Club Troppo

Notes written at 12,000 metres. On various planes between Australia and Europe going hither and yon I had the chance to see most of the film Australia. Ive just filled in on most bits I missed going hither (from Beijing to Helsinki) going yon (from Helsinki to Honkers). There...

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As Chris Dillow from Stumbling and Mumbling argues David Semple thinks the left should join American tea parties, which protest against high taxes. I think I agree. The desire to shrink the state should be a leftist aim. I say so for four reasons. 1. Big government cannot be r...

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In case anyone's interested, some time commenter on Troppo and IP analyst turned impresario of rupute Duncan Bucknell asked me to participate in a podcast on manufacturing for export - one of my causes du jour . So feel free to have a listen if you like. Of course there are ge...

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Sometimes videos detract from an original piece of music. This vid is just too obvious and adds a little too much schmaltz to Mitch Benn's funny and rather moving little number. I think it's better with your eyes closed.

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Yesterday's "boat people" explosion near Ashmore Reef west of Darwin, in which 3 people were apparently killed outright and many more seriously injured, has eerie if obvious parallels with the "children overboard" saga of 2001 which helped John Howard to his third successive e...

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I don't have time right now to read the essay which is abstracted below . But I'd love to. And I don't really have time to defend the propositions that I'll put before you here, nor to get them into a state that I would be confident I wouldn't have to revise once I'd posted th...

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President Iloilo [ Cross-posted from the blog I run for CDU public law students ] There doesn't seem to be anything especially remarkable about the current (2009) Fiji coup whereby Fiji's ageing and ailing President Josefa Iloilo sacked the Fiji Court of Appeal which only last...

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Not so long ago Nicholas Gruen published a post lamenting the extraordinary cost and complexity of civil litigation in Australia and common law countries generally. He ascribed it partly to the adversarial system and canvassed the possible advantages of a more European-style i...

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(*This was posted elsewhere for my CDU Intro to Public Law students, so it might be a bit dry and technical for some. Nevertheless others might find it worth reading) The Rudd government's proposed reforms to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) ("FOI Act" ), sponsored by...

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East Point beach, pretty much where the channel and lock would go through for "Arafura Harbour" according to the concept plan. I suspect this aspect of the plan will change to force the channel to emerge on the north side of East Point, which would make a lot more sense. I've...

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Richard Ackland has an enjoyable rant this week about an upcoming UN talkfest in Geneva known as Durban II. It's organised by the UN Human Rights Council, which in a delightful (but typical of the UN) irony is chaired by Libya. As Ackland points out: The Human Rights Council i...

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Fiji's president takes charge (SMH) Fiji is in a state of political flux after President President Ratu Josefa Iloilo announced he had repealed the country's constitution, appointed himself head of state and set a 2014 election deadline. He said on Friday he had also sacked al...

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Internet company to be sold by 2022 (SMH) THE Rudd Government will next month try to lock Parliament in to approving the sale of its new broadband company by 2022 in a bid to avoid a repeat of the bitter Senate debates over the privatisation of Telstra. In an interview with th...

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Herewith my column in today's SMH , replacing Ross Gittins as you eat your Weeties. Thanks as ever to James Farrell for reading an earlier draft and making suggestions - something he does and I fail to acknolwedge on many columns. Cut-throat behaviour makes empathy flow Ages a...

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The police have been dusting for prints. There are dark smudges on the laundry door around the handle and locks. The forensics officer suggested I wipe it off with a dry cloth. It turns black if gets wet, she said. The powder is surprisingly difficult to remove and seems to ha...

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I'm in a London pub thinking of all the Troppodillians back home and of course I'm thinking of intellectual property. Today's column in the Fin outlines a very stupid situation we have gotten outselves into. (This was a direct washup of our previous Prime Minister's leadership...

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I dont know whether youve noticed, but theres a bit of an obsession with crime thats built up the last few years. I put it down to the Underbelly effect. The writhing naked bodies and the brazen offhand, almost pedestrian depiction of violent and murderous crime, has been migh...

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Dave Bloustien looks like a cross between Dr. Who and a 1960s mod with a cravat, waistcoat and sideburns. Certainly a contrast to the t-shirt and jeans that constitutes the usual comedy clobber, but Mr. Boustein doesnt deliver the usual stand-up routine either. Instead he offe...

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At last, a brief article on the financial crisis that goes behind the facade to look at some of the deeper structural issues. The author is Satyajit Das and the article ("Built to Fail ") was published in the latest Monthly . He sees the principle cause as excessive debt: The...

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