It is often suggested that technology makes people’s work easier. I’d like to suggest it just means you can get more done which does not necessarily translate into making one’s work easier.

I noticed in my daily run through all the state government press releases that Tasmania is now introducing Random Driver Drug-Testing. Dare I suggest that the motivation is in the first line of the press release:

Legislation to introduce random roadside drug-testing of drivers will take effect from July 1, torpedoing Opposition claims that the State Government was not serious about addressing the drug issue. (my emphasis)

That’s right kids, we’re tough on crime.

Federal Environment and Heritage Minister Ian Campbell has issued an emergency heritage listing of the Alpine National Park in order to maintain the cultural heritage of the Cattlemen.

My first reaction is something to the effect of ‘Hey, that sounds like the Franklin Damn case.’ However I wonder whether the listing has destruction over the licenses. I suspect that they don’t.

It seems to me that not renewing the grazing licenses is more like just not giving a casual employee and my shifts – effectively firing them without firing them. While I’m far from an expert I suspect that, constitutionally, you cannot force a state government to license someone. Furthermore, if this is the case, then it is simply a massive waste of government money as this unwinnable battle is taken to the High Court. Oh, to be a QC.

But this case is just Bizarre any way. What kind of Environment Minister says: “..my own view is that just banning something altogether is a very lazy and unsophisticated way to increase and improve biodiversity.” What do you call quarantine, or national parks for that matter where you specifically keep feral animals out to maintain biodiversity?

The Victorian National Parks Association has launched this web page regarding the use of the Alpine National Parks for cattle grazing.

Obviously I oppose this cattle grazing and I can’t help but feel you could do worse than leanding your support to these guys.

So I rode to my parents again last night. It was much easier this time but still nearly killed me. Hopefully in a month or so it will be much easier.

These day’s I’m powered by my own sense of self satisfaction. Thoughts of my massive levels of efficiency excite me no end and longer distances are becoming easier everyday making this form of transport increasingly feasible and this self satisfaction is quickly turning into self righteousness as I start to wonder why more people don’t use this wonderful means of transport (although I am starting to notice that there are a lot more of us than I thought).

I understand that Melbourne is the third biggest city in the world by landmass. The only two bigger cities in the world are Mexico City an LA. The average distance travelled to work each day in Melbourne is 22 km which is hardly surprising considering this. What an ecological disaster. I work about 3 blocks from where I live so this isn’t an issue for me. But if the 15/20 km to my parents place kills me, there is no way I’d ride to work over that distance – it is just too draining and it is horrible sitting in an over heated office covered in sweat.

Surely this is a significant barrier to cycling and surely few things should be encouraged more than cycling.

(cross posted at the Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice’s Blog

A little while back I was asked in the comments field over at about my opinions on public infrastructure being free.

I made the comment with regards to tolls on public roads but the broader point is quite interesting here and it is an area that I’m not overly familiar with so hopefully we can tease it out a little in the comments field.

Firstly public infrastructure should be free where humans are dependant on it. When I say public infrastructure I mean it in a quite broad sense so it includes utilities, health and education. As a basic human right, we should have access to free and high quality health care. At the moment we largely have this although services are declining. The classic example of where our health care system is in crisis would be hip replacements where it is classed as elective surgery so waiting lists are up to six months long and it is very painful until you have this surgery. Moreover, a trip to your GP should be free. No doubt our Medicare system is in crisis at the moment as is evidenced by the decreasing number of GPs that bulk bill.

Much the same goes for Tertiary education, including universities, TAFEs and other training institutions. It should be free. End of story. A friend of mine asked me over dinner the other day if I thought free education was possible anymore, to which I replied that it has to be. I’ll discuss costing in a moment but the point for now is that investments in Tertiary education are long term investments – ten years at least. Howard’s short term planning will be a problem for Australia in future years as we continue to rely on primary exports to prop up our economy when we should be developing a highly intelligent ‘knowledge economy’ that a country as rich and privileged as Australia should have.

The two examples above are fairly straight forward, but what about utilities like gas, water and electricity? Privatisation is ushering in an era of what is called ‘fuel poverty’ due to the increasing costs of these utilities. In other words, low income people are having to either go cold (or hot) which can become a life of death issue – particularly for the elderly and immunocompromised or they are sacrificing food for ‘fuel’ (utility bills). To overcome this issue I’d recommend providing a base level of ‘fuel’ to all households at no cost. That would mean that the first however many megawatts of energy or megalitres of water would come free and this amount, while modest, would be sufficient enough to maintain a reasonable lifestyle. Furthermore I’d suggest that there be incentives given to prevent people from using more than this amount, perhaps by making anything over this amount quite expensive. This would mean returning the utilities to public hands and there are environmental concerns here but more about that later.

So is this affordable? I’m hardly going to provide a full costing of all these measures and weigh them up against our national budget and so forth. However I will make the point that with a revamp of our entire budget this would be quite feasible. Australia is a very low taxing country. We should be taxing higher to provide these services. Obviously the recent tax cuts for high income Australians are obscene. Our tax system needs to be fair and proportional to income but higher across the board. In return there is no need for private health insurance (freeing up all the money that is going towards the 30% rebate for private health insurance) and people like me with huge HECS debts would have our incomes increased because we would no longer be paying off this HECS. So there are many flow-on effects from a complete rearrangement of our budget.

In addition, military spending could be a lot less and I suspect there are many other areas where spending could be reduced in order to make those funds available else where. There are also issues of state and federal relations here however this is far too complex to explore here and has been explored more than adequately in the blogsphere of late..

Providing free resources is probably an abhorrent idea to many environmentalists. Surely this would just speed up the use of our resources. Moreover, it is the opinion of the Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice that environmental and social justice are two parts of the same whole and therefore we cannot compromise either but must strive for both. However, this is a whole of government approach and to put environmental concerns in a silo would be contrary to this ACDJ principle. Firstly, by creating a ‘knowledge economy’ we can reduce our reliance on primary exports which is an ecological disaster. Our relationship with Japan with regards to wood chipping is a classic example. The pricing system for people exceeding their free quota of water, gas and electricity would hopefully prevent most people from exceeding this quota as well. Moreover, we need to massively invest in renewable energies and move away from water intensive farming for our primary exports (hopefully a knowledge economy can help here). In addition, housing stock needs to radically improve with regards to energy efficiency. The five star homes initiative introduced in Victoria by the Bracks government (and I suspect there are similar schemes happening in other states) is a great first step but doesn’t go nearly far enough.

So if we are to return these things to public hands then what about all the problems and inefficiencies that are so often associated with public ownership? For a start I think this problem is often overstated. That is not to say that this isn’t a problem. I also oppose big government in some senses because it can have too much power and this can lead to a less accountable, less democratic system. However I am quite in favour of big government in terms of being fairly high spending (albeit responsibly). They can also be quite good at creating an economy of scale which has a greater ability to provide for the needs of minority or specialised groups.

So what I’d recommend as opposed to the highly centralised and bureaucratic systems that have prevailed in the past is a highly decentralised model that is regionally based. By doing this you break the bureaucracy up a lot and become more responsive to local needs. (I really have to reference my fellow director, Simon, for this idea – I’m sure it’s been said before but he put it to me in a way that finally made sense).

Finally it is important to note that all these trends are part of a broader neo-liberal Globalisation that Howard, and all the state governments tow the line of. It is a major part of both bilateral and multilateral agreements that more and more Australia is coming worse off from and other countries are suffering much more. The example of the protests against water privatisation in Bolivia provides us with a great example of resistance to this. If you are interested in Bolivia further then there is plenty of material on the web, as well as it being mentioned in the film, The Corporation which I highly recommend.

Moreover, hopefully the system I have proposed here would allow for a more just an equitable system that would help to improve our democracy in Australia.

Please be gentle in your comments – I’m still testing a lot of the ideas out, but please point out any flaws in my arguments.

Over at Hip Hop Music there is some well wicked Graff.

As you are probably aware, my motorbike was recently stolen and as time goes by the chances of it being recovered are drastically reduced.

Fortunately, by an amazing coincidence I had just busted out the old pushy the weekend before and got it serviced. So for the last fortnight or so I’ve been riding my push bike everywhere. Slow and slowly I’ve been extending my reach, every time arriving drenched in sweat and puffing away but pleased by the fact that it didn’t hurt anymore than it did.

So today I took the plunge. I rode to my parents place in Caulfield South which would be about 15 – 20 km from my place in West Melbourne. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought. The pain was deep in my legs and I was a little wobbly but all in all I wasn’t too bad. My plan was to ride to the station and catch the train home.

However what I discovered was that there seems to be a release of endorphins or some other neurological thingy. I couldn’t stop giggling to myself. So I rode all the way home. The first big hill hurt a lot but I refused to get off an walk. The rest of the way was fine.

I heard Frank Fisher talk on environmental issues at last year’s Melbourne Social Forum and one of the thing he said that stood out was how riding a bike was demeaning – particularly in the context of road use. I couldn’t disagree more.

A Colleague of mine has a good idea. Tie everyone’s wages to politicians. That would keep wages up.

CCH draws our attention to the PM’s pay rise:

Prime Minister John Howard has used his budget tax cuts to argue against a $26 a week rise for Australia’s poorest workers – then defended his own $11,000 a year pay rise.

Mr Howard, who says his government is the best friend the Australian worker has ever had, says pay rises for politicians are justified because both sides of politics need to attract talented people.