Good On You, Dr. Haneef!

I'm glad to read that Dr. Haneef, the Indian doctor wrongly accused of terrorism by the Howard government in 2007, is suing former Immigration minister Kevin Andrews for defamation.


I have written about Kevin Andrews before and even earlier. I think his action in cancelling Dr. Haneef's visa and having him arrested (after he had been granted bail by a judge) was mean-spirited and unjustified.


Now at last, it looks like he's being called to account.

You go, Dr. Haneef! All the best to you.

Australia's Pink Revolution

It seems that only the sudden elevation of Julia Gillard as Australia's first female Prime Minister has caught the world's eye, but a quiet revolution has been underway for a while.

The pictures here speak louder than words.

Australia's Head of State - Governor-General Quentin Bryce

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Environment Minister Penny Wong

Deputy Leader of the Federal Opposition Julie Bishop

New South Wales Governor Marie Bashir

New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh

And that's just the political sphere. There are scores of women in the federal and state parliaments, including some ministers. This is just the set of those who have risen to a position of unquestioned eminence.

Business has been less progressive, but here too, the bastions have begun to fall.

Gail Kelly, CEO of Australia's largest bank (Westpac)

A quiet social revolution has been taking place in Australia, and while the country can obviously lay legitimate claim to the label of an equal-opportunity society (don't let the focus on gender distract you from the ethnicity of Marie Bashir and Penny Wong above), a recent article titled The Invisible Men uncovers a new and possibly disturbing side to modern Australian gender relations.

Watch this space. This is no decadent society. This is social ferment at its best.

Julia's Caesar

Et tu, Julia? Then fall, Kevin.

It must have been the most unkindest cut of all to have one's hitherto loyal deputy turn so savagely against them.

Today's coup had all the hallmarks of that classic Shakespearean tragedy.

The out-of-touch autocrat, the shadowy conspirators, the honourable front-person recruited to the cause, the treacherous assassination, and so on right down to the "Not that I loved Kevin less" speech.

[...] It’s these beliefs that have been my compass during the three and half years of the most loyal service I could offer to my colleague, Kevin Rudd. I asked my colleagues to make a leadership change. A change because I believed that a good Government was losing its way. [...] I love this country and I was not going to sit idly by and watch an incoming Opposition cut education, cut health and smash rights at work.

She may as well have said her former boss was "as dear to me as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart" (Act II, Scene I). One has to appreciate the genius of the bard...

And in the other unremarked tragedy (for Australia at least), Lindsay Tanner, perhaps the most competent minister in the Rudd cabinet, has resigned. Of course it was all for "family reasons", but it seems a bit of a coincidence that Tanner (along with Anthony Albanese - Marc Anthony?) was one of the very few people to support Rudd in the face of the backstabbery hatched by these fine public figures.

I voted for the Labor party in 2007 believing that Kevin Rudd would be PM for the full term of the government. Now some people I don't know have replaced him with someone else for reasons I don't understand, and I haven't been consulted. This voter is angry (and is not alone by the looks of it). If it had been Peter Costello heading the Liberals instead of that clown Abbott, I would have switched loyalties in a heartbeat. [Who knows, it could now very well be the turn of the Liberals' backroom boys to develop cold feet and do a Caesar on Abbot.]

I used to like Julia Gillard and wanted her to be PM someday. Now I'm not so sure. It's hard to like someone who's holding a bloodstained knife.

Even if they are honourable.

Recipe for Mushroom-Baked Beans Curry

Mushroom-Baked Beans Curry

Whenever the opportunity to commandeer the kitchen presents itself, I put together as many ingredients that are exclusive to my taste as possible, so I can turn out fewer unpopular dishes, if that makes sense. For example, I'm alone in my household when it comes to liking mushrooms and baked beans, so it wasn't going to be long before a combo of this sort made its appearance.

Ingredients:

1 tin of mushrooms in "butter sauce" (Butter sauce? Some kind of maize starch, as it turns out)
1 tin of baked beans in tomato sauce
1 spanish onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 chilli (Jalapeno peppers are my favourite)
2 tablespoons of grapeseed oil
1 pinch of turmeric powder

Procedure:
(Procedure, heh! The procedure is so simple as to be almost mindless.) Chop the chilli and garlic into fine pieces. Chop the onion into slightly larger pieces. Sauté the chilli and garlic first, then add the onion. Add a pinch of turmeric powder to bring out a rich colour.

Add the baked beans and stir well. When that's well mixed, add the mushrooms and stir well.

This is a dish that can't make up its mind whether to be sweet or salty, so you'll have to make its mind up for it. Add salt or ketchup as per your fancy. I chose salt because that was my mood for the day.

Serves one :-/

As If The Big Four Were Not Enough

It almost makes me laugh in the midst of my rage.

Here I am, arguing that Australia needs a Ten Pillar Policy to bring back competition to the banking sector, and here are banking officials lobbying politicians to accept further mergers. And there are ministers who were "open to the idea". I want to know who these representatives of the people are so we can vote them out.

The arguments take my breath away.

One of the themes pushed was that a merged ANZ and NAB would promise to slash fees and charges across the board.

Yes, I totally reject the lessons of economics and therefore trust the big banks to cut fees and charges as they gain more negotiating power. Like they did during the financial crisis. (Another link here.)

The move, it was argued, would prompt CBA and Westpac to follow suit and deliver customers a major benefit.

A major benefit! Yes, why not have all four banks merge into one massive monopoly that can deliver a major benefit to customers right on their backside? They will be forever grateful.

I guess we dodged a bullet here, but we're all to blame for creating a tolerant climate where such ideas can be entertained. Corporates and politicians must learn that consumers are voters, and that they jealously guard their interests. But I don't see much hope that we can force a Ten Pillar Policy on the government with the citizenry sleeping so soundly.

Mining Companies Fight Dirty Over Tax Proposal

If you want to know what a mining industry "fat cat" looks like, look no further.


That's Clive Palmer, director and owner of Mineralogy Pty Ltd. and worth a few billion.

Like most mining industry fat cats, Palmer is naturally unhappy with the Australian government's proposed new resources tax. The industry has hit out with a series of ads purporting to show that the new tax will hurt Australia by scaring away foreign investment. And now that the government is striking back with ads of its own, Palmer has attacked the "wasteful use of taxpayer's money".

Hang on a minute! Isn't the mining industry wasting shareholders' money by running its ads? Oh, but that's to shore up shareholders' profits, which will surely be hit if the companies sit by and do nothing.

Why can't the same rule apply to the government, then? The government is merely running ads to shore up its future tax revenue, which will surely be hit if it does nothing to counter the industry's lobbying.

The industry lobby's scare campaign says Australia will lose out on investment with this tax, because investors will take their dollars to more favourable tax regimes. But with reports that other countries are planning to emulate Australia's example, where will those investment dollars go? Still scared? Ooga-booga!

I'm with the government on this one. I own shares in resources companies, but I'm not about to be fooled by the industry's arguments. We need to build back the budget surplus and the resources boom is the best vehicle to do that. The government missed the chance to make some money off the last resources boom. They shouldn't let the next one slip. These companies pay less tax in Australia than in other countries. More importantly, they pay tax at a lower rate than I do. Let them pull their weight, say I. They're not about to go anywhere else. After a bit of bluster, they'll stay on and pay the tax.

I've contributed to GetUp!'s campaign to counter the industry's spin, and I'll be letting the government and my MP know where I stand. Nobody holds a gun to my head. Certainly not a fat cat.

Saving Economics from the Economists

I just read a column by a purported economist that makes me see red. In case the link isn't publicly available, the comment that Robert Gottliebsen makes in the context of the ACCC's decision to block NAB's takeover of AXA is this:

But when the share analysts start to think more deeply about the issues raised by the ACCC decision to block NAB's offer while giving the green-light to AMP's alternative offer, it becomes clear that, over a wide area, mergers in Australia are now going to be much more difficult. What we are seeing is a dramatic widening of competition policy and shareholders' interests can sometimes be cast aside (italics mine). The best illustration is telecommunications where [ACCC Chairman] Graeme Samuel and the government are reshaping the industry and shareholders in Telstra are the sacrificial pawns.

I can't believe it - Gottliebsen seems to be saying that what's good for consumers (i.e., competition) is bad for shareholders!

On the contrary, Mr. Gottliebsen, you should surely know that the lack of competition benefits neither consumers nor shareholders. Oligopolistic markets are known to be wasteful, paying shareholders less than their due and charging consumers more than their share.

When the US Justice Department broke up AT&T in the early eighties, shareholders actually saw the value of their shares go *up* after a few years, thanks to the improved efficiency forced on the company's parts.

These are not just idle comments by one without skin in the game.

I'm both a customer and a shareholder of Westpac's and I believe the ACCC's lack of teeth with regard to the St George takeover has impacted me adversely on both counts. The spread they gain through their increased oligopolistic position is simply frittered away on inefficiency and waste. Where, indeed, is the impetus to improve when the landscape today is far less competitive than just a couple of years ago?

I'm both a customer and a shareholder of Telstra's and I applaud the government's surprisingly tough stance against it. It couldn't happen to a nicer monopoly!

I'm both a customer and a shareholder of NAB's. I'm happy about the ACCC decision to block NAB's takeover of AXA but I believe the same ban must also extend to AMP. We need more competition in every market, not less. It's not just consumer protection but shareholder protection as well. It shouldn't take an economics degree to see this.

I think Australia's status as one of the most diffused shareholder bases in the world has created a class of shareholder-consumers afraid to revolt at higher prices because they falsely perceive a benefit from that as shareholders. That fallacy owes much to the demagoguery of economists like Gottliebsen who, for reasons known only to themselves, continue to peddle the myth that the interests of consumers and shareholders are somehow opposed. The only real opponent is oligopoly and its resultant waste. Both consumers and shareholders stand to gain when waste is eliminated, and competition is the only way to achieve that. Surely a free-market economist should be able to see that.

To paraphrase Raghuram Rajan, it seems we need to save Economics from the Economists.