The Fabians are emulating the CIS (I think) in establishing a essay competition for young people. The details are overleaf and if you win from the competition after finding out about it here we’ll throw in an additional prize. A year’s subscription to Troppo (if you win the prize two years running we’ll make it a life membership). And dinner with Ken Parish and Nicholas Gruen when they’re next in the same city (your shout).
Details below the fold. Young Writers Competition for the Race Mathews Award
What are the most important issues facing Australia today?
What practical policy solutions do you have to address those issues?
Can you convince people of your argument in 1,000 words?
FIRST PRIZE
* A return airfare with QANTAS to London.
* A living allowance and month-long internship at DEMOS, one of the UK’s
leading think tanks.
* Your article published in The Australian newspaper.
JUDGING PANEL
* Julia Gillard, Federal Member for Lalor and Shadow Health Minister
* Warren Mundine, National President of the Australian Labor Party
* Tom Switzer, Opinion Editor at The Australian
* Evan Thornley, National Secretary of the Australian Fabians.
ENTRY DETAILS
The competition is for all young political thinkers and activists in
Australia aged 18 – 28.
1. Opinion pieces can be on any policy issue facing Australian
progressive politics today.
2. Entries should be no longer than 1,000 words, with no footnotes.
3. Entries will be judged for their originality, fluency of style and
their
practical solutions to current issues.
To enter please visit www.fabian.org.au/competition
Damn … missed out by six years … Where were these competitions when I was under 28?
Missed out by 1 year. I doubt anything I wrote would find favour with that judging panel in any case.
I presume Tom Switzer is on the panel to provide some political balance or as a devil’s advocate?
Maybe just the Devil?
Well the Devil you know anyway.
Mind you – the devil is in the detail.
Trying to make a firebreak for Homer?
Speak of the devil.
Do we have any lawyers familiar with Copyright law here? I’m just curious if this condition of entry:
entitles the Fabian Society to say, “no, you didn’t write this, it was Donald Duck. Oh, and by the way, we didn’t like the way you thought the Howard government was great, you actually think it is eeeevil,” and you can’t do anything about it.
Or am I missing something here?
Devillish really – sorry I’d better stop that – perhaps I will turn into Homer!
More seriously . . . Ken and perhaps some others may have some wise words. But a hell of a lot of contracts get written like that. Lawyers write one sided contracts just to remove some right
Actually, you can’t read a mortgage contract unless you are a historian because they ceased to exist decades ago – mortgages per se were indeed ‘one-sided’ as you call it, but perhaps efficiently so given the times.
Mortgages have become so much less and less one-sided (for nearly a century now) that the word no longer means what it once did – basically an exclusive and unemcumbered right to take possession – since such a contract is no longer even possible in these days of unconscionability, undue influence, fair trading, and so on.
Also N Gruen is quite right that legal rights surprisingly rarely trump practical considerations, such as loss of reputation or damage to relationships.