There has been much speculation in the Australian media about the possible return of Kevin Rudd MP as the leader of the Australian Labor Party, currently the Federal Government.

He was deposed by his deputy in a ‘bloody coup’ (only metaphorically speaking) last year.

The media has had a field day with the Rudd to Return speculation, which is odd as I simply can’t see it happening.

During his tenure as PM and leader of the party, Rudd was exposed as a very poor leader, he was shown to be controlling and unable to negotiate or compromise.  It was widely accepted that he was obsessed with style over substance, manipulative towards the media, travelled too much, enjoyed pointless talk fests and presided over poorly managed public sector programs.

Crucially, he was also very unpopular with everyday Australians.

For these reasons his return would be a kamikaze move by the Labour Party and simply won’t happen.

Yet we’re subject to the endless speculation by the media and the opposition (and possibly fuelled by Rudd), which undermines the Government and detracts from the very very important issues of the day.

There are only two possible explanations – either they think we’re stupid or they actually believe this stuff, which makes them stupid.

]]> http://justanother24hours.com/politics/kevin-rudd-to-return-really/feed/ 1 http://justanother24hours.com/politics/rudd-prepares-for-military-strike-by-china-but-why/ http://justanother24hours.com/politics/rudd-prepares-for-military-strike-by-china-but-why/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 11:53:30 +0000 Daniel Young http://justanother24hours.com/?p=584 Australia ‘enjoys’ an uncertain relationship with China.

Two stories caught my eye in the last week which illustrate this point.

1. Kevin Rudd announced a 3 per cent increase in defence spending and directly references the military build up in China as the justification for the spend, which will be detailed in the upcoming Federal budget. Current annual defence funding is in excess of $20bn.

2. The Reserve Bank takes the decision not to cut interest rates and cites recovery in China and the firming up of commodity prices as a key driver for an upswing in the Australian economy.

So in a nutshell Australia is arming itself to defend itself against the threat posed by a major trading partner.

I fail to see why China would invade / attack Australia especially if China consumes more and more of Australia’s raw materials and commodities in the coming years, as the Reserve Bank predicts.

With all due respect, what would be the point?

In an official response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhong Xu said that “China is a peaceful force that forms no threat to any other countries.”

I appreciate that Australia needs to be aware of what is going on in the region but surely there are more progressive approaches available to the Australian Government, especially from a leader who has capitolised on a strong and long personal relationship with China.

No-One!

oh, hold on …the Government!

The Government awarded the contract for its National Broadband Network build to itself having ‘formally teminated’ the NBN tender.

The proposals submitted by Acacia, Axia Netmedia, Optus, Tasmania, Telstra and TransACT were ‘under-developed’ – especially Telstra’s effort.

The Australian Federal Government will establish a public private partnership to roll out ‘the largest investment in infrastructure’ in Australia’s history. In five years time the Government will sell down the company as a wholesale and open access network operator.  

The Government also announced a discussion paper to seek public comment on ways to improve telecommunications regulation to make it work more effectively in the interest of consumers and businesses.  The Government is keen to break Telstra’s ‘monopoly’ hold on telecommunications services in Australia as the owner of the once public telecommunciations infrastructure and the largest retail service provider in the country.

It’s hard to believe that the Government doesn’t have a pre-prescribed view on what form telecommunications de-regulation (the separation of Telstra’s operations) should take given the size ($43billion) and scope (fibre to the home) of its public private solution.

The Regulatory Reform paper canvasses a range of options for reform, including:

• streamlining current regulatory processes, by allowing the ACCC to set up-front access terms for companies wanting access to Telstra and other networks;
• strengthening the powers of the ACCC to tackle anti-competitive conduct by allowing it to impose binding rule of conduct when issuing competition notices;
• promoting greater competition across the industry, including through measures to better address Telstra’s vertical and horizontal integration, such as functional separation;
• addressing competition and investment issues arising from cross-ownership of fixed-line and cable networks, and telecommunications and media assets;
• improving universal access arrangements for telephony and payphones; and
• introducing more effective rules, requiring telephone companies to make connections and repairs within set time-frames.

The Government is seeking submissions by 3 June 2009, before making final decisions and introducing legislation into the Parliament.

The net result of this anouncement is delay. The Government is taking on a high risk project – public private partnerships don’t have a fantastic track record in Australia. Many are suffering from a lack of private funding.

The Government directly references Telstra’s control of the last mile as one of the reasons for failing the NBN tenderers - citing their exposure to extensive legal liabilities which make the business case for building the network unpredictable and untenable.

The biggest obstacle between the Government and a national high speed broadband network continues to be Telstra. Its appropriate for Telstra to protect its business interests having been fully privatised by the Federal Government just over 2 years ago.

Could this new approach by the Government be designed to provide an incentive for Telstra to separate its wholesale and retail operations and partner with the Government to establish the nbn, which would make it the ideal purchaser of the network assets in 5-years time.

It also provides the Federal Government with an opportunity to stimulate the national economy through job creation and big fees for consultants as we embark on YET ANOTHER episode in the long drawn out saga of a high speed broadband network spanning the country.

Finally, combined with the proposed Internet filter this strategy will provide the Government with a great deal of control over the Internet – lets hope they wield this power in a truly open fashion.

This extract from the Government Panel Evaluation Report provides a succinct summary of the decision making process.

Do you know who I am?

The Access Card was the latest attempt by Federal and State Governmentin Australia to introduce an identity card.

The world has changed significantly since 2006 – we’ve seen a major shift in consumer attitudes towards personal information as a result of mainstream social networking.

Internet companies now have access to vast amounts of data and in a wide variety of formats, take Google Street View for example.

Companies like Salesforce.com are tapping into social networks in order to cross reference the information that is readily available there with the information that they hold in databases and CRM systems.

Governments around the world have invested heavily in bail-outs and stimulus packages sending many into deep deficits.  Will the heightened need to ensure that public funds are spent wisely strengthen the argument for citizen accountability via an identity card?

One wonders if these developments will compromise attempts to oppose the introduction of an identity card – or equivalent – in the future.

The issue of a Smart Card for public health services is back on the agenda in Australia.

It seems like a no brainer to me to consolidate various social services and entitlements onto one identity card to improve management of public funds and reduce fraud.

The Liberal opposition has accussed Kevin Rudd of backflipping. There is no doubt that this was a pretty controversial policy prior to the election. Both parties did their best to distance themselves from the idea in the run up to the election, the Labour Party more so (since it wasn’t their idea).

This week, Shadow Human Services Minister, Senator Helen Coonan, said:“The Howard government invested millions of dollars getting together the expertise, systems and technology necessary for the smart card to beat welfare cheats.”In other words, the Howard Government wasted millions because this came to nothing.

The previous Government failed to engage the numerous stakeholders on this issue, they failed to design a card that did the job required of it but also addressed some of the issues raised by its opponents, primarily related to privacy and personal information.

They invited the IT community to pitch to tender for a card that had no design – they hadn’t even decided whether it would contain a photo of the cardholder or what sort of biometric information would be stored on it.

The previous Government need to engage stakeholders to design a card that everyone could agree with and then – more importantly – they need to SELL the concept to the community. They failed.  I think the Smart Card is a bit of a no brainer and I hope the new Government actually starts the conversation to ensure that the desired outcomes are controlled and delivered. This is a big issue for the community but getting everyone facing in the right direction and ‘on board’ is essential.

The objectives of the research were to:

• Capture data on the frequency and type of new media used by Australian Federal politicians, parties, interest groups and activists
• Provide an analysis of the new media used to identify the range of viewpoints and the level of interactivity and community engagement attempted or achieved

Overall, the level of engagement achieved had been minimal due to the failure of the politicians to use the power of social media to engage and interact. Only one of the 226 politicians studied allowed negative comments to appear on their site (this was Malcolm Turnbull). In all other cases, comments sections were either not available or carried purely fan mail i.e. positive/supportive messages. Very small numbers replied to questions submitted via Websites and social networks, completely missing the opportunity to engage in conversation and drive advocacy.

Some figures:

• Less than 6% of selected Federal politicians had a new media presence assessed as “fairly interactive” (i.e. involving links inviting people to comment, ask questions or leave messages)
• 185 elected Federal politicians had new media sites which were completly one-way information dissemination with no opportunity for comment or input by members of the public
• Web and other sites of 70 elected Federal politicians comprised a single page and were judged to be a ‘token effort’
• Only three (1.3 per cent) were classified as “very comprehensive”, assessed on the basis of multiple pages plus links to other information such as blogs, podcasts or YouTube. The Kevin07 site was one of the three.
• Two Websites were judged to be amateurish and the majority were based on templates
• There were just 15 blogs but on average Federal politicians used 2.24 types of digital media

One of the key conclusions drawn from all of this is that “new media have not created a new public sphere of political discussion and debate where citizens can participate as equals as envisioned by Habermas (1989)”.

I take issue with this conclusion. It’s clear from the data that new media hasn’t been given the chance to create ‘a new public sphere of political discussion’ because it has been poorly applied and executed. In other words, new media hasn’t failed but our politicians and their advisors have. John Howard provides a case in point. He made little or no attempt to adapt his message or presentation for YouTube and opened his maiden YouTube appearance with ‘Good Morning!’.

There was much talk after the presentation about the fact that the majority of people that visited these types of sites where politically active and that it’s not actually these people that influence the outcome of elections.

My colleague, Ed, made a good point after the event. He said that he agreed with this conclusion but that the experience of US pollies had shown that social media could be used effectively as tool for mobilising a community of politically active advocates and supporters i.e. it does have an important role to play/does add value.

I would argued that politicians, in general, need to change the tone of their message and the way it is presented (Infotainment). This would help to engage the politically apathetic and help voters feel that they were interacting with a real person with a personality.

The report touched on the contribution of prosumers or citizens in terms of video commentary and other types of media. Macnamara made the point that much of this content was spoof material and he said that the jury was out as to whether this represented genuine political discourse. I don’t think there should be any question that it does.

My other observation related to the number of times that the audience made a point based on an assumption that only young people use social media.

Overall, it was an informative session in an academic setting and food for thought.