Rudd's Orwellian Regime

There was a disturbing story in the Daily Telegraph two days ago. Steve Lewis reported that the Rudd government reserved the right to vet government funded communications between MPs and their constituents.

In a move that has incensed MPs, Commonwealth bureaucrats are exploiting new laws that allow them to ban newsletters being sent to voters.

Using Orwellian-type powers, they are putting a black mark through words such as "dreadful", "mismanagement" and "incompetence" - declaring they can no longer be used because they criticise government policy.

The new laws which came into effect on October 1 deliver a big advantage to the Government in the election year.

Senior ministers are even able to access material from Coalition MPs and the minor parties before they are mailed to voters.

The crackdown follows the Auditor-General's criticism of the $300 million parliamentary entitlements scheme.

This is beyond belief. It can’t be right, can it?

UPDATE:

I made enquiries of an ALP MHR who gave me the following reply:

The Telegraph story that you have referred to has arisen out of some changes to Parliamentary entitlements. Essentially, the issue is that a Member of Parliament is not permitted to incorporate party political comment into publications printed at taxpayers' expense.

The details of these requirements are contained in the attached Ministerial Circular and Q & A attachment.

The circular was released by the Special Minister of State following his press release:

http://www.smos.gov.au/media/2009/mr_352009.html

This press release was issued in response to the findings of the ANAO in the attached report.

http://www.anao.gov.au/uploads/documents/2009-10_ANAO_Audit_Report_3_.pdf

It is worth noting that an MP only has to comply with these requirements when using taxpayer funded entitlements.

I'll think of that every time I pass one of those school signs that must be kept up until after the next election.

This sounds like doublespeak to me. If this is the approach to be taken, politicians need to be given great latitude as to what they might say. They should certainly be allowed to criticise government policy in the most trenchant terms. Quoting Hansard clearly should be exempt from this regulation.

Moral Rights And Moral Wrongs

The profit motive drives economic growth, encouraging innovation and producing a cornucopia of goods and services for consumers. However, coupled with a statutory monopoly it draws out niggardly nastiness in those retarded bullies who enjoy nothing more than screwing people.

Performing rights associations specialise in bullying stand over tactics, as these two cases show.

Here we have an attempt to extort money from a shop because a girl stacking shelves was singing out loud. Ultimately the copyright cretins backed off after a public outcry.

The second case involves an attempt by Warner Bros. to shut down a Harry Potter themed party. The party morphed into an ' Anonymous Wizard' party.

Vain Thin-Skinned Thug Attacks Press Freedom

Obama promised to change the way Washington does business. In a sense he has done that – by importing the even more corrupt Chicago machine school of politics to Washington.

Obama’s administration has taken a rather precious approach to media relations, going to war with his media critics. This is reminiscent of Hugo Chavez’ style, but Chavez has taken things a bit further, closing down critical media. However, Team Obama appears to have crossed a line with its latest move.

An attempt was made to exclude Fox news from an interview with administration official Ken Feinberg. The other networks refused to do the interview if Fox wasn’t invited. Eventually Fox was invited and the interview went ahead. Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Ernest said:

“This White House has demonstrated our willingness to do a round of interviews with a range of networks but not Fox. Clearly, that didn’t happen yesterday.”

Putin, that great sponsor of a free and independent media would be proud of this attack on press freedom.

Here is the Fox News report on this issue:

And here is the Huffington Post take on it.

Apart from being utterly childish, and possibly unconstitutional it is time that Obama showed some respect for the people he serves, including those who disagree with. This is of a piece with his attempt to foist a rag-tag bunch of charlatans, tax truants and political extremists into high administrative office. Classic was his attempt to put tax cheat Tom Daschle in charge of health immediately after Daschle’s stint earning millions lobbying for private health industry firms.

The Democrat new broom approach can be seen in the fact that Charlie Rangel is still chair of the Ways and Means Committee despite his serious ethical issues. This is Chicago politics writ large in Washington.

Obama's ambition to be a radical reformer coupled with his administration's bare-knuckled brawler style politics does nothing but ensure that he will be one of the most divisive of all presidents. Certainly now people opposed to Obama are reacting angrily, and in some cases dishonestly (see previous post). Such is the circus of U.S. politics

Net Neutrality And Tethering

Tethering is a means of getting internet access on your computer by hooking up your mobile phone and using the internet access you pay for on your phone plan to get online on your computer.

The natural thing for rent-seeking predatory companies is to block tethering on mobile phones. Many telcos do just that. It allows them to screw their customers harder.

The US FCC has just put out a statement suggesting that the practice of tethering would be offensive against the net neutrality principle, which the FCC has proposed. Basically ‘net neutrality’ is a principle designed to stop the internet being colonised by big business. For example an ISP may be paid by a corporation to prioritise the streaming of its movies, leaving less bandwidth to other traffic.

If the "any device rule" is enacted as a "Rule" with a capital "R," customers must be enabled to utilize any device they choose to connect with a wireless broadband network, as long as it did not harm the network.

Not surprisingly, big business has been lobbying hard against net neutrality, initiating a scare campaign based on an Obama-bashing conspiracy theory:

If you thought Washington—which already took over banking and autos, and is fast-tracking attempts to take over health care and energy—would leave the Internet alone, you were dead wrong. The Internet (perhaps our greatest free market success story in recent years) is squarely in the cross-hairs of the administration and it’s not waiting for Congress to act. The charge is being led by an eager, ideologically committed White House staffer named Susan Crawford.

Unbelievable! You really can’t make this stuff up. As soon as content owners can prioritise their traffic, and reduce your traffic to a standstill the price they charge will go up, and consumer choice will go down. Business has been searching for a means to colonise the internet so they can extract monopoly rent from users. Attempts by government to prevent this are characterised as a leftist conspiracy.

Tweeting For Free Speech

Suppression orders are a serious impediment to the transparency of the judicial process. There may be situations in which suppression orders are warranted, such as where there is an obvious and imminent danger to a litigant or witness.

However, such orders are becoming commonplace, and are being used more widely:

The use of "super-injunctions", under which commercial corporations claim the right to keep secret the fact that they have been to court, has been growing. Anonymity is also increasingly being granted to individual litigants.

For example Trafigura recently obtained an injunction to stop the Guardian reporting parliamentary proceedings, specifically a question asked in the House of Commons about the dumping of toxic waste. The injunction also prohibited the Guardian identifying the party seeking the injunction or the injunction itself.

An interesting part of the story is the role of Twitter in getting the story out:

First, bloggers and twitterers started linking to a report on the Guardian website, which told people a High Court judge had "prevented" the paper "reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds."

Then, bloggers Jack of Kent and Richard Wilson started chiselling away at clues in the article to find out who had won the injunction and what the story related to.

Next, a steady stream of twitterers started posting links to Guido Fawkes, Don't Get Fooled Again, The Spectator and One Man And His Blog - websites that had decided to post the full text of Farrelly's question - to Twitter hash tags #Trafigura and #CarterRuck.

Around 10am on Tuesday, #Trafigura had become the top trend on Twitter, with #CarterRuck following close behind.

Stephen Fry tweeted 800,000+ followers: "Outrageous gagging order. It's in reference to the Trafigura oil dumping scandal. Grotesque and squalid."

While Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger informed the Twitterverse: "#CarterRuck ... High Court hearing [to challenge the injunction] fixed for 2pm."

Ultimately although a degree of common sense prevailed in this case, the larger issue of judicial transparency remains.

One Ring To Bind Them All

Fr Brennan has recommended that a Human Rights Act be adopted. Included are the following recommendations:

Recommendation 22

The Committee recommends that, if economic and social rights are listed in a federal Human Rights Act, those rights not be justiciable and that complaints be heard by the Australian Human Rights Commission. Priority should be given to the following:

· the right to an adequate standard of living—including adequate food, clothing and housing

· the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health

· the right to education.

Recommendation 23

The Committee recommends that a limitation clause for derogable civil and political rights, similar to that contained in the Australian Capital Territory and Victorian human rights legislation, be included in any federal Human Rights Act.

Recommendation 24

The Committee recommends that the following non-derogable civil and political rights be included in any federal Human Rights Act, without limitation:

· The right to life. Every person has the right to life. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of life. The death penalty may not be imposed for any offence.

· Protection from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. A person must not be

– subjected to torture

or

– treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way

or

– subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without his or her full, free and informed consent.

· Freedom from slavery or servitude. A person must not be held in slavery or servitude.

· Retrospective criminal laws.

– A person must not be found guilty of a criminal offence as a result of conduct that was not a criminal offence when the conduct was engaged in.

– A penalty imposed on a person for a criminal offence must not be greater than the penalty that applied to the offence when it was committed.

– If a penalty for an offence is reduced after a person committed the offence but before the person is sentenced for that offence, the reduced penalty should be imposed.

– Nothing in the foregoing affects the trial or punishment of any person for any act or omission that was a criminal offence under international law at the time the act or omission occurred.

· Freedom from imprisonment for inability to fulfil a contractual obligation. A person must not be imprisoned solely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation.

· Freedom from coercion or restraint in relation to religion and belief. No person will be subject to coercion that would impair his or her freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his or her choice.

The right to a fair trial should also not be limited.

Recommendation 25

The Committee recommends that the following additional civil and political rights be included in any federal Human Rights Act:

· the right to freedom from forced work

· the right to freedom of movement

· the right to privacy and reputation

· the right to vote

· the right to freedom of thought, conscience and belief

· freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs

· the right to freedom of expression

· the right to peaceful assembly

· the right to freedom of association

· the right to marry and found a family

· the right of children to be protected by family, society and the State

· the right to take part in public life

· the right to property

· the right to liberty and security of person

· the right to humane treatment when deprived of one’s liberty

· the right to due process in criminal proceedings

· the right not to be tried or punished more than once

· the right to be compensated for wrongful conviction.

Human rights protection is a mixed blessing. Any such legislation that does not entrench a right to free speech in such a way that overcomes the current idiotic laws which may, for example, result in the gaoling of people for ridiculing religion, and which has resulted in the gaoling of Frederick Toben for his anti-Semitic remarks, is worthless.

The sad fact is that this law will be imposed on the people by the parliament. The true nature of a Bill of Rights is one imposed on the parliament by the people. The current proposal does not envision a constitutional amendment, as it is extremely unlikely that it would be agreed to in its current form.

Instead the people will have this pious effluent inflicted on them by a smug righteous soft left government.

There is also a section of the report calling for compliance with Australia’s international obligations. The UN has passed resolutions calling for laws to protect religion from defamation. There is a risk that in future this will be enshrined as a human right and that it may become an ‘international obligation’ for Australia. This is offensive to the concept freedom of speech. This may suit a cleric like Fr Brennan, but it is an abomination in terms of free speech.

Ultimately, the legislation will be a sad compromise. It will be bent to accommodate current law. It is unlikely the government will allow it to overrule current legislation like the Federal sedition laws. In the end it will be a horrible compromise which will not serve the community well. If we are going to enshrine fundamental rights in law, it should be done as a constitutional amendment, which will lead to a fulsome public debate involving ordinary citizens rather than merely the chattering classes.

Self Censorship - The Soft Jihad

A German publisher has decided not to publish a novel out of fear for the safety of himself, his family and his employees.

Surely he knows that Islam is a religion of peace, and that only a very tiny minority of misunderstanders of Islam would resort to violence, so he has nothing to fear, right?

The novel was about an honour killing, obviously a topic wholly unrelated to Islam. The offending words were "You can shove your Koran up your arse". My thoughts exactly.

Censorship at Stanford

Stanford university has banned a filmmaker from using footage of an interview he conducted with an academic who had moved from a global cooling alarmist position in the 1970s to a warming alarmist position now.

In the 1970s there was widespread panic in the scientific community (which flowed through into the popular press) about the threat of global cooling.

It would be interesting to hear an interview with a scientist involved in both incidents. Stanford is doing everything it can to prevent this.

US Puts Free Speech On The Alter of Appeasement

This is quite disconcerting. As part of Obama's policy of "reaching out" to muslims the US has co-sponsored a dubious UN Human Rights Council resolution which sends out very mixed signals in relation to free speech.

The implications are discussed in the linked article.