RBA media offensive, ANSTO poll fibs, press council sledge, Keating's cultural blind spots

The Reserve Bank is about to embark again on what appears to be a major selling program as inflation and interest rates resume their historic relationship in the minds and forecasts of the central bank.

Already this month, two senior officials, governor Glenn Stevens and his economic deputy Phil Lowe, have made forays into the public arena.

This has been since the rate rise at the October RBA board meeting, the minutes for which were released last week.

There will be nine other occasions between this week and November 18 where the bank or a senior official, led by Stevens, will be in a position to either speak, make a comment on a panel or in answer to a question or make a major written statement.

All up there have been a dozen public statements or appearances from the RBA since the October board meeting decision which saw the RBA switch tack and start pushing up rates. The last time there was a group of RBA speeches and releases was in July and early August. Stevens made a speech in late July in which he issued his first words of concern about the impact of housing shortages and rising prices might have, and how the central bank would move quickly to control them.

This revealed the bank's changing view of the slowdown and the impending recovery that was later confirmed with news of solid positive growth in the June quarter and in the 2009 financial year.

Now another occasion for a rate rise arrives tomorrow week. Some economists are tipping a rise of 0.50%, especially if this week's inflation figures are not as low as hoped. At the November board meeting in 2008, the RBA cut rates by 0.75 % to 5.25%, and then cut again in December by 1%.

From November 3 and including the post-meeting statement onwards, the bank and its senior staff will have eight occasions on which to explain or amplify whatever rate rise comes the meeting that morning.

But first, on Wednesday of this week Malcolm Edey speaks in Sydney on the topic The Evolving Financial Situation.

On November 3, the RBA board meets and is expected to reveal another rate rise in the post-meeting statement from Stevens. It will be well viewed online and will have us pawing the ground to be Efficient, but without resorting to an Alcopop.

Two days later Stevens makes his second sortie into the public area in Melbourne with a major set piece speech entitled The Road to Prosperity.

A day after that, one of the bank's major set piece statement will be released in the shape of the fourth Statement of Monetary Policy (SMP) for 2009.

This will contain the bank's new inflation and economic-growth forecasts. This statement will lay down the bank's thing on monetary policy for 2010 and beyond (And 2010 is an election year federally).

A few hours after that's released at 11.30am, deputy governor Ric Battellino finds himself as a panel member at a financial conference in Perth at the unlikely venue of the third annual Australian Parliamentary Conference. His appearance will no doubt lead to news services, radio and TV attending and asking about the forecasts in the SMP. The timing could be coincidental, but the RBA would have noted the timing of Battellino's appearance and that no doubt will be used to amplify the message in the SMP.

Continuing this breakneck pace, Phil Lowe, the bank's head of economics, makes his second public appearance in a month in Perth as well on the following Monday. In both cases questions are usually fired at the RBA member on the panel, often to the exclusion of others there to discuss and answer queries.

On November 10 John Broadbent, the bank's head of domestic markets, makes a rare appearance with a speech entitled Reconnecting Corporate Australia with Frozen Credit Markets Through Sound Policy Initiatives. Fascinating.

On November 17 the minutes of the November 3 meeting will be released. By then they should be a bit redundant given the speeches and the appearance of the SMP before then.

And then on November 18, Guy Debelle, the assistant governor in charge of financial markets, reappears in public with a speech entitled Whither Securitisation. That sounds boring, but the securitisation markets are still not completely unblocked and until that happens and investors recovery confidence, the powerful hold the Big Four banks have on things like home and business loans, can't be broken.

But before all that we have the Producer Price and Consumer Price Inflation figures for the September quarter.

Wednesday's CPI numbers is expected to show a slight easing in the quarterly rate to less than 1% (The AMP's Dr Shane Oliver has forecast a rise of 0.6%) and an annual rate of close to 1%. Friday also sees figures from the bank on private credit growth for Australia for October.

The six month trend of falling producer prices came to an end in the September quarter, as domestic price pressures on business and industry rose, something that will add to the Reserve Bank's belief that emerging inflationary pressures are the biggest danger to the recovery.

Figures today from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that producer prices at the final stage rose 0.1% in the September quarter, after falling in the June and March quarters. They were up a small 0.2% in the 12 months to September, but that was more due to the high cost June quarter of 2008 dropping out of the comparison.

Now, producer prices are not directly translated into the Consumer Price Index, out on Wednesday -- they form more of an indicator of price trends and pressures on business costs and prices. But the detail of the figures and the reasons given for the rise by the ABS will be what worries the RBA.

The ABS said the rise in the quarter was "mainly due to price increases in electricity, gas and water (+12.1%), bakery product manufacturing (+10.4%) and petroleum refining (+6.0%)."

It was "partially offset by price decreases in computer services (-7.1%) and industrial machinery and equipment manufacturing (-5.0%)."

2 . Chairman of Australian Press Council calls for accountability

The departing chairman of the Australian Press Council, Professor Ken McKinnon, has called for a review of the accountability of newspaper editors, and has fired a parting shot at the industry, accusing it of undermining the Press Council’s role and independence.

McKinnon has used the council’s Annual Report, due to be officially released later this week, to flay the industry for failing to live up to its own rhetoric on ethics, privacy and independence.

He names the “Utegate” scandal and the publication of photos supposed to be of Pauline Hanson are examples of the media failing to observe its own standards.

McKinnon sledges the “reform” proposals urged by newspaper publishers that resulted in a reduction in the Press Council’s membership and activities... The result, he says, has been a downgrading and perhaps even elimination of the council’s role in defending press freedom.

McKinnon takes fire at the News Limited dominated Right to Know coalition, saying that the argument that it can take over media advocacy is “obviously naïve. It is a proposition that has no wings. An industry consortium is never likely to be seen as making submissions essentially in the public interest. But the proposition, which ignores the Council Constitution, was used as another justification for the swingeing budget cut proposals.”

McKinnon says that a constitutional change to protect the Council’s independence was now “essential to its public credibility”.

“The problem boils down to the fact that, when every penny for every activity depends on specific industry approval, funding authorities can easily use the veto to avoid potential embarrassment, ensuring no facts that might be inconvenient are collected. More dangerously from the point of view of the perceived independence of the Council, funding authorities are seen to be calling every shot.”

McKinnon’s parting salvo after nine years as Press Council chairman will leave a difficult agenda of issues for the new Chairman, social activist and reforming lawyer Julian Disney, who takes up his post at the end of the year.

I understand that Disney was nominated by the Press Council’s public members. While he has been out of the public eye for some years, which may have made him more acceptable to the industry representatives on the council, Disney is unlikely to be a push-over. Expect interesting times ahead.

The budget cuts imposed on the council by the industry resulted in a reduction in from 22 members to 15. McKinnon writes that the cuts were vigorously resisted by the Council’s public members. The industry had at first proposed that the council be reduced to 12.

"In response to the membership part of the proposals, public members displayed impressive resolve. Despite there being nothing other than the satisfaction of genuine public service as the reward for membership, they mobilised to resist the proposed size reductions, being far from convinced that the Council could do its job well following such a drastic reduction. Ultimately they prevailed to the extent that the requisite two-thirds majority settled on a compromise of fifteen members on the reformed Council. Although that outcome was not what industry members envisaged it is a workable size and composition."

Meanwhile I understand that there is also division within the industry about the cuts, with Fairfax Media being concerned that it will have less representation, meaning an increase in the dominance of the Council’s biggest funder, News Limited.

One of the activities that has fallen afoul of the budget cuts is the Press Council’s regular research reports, which in previous years have shown an increased tendency for news stories to be drawn from only one source. McKinnon mentions this in the context of the Pauline Hanson and Utegate scandals.

Australian newspaper stories rely on only one source more often than is the case in comparable countries, he says.

McKinnon names the “Utegate” scandal in which news stories were based on a “single unchecked, forged email” by public servant Gorden Grech, and the publication of photographs wrongly claimed to be of Pauline Hanson in provocative semi-dressed poses as instances where material without a basis in fact had been prominently published.

“Ethics demand that the press make sufficient enquiries to ensure that what they publish is accurate, fair and balanced,” he says.

The Pauline Hanson case, and the publication of details of NSW Minister John Della Bosca’s infidelity raised privacy issues, McKinnon said. “in particular whether there is a genuine public interest in the publication of the matter, as distinct from the public being entertained at the cost of the privacy of the individuals.”

McKinnon raises the issue of whether research that is embarrassing to the industry will be able to be published by the council in the future. “The problem boils down to the fact that, when every penny for every activity depends on specific industry approval, funding authorities can easily use the veto to avoid potential embarrassment, ensuring no facts that might be inconvenient are collected. More dangerously from the point of view of the perceived independence of the Council, funding authorities are seen to be calling every shot.”

On the brighter side, McKinnon notes that so far Australian newspaper circulations are holding up comparatively well, though not so advertising revenue. “There is still no room for complacency or confidence that a business model ensuring the future of newspapers has been found.”

He also notes that there has been no noticeable increase in complaints to the Press Council.

For more commentary, and a copy of the Australian Press Council report, see my blog.

3 . ANSTO poll goes radioactive, quietly changes no to yes

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has been caught out trying to manipulate a web poll on its own web site.

On Friday Crikey noted that ANSTO had run a poll on its web page for the question "Should nuclear power be a part of Australia's future energy mix?" which that day had votes "against it" running way ahead of support.

Thursday and Friday saw a big spike in traffic to the site, perhaps because nuclear opponents were drawing attention to it and urging people to vote. "I am against it" went further ahead.

But sometime over the weekend, someone at ANSTO changed the poll, removing "I’m against it" and replacing it with "It is one of the options".

This prompted a flurry of emails to ANSTO this morning from enraged nuclear opponents angry that the outcome of the poll had been entirely reversed.

Crikey asked ANSTO’s media manager Sharon Kelly what had happened. According to Kelly, ANSTO’s web manager Peter Hindmarsh amended the poll without authorisation over the weekend because of the "Against It" vote spike. It has now been altered again, with "It is one of the options" replaced with "No", rather closer in meaning to the original option, with an explanation of why it was changed.

Prior to Crikey’s call, Hindmarsh had responded to emails of protest about the change by saying he would "manually add your vote to the existing 'no' count, when I summarise at the end of the month."

"This is a small but perfect example of the dishonesty that surrounds the 'debate' about nuclear power in Australia," Greens spokesman on nuclear issues Senator Scott Ludlam said.

"ANSTO ran a popularity poll on their website, which they lost comprehensively. Instead of learning something, they decided to turn a 'no' into a 'yes'. What a perfect symbol for the way the larger nuclear power debate is being run in Australia."

I’m relatively agnostic about nuclear power. Ross Garnaut summed the issue up best in the Climate Change review last year when he noted that, given we don’t have a nuclear industry and it’ll take a massive investment in infrastructure and skills to get one going, we should concentrate on areas like renewables where we already have a developing industry. But there’s also a disingenuousness about many nuclear advocates on the issue. It’s ironic that many of them hail from the Right, which normally harbours deep suspicions of big government and supports privatisation of public utilities, despite the fact that nuclear power would require massive public funding and the re-entry of government into power generation, even when holdouts like the NSW and Queensland Governments are looking to exit the industry.

4 . Our quietly spreading Exxon Valdez in the Timor Sea

On August 21, 2009, a the Montara H1 production well, located on the Montara Wellhead Platform, 200 kilometres off Western Australia’s Kimberley coast, suffered a dramatic well-control accident. The resulting environmental disaster has now been recognised as one of Australia’s worst oil spills, and comes at a time when this biologically rich marine region is increasingly in the spotlight for oil and gas development.

In September, a whole month after the incident and with oil still spewing into the Timor Sea, WWF launched a research trip from Darwin to the affected area to gain a first-hand snapshot of the region’s marine life and the potential impacts and risk to marine wildlife of the slick. The expedition set sail on Thursday 24 September and after steaming out to the remote site, spent three days carrying wildlife surveys using a team of trained ecologists.

We found a region rich in marine wildlife and awash in a sea of oil and slicks of waxy, crusty residue. At one point the smell of the fumes from the leaking rig was so strong we had to change course. We know that oil can be a slow and silent killer and it was sickening to sea dolphins surfacing in the oil and sea birds feeding on the slicks and patches of sheen.

The expedition report released last Friday describes the results of three days of surveys which included sightings of 202 Spinner Dolphins, 77 Pan Tropical Spotted dolphins, 30 bottlenose dolphins, 176 Sooty terns, many other sea-birds, sea snakes and the occasional turtle in the region affected by the slick. It comes at a time when the company has also reported deaths of 16 out of 25 oil affected birds at Ashmore reef.

For the two months since the accident happened we have had an oil slick visible from space, covering an area of thousands of square kilometers. The size, extent and duration means that hundreds if not thousands of our most precious wildlife will have been exposed to the toxic effects of oil, as well as untold damage to the underwater ecosystem and contamination of the food chain. If this was oil off our favourite beaches and swimmers and surfers were at risk, then there would be public outrage. Out of sight should not mean out of mind.

We know from the Exxon Valdez disaster that impacts from an oil spill can be seen 20 years later, so we can expect this environmental disaster will continue to unfold for years to come.

See more images here.

On his Crikey blog, The Northern Myth, Bob Gosford writes:

I am at a loss as to why this marine disaster has hardly registered on the Australian radar - press coverage appears to have been piecemeal at best, with little comprehensive coverage of the local, regional and international consequences.

The political response has been limited to hand-wringing stop-gap measures and to paying for a series of failed attempts to plug the spill and some apparently ineffective mopping-up operations.

This is a disaster of not only local, but regional and international proportions. And, while the weather conditions in and around the Timor Sea are relatively stable at present, the impending arrival of the seasonal monsoonal cycle in the coming months will substantially change the nature and location of the impact of this massive spill.

The Jakarta Post reports that the slick is already in Indonesian waters and is causing illness and will have a substantial economic affect on traditional fishers and harvesters on Rote Island:

Four weeks after the oil spill, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) submitted an official report to the Indonesian government mentioning that volumes of crude oil had entered the Indonesian Exclusive Economic Zone, some 51 nautical miles from Rote Island.
Traditional fishermen operating off Pasir Island found an oil slick resembling a pool around 20 miles from Tablolong beach in Kupand, or around 30 nautical miles from Kolbano, South Central Timor regency.
Last week, fishermen on the coast of Rote Ndao regency started complaining of illnesses as a result of the oil spill that had reached land and damaged thousands of hectares of ready-to-harvest seaweed.
"Seaweed, which is one of the province's prime commodities, has been polluted. If the farmers fail to harvest their seaweed, they would incur losses of up to billions of rupiah," said the West Timor Care Foundation NGO director Ferdi Tanoni.

And the Timor Oil spill has been picked up by East Timorese bloggers here and here.

The West Atlas oil rig in the Timor Sea, operated by the Thai-owned PTTEP Australasia, blew on August 21 and has leaked over 400,000 litres of oil, gas and condensate into the Timor Sea at a rate of reported variously as being from 300 to 1200 barrels a day.

5 . Deconstructing swine flu: 12 things you didn't know

Dr Heath Kelly is the author of an article on pandemic influenza appearing in today’s edition of The Medical Journal of Australia

6 . Essay: the death of Tozer and Keating's betrayal of genius

"Melbourne should have been the capital ... nevertheless it's bordello style architecture ... the heritage nuts are over the top ..."

Paul Keating was in fine form last week, waxing lyrical on matters now closest to his heart, design and architecture. Speaking at a book launch with Malcolm Fraser, their comments on Canberra exemplified the difference between the two men. Keating: Canberra was a mistake, aesthetically and culturally. Fraser: the new Parliament House was y'know, too expensive.

The same week, the stories began emerging of another Keating obsession -- pianist the late Geoffrey Tozer, and his sad decline over the past decade, ending in his recent death, of liver failure from both hepatitis and alcoholism. Tozer, the recipient of, and inspiration for, the Keating genius grants, has been nominated by many as an extraordinary concert pianist, one in a million. His failure to get full symphony orchestra performance gigs over the past years Keating attributed to the bitchiness and viciousness of the professional music establishment.

That can well be believed, although orchestra managers have given another account -- that alcohol was making Tozer so erratic and unreliable that concert standard performances were becoming difficult to arrange. That's believable too. Tozer, like many an "eidetic" musical genius -- he could play separate pieces with right and left hand -- was, by all accounts, lonely and isolated, prone to obsessive infatuation rather than love, and on endless retreat from the world.

The question is whether acclaim as a genius and a flow of high-profile work would have saved him, or whether anything would have. It is a question more about Keating and the attitudes about art and civilisation that he projects onto this country, than it is about a benighted pianist.

7 . First Dog on the Moon

8 . Tips and rumours

Just some more dysfunction in regards to the NT education system and the ineffective intervention. Did you know there are 84 girls and young women known to the NT education department who are young mothers in Alice Springs? All are between the ages of 12 and 17 and none are attending school. There is currently no program and never has been for pregnant girls and young mothers. The department is currently spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new middle school without providing or including pregnant young women and mothers in the education system.

While I am not aware of the total students population in this age bracket, I believe 84 known girls (it is likely there are more not known to the system) is a fair percentage of the secondary Alice Springs school-age population.

Why is it that no action is being taken against Alex Hawke, following his admission that he used his electorate office for a party political meeting? This is in clear contravention of parliamentary entitlement guidelines. It is contrary to guidelines to use a public-funded electorate office for meetings of the Liberal Party.

The fitness industry is awarding Certificate IV qualifications to people after just an eight-week correspondence course. Some off them don't even know how to take blood pressure readings. Not enough regulation for this industry. Seems to suit employers, who exploit their staff, to aim for gym memberships and employ 19-year-olds rather than a TAFE-qualified student where practicals are monitored. Seems easy for governments to turn a blind eye as at least it's creating jobs.

I am not employed in the industry but, as an ex-rugby player and coach, am dismayed at the lack of knowledge and professionalism in this industry. My main concerns are: health and well-being of customers/clients; programs being written that are too difficult initially causing high drop-out rate; not contributing to reducing obesity in Australia when it could be a major contributor and significantly reduce health costs.

The Commonwealth Bank has instructed its staff that it aims to be No.1 in the bank survey by June 2010. Their reward, not sure, Ralph Norris' reward, an $11 million bonus. Also, they used to give their personal lenders a week's notice of impending fixed rate rises, so that they could let their grade one customers who were looking to lock in their interests rates do so. No longer. Their memos now read "rate rise as of today"

Australian Film Industry: Interesting snippet from InsideFilm magazine that a Screen Australia board member has asked the chief executive to review the performance of the Australian film Two Fists One Heart, which, with a Screen Australian investment of $4 million and a budget of $8.5 million, had a box office return of $295,000 when released through Buena Vista.

Alan Finney, the head of Buena Vista, must be fuming. After all he released Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert and Muriel's Wedding in 1992 and both returned more than $16 million BO each. But what should be said is that Two Fists One Heart was chosen through Screen Australia's in-house evaluation system, which every film must now pass through if it wants SA money and irrespective of its other investors.

One would assume that there will be the same inquiry of the following films recently released, which also went through SA evaluation:

The latter was produced and directed by an SA board member. Many evaluation films after some time have not been released or are only in limited release. So who evaluates the evaluators? Does this system of evaluation, which has only been in existence for three years, work? What is the criteria for a successful Australian film?

Yes, we know it is tough for Aussie films but perhaps it is time for Mr Garrett to take a look at the practices of Screen Australia, this large, recently merged and unaccountable arts bureaucracy.

Listeners to Sydney's ABC 702 may be puzzled why they have been bombarded with promos inviting them (to pay for) the annual Andrew Olle lecture to be given on November 6. Tickets "are going fast" says the voiceover. Really? Then why has this ad been running daily for the past six weeks?

Maybe the reason is the lecturer will be Julian Morrow, one of the clever young-ish men who brought us The Chaser. Is this the future of journalism?

Have you noticed that "Quadrant Online" is featuring a link on their front page to a piece by your sometime contributor and Greens candidate Clive Hamilton, which they have titled "Let's Kill Koalas"? Presumably they are trying to show up Clive for advocating that the cuddly koalas should be culled. Do you think they realise that Clive's piece was a spoof? Looks like they have fallen victim to another hoax, to me!

It seems that Big Food is rather blatant about trying to exert its influence. An ad seeking a corporate communications manager is currently displayed on mycareer.com.au and it says that:

I am assuming that N.H.F. is the National Heart Foundation (maybe that's why the NHF is giving out all those Heart Foundation ticks to what you would think are unhealthy products). The D.A.A. is the Dieticians Association of Australia and the Parents Jury is an online network of parents, grandparents and guardians, who are interested in improving the food and physical activity environments of Australian children. The AFCG is the Australian Food and Grocery Council run by Kate Carnell.

It seems Big Food doesn't have any shame these days -- they are coming right out and admitting they are trying to influence the independent bodies we rely to give us unbiased information.

Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman's latest white (concrete) elephant, the redeveloped King George Square in Brisbane City, opens this Sunday and already everybody hates it! The redevelopment has been copping flak from residents, designers and the media since the construction fences came down a week or two ago (here, here and here).

Chief concerns are that the design is just bleak, hot, white concrete, with absolutely no greenery or shade -- not real clever when you look at Brisbane's climate. The previous KGS had lots of lovely grass and was a popular place to meet and/or sit and eat lunch. No chance of doing that at the new KGS! The redevelopment has taken three years and cost $28 million -- that's a budget blowout of $4 million to $16 million depending on who you listen to!

And now, it seems like people hate the new King George Square so much, they're not even willing to go to the official opening this Sunday (25 Oct 09). Panicked staffers from the Lord Mayor's office started calling around chasing RSVPs days before RSVPs were supposed to close after a particularly underwhelming response to the official invitations.

Then, late last Thursday afternoon (October 22), a last-minute invite was sent to council staff begging them (and their families!) to come along to the opening yesterday. The full email is included below:

Had to laugh during a telephone application for a home loan with the Commonwealth Bank this morning.

After going through the various security questions just to establish that I was who I said I was (even though I was actually returning this guy’s call after originally submitting my details online), he then started checking off each of my existing accounts.

So much for GFC driving the Big Four into becoming a little more circumspect about throwing credit and anybody for anything ...

9 . Now showing on the Crikey website...

In addition to our original content, Crikey's website brings together links to the best news, features, blogs and analysis from all corners of the world's media and the Web, hand-picked by Crikey's editorial team.

PURE POISON: Gravitas vs. Data: Paul Kelly's "no-brainer" on asylum seeker policy

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Politics, The Universe, Etc

10 . OK, I admit it, I'm a climate currency leakage sceptic

I am, I have to finally admit, a climate sceptic. A non-believer, a flat-earther, who refuses to accept the demand to believe in the new religion being propagated by a small group of biased special interests.

I reckon it’s all superstition and nonsense and can produce the figures to prove it.

I should be more specific, I guess. What I’m specifically sceptical about is carbon leakage.

No one has ever seen carbon leakage. It’s an economic theory, as yet unsupported by any real-world evidence. It postulates that any attempt to impose a carbon price ahead of a comprehensive international agreement on emissions trading will simply drive trade-exposed industries offshore, along with all the jobs they create and the greenhouse gases they emit, offshore to a country which has no carbon price.

The entire rationale of handing over billions of dollars in compensation under the CPRS is based on "carbon leakage". Call it faith-based policy.

In the last six months, however, a giant experiment has been underway to test the claims of the likes of our minerals sector, and steel manufacturers, and everyone else who argues that a carbon price would make them pack up and head to the nearest developing country.

The experiment is the Australian dollar, which has dramatically appreciated, particularly against the US dollar. This morning is was at about 92 US cents. The earnings of most of our minerals sector are denominated in US dollars, so the terrible performance of the greenback this year weighs especially heavily on our mining companies since the Aussie began climbing off a low of 63.2 US cents in February.

But the impact of the higher dollar dwarfs any possible impact of a carbon price. Here are some examples. Last month, one analyst estimated that the impact of an appreciation from US$0.67 to US$0.95 would reduce margins on steam coal from $46 a tonne to $8 a tonne. The same analyst calculated the cost of a carbon price on coal-mining emissions would be $12 a tonne. The impact of foreign exchange movements is greater than that of a carbon price by a factor of 3.

Bluescope Steel, a persistent lobbyist for more compensation under the CPRS which has warned it will cut production or close altogether, predicted the CPRS would cost it “tens of millions of dollars” in the first year of operation, in reference to the less generous White Paper model. But Bluescope told the Bracks Automotive Review in 2008 that a one US cent appreciation of the Australian dollar cuts its EBIT by $12m. That means Bluescope’s EBIT will be slashed by $360m this year, an effect that will continue as long as the dollar remains high.

In April, the greatest of the rentseeking leaches, the Minerals Council of Australia, told a Senate committee that the CPRS would impose costs of $2b a year on the entire minerals sector. To put that bloated and unsourced figure in context, last month ABARE predicted energy and minerals earnings for 2009-10 would fall by about $30b because of commodity price movements and a higher Australian dollar.

I asked ABARE if they could separate the impacts but they were unable to given the interrelationship between the Australian dollar and commodity prices. But even assuming 90% of that fall is due to commodity prices rather than the dollar, exchange rates still account for far more than the CPRS, even on the sector’s own apocalyptic forecasts.

No one expects the Australian dollar to depreciate significantly against the greenback anytime soon. ABARE forecasts a higher dollar for the remainder of 2010, and there are plenty of analysts who see commodities prices supporting the dollar into 2011 and beyond, driving by commodity prices increases. A higher Australian dollar, even if not in the 90 US cent range where it is currently, looks here to stay for years to come.

Somehow, magically, our biggest companies are able to handle that shock to their earnings without bailing out to a country with a weak currency. Yet they claim the smaller impact of the CPRS will send them fleeing to the nearest polluters’ paradise.

The appreciation of the Australian dollar has exposed that for the rentseeking try-on it is.

11 . Lady Mayoress ruffles feathers among Melbourne's old money set

When Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle donned the ceremonial robes last December he wasted no time spruiking plans to ban buskers and bogans from the CBD. And if a recent series of events inside city hall are any indication, it appears Doyle's braggadocio may have rubbed off on his mid-30s fiancée Emma Page Campbell.

In a blow to the old money matriarchy, Crikey can reveal that Ms Page Campbell has succeeded in her quest to reform the archaic mid-century structures of the Lady Mayoress' Committee, with her recent feather-ruffling leading to the resignation of long-serving Vice Chair Julie Leeming.

Crikey understands that Ms Leeming's decision to stand aside follows months of factional infighting after Ms Page Campbell arrived as Lady Mayoress last December. Under city council rules, the Lord Mayor's partner is automatically deigned Lady Mayoress when he ascends to the throne.

The 15-member executive arm of the Committee raises funds for the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation and is traditionally dominated by ageing dames with weekdays to burn. It predates the LMCF and has steadfastly retained its stuffy ambiance. However, it is believed Ms Page Campbell's desire to drag the group into the 21st century didn't play well with Ms Leeming, who during the John So era apparently exercised something close to absolute power. Former Lady Mayoress Wendy Cheng is believed to have been unwilling or unable to shake things up.

During her tenure, Leeming is believed to have worked tirelessly to raise millions on behalf of the Committee.

But Ms Page Campbell, who recently announced her engagement to the 58-year-old Mr Doyle, is believed to be champing at the bit to reform the committee's ageing governance structures, with the current constitution dating to 1985.

Informed sources close to the committee told Crikey that Ms Page Campbell, who works as an in-house lawyer at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, had entered the Committee like a whirlwind.

"It's been around for generations and is mostly full of 'ladies who lunch' or Toorak madams with lots of dosh and nothing to do. It really harks back to a bygone era. Campbell is not popular [maybe because] she has a job."

Ms Leeming, a keen golfer who joined the Committee shortly after immigrating to Australia in 1995 with husband, former Pilkington Glass chief Roger Leeming, confirmed her resignation this morning but refused to comment on the record.

Ms Page Campbell told Crikey: "I will continue to work with the professional staff of the Lord Mayors Charitable Foundation to enhance the fundraising activities of the committee. The committee is working very well and contains many people of talent and expertise," she added.

Ms Leeming, who became an Australian citizen in 2004, remains a life member of the broader 60-member non-executive committee.

12 . What is the fuss over former LTTE members in Australia?

There may well be former members of the LTTE on vessels bringing asylum seekers to Australia. The LTTE were, after all, the fighting component of one side in a no-holds-barred civil war in Sri Lanka over the past 35 years.

It was a war in which terror was deployed by both sides, although there is something about state terror that is inherently more evil. I think it is the cold and calculating nature of state-sponsored retribution that sees individuals disappear off busy streets and abducted from homes by people who are sworn to uphold the rule of law.

Wilson Tuckey has blown the dog whistle on LTTE terrorists arriving in Australia by boat. Tuckey has reason to make a lot of noise, his parliamentary career has been less than a success, with his sacking by John Howard as a minister a fair indication of his character and ability. He has not many runs on the board and his electorate is sick of him. He is well aware that he can expect some stiff competition at the next election. But Tuckey's views count for little with the exception of the Canberra parliamentary media, who, mostly bored to death, enjoy a stir from a colourful character, Barnaby Joyce included.

Elements in the AFP might like to hear Tuckey in action on LTTE terrorists, they may have geed him up, but other intelligence agencies are more sanguine and circumspect in their analysis of the threat posed by former members of the LTTE stepping onto Australian soil. What does Tuckey think they will do if granted the right to live in Australia? Blow up the local post office, police station or shock horror, a pub.

It should not come as a surprise to learn that there are former members of the LTTE living in Australia and that they are now engaged in one or other of the professions and raising successful children. It should also come as no surprise that there are Sinhalese living in Australia who were involved with military and security organisations, the sole aim of which were to kill, sometimes through murder, members of the Tamil community.

Australia has sought good relations with all of its regional friends and neighbours, which is a most commendable foreign policy objective. Problems arise, however, when the plain talking that should form a part of friendship is not employed in the face of poor behaviour. Australia was able to castigate South Africa over the policy of apartheid but not Indonesia over abuse of human rights in East Timor and not Sri Lanka over the treatment of Tamils. Consequently Australia ended up supporting one side in a civil war, when it should have been neutral and even-handed.

Unfortunately, although understandably, it is mostly easier for governments to conduct government-to-government relations than try and deal with the invariably bush-based other side in a civil war.

That does not mean that Australia should continue to demonise Tamils. The Sri Lankan government monopolised the propaganda war that ran along with the military conflict.

Some media representatives and some elements of the Australian security community have chosen to listen to Sinhalese operative Rohan Gunaratna.

Employed by the Sri Lankan government in 1984, the year in which the civil war started, Gunaratna was involved in disruption activities being run against the Tamils. It would be surprising if he were not aware of the disappearances of Tamils off the streets. Born in 1961, his CV is sparse on detail until 1987. Some sources have him working for the Sri Lankan government at least to 1994.

In 1987, Gunaratna became a student in Finland, claiming to be a recipient of an untraceable Australian-Europe award to study American-Australia diplomatic and security co-operation; an interesting topic to undertake from Finland.

The Sinhalese, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) organisation became active again in 1987, targeting government institutions, police and army personnel involved in counter-insurgency activities. Indeed Gunaratna has written a book about the abortive Marxist/Nationalist uprising.

Following 9/11, Gunaratna shot to prominence, with some masterly promotion, as a self-proclaimed terrorism expert, of which at that time there were very few.

He got into the ear of US-based think-tanks, including the Rand Corporation, mainstream intelligence organisations and officials of the Bush Administration. He also got into the ear of the AFP, although ASIO remained unconvinced with his credentials and his message.

Gunaratna has made a name for himself peddling fear; he has little understanding of the causes of terrorism. He remains close to the government of Sri Lanka.

Gunaratna has claimed that members of the LTTE are on boats destined for Australia and recently apprehended in waters around Indonesia; he also claims that some of the boats are owned by the LTTE.

The Sri Lankan government has reason to be pleased with Gunaratna’s remarks, this and his former links to that government should give the Australian government pause when dealing with or taking his advice.

Bruce Haigh is a political commentator who served as an Australian Diplomat in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

13 . Richard Farmer's chunky bits

No reason for inflation panic. It's not the real thing as far s the Reserve Bank and financial markets are concerned but nevertheless the producer price index figures out from the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning are a clear pointer that inflationary pressures from a recovering Australian economy have not yet begun.

Final producer prices increased by just 0.1% in the September quarter to give an annual rise of 0.2% through the year. The index for intermediate and primary state commodities fell by 0.6% and 0.5% respectively in the September quarter for annual price falls of 4.9% and 7.5% throughout the year.

With low numbers like these for producer prices it would be surprising if the consumer price index figures due out on Wednesday told a different inflationary story. The news agency AAP reports that its survey of 12 business economists suggests that the CPI figure will show an increase of 0.9% in the September quarter to give an annual rte of 1.2%. If the figure does turn out to be that high then the market is probably correct in thinking that a 0.25% increase in interest rates is likely to be made by the Reserve Bank on Melbourne Cup Day. Such a rise is the most probably outcome on the Crikey November Interest Rate Indicator.

For my part I'm inclined not to go along with the herd and will risk a little of my own hard earned and back the no change option in the expectation that the CPI number will be close to the producer figure and that the Reserve Bank Board will thus allow itself to be influenced by the indications that the world economy has a long way to go before fully recovering and that rises in Australian unemployment, especially in the manufacturing industries, will do the job of dampening consumer enthusiasm.

An early happy birthday. The big day is Thursday when Asterix the Gaul turns 50. The French cartoon character was born on 29 October 1959 in the pages of the first issue of the weekly magazine Pilote. To mark the occasion there is a special new Asterix and Obelisk edition on sale throughout the world. In Paris the event is being celebrated with concerts, exhibitions, artwork and even an acrobatic display by elite fighter pilots from the French air force.

Voters get older and participants get younger. An intriguing aspect of Western democracies: as the voters on average get older, the participants seem to be getting younger. The Bagehot column in the latest issue of The Economist draws attention to the new dominance in political advisory positions of callow youths. He could just as easily have been writing about the position in Australia where the gap between finishing university and advising politicians how to run the country has got very narrow indeed. In some ways surely it would be more appropriate if people like Peter Costello and Brendan Nelson were entering politics at their age rather than leaving it.

14 . Lessons in history: Fascism in British politics

The United Kingdom has been in an uproar this week over the appearance of BNP leader and MEP Nick Griffin on the BBC television show Question Time. Many believed that Griffin's appearance on the show was giving the BNP's policies of restricted immigration and a "Britain for the British" an equal footing with those of the major parties. and in fact, acted as a tacit endorsement of the racism and xenophobia the party espouses.

It's my opinion that the whole thing as a bit of a blitzkrieg in a beer mug -- the English, thankfully, have never taken well to fascism and the ridiculous figures who support it. England's recent history gives an excellent example of someone who came wearing the black shirts and throwing about Nazi salutes, and who were rather soundly put in their place as a consequence.

Take Oswald Mosley. Mosley, was born, like most of these sorts, to an aristocratic family. Mosley's family were landowners in Staffordshire and he enjoyed a mostly uneventful childhood. On completion of his schooling, he went to Sandhurst to become an officer, just as World War One broke out. He found himself, however, kicked out after beating the living daylights out of a fellow student after having a prank pulled on him. He was determined to go to war though, but couldn't seem to get that right either. He either found himself wounded and invalided off the front, crashing aircraft upon his transfer to the RAF or stuck behind a desk.

Once home, he decided to become an MP for the Conservatives before switching to Labour. There he enjoyed some success, but when his plans to solve unemployment during the Great Depression were passed over by PM Ramsay McDonald, he quit. Seeking to continue promote his ideas of corporatism, he formed a new political party known as the New Party, but this was decimated after a General Election was called in 1931.

It was then that Mosley would take a trip to Italy. There he was impressed by the changes Mussolini had made to the country and like a teenager styling himself after his favourite rock star, Mosley took the uniforms, the salutes, the armed thugs and the ideology back home and formed the British Union of Fascists. Admittedly, they did have an awesome logo.

The BUF were never very successful. They would never have any members elected, though there were small pockets of support, drawn by the torches, the banners and the histrionics of a fascist rallies in full flight. They would squander any chance at larger goodwill by quite literally trolling parts of the population, leading marches through predominantly Jewish parts of London. Now, this might have worked elsewhere, but in the decidedly working-class, socialist streets of the East End, marching, toffee-nosed, jackbooted thugs were not received well. In the face of massed opposition from local Jews, Protestants and Catholics, the BUF let the police do their fighting for them, in incidents such as the Battle of Cable Street.

Cable Street marked the high point for Mosley. His connections with fascist movements grew stronger and nowhere else were they stronger than with the Nazis. Mosley was best friends with the Nazi elite, such as Goebbels and even Hitler. Heck, Mosley would even end up marrying Diana Mitford (of the Mitford Sisters, the epitome of upper-class twits, without compare) in Goebbels' office, with Hitler as a guest. This, of course, did not go well with the English government, which was racing towards war with Germany and Mosley found himself incarcerated at Holloway prison in May 1940. He was released in 1943, to much protest.

Mosley didn't play much of a role following World War Two. Shunned from English society, Mosley and his wife would move to the Continent, where he would end up living near fellow Nazi-sympathiser and abdicated King of England, Edward VIII. Mosley died in 1980.

Fascism never took hold in England, it just fizzled out. Just as the BNP will. Nick Griffin will enjoy a brief period of notoriety, only to fade away once his ridiculous, sad policies have come under enough scrutiny. It's like one of my all-time heroes, Depression-era dustbowl troubadour and political activist Woody Guthrie said...

15 . Pottymouth NT police redefine the language of policing

The Northern Territory police should be charged with murder -- of the English language.

Here is an extract from just one of the case notes of complaints against NT police documented in the 2008-2009 annual report to the local Parliament of the NT Ombudsman, Carolyn Richards.

Comments from a police officer in the watchhouse to a prisoner being processed include: "Shut your face", "dumb f-ck", "f-cking loser", "d-ckhead over there", "...no brain", and "f-cking retard."

The Ombudsman’s case note, headed "No brains" detailed the treatment meted out by NT Police at an unnamed station to a complainant who was taken into custody:

"... for breaking and entering. This person had fallen asleep outside the premises, due to being highly intoxicated, and was arrested at the scene."

Even before he made it to the cells he was getting the full benefit of the cop’s limited vocabulary:

"The complainant could be heard mumbling something whilst he was seated on the bench, although it was not discernable as to what was said. One of the attending officers responded with "shut your face". Further comments made to or about the complainant within the next 30 minutes included "dumb f-ck", "f-cking loser", "d-ckhead over there", "… no brain", "he’s from CSI, one of our smart criminals who breaks and enters and then collapses outside the scene" and "f-cking retard". There were several officers present during the comments, not one of them suggesting they were wrong or inappropriate."

Further examination of the audio and footage from the watchhouse cameras revealed this tasty little incident:

"... the duty officer was eating a piece of toast. He was pointing to the toast and then himself and later pointed to another breakfast behind the counter. In the officer’s statement he claimed he was indicating to the complainant that his breakfast was behind the counter. However on viewing the video it appeared the duty officer ate the complainant’s toast that was sitting with the complainant’s weetbix. He then went to a box sitting on the bin containing breakfast rubbish and took out a white bag with toast and a carton of milk. The duty officer then poured the milk on the weetbix and brought this, along with the toast in the white bag, to the complainant. It was concerning that the duty officer provided the complainant with toast and milk which appeared to have been taken from rubbish sitting on the bin.”

And thanks to the watchhouse cameras we now know that it only got worse for the complainant -- and, in some small measure, for one of the cops in question:

"In addition to the inappropriate comments identified above the duty officer was heard and observed making the following statements to or about the complainant:

For those if us who’ve never seen it -- and for those NT cops who have forgotten them, here is the NT Police Statement of Ethics.

And I suppose we can be thankful for small mercies -- at least the cops didn’t call the complainant a "black spastic c-nt", "piece of black sh-t that he is", "stupid black f-cking idiot", "dumb black f-ck", "f-cking black loser", "black d-ckhead over there" or "f-cking black retard".

16 . What’s happened to all the Pacific seasonal workers?

On Friday, Greg Barns suggested that Afghan, Iraqi and Sri Lankan asylum seekers are "critical to economic growth" in the fruit-growing areas of the Riverina, Murray Valley and Goulburn Valley. Barns cites a National Farmers Federation submission reporting a shortfall of about 100,000 additional employees in the rural sector.

This should mean plenty of opportunities for the Pacific Seasonal Workers Pilot Scheme, announced by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the 2008 Pacific Islands Forum in Niue. The Prime Minister stated that 2500 workers would be recruited from the Pacific islands in 2009-11, to work for up to seven months in Australia’s horticulture industry.

But since the pilot program began, only 56 workers have come from the Pacific to take up seasonal work in Australian orchards and vineyards.

More workers are scheduled to arrive this summer under phase 2 of the pilot, but nowhere near the numbers seen in New Zealand under a similar scheme, which began in 2007. Nearly 4000 seasonal workers from the Pacific arrived in New Zealand in the first year of their Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) program, with more than 5000 in the second year.

One problem is that the issue of labour mobility is entangled with the negotiation of a regional free-trade agreement, known as PACER-Plus. Trade ministers from around the Pacific met in Brisbane last week to map out a timetable for these negotiations. But island governments insist that increased labour mobility is integral to any trade deal. As well as existing opportunities for skilled professionals and trades people, Pacific nations want greater access to the Australian labour market for workers whose main skill is farming or fishing.

Remittances from overseas workers are already a crucial source of revenue for many island states (for example, Fiji earns more from remittances than either sugar or garment exports, and until the recent recession, remittances made up a third of Tonga’s GDP). Under a more liberalised trade and investment regime, the importance of remittances will grow. Island governments hope offshore workers’ wages will help to compensate for revenue lost as import tariffs are removed under the PACER-Plus agreement and overseas employment can replace jobs shed by industries that are currently subsidised or protected.

This debate comes at a time when there has been a structural shift in the Australian economy, with increasing use of temporary labour in a range of industries. There are more than 320,000 overseas students in Australia who can work up to 20 hours a week in term time and full-time in semester breaks; more than 130,000 skilled workers under section 457 visas, and 90,000 people under the working-holiday scheme.

Against those figures, the 56 Pacific workers who’ve taken up section 416 visas through the seasonal workers pilot are hardly the flood who would "take Aussie jobs", as critics of the scheme predicted.

The August 2008 announcement of the pilot left little time for the scheme to be in place before the peak harvest season last summer. Agreements were quickly signed with three of the four countries involved in the pilot (Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu), but these governments were already participating in New Zealand’s RSE scheme and had systems in place for the recruitment of workers. Finalising a Memorandum of Understanding with Papua New Guinea -- the fourth country in the Australian pilot -- has taken much longer (our northern neighbour has a larger range of players at national and provincial level who must be consulted and involved).

There have also been disputes over the best model for recruitment and employment. Under New Zealand’s RSE scheme, growers act as the direct employer of the overseas workers; in Australia, a different model has been adopted, with labour hire companies playing a greater role. At a time of recession and debate over the award covering the horticulture sector, many growers are reluctant to pay the extra premium required to cover the travel and administration costs of bringing in temporary workers from the Pacific.

Seasonal labour schemes are promoted as a win-win-win for employers, workers and government: growers gain a reliable but temporary labour force at peak harvest time; rural villagers from the Pacific have access to jobs at higher wage rates available at home; and government creates a regulated scheme that controls overstaying by temporary workers and starts to address the use of undocumented workers in an industry that relies on casual labour and off the books payments.

But there is a structural imbalance between the power of the host employer and the overseas worker. Several growers in Australia continue to employ overseas workers illegally. The Age’s recent exposé on undocumented Asian workers in the horticulture industry highlights the danger of employers using overseas workers to attack rights protected by the Australian union movement.

Any scheme recruiting seasonal workers must be well regulated with involvement of government, employers and unions, to ensure that core rights are maintained (on wages, working conditions, housing and health and safety laws). There is a need for extensive labour market testing and monitoring of social impacts, so the benefits of remittances for the family and community can be weighed against the social costs for local and overseas workers.

Even if trade liberalisation eventually produces the economic nirvana in the Pacific that free-market economists predict (which is very doubtful, given the size of most island nations), there will be a lag before new jobs become available.

Under the pilot, Australia has only offered 2500 visas for the Pacific over three years, which is not a major test of systems for recruitment, housing and employment rights (in contrast, New Zealand has increased the cap for numbers from 5000 to 8000 workers every year in their RSE scheme). If the Rudd government is serious about regional economic integration, it must address the link between labour mobility and development in the islands region, and not just use greater labour market access as a bargaining chip in regional trade negotiations.

Nic Maclellan works as a journalist in the Pacific, and is author of Workers for all seasons? (Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University).

17 . The difference between a terrorist and a terrorist

What’s the difference between a terrorist and a terrorist? And when is a terrorist deemed a genuine refugee who doesn’t pose any threat to Australia?

Victor Rajakulendran, secretary of the Australian Federation of Tamil Associations, provides some clues. He acknowledges that there are members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam aboard the Australian Customs vessel Oceanic Viking, landing in Indonesia with its cargo of 78 asylum seekers.

Did you spot the difference? You can be an ex-combatant who may be fighting for a legitimate cause. You may have used tactics that could be described as unacceptable. For instance, you may have been part of an organisation that has undertaken more suicide terrorist attacks than any organisation on the planet. You may have been part of an organisation that taught groups such as Hamas and Taliban how to use the suicide vest. Your victims may have included a large number of heads of state, politicians, etc.

But as long as you are not an Islamic terrorist, you pose absolutely no risk to the country. You may have fought for an organisation that taught Islamic terrorists just about everything they needed to know about how effective suicide terrorism is. But so long as you aren’t deemed to belong to the wrong religion, you’re fine in Dr Rajakulendran’s books.

Indeed, Rajakulendran doesn’t regard the LTTE as a terrorist organisation at all. Instead, he describes it as being "involved in a bloody armed struggle for more than two decades to liberate the Tamil-speaking people living in the north-east of the island from the oppressive Sri Lankan Singhalese-dominated governments".

Crikey spoke to Rajakulendran this morning. He confirmed he didn’t regard the LTTE as terrorists and claimed most Tamils agreed with him. He said he didn’t believe senior LTTE leaders would be on the boat but rather youths. He also said that the LTTE were different to "Islamic terrorists" because the LTTE had established a state and showed the ability to govern in the interests of Tamils.

I put to him that some "Islamic terrorists" (e.g. Hamas, Hezbollah and Taliban) made similar claims. He said that these groups were in this respect similar to the LTTE though some had "gone too far" and "lost their way". I asked what he proposed should happen to young Afghan asylum seekers who were found to be Taliban fighters at some stage. "It depends. If the local Afghan community can work with the government to rehabilitate these people, why not let them in?"

It’s true that many former LTTE fighters may not have been terrorists. They may have been forcibly recruited or press-ganged into military service. The Taliban did the same thing in Afghanistan and continues to do it on both sides of what has become known as the "AfPak" border. Even armies carrying the legitimacy of a democratic state can force young men to fight. Sometimes these men are forced to use terror against persons they are told are terrorists. That’s the nature of war.

Anyone who can flee from this kind of madness and has the guts to jump on a boat and risk their lives crossing the ocean deserves to go through the usual refugee application processes. Whether they’re Tamil or Islamic or Callithumpian is irrelevant. But if they pose a threat to Australian citizens, they’re best not settled here. Again, whether they’re Tamil or Islamic or Callithumpian should be irrelevant.

18 . Letter from Aceh ... Part II

In the shadow of Aceh’s tsunami memorial museum sits a colonial, Dutch-era cemetery. Framed by overgrown grass and red flowers, graves lie disjoined, the result, I was told by writer Fozan Santa, of time and the tsunami’s raging water. At the back of the space, behind ornate statues to famed generals and soldiers, are four Jewish graves. Hebrew script and the Star of David run across the graves. These four Jews died in the 1800s and 1900s and remain in peace today in the heart of a devoutly Islamic society.

"Many Acehnese know about them," Fozan said. "Holland sends funds to maintain the cemetery."

It was not what I expected in a province ruled under sharia law. Although Jews are an abstraction and almost solely defined through brutal Israeli actions, I found no outright hatred of Judaism.

Fozan, with wavy shoulder-length hair, revealed that his definition of Islam was as contradictory and personal as could be. I asked whether he drank alcohol during a recent Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and he said he only asked for Coke. However, his friend, a Muslim from Jakarta, consumed wine and beer. "I’m Acehnese, not Muslim," Fozan said. "I don’t drink alcohol but many Muslims do. We’re different."

It was yet another sign that the Acehnese saw themselves as distinct from their Indonesian rulers. Jakarta may now control their lives but an independent streak still runs through the veins of the province.

Within minutes of arriving in Banda Aceh, my young hosts -- three girls in the final year of school, two of whom wore colourful headscarves -- were playfully asking me about girlfriends and life in the West. I was reticent to broach the subject of female circumcision but they were happy to take questions. One girl was mutilated at birth, "because it’s tradition and my mother said she had no choice". She knew all about the reduced s-xual feeling of the procedure but seemed resigned to the reality. They asked if I was circumcised.

That night I spent time at a cultural centre to watch rehearsals for a performance that will soon tour villages. It was aimed primarily at children as a way to teach Acehnese history before and after the 2004 tsunami. Resistance to the Dutch colonialists was a strong theme and the actors used bananas as ships as they stood inside a massively over-sized television set. Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment was referenced (my host said that many locals knew the work.)

Although cinemas are banned, pirated DVDs were widely available, including the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Like I noticed in Iran, images of American women in various states of undress were ubiquitous on covers. The Desperate Housewives women seemed to be missing quite a few buttons on their blouses. Satellite television and the internet makes the imposition of strict bans on "unIslamic" entertainment futile. Most people I met were proud to call themselves Muslim but tapped into the connected world that included nudity, violence and sexual proclivities.

During a public forum on writing and culture at a Western-style café in Banda Aceh -- featuring my talk about Palestine and two guitarists who played songs eerily reminiscent of Nirvana’s Something in the Way -- a young blogger said it was inappropriate to look at female nudity and porn. "We must have a moral responsibility," he said. But others, commenting on a young artist who had recently caused controversy by painting female nudes, argued it wasn’t the role of society to tell artists what to paint. "As long as you’re true to yourself," a girl said. It was a civil discussion over various interpretations of Islam that fundamentalists deemed unnecessary, even blasphemous.

Challenging these allegedly acceptable forms of Islam is Violet Gray, a support group for homosexuals and transsexuals. Understanding HIV and sexual orientation is something the Indonesian web does brilliantly and allows Acehnese of a particular orientation to feel less alone. We see similar trends in countless other societies (such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and China) where persecuted minorities gather to share and grieve.

Writer, teacher and publisher Fozan acknowledged the major shifts in his society since 2004 but lamented the lack of readers for his work. "We have too many writers here," he said. "Everybody is just changing Facebook status updates every few minutes. Aceh is like France years ago when people used to use coffee shops to write books."

Antony Loewenstein is a journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution

Media/Arts/Sport

19 . Ah, sweet mystery of life found at Cox Plate

The W S Cox Plate has been running at Moonee Valley since 1922 and is billed as "the greatest two minutes in sport" but this year’s version took your breath away more than all the knee-tremblers you could possibly fit into 124 seconds in a month of Sundays.

It produced all the longing, striving, seeking, waiting, and yearning you could possibly ask for in a horse race when you are sitting on the winner; and I don’t mean that lunatic waving his whip around who took him past the post, then back up the straight to play to the crowd; and, ultimately, to the winner’s circle.

There has been a good deal of conjecture about the future of the Moonee Valley course since Lindsay Maxsted produced his review of the Melbourne metropolitan racing clubs. Some want it totally redeveloped to take advantage of its obvious real estate development potential.

I assume they envisage relaying the course to take out its constant twists and turns and then, surrounding the resulting doughnut with high-rise apartment blocks. Others want it closed and its feature races like the Cox Plate moved to Flemington. I would suggest that neither option is likely to happen in my lifetime.

More than 31,000 punters crammed into the tight confines of the Valley like sardines in a can with the lid removed. The sun shone brightly which heated the can to near boiling point by the eighth race at 4.30pm. Invariably, alcohol caused inhibitions to be shed more readily than the suit coats of the male members.

But it was grand! Altogether grand! The punters couldn’t get enough of it. Everybody likes a winner and I liked this one more than most.

The Valley is an excruciatingly tight and tricky track with Strathay all-weather surface around its 1,805 meter circumference and a straight of only 173 meters. The track rises 5.5m from 800m to post.

The $3 million Cox Plate is a classic weight-for-age Group 1 contest over 2040 meters. The rail was in the true position. The rating was Good 3 or 2 and the penetrometer was reading 4.58.

So You Think is a raw, three-year-old (technically, he’s only a two-year-old because of that August horse birthday thingy) black colt and was having only his fifth public outing in polite company. Those five races have produced three firsts, a second (in a photo finish) and a fifth last up in the Caulfield Guineas.

Someone who knows him well describes him as "a big, gangly, leggy colt ... Just look at him. He's got great confirmation, he's by a good sire; he’s got a deep girth and a lovely rein."

He could have added he looked the part and was well prepared but he didn’t. So You Think was champing at the bit when he entered the mounting yard and was extremely well presented. My heart started to beat faster ... Had I found thee, sweet mystery of life?

So You Think was foaled at the Windsor Park Stud in the beautiful Waikato region of Nuh Zuhlund on November 10, 2006. The man listed on his birth certificate as his father was a wham-bam-thankyou-maam shuttle stallion called High Chaparral from the Coolmore Stud in Co. Tipperary. He himself is a son of the great European sire Sadlers Wells.

His dam was Triassic (by Tights) who cost just $16,000 at a broodmare sale in Sydney in 2005. So You Think, was sold to Dato Tan Chin Nam for NZ$110,000 at the New Zealand Bloodstock Premier Yearling sale in 2007. The other part-owner is Tunku Ahmad Yahaya who is by way of being the nephew of Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Glen Boss is a very exuberant hoop who paid for his unbridled joy after winning the Cox Plate with a $1,000 fine and also a 10-meeting suspension for interfering with Heart Of Dreams on the first corner which he cut. I don’t think he gives a toss and neither should he. He rode a technically brilliant race and led from go to woo. How simple is that! His light-headedness can be put down to two weeks of wasting to make the weight.

The turf accountant brought home the bacon in a big way with a substantial bet with Mr Tabcorp on So You Thinks’ nose while at the Caulfield Cup the previous week. Like Glen Boss, we will get to eat again this week. Q.E.D.

The annual racing fraternity Mass will be held at St Francis' Church, Melbourne (cnr Lonsdale and Elizabeth Streets) on Sunday 1st November at 9am. The Mass is attended by people of all denominations representing all sections of the racing industry (except the horses) and is offered for the well being of the racing industry as a whole.

The Melbourne Cup Carnival proper kicks off at Flemington on Saturday with the $1.5 million Victoria Derby for colts and geldings over 2500 metres and the L K S MacKinnon Stakes over 2000 metres. I can hardly wait but I suspect I will have to.

20 . Media briefs: Nine's Top Gear ain't cheap ... The story News Ltd didn't want you to read

Stop the press: Barack Obama played golf with a woman. It's apparently not enough for Obama to be surrounded two daughters, a wife and a mother-in-law at home, have Hilary Clinton as his Secretary of State or appoint Sonia Sotomayor as Supreme Court Justice. No, he must play golf with them as well.

Yesterday the front page of the Sunday NY Times led with an article dissecting the Obama administration "boys club", where "some high-profile sectors of the White House — economics and national security, for instance — are filled with men and exude an unmistakable male vibe". It complained that ladies weren't allowed to join in and shoot hoops at a famed presidential b-ball game. Plus, no women have played golf with Obama since he became president, but that a senior White House aide, Melody Barnes, was due to play this weekend.

Now whether it was the NY Times article that prompted the tokenism or not, Barnes teed off with the president in surely the most widely reported act of presidential social togetherness since the beer summit.

Journalist Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times deemed it worthy of three separate pool reports , almost like a live-blog of the golf game. It lead with the wonderful headline 'Obama golfs with Melody Barnes, first female in presidential foursome':

The NY Times reported that "Melody C. Barnes, a White House aide, broke through President Obama's green ceiling Sunday afternoon".

"Another crack in the gender glass ceiling" said the LA Times, with their article entitled 'A first! President Obama actually golfs with a woman!'

As Politico noted, "Who says newspapers don't have any influence anymore?" Now if only that influence was used for focusing on issues that actually matter. -- Amber Jamieson

Tune in to Obese. It had to happen. We've had The Biggest Loser, Dance Your Ass Off and now the ultimate weight-loss reality program, brought to you by the home of fatness, the US of A. US TV industry reports say the ABC Network had bought, sight unseen, a new program to be known (tentatively) as Obese. It's to be made by Biggest Loser executive producer J.D. Roth.

Six one-hour episodes of the documentary-style series have been ordered from production company 3 Ball, which will assemble the story of six people who are heavily overweight. The story will tell of their battle over a year to try to lose 50% of their body weight. No host, each story will be introduced by the person involved. The series won't be seen on US TV until 2011. Real fat TV at last. How about MasterFat Australia for the local version? -- Glenn Dyer

Nine's Top Gear ain't cheap. Nine was boasting about securing Top Gear on Friday from SBS. (Crikey had pointed out two months ago that SBS had lost the series then, but the network demurred). Top Gear is not a cheap acquisition. It has bought all the backlog programming, except series one. There will be series two to 13, most of which have been seen on SBS and on pay-TV in this country. Nine has had to pay BBC Worldwide a premium to move the program. Nine also had to make a local program (this is where those Shane Warne stories come in). The local version isn't cheap, it costs the best of $100,000 or more an episode (including licence fees, etc, to the BBC). Of interest will be whether BBC Worldwide has insisted that the program is not supported or sponsored by a car company. That was part of the deal with SBS. -- Glenn Dyer

Vox pop of the day. Today's NT News asked its readers if they felt the weekend's earthquake. Some of the answers were, well ... erm, interesting...

The story News Ltd didn't want you to read. News Limited was willing to pay dearly for this story not to be published. It first offered a $110,000 payment, plus a private apology, to avoid going to court. But the price it demanded was that the matter be kept confidential. The company was told to take a jump. See you in court.

The Daily Telegraph had published four stories about Michael Towke, which he believed had defamed him, destroyed his political career, and caused untold stress to his family. "These stories sent my mother to hospital," he told me. "They demonised me. I wanted to confront them in court." -- The Brisbane Times

Tinseltown Trannies! NW US could teach the Daily Tele a thing or two about Photo Gallery artistry...

Listen up to Helen Thomas. White House reporter and columnist Helen Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. After six decades of questioning, analysing and joking with commanders in chief, Thomas has plenty of advice for the current president, as well as future contenders. She shares her words of wisdom in her new book, Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do. Thomas talks with Rebecca Roberts about her 60 years in journalism, and describes her experiences covering the administrations of 10 different US presidents. -- NPR podcast

Disney on rewriting the script. Bob Iger, the Walt Disney chief executive, has issued a stark warning to Hollywood, saying the film business is "changing right before our eyes" after a turbulent year in which studios have been forced to re-examine their business models. DVD sales have been Hollywood’s leading cash generator for the past decade but sales are tumbling and have not been replaced by revenues from platforms, such as digital distribution. -- The Financial Times

Put down your phone and just enjoy the music. What were we all doing? Filming and tweeting and checking in rather than just putting our phones away and enjoying the gig. Why does the world need two thousand photos of the same band on the same stage, all taken from a slightly different angle. That kind of 360-degree imagery might have been useful on the day Kennedy was shot -- not least because it would have kept Oliver Stone quiet -- but for a Weezer gig? And what’s the point of checking in on Foursquare at a ticketed event that no one else can get into. You might as well tweet "I’m a dick" and be done with it. And yet this real-time mentality -- pictures/tweets or it didn’t happen -- continues to seep into every aspect of our lives, both personally and professionally. -- TechCrunch

MJ is on a roll. Mother Jones, the non-profit magazine of investigative reporting, has been around since 1976, but lately it's been getting plenty of fresh attention. Partly because it's a proven model for non-profit journalism (the magazine gets support from subscribers, donors, advertisers and foundations) in a moment when old monopoly-driven for-profit business models for journalism, particularly at newspapers, are crumbling. But also because editorially, the magazine has been on a hot streak. -- MediaWorks, AdvertisingAge

Slutty Google. Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson has again opened fire on Google, accusing the internet giant of promoting online news reading "promiscuity". Thomson's unabashed criticism of the internet powerhouse last week in San Franscisco came as he and Google vice-president of search products Marissa Mayer took part in a Web 2.0 panel focused on the fate of journalism in a world of online news aggregation. "Marissa unintentionally encourages promiscuity," Thomson said as discussion touched on whether Google providing links to news stories in response to search queries was bolstering or undermining traditional news operations. --The Australian

21 . Last night's TV ratings

The Winners: The Force on Seven at 8pm was tops with 1.438 million and Border Security on Seven at 7.30pm was second with 1.346 million. Nine News was 3rd with 1.330 million and Seven News was next with 1.246 million. Bones averaged 1.193 million for Seven at 8.30pm (and won). Sunday Night was 6th with 1.141 million at 6.30pm for Seven and Rescue Special Ops finished its season with a solid 1.058 million. 60 Minutes was 8th with 1.030 million and Australian Idol was 9th with 1.003 million. 20 to 1 on Nine at 6.30pm averaged 979,000 and Castle on Seven at 9.30pm on the slot with 852,000.

The Losers: CSI Miami on Nine at 9.30pm: 787,000. Wuthering Heights, 769,000 at 8.30pm on the ABC. The Einstein Factor at 6.30pm on the ABC, 632,000 in its death throes.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne (where it was 140,000 ahead). Seven News won Brisbane and Perth. Nine also had a big win in Adelaide. Ten News averaged 630,000 and the 7pm ABC News averaged 935,000. SBS News at 6.30pm averaged 170,000, Dateline, 195,000. On the morning, Seven's Weekend Sunrise averaged 402,000 from 8am; Today on Sunday on Nine, 274,000 from 8am. Landline at Noon on the ABC, 258,000. Insiders on the ABC at 9am, 190,000, Inside Business an hour later, 149,000. Offsiders half an hour later still, 126,000. Meet The Press at 8am on Ten, 40,000.

The Stats: Nine won with a share of combined share in 6 pm to midnight All People of 29.4% (28.1%) from Seven with 27.4% (26.5%), Ten with 22.0% (22.8%), the ABC with 15.0% (18.1%) and SBS with 6.1% (4.5%). Nine won Melbourne and Adelaide. Seven won Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

In regional areas a win to WIN/NBN with 29/1%, from Prime/7Qld with 27.6%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 20.1%, the ABC with 15.7% and SBS with 7.7%.

Digitally: Nine's GO had 4.3% (leaving Nine's main channel on 25.1%), Ten's ONE averaged 1.2% (Ten's main channel, 20.8%), ABC 2 was on 0.50% (ABC 1, 14.5%), SBS TWO, 0.3% (SBS ONE, 5.8%).

Glenn Dyer's comments: Well, Nine had a bigger share last week including its Digital TV channel, GO. Seven had a bigger share on its main channel, 26.9% to 25.3% for Nine. Seven won the week. Seven's new digital channel 7TWO starts next Sunday. From then on there will be no more confusion about aggregated versus separated audience figures.

According to Fusion Strategy in Sydney, Pay TV suffered a very large and nasty 15% fall in prime time viewing in the broad 16 to 54 age group (which takes in all major groups marketed to). Pay TV's average audience in this group from 6pm to 10.30pm fell from 411,000 in the same week of 2008 to 349,000 last week. It lost audience on every night of the week, although last night it managed to scrape a small rise, thanks to the One Day cricket on Fox Sports from India.

Last night we saw Nine have a bigger share than Seven, but Seven had a bigger share than Nine on a main channel comparison, 27.4% to 25.1% because Nine's GO had another strong Sunday night with its second 4% plus share in a row.

TONIGHT: Top Gear, still on SBS. Nine has The Mentalist. Ten has Good News Week at 8.30pm. But first make sure you at least sample Jamie Oliver's Jamie's American Road Trip The ABC has Australian Story and Four Corners. Seven has FlashFoward. Criminal Minds at 9.30pm is new. Mercy has been pushed back to 10.30pm and soon the life support machine will be turned off.

Business

22 . United in fat cat pay anger

United they stood, well almost. Last week, shareholders in contractor United Group vented their anger at the company’s generous pay practices with the majority of shares being voted against the company remuneration report resolution. The resolution was only passed after "open proxies" were voted in favour of the largesse by the board.

In total, 39.8 million shares voted against the resolution, compared with only 37.8 million in favour. United shareholders were furious at the 30% pay rise received by CEO Richard Leupen last year. While shareholders witnessed the United share price slump by 16% during the year, Leupen’s short-term cash bonus leapt from $1.4 million to $2.3 million.

The United board also infuriated governance experts by agreeing to pay Leupen a $500,000 annual "succession incentive". That generous stipend is based upon Leupen:

Old-fashioned types would have thought that those tasks, such as updating the board, would fall squarely within the traditional role of a CEO, especially one who is already paid upwards of $4 million per year. Apparently, not the United board, which appears to happily dole out shareholder monies to its CEO.

In defending United’s remuneration practices, embattled chairman Trevor Rowe told the Financial Review that the board "had received advice from independent consultant John Egan that ... criticism was unwarranted".

Admittedly, asking a remuneration consultant for their view on the reasonableness of a CEO’s pay is much like asking a pimp's views on the reasonableness of legalising street prostitution.

That a remuneration consultant would approve of ostensibly excessive pay practices as reasonable is hardly a surprise, especially when that very consultant was being paid by the people whose pay he was assessing. (Warren Buffett once dubbed such consultants "Ratchet, Ratchet & Bingo" due to their largely inflationary effect on executive pay). The choice of Egan was also convenient. Egan appears to have well-formed views on executive remuneration. In 1999, Egan wrote an article in a leading broadsheet newspaper in which he "made a plea on behalf of corporate executives, contrasting what he viewed as the public’s reluctance to properly reward senior executives while being more than happy to shower riches on sports stars and entertainers".

The repudiation by shareholders of United’s pay practices last week would have caused a spill of the board under the two strikes rule proposed by the Productivity Commission. Last year, United shareholders also revolted, with 37% voting against the report. (A spill of the board would have been the last thing that United chairman Trevor Rowe would have wanted. The embattled former chairman of BrisConnections was not up for election at United Group this year).

The United Group backlash comes only days after 43% of Qantas votes rejected the airline’s remuneration practices. It us understood that the Qantas resolution got over the line after several weeks of intense lobbying of institutional holders by senior board members. It believed that about 95% of actual shareholders rejected the airlines pay policies, which led to former CEO Geoff Dixon receiving $10.7 million for five months' work.

23 . Singapore Airlines tries to get a grip

No-one in the airline game in Australia could remember seeing anything like the note Singapore Airlines sent to the media last night:

Sort of like Singapore Airlines playing the role of ‘grandma’ in the dark woods, hoping that ‘Lil Red riding Hood, (Qantas), might drop in for a visit.

Singapore Airlines says it is doing something to restore consumer confidence for the entire industry by encouraging travellers to buy cheap fares to London and European cities in advance in the knowledge that if Singapore Airlines should for some reason undercut itself closer to the date of travel it will refund the difference.

So, buy a $1950 return to London on SQ (which is around $52 more than a comparable QF offer) and SQ later decides to clobber a cheap offer from those Malaysian upstarts at AirAsia X or, let’s guess, Qantas, by cutting it to $1250 before you fly, it will give back $700.

The Singapore girl will in effect, meet her own best offers, but not necessarily those of her competitors.

The ‘benchmark’ reference could also be read as encouragement to other airlines to act in concert and ‘get the industry moving.’

Which is rather odd. The reality is that the market scarcely needs moving. Flights on the kangaroo route are packed with bargain shoppers already, especially when the exchange rate against the North Atlantic peso, the Pound Sterling, is better than ever.

Almost everyone on the routes to London and Europe tries to sell return economy flights for close to $4000 from eastern Australian cities, but a large proportion of the seats sold go in advance for significantly less, around the $1900 level.

The rational explanation for the ‘Future Proof’ Singapore Airlines deal is to send a signal to competitors that SQ isn’t going to surrender its very strong position on the UK-Europe to anyone, no matter what it costs.

Once that message sinks in everyone can consider trying to lift the fares back to higher levels, and get on with screwing the customers rather than each other.

24 . UK economists fail to see the recession on the wall

"Where have all the green shoots gone?" asked the Financial Times in an editorial in its weekend edition after the UK economy seemingly worsened in an early reading of third quarter economic growth.

"Economists remain capable of shock at seeing their forecasts contradicted," the FT also remarked.

Good point -- the use of the word "shock" was very appropriate as it described the reaction to Friday's news that growth fell 0.40% in the September quarter, according to official figures, rather than rising 0.20% as forecast by economists of every size and shape in the UK markets. More importantly, growth, as forecast in a Reuters' poll before the figures were released, would have allowed the UK economy to escape the recession and claim to be growing again.

No such luck and economists have once again copped a pounding. Not one of the hundreds in the UK markets picked the 0.40% fall in the UK's economic growth in the September quarter.

Economists after all in the Bank of England, the Banks, many universities, in the Government and among other regulators, had allowed or 'helped' the credit binge to happen, missed or didn't see the crunch approaching, missed the impact of that on the economy and then the recession, and now, to cap off, have wrongly called the end to the slump. Oh dear. Through some more Keynes on economy to keep us warm this winter.

As inaccurate as this assessment is, it nevertheless contains some truth, especially about the forecast of third quarter growth, not continuing recession for the UK economy.

Unlike Churchill's famous phrase about "their finest hour", the forecasts for September quarter GDP growth in the UK was just plain wrong, but wrong from a bunch of people who are the public faces of these banks and other financial groups who have needed bailing out with cheap money from the central bank, matey deals from Government and now huge bonuses, while companies have gone broke, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, homes or both.

And if you think about the optimism economists had about the economy it wasn't misplaced. Growth would have helped justify the he killer profits many banks and financial groups are currently making from the easy money policies of central banks and allowed them to rationalise the huge bonuses on the way at many of these financial groups.

Positive growth would have enabled bankers to say "see, we have done our bit for the economy and growth". Instead they are hearing "got it wrong again" and "paid too much for no return". Perhaps those forecasts were made to look good by the queues at city bars and eateries, not the queues of unemployed and homeless people.

But the sheer shock and horror at realising the economy was still stuck in a recessionary run can't be overstated. It goes beyond just a bit of easy economist bashing.

25 . Political economy: how best to regulate the financial system

Debate about how best to regulate the financial system is well and truly underway. It has been observed that if a bank (or similar financial institution) is too big to fail it is too large to live.

The issue of "moral hazard" has been highlighted by the rapid return to profitability of banks that accepted taxpayers' bailout money not so long ago, with consequent payment of large bonuses which may be difficult legally to prevent.

No lesser authority than Paul Volcker, America’s all-time champion central banker, wants to separate commercial banks from investment banks, a return to the arrangements of a simpler time.

This would rather neatly separate different types of financial activities -- presumably improving managerial and board focus -- and make current financial conglomerates smaller.

Commercial banks would be closely regulated and bailed out or forced into shotgun marriages if they were in danger of failing. Managers could be expected to behave, and be paid as, old-time commercial bankers. Retired commercial bankers could be pressed into service if the current generation of bankers was uninterested in such a dull, moderately paid, career.

Investment bankers would be allowed to take risks with their balance sheets, gearing up to increase returns if they wished. The key point is that it would be made crystal clear that no bailout could be expected -- indeed the enabling legislation might specifically ban any official bailout or marriage brokered by officials.

Sadly, despite Volcker’s stellar reputation, this idea seems not to be gaining traction in the USA, mores' the pity.

It is hard to imagine APRA's John Laker knocking on Macquarie Bank’s front door and saying something like "I’m here to break you into a dull commercial bank and a racy investment bank. Stop what you are doing until I approve a new business plan."

There are massive vested interests at play here, and highly paid bankers are famously good at duchessing poorly paid officials and politicians. Whatever the bureaucrats and pollies say, they cannot avoid a sneaking feeling that the bankers must be smarter than they are, and which modern official or politician can argue confidently with the verdict of the market? (Kevin Rudd and Ken Henry perhaps excepted.)

Martin Wolf of FT fame discusses the challenge of managing the "gigantic cuckoo in our nest." He concludes, consistent with Volcker: "Either we impose a credible threat of bankruptcy. or institutions we have to support are made safer, or, better, we have both of these."

"Open-ended insurance of weakly regulated institutions that take complex financial institutions that take complex gambles is intolerable. We dare not return to business as usual. It is as simple -- and brutal -- as that."

Locking up a high proportion of bonuses until ´partners´ retire is one possibility, with strong clawback provisions in case of losses caused by anything really but certainly bad risks gone wrong.

Convincing people that Goldman is a public utility that operates in the public interest might be more attractive but unlikely to succeed.

But the main message is clear -- Goldman is in the class of organisations that should be allowed to fail.

26 . Morning Market Report

Marcus Padley, sharemarket analyst and author of the Marcus Today daily newsletter, reports:

For a free 21-day obligation free trial of the MARCUS TODAY newsletter (and no we won’t ask for a credit card number) please START A FREE TRIAL -- you will receive two daily emails about the stockmarket, our MORNING EMAIL with all the stuff you need to know ahead of the trading day ahead and a DAILY EMAIL with all the midday events, news, comments and Ideas from Marcus and his Team.

You will also be given a password to the MARCUS TODAY website including access to all the emails as well as Educational, Entertaining and Researched Articles from Marcus and his Team and an archive where you can catch up on a whole week or month in just a few minutes. Or Browse at length. We are sure you will enjoy and profit from what we offer.

Your Say

27 . Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups

One assumes he has merely been gazing into his navel for his information as a quick search on Google will throw up any number of reports about the genocide going on in the north of Sri Lanka from Humans Rights Watch, a US investigation and a EU investigation which will see Sri Lanka sanctioned by Europe.

On top of that the Tamils so far processed at Christmas Island have satisfied the authorities that they qualify as refugees who would be in danger of death if returned to Sri Lanka. And once again I wonder at people lik Farmer who are so scared of boats but have no problem with the corporate people smugglers who bring in asylum seekers by the plane load each year.

Martyn Smith writes: Re. "At risk of banging on about this, we're all going to die" (22 October, item 3). Reading Clive Hamilton's paper on likely climate change is terrifying. Comparing it with Kevin Rudd's prissy statements on the CPRS makes me even more frightened.

Kevin, bright lad though he is, clearly doesn't comprehend the extent of the problem and the danger we are in. It's as though we are in the opening scenes of a disaster movie or a John Wyndham novel (Day of the Triffids, Cracken Wakes etc.)

What "we" will do is probably sit like a rabbit caught in the car headlights, for we have no real leadership on the issue. I suggest Crikey prints Hamilton's paper in full, so everyone else can be scared sh-tless as well. Misery loves company.

Mr Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, writes: Every day we hear some pious politician bleating about the end of the world unless we reduce our usage of carbon fuels like coal, oil and gas.

But every day we see them using taxpayers’ money to promote motor rallies, international sports functions, games, expos, carnivals, tourism and their own frequent jaunts to yet another conference in yet another posh foreign location.

Every one of these activities requires the burning of tankers of carbon fuel for its success. Are they fools, do they think we are fools, are they hypocrites, or are they just whipping up climate hysteria to disguise their greedy grab for more taxes on everything we use and more control of everything we do?

Kevin McCready writes: Re. "Tax Office won’t prosecute Australia’s worst tax cheat" (20 October item 1). It's time to end the rort. The bureaucratic army, the skyscrapers and suburban front rooms full of tax accountants, the billions of hours wasted in filling out tax forms and GST schedules etc etc etc.

The savings to our economy by moving to a land tax (simple, undodgeable, equitable) and ditching the rest would be worth a huge chunk of our GNP. We could even save the health system. Land tax is not new but vested interests have prevented it becoming a widespread efficient reality.

Frank Lucy writes: writes: For some reason, Australian journalists are terrible at pronouncing foreign place names. They usually don't even try to do it properly. The ABC apparently has a department　dedicated to this stuff, but they have a very relaxed attitude. (Only SBS takes it seriously.)

In the news at the moment is an Indonesian place called "Tangung Pinang". Here's how it should be (approximately) pronounced:

"Tun" (rhyme with "fun") -- "joong" (rhymes with "put") -- "pin" (yes, like "pin") -- "nung" (rhymes with "dung")

In fact, Aussie journos might be interested to know that rules similar to above apply to pronunciation of vowels in most languages other than English.

Learning to do these things right kind of indicates an element of respect. That's always a plus when you're trying to make it in the world.

Send your comments, corrections, clarifications and c*ck-ups to boss@crikey.com.au. Preference will be given to comments that are short and succinct: maximum length is 200 words (we reserve the right to edit comments for length). Please include your full name -- we won't publish comments anonymously unless there is a very good reason.

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26 . Morning Market Report

Your Say

**27 . Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups**