be at the mercy of possums, tree branches, bushfires and passing trucks. This vital service will not be reliable enough.
And (Ahem!) extra aerial cabling will lower property values by reducing the amenity and aesthetics of your street.
Conroy thinks this is progress. He is protecting the nation from wasteful spending.
Think again, senator Conroy.
We don’t have to dig trenches everywhere. There has been significant advances in laser-guided horizontal boring – you will have seen the equipment on the streets –that minimize disruption and are LOW COST.
We could underground all the electric wires at the same time. I’d like to see that!
