August 2004 Archives

While touring around the Right Wing Death Beast (RWDB) blogs using the excellent list provided by Troppo Armadillo, I'm constantly surprised by the vitriol metered out to ABC Radio National presenter Phillip Adams. You'd be forgiven thinking he's the devil incarnate. This is a bit rich coming from Professor Bunyip and company, whom I find much scarier.

Radio National drew a bit of blank at first, but a bit of research pointed me to 2FC. In my formative years, before FM started, 2FC was was right down the unfashionable end of the AM dial and consisted classical music and the Hospital Hour. To admit you'd been there would have been social death. It was a bit of an effort to get the dial to turn that far to the left, but we got there eventually.

For all the attention he gets, you'd think Phillip had an audience rivaling John Laws or Alan Jones. For heavens sake, guys, he's on Radio National, with an audience of three men and a dog! Maybe four men and dog as I've been listening a bit to him lately.

I'm sure Phillip will be pleased that his detractors have increased his audience by 25%.

Contrary to the views of the RWDBs, I found Phillip topical, informative and interesting. John and Alan could learn something from him. And with no adds. Bliss.

Update: As Kenno pointed out in his comment, the AFL may let Sydney play a home final after all.

There's still a round to go, so it's all conjecture, but if the dominoes fall as expected the AFL may let Sydney play their home final, and hope that Brisbane and Port Adelaide win their first games. This will mean that two Melbourne teams will play at the MCG on the second week.

If one of the top teams lose, then the AFL will have to decide if they force that team play at the MCG the next week. Not very fair on a team that has finished near the top of the ladder. If they don't, then they'll be two MCG games behind for next season, and the problem will be all the worse.

This still doesn't solve the big problem with the AFL / MCG agreement, and that is if two higher ranking interstate teams qualify for each of the preliminary finals held in week three, then one will have to play in Melbourne.

The only real solution is that the AFL / MCG agreement has to go.


Although born and bred in Sydney, I've been a follower of the Australian Football League (AFL) since the former South Melbourne team moved here to become the Sydney Swans during the early 80s. My interest in the game springs from my late father, a Western Australian who, despite living here for 50 years, never lost his passion for the game.

Being a Swans follower in the early days was not easy. Sydneysiders were generally ambivalent to the team and code. The authorities had the naive view that the game would flourish in Sydney without much support. How wrong they were. Apart from a short period in the mid 80s, the Swans were unsuccessful financially and on the field. They almost folded in the early 90s.

The AFL belatedly came to the rescue of Sydney by providing financial support and assistance with concessional draft picks and coaching. In the following years the team turned around, climaxing in 1996 when the team played in their first grand final in over 40 years. The Swans have been competitive on the field and financially secure ever since.

The AFL successfully did what the Rugby League tried to do and failed; they set up a viable national competition. Besides Sydney, the AFL set up teams in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane. So successful has it been that seven of the past 10 competions have been won by interstate clubs.

So why is it that the AFL tollerates an arcane agreement with the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC), the body that runs the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), that forces interstate clubs who have earned the right to stage home ground finals to play at the MCG?

Quoting from the AFL website:

Sydney and West Coast are set to clash in the first ever final between two non-Victorian clubs in Melbourne as the AFL finals picture began to take shape after a thrilling round 21.

With just one round remaining every spot in the top eight is still up for grabs heading into next weekend's season climax but the most likely scenario for the four first week finals has emerged following this weekend.

And it involves three non-Victorian clubs all earning the right to host finals in the first week, in a year in which the AFL has already declared it will play two finals at the MCG in the first week of September.

This is because the AFL 'owes' the MCG an extra final after playing just one final at the ground in the first week of the finals last year, under its finals agreement with the Melbourne Cricket Club.

[That would] leave the AFL still one final short of fulfilling its requirements to the MCC meaning sixth-placed Sydney would have to host seventh-placed West Coast at the MCG in week one - even though both teams hail from outside Victoria - if the ladder remains as it is.

The AFL has 'tried' to get the MCC to renegotiate the deal, but apparently they won't budge. As the AFL is Victorian based, the amount of effort they've put into the problem is a moot point.

The deal was originally designed to guarantee funds to pay for a new grandstand, but I suspect it now comes down to protecting the viewing rights of MCC members. The ironic thing about the current situation is that the MCC is going to host a game that has limited local interest.

More that half the teams in the AFL competition come from Victoria, so the MCG should, by law of averages, host most of the finals. It's shouldn't be the interstate teams' problem that Victorian teams can't make the grade.

This agreement is a blight on the national competition. It's about time that the AFL started to put real pressure on the MCC to give up this ridiculous and unfair situation, one that has in the past, given Victorian teams an unearned advantage in critical finals games.

Fairfax's own RWDB, Miranda Divine, wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald last Thursday, echoing the popular right wing spin on the 'Children Overboard Affair:'

For the previous three days, Howard and his Government had been condemned for claiming asylum seekers on SIEV 4 had thrown a child into the water on October 7 when there was no evidence that was the case.....

The fact is that on SIEV 4, 76 children had to be rescued from the water by the navy after their boat was sunk. The distinction between whether children were thrown overboard or dumped in the water after their boat was sabotaged has never resonated with the heartland.

She also ran the popular line seen in various rabid blogs, that reopening the issue could be to the government's advantage.

The Tampa crisis, as it came to be known, was widely regarded as an electoral plus for Howard, showing him to be tough on border protection.

If asylum seekers become an issue in the upcoming election, Howard-haters may be disappointed.

Like the rest of them, she seemed to miss the point. Howard lied, and others in the know, for whatever reason, were silent.

In today's Sun Herald, Miranda seems to have had second thoughts. Can't find a link, but I'll type the last bit out anyway.

But it is a great pity the Prime Minister and his former immigration minister Phillip Rudock ever promoted the children overboard furphy in the first place. It was not essential to their aim, which was to stop the flow of illegal boats. But by unnecessarily maligning the asylum seeker parents on board SIEV 4, they delivered the moral high ground to their opponents, who continue to reap the rewards.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Apparently the US is having second thoughts about ratifying the FTA after the Australian parliament amended patent law to protect the PBS.

The US ambassador, Tom Schieffer, said yesterday the US had some concerns with the amendments and there was no guarantee the US would certify the agreement.

Barring that this just another bit of meddling in Australian domestic politics by the US government, so what if they don't like changes that are beneficial to us?

The US ratified the agreement with a minimum of debate, indicating that it was biased in favour of the US. Now that they are hinting that they don't like the changes insisted by Labor, it can be taken that Labor was correct in forcing the issue.

There's no requirement that the agreement has to be passed this year. It can wait until after the election. John Howard's place in history is not a good reason to force it through.

The FTA will pass, irrespective of which party forms government. It's better that we take our time and get it right.

Just what were the James Hardie board of directors thinking when they moved the company off shore?

The company's headquarters has officially been in the Netherlands since a controversial move in late 2001 to set up a new parent company there.

The company said the move was mainly due to tax efficiencies, but the asbestos victim's group accuse it of moving offshore to escape liabilities in Australia.

Did they really think that asbestos compensation claims would just go away? That the victims would simply shrug their shoulders when they realised that the compensation fund money had run out?

These people must live in a parallel universe if they thought that there'd be no fallout for the company or their own reputations resulting from the shabby way they treated the victims of their asbestos laden building products.

Isn't it interesting when the proverbial hits the fan the boardroom's glass ceiling disappears? The chairman retires due to ill health and a woman is selected as his replacement. Although I'm not suggesting that she isn't qualified to hold the job, I do wonder if the boardroom boys' club that usually holds sway in large companies would have voted her in if it were business as usual.

I wish Meredith Hellicar luck in her new thankless job. A word of advice though; you would do your company and yourself a large favour if you simply apologised to the victims for your company's past actions. It doesn't sound good when, as you did recently on the ABC AM program, you used the 'We weren't there when it happened' defence. Take it on the chin, do the right thing by the victims, and move on.

John Howard must be wondering from which direction the next grenade will come.

First it was a group of 43 retired military and diplomatic luminaries who wrote a letter condemning the government's lack of truth when committing to our involvement in Iraq. Now a senior public servant, Mike Scrafton, writes a letter to 'The Australian' newspaper, claiming that John Howard knew all along that the 'children overboard' incident never happened.

The government used the issue to gain support and divide the opposition, but never provided video proof of the claims during the campaign. After the 'children overboard' claims were made on 7 November 2001, video evidence was claimed to exist but never saw the light of day before the election was held on 28 November 2001. Only still photos that didn't conclusively prove or disprove the claims were produced.

It was not until after the election that the government was forced to react to the reality that asylum seekers' children were not treated in this manner.

An interesting question is why Scrafton waited so long before saying anything. On the ABC 7.30 Report tonight he claimed, as a career public servant seconded into the Defence Minister's office, he felt duty bound to comply with the edict that perons in his position had to toe the government line on issues. His motivation to now go public had a lot to do with the way the 43 eminent persons were denigrated by elements of the Liberal party. What the 43 said about this government's lack of truth rang true to his own experiences during his time in the Defence Minister's office.

This is just another sad indication of depths that this Prime Minister will go to to stay in power.

It's a pity that most of the country is too distracted during the opening week of the Athens Olympics to bother much with federal politics.

We all knew it would happen. The government had nowhere to go. As soon as Mark Lathem stated that the deal would only pass through parliament with Labor amendments, John Howard was on a hiding to nothing if he didn't agree.

Imagine if the government had refused to agree to the changes. The government going to the polls stating who they love the PBS, and it doesn't need changes. Labor saying it needs changes to protect it from practices commonly used by large pharmaceutical companies to keep the cost of drugs high in the US. Labor stating that the only way to save the PBS is to vote for them.

I would have liked to see that!

Now that the bill has passed, it's up to the Americans to decide whether they can live with the changes. John Howard must be lying awake at nights hoping they agree. If they don't, then his credibility is shot as he stated 'ad nauseam' that the PBS would be protected even if it mean the deal wouldn't go through, and that Labor's amendments were superfluous because the existing law was adequate.

I suspect that any chance of a September election is gone, due to this issue. Look for a bounce to Labor in the next opinion polls. I'm betting the family jewels on 23 October.

The government has form when it comes to unconditionally accepting everything that its told by the intelligence services. Now it seems that they're making up their own intelligence. (Take that any way you like.)

Our illustrious Foreign Minister is making up his own stories to frighten us before the coming election. Tom Allard reports:

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, yesterday made the astonishing claim that North Korea could launch a ballistic missile to hit Sydney, prompting incredulity among experts who said he had got his facts very wrong.

Although it's no secret that North Korea does have a missile program, they don't have the technology to build one to hit Sydney, some 10,000 km away.

After creating a storm and forcing a clearly surprised Prime Minister, John Howard, to deny that the Government was scare-mongering ....

Sure, John.

As the election draws closer, it's in the government's interest to make the population feel insecure. Expect the terrorist threat to be talked up, any hint of terrorist activity to translate into increased security alerts, and many reminders that only the conservatives have what it takes to make us safe.

And the final word goes to Alex .....

Mr Downer clarified his remarks, saying North Korea did not have the intention of striking Australia. But he did not resile from his claim that it could.

Alex, I'm sure the security analysts around the world will be beating a path to your door to study this new, previously unknown, North Korean capability.

With all the talk of FTA amendments and the haste to get them agreed, I thought that there must be a time limit on the acceptance of the agreement.

Alan Ramsay points out that there is no such thing.

"The US bill that Bush signed [this week] is HR 4759. Section 101 says, '(b) Conditions for entry into force of the agreement: At such time as the President determines that Australia has taken measures necessary to bring it into compliance with those provisions of the Agreement that are to take effect on the date on which the Agreement enters into force, the President is authorised to exchange notes with the Government of Australia providing for the entry into force, on or after [my emphasis] January 1, 2005, of the Agreement with respect to the United States.'

"I see nothing in the bill that refers to October 1 or to a 90-day period between signing the bill and entering the agreement into force.

So there's no reason whatsoever for the agreement to be signed before the coming election.

There also seems to be some uncertainty that the amendments will be effective:

An intellectual property expert at the Australian National University, Peter Drahos, said it was uncertain whether Labor's amendments would be effective.

Generic companies would still have to succeed in the courts against the might of the multibillion-dollar "big pharma" companies, renowned for their aggressive and strategic litigation, Professor Drahos said.

This doubt results because Labor's amendments appear to have been drafted on the run. Perhaps they should take more time.

What's the hurry? Let's get it right. If the election has to be fought with this in the background, but at the end of the day we end up with effective and workable law, then all the better for everyone.

What a surprise!

The government makes noises about rolling over on the drugs patents issue.

Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson hinted the government might accept Labor's free trade agreement (FTA) amendments provided they caused no adverse impacts elsewhere in the economy.

Mr Anderson said cabinet hadn't yet met to reconsider its position.

But asked if he agreed with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer who said the Labor amendments might be worth considering if they were innocuous, Mr Anderson replied: "We will have more to say about it during the day.

Have to admit I'm a little bemused by Alexander Downer's comments hightlighted in the last paragraph. When did he say this?

The is what he had to say on ABC radio's AM program just this morning ....

..... Mr Latham has had this idea on the run, during the course of the weekend, suddenly rushes out to the media, says this is his proposal.

He hasn't thought through the consequences of what he's saying. He hadn't realised that if you implemented his proposal, as he's described it, then every single person in Australia who applies for a patent but gets that patent knocked back gets hit with a massive fine.

In which case, in which case, if people apply for patents and they get hit with massive fines, they're not going to apply for patents at all. That will destroy the intellectual property regime we have in this county.

He really said this! I can't figure out if Downer is stupid or he just thinks we are. Alex, Labor's amendments are to do with companies who try to extend existing patents, not register new ones.

Have to admit that seeing the government squirm on this issue is most enjoyable. We all know that they'll have to back down, but it is surprising that it's happening so soon.

I'm back, and hoping you can find the Flying Pigs at the new URL. Had to move the blog to a new part of the server, a trickier operation than expected. No matter, it's up and running now. Back to more weightier issues.

Mark Latham has dropped a bombshell with his announcement that the Labor party will only back the US Free Trade Agreement if the government amends laws regarding media content and the PBS. The government has agreed to change the media laws, but not the PBS.

It's hard to see where the government can go on this issue. The PBS is a big concern to voters, particularly older ones. The change to the law that Labor wants was flagged by the Senate Committee report, and Labor's unlikely to back down and pass the trade deal without the amended PBS legislation.

The problem of renewing patents on drugs that have had their original patent lapse is a large reason why drugs are so expensive in the US.

Under the "evergreening" ploy in the US, drug firms often claim a new use or relatively slight changes for their products so they can extend the time they can maintain higher prices.

Evidence presented to the Senate review committee asserted evergreening had become a significant obstacle to the entry of low-cost, "copycat" generic medicines in the US and Canada.

Professor David Henry - a former member of the panel that recommends new drugs for prescription subsidies - said yesterday the agreement introduced a more commercialised environment for companies to exploit techniques such as evergreening.

He said the system was vulnerable because the prices the Government agrees to pay were based on the lowest-cost product of that range of drugs.

It was this "reference pricing" method, widely hailed overseas for its low-cost results, that the US drugs industry was trying to destroy, Professor Henry said.

Labor is correct to demand changes to protect the PBS. Politically, the government is not doing itself any favours by blocking this amendment. They have a woeful track record of backing the US without question. Any reluctance to back up the PBS will be seen by a large part of the electorate as the government once again bowing to US interests.

If the government is serious about the trade deal, they should agree to the amendments demanded by the opposition. The PBS should not be jeopardised because of a reluctance to admit that there was a problem in the negotiated agreement.