Progressive Direction

June 22, 2017

• Links International 1917: The View from the Streets #12 & 13 - A Bolshevik appeal finds an echo in the streets

   

  

   

  The banners read: "World peace. All power to the people. All land to the people."
  

  and "Down with the minister-capitalists"

   

  June 22, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal / John Riddell's Marxist Essays and Commentary website — One hundred years ago today, on June 22 (9) 1917, the Bolshevik Party circulated among Petrograd workers the first proclamation below (drafted by Joseph Stalin). Nine days later, the Bolsheviks’ slogans won mass support at a giant Soviet-called demonstration.

   

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June 21, 2017

• The Northern Myth What future the arts in the Top End?

  

  This is a guest post by Darwin arts curator and criminal barrister Koulla Roussos. It was originally published in the Sunday Territorian on Sunday 18 June 2017 

  As one of the few independent curators in Darwin, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the Gunner government’s release of $500,000 to revitalise the city through the arts. I have been dismayed by our City’s demise. Having been a witness to booms as well as minor busts, nothing compares to the current downturn- our city looks and feels dishevelled, tired and poor.

  I am sceptical however, the $500,ooo injection will achieve more than a convenient short-term camouflage. Throwing money in an area where consecutive governments and institutions have failed to nurture and support is like throwing render at a building without walls.

  I often wonder what visitor’s experience of our city is like, and note their perplexed sense of the unremarkable during their short stay. Our rich contemporary culture is not obvious. The sad reality is that after 4:21pm the city is a ghost town. Apart from the odd pop-up market, and the travelling circus that is annual Darwin Festival, the city has no defined identity, vibe or cultural pulse.

  How did we come to be looking at Singapore for direction, how did we fail to use our strategic and comparative advantage in the region to become a culturally thriving tropical mini-metropolis?

  Since Cyclone Tracy, we have failed to rebuild with principled urban planning and infrastructure in mind.  A liveable and enticing city requires iconic building and landmarks. Our transient urban planners, architects and bureaucrats have singularly failed to draw the lessons from such elegant and archetypal buildings like Government House, Burnett House, the old Town Hall ruins, Browns Mart.

  Our key cultural institutions- the Museum and Art Gallery NT (MAGNT) and Charles Darwin University (CDU) are on the periphery of the city. Whereas other cities locate their main cultural institutions in the heart of their city, with imposing, alluring and identity defining architecture these two look and feel like patch-worked bunkers, shaped by the prevailing temporary donga mentality of the frontier.

  As institutions, they have made little effort to expand and bring the institutional regard for contemporary art and culture by forging a presence, even a temporary one in the city.  Whilst CDU has now expanded its presence into the Waterfront, the impact has been negligible, with limited exhibition openings or public programming at the Waterfront Campus.

  Unlike PICA in Perth or Salamanca in Hobart, the city lacks an arts precinct linking visual artists, students, lecturers and the public with studios, exhibition spaces and other recreational amenities. Since private rental in the city is expensive there is a dearth of small galleries, artisan and boutique stores offering unique culturally bespoke products and experiences.

  Despite MAGNT and CDU being staffed by professionals with a solid foundation in the liberal arts, they have failed to create a critical culture. Whereas other cities have generated monthly periodicals available to the public with critical analysis of the arts, Darwin’s institutional intelligentsia haven’t been able to muster up an annual publication.  If it wasn’t for the Sunday Territorian and Tamara Howie’s interest in reporting on the local arts scene, there would be next to no in-depth analysis on the visual arts.

  Since the closure of the Chan, we do not have a visible space in the city where we celebrate our contemporary artists. We fail to revere the likes of Gary Lee, Chips Mackinolty, Therese Ritchie, Franck Gohier, Aly de Groot or Karen Mills as homegrown heroes. These artists are nationally recognised, yet our institutions fail to carve out a prominent space of revolving exhibitions to showcase their worth.  It is remiss that our few contemporary art spaces are so poorly funded, they are unable to offer an artist fee in the case of DVAA or secure their immediate future as in the case of NCCA.

  Whilst we have the annual Telstra Art Award, this is a national Indigenous only arts event. The TOGART art award has ceased since the interstate developer left. Our city needs an annual art award that reflects out dynamic multi-culturalism and encourages participation of Darwin artists regardless of race or creed.

  How does an artist prosper or a city become imbued with contemporary culture when our artists are not being written about, regularly exhibited, lauded through awards and presentations, let alone securing the value of their work for private collectors if institutions are not collecting? MAGNT and CDU have a minuscule collection budget for local artists.

  The Darwin Festival has failed local visual artists.  Spending money on a roving class of interstate creatives and acts is capital that gets drained out of the local culture making economy. There is no substantial quota for local engagement, there is no compulsion that local creatives get engaged and employed.

  The current festival model fails to connect with and engage the local culture makers. Even the influx of DF production crew in August are like carnies – here for the month then off again to fleece another community with their generic arts festival business model.

  ArtsNT has not been able to advocate for local artists, nor offer a strategic vision and advice developed after proper consultation with all the local stakeholders to our revolving elected politicians, let alone offer a grants model that is agile, transparent, fair, and reflective of the economic imperatives of art and exhibition making.

  The recent information session regarding the $500,000 cash injection was conducted during hours when most artists were not able to attend. Neither NCCA has been involved in or invited to offer strategic input nor had DVAA been consulted before the announcement to ascertain whether they had the capacity to auspice individual grants. Announcing that creative producers will be chosen by ArtsNT without a competitive and transparent process, is not accountable public policy. Not disclosing in an open forum how much of the $500K will be spent on the bureaucratic anointed coterie is indicative of a bureaucracy not compelled by notions of transparency and accountability.

  If we want a liveable and loveable city we need to recognise these strategic bureaucratic and institutional failures.  Let’s face it, this city has been stifled across all areas by a bloated parasitic bureaucracy and institutional transience and by a revolving circus of elected ministers who have not been vocal champions for the arts, nor able to exert effective ministerial accountability.

  Until I see a serious engagement by all levels of government, developing serious foundational policies that are responsive to and reflective of the needs of the local culture makers, I will remain sceptical of all half-baked, poorly planned knee-jerk measures conceived and implemented by agents who I believe have been largely responsible for the visible cultural impoverishment of our city.

  =========================================

  Photo: Self Portrait with Chips Mackinolty’s Dingo. Darwin NT Supreme Court Robing Room. By Koulla Roussos

  =========================================

  ABOUT KOULLA ROUSSOS

  Koulla Roussos, is Darwin born and based a criminal law barrister with an interest in art history. As an independent curator, she has managed a busy court and Royal Commission practice, as well as engaging local artists, developing cutting-edge exhibitions focusing on Darwin’s shifting urban identity. After securing the in -principle support of Janet Holmes a Court and the participation of the Utopia Batik artists, she is currently developing a commemorative exhibition to celebrate the impact of 1988 Batiks. She is also hatching a revitalisation plan for an important Darwin thoroughfare with local restauranteur and provocateur Jason Hanna. For more information visit: www.koullaroussos.com

  The post What future the arts in the Top End? appeared first on The Northern Myth.

• Daniel Bowen Old photos from June 2007

  Time for another in my monthly series of photos from ten years ago… something of a bumper crop this time.

  Let’s start with a view over the city from Quarry Park in Footscray. Apparently the Melbourne Star observation wheel had been under construction since 2006, but I can’t see in anywhere here.

  I can’t actually see any few cranes in the photo, but in the last ten years, the skyline around central Melbourne has certainly got more crowded.

  

  Nearby to the spot where the above photo was taken, the Edgewater development was taking shape, and being promoted, of course. I wonder how many people actually moor their boat here?
  

  I suspect I was waiting for a train on the evening on the 8th of June, as I snap quite a few photos around Southern Cross.
  

  At the time the rebuild of the station was relatively new. This bloke seemed to be setting up the platform screens (since replaced by something more beautiful).
  

  Evidently the 15th of June was a foggy morning. This is Bentleigh station, well before it got rebuilt below street level, and with Hitachi trains still running. Some naughty bloke is riding a bike along the platform. Unwise.
  

  Later the same morning, pretty hazy in Elizabeth Street, just north of Collins Street. Since then, massive block-long tram platform stops have been built here, though as of 2017, only route 19 has (some) low-floor trams.
  

  Hazy at lunchtime in Swanston Street. This area has been remodelled, also now with tram platform stops.
  

  Back at Southern Cross, I quite like the blur effect of this Connex-liveried Comeng train arriving.
  

  I must have been mucking about with long exposure times. Looking across the platforms to an X’trapolis train.
  

  Just this week they announced that A-class trams will be getting internal stop displays, but back in 2007, a similar system was being trialled on this Z-class tram (number 178).
  

  …it also included this internal display, which hasn’t ended up being rolled-out.
  

  …and the external LED displays must have been new, or I probably wouldn’t have bothered to snap the outside of the tram. It now seems unlikely Z-class trams will get the full suite of displays, as they’ve started being phased-out as E-class trams are deployed.
  

  Some kind of advertising promotion at Richmond station. Given crowds at this station these days, I wonder if they’d allow such markings on the platform today.
  

  At Windsor on Dandenong Road, more platform stops were being built.
  

  East St Kilda. This lane between two houses on Alexandra Street is probably meaningless to you lot, but holds special significance to me. It’s where I learnt to ride a bike.
  

  I’m not sure why I snapped this picture of a Darrell Lea store in Swanston Street, but it’s since disappeared, along with most of the other stores.
  

  Who remembers The Choir Of Hard Knocks? Evidently on the 22nd of June they had an event in the Degraves Street subway.
  

  Regent Theatre, promotion for the Priscilla musical.
  

June 19, 2017

• Club Troppo Biased Promotions and Persistence of False Belief

  Beetles: Biased Promotions and Persistence of False Belief by George Akerlof, Pascal Michaillat – #23523 (LS PR)

  Abstract:

  This paper develops a theory of promotion based on evaluations by the
  already promoted. The already promoted show some favoritism toward
  candidates for promotion with similar beliefs, just as beetles are
  more prone to eat the eggs of other species. With such egg-eating
  bias, false beliefs may not be eliminated by the promotion system.
  Our main application is to scientific revolutions: when tenured
  scientists show favoritism toward candidates for tenure with similar
  beliefs, science may not converge to the true paradigm. We extend
  the statistical concept of power to science: the power of the tenure
  test is the probability (absent any bias) of denying tenure to a
  scientist who adheres to the false paradigm, just as the power of any
  statistical test is the probability of rejecting a false null
  hypothesis. The power of the tenure test depends on the norms
  regarding the appropriate criteria to use in promotion and the
  empirical evidence available to apply these criteria. We find that
  the scientific fields at risk of being captured by false paradigms
  are those with low power. Another application is to hierarchical
  organizations: egg-eating bias can result in the capture of the top
  of organizations by the wrong-minded.

• Club Troppo Genetic diversity is good for the economy!

  High School Genetic Diversity and Later-life Student Outcomes: Micro-level Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
  by C. Justin Cook, Jason M. Fletcher – #23520 (EFG LS)

  Abstract:

  A novel hypothesis posits that levels of genetic diversity in a population may partially explain variation in the development and success of countries. Our paper extends evidence on this novel question by subjecting the hypothesis to an alternative context that eliminates many alternative hypotheses by aggregating representative data to the high school level from a single state (Wisconsin) in 1957, when the population was composed nearly entirely of individuals of European ancestry. Using this sample of high school aggregations, we too find a strong effect of genetic diversity on socioeconomic outcomes. Additionally, we check an existing mechanism and propose a new potential mechanism of the results for innovation: personality traits associated with creativity and divergent thinking.

• Club Troppo Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime

  Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive
  Assessment Using Panel Data and a State-Level Synthetic Controls
  Analysis by John J. Donohue, Abhay Aneja, Kyle D. Weber – #23510 (LE)

  Abstract:

  The 2004 report of the National Research Council (NRC) on Firearms
  and Violence recognized that violent crime was higher in the
  post-passage period (relative to national crime patterns) for states
  adopting right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws, but because of
  model dependence the panel was unable to identify the true causal
  effect of these laws from the then-existing panel data evidence.
  This study uses 14 additional years of panel data (through 2014)
  capturing an additional 11 RTC adoptions and new statistical
  techniques to see if more convincing and robust conclusions can
  emerge.

  Our preferred panel data regression specification (the “DAW model”)
  and the Brennan Center (BC) model, as well as other statistical
  models by Lott and Mustard (LM) and Moody and Marvell (MM) that had
  previously been offered as evidence of crime-reducing RTC laws, now
  consistently generate estimates showing RTC laws increase overall
  violent crime and/or murder when run on the most complete data.
  We then use the synthetic control approach of Alberto Abadie and
  Javier Gardeazabal (2003) to generate state-specific estimates of the
  impact of RTC laws on crime. Our major finding is that under all
  four specifications (DAW, BC, LM, and MM), RTC laws are associated
  with higher aggregate violent crime rates, and the size of the
  deleterious effects that are associated with the passage of RTC laws
  climbs over time. We estimate that the adoption of RTC laws
  substantially elevates violent crime rates, but seems to have no
  impact on property crime and murder rates. Ten years after the
  adoption of RTC laws, violent crime is estimated to be 13-15% percent
  higher than it would have been without the RTC law. Unlike the panel
  data setting, these results are not sensitive to the covariates
  included as predictors. The magnitude of the estimated increase in
  violent crime from RTC laws is substantial in that, using a consensus
  estimate for the elasticity of crime with respect to incarceration of
  .15, the average RTC state would have to double its prison population
  to counteract the RTC-induced increase in violent crime.

• Links International Conceptualising Cuban socialism

   

  

   

  By Helen Yaffe

   

  June 19, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Helen Yaffe's blog — On 1 June 2017, an extraordinary session of Cuba’s National Assembly of Peoples’ Power approved important documents which define the character, objectives and strategy of Cuban socialism into the post-Castro era. Since 2011, a programme of ‘updating’ the Cuban economic and social system has been underway, and these documents aim to establish the parameters within which those developments will take place. Helen Yaffe reports.

   

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• Links International The proletariat and its ally: The logic of Bolshevik ‘hegemony’

   

  

   

  By Lars Lih

   

  June 19, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from John Riddell's Marxist Essays and Commentary website — Were the Bolsheviks fundamentally prepared or fundamentally unprepared by their previous outlook to meet the challenges of 1917? To answer this question, we must first arrive at an understanding of the political strategy of Old Bolshevism. A coherent political strategy must answer two fundamental questions:

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June 18, 2017

• The Northern Myth “People work. People make money … You don’t know what a first world economy is”: Judge Greg Borchers, Tennant Creek Youth Court, 6 June 2017.

  

  In January this year a 13 year old boy’s mother was killed following an horrendous and sustained assault. His father has been charged with his mother’s murder and that matter has yet to proceed to a trial.

  On 6 June 2017 the child appeared before Judge Greg Borchers in the Tennant Creek Youth Court, entering a guilty plea to damaging a government car, the doorway of the local bank and damage to a restaurant committed over two days in late May 2017. The child had more that $3,800 in outstanding fines from previous offences and was under a good behaviour bond imposed in March 2017.

  The Northern Myth has been provided with a transcript of proceedings in the matter and, apart from brief comments from elsewhere below, I provide the following excerpts without comment as the matter is still before the courts. While under NT law it is possible to name the juvenile offender I have chosen not to do so at this time.

  Following the presentation of relevant facts by the NT Police prosecutor, the child’s solicitor, Dev Bhutani of the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (CAALAS), began his submissions, noting the child’s age, prior offending and the “extremely difficult set of circumstances” that he was facing. He noted that his offending behaviour at multiple premises in front of CCTV cameras was “not only juvenile, but rather brazen.”

  Judge Borchers interrupted by suggesting that the offending was “extremely serious,” a point that Dev Bhutani demurred to. Following submissions from Mr Bhutani that the “overall loss wasn’t that great” the following exchange occurred between Judge Borchers, Police Prosecutor Sergeant Lyons and Mr Bhutani.

  Mr Lyons: The last time that Middle Earth [the restaurant] got their doors broken it was over $3000.

  His Honour: Yes. Yes. Client coming up with the money, is he, Mr Bhutani?

  Mr Bhutani: No, your Honour, as you’ve heard he already has a considerable amount of outstanding —

  His Honour: Family going to pay the money, are they, Mr Bhutani?

  Mr Bhutani: Not that I know of.

  His Honour: Who is going to pay the money, Mr Bhutani?

  Mr Bhutani: Your Honour, it’s a difficult situation. Unfortunately – – –

  His Honour: No. No. Tell me, who do you think might pay the money, Mr Bhutani?

  Mr Bhutani: It will unfortunately fall upon the ratepayers – the insurance payers here, the residents in Tennant Creek.

  His Honour: Yes. Exactly.

  Then followed an exchange between bench and bar about the child’s prior offending and court appearances and his attendance at school and whether anyone was providing parental control over the child, particularly around the time of the offending in May. Mr Bhutani sought to put the offending in context.

  Mr Bhutani: If I might contextualise, the last few months in Mr …..’s life, your Honour, now your Honour’s probably aware of a death that took place in the Tennant Creek community that now really being investigated as a murder. That is …..’s mother and the primary suspect at this stage is his father, who is currently serving a significant time on remand at the Alice Springs Correctional Centre, being investigated for the death of his partner and ….’s mother.

  Now that, your Honour, by all accounts, by all service providers here in the courtroom today, which I’m happy to call as well, has obviously taken a very significant toll on Mr …. . But, I think it’s really well reflected —

  His Honour: Well, call them. I’d like to know how they relate that to breaking into people’s property including that. Call one of them, anyone you like and get that person to tell me how grief results in breaking into banks.

  Mr Bhutani continued his submissions.

  Mr Bhutani: If I might first, you Honour, tender – and I might finish my point, tendering the school attendance records from a period prior to April and a period later on … It really shows a very remarkable noticeable difference in attendance, 79 per cent down to 26 per cent. And, this is at a time after he’s lost his mother.

  But, by all accounts, your Honour, that ongoing alcohol misuse and other issues in the family have really resulted in ….. being of quite low mood, suffering social anxiety. I’ve also got notes that he struggles to make and maintain long term friendships and really does take solace in the company of his two younger sisters, your Honour.

  His Honour: Sorry, Say that again.

  Mr Bhutani: That he really takes solace in the company of his two younger sisters.

  His Honour: How old are they?

  Mr Bhutani: Seven and eight?

  His Honour: So, why wasn’t he with them at night?

  Mr Bhutani: Sorry, 12 and 13 – – –

  His Honour: Okay. So, if he’s so concerned about them, why is he out on the streets at 5am?

  Mr Bhutani: They were residing at Ali Kurung (sic) at that time , your Honour

  Then followed discussion about the child’s appointment—in mid-June 2017—with the Alice Springs-based clinical psychologist and his difficulty engaging with the Tennant Creek-based Youth Mental Health team, his school attendance record and submissions on how the matter might proceed.

  His Honour: So, what should I do, Mr Bhutani?

  Mr Bhutani: Well, we are in a difficult – – –

  His Honour: So, do you want me to go back to the good behaviour bond and say, change it, so he only has to go to school when he wants to?

  Mr Bhutani: No, your Honour. Well, it would have been ideal, your Honour, in circumstances like this, I think for a community work order – – –

  His Honour: Rubbish. That wasn’t put to me and you know precisely why it wasn’t. Because, you and your colleagues have a mantra. And, the mantra is, he’s in the Youth Court. He’s too young to do that, he’s got to get a good behaviour bond and that’s what he got.

  Mr Bhutani: Sorry. I’m suggesting that on this one. I’m suggesting that on this file.

  His Honour: He’s not getting a good behaviour bond, Mr Bhutani. I’m thinking of goal, so you go prepare yourself by getting a pre-sentence report.

  Mr Bhutani: Well, your Honour, I’m suggesting that would have been an ideal circumstance. Unfortunately, community work isn’t available. I didn’t say a good behaviour bond. I’m saying community work order. Unfortunately, it is not available for youths and so unfairly, what happens to youths in Tennant Creek Youth Justice Court is naturally, the sentencing imposition increases even though the history of the defendant and objective seriousness may not warrant that increase.

  …

  And, the focus of this court should remain that of rehabilitation and imprisonment whether suspended or not, your Honour, should remain an absolute last resort. In my submission, [the child] isn’t at that point of last resort, your Honour, particularly taking into account his personal circumstances; the presumable grief and trauma he’s going through. I can see no benefit to ….. firstly, but particularly to the community in sentencing him to a term of imprisonment.

  The Police Prosecutor then made brief submissions, firstly advising the court that the date of the “actual serious offence” with [the child’s] parents had occurred on 20 January 2017.

  Mr Lyons: Your Honour, what’s being forgotten in all of this is the victims in this matter, with the Middle Earth Cafe being targeted by probably every court session we have here, with youth. In Tennant Creek there’s always something involving the Middle Earth. It’s in the middle of town. It appears to be a target. Your Honour, the ANZ Bank, as your Honour has quite rightly said, they’re a business that can afford to replace their windows with insurances and what like. But, the victims in this matter are the Northern Territory Government, the ANZ Bank and Middle Earth. Due to the youth crime in this town, which is very prevalent and almost, as your Honour saw yesterday with the amount of youth files that were in the court, and youth were involved in another unlawful entry again last night in another business, which investigations are still going on with that.

  That aside, the community in general has had enough of youth breaking into their businesses, breaking into houses and nothing happening.There’s no responsibility. They don’t take responsibility for their actions and consequently, the defendant before the court now is on a good behaviour bond. He was put on there about two months ago and can’t abide by any of the conditions that were put on there.

  So, your Honour, detention would be beneficial for the young person, be it in Alice Springs or Darwin, where he can seek the help from the psychiatrists, or the psychologists that he is required to see.

  His Honour Judge Borchers then asked the child to stand and addressed him.

  His Honour: … You came before my court in March of this year, at which time you were about to be dealt with for a number of offences … You were given an opportunity. Given an opportunity which you signed and you agreed in court. You were legally represented. You had lawyers constantly representing you for a long period of time and you stood in court, and presumably they spoke to you and impressed upon you the importance of staying out of trouble.

  …

  There are people in court here, but there is no one exercising parental control over you. You’re rampaging around the streets at night and no one cares. I haven’t heard from the police that anyone rang the police, or contacted the police to say that you were missing after midnight, because no one cares.

  …

  [Mr Bhutani] says that I’m being unfair and I should contextualise the report and I will. I will contextualise the report in this sense: you’ve got no one looking after you. That’s why you don’t go to school. It might be somewhat stereotyping in a socioeconomic way. But, there’s no one providing you with an evening meal, tucking you into bed, getting you up in the morning, giving you breakfast and sending you off to school. And, if there is, you’re not listening to them.

  …

  The fact that you feel sorry about what’s happened in your family, how does that justify you damaging other people’s property? I’m told that you’re really concerned about your sisters. How does damaging other people’s property and possibly going into goal help your sisters? It doesn’t.

  …

  Now, I  accept, as I have said, that there’s been a bit of a breakdown in your family; a significant breakdown. But, you’ve dutchessed it. That means that you’ve taken advantage of it. You’re out and about on the streets with your mates, because no one is really in a position to look after you.

  …

  You’re not going back into the community. The community can’t afford you. It’s quite clear that you and your family are not going to pick up the damages for what you’ve caused. And, presumably, and I infer this, you’ve got no understanding of that. You don’t know what a first world economy is. You don’t know the difference between – you don’t know where money comes from other than the government gives it out.

  People work. People make money. If they don’t make money, they starve, or they lose their businesses. And, there’s a very good chance that there will be businesses in this town that won’t continue after a number of years because of the number of times that they’ve been broken into. Because you’re not paying for it, your family’s not paying for it. You don’t even pay your fines. I’m remanding you in custody, in detention.

  The child was remanded to the Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre and was due to appear before the court again on 13 July 2017. On Friday 16 June 2017 CAALAS made an application for bail before Judge Borchers on his behalf. That application was adjourned to Tuesday 20 June 2017.

  On Saturday 17 June ABC Darwin reported the following comments from criminal barrister John Lawrence QC, a former president of the NT Bar Association who is representing several former juvenile detainees before the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children.

  What this judicial officer did and said … completely undermines the integrity and the prestige and, indeed, the honour of the court in which he sits. For a judge to directly say that to a 13-year-old defendant in his circumstances is disgraceful. I don’t think any adult should speak to a child like that. This judicial officer, believe it or not, is doing this while a royal commission is hovering over this entire legal system. This has gone way beyond the pale, and I think it’s a matter that the royal commission will hear about.

  The Sunday Territorian, following a page 7 piece entitled “Judge rants at teenage criminal” ran the following comments in an editorial.

  It is difficult to convey just how upsetting comments made by Northern Territory Judge Greg Borchers to the 13-year-old sone of a murder victim were … Judge Borchers displayed no sympathy – or basic compassion – for a young child facing a heartbreak few will ever experience … Judge Borchers’ approach appeared to centre upon retribution, not rehabilitation, or both. That is in no one’s best interests. Frustration at youth offenders is understandable. But throwing the book at vulnerable kids and leaving them to rot in prison is not the only solution.

  ================================

  Photo: https://pretraveller.com/australian-2wd-road-trips-katherine-to-tennant-creek-stuart-highway/

  The post “People work. People make money … You don’t know what a first world economy is”: Judge Greg Borchers, Tennant Creek Youth Court, 6 June 2017. appeared first on The Northern Myth.

• Daniel Bowen Should Swanston/Flinders be a scramble crossing?

  It turns out some are floating the idea of the Swanston/Flinders Street intersection being converted to a pedestrian scramble crossing (aka a Barnes Dance/Barnes Walk).

  THE CBD’s busiest intersection, at Flinders and Swanston streets, could get a pedestrian-friendly makeover under changes forced by the Metro Rail tunnel project.

  Lord Mayor Robert Doyle has revealed one option Melbourne city council is considering is the introduction of a traffic light sequence in which pedestrians can cross the whole of the intersection from different directions.

  — Herald Sun: Metro tunnel forces rethink of pedestrian crossing at Flinders and Swanston streets (pay wall)

  The only scramble crossing at present in the CBD is at Elizabeth/Flinders Street. It works well when cars stay out of it during the pedestrian phase.

  What is a Pedestrian Scramble/Barnes Dance? This is. Not suited to everywhere, but can work well. pic.twitter.com/LmANc6msNs

  — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) June 13, 2017

  Bourke/Spencer is probably the top candidate elsewhere in the CBD. Swanston/Latrobe could also work well.

  As for Swanston/Flinders, potentially it could work, though the best locations for them are where there are lots of pedestrians in all directions.

  At this intersection, most of the traffic is north-south from the station to the shops on the western side of Swanston Street. There are also heavy flows between the station and Federation Square and the tram stop, but this is well south of the intersection — though there is a case for moving the tram stop (and enlarging it) to be closer to the intersection, for better interchange with trams on Flinders Street.

  There might be other, easier alternatives, but whether a scramble crossing works or not probably depends on the design of the traffic light cycles. If they minimise green time for cars, and maximise it for pedestrians, as well as having more spots in the cycle to let trams through, then it’s got potential to improve things.

  

  Indeed, issues around the Federation Square tram stop are a reminder of the importance (alluded to in the Herald Sun article) that we need to think big picture.

  What are the effects the metro tunnel will have on pedestrian movements? (It’s likely to provide underground walkways from the current station to the new one.) What about trams along Flinders Street, set to increase with some Elizabeth Street trams running to East Melbourne? And could/should there be a move to reduce or even eliminate private vehicles from Princes Bridge and this section of Flinders Street?

  There are safety benefits to scramble crossings — accidents from turning cars reduce, though this is less important at this particular location where there are virtually no turning movements at the same time as walk signals.

  And I do think there’s another important benefit to scramble crossings: on a psychological level, they improve the walking environment. Giving the entire space to pedestrians, even if only once each traffic light cycle, sends the message that (here at least) pedestrians are not, and should not be marginalised.

June 16, 2017

• Links International How Europe underdeveloped Africa: the legacy of Walter Rodney

   

  

   

  By Lee Wengraf

   

  June 16, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Review of African Political Economy — A number of African economies have experienced a massive boom in wealth and investment over the past decade Yet most ordinary Africans live in dire poverty with diminished life expectancy, high unemployment and in societies with low-levels of industry. For the roots of these conditions of “under-development,” one historical account stands alone in importance: Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972).

   

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• Club Troppo Dinner Party in Melbourne on the 22nd June: #WAINS?

  My 60th Birthday party was a blast. So as not to wait another decade till the next one, I thought I’d do it annually. But to disguise the naked egotism of it I decided to raise money for a Good Cause. And the cause is Urban Refugees founded by Sonia Ben Ali who flew in at the right time for my 60th. (Can’t celebrate a milestone without a social innovator flying in from Paris.)

  Anyhow, the thing is, Sonia is back in Australia next week. We were thinking of holding a genteel dinner with billionaires wives and their blue rinse to get them all to pitch in a few thousand, and have charity lunches, but then we realised that neither Sonia nor I knew any billionaires or their wives.

  So I just thought, “what the heck, let’s get this baby off the ground”. So on Thursday 22nd June, you’re invited to a fantastic party in Melbourne with a whole lot of fantastically interesting people I know. (Seriously, there are some fascinating people there I promise! There even other Troppodillians there!)

  It will mostly be dinner and party, but you’ll hear a little about the cause from me, from Sonia and from Nemat Ahmadi,a newly arrived Afghan refugee who has made his way to Melbourne from Urban Refugees’ base in Malaysia!

  We’re inviting you to pay your way with $50 for the dinner with drinks purchased at the bar. So Book Now on this link.

  I’m also hoping you can donate and will match every dollar of yours over $100 up to a total liability of $5,000 for me. (Ross Gittins has already decided to play hard-ball and try to bankrupt me so this matching pool is now down to $4,100! Bring it on I say! We can always mortgage the yacht.)

  One final thing, if you’d like to donate, we’re in the process of getting tax deductibility and so if that matters to you, the best way of donating is make a comment below (or if you want to hide your generosity under a bushel), email me on ngruen AT gmail and I’ll make sure Urban Refugees gets back to you when we can issue a tax deductible receipt. I’d hope we can do it before the end of the financial year.

  Looking forward to seeing yous all there!

  And please pass this around.

• Club Troppo Trump and the new world (dis)order
  Embed from Getty Images

  What are the effects of having a US president who is diminished in stature and yet not facing imminent job loss? I try to think this through in my latest column for The CEO Magazine.

  One likely result: less stability in US foreign policy, as Trump spends more time on it. Foreign policy is what presidents do when they become less important, because that’s where Congress plays the smallest role and a president has greatest freedom.

  This will mean more departure from past patterns and from the US State Department’s preferred policies. Mainstream western understanding of the international order is based to a large extent on shared values, acknowledged rules and mutually beneficial long-term alliances. Trump is not by instinct a long-term alliance guy. He’s transactional. He asks the question “what have you done for me lately?”. He is also impetuous and uninclined to develop a shared leadership position before speaking or tweeting.

  All of this is now pretty widely accepted. It was evident in Trump’s delay in backing Article 5 of the NATO treaty.

  Perhaps Trump’s strangest foreign policy excursion so far is happening in the tiny, gas-rich Persian Gulf state of Qatar. If there was some sort of diplomatic award for mixed messages, the US would have it in the bag already.
  

  Last week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Saudi Arabia to ease its newly-imposed blockade of Qatar. An hour later, Trump supported the Saudi line because the country was “funding … radical ideology”.

  During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

  So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding…

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

  …extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

  Then this week, it turned out the US is selling the same country F-15 tactical fighters. That’s James Mattis, US Secretary of Defence and the least obsequious member of Trump’s Cabinet, shaking on the deal.

  Qatar signs LOA for the purchase of the F-15QA fighter jets creating 60,000 new jobs in 42 states across the United States pic.twitter.com/tnOAC3KGma

  — Meshal Hamad AlThani (@Amb_AlThani) June 14, 2017

  We’re probably in for a bunch more of this sort of thing. Trump will say one thing, which nobody expected, and his Secretary of Defence and Secretary of State will say something else entirely. Then a bunch of people will spend some time wondering what’s happening, figuring out who’s in charge, keeping frigate commanders’ fingers off the buttons, etc etc.

  As it happens, just after the column came out, Hilary Clinton’s former foreign affairs adviser, Jake Sullivan, gave a speech at the Lowy Institute on how all this will play out in the Asia-Pacific. It explores these issues in a lot more detail, particularly on China. Lowy’s Michael Fullilove asked his usual penetrating questions at the end. It’s well worth a read.

  So this is the latest new world order, and it has significantly less order.

  And it’s not shaping up too well for Australia. Donald Trump already seems to take a dim view of Malcolm Turnbull. And he hates few things more than being mocked. There are those who say that Barack Obama’s mockery of him at a similar US event was what drove a seething Trump to run for the presidency in the first place.

  On this view, Malcolm Turnbull’s recent excursion into Trump mockery was not so much a misjudgment as a foreign affairs disaster. It’s tempting and easy to rubbish Trump. But it would be better not to stir things up. We’ve already going to have all the disorder we can handle.

  P.S. Helpful summary of the Qatar situation here. To somewhat adapt Tom Lehrer, if any background articles are going to come out of World War III, you’d better start reading them now.

  David on Twitter: @shorewalker1

• Links International Trump goes for bust on the national-populist trail. What did you expect?

   

  

   

  By Daniel Tanuro

   

  June 16, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from International Viewpoint — The United States has denounced the Paris climate agreement, cancelled all the measures decided by the United States in application of this agreement and withdrew from the Green Fund for the Climate. These are the major decisions that Donald Trump finally announced, on Thursday, June 1, after a long period of suspense.

   

  These decisions are in line with the promises made by the new President during his election campaign. In the past few months, some observers had wanted to believe that Trump would change his tune, but he did no such thing. On the contrary, the speech he delivered in the Rose Garden of the White House flowed from a disturbing nationalist and populist demagogy. What did you expect? - as the advertisers say...

   

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• Club Troppo A Good Walk Spoiled

  From  Revisionist History

  In the middle of Los Angeles — a city with some of the most expensive real estate in the world — there are a half a dozen exclusive golf courses, massive expanses dedicated to the pleasure of a privileged few. How do private country clubs afford the property tax on 300 acres of prime Beverly Hills real estate? RH brings in tax assessors, economists, and philosophers to probe the question of the weird obsession among the wealthy with the game of golf.

   

  The podcast is here.

   

June 15, 2017

• Daniel Bowen I bought an investment property

  As you grow older, you find yourself doing things you genuinely had no idea you’d be doing. At least I do. Perhaps other people have all their plans worked out way further in advance.

  When I was growing up, we had little money, and I couldn’t dream of owning my own home.

  At age 30 I found myself living alone for the first time, it still wasn’t on the radar. It took me until 35 to get to the point where I could buy.

  Through my 30s and into my 40s, things have really come together moneywise. Good steady job + low interest rates + house appreciated markedly (roughly doubled in value; I couldn’t afford to buy in Bentleigh now).

  Last year I wrote about money, and that I was pondering buying an investment property. This came about via refinancing my home loan at the suggestion of my sister, and chatting to a mortgage broker about it.

  My house was revalued by the bank. It’s worth just on double what I paid for it. Based on that, the mortgage broker said I’d have no trouble borrowing enough for an investment. Rent could be expected to be roughly in the zone of the interest payments.

  Virtually any other type of investment would have to be self-funded. I’ve dabbled in shares (disastrously), and the bank wouldn’t lend to me to buy a race horse or gold!

  10+ year objective: boost my retirement fund, and help my kids buy when the time comes.

  So I decided to try an investment property. But where to buy?

  Daniel’s theory of property investment

  Let’s assume I want something in the same city where I live, rather than some far-flung location.

  First of all, I’m aiming at something within walking distance to a railway station, shops, parks, other amenity. Similar factors to where I would want to live — it seems to be a good formula.

  If one assumes the jump in prices has started in the inner-suburbs and is steadily working its way outwards (with gentrification etc), then the strategy is to buy just ahead of that wave. To go with a stereotype, as the CBD gets busier and the commuter population gets larger, then you aim to catch the next lot of CBD white-collar workers moving in.

  In the Frankston line corridor, this wave of house price rises has obviously already gone through Bentleigh (where I live), Moorabbin, Highett, Cheltenham, but then you get to the beachside suburbs like Mentone which have been expensive for some time. I’ve missed that wave.

  One could look in other directions, such as west, but what about along the Dandenong line? Oakleigh, Clayton, Springvale have already gone up or are doing so now.

  For bonus points, look for government infrastructure upgrades in the area to provide a boost, a rejuvenation of some kind. For instance, level crossing removals.

  So I ended up targeting Noble Park, which has the following going for it:

  • Still affordable for townhouses/units (which I’d prefer over apartments… a house would be ideal of course, but out of my budget)
  • local shops including a Coles supermarket (unlike nearby Westall, Sandown Park and Yarraman)
  • quite a walkable suburb
  • 37 mins from city on the train – making it much closer to the CBD than the booming outer suburban fringe
  • By 2018, will have local crossing removed and a shiny new station, which is likely to spark urban renewal
  • Also new trains coming on line about then
  • From 2026 the Metro tunnel will mean direct access to Domain and the University/Hospital precinct
  • Possible future airport rail link in the next couple of decades
  • Fairly close to Monash Uni

  Down sides? Well despite being close to Monash Uni, the public transport links to there aren’t very good. In fact all the local buses are fairly appalling.

  The area has a reputation for crime, though perhaps undeserved. Parts of the suburb seem a little run down, though not really worse than anywhere else.

  Remember, it’s about investment potential. I’m betting that the whole area will get nicer over the next (say) ten years.

  

  Unknown: Will the impact of skyrail be positive, or negative? I’m betting positive. If the open space isn’t totally dominated by car parks, and if they keep it clean, it’ll add to the neighbourhood rather than detract from it.

  In contrast to areas like Carnegie, where it’s seen as controversial, it seems pretty accepted in Noble Park, in fact I even saw one real estate ad crowing about it.

  Spotted in a real estate listing in Noble Park. #skyrail pic.twitter.com/uggNkIjg78

  — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) May 6, 2017

  I started hunting for a property late last year. Scoured the web sites, and drove down regularly on Saturdays with M, whose patience never seemed to wear thin.

  I went to a few auctions, even placed some bids. Gradually it became apparent that some types of property were probably beyond my financial means, if I wanted something in the area most desirable.

  Finally in May I found something up for private sale, put in an offer, haggled a bit, and it was accepted.

  A unit, with two bedrooms, at the back of a block of four. Brick, with a bit of a back garden, and very close to the station. So that skyrail had better work out!

  A great deal of paperwork has followed, including applying again for the loan, even though it was “pre-approved”. But it’s done. I’m buying it.

  It’ll be rented out to tenants. (I’m hoping to be a good landlord, not a git landlord as some were back in the days when my family rented.)

  This is going to be interesting. Will the rental return be as healthy as forecast? Will it keep abreast of any interest rate rises? Will the area appreciate like I hope?

  We’ll see what happens next!

• Club Troppo Australia, New Zealand, the OECD and the better life index

  Working out why the Australian economy has left New Zealand’s in the dust for the last thirty years is a bit tricky. I’ve had a go at it on this blog once before. Anyway, now New Zealand is coming back into fashion. They’ve certainly followed Charlie Munger’s advice and tried not to be stupid, rather than try to be too clever, in pursuing an ‘Investment approach’ to welfare in which they do something really astonishing unstupid which is to look at welfare as a long-term liability rather than as an annual cost. This is driving a lot of good behaviour in trying to target programs towards managing that liability which gets them focused on the most promising ways of lowering their liability.

  But I was interested to see this OECD graph showing that at just the time we’ve heard about how we’ll they’re doing, our labour productivity has been outstripping theirs. (Labour productivity is, of course, a partial measure, and perhaps it is influenced by our greater investment during the mining boom.

  Anyway, the thing that bugs me is the OECD reporting to its own “Better Life Index”. It’s methodology is a shambles, completely ignoring the prospect of double counting in aggregating the various dimensions.¹

  But the thing that really gets me about the spider’s web diagram above is that on the “income and wealth” dimension, it rates Australia and New Zealand equal, even though New Zealand’s income per capita is way below ours (Having been equal to us as recently as 1970). Meanwhile Australia’s “civic engagement and governance” is superior, I presume because it’s superior to everyone’s. Why? Because we force people to vote and the index calls voting ‘civic engagement’ whether or not you’re forced to engage. They recognise it as a problem but have no professionally respectable way of correcting the error, so even though a little more weakness of character might help them avoid obvious errors, they stick with professional respectability. Not everyone is following Charlie Munger’s advice.

  1. You can read about the problems at greater length in our original report establishing the HALE index. ↩
• Club Troppo Fire and ice

  Last night I came off a series of deadlines and sat in my chair, catching up on a backlog of emails. I also watched David Stratton’s series on David Stratton with some Australian Movies worked into it currently on iView (episode 2) which was enjoyable. Anyway, somehow I happened on this doco which seemed schlocky enough to catch up on emails with. And some of you reading this will remember that game. Borg-McEnroe tiebreak in the 4th which ended 18-16 (After 7-7 in a tiebreak every second point is a set or a match point!). It was quite something at the time. Less so on the doco.

  But it’s much better than that. Quite a touching doco.

June 13, 2017

• Links International They told us ‘elections are won from the centre’. We’ll never believe them again

   

  

  By James Fox

   

  June 15, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Red Pepper — Jeremy Corbyn has just gained the most support for the Labour Party since the 1945 election of Clement Attlee. A post-election poll from Survation, one of the pollsters that called the election the most accurately, now puts Labour ahead of the Conservatives by 6 percentage points, stating that Corbyn would win 45 per cent of the public vote (against the Conservatives’ 39 per cent) – 5 points up since the election only a few days ago.

   

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• Links International Richard Seymour on British elections: Where we go from here

   

  

   

  By Richard Seymour

   

  June 15, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Novara Media

  I.

   

  What a difference election day makes. “Make June the end of May,” they said; and so they did.

   

  Theresa May has gone from being the adored “mummy” of Tory activists, whose secret strength according to A N Wilson and Matthew D’Ancona was her matriarchal “sex appeal”, to being the woman who shot the Tory party “in the head” according to Tory MP Nigel Evans. If only Tory activists had read a little of what Winnicott said about mothers, they might have seen it coming.

   

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• Links International General election in Britain: A stunning result for Corbyn and Labour

   

  

   

  By Alan Davies

   

  June 14, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Resistance — The election result is a triumph for Labour. Although the party has fallen marginally short of enough seats to form a government, Jeremy Corbyn has pulled off the biggest swing from one major party to another during the span of an election campaign since 1945. The polls were predicting a Labour share of the vote of 26% or 27% but ended up on the night at 40%—which is 12.8 million votes. This is more than Tony Blair got in 2001 or in 2005.

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• Links International Earning optimism after pessimism: Salvage editorial on the British general election

   

  

  ‘Obedience to the force of gravity. The greatest sin.’
  — Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

  ‘Things can only get better. Can only get better, if we see it through.’
  — D:ream

  By Salvage editorial board

   

  June 14, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Salvage — An uncharacteristically subdued President Trump described the result of Britain’s snap general election of 8 June as ‘surprising’. The Guardian went further, calling it a ‘shock result’. The redoubtable Jon Snow for Channel 4 News was closer to the mark, that this was ‘one of the most remarkable election results in modern British History’. This was astonishing, staggering, extraordinary.

   

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• Links International The need for a new US foreign policy towards North Korea

   

  

   

  By Marty Hart-Landsberg

   

  June 13, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Reports from the Economic Front — US-North Korean relations remain very tense, although the threat of a new Korean War has thankfully receded.  Still the US government remains determined to tighten economic sanctions on North Korea and continues to plan for a military strike aimed at destroying the country’s nuclear infrastructure.  And the North for its part has made it clear that it would respond to any attack with its own strikes against US bases in the region and even the US itself.

   

  This is not good, but it is important to realize that what is happening is not new.  The US began conducting war games with South Korean forces in 1976 and it was not long before those included simulated nuclear attacks against the North, and that was before North Korea had nuclear weapons.  In 1994, President Bill Clinton was close to launching a military attack on North Korea with the aim of destroying its nuclear facilities.  In 2002, President Bush talked about seizing North Korean ships as part of a blockade of the country, which is an act of war.  In 2013, the US conducted war games which involved planning for preemptive attacks on North Korean military targets and “decapitation” of the North Korean leadership and even a first strike nuclear attack.

   

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• Club Troppo A 50 per cent top rate makes sense
  Embed from Getty Images

  My column last week for The CEO Magazine reiterates a point made previously at Troppo: the weight of research shows decisively that high marginal tax rates have little effect on the efforts of most high-income earners.

  Sample quote:

  “These research results line up with what we all see each day. Does anyone really believe that if you slug all those Macquarie bankers 50% instead of 48, they’ll suddenly start arriving in the office at 8.55am and leaving at 5.25pm? Nope. They’ll still be streaming through the lobby at 7.15am tomorrow, coffees in hand, ready to work as hard as they did yesterday.”

  This was Nick Gruen’s conclusion in his influential CEDA paper Tax Cuts for Growth, which in 2006 seems to have pretty much established that extra tax on high incomes would not devastate the Australian economy.

  The paper also pointed out that given how much the rewards of the economy were shifting towards the top end of the income scale, increasing taxes there would raise a decent amount of dough.

  If anything, the past decade has reinforced those conclusions. If you really think Australia needs to address its Budget deficit, then higher marginal tax rates for the biggest earners make a good deal of sense.

  So now that Bill Shorten is suggesting exactly that, it’s worth revisiting what Nick had to say. It all still applies.

  Read the whole thing.

  David on Twitter: @shorewalker1

June 12, 2017

• Daniel Bowen New phone: Motorola G5 Plus

  A reminder that despite how it may sometimes seem, not all my blog posts are about transport. If you want to view only the transport posts, try here. For convenience, this link is also on the menu at the top, under Transport.

  Over the years I’ve had many mobile phones.

  Here’s an update to that old list:

  November 2013: Google Nexus 5 — I did that Apple-like thing of preordering this before I’d actually seen it in the flesh. This was a terrific phone. Fast, good camera, great features, no bloatware, and being a Google device, got updates really quickly.

  I loved some of the features I only discovered well after I got it, like the pedometer which is now tracking my steps, and NFC, which has all sorts of uses such as checking public transport smartcards (in smart cities like Sydney and Singapore where this is enabled) — see below.

  Then the phone died in late-2016. The power button got stuck, and it continually switched itself on and off.

  I replaced it and then stuck it in a drawer until a couple of weeks ago when my son Jeremy needed a phone to use while his was being repaired. He found a way to repair the power button, and it’s still going strong!

  

  October 2016: Google Nexus 5X (which cost me $489 at the time) — the spiritual successor to the 5. I really wanted to like this as much as the 5, but I didn’t. It was a good phone, but not a great phone. It feels a little laggy at times.

  Perhaps that’s one of the perils of buying a phone that was released 12 months earlier.

  There’s also probably a point at which (for all phones, tablets, and other devices) you should stop installing major upgrades to the operating system, which often bring major new features requiring perhaps more horsepower than the device can provide. Instead, it might be better to just install the security patches… at least until they run out.

  Daniel buys a new phone

  Having a good, fast reliable phone is more important these days than it has been in the past. I’m not sure that back in the day, any of us Gen Xers really appreciated that by the 2010s we’d literally have such a useful computer that we could carry around in our pockets all day.

  I decided last week to get a new phone, and after some research settled on the Motorola G5 Plus (currently retailing for about $380), for three main reasons:

  Get something faster. The 5X was released in 2015. Interestingly, you can still buy it new through some dealers (though Google themselves no longer sell it, having moved to the Pixel — at about double the price). I think there are now better value phones in the $400-500ish range.

  Fear of the boot loop. I don’t know if it’s common or not, but a known hardware problem with the 5X phone is that occasionally they will get into a state where they continually boot, and (barring hacks to fix it) have to be sent back for repair or replacement. This is something I could deal with at home, but there’s no way I’d want it to happen while on our overseas holiday later this year.

  Dual SIMs. I’d like to have mobile data for maps and so on while travelling, but I’d also like to be reachable on my usual phone number. Telstra international roaming isn’t cheap: $85 for 300 Mb or $160 for 600 Mb.

  In contrast, a Three UK prepaid SIM, including 1 Gb data and texts and calls for a month, costs 10 pounds (A$17), or 12 Gb for double that cost, and it includes roaming in Europe. (I’m still looking at the options, but this appears to be one of the best.)

  The solution to cheap local rates + keep your usual number? A dual-SIM phone. Use data and outbound calls on the cheap local SIM, and still be able to receive calls/texts on my Australian number. And the money savings will help subsidise the new phone.

  (I wonder if the phone companies dislike this?)

  In fact I suppose I could even choose to use a second SIM at home to get cheap data and/or try and get around the Telstra capacity problems on peak hour trains between Malvern to South Yarra — though from what I’m told, the other carriers are no better.

  

  So I bought a new Moto G5 Plus, and sold the Nexus 5X on Gumtree over the weekend. (eBay won’t let me sell a mobile phone, due to Paypal having a grudge against me, for reasons they’ve never been able to explain.)

  I listed it for $220, and got all sorts of cheeky offers from as low as $130. I refrained from telling them they were dreaming. Eventually accepted an offer of $180 from a bloke who had a Sony phone he quite liked, but dropped it and smashed the glass. Whoops.

  And the new phone? So far so good, apart from the wallpaper, which I’ve changed to my own design, and the “Hello Moto!” audible greeting, which was the first thing I switched off!

  • GSM Arena comparison: Nexus 5 vs Nexus 5X vs Moto G5 Plus
  • Official Motorola propaganda for the G5 Plus
  • How do you effectively wipe an old Android phone to sell it? If it’s Android 6.0 or above, it’s encrypted by default. (If not, switch it on; this could take a while). Then all you need to do is a factory reset.
  • Yes, I use Facebook a bit. But my Facebook friends are my actual friends. You can however Like the blog on Facebook. And PTUA as well! That said, I use Twitter a lot more.
• Links International ‘No racism here’: Modern Turkey and the question of race and national identity

   

  

   

  Fenerbahçe fans pointing bananas to Galatasaray players, Didier Drogba and Emmanuel Eboue

   

  By Bulent Gokay[1] and Darrell Whitman[2]

   

  ABSTRACT: Many in Turkey, including its political leaders, don’t accept there is racism in Turkey. They will say they are proud of their traditional hospitality and generosity towards foreigners. Similarly, academic accounts also generally assume Turkish nationalism is neither ethnic nor cultural nationalism, but rather an inclusive civic nationalism. We directly challenge this conviction by arguing there is a dark side of Turkish nationalism, based on clear evidence there is an ethnic and racial discourse that shaped Turkish nationalism from the early years of the republic, and that this discourse plays a significant role in defining modern 21st Century Turkish nationalism. Thus, this modern Turkish nationalism includes, rather than excludes, an ethnic and racially defined narrative, which is a central tenet in defining modern Turkish identity.

   

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• Club Troppo The pervasive externalities of pro-social behaviour: who knew?
  

  What is this picture doing here? It is one of the images selected by Google when I typed in “now is the time for complacency”. It clearly has a deep connection with that idea. I can’t comment further except to say that Google has a great deal of AI devoted to these kinds of issues, so I comment the graphic to you.

  Spillover Effects of Institutions on Cooperative Behavior, Preferences and Beliefs

  By: Engl, Florian (University of Cologne) ; Riedl, Arno (Maastricht University) ; Weber, Roberto A. (University of Zurich)

  Abstract:

  Institutions are an important means for fostering prosocial behaviors, but in many contexts their scope is limited and they govern only a subset of all socially desirable acts. We use a laboratory experiment to study how the presence and nature of an institution that enforces prosocial behavior in one domain affects behavior in another domain and whether it also alters prosocial preferences and beliefs about others’ behavior. Groups play two identical public good games. We vary whether, for only one game, there is an institution enforcing cooperation and vary also whether the institution is imposed exogenously or arises endogenously through voting. Our results show that the presence of an institution in one game generally enhances cooperation in the other game thus documenting a positive spillover effect. These spillover effects are economically substantial amounting up to 30 to 40 percent of the direct effect of institutions. When the institution is determined endogenously spillover effects get stronger over time, whereas they do not show a trend when it is imposed exogenously. Additional treatments indicate that the main driver of this result is not the endogeneity but the temporal trend of the implemented institution. We also find that institutions of either type enhance prosocial preferences and beliefs about others’ prosocial behavior, even toward strangers, suggesting that both factors are drivers of the observed spillover effects.

  Lucky the culture of our policy making elite is largely oblivious to this phenomenon, or at the very least incurious about how we might be able to amplify it in our society and economy.

  Then again, we haven’t had a recession in 26 years. We’re world record holders.

  #NowIsTheTimeForComplacency

June 11, 2017

• Links International Stalin Pérez Borges, LUCHAS: La salida a la crisis del proceso venezolano tiene que ser democrática, revolucionaria y socialista

   

  

   

  11 de junio de 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Entrevista con Stalin Perez Borges, militante de LUCHAS (Liga Unitaria Chavista Socialista) y del Consejo Consultivo de la Central Bolivariana Socialista de los Trabajadores y Trabajadoras (CBST)

   

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• Links International Combatants of a Greater War: A Historiography of Europe's Second Thirty Years War: 1914-1945

   

  

   

  By Doug Enaa Greene

   

  I. Totalitarianism and Marxist Historiography of the European Civil War

   

  June 11, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — It is an article of common sense in our “democratic” societies to view the tumultuous era of 1914-1945 as an age of totalitarianism – the emergence of all-powerful single party states, total control of everyday life, political repression and terror, state control over the economy, and cults of personality. The totalitarianism tale is a simple one – after the massive bloodletting of World War I, the rival movements of fascism and communism battled for supremacy across Europe. The culmination of this clash between rival totalitarianisms was World War II with its bloody battlefields on the Eastern Front. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe and the beginning of the Cold War, the enemy is said to have shifted from totalitarian fascism to totalitarian communism, and defeated in 1989-1991 by the forces of liberal democracy and the free market.

   

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June 08, 2017

• Links International For a democratic, revolutionary and socialist solution to the Venezuelan crisis

   

  

   

  This joint statement by revolutionary and socialist organizations in Latin America and elsewhere is motivated by the loss of referential principles that certain intellectuals and left parties have suffered with regards to the current crisis in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. An example of this type of one-sided analysis that ultimately ends up aiding the Venezuelan right-wing opposition and US imperialism is the statement by self-proclaimed “left” academics and intellectuals, “An urgent international appeal to halt the escalation of violence in Venezuela” (Aporrea 28/5/17).

   

  We, the organizations and activists who have signed onto this statement maintain that:

   

  read more

• Links International “Zuma Must Fall” and the Left: Lessons from Zimbabwe

   

  

   

  By Munyaradzi Gwisai

   

  June 8, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Review of African Political Economy — South Africa is at crossroads, facing its biggest upheavals since independence in 1994. Globally, since the 2008 Great Recession there are growing explosive class and social conflicts due to the deepening crisis of capitalism.

   

  read more

June 07, 2017

• Links International Socialist Resistance: For a Labour victory on June 8

   

  

   

  By Socialist Resistance

   

  June 7, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Resistance — Labour’s election manifesto launch has boosted Corbyn’s campaign, which has been drawing thousands to rallies across the country. Debate has shifted to a new level, replacing endless ridicule of the Labour leader with a serious discussion on an alternative policy; not to only to end austerity but seeking to reverse it – for the many, not the few.

   

  read more

• Links International Quebec sovereigntists debate fallout from Québec solidaire’s decisions on alliances

   

  

   

  By Richard Fidler

   

  June 7, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Life on the Left — As I explained in my previous report on the Québec solidaire congress, it was disclosed after the congress that the QS central leadership had disavowed the signatures by its representatives on a proposed “road map” to independence drafted in April by the coalition OUI Québec, which includes all the pro-independence parties including QS.

   

  That decision, not reported to the QS congress delegates in late May, has since given rise so far to several articles, all of them published in the Montréal nationalist daily Le Devoir. I have translated them below.

  read more

June 06, 2017

• Daniel Bowen New trains – 2000 people?!

  The Age broke the story last week that the new High Capacity Metro Trains (HCMTs) are being designed to cope with up to 2000 people, at a density of up to 6 people per square metre, and seats for 30-40% of the total load.

  Cue the outrage (from some quarters) — but it’s important to look at the numbers, because when you break it down, it’s not actually much different to what we already have.

  The important thing is that the load standard is different to the gross/maximum/crush load capacity.

  Let me summarise it in a table, then you can read the long boring explanation if you wish.

  	Cars	Load standard	Per car	Gross capacity / crush load	Per car
  Comeng*	6	900	150	1526 crush load	254
  Siemens*	6	900	150	1584 crush load	264
  X’Trapolis*	6	900	150	1394 crush load	232
  HCMT	7	1100	157	1380 gross capacity	197
  HCMT	10	1570	157	1970 gross capacity	197

  *Crush load figures for the existing fleet are from before seat modifications were made.

  The current train “load standard” is 900 people per 6 carriages, with about half of those seated, and half standing. (The magic number used to be 798, or 133 per carriage. Recent changes made it 900, or 150 per carriage, with more changes to come).

  But 900 is NOT the capacity. It’s meant to be the upper limit for a comfortable load; the trigger point at which they should be planning for more services.

  In a crush load, such as was seen on many lines on the morning of the Age story, you might get 1500 people onto a 6-car train — in fact the Comeng fleet “crush” capacity is said to be 1526.

  This is the crushloaded train I am on right now. I don't think 6 standing passengers/sq metre is just a theoretical idea. #MetroTrains pic.twitter.com/SNSaeve9er

  — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) May 28, 2017

  Channel 7’s Brendan Donohoe enterprisingly got a metre square and took it on a train to show how 6 people per square metre looks. Not much different to the above.

  6 people per square metre? Pretty squashy, but it happens already at peak times! Will the new trains cope with it? https://t.co/XMxkCJfBR7 pic.twitter.com/Zz5nMEgnvF

  — PTUA (@ptua) May 29, 2017

  So if the current crush load is about 1500, that’s 250 per carriage.

  The 1,970 quoted for the new fleet is not a “load standard”, but a “gross capacity”, aka a maximum for planning purposes.

  (At first I thought this was similar to a “crush load”, perhaps in more politically-correct terms. But perhaps not; at 197 per carriage, it’s quite a bit lower than the current figures of around 250 per carriage.)

  The 1,970 figure is also for a much longer train.

  From the documents I’ve seen, the load standard for the initial 7-car configuration will be 1100, or 157 per carriage. Not much different from the current 6-car load standard of 900, or 150 per carriage.

  Extending the trains from 7 to 10 cars later (on the Sunbury and Dandenong/Cranbourne/Pakenham lines via the metro tunnel) will therefore extend the load standard to 1570.

  

  Planning for a crush load of up to 1970 on a 10-car train is not unreasonable.

  It means that the carriages will safely carry that many people (factors such as weight and braking come into play), and if they get the interior design right, there’ll be places for everyone to hold on.

  This is a big issue with many of the current fleet: the Siemens and Comeng trains have very few handholds apart from around the doorways.

  Most of the X’Trapolis fleet is better, but those handholds are mostly too far towards the side of the carriage, meaning you have to reach over seated passengers to grab them.

  

  Having participated in stakeholder consultation for the new train design, I can tell you: the carriages have a mix of seating: longitudinal (along the carriage) at the ends, providing more standing space, and areas for wheelchairs and bicycles, and transverse (across the carriage) seating in the middle areas.

  The semi-permanent marshalling into 7 or 10 car sets, with no intermediate driver cabs, will save space, and the walk-through design will make it easier to move to the next carriage if it’s less crowded.

  And they intend on having more vertical poles than the current fleet, meaning far more places to hold on, as well as handholds from the ceiling.

  

  So rather than get outraged at the prospect of 2000 people crush-loaded into a train, the real questions are:

  Will the new train fleet be designed to better cope with that many people?

  Will there be enough seats for people travelling long distances, and/or those who can’t stand?

  And will there be enough trains running that trains that crowded are the exception rather than the rule?

  • New train designs are only one part of the overall capacity increase coming to the Dandenong line

June 05, 2017

• The Northern Myth Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 5 – the 2008 Yirrkala Statement

  

  The Yirrkala Statement was handed to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at Yirrkala on 23 July 2008. As reported by Lindsay Murdoch in the Sydney Morning Herald the next day, Prime Minister Rudd told the gathering—representing 8000 people from across north-east Arnhem Land that:

  … he intended to honour an election promise to recognise the rights of Aboriginal people in the constitution. He said it was time to “give attention to detailed, sensitive consultation with indigenous communities about the most appropriate form and timing of constitutional recognition.

  Murdoch wrote that Rudd told the meeting that he intended to honour his election promise to recognise the rights of Aboriginal people in the constitution, and that:

  … it was time to “give attention to detailed, sensitive consultation with indigenous communities about the most appropriate form and timing of constitutional recognition”.

  In the 2008/2009 summer edition of The Monthly Galarrwuy Yunupingu, as part of a long and thoughtful essay that reflected on his personal history, recorded his memories of that day.

  It’s July 2008 and I wait for the new prime minister, Kevin Rudd. An event is taking place at Yirrkala and I have called the leaders of the 13 clans together. No children or young people will participate, only leaders, men and women who have proved themselves: delak.

  By my side are Djinyini Gondarra and the leaders of the Elcho clans, Richard Ganduwuy and Dunga Dunga Gondarra, Butharripi Gurruwiwi. Wilson Ganambarr, Gali Gurruwiwi, Gekurr Guyula and Timmy Burrawanga are there. Laklak and Dhuwarrwarr Marika are there, too, along with the great old man from Gan Gan, Garrawan Gumana. My cousin Banambi Wunungmurra brings the prime minister down to us.

  We have a petition for him.

  ================================================

  Yolngu Matha Text of the Yirrkala Statement

  Nhanaburru, wangkanmala bapurru dhimirrunguru, arnhemland, nganaburrungu ngurrngu delak mala, nganthun yukurra nhuna 26th Prime Minister Australia-wu. Nhukala ganydjarr’yu nhunhi nhe ngurrungu walalangu malangura nhuma walala rrambangi, Australian Parliament-ngura, ga ngurrungu Dharuk-mirri nhangu Garraywu Queen Elizabeth-gu, yurru nhandarryun-marama djinawa-lili Australian-dhu luku-wu rom-dhu yurru dharangan ga galmuma nganapurrungu dhangang ga bukmak nha-mala nhanapurrungu:

  • Nhanapurrungu walnga-mirri dhukarry ngudhudal-yana.
  • Nhanapurrungu, wanga, wanga-ngaraka ga nguy gapu, ngunhi dhimirrunguru, arnhemland.
  • Dharrima gungnharra, warkthunara, lukunydja rrupiya-yu wanga-wuy-ga gapu-wuy ga dhangangnha-yana ga lukunydjana yana.
  • Dharray walnga-wuy ga djaka yurru nhanapurrung-gala-nguwu djamarrkuli-wu yalalangu-wu.Dhuwalanydja rom dhuwalana bilina.

  Dhuwalanydja rom wawungu wanga-wuy ngandarryunmarama Australian-gala bapurrulili.

  Nganapurru marrliliyama nhukula ngurru-warryun-narayngu, marr yurru Commonwealth Parliament ngurru warrwun ga dharangan dhuwala rom ga marryuwak gumana dhayutakumana lukunydja rom.

  English Text of the Yirrkala Statement

  We, the united clans of East Arnhem land, through our most senior delak, do humbly petition you, the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, in your capacity as the first amongst equals in the Australian Parliament, and as the chief adviser to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, to secure within the Australian Constitution the recognition and protection of our full and complete right to:

  • Our way of life in all its diversity;
  • Our property, being the lands and waters of East Arnhem land;
  • Economic independence, through the proper use of the riches of our land and waters in all their abundance and wealth;
  • Control of our lives and responsibility for our children’s future.These rights are self-evident.

  These rights are fundamental to our place within the Australian nation.

  We ask for your leadership to have the Commonwealth Parliament start the process of recognition of these rights through serious constitutional reform.

  ================================================

  For further reading on this and earlier statements and petitions from north-east Arnhem Land see the article Bark petitions: Indigenous art and reform for the rights of Indigenous Australians at the Australian government website.

  The post Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 5 – the 2008 Yirrkala Statement appeared first on The Northern Myth.

• The Northern Myth Art, law and the environment – the little EDONT that can

  

  Two years ago almost to the day I wrote a post here about the art auction fundraiser run by Northern Territory Environmental Defender’s Office (the EDONT) in an effort to keep its doors open and free legal advice flowing. In June 2015 the EDONT—like other EDOs around the country—faced closure following a withdrawal of funding by Attorney-General George “Soapy” Brandis, a double-whammy for the EDO that had already suffered savage cutbacks from the NT government, which reckoned that the shiny-bums in its own Environment Protection Agency could do the job.

  The EDONT had scored a number of significant successes, including, as I noted at the time, a recent big win against the NT government.

  The EDONT gave NT Land Resource Management Minister Willem Westra van Holthe a very bloody nose when Justice Graham Hiley of the NT Supreme Court found that van Holthe erred in the way he reviewed applications for a series of massive water extraction licences. As NT EDO principal lawyer David Morris told the local ABC, “The awarding of the licenses is of great concern because it occurred outside of the nationally accepted national water initiative which sets out the correct water planning process”

  The 2015 art auction saved the EDONT’s skin and the auction has grown apace over the years, providing the single biggest financial contribution to the EDONT’s operating revenue, having raised over $50,000 for the office. To put that in context, in 2014 the first auction provided approximately 25% of the offices total income and approximately 35% in 2015.

  

  2016’s auction had one important difference from the 2014 event—participating artists and art centres benefited as well—so the annual art auction now not only benefits EDONT, but also the artists and art centres that contribute to its success. Last year approximately $55,000 was returned to artists and art centres and over $50,000 went to the EDO. Participation with local art centres has also increased this year – up to 22 from last year’s 18.

  Kirsty Howey, chair of the EDONT told The Northern Myth just how far above its weight the EDONT can punch:

  These figures demonstrate just how low the EDONT’s operating cost base has been, and highlight the extraordinary nature of its achievements amidst this financial pressure.  Just try to find a more efficient organisation in the Northern Territory. We are immensely proud of all that our tiny office has achieved under the remarkable leadership of principal lawyer David Morris.  It is extraordinary that an office with one full time employee, and such a small operating revenue, has achieved all that it has for the protection of the environment using law in the Northern Territory.

  

  Principal lawyer David Morris—given the (dubious?) honour of being nominated as the NT’s 37th most powerful person for 2016 by the local NT News—outlined the more recent successes of the EDONT:

  In October 2016, we were successful in Federal Court litigation in relation to the Port Melville oil and gas marine supply base development. In November 2016, we were again successful in NT Supreme Court proceedings relating to a refused heritage listing for the Kulaluk lease area, an area synonymous with the early struggle for land rights. More recently, we have been fighting in the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal on behalf of Jacky Green for transparency around mining rehabilitation bonds, specifically the bond held for the McArthur River Mine.  Outside of litigation we have provided legal advice on a wide range of matters and made submissions about mine closure policy, the regulatory regime for hydraulic fracturing, water licensing and environmental impact assessment.

  

  One of this year’s stand out pieces is the Bombing of Darwin, by Susan Wanji Wanji. Impressive in scale and remarkable in its detail and subject matter, the piece records Wanji Wanji’s recollection of being on the Tiwi Islands when the Bombing of Darwin occurred during the Second World War.

  The 2017 auction also features tremendous pieces from some of Australia’s premier Indigenous Artists including Timothy Cook, Dhawarrwarr Marika, Nancy McDinny, Stewart Hoosan, Jack Green, Samuel Namundja and Lily Hargraves Nungarrayi.

  

  The 2017 EDONT auction continues the strong tradition of great art from great artists that has characterised previous shows. This year’s collection is larger than previous years, with 127 pieces from art centres from all over the NT. More than 15 of the artists with pieces in the collection have been finalists at the annual Telstra Art Awards and many have works in notable collections including the National Gallery of Australia, The British Museum, the State Art Galleries of WA, NT, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, the Linden Museum in Germany and the Seattle Art Museum USA.

  The auction was launched at the Outstation Gallery in Darwin on Saturday 29 April and then run online via GalaBid, which is similar to eBay.  The auction will finish with cocktail functions on 22 June generously hosted in Sydney by legal firm Gilbert + Tobin and in Melbourne at the offices of Arnold Bloch Leibler.

  

  Current bidders include Kate Worden MLA, former NT Attorney General John Elferink and heavy hitters in business and the law including Scott Perrin (former director of Billabong), Sturt Glacken QC, Les Fallick (Chair, NT Infrastructure Development Fund), Phillip Nitschke, Phillip Boulten SC and Felicity Gerry QC.

  In past auctions ferocious bidding wars have broken out (many of these works will go for very good prices!) between major law firms and the independent Bars in Melbourne and Sydney and the EDONT looks forward to watching that particular bloodsport from the sidelines …

  You can view (and bid for!) all of the artworks for auction at the 3rd Annual EDONT Aboriginal Art Auction Fundraiser at the dedicated GalaBid website.

  The post Art, law and the environment – the little EDONT that can appeared first on The Northern Myth.

June 04, 2017

• Links International Finland’s forgotten revolution

   

  

   

  Crowds during the general strike in Helsinki, Finland, 1905.

   

  By Eric Blanc

   

  June 4, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Jacobin with the author's permission — In the past century, histories of the 1917 revolution have usually focused on Petrograd and Russian socialists. But the Russian empire was predominantly made up of non-Russians — and the upheavals in the imperial periphery were often just as explosive as in the center.

   

  Tsarism’s overthrow in February 1917 unleashed a revolutionary wave that immediately engulfed all of Russia. Perhaps the most exceptional of these insurgencies was the Finnish Revolution, which one scholar has called “Europe’s most clear-cut class war in the twentieth century.”

   

  read more

• The Northern Myth Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 4 – the 1998 Kalkaringi Statement

  

  The report of the 2007 House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affair reference into Federal implications of Northern Territory statehood, The long road to statehood notes that the Northern and Central Land Councils boycotted the 1998 NT statehood referendum.

  The referendum result was a short sharp slap in the face for its proponents and, with the “No” vote getting a 51.3% majority, represented a loud death-knock for future fundamental constitutional reform in the NT.

  Chapter 2 of the committee’s report notes the conclusions drawn from the 2001 inquiry by the Northern Territory Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee (LCAC), which found that key reasons given for voting ‘No’ at the 1998 referendum included:

  … inadequate information and understanding about statehood, inadequate consultation, concerns about the Constitutional Convention process, a lack of trust in those responsible for the statehood processes of 1998, and antagonism towards the Chief Minister and politicians.

  Of Aboriginal approaches to the referendum, the LCAC found that:

  Aboriginal people also cited a lack of understanding about the meaning of statehood, distrust of the Northern Territory Government, concerns about losing existing rights (especially land rights), and concerns about the impact of statehood on law, culture, and language.

  Two months before the referendum 800 or so Aboriginal people gathered at Kalkaringi, well west of Katherine, NT. In anticipation of the referendum, the mid-August meeting rejected the proposed draft NT Constitution and agreed to withhold consent to Statehood until good faith negotiations commenced between the NT government and Aboriginal people with a view to developing a Constitution based on ‘equality, co-existence and mutual respect’.

  

  A further Aboriginal constitutional meeting was held at Batchelor following the Kalkaringi meeting that endorsed the Kalkaringi resolutions, and provided its own statement titled Standards for Constitutional Development. According to a 2004 CAEPR discussion paper by D. E. Smith, “further resolutions were passed focusing squarely on governance, sovereignty, self-determination, jurisdictional rights and constitutional issues. The Northern Territory Indigenous Constitutional Strategy
  amalgamates the policy positions set out at the two conventions.”

  A number of quotes from participants and photos from the Kalkaringi meeting can be accessed at the ArtPlan site here.

  Text of the Kalkaringi Statement

  The Kalkaringi Constitutional Convention of the Combined Aboriginal Nations of Central Australia
  Kalkaringi, 17– 20 August 1998

  The Aboriginal Nations of Central Australia are governed by our own constitutions (being our systems of Aboriginal law and Aboriginal structures of law and governance, which have been in place since time immemorial). Our constitutions must be recognised on a basis of equality, co-existence and mutual respect with any constitution of the Northern Territory.

  The Constitutional Convention of the Combined Aboriginal Nations of Central Australia is deeply concerned about the implications of Statehood for the rights of Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory. We are conscious of the hostility that the Northern Territory Government has displayed towards Aboriginal peoples since self-government in 1978.

  We deplore the failure of the Northern Territory Government to negotiate with the Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory in relation to the proposed move to Statehood, and are disturbed by the inadequate acknowledgment of Aboriginal law and Aboriginal rights in the current Draft Constitution.

  We also deplore the lack of provision in the Draft Constitution for the human rights of Territorians generally and for the good governance of the Northern Territory.

  Accordingly we adopt this Kalkaringi Statement which sets out the aspirations and concerns expressed by delegates in relation to issues of Statehood, Constitutional development and governance. We resolve:

  General Principles

  1. That we do not consent to the establishment of a new State of the Northern Territory on the terms set out in the Draft Constitution adopted by the Legislative Assembly on 13 August 1998.
  2. That we will withhold our consent until there are good faith negotiations between the Northern Territory Government and the freely chosen representatives of the Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory leading to a Constitution based upon equality, co-existence and mutual respect.
  3. That the Northern Territory Government must provide adequate resources and negotiate in good faith a realistic timetable for such negotiations.

  Aboriginal Self-Determination and Self-Government

  1. That Aboriginal peoples, being the first peoples to own and govern this land, have the right to self-determination and that our inherent right of self-government must be recognised and protected in any Constitution of the Northern Territory.
  2. That a Northern Territory Constitution must contain a commitment to negotiate with Aboriginal peoples a framework agreement, setting out processes for the mutual recognition of our respective governance structures, the sharing of power and the development of fiscal autonomies.
  3. That the Commonwealth establish an independent Commission of Inquiry to consider the experience of Aboriginal peoples under the Northern Territory Self-Government Act 1978, to review financial arrangements for the provision of services to Aboriginal communities and to make recommendations for future relationships between the Northern Territory Government and Aboriginal peoples.
  4. That there must be direct Commonwealth funding of Aboriginal communities and organisations.

  Aboriginal Law

  That a Northern Territory Constitution must recognise Aboriginal law through Aboriginal law makers, and Aboriginal structures of law and governance.

  Aboriginal Land Rights and Other Rights

  1. That the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 must remain Commonwealth legislation administered by the Commonwealth.
  2. That the rights of Aboriginal peoples in relation to land (including land subject to current or historical pastoral leases, reserves and national parks) must be respected and afforded effective Constitutional protection.
  3. That the rights of Aboriginal peoples as owners of land which is currently (or in future) national park must be recognised by the implementation of cooperative management structures that give them effective control.
  4. That our common law and statutory rights (including those currently contained in the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976), as well as those recognised or negotiated in coming years, must be recognised and afforded Constitutional protection.
  5. That arbitrary time limits on the capacity of Aboriginal land owners to assert their rights over land and waters must be removed.
  6. That any changes to a Northern Territory Constitution which concern Aboriginal rights must be approved not only by a majority of electors at a referendum, but also by a majority of people of the Aboriginal nations of the Northern Territory.
  7. That there must also be recognition and protection of the rights of all Indigenous peoples of Australia in the Commonwealth Constitution.

  Sacred Sites and Significant Areas

  That a Northern Territory Constitution must provide for Aboriginal control in relation to, and the effective protection of, Aboriginal sacred sites and significant areas.

  Political Participation

  1. That procedures relating to the election of members to a Parliament of the Northern Territory should ensure effective levels of representation of Aboriginal people, including through multi-member electoral divisions.
  2. That any Constitution for the Northern Territory must provide effective mechanisms for the accountability of governments, including:
  (a) Freedom of information legislation;

  (b) An independent, adequately resourced Ombudsman Office;

  (c) An independent, adequately resourced Auditor-General;

  (d) An independent commission against corruption;

  (e) An independent electoral office;

  (f) Adequate provision for judicial and administrative review of government decisions;

  (g) Measures to ensure fairness in government contracts.

  Human Rights

  1. That any Northern Territory Constitution must guarantee the human rights embodied in the principal human rights instruments to which Australia is party, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
  2. There must be a particular prohibition of discrimination on any ground such as race, sex, language and religion.

  Essential Services and Infrastructure

  1. That a Northern Territory Constitution must recognise the right of all residents to equal access to essential services and infrastructure, including health, housing, clean water, roads, communications, education, training and employment. Special measures should operate in relation to people living in remote areas of the Northern Territory.
  2. That there must be special measures for the immediate and continuing improvement of the economic and social conditions of Aboriginal people.
  3. That Aboriginal peoples have the right to determine our own health, housing and other economic and social programs, and to deliver such programs through our own adequately resourced institutions.

  Education

  1. That there must be recognition of:

  (a) the right of Aboriginal children to all levels and forms of education of the State;

  (b) the right of Aboriginal communities to establish and control our own educational institutions, providing education in our own languages, in ways appropriate to our cultural methods of teaching and learning;

  (c) the right of children living outside their communities to have access to education in their own culture and language.
  2. That there be culturally appropriate, compulsory components in the curriculum of Northern Territory schools in relation to the histories and cultures of Aboriginal peoples in the Territory.

  Justice Issues

  1. That the Northern Territory Government must negotiate in good faith with Aboriginal communities regarding:
  (a) the administration and resourcing of community justice mechanisms; and
  (b) the effective participation of Aboriginal people in the justice mechanisms of the Northern Territory.
  2. That a Northern Territory Constitution must recognise the right of Aboriginal people to understand and be understood in legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means.
  3. That the Northern Territory mandatory sentencing legislation is contrary to Australia’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other international human rights instruments, and must be repealed.

  ======================================

  Further reading

   – “The Kalkaringi Statement” [1998] IndigLawB 73; (1998) 4(15) Indigenous Law Bulletin 14;

   – From Gove to Governance: Reshaping Indigenous Governance in the Northern Territory. D.E. Smith. CAEPR Discussion Paper, No. 265/2004

  – ARTPLAN.com. Kalkaringi Statement. Accessed at: http://www.artplan.com.au/bnp/BNP07text/04.htm

  – House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, The long road to statehood.Federal implications of statehood for the Northern Territory, 2007.

  Photo 1: Alison Anderson at Kalkaringi, August 1998. Accessed at ARTPLAN.com.

  Photos 2 & 3: Signatures to the Kalkaringi Statement. Accessed at ARTPLAN.com.

  The post Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 4 – the 1998 Kalkaringi Statement appeared first on The Northern Myth.

• Links International Statement in defense of Venezuela by the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity
  

   

  [To sign on email: endefensadelpuebloenlucha@gmail.com]

   

  In response to the request of intellectuals against the Bolivarian process in Venezuela
.

   

  Under the implicit "I accuse" formula and a few hours before the Organization of American States, OAS, meeting in which the intervention Venezuela would be once again discussed, more than a hundred Latin American, European and American intellectuals and academics recently signed a petition entitled "Urgent international effort to stop the escalation of violence in Venezuela.”

   

  This request constitutes a declaration of principles of its position regarding the Bolivarian situation, developing diagnoses, attributing responsibilities and prescribing an exit to the crisis that takes place in the South American country.

   

  We will not offend the intelligence or morale of the subscribers (some true "sacred cows" of the critical academic world) by questioning their political commitment or their interpretive powers. We will assume each statement of the requested as what it is, as an erroneous thesis on the the Bolivarian process of Venezuela. And as such, we will submit it to analysis, realizing that also the prosecutors can and should be accused.

   

  read more

• The Northern Myth Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 3 – the 1993 Eva Valley Statement

  

  This is the third of a series of posts looking at various foundational documents from Aboriginal Australians that variously call for land rights, constitutional recognition, redress for past injustices and more. It is no coincidence that these documents—the 1963 Bark Petitions, the 1988 Barunga Statement, the 1993 Eva Valley Statement and the 1998 Kalkaringi Statement—all come from the Northern Territory, where a combination of culture, law and political effect meant that NT Aboriginal leaders were best placed to lead these fights.

  If you want to understand the background to the Uluru Statement the content and context of these documents provide, for mine, essential reading.

  In its 1993-94 Annual Report, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation referred to a meeting of over 400 Aboriginal delegates at Manyallaluk (Eva Valley) south-east of Katherine in the Northern Territory:

  Following approaches from Aboriginal leaders in different parts of the country, the Council saw the need to bring together a range of Aboriginal opinion to discuss concerns and to see if a common Aboriginal position could be adopted. This resulted in August 1993 in a meeting of more than 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives at Manyallaluk, on Jawoyn land near Katherine in the Northern Territory. Out of the three-day meeting emerged the clear need for a team approach and a commitment to accommodate both those who might be advantaged by Native Title recognition and those who were among the majority who would not benefit from the Native Title legislation, A statement of claims was developed for negotiation with the Government.

  Perhaps more importantly, the Manyallaluk Bush Meeting returned to a more appropriate way of developing content and consensus amongst Aboriginal peoples.

  That bland summary greatly understates the fervid climate surrounding the Keating government’s proposals for a conciliated response to the 1992 Mabo decision of the High Court of Australia, which involved a proposed Native Title Act. A more passionate—and reasoned—analysis of this period (and much more) is found in a 2001 essay by Gary Foley, titled The Road to Native Title: The Aboriginal Rights Movement and the Australian Labor Party 1973 -1996 available at the Koori History website. 

  For anyone with an interest in that turbulent era in Australian Aboriginal politics I cannot recommend Foley’s piece highly enough. For present purposes, Foley sets the political scene by outlining the Keating government’s initial response to the Mabo decision following his re-election in March 1993.

  Keating appointed Frank Walker as Special Minister for State, who with [Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Robert] Tickner would be responsible for developing the government response to Mabo. Additionally, a Mabo Ministerial Committee was established which included Ministers Duncan Kerr (acting-Attorney General), Michael Lee (Resources), Simon Crean (Primary Industries & Energy), Alan Griffiths (Industry), John Dawkins (Treasurer) and Ralph Willis (Finance). The Committee was chaired by the Prime Minister.

  …

  The Mabo Ministerial Committee then began meetings with the various interest groups, the first with indigenous representatives being held in Parliament House on 27th April. Among the twenty-one indigenous representatives were Gularrwuy Yunupingu, John Ah Kit, Noel Pearson, Lois O’Donoghue, Patrick Dodson, Rob Riley, and Peter Yu. Rob Riley warned the Prime Minister, ‘don’t exclude us from the process’. But one month later, the fear expressed by Riley appeared fully justified when Frank Walker and the Prime Minister gave approval in principle to the NT Chief Minister’s plan to legislate ‘to secure the mining leases of McArthur River mine.’

  Foley illustrates the rancorous fervour surrounding the ‘debates’ about native title with a quote from Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Robert Tickner published in his 2001 memoirs:

  … it is difficult to convey the extent to which Mabo engulfed Australia during 1993. For much of the year, hardly a day went past when there was not some new development in the debate. The words were often hateful, and the pressure on the key participants was relentless.

  In early August 1993 the backlash against the government’s legislative proposals came to a head at Manyallaluk, where:

  … a major meeting of indigenous representatives issued a statement in which they rejected the government’s proposed native title act and instead called for ‘legislation to advance Aboriginal rights to land’ and for the commonwealth to exclude the states from involvement in indigenous issues. At a media conference, an angry Keating attacked the Eva Valley statement and Mick Dodson in particular for a critical speech Dodson had made in Geneva a few weeks earlier. He at the same time praised Sol Bellear and Noel Pearson for their ‘supportive comments’. Yet virtually all of the Aboriginal leadership were still hostile to the way in which the government was proceeding, and on 8 October a group that included O’Donoghue, Mick Dodson and Noel Pearson held a press conference in Canberra in which they attacked the Keating government. As a result the Prime Minister began negotiations with Lois O’Donoghue and a small group of ‘moderate’ indigenous negotiators she assembled around her. This elite, self-appointed group, (known as the A-team) included Noel Pearson, Sol Bellear, Marcia Langton, David Ross and others.

  On 21 December 1993 the Native Title Act passed through the Senate and on 1 January 1994 the Act came into force. It is fair to say that native title has delivered little of the promise for Aboriginal Australians offered by the Mabo decision. As Foley noted as long ago as 2001 in his scathing assessment of the unrealised opportunities of the Hawke/Keating era:

  The Labor Party today is even more conservative than the 1980s, so the indigenous community should have few expectations of Labor in terms of the radical change necessary if Indigenous people are to achieve justice in Australia. The changes made to the Labor Party during the Hawke/Keating era have created a party that is prisoner to ‘electoralism’, i.e. The ‘need for a political party to be cautious. It seeks to instigate change only when it seems apparent that the electorate is at least not actively opposed to such a change.'[62] Any political party that is prisoner to ‘electoralism’ cannot and will not be able to confront the historical challenges of Aboriginal affairs … despite paying lip service to grand principles and an essentialist, romanticist view of Aboriginal Australia, both Hawke and Keating revealed their true allegiance to the status quo and powerful vested interests when the chips were down.

  =====================================================

  Eva Valley Statement
  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples held their first national meeting at Eva Valley, Northern Territory, 3rd – 5th August, 1993 to formulate a response to the High Court decision on Native Title.

  It was resolved to present the Eva Valley Statement to the Prime Minister.

  There is an urgent need for this Statement to be considered by all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

  We reject the Commonwealth Government’s position on the proposed legislation. We want legislation based on Native Title to advance Aboriginal Rights to land. The Federal Government proposal does not. The Government must only move on this issue with the support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The development of any legislation regarding the Commonwealth Government’s response to the High Court’s decision on Native Title will need the full and free participation and consent of those Peoples concerned.

  We want the Commonwealth Government to take full control of Native Title Issues to the exclusion of the States and Territories. We want a national standard for our people not numerous different standards.

  We demand that:

  • the Commonwealth honour its obligation under International Human Rights Instruments and International Law.
  • the Commonwealth agrees to a negotiating process to achieve a lasting settlement with and for the benefit of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Since time immemorial we have owned, occupied, used and enjoyed the continent and its islands in accordance with our Laws and Customs to the exclusion of the whole world. Since the arrival of non-indigenous people our political and territorial integrity has been violated and that violation continues. This settlement process must recognise and address these historical truths. It must also redress the impact of our dispossession, marginalisation, destabilisation and disadvantage including financial and material recompense.
  • the Commonwealth take actions in response to the High Court’s decision on Native Title in accordance with the following principles:

  1. Recognition and protection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Rights.
  2. In response to the High Court finding that the Commonwealth Government acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Title cannot be extinguished by grants of any interest.
  3. No grant of any interest on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Titles can be made without the informed consent of all relevant title holders.
  4. Commonwealth Declaration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Title in reserves and other defined lands.
  5. Total security for Sacred Sites and Heritage Areas which provides for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ absolute authority.

  The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have nominated a representative body to put forward our position in these matters including the necessity to consult and negotiate with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples about these principles.

  To ensure there is equity in and ownership of the negotiation process, it is essential that this body be provided with the resources to carry out the wishes of Aboriginal and Tones Strait Islander Peoples.

  We call upon the Commonwealth Government to acknowledge what the High Court has stated in the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have become dispossessed and disadvantaged.

  Further that the resources to be provided to enable full and informed negotiation with Aboriginal and Tones Strait Islander Peoples be over and above and distinct from the limited resources presently provided to address the gross disadvantage which arises from our dispossession.

  5 August 1993

  Manyallaluk

  The post Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 3 – the 1993 Eva Valley Statement appeared first on The Northern Myth.

• The Northern Myth Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 1 – the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petitions

  

  This is the first of a series of posts looking at various foundational documents from Aboriginal Australians that variously call for land rights, constitutional recognition, redress for past injustices and more. It is no coincidence that these documents—the 1963 Bark Petitions, the 1988 Barunga Statement, the 1993 Eva Valley Statement and the 1998 Kalkaringi Statement—all come from the Northern Territory, where a combination of culture, law and political effect meant that NT Aboriginal leaders were best placed to lead these fights.

  If you want to understand the background to the Uluru Statement the content and context of these documents provide, for mine, essential reading.

  I’ve written here before about the background to the Yirrkala Bark Petitions to the Australian Parliament and the precursor to those documents, the panels painted as the title deeds to their land made by local Yolngu traditional owners. You can read my earlier piece here and wonderful background and analysis by the late Will Owen here.

  On February 18, 1963 Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced that the government would grant leases to mine bauxite in land excised from the Arnhem Land reserve.

  Yolngu at Yirrkala were unaware of any of the machinations that had gone on before-hand. It was later revealed that the Methodist Overseas Mission (the organisation then responsible for the management of Yirrkala) had supported the excision without consultation with any Yolngu leaders.

  On March 13, 1963 the Government excised over 300 square kilometres of land from the Arnhem Land reserve for the bauxite mining lease. On May 9 1963, Reverend Edgar Wells, Superintendent Minister of the Yirrkala Methodist church mission held a public meeting, read and explained the Proclamation by the Governor-General excising land from the Arnhem Reserve for the mining lease and certain adjacent areas.

  Elders from the region, notably Muŋgurrawuy Yunupingu (Gumatj Leader) and Mawalan Marika (Rirratjingu Leader) were incensed that they had not been consulted and were concerned that the mining would disturb, and restrict their access to, sacred sites.

  Taken from my earlier post, this timeline provides a brief chronological background to the development of the Bark Petitions.

  Timeline

  June 23 1963: Opening and dedication of the Methodist church at Yirrkala.

  July 16 1963: Labor parliamentarians Gordon Bryant and Kym Beazley Snr of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement visit Yirrkala (refer The Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement Report Yirrkala and Bauxite Deposit). During that visit, Yolngu leaders made plain their objection to the lack of consultation and secrecy of the Government’s agreement with Nabalco, and their concern about the impact of mining on the land unless their voices were heard.

  After viewing the church panels in the then new church, Beazley was inspired to recommend to the Yolngu clan leaders to make a bark petition to state their grievances and to request “a Committee, accompanied by competent interpreters, to hear the views of the people of Yirrkala before permitting the excision of this land“.
  Thus the Church panels were the forerunners of the famous Yirrkala Bark Petition sent to Canberra in 1963, and a prelude to Milirrpum v Nabalco, in which the Yolngu sued to forestall the mining.

  The painting of the panels was the first significant “land rights” statement documenting Aboriginal custodianship of their country. When the panels were installed and unveiled in March, 1963, members of Parliament were present, having just concluded a series of hearings at Yirrkala on Yolngu sentiments regarding the proposed mine.

  Aside from local Yolngu leaders and members of the Yolngu community there was a range of important support provided at Yirrkala for the Yirrkala Bark Petition including by Ron Croxford, Principal of Yirrkala School, his wife Margaret a teacher at Yirrkala School, Edgar Wells and MPs Bryant and Beazley.

  August 14 1963: the first copy of Bark Petition was presented to the House of Representatives by Jock Nelson, Labor MHR for the Northern Territory. Paul Hasluck moved for rejection of the Petition.

  August 28 1963: the second copy of the Bark Petition presented to House of Representatives by Arthur Calwell, Leader of the Opposition. The Federal Parliament established a Select Committee to follow-up etc.(accompanied by an additional three page document–a set of thumbprints from elders accompanied by their witnessed mark–known as ‘the Thumbprint Petition’).

  October 29th 1963: report from the Select Committee on Grievances of Yirrkala Aborigines, Arnhem Land Reserve recommends protection of sacred sites, compensation and land grants.

  1968: Petition to establish use of Yolngu name of the mining town Nhulunbuy of Gove was successful.

  1971: Milurrpum v Nabalco (Gove Land Rights case)(NT Supreme Court) fails in seeking recognition of Yolngu land ownership. Justice Blackburn finds “If ever there was government by law rather than government by man then this is it.”

  Yulngu Matha text of the 14 August 1963 petition

  Bukudjulni gonga’yurri napurrunha Yirrkalalili yulnunha malanha Balamumu, Narrkala, Gapiny, Miliwurrwurr, nanapurru dhuwala mala, ga Djapu, Mangalili, Madarrpa, Magarrwanalmirri, Djambarrpuynu, Marrkulu, Gumaitj, Galpu, Dhaluangu, Wangurri, Warramirri, Naymil, Riritjingu malamanapanmirri djal dhunapa.

  1. Dhuwala yolnu mala galki, 500 nhina ga dhiyala wanganura. Dhuwala wanga Arnhem Land yurru djaw’yunna naburrungala.
  2. Dhuwala wanga djaw’yunna ga nhaltjana yurru yolnunundja dhiyala wanga nura nhaltjanna dhu dharrpanna yolnu walandja yakana lakarama madayangumuna.
  3. Dhuwala nunhi Welfare Officers ga Government bungawa lakarama yolnuwa malanuwa nhaltjarra nhuma gana wanganaminha yaka nula napurrungu lakarama, walala yaka lakarama, walala yaka lakarama Governmentgala nunhala Canberra nhaltjanna napurru ga guyana yolnuyu Yirrkala.
  4. Dhuwala wanga napurrunyu balanu larrunarawu napurrungu nathawu, guyawu, miyapunuwu, maypalwu nunhi napurru gana nhinana bitjarrayi nathilimirri, napurru
  dhawalguyanana dhiyala wanganura.
  5. Dhuwala wanga yurru dharrpalnha yurru yolnuwalandja malawala, ga dharrpalnha dhuwala bala yolnuwuyndja nhinanharawu Melville Baythurru wanga balandayu
  djaw’yun nyumukunin.
  6. Dhuwala yolnundja mala yurru nhamana balandawunu nha mulkurru nhama yurru moma ga daranun yalalanumirrinha nhaltjanna dhu napurru bitjarra nhakuna Larrakeahyu momara walalanguwuy wanga.
  7. Nuli dhu bungawayu House of Representatives djaw’yun yulnuwala nathili yurru nha dhu lakarama interpreteryu bungawawala yolnu matha, yurru nha dhu djaw’yun wangandja.
  8. Nunhiyina dhu marrlayun marrama’ndja nhinanharawu yolnuwu marrnamathinyarawu.

  Dhuwala napurru yolnu mala yurru liyamirriyama bitjan bili marr yurru napurru nha gonga’yunna wagarr’yu.
  (Australian matha.)

  I certify that this Petition is in conformity with the Standing Orders of the House
  14/8/63 Clerk of the House

  [Signatures]
  Milirrpum
  Djalalingba Manunu
  Daymbalipu Larrakan
  Dhayila Wulanybuma
  Dundiwuy Wawunymarra
  Dhuygala Nyabilingu
  Raiyin
  [STAMP]

  English text of the 14 August 1963 petition

  The Humble Petition of the Undersigned aboriginal people of Yirrkala, being members of the Balamumu, Narrkala, Gapiny, Miliwurrwurr people and Djapu, Mangalili, Madarrpa, MagarrwanaImirri, Djambarrpuynu, Gumaitj, Marrakulu, Galpu, Dhaluangu, Wangurri,
  Warramirri, Naymil, Riritjingu, tribes respectfully showeth.

  1. That nearly 500 people of the above tribes are residents of the land excised from the Aboriginal Reserve in Arnhem Land.
  2. That the procedures of the excision of this land and the fate of the people on it were never explained to them beforehand, and were kept secret from them.
  3. That when Welfare Officers and Government officials came to inform them of decisions taken without them and against them, they did not undertake to convey to the Government in Canberra the views and feelings of the Yirrkala aboriginal people.
  4. That the land in question has been hunting and food gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial: we were all born here.
  5. That places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the excised land, especially Melville Bay.
  6. That the people of this area fear that their needs and interests will be completely ignored as they have been ignored in the past, and they fear that the fate which has overtaken the Larrakeah tribe will overtake them.
  7. And they humbly pray that the Honourable the House of Representatives will appoint a Committee, accompanied by competent interpreters, to hear the views of the people of Yirrkala before permitting the excision of this land.
  8. They humbly pray that no arrangements be entered into with any company which will destroy the livelihood and independence of the Yirrkala people.

  And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray God to help you and us.
  (English language translation.)
  ================================================

  Yulngu Matha text of the 28 August 1963 petition

  Bukudjulni gonga’yurri napurrunha Yirrkalalili yulnunha malanha Balamumu, Narrkala, Gapiny, Miliwurrwurr, nanapurru dhuwala mala, ga Djapu, Mangalili, Madarrpa, Magarrwanalmirri, Djambarrpuynu, Marrkulu, Gumaitj, Galpu, Dhaluangu, Wangurri, Warramirri, Naymil, Riritjingu malamanapanmirri djal dhunapawa.

  1. Dhuwala yulnu mala galki, 500 nhina ga dhiyala wanganura. Dhuwala wanga Arnhem Land yurru djaw’yunna naburrungala.
  2. Dhuwala wanga djaw’yunna ga nhaltjana yurru yulnunundja dhiyala wanga nura nhaltjanna dhu dharrpanna yulnu walandja yakana lakarama madayangumuna.
  3. Dhuwala nunhi Welfare Officers ga Government bungawa lakarama yulnuwa malanuwa nhaltjarra nhuma gana wanganaminha yaka nula napurrungu lakarama, walala yaka lakarama, walala yaka lakarama Governmentgala nunhala Canberra nhaltjanna napurru ga guyana yulnuyu Yirrkala.
  4. Dhuwala wanga napurrunyu balanu larrunarawu napurrungu nathawu, guyawu, miyapunuwu, maypalwu nunhi napurru gana nhinana bitjarrayi nathilimirri, napurru dhawalguyanana dhiyala wanganura.
  5. Dhuwala wanga yurru dharrpalnha yurru yulnuwalandja malawala, ga dharrpalnha dhuwala bala yulnuwuyndja nhinanharawu Melville Baythurru wanga balandayu djaw’yun nyumukunin.
  6. Dhuwala yulnundja mala yurru nhamana balandawunu nha mulkurru nhama yurru moma ga daranun yalalanumirrinha nhaltjanna dhu napurru bitjarra nhakuna Larrakeahyu momara walalanguwuy wanga.
  7. Nuli dhu bungawayu House of Representatives djaw’yun yulnuwala nathili yurru nha dhu lakarama interpreteryu bungawawala yolnu matha, yurru nha dhu djaw’yun wangandja.
  8. Nunhiyina dhu marrlayun marrama’ndja nhinanharawu yolnuwu marrnamathinyarawu. Dhuwala napurru yolnu mala yurru liyamirriyama bitjan bili marr yurru napurru nha gonga’yunna wangarr’yu.

  [Signatures]
  Milirrpum
  Djalalingba Manunu
  Daymbalipu Larrakan
  Dhayila Wulanybuma
  Dundiwuy Wawunymarra
  Dhuygala Nyabilingu
  Raiyin

  English text of the 28 August 1963 petition

  The Humble Petition of the Undersigned aboriginal people of Yirrkala, being members of the Balamumu, Narrkala, Gapiny, Miliwurrwurr people and Djapu, Mangalili, Madarrpa, MagarrwanaImirri, Djambarrpuynu, Gumaitj, Marrakulu, Galpu, Dhaluangu, Wangurri, Warramirri, Naymil, Rirritjingu, tribes respectfully showeth.

  1. That nearly 500 people of the above tribes are residents of the land excised from the Aboriginal Reserve in Arnhem Land.
  2. That the procedures of the excision of this land and the fate of the people on it were never
  explained to them beforehand, and were kept secret from them.
  3. That when Welfare Officers and Government officials came to inform them of decisions
  taken without them and against them, they did not undertake to convey to the
  Government in Canberra the views and feelings of the Yirrkala aboriginal people.
  4. That the land in question has been hunting and food gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes
  from time immemorial: we were all born here.
  5. That places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the
  excised land, especially Melville Bay.
  6. That the people of this area fear that their needs and interests will be completely ignored
  as they have been ignored in the past, and they fear that the fate which has overtaken the
  Larrakeah tribe will overtake them.
  7. And they humbly pray that the Honourable the House of Representatives will appoint a
  Committee, accompanied by competent interpreters, to hear the views of the people of
  Yirrkala before permitting the excision of this land.
  8. They humbly pray that no arrangements be entered into with any company which will
  destroy the livelihood and independence of the Yirrkala people.

  And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray God to help you and us

  ================================================

  The post Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 1 – the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petitions appeared first on The Northern Myth.

• The Northern Myth Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 2 – the 1998 Barunga Statement

  

  This is the second of a series of posts looking at various foundational documents from Aboriginal Australians that variously call for land rights.constitutional recognition, redress for past injustices and more. It is no coincidence that these documents—the 1963 Bark Petition, the 1988 Barunga Statement, the 1993 Eva Valley Statement and the 1998 Kalkaringi Statement—all come from the Northern Territory, where a combination of culture, law and political effect meant that NT Aboriginal leaders were best placed to lead these fights.

  If you want to understand the background to the Uluru Statement the content and context of these documents provide, for mine, essential reading.

  Earlier this week I posted two pieces, one from me on the likely fallout from the Uluru Statement and another, more measured piece, from Kungarakan historian Sue Stanton. In my piece, I glossed over the pre-history to the Barunga Statement, which was handed to Prime Minister Bob Hawke by Northern Territory traditional Aboriginal owners in June 1988.

  Yesterday I came across a wonderful piece by the late Will Owen at his website Aboriginal Art & Culture: an American eye where he wrote with a particularly incisive and insightful eye for many years on “Indigenous Australian art, culture, anthropology, music, politics and literature … ” until his sudden passing in early December 2015*.

  In his piece Barunga Stories, written in February 2006, Will Owen presents an overview of the circumstances leading up to and following the presentation of the Barunga Statement to Bob Hawke in mid-1988.

  After years of frustration at any meaningful response to the express calls for action in the Barunga Statement, Galarrwuy Yunupingu demanded the return of the Statement to the Northern Territory (from Canberra, where it had been displayed in the Federal Parliament since 1991).

  Galarrwuy wanted to:

  … bury it in a larrakitj, the traditional log coffin, in a symbolic act that proclaims the failure to achieve the goals set forth in the Statement’s text, and to symbolically bury the hopes of achieving a treaty between the government and its indigenous citizens.

  Will Owen records this statement from Galarrwuy Yunupingu to the National Indigenous Times:

  Sovereignty became treaty, treaty became reconciliation and reconciliation became nothing. … We will dig a hole and bury it. It will be a protest but I also hope that it can represent a new start for Aboriginal people.

  After tracing the history of the Aboriginal calls for a treaty back to the closing days of the Whitlam Labor government and the Aboriginal Treaty Committee established in late 1979—and the subsequent white-anting of that committee by politicians uninterested in any positive steps towards a treaty—Will Owen notes that talk of a treaty had been off the political record until the lead up to the 1988 Australian Bicentennial, when Bob Hawke saw opportunity in re-visiting the idea of a treaty between Aboriginal Australia.

  Will Owen sets out the background to Barunga in June 1988.

  After the bicentennial celebrations of January 1988 and the protests that accompanied them in Sydney, there were politics aplenty in the air across the country and in the Northern Territory in particular. In June, the various threads came together at the Barunga Sports and Culture Festival. Barunga, which lies southwest of Katherine, was known as the one festival among many where Aboriginal culture received more than a perfunctory nod amidst footy competitions and other sports events.

  So it was perhaps most appropriate that a group of men gathered together there to address issues of Aboriginal culture and politics. Among the leaders present were Galarrwuy Yunupingu, then chairman of the Northern Land Council, Mr Rubuntja (who passed away in 2005), his opposite number in the Central Land Council, Prime Minister Hawke, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Gerry Hand.

  The Barunga Statement itself (see the full text below) was the product of several years of negotiations between Galarrwuy and other indigenous leaders across Australia. Taking inspiration from the Yirrkala Bark Petition created twenty years earlier, the Statement took the form of a typed set of demands surrounded by painted designs and affixed to a large (120 by 80 cm) piece of hardboard.

  …

  The painting combined several clan designs from Yolngu country in northeastern Arnhem Land on the left with a large design featuring traditional Central Desert iconography on the right. As such it visually affirmed the unified demands of the indigenous people of the Northern Territory and the Land Councils that represented the interests of those who had already attained the first measure of self-management promised by the Land Rights Act (NT) 1976.

  The Barunga Statement was signed by the several representatives present, although, despite Hawke’s signature, it did not represent a legally binding document on the Federal Government. There is a sad irony to that fact once again, as happened with the Yirrkala Bark Petition, the concepts of the white man’s law were used to invalidate the demands that black man’s law be honored in Australia. It is sadder still in that one of the points in the Statement calls for a “justice system which recognises our customary laws.”

  After a digression into an entertaining and informative analysis of an inter Yolngu clan dispute over the content of one panel of the Barunga Statement (well worth reading if you want some insights into the politics of Yolngu art and law) Will Owen documents the failure of mainstream politicians to address the Barunga Statement’s clear calls for negotiation of a treaty in favour of the weasel words of reconciliation, process and “walking together.”

  By 2006, it was clear that the promise inherent in the Barunga Statement remained unrealised.

  Now in 2006, the promise of Barunga remains unfulfilled. The National Indigenous Times quotes Galarrwuy Yunupingu as saying, “Sovereignty became treaty, treaty became reconciliation and reconciliation became nothing. … We will dig a hole and bury it. It will be a protest but I also hope that it can represent a new start for Aboriginal people.”

  The focus of the government seems to have reverted to the documents rather than the process, and legalisms, “practical reconciliation,” and empty words have won the day again. NIT reports that the Howard government has not responded to Galarrwuy’s request, although they quote Amanda Vanstone (at that moment still occupying the post of Indigenous Affairs Minister) declining to comment: “We’re not aware of any formal request besides what has been made in the media, therefore there is no comment I can make.”

  The Barunga Statement still hangs in Parliament House in Canberra. Next weekend the Barunga community will host the annual Barunga Sport and Cultural Festival. The Barunga Statement will be commemorated at the annual festival, in 2018, forty years on.

  As I noted earlier this week in my piece on the Uluru Statement, the oft-paraphrased words of Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana provide food for thought that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

  ================================================

  Full text of the Barunga Statement, 1998

  We, the Indigenous owners and occupiers of Australia, call on the Australian Government and people to recognise our rights:

  • to self-determination and self-management, including the freedom to pursue our own economic, social, religious and cultural development;
  • to permanent control and enjoyment of our ancestral lands;
  • to compensation for the loss of use of our lands, there having been no extinction of original title;
  • to protection of and control of access to our sacred sites, sacred objects, artefacts, designs, knowledge and works of art;
  • to the return of the remains of our ancestors for burial in accordance with our traditions;
  • to respect for and promotion of our Aboriginal identity, including the cultural, linguistic, religious and historical aspects, and including the right
  • to be educated in our own languages and in our own culture and history;

  in accordance with the universal declaration of human rights, the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, the international covenant on civil and political rights, and the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, rights to life, liberty, security of person, food, clothing, housing, medical care, education and employment opportunities, necessary social services and other basic rights.

  We call on the Commonwealth to pass laws providing:

  • A national elected Aboriginal and Islander organisation to oversee Aboriginal and Islander affairs;
  • A national system of land rights;
  • A police and justice system which recognises our customary laws and frees us from discrimination and any activity which may threaten our identity or security, interfere with our freedom of expression or association, or otherwise prevent our full enjoyment and exercise of universally recognised human rights and fundamental freedoms.

  We call on the Australian Government to support Aborigines in the development of an international declaration of principles for indigenous rights, leading to an international covenant.

  And we call on the Commonwealth Parliament to negotiate with us a Treaty recognising our prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights and freedom.

  ==========================================

  • I can’t praise Will Owen’s website, Aboriginal Art & Culture: an American eye highly enough as a source for information and enlightenment on may aspects of Australian art & culture. Better words about Will Owen’s lasting impact than I could ever write can be found at the In Memoriam page at his website posted shortly after his passing in December 2015. He is and will continue to be missed.

  The post Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 2 – the 1998 Barunga Statement appeared first on The Northern Myth.

June 03, 2017

• Links International Socialist Alliance (Australia) statement on Venezuela: Solidarity needed to defeat counter-revolution
   

  
  

   

  The Socialist Alliance released the following statement on June 3.

   

  ***

   

  In the face of ongoing attempts to violently depose the elected government of President Nicolas Maduro, the Socialist Alliance reaffirms its support and solidarity with the Venezuelan people, their government and the Bolivarian revolution.

  read more

June 02, 2017

• Links International Venezuela: LUCHAS activists on the call for a Constituent Assembly

   

  

   

  June 2, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from International Viewpoint — Activists from the Liga Unitaria Chavista Socialista (LUCHAS, Unitary Socialist Chavista League) gave their opinion on the call for a National Constituent Assembly made by President Nicolás Maduro on May 1, 2017 in his speech at the celebration of International Workers’ Day.

   

  The aim of the statement is that hopefully comrades from other revolutionary organizations and political personalities, with whom they have been sharing some orientations and positions about what has been happening in Venezuela and in our continent for some months now, decide to adhere to the present declaration. They consider this a document that they make available for discussion, to the various revolutionary political organizations that exist and to the vanguard that has made it possible to move through this Bolivarian and Chavista process.

   

  read more

June 01, 2017

• Links International Canada’s New Democratic Party and the “Leap Manifesto”

   

  

   

  By Ernie Tate

   

  June 1, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Unity — The campaign has begun in Canada’s New Democratic Party to replace Tom Mulcair as leader, after the party’s disastrous performance in the 2015 Federal election, the results of which induced a major crisis in the party, from which it has yet to recover.  In 2011 under its previous leader, Jack Layton, the NDP had achieved the status of Official Opposition,the closest it had ever come to forming a government in Ottawa. Layton, who had campaigned in that election while suffering from prostate cancer, died not long after that. Mulcair replaced him as party leader.

   

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• Club Troppo Will the bank levy actually lower bank profits? Maybe not.

  In the comments section of my earlier post about hatred of the banks, John Walker (no relation) asked:

  If the big four did pass on the tax to their customers, do you think the ‘non big four’ banks, building societies etc would grab the chance to be more competitive or grab the chance to raise their charges?

  Terrific question. I don’t know for sure, but history suggests the answer is that the smaller banks would mostly grab the chance to raise their charges. That’s the argument in my latest column for the CEO Magazine. (Note that some bank analysts seem to think around half of the levy will end up impacting on shareholders as smaller profits.)

  We shouldn’t necessarily conclude that higher profits for the smaller banks is a bad outcome, though. There’s more than one road to competitiveness with larger rivals.

  In this case, the smaller banks have been underpricing the bigger banks for year to no great effect. For instance, ME Bank, formerly Members Equity, was for many years consistently the lowest-price lender of any substantial size in the Australian marketplace.

  How much good has that done them? Well, some, but not that much. ME bank is growing, but it’s no giant yet. And for their money, its industry super fund owners get about half the return on equity they get from shares in the Big Four banks.

  To grow, ME Bank and others like it need new capital – and to justify new capital, they need better returns.

  None of this is certain, but allowing the smaller players to earn a little more may be an important step in helping them compete effectively with the Big Four.

  Go on, read the column.

  Footnote: The front page of today’s Australian Financial Review has former CBA CEO David Murray slamming the bank levy as a “hate tax”. He’s right, in the sense that the tax is only being imposed because a majority of people dislike the banks. That doesn’t mean it’s not merited.

  David on Twitter: @shorewalker1

• The Northern Myth ‘Reluctant Reconciliation’ and ‘powerless Recognition’: Sue Stanton reflects on history, power and injustice

  

  This is an article by Kungarakan historian Sue Stanton following the panel discussion–entitled 250 Shades of Black after the 250 known Indigenous languages in Australia – at the Gamarralang Festival held at the Darwin Entertainment Centre in late May 2017. The panel included leading Aboriginal activists and speakers including Michael Mansell, Josie Crawshaw, Olga Havnen and Luke Pearson.

  250 Shades of Black coincided with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, which led to passages in the Australian constitution that discriminated against Aboriginal people being removed. The discussion will follow a national meeting of the Prime Minister’s Referendum Council at Uluru.

  Kemec nygngah Tjalingmara Kungarakan : I am Tjalingmara of the Kungarakan

  I bring you good morning greetings from beautiful Kungarakan country.

  1.     My first duty today is my acknowledgment of Larrakia, Elders – past, present and to all Larrakia yet to come – acknowledgment of Bilawara Lee, Kelvin Costello & any other Larrakia in the audience.

  2.     My second duty today is to acknowledge my own family – all Kungarakan & Gurindji peoples – my own Elders, past & present  – acknowledgement of my little sister Ms Wendy Ludwig, A/PVC-IL and other Kungarakan & Gurindji peoples in the audience. I also acknowledge another sister, one who has inspired me over the years, my big sister MaryAnn Bin Sallik who is here with us today.

  3.     Today I also express my greetings to all those representing other First Nations groups from wider Australia as well as family, friends and colleagues from the Torres Strait Islands.

  4.     Of course, my greetings and best wishes to all who are in attendance at this breakfast today, especially colleagues from both Batchelor Institute, especially Professor Bob Somerville and all friends and colleagues from Charles Darwin University.

  What an extraordinary last few days … and it only took us 50 years to finally move from the stalemate of the 1967 Referendum to (hopefully) a new dialogue of hope, and not one resting only on more symbolism with oblique, almost hushed references to recognition in Australia’s Constitution.

  Our delegates – our brave and courageous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – our First Nations Peoples of the land mass known as Australia, and all those from adjacent islands that connect with us – I salute you today. And I thank you for those strong words, that statement from the heart that reached our ears within the last few days.

  Standing up to the torment of our powerlessness, challenging the very structural nature of our problem, the Australian Constitution – the rejection of more soft words giving us token recognition in the most powerful document of the land instead of granting us our sovereign rights – the demand for constitutional reform so that we can ensure stronger and safer futures for our children is our best response so far and makes for safer and stronger dialogue in the shared space between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Australians.

  While the Referendum might have signalled a new phase for some, or at least hope of a new phase when Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples were finally included in the census, it did not automatically equate into any level of genuine equality … and genuine justice still remains a casualty to this day.

  The constant undermining of the right to self-determination through funding cuts, increased service delivery being centralised by mainstream services, discriminatory and racist policies, Aboriginal incarceration rates has not improved while we talked Reconciliation and or the advanced model that was steering us to another powerless place – Recognition.

  We deserve much more than that. We deserve much more than the same old symbolic and minimalist pat on the back, blankets-and-beads dialogue and distribution of ‘gifts’ of the past 200-odd years.

  Lets begin the next phase of reconciliation by lifting the veil of silence and make serious effort to dismantle the cult of forgetfulness by not restricting what is taught in schools and throughout the general population.

  Let us recognise and reveal all the truths of the history of white Australia.  Most Australians who have bothered to learn some of that history already acknowledge the Custodians of country and recognise the connection to lands, waters and communities but now we need to take that a step further by listening to and reacting positively to the wise voices that spoke at Uluru a few days ago.

  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have waited long enough.

  I am filled with hope and while still reluctant to embrace the Australian Reconciliation agenda and direction in its entirety. I am a stronger person today and I am buoyed by the spirit of ordinary Australians who are also not afraid to step up and be heard and who wish to stand strong beside us on this next part of the journey that will see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples finally become real players in the overall Australian social contract.

  Meaningful reconciliation will only be achieved when Australian government and its people are capable and committed to achieving goals that include working in genuine partnerships with the objective of ending inequities – in genuinely closing gaps – by ensuring support for healthy and thriving communities – across the land.

  Australia needs to confront its high level racism and truly work hard at developing and sustaining credible partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

  Get behind and or beside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in their push for substantial and genuine reform and give strong support as they face the inevitable challenges that lay ahead. As one commentator expressed at the 250 Shades of Black panel discussion on Sunday 28 May: The biggest opposition we face and the hardest battle lie for us with parliament and politicians, not with ordinary Australians citizens.

  I share with you the closing words of the Uluru Statement From the Heart received by all in the last few days;

  In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

  Go well and go in peace…and remember the spirits are always watching.

  Thank you. Mumuk for now.

  The post ‘Reluctant Reconciliation’ and ‘powerless Recognition’: Sue Stanton reflects on history, power and injustice appeared first on The Northern Myth.

May 31, 2017

• Daniel Bowen Some thoughts on the Westgate Tunnel

  We all remember the East West Link. Specifically denied by the Coalition during the 2010 election, after a policy turnaround, they ignored the unfavourable economics of the project, and rammed through the contracts without a mandate, ahead of the 2014 election.

  The design ran a motorway through the middle of Royal Park, and required demolition of dozens of homes in Collingwood. Community pressure resulted in Labor deciding to oppose the project and undo the contracts if elected — and they did it, at a cost of $780 million, but saving $4 billion of taxpayer funds, plus billions more in motorist tolls.

  The Westgate Tunnel project wasn’t mentioned by Labor in the 2014 election — instead they proposed a smaller “Westgate Distributor” which would have moved trucks out of inner-west local streets by giving them dedicated ramps off the Westgate Freeway, and some arterial road upgrades.

  

  The far bigger project now upon us was thought up by Transurban, operators of Citylink. A huge amount of detail about the project has just been released.

  Some brief notes so far:

  This project is huge, but in many ways less evil than East West Link. Thanks largely to an accident of geography, it mostly avoids parkland impacts (Lynch Road Reserve in Brooklyn is the notable exception – 34% acquired permanently), and it doesn’t require the acquisition of homes (though some living nearby would like to be bought out).

  

  

  I suspect few people look fondly upon Footscray Road. It’ll be covered by an elevated road, with an oddly enclosed bike path in the middle. The transition between the tunnel and this new skyroad will be a portal next to the Maribyrnong River at Yarraville.

  All of this might be forgivable if it was purely to get freight in and out of the port. But the city end of the project is clearly aimed at private motor cars — probably because in terms of tolls, that’s where the money is. Remember, Transurban proposed this project.

  

  What the Westgate Tunnel does do that EWL didn’t is have a massive spaghetti junction that trashes the proposed E-Gate urban development, and also vastly increases the motorway capacity going into the CBD, which is inevitably going to result in the flooding of the northwest CBD and Docklands with traffic.

  How much traffic? The EES claims most of it will hit North Melbourne, with up to 9000 extra cars per day along Dynon Road, 5000 in Hawke Street, 3000 in parts of Victoria Street, and 9000 along parts of Wurundjeri Way. It also claims traffic on some routes will reduce.

  

  Can we trust the figures? It claims traffic along Spencer Street and the Bolte Bridge will drop, presumably because people heading from the south-western suburbs into the north side of the CBD and North Melbourne are expected to use the Westgate Tunnel. But if that’s the case, why don’t they use the Bolte Bridge now?

  I need to read a bit more on the methodology behind the predictions, but it strikes me that claims of congestion relief on roads nearby to new motorways sometimes are correct in the short term, but don’t last, because they fill up again within a few years. For instance the Monash Freeway built in 1988 was meant to relieve Waverley Road and High Street, but didn’t.

  Similarly, Citylink’s time-saving claims were very short-lived thanks to induced traffic.

  Feeding the new tunnel will be a widened Westgate Freeway – if I’m counting it right, up to 17 lanes (9 inbound, 8 outbound) in sections, only tempered by the tolls incurred if people choose the new tunnel rather than the existing bridge.

  In fact, the plan to massively increase the capacity feeding into the Westgate bridge+tunnel combo should put paid to the idea that this is providing an “alternative” to the bridge. If there’s a problem on the bridge in peak hour, clearly the tunnel won’t be able to relieve it because it’ll be full of its own traffic.

  Westgate Freeway at Millers Road
  

  Maribyrnong River/Yarraville Gardens
  

  E-Gate
  

  Docklands
  

  The politics of it

  Labor says they’ll have contracts ready for signing straight after the 2018 election, avoiding claims that they will force it through and built it without a mandate as the Coalition planned to do with East West Link.

  Edit: Silly me, this is completely wrong. Labor are pushing ahead with this. It’s not subject to the next election. I’ve confused it with the NE Link.

  The Greens are opposed to the project.

  What will the Coalition do? Shadow Treasurer Michael O’Brien has said it’s an “absolute dud”. “We don’t support extra tolls on CityLink users – certainly not to pay for a dud project. And the more Victorians see of this Western Distributor the more the numbers just don’t add up.”

  Does that mean they’ll go into the election pledging not to build it? Edit: Will they want to can the contracts? Probably unlikely, as it’ll be too far gone.

  So will a vote in 2018 make any difference? Probably not.

  Gosh, look at all those cars stuck in the traffic, blocking trucks. Almost a full train carriage worth of people. pic.twitter.com/DhvEXigUtt

  — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) January 22, 2014

  What do we want in our city?

  As I’ve said before, transport is supply-led. If you want lots more people driving, massively increase motorway capacity, and it’ll happen. This is what the west has to look forward to.

  Meanwhile the trains are packed (even on Sunday mornings when they only run every 40 minutes) and the local buses are a real mixed bag, often infrequent and caught in traffic – which on local roads is likely to get worse as they will feed into this new motorway capacity being built.

  Western lines: trains every 40 mins on Sunday mornings, even when the Show is on. #SpringSt #metrotrains pic.twitter.com/Dx04H2e8W7

  — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) September 28, 2014

  Ultimately, if built (and it appears it probably will be), this project is likely fundamentally change the north-western end of the City, and skew the transport “options” of those along the Westgate corridor towards cars for decades to come.

  • Thousands of pages of EES documents are available here
  • but you’ve only got until 10th of July to read it all and make a submission!
  • The Greens are attempting to read through it all and summarise for the benefit of those who don’t have time to read it all but want to make a submission.
• Links International Spain: Socialist Party leader’s shock rebirth unnerves establishment

   

  

   

  By Dick Nichols

   

  May 31, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — The plan had seemed so well organised. Its first stage was successfully executed on October 1 last year when the ruling elite in the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) got the party’s 250-strong Federal Political Committee (FPC) to force the resignation of general secretary Pedro Sánchez (see account here).

   

  Sánchez’s crime had been his refusal, after the inconclusive June 26 general election last year, to allow the formation of a minority People’s Party (PP) government through PSOE abstention. He had also proposed to have this refusal put to the PSOE membership for endorsement and to have a new primary for the position of general secretary.

   

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• Links International Entretejer las Rosas desobedientes

   

  

   

  [Original in English here.]

   

  Por Nevin Siders V.

   31 de mayo, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Cuando me propuse elaborar este ensayo me imaginé que fuera una meta sencilla pero, como el lector verá, resultó que implicaba entretejer hilos diversos, por lo que consumía más tiempo de lo previsto. Pero siento que el resultado hizo valer el esfuerzo, abriendo un tantito territorio nuevo para el socialismo. El ensayo abre con rescatar una de las más duraderas posturas de Rosa Luxemburgo, y conjugarla con un tema que (al conocimiento de este autor) no se ha asociado con esta gigante del pensamiento socialista: la desobediencia civil.

   

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May 30, 2017

• The Northern Myth Kicking the Treaty can down the road … again

  

  The Uluru Statement, released late last week after three days of apparently tortuous negotiation, is the latest call from Aboriginal Australia to the dominant settler society for a re-setting of fundamental national relationships. It has been hailed as an emotional and heartfelt expression of ambition and determination of this country’s true owners that sets out, in too-vague terms for mine, three bold claims, firstly to re-assert long-held claims to sovereignty, the need for a voice in—or near to—the seat of parliamentary power, and moves to a Makarrata, or treaty (or multiple treaties), between Aboriginal ‘nations’ and the Federal government.

  Much of the Uluru Statement consists of emotional—albeit noble—claims, motherhood statements and flowery language that no doubt resonated as spoken words to the hundreds of delegates at Yulara, mentally and physically exhausted after three days in the, albeit air-conditioned, desert but that on paper render as little more that mawky and poorly drafted rhetoric. A tepid call to arms, the Uluru Statement has all the revolutionary fervour of a cup of cold tea.

  Do the 444 words of the statement enunciate a clear statement of intent sufficient to firstly, convince the lumpen masses that these are ‘good things’ that should be pursued, and secondly—more importantly—will, or can, the too-polite-by-half requests resonate beyond the turbulent echo-chamber of Aboriginal politics and be adopted by the political mainstream who will be charged with it’s carriage through the political process?

  Early indications are that the Uluru Statement will, after a brief, delirious honeymoon period, fizzle away into interminable talk-festing, rancour within and without the Aboriginal milieu, the dead zone of administrative and bureaucratic torpor, populist confusion (read resistance) and political chaos and opportunism that has characterised previous attempts at resolution between pan-Aboriginal Australia and settler society.

  We won’t be seeing a Treaty—or makarrata, call it what you will—anytime soon. Those who’ll oppose the implementation of the Uluru Statement will likely, as will its supporters, fail to appreciate the oft-paraphrased words of Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

  It was a fatal error in the first settlement of Van Diemen’s Land, that a treaty was not entered into with the natives … had they received some compensation on the territory they surrendered, no matter how trifling, and had adequate laws been from the very first introduced and enforced for their protection, His Majesty’s Government would have acquired a valuable possession without the injurious consequences which have followed our occupation and which must forever remain a stain upon the colonisation of Van Diemen’s Land. Governor Arthur, 24 September 1832.

  As the Kungarakan/Gurindji historian Sue Stanton* has pointed out, Australians have long been bemoaning the lack of a treaty or appropriate settlement between the original owners of this country and the settler society that pushed them aside. In words that ring as true now as when Stanton wrote them in 2006:

  Australia has, over time, been presented with the challenge to right the wrongs of the past and allow itself to move to a new negotiating level, but it refuses to.

  Not much of note happened with the development of a treaty until 1975 when the Australian Senate passed a resolution by Liberal Senator (and the first Aboriginal person elected to Federal Parliament) Neville Bonner which urged the Australian Government to at least acknowledge prior ownership of Australia by Aboriginal people.

  Four years later, following the lead of Dr H C “Nugget”Coombs and others clustered around the National Aboriginal Conference (the NAC), the establishment of the Aboriginal Treaty Committee (the ATC) represented the first substantial push for appropriate recognition of the historical occupation of Australia by Aboriginal people. As documented in Judith Wright’s book We Call for a Treaty, the committee stumbled from pillar to difficult political post on goodwill and a shoestring budget before dissolving more with a whimper than a constitutional bang.

  In Chapter 6, Treaty or Makarrata? Wright, reflecting on the unwelcome response to the word ‘treaty’ by some in the legal profession and the uncertainty about the implications wrapped up in that word, noted that for the committee:

  The question of what the final agreement might be called did not concern us much; what mattered was that it should be seen by the dominant society as binding, in the same way as any international agreement, on the Commonwealth.

  

  Broader debate about the merits of a treaty followed the publication of the ATC’s manifesto in the National Times in August 1979. This debate included pushback from (some) Aboriginal activists, who were concerned that the Fraser government might conclude an agreement without proper consultation with Aboriginal people across the country.

  Malcolm Fraser—who would now be regarded as being from well to the left of the Liberal Party—was under pressure for the apparent inconsistency between his outspoken views on the future of the racist regimes in South Africa and Zimbabwe and his government’s approach to domestic race issues. Surprisingly for some he announced that he would be prepared to discuss the “concept of a treaty” with representatives of the NAC.

  

  The publication of a second advertisement in November 1979 was followed by a response from Senator Fred Chaney, then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, indicating that the government would provide funding for the NAC to conduct an 18 month consultation with Aboriginal people across the country. But, echoing earlier concerns about the use of the ‘T’ word, Chaney advised that the proposed agreement be called a ‘Makarrata’ instead.

  Around this time the ATC published It’s Coming Yet, a modest volume by ATC member Stewart Harris written, as one reviewer has noted, “when confidence was high that a Treaty would soon be drafted and signed … It remains as valid today as then – representing the history of the black-white struggle, the years of destruction & despair, days of revival and recognition.”

  The book sold well and drew good reviews, including from legal academics. But while there was apparent goodwill from some sections of the public, the media and politics—both Labor and the Democrats had indicated what  Judith Wright described as “a surprising degree of acceptance of the treaty idea”—there was uncertainty about support from the Commonwealth Government.

  The Commonwealth’s views were clarified by Attorney-General Senator Peter Durack in July 1980. As Wright notes, the Attorney’s views on the legal possibilities inherent in a treaty hinged on the use of the word itself.

  The word, wrote the Attorney-General, was inapplicable. He quoted the opinion in Coe [Coe v Commonwealth (1979) 24 ALR 118] that the Aborigines did not constitute a ‘domestic nation’. Unless there were explicit provisions against any agreement made being regarded as one between the Australian community and a separate community, he feared there would be a risk that the agreement accorded a status to which the Aborigines could refer in a claim to the right of self-determination as a ‘nation.’ … ‘Compensation’ could also be provided under Commonwealth law for the treatment of Aborigines in the past; but the word would have to be used in a colloquial sense, not a legal sense … the ‘Makarrata’ was therefore already, from a point of view of Aboriginal demands for recognition and compensation, something of a dead letter.

  The ATC’s pleas for help towards the development of a treaty fell on deaf ears, mired in political caution and a lack of broad public support. As Sue Stanton notes, a few years later, the 1983 report by the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs Two Hundred Years Later rejected:

  … suggestions of a treaty, adopting the old argument that Indigenous nations of Australia, not being sovereign entities, could not enter into treaty negotiations with the Commonwealth … Still this Committee called for a ‘compact’ which possibly could eventually be inserted into the Australian Constitution by way of referendum.

  It took another five years for the notion of a treaty to re-emerge on the broader political landscape but Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s commitment to a treaty at the Barunga Festival in the NT in June 1988 was half-promise, half cautious rhetoric.

  Responding to the proposals put forward by Northern Territory traditional owners in the Barunga Statement that included a call for the Commonwealth Parliament to, among other things: ” … negotiate with us a Treaty recognising our prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights and freedom,” Hawke said that “there shall be a treaty negotiated between Aboriginal people and the Government on behalf of all the people of Australia.”

  By 1991, the notion of a treaty had been subsumed into broader issues of reconciliation. In a Cabinet Submission from December 1990 then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Robert Tickner proposed the establishment of a Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, responding to an August 1999 proposal for a Submission ‘outlining the strategy for developing the treaty or compact.’

  Tickner’s Cabinet Submission noted the need for a reconciliation process:

  … arises through Aboriginal Australians having been dispossessed of their land by the early European settlers without any formal treaty having been negotiated … Although there has been growing pressure during the past two decades to promote a compact or treaty, no real progress has been made in recent times principally due to hostile Opposition response … In light of the Coalition’s position, the Government needs to continue to make clear that it is not pursuing a ‘treaty’ in the sense of a negotiated settlement between separate and autonomous nations. Without backing away from the possibility of an instrument, it should emphasis the process of reconciliation … The complex and controversial question of the eventual format and parameters of any instrument should be put aside to focus on the process.

  Tickner’s assessment of the nation’s appetite for a treaty echoed the words of Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s May 1990 letter to John Hewson, Leader of the Opposition that referred to Hawke’s earlier commitment to a treaty, noting that he was not “necessarily wedded to the term ‘treaty’; others have proposed a ‘Makarratta’, or ‘compact’, as a form of instrument of reconciliation.

  Hawke then rings the death-knell that any treaty be a substantive agreement between parties on an equal footing:

  I understand that in the recent past the Coalition, on the basis of an assumption that the nature of a ‘treaty’ involves an agreement between two nations, has stated its opposition to such a cause. I assure you that it has never been in the Government’s mind that the reconciliation process lead to such an outcome.

  It is fair to say that the Hawke’s response to the Barunga Statement represents the high point of prospects of development towards a treaty between Aboriginal Australia and the settler society and that his governments did more to advance Aboriginal interests than most before or since. But in three short years the Hawke government had walked away from the notion of a treaty, in whatever form.

  Speaking to a crowd that included Aboriginal leaders Wenten Rubuntja, Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Robert Lee on the occasion of the hanging of the Barunga Statement in Parliament House in December 1991, Hawke opened with a ‘prophetic’ teaser. But he wasn’t talking about his promise to negotiate a treaty, the prospect for which had evaporated in rancour and disappointment, but that his last official act as Prime Minister would be to hang the Barunga Statement in Parliament House.

  It is an irony beyond measure that Tony Abbott, arguably our worst Prime Minister of recent years, presented Aboriginal Australia with the best opportunity for meaningful recognition of their interests. Abbott, despite his propensity for stunts and stumbles, was a political conservative who understood and engaged with Aboriginal Australia better than any recent Australian leader.

  That is modest praise indeed but if Abbott had been in power last Friday when the Uluru Statement was delivered he would have in all likelihood made a better response than the equivocation from our current leaders. Neither Malcolm Turnbull or Bill Shorten have the wit, interest or political savvy to get a treaty—or the other proposals in the Uluru Statement—past their respective right wings, who as my colleague Bernard Keane stressed in Crikey yesterday will—with their fellow-travellers—be more than willing to employ dishonesty and deceit to push back on any proposal for a treaty.

  Regardless of the dishonesty of that coming campaign and of the worthiness of the Uluru Statement’s objectives, Australian’s won’t be voting in favour of a treaty, legislated representation or sovereignty anytime soon. Not in my lifetime at least.

  =============================================

  • See Sue Stanton, The challenge for Australia: reconciling the Treaty in What Good Condition? Reflections on an Australian Aboriginal Treaty 1986–2006, ANU Press. Edited by Peter Reid.

  The post Kicking the Treaty can down the road … again appeared first on The Northern Myth.

• Club Troppo “We saw bad research everywhere”

  Via Andrew Gelman’s site, here’s a TED talk by US philanthropist Laura Arnold entitled “The Four Most Dangerous Words? A New Study Shows”. It details her journey through the world of social, medical, psychological and other research. It’s a lively and concise summary of the developing critique of recent scientific research standards.

  With her husband John, Laura Arnold funded The Center for Open Science, which sponsored the Reproducibility Project under the leadership of Brian Nosek. Nosek and the Center are central players in the emerging field of meta-research – research into better ways to do research.

  In January Nosek, John P. A. Ioannidis and others published in Nature their “Manifesto for reproducible science“, an important roadmap for moving scientific research results closer to truth. It ends with one of the great Richard Feynman quotes:

  “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”

  David on Twitter: @shorewalker1

May 29, 2017

• Club Troppo Gender diversity, innovation and performance #WAINS?

  And the Children Shall Lead: Gender Diversity and Performance in Venture Capital by Paul A. Gompers, Sophie Q. Wang

  Abstract:

  With an overall lack of gender and ethnic diversity in the innovation sector documented in Gompers and Wang (2017), we ask the natural next question: Does increased diversity lead to better firm performances? In this paper, we attempt to answer this question using a unique dataset of the gender of venture capital partners’ children. First, we find strong evidence that parenting more daughters leads to an increased propensity to hire female partners by venture capital firms. Second, using an instrumental variable set-up, we also show that improved gender diversity, induced by parenting more daughters, improves deal and fund performances. These effects concentrate overwhelmingly on the daughters of senior partners than junior partners. Taken together, our findings have profound implications on how the capital markets could function better with improved diversity.

• Club Troppo Five ways to tell if you’re REALLY doing strategy
  

  Cognitive biases: Choose your poison

  Cross posted from the Mandarin.

  Introduction

  Strategy is crucial for organisations. But as I’ve previously argued, a great deal of what passes for strategic thinking is a kind of anti-thinking. Typically strategy begins by determining some overarching objective – the end – with the rest of the process ‘drilling down’ to the means of getting there in progressively greater detail (which these days we’ve taken to calling ‘granularity’). ¹ Surely that’s just commonsense? After all, how can you plan to go somewhere if you don’t know where you’re going? But that’s the problem. It only seems commonsensical because, right at the outset we’ve got the wrong metaphor – essentially one of the commander navigating the ship to a destination that’s knowable in advance. But the flimsiness of our enactment of this metaphor starts to give the game away. What’s striking about apex statements (whether of the ‘mission’, ‘vision’ or the ‘where do we want to be in future’ type) is how little they imply for the details of the organisation’s strategy and, in the latter case, how much they resemble vain, and arguably infantile wishes.

  Organisations of any reasonable size are complex. There’s a lot to coordinate just to function tolerably. In addition to the constellation of existing capabilities that must be maintained, there are myriad problems and opportunities big and small, a range of new capabilities one needs to nurture as a result (with others needing to be cut back), and an assemblage of other organisations with which one interacts directly and indirectly. In that world, if the organisation is to sensibly set itself ends or goals, they will be a function of that context – of the means by which it might achieve them. In other words strategic thinking must comprehend the dialectical relationship between the ends the organisation might decide on and the means by which it will pursue those ends – with each influencing the other in an endless search for inspiration, improvement, optimisation and mutual accommodation. For instance, Google started advertising (somewhat reluctantly) to monetise its search engine and in doing so developed capabilities that became a launching pad for all manner of new objectives the firm gave itself as it grew.

  In what follows I try to summarise into a summary checklist of principles, the preconditions of good strategic thinking. I’m thinking as I prepare to do so that the end result will also be no more than commonsense. And yet I can’t recall being part of any kind of ‘strategy work’ that resembles at all closely what I’ll outline.

  Note, I’ve been deliberately provocative in placing the first three items on the list in order of importance though I have difficulty asserting this for the remaining points below them. Strategic work should be:

  Critical

  Non-obvious insights can be discovered at every level of the organisation, and something which is currently minor may become major. For instance, a specific capability built to support one activity might become the feature for whole new incarnations of the company – as Google’s and Amazon’s growing prowess with server technology were for them as they built G-mail and AWS.²

  Critical imagination

  One might distinguish between two uses of critical intelligence. The first being critical imagination. This emerges from critical engagement. To develop their critical imagination, those seeking to think strategically must cultivate their curiosity and so awareness of the problems and opportunities large and small facing the organisation.

  Critical evaluation

  Secondly critical evaluation must be deployed throughout the process – for instance in delivering the next quality on the checklist – the ordering and winnowing of ideas according to merit to arrive at some dominant view of the priorities which become ‘the organisation’s view’ – its strategy.

  Meritocratic

  Good strategic thinking surfaces all ideas worthy of consideration ³ and then develops the best. As I’ve argued elsewhere, although we love ‘peer production’ for instance as occurs on Wikipedia – for how ‘democratic’ or open it is, on closer inspection the real secret source here is a new kind of emergent meritocracy in which the most respected and substantial contributors gain greatest say in the project. By contrast with successful peer-production, making strategic planning within an organisation reflect the merit of the ideas put forward and their sponsors is fraught.

  The difficulty of meritocracy

  On the one hand, everyone should feel respected and encouraged to participate, particularly the naturally reticent (many of whom will be junior, and possibly more junior than they deserve). However, some people will overestimate the value of their contributions and should ideally be reined in. Ideally, everyone will have an instinctive understanding of the extent to which they can and should contribute with group pressure helping to protect the quality of discussion. But that requires great subtlety and judgement. And egos are involved. With intelligence and its successful simulation being key determinants and signifiers of social status, it’s a huge challenge to foster well structured, truly meritocratic discussion, especially in organisations with a strong, established hierarchy.

  Meritocratic discourse as an ethical quest

  This underscores something else that’s rarely pondered. Encouraging thinking and decision making on the merits, rather than on the status or power of the participants and guarding against the gravitational pull of groupthink and myriad foibles and biases is best understood as an adventure in in our ethical life in which progress is cognate with our natural aspirations to virtue, with our individual and collective endeavours in that regard both reinforcing one another.

  Open

  Knowledge and intelligence – in both senses of the latter word – turn up in all sorts of places within and indeed beyond the organisation. The perspectives and needs of customers, suppliers and wider stakeholders can be important inputs to strategy.⁴ I originally titled this section ‘Democratic’, but this is subtly wrong because democracy is (ideally) rule by everyone. Where we are seeking to optimise the interests of an organisation’s mission and only secondarily the interests of those within it, what we’re after is meritocratic openness. Once there’s an effective meritocratic system of prioritising activity, the wider we cast the net for contributions the better.⁵

  Socratic

  Socrates died believing that the one thing he learned from life was how little he knew. That’s why, when people talk about getting strategy ‘right’, they’re applying for the role of hero, when what’s needed is humility. As Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s business partner puts it “Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.” Socratic humility is a mode of being that’s far better attuned to individual and collective learning than its alternative – competition for status marked by ‘big-noting’ and the cognitive biases to which it is an open invitation.

  Socratic humility as an ethical value

  And like meritocracy Socratic humility is also a profound ethical value – worthy of all those in an organisation and the organisation itself. As Munger puts it “Acknowledging what you don’t know is the dawning of wisdom.” That’s why in his book The Lean Start-up, Ivor Rees offers the metaphor of the start-up as a vehicle for learning – for moving beyond one’s ignorance of the market by being in the market which enables one to experiment to see what works and why. As I will argue in the next section, there are some ways of providing some institutional support for Socratic humility.

  Systematic

  It’s not my purpose here to specify some process which will embody the considerations set out above. Suffice it to say that if these principles are taken seriously, pretty much any strategic planning process could be adapted accordingly. But the steps of strategic planning within an organisation should normally be formalised. Ideas should come from all parts of the organisation and beyond it. Many important ideas and issues will originate from senior managers and board members. Ideas of apparently smaller significance may be relegated to discussion in business units, though the aim should always be to keep the organization’s collective mind as aware as possible of small things that could have large significance, and/or help inform the context within which high level objectives will be agreed on. And the common themes between business units may portend some broader, and so strategic, significance.

  As appropriate to any given issue that is surfaced, the strategic planning system may encourage some initial period of divergent thinking or ‘brainstorming’ followed by discussion, refinement, attempting to bring ideas that may have relevance to each other into that discussion before winnowing occurs to leave ideas that find their way into the the unitary intent of the organisation – its strategy. It is likely that much of this development and discussion should occur outside of meetings of large numbers of people, and given this, it seems appropriate not to impose timetables on it. However, as they reach a level of maturity, it may make sense for such discussions to be considered to flow as tributaries into a regular process of formal escalation up the line – perhaps corresponding to the cycle of relevant senior management and/or board meetings.⁶

  Socratic humility for an organisation: formalising self-subversion within the system

  I’ve observed twice now how I see my aspirations for good practice being an expression of the ethical life. Fortunately in this regard, the system itself can provide some institutional support for Socratic humility and so debug some of the most damaging and ubiquitous pathologies of discussion and decision making within organisations. In this regard provision for self-directed time and like schemes are worth close attention. The best known program of its type – Google’s 20 percent time – allows employees to take one day a week to work on a project of their choice. Its principal rationale is not, as it’s so often taken to be, to encourage new ideas or validate the creativity and ingenuity of all those qualifying for the policy, though that is nevertheless understood to be valuable. Its central motivation is to introduce a modest interdiction of control from the top. Just as one of the strengths of markets is that they allow experiments by anyone within them, so, as two very senior Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg stress “It’s not about time, it’s about freedom”:

  Twenty percent time is a check and balance on imperial managers, a way to give people permission to work on stuff they aren’t supposed to work on. It helps to bring to life the Steve Jobs maxim that “you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy”.

  20 percent time drives a counter-cultural intelligence – a wisdom of the crowd – throughout the organisation operating in parallel to the official, hierarchical system.

  Coming up with an idea is pretty easy. Getting a few of your colleagues to join your project and add their 20 percent time to your 20 percent time is a lot harder. That is where the Darwinian process begins.⁷

  Some implications

  Here are some practical implications of these principles:

  • One common practice in large meetings and ‘off-site’ or ‘away-days’ is to break a large group into smaller groups which then consider some issue each then bringing summaries of their deliberations back to the larger group. Unless these groups have been meritocratically established and perhaps specialise in areas of special knowledge, this process will often be anti-meritocratic sifting out ‘lowest common denominator’ ideas, rather than ones that surprise, and perhaps even provoke unease, with their insight.
  • Meetings will usually be preceded ‘offline’ by groups seeking to surface ideas and explore issues with larger meetings prepared for. Where there are credible differences, those differences might be explored in preparation so that research (including ‘action research’ like A/B testing) can be done to better understand the choices available, to explore for common ground and more clearly delineate irresolvable disagreement for further discussion in in a larger or more senior group.
  • Where a ‘traditional’ approach will often involve large meetings of all people conceivably involved, the approach being proposed is more likely to work well involving only those who want to be involved, whether through enthusiasm or obligation given their responsibilities.⁸ However this will work best where work is transparent to others who wish to know about it, even if they do not participate. Note also that my discussion of strategy and strategic thinking has focused on the cognitive and the deliberative. Another important dimension in an organisation will be social. I am not seeking to ignore this fact in my discussion, only to clearly distinguish it out from the thinking and deliberative process. Once this has occurred, further steps to involve others and seek their buy-in and/or objections should be considered.
  • Various online tools can be useful for encouraging and tracking ideas. It is now common for large firms to engineer to maximise and/or accelerate serendipitous connection and engagement. Employees are now often related to each other in the firm by way of a social network.⁹ Encouraging employees wishing to blog can also help this process. It can also accelerate self-selection for debate and discussion about ideas which can take place in each employee’s time and outside of bandwidth sapping meetings. A frequently overlooked advantage of such activity is the way in which it can improve talent spotting horizontally and vertically within the organisation.
  • An intriguing possibility is that online discussion and debate may offer a means of cultivating high quality discussion with analytic tools to detect and reward the most productive behaviour in that discussion.¹⁰

  Concluding thoughts on where to start

  Amidst all these scruples about the difficulty of real strategic thinking, it’s important to simply make a start. One way would be to identify and begin structuring deliberation on important decisions that will need to be made in the foreseeable future.Should we scale up a new product, build or scale down some physical or professional capability? Should we enter the European market? How should we react to some threat? There are worse ways to start as these questions must be answered in any event, and the dilemmas they invoke will draw in much of what must be considered in a coherent strategy. One could also extend this to particular passions for the organisation by those involved in it at any level, based on their experience. Some people in an organisation may want to argue for some realignment of the organisation or one of its important activities whether that realignment is a subtle reframing opening up important new perspectives or it amounts to a ‘pivot’ – a new beginning building on existing capabilities.

  Note that in each case, there’s nothing artificial about the questions being asked – in the way the initial search for an apex statement or objective so often is. Intrinsic interest in the context of the organisation’s current situation drives the process. And as the discussion draws in the implications of different arguments and approaches, it may well uncover the need to resolve some larger question – at which time the stage is then set to determine whether or not that larger question needs to be definitively resolved, the potential costs and benefits of doing so and the steps that might be taken to understand how to answer it better. If some theoretical question like “What is it that we really do?” gets asked that will be because it came up ‘on the merits’ not because it met the faux commonsense of the latest management fad.

  oooOOOooo

  1. An ‘apex statement’ usually kicks this off whether it’s a mission or vision statement or some summary answer to the question “Where do we want to be in ten year’s time?” or “What does success look like?” (I’ll leave demonstrating the idiocy of deciding on some Big Hairy Audacious Goal as the fulcrum of your strategy as an exercise for the reader.) ↩
  2. Amazon Web Services. ↩
  3. for which the next point on the checklist is relevant …. ↩
  4. I illustrated this in my previous article with the example of Toyota which engaged both its customers and its suppliers in its quest to improve. ↩
  5. Or as the chronicler laureate of open source software, Eric S. Raymond, put it famously, “many eyeballs make all bugs shallow”. ↩
  6. It is possible that some regular – say annual – off-site get together could contribute to this process, where there’s benefit in getting away from the grind to prevent the urgent from displacing the important. But the reader will not have misinterpreted me if she thinks I’d proceed sceptically (I have been known to feign death to avoid such retreats though these were very much in the mould that I’ve critiqued previously.)  The test is using such events to genuinely take opportunities not otherwise available and to integrate such things into a capability for the continuous review of strategy. And if we are in search of serendipity there might be something worthwhile in reverting to an older conception of such events as being rooted more in sociality and celebration of fun than too conspicuous displays of worthiness. ↩
  7. Schmidt, Eric, and Rosenberg, Jonathan, 2015. How Google Works, John Murray, London, p. 227-9. Note that self-directed time is still time spent for the organisation and is reviewed in performance management. So spending that time on frivolous or obviously self-centred activities is not in employees’ interest. Note: firms that have succeeded with self-directed time tend to be highly innovative firms that enjoy such status in their industries that they hire only the very best, brightest and most ambitious. This helps explain their success where they have succeeded.  There are some examples of similar programs being run as pilots within the public sector but so far there is little evidence on which one could base the claim that, adopted in its entirety, 20 percent time would lead to more benefits than costs. On the other hand it’s likely to be a worthwhile part of the public service’s repertoire if used more selectively – for instance as one means to reward good performance and give proven good performers more autonomy in the expectation that, it will be used in ways that are beneficial for the organisation at the margin. ↩
  8. John Burnheim’s The Demarchy Manifesto has been influential in my thinking here, where the ideal is discussion amongst people with an interest (though ideally without a conflict of interest). The putative subject of the book is public policy, but the ideas can be applied profitably to organisations, particularly large ones ↩
  9. Likewise the architecture of many knowledge working firms now emphasises engineering for serendipity. In one top tier law firm I was dealing with, moving to five floors in a CBD office block, the five floors contained coffee shops on the second and fourth of five floors they occupied with emphasis given to maximising the amount of serendipitous interaction. Evaluating a similar move in another city, far more connections were made, the number of meetings fell, partners said they spent less time supervising others work, but those supervised reported more worthwhile engagement with partners. ↩
  10.  As I’ve previously observed, there have been some promising developments in the development of online tools to improve the quality of discussion and collaboration. ↩
• Links International Québec solidaire: No to an electoral pact with the PQ, Yes to a united front against austerity and for independence

   

  

   

  By Richard Fidler

   

  May 29, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Life on the Left — As expected, the 500 delegates to the congress of Québec solidaire (QS), held here May 19-22, voted to work toward a fusion with Option nationale, debated and adopted the remaining part of the party’s draft program with few major amendments, and elected a new leadership headed by “co-spokespeople” Manon Massé and Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.

   

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May 28, 2017

• Daniel Bowen Doing the bustitution zig zag

  Those of you who follow me on Twitter might recall I spent a lot of July last year posting about the 5 weeks of bus replacements on the Frankston line.

  One of the things they got right was to run the buses along the main roads, rather than diverting them into the railway stations, three of which were major construction zones at the time.

  Most buses ran along Grange and Jasper Roads, where rail replacement bus stops were installed. Their precise placement wasn’t ideal from a passenger point of view — they were sometimes a couple of hundred metres from the cross street that linked the road to the station — but overall it wasn’t too bad, and there was some logic to (where possible) re-using existing bus stops and shelters.

  Overall it wasn’t perfect, there was crowding at times and long waits at others. But replacing a busy train line with buses isn’t an easy task, and we survived (though many sought out alternatives).

  This seems a bit defensive for saying that #bustitution will use the regular bus stops.
  Also: not via main road anymore? Too efficient? pic.twitter.com/HkpWlj5c9W

  — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) March 8, 2017

  With those three level crossing removals more-or-less completed (2 of 3 bike cages still aren’t operating), earlier this year they decided to put the replacement bus stops back at the stations, restoring the old zig zag route from Caulfield to Moorabbin. Not that it’s regularly used; it comes into play if the line is suspended or there is planned maintenance (since the crossing projects were completed, none that I can recall).

  But this zig zag route has problems. I saw it in action a few weeks ago, when an incident at the pedestrian crossing between Glenhuntly and Ormond caused train services to be suspended from about 8pm until the last service.

  The buses diverted onto side streets to serve Glenhuntly, went past the accident site (!), then to Ormond, back to the main road, then off again to McKinnon and Bentleigh, then oddly back to the main road for a stop there in lieu of Patterson.

  It’s odd that they didn’t detour to Patterson. There is still old signage around that indicates rail buses used to make a detour. Maybe they want to make absolutely sure the buses stay away from the low bridge?

  

  With all that zig zagging, the end result is the bus took 27 minutes to travel 9.4 kilometres, or an average speed of 21 kilometres per hour. And this was at 10pm at night, with virtually no other road traffic along most of the route. No congestion, and little or no wait to turn from side streets into main roads.

  
  (Map courtesy of Michael)

  In contrast, the train normally takes 12 minutes. The parallel 822 bus, with far more stops than the train replacement bus, takes 18 minutes — and that’s with a detour through some of East Bentleigh’s back streets!

  Why Direct is better

  Usually overall faster for passengers, even those going to/from the stations without train service. A 5 minute walk from a direct route is quicker than buses winding in and out of side streets to get to the stations.

  Always faster for through passengers not using those stations

  Bus drivers unfamiliar with area are more likely to be able to find their way

  Easier for buses to navigate main roads. Smaller side streets may be physically difficult to turn in and out of, and may cause delays due to waiting for other traffic to turn

  Reduces the need to run separate express and stopping buses

  Because it’s quicker, the buses can run more often with the same fleet. This is particularly important in the time when buses are being organised, when resources may be thin on the ground.

  Why Zig zag is better

  Stops are close to stations, fairer for most passengers. Main road bus stops may be a long distance from stations

  Easier to find the temporary bus stop from station, as it’s nearby and familiar

  Supporting services like staff, toilets, maps, ticket machines, PSOs (after 6pm) are at the station

  

  So which is better?

  What other factors have I missed?

  During level crossing works, taxis were also available for those who couldn’t walk to the replacement bus stops or easily use the buses.

  And in some scenarios, some buses (for through passengers) can connect from other lines rather than running parallel to the railway line.

  Between Caulfield and Moorabbin, the logical main road route is close to the stations, about five minutes walk for most people. On this line, I’d probably say it makes more sense to use it for replacement buses than the zig zag route.

  On other sections of this and other lines, that may not be the case. But I don’t think rigidly zig zagging along a route to stop outside each station in every case (except Patterson?!) is necessarily the best outcome for passengers.

  • This ABC story from November is worth a read: Where do train replacement buses come from?
• Club Troppo Colin Hay

  I’m a big fan of Colin Hay, whom I saw on stage for the first time about three years ago. Hilariously funny and great songs. I particularly like “It’s a beautiful world”. The video above is a good clip showing how funny he is. It’s intriguing also that his Scottish accent is so strongly in tact and yet, unlike lots of people in that boat, he can mimic the local accent perfectly – and what it portends.

  Anyway, apropos of nothing in particular, here’s an open letter he penned to Justin Bieber. As you can see he is a fine writer.

  Dear Mr. Bieber,

  I am using you as a distraction, I have a show tonight, and I should be practising my pentatonics. I will, in a minute. It would seem that your antics of late have caused comments from many, and predictably, those with the least amount of talent, lash with the harshest tongues. It happens. Your kind of success has always been precarious. In the early 80s, I had monumental commercial success with my old band Men At Work, and although time and circumstances were different, some parallels can be drawn. Our first album “Business As Usual” sold over 10 million copies, was number 1 on the Billboard charts for 16 weeks, until Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” knocked us off. Good company indeed. We were kings for a couple of years. It was explosive. When the dust settled, I was alone. I looked around and everyone had left the party. My acoustic guitar was sitting in the corner, and luckily for me, it waited patiently till I eventually picked it up. For only in creative endeavor and service to others, do we receive by default, some salvation. Nothing else is important, everything else is distraction, like this note to you. But I felt compelled to write to you, albeit indirectly. I don’t know you, but I care about you, as you are a little one, like all of us, and in the end we all cry for our mama. The person holding your diet coke and slice of pizza is not necessarily your friend, and when your entourage shrinks, whether by design or circumstance, be glad, and just breathe. We know you can sing, dance, and apparently are quite handy with a spray can. But, we haven’t really heard you speak. Only time will tell if you have something to say.

  Colin

• Links International The House That Jack Built: Jack Mundey, Green Bans Hero

   

  

   

  The House That Jack Built: Jack Mundey, Green Bans Hero
  By James Colman
  NewSouth Publishing, 2016, 356 pages

   

  Reviewed by Phil Shannon

   

  Pavlovian hostility to construction industry unions and venom-flecked hatred of the environment movement is far from a new development amongst conservative commentators, notes James Colman (Sydney architect, urban planner and university lecturer) in his book, The House That Jack Built, on Jack Mundey, the 1970s New South Wales State Secretary of the Builders Labourers’ Federation (BLF) who originated the world’s first ‘green bans’ to save working class housing, historic buildings and urban bushland from the developers’ bulldozer.

   

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• Links International Punto muerto en Venezuela

   

  

   

  [Original version in English published on Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal here.]

   

  Federico Fuentes entrevista Steve Ellner. Traducido para Rebelión por Paco Muñoz de Bustillo

   

  Desde hace algunas semanas, Venezuela vive estremecida por manifestaciones casi diarias de protesta (y contraprotesta) con las que los oponentes de derechas del presidente Nicolás Maduro intentan derribar su gobierno.

   

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• Links International Stallo in Venezuela

   

  

   

  [Original version in English published on Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal here.]

   

  di Steve Ellner e Federico Fuentes, traduzione di Giuseppe Volpe, Da ZNetitaly

   

  13 maggio 2017 — Il Venezuela è stato scosso nelle settimane recenti da manifestazioni e contromanifestazioni quasi quotidiane, con gli oppositori di destra del presidente socialista Nicolas Maduro che cercano di far cadere il suo governo.

   

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