James5

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Remember Sally Young’s book The Persauders? She also recently testified at an inquiry into political advertising at the last Federal Election, saying that TV stations should be required to give free time to political parties during election campaigns to address the tremendous costs incurred during political campaigns. Of course this has some issues in regards to who decides who gets aired and in what proportions - if not designed right it could just contribute to the stranglehold the two parties have on Australian politics. Also let’s not forget Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth and the implied right to political communication - the last time this was tried it was struck down by the High Court.

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I’ve been very impressed with the new ABC series The Hollowmen. It’s a mockumentary style series set in the Prime Minister’s “Central Policy Unit”, a unit set up by the Prime Minister to help him get re-elected. Though ostensibly they are public policy makers, their work mostly revolves around spinning issues and finding political palatable solutions to problems. Watching them as they ‘consult with stake holders’, develop ‘initiatives’, and ’seize momentum’ reminded me of Tom Davis excellent Public Policy Making subject at university, and is also making me reconsider a career in the public service.

The most recent episode, currently available on the website, is especially interesting as it deals with Australia’s relationship with Indonesia. The set-up is a massacre in West Papua and the Government trying to work out how to respond without offending the Indonesians.

There are two moments in the episode that really resonate with some of the concerns I’ve had about working in international law, and I think concerns that people generally have about the relevance and meaningfulness of international relations.

When the massacre is first brought to light and the CPU is working how they the Prime Minister can respond, the strongest response the public servants can think of is to “ask for restraint”. Anything more would be dangerous for bilateral relations - there’s a whole exploration of different trade sanctions and how difficult they would be for Australian industry too. One character mentions this is why he left DFAT, because they are so incapable of action. I guess that’s one frustration of the political/diplomatic side of international law - softly, softly, to get the result.

Another stand out moment was the discussion with the Australian Indonesian Human Rights Dialogue (AIHRD), a bilateral group that engages in dialogue on human rights. It was presented as a totally ineffectual ‘talkfest’ between the governments, barely able to agree on an agenda, it’s claim to fame being an eventual resolution to “agree to disagree” on human rights in West Papua. This is one of the questions I have received when I’ve talked about wanting to work for the Humanitarian Dialogue Centre, and is certainly a strong criticism of international institutions generally. Our UN tour guide said “Blah, blah, blah is better than war, war, war”; but when faced with UN conferences that have existed for 11 years without agreeing on an agenda and on-going fighting despite all the blah, blah, blah it’s understandable that people are sceptical!

I’d highly recommend you tune in to Hollowmen, Wednesday nights or each week on the ABC’s website. It’s public policy making in action!

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Kim over at Lawfont took a look at the proposals made by the RIAA on the ACTA. Some crazy suggestions on the plate.

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I’m amazed at how low Fox News has now sunk. While ‘reporting’ on two journalists that had criticised them they used edited photos of the journalists, which gave them yellow teeth, bags under their eyes, made them bald, and made them look generally unattractive. Bizarre.

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How maps make things look worse than they are. It’s all a problem of scale. For example, try to show all the debris floating around earth - most of which is very small compared to the field of vision you need to cover. So each dot you put on the map, though it may correspond to only a small piece of garbage, looks like a massive island of rubbish - making the earth look positively surrounded by debris.

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