Monthly Archives: February 2012

A little Canadian activism against IP maximalism

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The Canadians, who have a very strong IP regime have been put on the American’s USTR Special 301 Priority Watch List. So they’re getting going tightening up their IP for the delectation of the IP boosters. The Spaniards have already passed a SOPA style law that enables complainants to take down sites accused of taking inadequate steps against IP violations (What steps does Dropbox take for instance?) within ten days of complaint without due process. So it’s important that this kind of madness be stopped.

The global conspiracy to miss the point

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ScreenHunter_16 Feb. 25 01.47I see there’s a US nationwide campaign against private for-profit prisons. Maybe the campaigners are right. It’s certainly easy to imagine ways in which the profit motive would work against the interests of prison inmates and the public interest in lower recidivism rates and so on. Yet at least judging by the sign, it’s notable how the campaign is based not around either of these things but how the idea of private prisons makes us feel. How does it make us feel?  Well yucky. But that’s at least in part because prisons make us feel yucky.

Then again in some senses private anything sounds somehow worse than publicly supplied something. Who’d want those greedy private business people selling us bread? Wouldn’t they be tempted to cut corners, put in lousy flour and charge us too much?  Public providers of bread wouldn’t do that would they? Well we all know (I think) that those things that the private providers would like to do, they can’t do in a competitive industry.  So on reflection we’d rather take our chances against the pathologies of private sector misbehaviour than public sector misbehaviour.

And if private prisons are bad, the trouble is, we know that state run prisons are horrible too.

Then we all go into our corners with the people with the signs to your left arguing that privately owned prisons are Bad and economic rationalists arguing “what’s wrong with private ownership?” and assuming that all objections to private prisons are irrational and that the real issue is always and everywhere the adequacy of contracting.

It seems to me that the emotions around the campaign are reasonable enough. We want some kind of fiduciary relation – between the prison and the public interest and the prison and the prisoners’ interest. And profit seeking makes us uneasy about this. But like I said, however this is done it needs to be brought within some kind of organisational logic and there are likely to be some nasty things about that – whether you go public or private.

I made the same kind of point when offering a sympathetic critique of Ken Harvey’s opposition of ads in medical prescription software. Yes ads are tacky – indeed they’re ethically dubious. But while we squabble about that we seem to spend almost no time on a much more compelling question which is how could we use things like medical prescription software as decision support technology and in so doing hugely improve the quality of prescribing.

And I’ve suggested the same thing regarding regulation of financial advisors and other professionals. “We regulate them within an inch of their lives, and there’s disclosure regulation all over them, but no-one troubles them to (for instance) keep sample portfolios to demonstrate how capable or not at what they are advising others to do.”

We won’t get far while stuck in the ‘regulation as morality play’ rut. But how does one get out of it? Any suggestions?

Australia hosts secret trade agreement negotiations this week in Melbourne

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This Thursday, behind closed doors in Melbourne, representatives from nine countries including Australia will take up discussions once again on an ambitious, comprehensive trade agreement for the Asia-Pacific region. Negotiators from Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Vietnam, Malaysia, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore will pore over draft treaty text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, an agreement to cover all aspects of commercial relations between the countries, from competition and customs to e-commerce, rules of origin and labor, from textiles and apparel to telecommunications and intellectual property.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is being touted as a 21st century model for regional trade integration.The intellectual property chapter for the TPP will lay out lengthy, highly detailed, coverage of all aspects of IP enforcement and protection  between the nine countries. It will cover the terms of access to and use of copyright works. It will prescribe limited circumstances in which consumers are permitted to circumvent digital locks to access copyright work. It will also consider the scope of criminal penalties and statutory damages for acts of copyright infringement.

Because all of the negotiating texts are secret, it’s hard to say exactly how the IP provisions of the TPP are being drafted, and what the end agreement will look like. There has been one leaked draft of the IP chapter since negotiations began and if legitimate, indicates that there’s a lot to be anxious about.

Continue reading →

The “It’s Time” of 2012?

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We keep reading claims that Tony Abbott is a low-grade politician who would be wiped off the face of Australian politics if the ALP could only get its act together. Since Abbott has already knocked off one of Australia’s most popular prime ministers and taken another to within an inch of election defeat, it seems more likely that he knows what he’s doing.

The latest evidence of Abbott’s cluefulness has come over the Christmas break. He has adopted a piece of communication that can take him a good way towards the next election:

“We can be better than this”

If the Coalition plays it right, this short and sharp line could be the “It’s Time” of 2012. It manages to go not just beyond criticism of the government but beyond conservative politics as well. It’s a line that can underpin his transition from “negativity” to producing the thing he is shortest on, which is actual policy. It can appeal to middle-of-the-road voters who glance at politics only from time to time. It’s a claim about the Coalition, but also about the nation. It’s ideal for the world of the three-second media grab, but can work in longer statements too. It’s personally ideal for Abbott, with his strong moral streak and his belief (not universal among modern conservatives) that government is a high calling. It can underpin everything he says.

And it has been particularly well-suited to the past week, when even the most uninterested voter will have noticed that the ALP seems to be having a rather messy domestic argument.

No doubt many people will accuse Abbott of hypocrisy, dark intent, attempting to take Australia back to a mythical 1950s White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant-picket-fence era, etc etc. That misses the point. “We can be better than this” is a terrific way to communicate your commitment. Labor could have used it equally well in 2007.

And it’s good for politics to have politicians arguing that politics and Australian democracy should have a high moral aspect. Just as one example, repeating that “we can be better than this” makes it hard to spend the rest of your time saying “turn back the boats”.

There’s surely a lesson here for the ALP, whose most memorable line from the past week is the Infrastructure and Transport Minister’s disclosure that his life’s calling is “fighting Tories”. I understand the temptation, and have enjoyed the activity myself from time to time. But as a message to a jaded public, it’s pure poison. Yet it was still being quoted with enthusiastic approval this morning by Senator Doug Cameron. Thousands of listeners no doubt wondered what has happened to aspirations to run the country well. (Others no doubt wondered what a “Tory” is: the term is far less common here than in the UK or Canada.)

The PM, like her predecessor, seems to understand that people want leaders with great public purpose. Hence the lines in her address yesterday:

“When [the public] look at politicians, actually the doubts that they have is that we are in it for a purpose. That we are in it with some courage to get behind a purpose that we believe is right … I intend to be a stronger and more forceful advocate of what we are doing and what we are achieving for the Australian people.”

Gillard’s address has much to recommend it. It also suffers from the problem which Peter Brent has neatly titled Too Much Meta: Gillard has been explaining that she plans to win back the public, instead of actually winning back the public.

With luck, though, the PM’s address is just the necessary prelude to the renewed focus on governing well which is now so vital to the ALP’s long-term success. Governing well is something Gillard is perfectly capable of doing. It also represents Labor’s best chance to win back the public.

Oppositions can talk about how good they will be. Governments get to show it, which creates a far deeper and more lasting impression.

ANU’s Philosophy Department and Chancellor exceed their KPIs Shock!

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Alvy Singer: What’s with all these awards? They’re always giving out awards. Best Fascist Dictator: Adolf Hitler. 

Annie Hall

 

It was with great excitement that I read my alumni news for ANU this month. Extraordinary things are happening. KPIs are being broken through all over.

ANU has excelled in the highly influential Philosophical Gourmet Report.

Announced last week, the Report ranks the top universities around the globe based on reputational surveys completed by over 250 philosophers.

ANU took out the top ranking in Australia, ahead of the University of Sydney’s philosophy department, the only other Australian institution in the top 50, which ranked at 45.

Internationally, ANU ranked 15 in the world, equal with Cornell University and The University of California, Berkeley, and ahead of every department in the United Kingdom except that of Oxford University.

ANU also excelled in the speciality ranking, coming out equal first in the current hot topics of Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Biology.

More information on the Report rankings is available at http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall.asp

Not only that but Gareth Evans the New(ish) Chancellor of the ANU has exceeded his KPIs too:

ANU Chancellor Professor the Hon Gareth Evans AO QC has been named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top Global Thinkers of 2011.

The annual list, which is judged by a group of prominent international peers, recognises the 100 individuals who have shaped the global conversation and world’s best ideas over the last 12 months.

Professor Evans has been named on the 2011 list with Special Adviser to the U.N. Secretary General, Frances Deng, for making the idea of a ‘responsibility to protect’ more than an academic concept. According to Foreign Policy, the pair took the concept from “airy theory held by a small cadre of human rights advocates to a guiding principle of the world’s strongest military alliance”.

Gareth came in at 52/100 just behind John McCain who, on account of past thinking efforts, has always enjoyed an open invitation to blog here at Troppo.

Saving the furniture that really matters: the ALP challenge for the next decade

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The picture of Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership painted over the weekend by former speechwriter Jamie Button ought to be fatal to Rudd’s leadership bid. It jibes with a number of other assessments, including some just this week by senior Cabinet ministers like Nicola Roxon. To the best of my knowledge, Button’s is a pretty accurate picture:

“The truth is, Rudd was impossible to work with. He regularly treated his staff, public servants and backbenchers with rudeness and contempt. He was vindictive, intervening to deny people appointments or preselections, often based on grudges that went back years.

“He made crushing demands on his staff, and when they laboured through the night to meet those demands, they received no thanks, and often the work was not used. People who dared stand up to him were put in ‘the freezer’ and not consulted or spoken to for months. The prodigious loyalty of his staff to him was mostly not repaid. He put them down behind their backs. He seemed to feel that everyone was always letting him down. In meetings, as I saw, he could emanate a kind of icy rage that was as mysterious as it was disturbing.

“He governed by – seemed almost to thrive on – crisis. Important papers went unsigned, staff and public servants would be pulled onto flights, in at least one case halfway around the world, on the off chance that he needed to consult them. Vital decisions were held up while he struggled to make up his mind, frequently demanding more pieces of information that merely delayed the final result. The fate of the government seemed to hinge on the psychology of one man.

“As I watched this unfold in Canberra, I tried hard to put aside my own poor experience of working for Rudd. I had also been a journalist for more than 20 years, and I knew that just because three people complain about something or someone it does not make it true. When 30 or more witnesses do, you can start to believe it.”

That account is all the more compelling because Jamie Button has a deserved reputation as an upright and decent journalist. And he’s the son of much-missed ALP hero John Button to boot.

The move to reinstall Kevin Ruddd as prime minister is frequently described in terms of “saving the furniture”, a way of saying that Rudd will lose the ALP less seats than Gillard at the next election.

But Labor’s biggest problem may not be that it will lose a lot of seats at the next election.

Losing a bag of seats is pretty much a given. The 2012 or 2013 election will almost certainly not repeat the events of 1993, with Labor coming from behind to score an upset win. (If Labor did come from behind, it would probably require the sort of dubious policies – notably those cancelled L-A-W tax cuts – that helped hand Labor such a big loss one election later, in 1996.) Labor’s fate at the next election seems written at this point.

But winning the next election is not the only game the ALP must play. Labor’s biggest problem may instead be something worse.

Consider. Two of its past four leaders – Latham and Rudd – have been in their different ways dysfunctional. In both cases, but especially in the case of Rudd, that dysfunctionality has now been pretty well documented in a way that will linger for years. And still today, many in the ALP are talking more loudly in public about the need to beat Tony Abbott than they are about the need to run a good government.

In short, the ALP now faces a “good government” challenge as big as the “economic management” challenge it faced in 1975. In the wake of the Whitlam government, Labor’s greatest struggle was to convince voters it could be trusted with the economy. After Rudd, its biggest problem may be that voters do not trust it with the machinery of government. After the ructions of the federal and NSW parties, voters may start to worry that the ALP will install someone who can beat the Coalition regardless of whether they can run a government. If that happens, Labor will start to find that it doesn’t matter who they put in the leadership: the ALP brand has been so damaged that voters start to be much less trusting of whoever is leader, and whatever ideas they offer.

“Good government” has never been one of the ALP’s most beloved phrases. When you speak to the ALP, you speak of being a “reforming government” or even a “crusading government”. The party has an underdog mentality: it thinks that when it gets in, it shakes up the place and then, in its favorite tragic story, inevitably loses.

That mentality needs to change now. In the past 40 years the ALP has been in government as often as out of it. It won’t be easy, but “good government” is now a quality the ALP has to add to its brand.

That’s an argument for keeping Julia Gillard as PM, no matter what she polls. But more importantly, it’s the challenge for the ALP to 2020 and beyond.

Missing Link Friday – Rudd vs Gillard

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The view from America: "the plot has thickened like barbie sauce and Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott is the happiest man in Australia." Aaron Goldstein, The Spectacle Blog.

Gillard government a policy free zone: "Now that the Rudd agenda has mostly been passed or abandoned, Gillard has no policies whatsoever, a point I made some time ago." John Quiggin.

Policy isn’t Labor’s problem: "alone of Australian institutions the ALP conducts no systemic training for its personnel, no mentoring, no coaching, no management of high potential talent. And we pay the price with spokespeople thrust into jobs with no preparation and no support or guidance. Good cases are lost because nobody can articulate them, our debating prowess has leached from the organization." Bob Carr, Thoughtlines.

What does it mean for women in politics? "my greater concern is that Gillard’s particularly choppy time in leadership will be remembered by the Australian people and taken as representative of what things are like when a woman is in charge – and that as a result, our second woman Prime Minister will be a long time coming." Chloe Angyal , Feministing.

For the good of the party? Comments on the Kevin Connects blog:

"Stick it to the caucus … POWER TO THE PEOPLE"

"Just a thought, why dont you form your own party?, you at least have 30 serving politicians by your side and no faceless men!!"

"abandon the challenge and go independant! You will be savaged by your colleagues but you are now anyway."

"MMM the speach is full of ‘I’. I have my doubts about K Rudd. He seems to have narcissistic tendencies, despite sound policies and an intellectual mind."

Huh? Alison Caddick’s editorial in Arena.

What leadership challenge? "The US Presidential election is the most important we will have this year anywhere on the planet, and may in the long run affect us in Australia even more than any election we might contrive to have ourselves." Steve Kates, Catallaxy.

Updates …

That’s not a leadership battle: "compared with the bone crushing, rugby style of Australia’s governing Labor Party; the GOP proceedings seem like a game of touch football by comparison." Aaron Goldstein, The American Spectator.

Zombie-Rudd: "This is like Julius Caesar, reinterpreted as a Zombie flick." J Murph, Twitter.

Robot vs Zombie: "Robot overlord goads zombie army to attack. Most faeries wonder what fuss is about. Wish they’d all just get on with improving the kingdom." Argumentalist, Twitter.

Lucky us! "Rudd-Gillard debacle sign of Australia’s privilege: countries don’t allow themselves such diversions unless things are going v well." Alain de Botton‏, Twitter.