A failure of logic

Daily we hear Gillard and Bowen bleating that they don't want to be responsible for another dreadful accident like the sinking of the asylum seeker vessel at Christmas Island on December 15 2010. They therefore go on to say that it is necessary to process asylum seekers off-shore, in order to "break the people smugglers' business model" and thus to prevent a further tragedy of that sort.
By so doing they create a much greater tragedy - they leave asylum seekers without any of the protections that they have a right to expect under the Refugee Convention and other international obligations that Australia has signed up to.
So long as there is unrest in the world, there will be asylum seekers. So long as there are asylum seekers there will be people offering to transport them to places where they might reasonably expect to be safe. So what's the failure of logic? Simply this: Both the opposition and the government seem to think that it's OK to treat asylum seekers in contravention of our international obligations; in an inhumane way; to imprison them; to turn them back in leaky boats...simply so they won't have a chance to end up, graphically on our nightly television news. Gillard and Abbott don't want that sort of footage - it suggests that they might not be being humane or sensible in their policies. So perhaps it's not a failure of logic. Perhaps if you are Gillard and Abbott it makes perfect sense: if boats sink at Christmas Island, and asylum seekers drown then current policies come into question. If boats sink after they've been turned back to somewhere in Asia, or they disappear without trace (yes one of those was reported this week) then that's much less likely to cause concern in Australia. So, let's just let them rot in Manus, Nauru, or better yet send them to Malaysia. That's logical!
Sorry it must be me that's having the failure of logic. When put like that, Abbott and Gillard make perfect political sense. It's a great, great pity that it makes no sense at all to me as a human being.
How about we adopt  a sensible and humane approach here? If asylum seekers are driven to board leaky boats then that is not ideal, however it will be a reality, whatever we do. So why don't we just treat them decently when they get here? It's their (undoubtedly forced by circumstances) choice to jump on those boats and the reality is we can do little to stop it. What we can stop immediately is the inhumane mandatory detention whilst asylum seekers are processed. We can stop immediately Gillard and Bowen's proposed watering away of our international obligations. We can stop immediately any plans to process off-shore or to send asylum seekers to third countries for processing.
I wonder why we wouldn't do what we can, rather than bleating about what we can't change?
Footnote: It was edifying to see Bowen berated by protesters yesterday. His riposte? Not a very mature way to carry on a debate. Well Chris I couldn't agree more, the approach you have taken to asylum seekers is neither mature nor effective. Your engagement of the Australian and international community is neither mature nor effective. You reap what you sow Chris. If you take a more humane and mature approach you'd be surprised what comes back to you.

The mire we find ourselves in

It's been a tumultuous couple of weeks, and at the end I'm left with a peculiar quandary. There is no longer any party in Australian politics that comes close to representing my views. I saw on a young bloke's FaceBook page, under the heading "Politics" a simple statement: "Politicians are wankers". Based on the behaviour in Canberra and Spring Street, not to mention Macquarie Street, I can only agree.
For months now it's been hard to determine which is the right wing of the Liberal Party and which is our Labor Prime Minister. This situation is most apparent in the case of policy for asylum seekers. Gillard has lurched ever further from a social justice position to a position of pointless rhetoric about some "business model" which she ascribes to "people smugglers". On the way, asylum seekers are used as chess pieces in some game that, apparently, is designed to "break the people smugglers' business model".
Abbott and Gillard have painted themselves into corners which are so close that they are able to put their arms around each other if they wish. And lo, as the High Court decision on Malaysia was released, we saw Abbott and Gillard attempt to do just that.
The bit that both have missed is that, on the subject of asylum seekers, the public have moved on. A majority of Australians in recent polls have supported on-shore processing of asylum seekers. Yet both Gillard and Abbott continue to rant and rave about the necessity for "offshore" processing.
So let's get down to the facts:

1. In response to a challenge about Gillard's proposal to send asylum seekers to Malaysia, the High Court ruled that Chris Bowen, as Minister, had acted beyond his powers in declaring Malaysia and could not send asylum seekers there;
2. The key issue was that the immigration act, the Court held, had various protections in it. The Court held that these protections arose in the act out of an intention to enact Australia's obligations under the Refugee Convention and other related instruments. The Court was not prepared to accept that these protections were available in Malaysia and therefore the Minister acted beyond his powers in determining that they were;
3. The High Court further made it clear that other countries might represent the same problems for Australia as Malaysia had, due to the same provisions;
4. Gillard, after some prevarication, looks likely to partner with Abbott to seek to change the law to enable her to continue off-shore processing of asylum seekers;
5. On the way to doing that Gillard arranged a Departmental briefing for Abbott. That briefing, we are told by the press, sank to the depths of xenophobia and scaremongering.

Here's the problem for me in changing the law: My reading of the High Court judgement leads me to think that there are perhaps two things that Gillard could do to make it possible to send asylum seekers off-shore for processing. Either she could substantially water down Australia's obligations to treat asylum seekers in accordance with our various international obligations (such as the Refugee Convention); or she could somehow put the decision making process beyond the reach of judicial review. You'd need to be a decent lawyer to determine whether the latter path is possible.

Leaving aside what I think should happen to asylum seekers (more of that in a moment), either of those courses of action are a total anathema to me. How could we water down our obligations to treat asylum seekers with a basic set of protections? When is it ever acceptable to place politicians' decisions beyond review of the courts? There may be other mechanisms open to Gillard in changing the act but you'd have to be smarter than me to see them.

What is most disappointing to a natural left voter is that Gillard has not only wilfully failed to take this opportunity to extricate herself from a dreadful political bind over asylum seekers, but she has lurched further into the bind. She wants to be there, she wants to be cheek by jowl with the worst of the Liberal Party and she wants to treat asylum seekers in a totally unacceptable and inhumane way.

Let's be clear about this. At the heart of the High Court's decision was a view that the Minister could not find that Malaysia had appropriate protections for the basic rights of asylum seekers under the appropriate international instruments. This isn't sophistry, or lawyers playing with words. It's about basic protection of asylum seekers' rights. Gillard meanwhile has clearly shown that she doesn't give a fig for those rights, not a fig.

Gillard was offered a "get out of jail" card by the High Court. She could have dumped her old rhetoric "the Court won't let us do what we think is right, so now we have to process on-shore" or whatever face-saving spin she wanted to put on it. She could have freed herself from her lock-step with the Libs and in the process begun to live up to our obligations. She has proved either too stupid to see the opportunity or too set in her firm belief about the rightness of her path. Either way, this week has seen an extraordinary phenomenon in my small circle. Life-long left voters vowing that the Labor Party will never again get their vote.

I've previously written about what I think about the political rhetoric around asylum seekers and people smugglers. Please go and read it. Suffice to say that the "pull" theory expounded by our politicians of all colours is simply bollocks. The people smugglers will only go away when peace descends on countries of origin and people no longer feel their only option is to flee.

Australia's politicians are demonstrating that we are a mean, selfish and uncaring country. We are not prepared to live up to our humanitarian obligations. The one ray of hope is that it appears that the Australian population are beginning to abandon their politicians, beginning to look like they support the right thing - on-shore processing, indeed in my view community processing.

Now to my dilemma. finding yourself politically homeless never happens overnight. Rather a slow build up reaches breaking point. This is the breaking point for me and many others I know. We are left in a disturbing situation of there being no natural party of the left. On Twitter, @sunili made the point that if we wanted a Liberal PM we wouldn't vote for Gillard so she should stop acting like a Liberal (my paraphrase). That's exactly right. The problem is that we want a real party of the left. A party that is about social justice, real protection for workers, a society that is both productive and supportive of those who can't produce, a society that cares for its planet, a society where the wealth of the country, particularly the mineral wealth, is used wisely and for the common good. We have NO party in this country that now fulfils that place in anything but rhetoric.

I am, as yet, entirely unconvinced that the Greens can live up to that broader agenda.

My great hope for the coming weeks is that the left of the Labor Party, the Independents, the Greens and those few real liberals left in the Liberal Party might band together to stop the passing of any changes that would again open the way to off-shore processing.

That may do something for asylum seekers, I hope so. It won't do anything for Australian voters like me, left in the cold on the left.

A burnt offering: Carbon Pricing doesn't have to be like this

Australian politics has done something over the last couple of weeks that I had thought impossible: it's taken a turn for the worse!

Before we get down to the specifics of that malaise, let's just look at the environment. The US is critically close to a situation where it won't be able to meet its obligations. That's an amazing and frightening situation. Unless Obama reaches agreement with the Republicans to increase the debt ceiling and unless he does it in the next few days we are faced with the very real spectre that the lurching situation in the US could get a lot worse. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Fed, took the most unusual step of warning Congress that if they didn't act then the resulting default would be catastrophic. I find it amazing that he even felt it necessary to state the bleeding obvious to Congress. Make no mistake that if the US enters a crisis of default then we, along with the rest of the world will catch a mighty chill.

Meanwhile in Europe, one economy after another finds itself in strife, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, with the UK not much better. A default in any of those economies will set off ripples that will be uncontrollable and unpredictable.

So back home to our hopeless government. Throughout the Howard years, with the dubious exception of the GST, the march of economic reform ceased. Howard fooled around at the edges, Reith ran little hate campaigns on the docks but little changed and the regressive and draconian Work Choices has been rightfully wound back. So the momentum of the Hawke/Keating years was lost.

Rudd made no headway and thence to Gillard. She has had 3 opportunities for major reform, each dragged through the Rudd period and each a failure. The Henry review gave her and Swan an ideal opportunity to really make some much needed changes to a complex, unwieldy and counterproductive tax system. Score on that to date? A dismal failure.

Next, and as a subset of the Henry review a more effective way of sharing the wealth from mining with the broader community - the so called mining super profits tax. Well there's the first mistake, why choose an emotive title like that? We're merrily mining Australia into becoming a great big, bankrupt, hole in the ground. Miners' shareholders are getting rich, countries receiving our mineral wealth are getting rich, but an insufficient share of that wealth is being invested in the future of Australia. What was required was a simple, broad based tax that equitably shared the spoils of mining between the miners and the owners of the resource - the Australian people. The outcome was an example of how to completely fuck up a reasonably minor piece of economic reform. An example of how to become hostage to a bunch of loud-mouthed doomsayers - the miners. What we are therefore getting is a narrow and insufficient tax and a failed opportunity for the future of Australia.

Finally we come to the carbon tax - again wrong with the name. We now have a repeat performance, an imperfect tax, a failed sales effort and a deeply sceptical and divided community. Australia has a unique opportunity to be ahead of the curve on this. The world, whether it likes it or not, will have to come to terms with these reforms, and more quickly than it expects. To be early on this curve, to get the structural changes through our economy before others, will leave us in a highly competitive position. Instead we have a tax that is insufficiently broad, and too gradual and because of that it will have insufficient impact on the economy, will drive insufficient change. We need this carbon pricing arrangement for two reasons: firstly we don't want to have to deal with the real costs of global warming when they reach catastrophe point and secondly we would prefer to lead the world than to follow in a way, not of our own choosing.

Gillard and Swan have failed completely to sell this much needed reform. Meanwhile Abbott is a national disgrace. He roams the country stirring up fear uncertainty and doubt, all for only one reason: his own perceived political advantage. He is creating deep social division, all for nothing. What Abbott must realise, and what Australia must hold him to account for is that his behaviour is having a very, very serious effect on confidence - consumer and business confidence. It doesn't need to be like that, the carbon price is a good thing, it's insufficient but nevertheless it's a good thing. It will have only a minor impact on the economy. Abbott and business need to stop whinging and start being the market driven capitalists they claim to be. This carbon price will give gentle and long term market signals and we need to get on and respond to those signals in a timely and effective way.

It's about time that Australians started to judge Abbott for what he is: a wrecker. When you feel economic pain over the next few months, as the Australian economy worsens - as it will on the back of failed confidence - remember that Abbott had a hand in destroying consumer and business confidence with his senseless and inane yelling about this sensible reform.

We are entitled to better than the current mob we have on both sides of parliament. The only man or woman who impresses me is Tony Windsor. We'll have lots more of him please.

One small step for Australia...

Listening to the discussion around Go Back on SBS this week has given me some heart that we might have moved a fraction of an inch from a hate and fear filled rhetoric towards a clearer view of asylum seekers as people who are in difficult situations and worthy of our support.

The difficulty is the entrenched political positions in Australia. But even there I see an avenue for major change. The change could come with one, small, step. This small step would in one fell swoop drastically lower the cost of asylum seekers to Australia, puncture completely the hate-filled rhetoric, radically improve the lives of asylum seekers and turn this from a major political issue to what it is in truth: Australia's miniature contribution to helping those displaced in an unsettled world.

The one small step is simple: move to a community-based processing system now.

Asylum seekers would simply be held for a duration not exceeding one month whilst they were identified and a security assessment was undertaken. They would then be released into the community with access to Medicare, to education and to transitional support from Centrelink. They would have a right to work and would reside in the community whilst their claim was decided. Those who did not pass initial processing steps would continue to be held in detention centres.

Those asylum seekers released into the community would be free to stay there whilst their claims were assessed and whilst they continued to meet minimal criteria around location and compliance with Australian law. If they were assessed as refugees they would remain in the community whilst waiting permanent residence in Australia or resettlement to a third country.

Whilst we would need to support asylum seekers in the community it would be much cheaper and more humane than the current situation. It would also allow them to receive community support from volunteer organisations and existing compatriot groups whilst waiting.

The only other thing I would ask is for Australia to increase its total refugee intake to something which approaches a recognition of our wealth and resources. A level certainly above what we accept now.

I note that Malcolm Fraser, in a speech last night in Adelaide, also made this point and another point I have previously written about: make ASIO accountable and make it perform in terms of security vetting.

I believe that we should focus our efforts, those of us who are appalled by the current situation, by simply seeking this one vital change. It would be good for us as Australians, good for asylum seekers and good for the Government. Why would it be good for the Government? It would be a positive change to the budget and it would allow the Government of the day to move on and deal with real issues instead of endlessly playing political ping pong.

I think we are increasingly ready for this change as a community.

The grass is Greener!

An important milestone is coming soon. From July, the Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate. In addition Adam Bandt is one of the numbers keeping Julia Gillard in power. This makes for interesting times for the Greens and interesting times for Australia.

Before I go any further I want to make one thing clear: I am NOT advocating for intemperate behaviour on the part of the Greens that would lead to continuing instability in the Reps. I think that would be bad for Australia.

Having said that, this is crunch time for the Greens. My premise is that Australian voters did two things, deliberately in 2010. They refused to place their trust in either major party; and they substantially increased their support of the Greens. I'm a great believer that nothing happens without a reason. I believe that the Australian electorate has given a mandate to the Greens - a mandate to show some real leadership in Australia. Whether the Greens choose to accept that mandate will determine the future of their support.

We reposed similar trust in the Democrats once. We believed their "Keeping the Bastards Honest" line and we gave them enough votes in the Senate to deliver on their promise. What did they do? They supported an unpopular GST, they negotiated with the Devil and delivered for the Devil. The electorate never forgave them and we can see the inevitable outcome now.

The same holds true for the Greens. We've given them our votes as a mediating force, as an opportunity for them to show real leadership. We haven't seen such leadership in this country since Paul Keating and Bill Deane - each in their own way - showed us leadership on things that were "right" but unpopular. They convinced us that we needed to accept and support things that were initially unpopular.

Federal politics is currently a moral vacuum. When I use the word "moral", I'm not using it in some trumped up Judaeo-Christian sense. I'm using it in a lower case, low key statement of our obligations, as humans, to ourselves and others. Neither Gillard nor Abbott are offering anything to the population in terms of moral leadership. Instead they have their stethoscopes firmly pressed to the opinion polls seeking for any advantage in their race against each other to the bottom of the cess pit. We are mired in the tip-toe politics of pragmatism and political advantage. Self interest is the order of the day along with short term political gain.

Meanwhile the train wreck that is increasingly Australian society continues.

Most concerning is the use of the politics of fear. In 1788 the First Fleet arrived here, sent from England and full of convicts. Transportation was driven by the disparity between the haves and have nots of English society and the fear, on the part of the haves, that the have nots would somehow hurt or harm them. The response on the part of the haves was a draconian legal regime and the transportation of even minor transgressors to the ends of the earth.

Unfortunate parallels are apparent in our society today. We hear this ongoing whining that society is not safe, tougher laws are needed, more jails...; we hear mining bosses forecasting the end of the world as we know it if tax rises by even a cent; ditto for a carbon tax or any attempt to curb and change our profligate use of hydrocarbon resources; refugees are vilified and cast as the devil incarnate. What is worse these fears are fanned and encouraged by the baying of the politicians from both sides of politics, seeking to harness fear for their own political advantage.

When was the last time a politician stood up and said things like: "Refugees pose no threat to this country and we should welcome them"; or "The community is safer than its ever been, more punitive laws do not contribute to community safety and we're not going to play that game"; or "A sensible mining royalty regime is critical to the future prosperity of this country, the miners are not contributing sufficiently and unless we change that we'll end up as a bankrupt hole in the ground".

On and on it goes. NOBODY at a State or Federal political level is providing leadership, nobody is seeking to help the populace understand real, complex issues. Instead we see politicians of all flavours chasing each other to the bottom.

Do we have the politicians we deserve? Are we increasingly a population of gutless, craven losers, focused only on small-minded self interest? Well the evidence on both counts suggests to me that the answer is yes.

However we are susceptible to listening to our leaders when they have something meaningful to say to us, and we did vote for the Greens and the independents in increasing numbers. That gives me hope.

So here's the challenge for the Greens and it's a tough one! I predict that if the Greens cannot find the skills and the backbone to step right up to the plate and provide vocal, moral leadership to this country, then we will treat them the same as we have treated the Democrats - as a waste of electoral resources. We have lots invested in the major parties, we're not prepared to trash either of them because we sense a need for the necessary electoral tension between them. Our "bet each way" always comes with the minor parties and we are quick to judge the success of our flutter and move on if it isn't working. That means that when we entrust our faith in a group like the Greens the stakes are very high for them. Their demise will take time, if it happens, because of the duration of Senators, but it will be inevitable if they don't step up.

If on the other hand, they step into the massive vacuum in public life in this country. If they start to show real leadership across a range of issues...then they may just have a future.

I hope they do, I really hope they do.

Election Campaigns and Musings

Deep into the second week of the Australian election campaign, I'm struck by the fact that we appear to have not one but two sub-par offerings from the major parties. Tony Abbott doesn't have it and doesn't get it, but he is busy promising us anything we want. Want a backflip on the company tax anyone?

Meanwhile Julia Gillard is promising to review, consult, plan, hold a forum and do anything but make a decision. In what passed as a debate the other night, the worm turned firmly against her every time she said something like "we'll work it through" or "we'll consult". The public are heartily sick of this current government's failure to deliver. There's a clear message out their Julia and if you want to win you better get it. Paraphrased the Australian public are saying: Just Fucking Do It! Sadly I don't think she gets it.

As for Tony, he wants us to think that he's moved into the 21st Century, he really does, he also wants us to think he's no longer a zealot. The truth is I suspect that Tony would be much happier back in 1955 having a cuppa with Jeanette Howard on his way to an Opus Dei meeting. Sorry Tony, the zealotry shines clear and bright about you.

The thing that troubles me is that old saying "you get the politicians you deserve". If that's the case then, as a nation, we've done something pretty bad to offend the Gods. These two are seriously not up to scratch. I find myself longing for an honest, straight shooting larrikin. Come back Bob Hawke...all is forgiven.

Seriously, next time you frown about a politician rooting his secretary, being seen leaving a gay club, abusing a waiter or using the wrong stamps on her campaign letters, I think you should pause. If what you think we need are seriously sanitised, one dimensional morons, then by all means run in on the attack. If you want people with no flair and no brains then by all means nod sagely when a carping opposition complains that some government member isn't married when they should be. If you want a set of decent innovative politicians then cut them some slack. Don't try to hold them to standards higher than the rest of the community and don't expect them to be colourless conformists. If you carry on like we've been carrying on the cut of our politicians can only get worse.

I'd far rather a politician who could identify a scumbag in the opposition and called it as he saw it (go Paul Keating) than the colourless lot we've got now.

Julia Gillard is doing her best to lose the election that is hers alone to lose. Maybe we don't want her, maybe we do...all I know is that it's a pretty sorry spectacle right now.

Apologies Dear Readers

I think I do owe you an apology. I've been incredibly busy over the last few weeks and so I've let the posting slip a bit.

What a few weeks it's been: Kevin Rudd off to obscurity; Julia Gillard in, via a very snappy coup; Lindsay Tanner calling it quits in Melbourne; a "deal" with the miners and announcements about asylum seekers from both sides of the fence.

The real interest for me though is the plight of Labor in Australia. In NSW they are simply rotten to the core and despite there not being any sort of opposition worth worrying about the NSW government is about to change. It will be an utter rout, a rout that will take a few years to claw back from.

In Victoria we're fairly likely to get a change of government as well. This government is not on the nose like the NSW government; they're not rotten to the core, they are however trailing in the polls quite badly. They backed themselves into a corner over the bushfires and the likes of Justin Madden have done them no good. Again there's no worthwhile opposition but it seems like people have decided it's time for a change. John Brumby seems sound but he has the charisma of a piece of roadkill.

The real game's in Canberra however, at least that's what federal politicians think! My problem with the current leadership of the Labor Party is this: if Kevin Rudd can be characterised as a wolf, then I fear that Julia Gillard is simply a wolf in sheep's clothing. The problem for the Labor Party is that they are pushing and shoving to occupy just the same ground as the Liberals. That's not new, but it's increasingly stupid. In image terms Labor used to be the party of the people, connected, earthy, left wing, brash and at times machiavellian. Just like a large disordered family really. The Libs on the other hand were haughty, austere and had strange accents: think Andrew Peacock and Malcolm Fraser.

The lurch to the right of both parties - the ascendancy of the "dries" over the "wets" in the Liberal Party, and the ascendancy of the right in Labor - has seen them stuck on the same dance floor. Not comfortable and indeed it makes the dance floor mighty crowded at times, hard to distinguish one from the other.

Meantime the Greens have taken up the space vacated by Labor, the inner cities are their's for the taking, the connected earthiness of Labor of old is now increasingly the style of the Greens. They look more and more like a chance in several lower house seats, not the least of those being Melbourne - Lindsay Tanner's current seat.

Here's my difficulty though: the Greens that I see around tend to strike me as power-hungry, inner urban yuppies. Not pleasant, not what I'm looking for in a politician. Bob Brown and the old guard of the Greens are genuine, on the money with their messages, but ultimately not a political force. The new Greens should not be mistaken for the old guard. The new Greens are politically savvy but they carry none of the really important stuff that the old guard does. They are Greens in name only.

Should the greens become a force, as they well might given the stupidity of Labor, they too will disappoint us as mere politicians, more interested in power than principles. That'll make 4 parties like that in Australia, because that's always been the case with the Nationals.

Economic Inefficiency

Imagine that you are a coal buyer, a ship owner or just someone who is affected by the cost of coal or the sale of coal. The picture above (which was a snapshot made at 8:57 am today) tells a story of your pain.

Each of the green squares represents a ship at anchor. Each of the green "ship" shapes represents a ship moving. The "moving" ships in amongst the anchored ships are likely to be either coming to anchor or getting underway.

That picture is not unusual and shows at least 21 ships at anchor off Newcastle. They're waiting their turn at the Newcastle coal loader!! Every hour that a ship sits at anchor costs someone something. Ultimately the cost of steel or power is increased because these ships are sitting idle. This goes on week in, week out. There are always ships at anchor off Newcastle simply because there is insufficient coal loader capacity.

The other "cost" is that each and every one of those ships is at risk of being driven ashore in a gale (think Pasha Bulker), a fact that the ATSB commented on in their report on the Pasha Bulker. So there is an environmental risk to them sitting out there like that.

My question is this: Why, with historically high commodity prices for a number of years (despite the hiccup of the GFC), has Australia not invested effectively in the infrastructure to enable it to efficiently export its product? Why does the ACCC continue to allow a monopoly situation with the Newcastle coal loader?

Misery, Distress & Disappointment

Increasingly in places like the UK and Australia it seems that the voters are prepared to give the government of the day a fair shot at it. In NSW a Labour government has been in power for 13 years. Ditto in the UK where the conservatives have just come to power. John Howard and the Liberals (conservatives for those overseas) were in power here for 11 years.

That means that over a period of time the country (or state) moves towards the direction of the party in power. I mean that in an institutional sense. Appointments of judges tend to reflect the political persuasion of the day, laws and policies reflect the ideology of the mob in power.

When governments change we, the voters, expect that the new mob we elect will stamp their mark on the country. In so doing the pendulum, which may have swung too far one way, now gets the opportunity to swing back the other way.

What it also means is that governments can expect voters to support them as they make those changes. Voters in Australia do not vote a party in. Rather they decide they've had a gut full of the mob in power and, if there is a half reasonable alternative, they throw them out.

That brings us to the current mob. They came in - on one of those moments of change - with a sizeable majority. That's normal and expectable. But that's where the fun ended. They've proved, in their first term to be a massively ineffectual disappointment.

Here's why:

1. Instead of carving a path, and delivering on it, they've inherited that Howard era sin: they've sniffed the wind at every step and sought to follow a path that they think will displease the minimum number of people. In so doing they've made no meaningful change to the way the country runs and displeased the majority.
2. They have demonstrated an utter incapacity to deliver on anything. Computers in schools? Emissions trading and climate change legislation? The NT "intervention"? The insulation scheme? Meaningful and humane changes to asylum seeker policy? NAPLAN - a shambles? Health reform - nothing to show except words? All trumpeted loudly and all not delivered on.
3. A massive belief in their capacity to "spin" anything. To the point that the Prime Minister speaks only gobbledegook. The only person who comes close to speaking in a straightforward manner and giving the news, good or bad, is Lindsay Tanner. By the way Lindsay, don't think that's a compliment - it's not, you're simply better than your colleagues.
4. An arrogant failure to understand the political imperatives of an unfriendly senate. If you want to implement things then you'd better do your deals before you go mouthing off in public and alienating the people you need to pass your legislation.

What it amounts to is a massive and unacceptable failure. We get a Labor government less than twice a generation. My son was born during the Hawke/Keating years and became a voter in the Howard years.

What right do you, Kevin Rudd, have to fail your country in such spectacularly miserable form? Where is the tough team of reformers that you need in order to make real change? Where is the self discipline and humility that delivers real leadership?

Just for completeness: I acknowledge that Australia has weathered the "GFC" remarkably well. I don't give you much credit however. I think the credit goes to Ken Henry and Glenn Stevens (although Glenn's too quick on shifting rates) and our mineral resources.

Just as a bit of a score card. Here are the nearly-competents:

• Lindsay Tanner - at least he seems to nearly speak his mind and he has got one;
• Greg Combet - It's a pity he's relegated to cleaning up other peoples' messes;
• John Faulkner - It's a credit to John, strangely, that the Defence portfolio has gone silent since his arrival. Things must be working;
• Stephen Smith - dull as ditchwater, but maybe that's a good thing in a foreign minister. At least he appears to be a safe pair of hands;

Here are the failures - at least the most obvious ones:

• Kevin Rudd - Start delivering, that's all, stop spinning, stop being arrogant, and start delivering;
• Nicola Roxon - A term as health minister and we've seen what change precisely? What is the benefit of your latest excursion into health funding exactly? If you can't articulate it then why are you bothering?
• Jenny Macklin - You're a nice person, but the aboriginal population need more than a nice person. Deliver some real change in those communities Jenny and stop trying to take everything over;
• Wayne Swan - The Henry review, the opportunity of a lifetime, and the response from you is a great big fail. As for the mining super-tax, who haven't you alienated?
• Julia Gillard - you have delivered what Julia? What precisely? And attended by what ructions and disharmony? We expect much more.
• Peter Garrett - as a government minister you make a hell of a good singer. To the backbench and soon.

So Kevin and team. Are you going to be the ones who do the impossible? Are you going to be the ones who lose an election, after one term, to Tony Abbott? I mean losing to Tony Abbott for goodness sake - you'd have to really be trying to do that. But that looks like where you are going right now.

Or are you simply going to shrink your majority to a wafer thin irrelevance and lose a few more senate seats in the half senate election so that you can achieve even less in your last term than your first?

Or are you going to stop trumpeting announcements and then failing to deliver on them? Are you going to get fair dinkum, in the way Hawke and Keating were? In the way John Howard did? Are you going to deliver real reform and real change?

If not you might as well go at the next election because you are failing to deliver what we elected you for.

That is such a bitter, bitter realisation.

Political Extremism?

This week Liberal Senator, Cory Bernardi, wrote here that the "burka" should be banned. I understood by the way that the anglicised spelling was burqa.

Bernardi had two points:

1. That the burqa is increasingly being used as a disguise by bandits and that it also creates two tiers of "identifiability";
2. That the burqa is "repressive" and "un-Australian"

Let's take these points one by one. I have no evidence one way or another for the "[burka as] the prferred disguise of bandits and n'er do wells", as Bernardi asserts.

On the basis asserted by Bernardi you could also ban the wearing of scarves, bandannas and a range of other items of clothing for "security". Indeed if as Bernardi asserts, "the burka separates and distances the wearer from the normal interactions with broader society" then there is good argument for banning the wearing of any clothing that differentiates one wearer from another. We could reasonably take that to banning the wearing of all clothes. Really it's quite silly and not to be countenanced. It falls into the same basket as the Government's proposed Net Nanny filter. The utterly wrong response to issues best managed otherwise.

To the second point, Bernardi asserts as follows:

In my mind, the burka has no place in Australian society. I would go as far as to say it is un-Australian. To me, the burka represents the repressive domination of men over women which has no place in our society and compromises some of the most important aspects of human communication.

This is now starting to become overtly xenophobic, jingoistic and not terribly rational. Firstly let me be clear that I have no idea what the Qu'ran says about wearing the burqa, and to me that is not an issue here. But Bernardi draws a bow too far when he asserts that "To me, the burka represents the repressive domination of men over women". It's fine that he should feel like that, but not that he should urge change in public policy on the basis of how something makes him feel. How does he know that it's repressive? Has he ever spoken to a diverse group of women who wear the burqa? Does he know why they wear it? Does he know if they are forced to wear it or choose to wear it?

Next we get to the very heart of the matter. Bernardi goes on to say:

Perhaps some of you will consider that burka wearing should be a matter of personal choice, consistent with the freedoms our forefathers fought for. I disagree.
New arrivals to this country should not come here to recreate the living environment they have just left. They should come here for a better life based on the freedoms and values that have built our great nation.

Which values and which forefathers are those Cory? Are they the Afghani camel drivers who opened up the interior of Australia? Perhaps they are the Italian prisoners of war who chose to come back and settle here after the war? Perhaps they are the Vietnamese boat people who came here in the 1970s. Or perhaps it was the thieving Irish convicts sent here by the British government in 1788.

Get over it! Australia is a culturally diverse country. Bernardi's rant is simply ultra-conservative xenophobia. If he feels uncomfortable about women wearing burqas then perhaps he should do something about his discomfort rather than seek to change others.

As a final aside, if we all applied Bernardi's standard "I feel that it's..." then a bucket load of changes in clothing regulation would need to be made. Here's my (tongue in cheek for the most part) list, tell me yours:

• Police should get rid of their weapons, it makes me feel like the State is repressing me and I feel uncomfortable when I see them;
• Catholic clergy should get rid of their clerical garb - it's become the symbol of an organisation ridden with paedophiles;
• Judges and lawyers should get rid of their robes and wigs, they are a sign of 18th and 19th century legal repression;
• Politicians should be banned from wearing budgie smugglers - they make me feel really uncomfortable - and no I don't intend to see anyone about that. Just lose them!

How big is too big?

I spent a long time in the car yesterday. It was pretty boring, but at least there's time to think. One of the things I ended up thinking about was the relationship between the "size" of a country or state and the effectiveness of its government. By "size" I mean the number of people and the complexity of services provided. I think there's an inverse relationship between size and ability to deliver.

In Australia, very few direct government services are provided by the Commonwealth. Kevin Rudd wants to change that with regard to the hospitals, because he has a view that he can do it better than the states. Two things concern me about that. Firstly I think that's the naive view of someone who's never had to do it - deliver direct health services; secondly the Rudd government has, disappointingly, shown itself to be completely unable to deliver anything except mindless blather. I don't expect that to change if they get their hands on the hospitals. And just whilst we are digressing: it seems (from what little we have been told) that one of the key planks of the "Rudd Hospital Plan" is to give more power to, inter alia, the doctors. Wrong move! Assuming that doctors know how to improve or run the health system is just plain wrong and confused thinking. It confuses the delivery of clinical services with the management of a highly complex and resource hungry system. I have great respect for the ability of doctors to deliver clinical services. That does not mean that they have the ability to manage a complex beast like the health system. Demonstrably they are part of the problem and their role in the solution needs to be carefully managed.

But back to the subject in hand. The most populous state in Australia is NSW (around 7 million +) followed by Victoria (5.5 million +). NSW seems to be chronically unable to deliver services and chronically unable to make the money stretch. Hospitals in NSW, in particular, are creaking and groaning at the seams. If you also think about places like the US and India it appears that they have similar problems.

Now I know that this is painting with a very broad brush, but give me some license here! This is an embryonic thought. Let's just assume that my hunch is right - that at some point government becomes too big and hard and we start to fail to deliver. I came to thinking that this might be because of a pair of linked issues:

• Is our system of government designed to cope with the scale issues that emerge as the scale grows? Systems theory shows us that systems develop emergent issues as they grow and change - issues that were not previously apparent but which emerge due to some change in system scale or structure;
• Are the humans who manage the system reaching the limit of their capacity to manage the complexity and the issues that arise? It's an interesting point to ponder. Management is a process of simplification and distillation. We make the complex understandable and manageable. I wonder if there is a limit to our capacity as humans to do that and whether we see that arising in government performance.

If this is an emergent issue of government systems, at what size do these issues emerge? Is it between the size of Victoria and the size of NSW?

PhD students and other researchers can take this idea and run with it - with attribution - just tell me what you find out -;) I'm interested!

Reclaiming the Enterprise - 3 - Stop Counting!

We're lost, lost in a sea of numbers. The numbers have become an end in themselves. We find more and more things to count, more and more numbers to tabulate. It makes us feel good, it assuages our anxiety.

It's a waste of time!

This is another of the illnesses that has infected our organisations. I have a sneaking suspicion that it forms part of a bigger illness called MBA Syndrome.

It's the fashion to measure organisational performance, and on the basis that if measurement is good then more measurement is better we measure everything. At best it's a distraction, at worst it's just another plank to launch yet more senseless bullying and pressure. Measurers aren't managers, they're analysts.

Real managers understand that any organisation is sensitive, in a meaningful way, to a very small number of parameters. Let's be clear: by "organisation" I mean a small to medium enterprise or a division of a larger enterprise.

Let's think about this: if you are a call centre business there will be a small number of parameters that are the real contributors to profitability. I'm not a call centre guy but I'd imagine that calls per hour is one, or in a help desk environment it might be calls resolved on first contact. In a professional services organisation a key number is staff utlisation ratios - if too many of your staff are on the bench then your head is underwater. Whatever the case. It's the same for any business. I would say that 4 parameters are the maximum that any business should focus on.

A further clarification: I'm talking operational numbers - I'll explain that more soon. By all means let the accountants and the analysts measure other things, but ensure that the business is focused on the real measures.

When you measure a small number of parameters you can:

1. Make those parameters widely understood and accepted across the organisation;
2. Make the performance against those numbers widely known across the organisation;
3. Spend only a small amount of time on the measuring process and instead focus on actually doing business;
4. Ensure that the argument doesn't become one about measurement methodology rather than business performance.

The critical issue here is that, as the quantum physicists know, when you measure something you change it. The same is true of organisations. When you get organisation focus on a small number of parameters and they are the right parameters then the mere fact that everyone is focused on them will lead to improvement in performance. I've seen amazing outcomes when everybody in an organisation "buys in" to a small meaningful set of measures. Employees really start to think about how the business runs and what the drivers are. They can see how their actions and their performance affect the business.

Deciding which parameters to measure and getting that right is one of the key attributes of a good manager. Equally important is the capacity to get shared ownership of those parameters across the organisation.

There are huge benefits to such a sparse approach to measurement:

1. The team can focus rather than spreading their efforts in a scatter gun approach;
2. Management can watch the big picture - they can manage - rather than spending inordinate amounts of time sifting through reams of irrelevant numbers;
3. Employees get a buzz out of being part of the organisation. They can understand the drivers and they tend to commit to achieving. They become self managing with respect to key performance measures;
4. Where it becomes apparent that a specific area needs focus an additional measure can be added for a short period of time to "clean up" an issue. This can happen without adding to a cumbersome system - the system is neither complex nor cumbersome.

I believe that as a manager, the less you trust yourself, the more you will measure. What do you think?

Reclaiming the Enterprise - 1

Down to tin tacks, after being interrupted on the way here by the Ady Gil affair.

Australian enterprises are severely damaged, they are ineffective and they need change. Big statements, I can see people launching out of their chairs and beginning to tell me why it isn't so. They'll tell me about how much more profit they make than they did 5 years ago; they'll tell me how their turnover has risen; they'll tell me how their costs have fallen; they'll tell me how they are expanding into new markets.

As far as I'm concerned that's all dross unless those organisations are also good places to work; places that empower and validate their employees; places where people individually can achieve and feel good about themselves. This is where Australian organisations fail. Too often organisations are places of stress and fear for employees, they are homes to managers with personality or psychiatric disorders, they are home to long work hours, a sense of powerlessness and to bullying and a raft of other bad behaviour. Knowledge is selectively withheld in order to manage power, people are demeaned and belittled, they are not nice places to be.

Take this test. Have you ever been subject to any of the following or witnessed somebody in your organisations being subject to them:

• Being shouted at by somebody more senior;
• Being subject to workplace harassment, whether sexual or otherwise;
• Having your job actively threatened;
• Finding out about your employment future from a co-worker;
• Working more than 40 hours a week more then 4 times in a year, except by your choice;

That's only a small sample of the abuse that goes on in Australian workplaces. I would expect that a fairly large proportion of people who read that list say - yeah one of those things has happened to me. As an aside, I don't believe that Australian workplaces are any worse than those in other western economies, I'd expect that similar things happen there.

My bottom line is that we've forgotten a key thing: enterprises, organisations are there as places where people work. Without people they don't exist, and indeed there is a fair argument that they only exist for people. The problem is that very often they only exist for a subset of people - those managers senior enough to control the outcome and "the shareholders" who are the reason that the senior managers use for all of their abuses.

Until enterprises step backwards from their present path and begin to deliver value to everyone within the organisation Australian enterprises will continue to suffer from their current pathologies and will therefore not excel as they could.

There's a lot to talk about here and I'm going to pick it off one item at a time. More to come.

Japanese Whaling Must Stop

I was working up another post but then the news about Ady Gil broke. If you haven't caught up with it a Japanese "security" vessel has sunk Sea Shepherd's Ady Gil in the Southern Ocean. Let me first say that I think often Sea Shepherd gets the balance between protest and seamanship wrong. They take dangerous risks with their lives and with the lives of others.

Nevertheless Japan cannot claim the high ground on this matter - they are equally engaging in dangerous behaviour. The fact that they have sunk Ady Gil means that their behaviour is unacceptable.

What is utterly clear however is that four things need to be changed:

1. This is not science as the Japanese claim. It is simply a jingoistic insistence on continuing, what the Japanese claim is, a cultural tradition. It is long past acceptable. The world has already once hunted whales to the verge of extinction. It should not be allowed to happen again;
2. Both Japan and Sea Shepherd are very likely in breach of the laws of the sea. The Japanese government as the flag state of the Japanese ships and the flag states of the Sea Shepherd ships must act to stop the bad behaviour now;
3. The Australian government needs to get off its backside and take this issue aggressively up to the Japanese government. Legal action should be taken if possible to cause the cessation of this whaling. At the least vigorous diplomatic action should be taken and these vessels should be banned from all Australian waters;
4. CASA and the Australian government need to take action to ensure that flights in support of the actions of the Japanese whalers do not take off from Australian territory. CASA needs to use all aspects of the CASRs, CARs and CAOs to stop these flights and in any event the government needs to ban them.

Show your disapproval of the Japanese whaling activities by using the #antiwhaling and #boycottJapan hash tags on Twitter.

The Days of Christmas - Number 12 - Christmas Reflections

Well the first thing to do is to apologise that this is so late...but I've got a fair excuse. I've spent the whole Christmas period in increasing pain, culminating in a trip to the Emergency Department today. I hope, after 7 hours there, that I'm finally on the improve, though it's not really clear at the moment.

Seven hours, mainly waiting, gives you some time to reflect. The thing that always comes to me is that EDs are amazingly inefficient. It's interesting to speculate on why this is. What is clear though is that the process is not very streamlined, not designed for speed and effectiveness. What it appears to be designed for is to deliver on the antiquated notions about how a doctor should do their job.

Before I go further I need to say two things: Firstly, every time I've been to an Australian ED the care has been exemplary for whoever the patient was. Protracted, a feat of endurance, but great care. The second thing is that on a number of occasions I've been to an ED and have been startled by the speed with which they have assessed and treated the patient. Royal Hobart Hospital holds the record: 15 minutes to clerk the patient in, assess them, suture the wound and kick them out onto the street. The suture line was very pretty and the result was great. It is therefore possible to be efficient.

Go to a busy ED on a busy day however and you see the system failing. Each and every staff member, individually works hard to do a great job, to look after the patients and to get a good outcome. Collectively however the system creaks and groans. Staff are often tired and overworked, the "doctor system" just doesn't work. It is patently inefficient, repetitive and slow.

The difficulty is that doctors, by and large, believe that doctors and only doctors are the people who are capable of understanding the system. Therefore it is only doctors who are capable of proposing change. Take the matter of overwork. Which other profession would not only tolerate fatigue from excessive working hours, but actively propose that it was necessary to achieve good training outcomes? The airlines, the maritime industry, train and truck drivers are all subject to mandatory maximum working hours and prescribed rest periods. We know from detailed research that fatigue has a similar effect on human performance to excessive alcohol intake. The medical profession continues to argue that in order to get the necessary amount of patient contact during a period of training, doctors must work excessive hours - sometimes shifts of 24 hours or more. Sorry that's simply wrong, negligent and unacceptable. Quality not quantity is what we should be aiming for and please don't let me hear "I did it so why shouldn't this generation". Yes steps have been taken, but we are still a long way off.

I think there is also plenty of evidence from a wide range of fields that often really effective change is generated by a set of outside eyes. A new perspective leads to challenge and change that never would have occurred if those who "own" the system are left to their own devices. I suggest that this is never more true than in Emergency Departments. These are intensive environments, resource hungry and highly inefficient. The nurses, doctors, radiographers, porters, cleaners, ambos and all the other staff deserve a better working environment. The patient, oh so patient, population deserve a better deal. Ultimately as a society we can't afford the continued inefficiency.

Someone I know, a medico, once tried to reform the system at a major ED. He described the "assassination" process that ultimately led to his demise. It wasn't pretty and it points to the inordinate power that the medical establishment wields. It was ultimately the worst sort of industrial thuggery.

The irony is that perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of real reform at the coal face - the EDs - would be the staff. Reform can't come soon enough for them - or for me!

The Days of Christmas - Number 11 - Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve wasn't a big deal when I was a kid, it was just a day of waiting. Now though it's taken on a new significance, for two reasons.

Firstly it's the day of preparation, make sure we have all the ingredients for tomorrow's food, make sure we have the wine and drinks for tomorrow and make sure that we've got gas for the barbecue and presents for each other.

That makes it a busy day. Shopping, sometimes battling through crowds, and it's nearly always hot. Today wasn't so bad, it was around 30 degrees C but very muggy and humid. I did my last minute present shopping and then it was on to the food shopping for tomorrow. We're having a simple day with a menu that's based on Thai snack food, rice flour pancakes, satay sticks, prawns, mussel pancakes, green papaya salad. Seafood is always a feature of our Australian Christmas. Not for us the big hot Christmas dinner, the weather doesn't suit it and anyway, the seafood is always so good.

Tomorrow is going to be very low key - just four of us. It brings memories of one Christmas a few years ago where our extended family all stayed at a conference centre near the beach. Four of us started cooking at 5:30am and at 1:00pm we served Christmas lunch for 56 people - the extended family, including 99 year old great grandma. I felt like an afternoon nap after that.

With the food, presents and wine laid in it's home for the second part of Christmas eve. Our small family has had a tradition for the last few years of having a low key evening meal on Christmas Eve. Sometimes we have friends over, sometimes we don't. We eat a simple meal, decorate the tree and lay out the presents. Sometimes we watch a movie, sometimes we just chat. It's a low key, relaxing preparation for tomorrow.

I'm sitting here right now with the first glass of bubbly, looking at the decorations and thinking about tomorrow and thinking about the snow storm in the US.

A happy evening.

The Days of Christmas - Number 10 - Kevin Rudd's Report Card for 2009

This is a bit like my school reports as a kid: Kevin could do better if he tried. In fact Kevin could do better without even trying.

This has been a pretty disappointing year for those of us who had some hope for this government. Very disappointing indeed. Here's how I read it:

1. The internet nanny filter: Kevin, you and Stephen Conroy just need to get over this. I WILL vote against you if you implement this as you are proposing to do. I know I'm not alone by a long chalk. Let's agree on a few things first: paedophillia and other similar material is abhorrent but you don't need a net filter to get rid of that. You have ample laws in place now to stamp on that stuff. As for the rest of it, you would do much better if you looked hard at the violence in films and television. You want to filter out sex on the internet but it isn't sex that does harm, it's violence that does harm and the biggest feed of unacceptable violence is in television, film and video. Change the censorship laws to get stricter on violence and you will do a lot for society. As for censoring the internet (and it's not just sex you want to censor), sorry that's like China. We don't like it when they do it and we don't like it when you propose it. Beyond the obvious we are big people and able to decide for ourselves. Bluntly, we don't trust you, we don't trust you not to filter valid dissenting content like China or Iran do. We don't trust any politician with that sort of power. Spend your effort elsewhere not on this.
2. The intervention in the Northern Territory. Fail, Kevin, fail. The approach that the previous government took was one of command and control. You have followed that approach. You have insisted on taking control of community resources in return for action. You don't need to. What you need to do is things like working with the Territory government to get the housing money they have already, actually doing some good. You need to do something sustainable about health in these communities and you need to do it now. To much worrying about fighting for control and not enough action. Apologies are important but real, meaningful action needs to follow and it hasn't;
3. Rudd the International Statesman. It's a fine line this. We like to see Australia playing a meaningful role in world affairs; we like to see meaningful international influence. We hate hubris. Watching you through the course of the year I felt that you slipped from playing a sensible and competent role on the international stage to displaying unacceptable hubris. Copenhagen was the worst of it;
4. So let's talk about Copenhagen. Watching from the outside the appearance that we got was that a small group of nations, with Australia in the vanguard, tried to scam a deal and shove it through. You failed to get a meaningful deal and in so doing you appear to have created damage to our relationships with other countries, not the least being Pacific nations. Not good enough, we expected more and you promised more. The key issue was hubris in my view, an excess of it;

Kevin, those are the main things we want you to work on. Next year is a very important year, a lot rides on 2010 for you. You'll probably scrape through but you have that unpleasant fellow Abbott chasing you hard and I think he'll do a fair bit of catching up to you if he works hard. He won't catch you completely but he might give you a fright.

Whilst you're at it do something about the refugee issues that you've stuffed up. There are other things you'll have to work at but that will do for now.

An Open Letter to Kevin Rudd

Dear Kevin,

I said I was never going to do this - write anything about politics - but you've pissed me off so much over the last couple of days that here it is..

I've watched you on TV recently talking about people coming here in boats - I call them refugees, you call them some spin-doctor-invented thing or another. At one point I realised who you reminded me of in some interview or other: John Howard! That's right. You remind me of John Howard the way you haver and sit on the fence and try to find just the thing that you think will make the polls treat you right.

Have some guts Kevin. Do you think people travel for months from their homeland, pay money to all sorts of crooks, get in a leaky boat and spend weeks at sea, just because they want to? Of course they don't. These people are compelled by events, often beyond our personal ken, to up sticks and travel the hard way to make a new life for themselves. They don't pick Australia because it looks like a soft target or they think it will be easy. They pick us because if you are going to go to all the trouble and danger then you might as well get the destination right.

We should welcome these people with open arms - they are the kind of people who will strive and struggle to make a new life here. They will be contributors to our country.

Many of the current crop are Sri Lankan Tamils. They are coming here because they are being driven here by appalling events. Every Sri Lankan Tamil I know is a wonderful person...and I know a few, including an Australian Rhodes Scholar - you know the thing that people like Bob Hawke and Kim Beazley did?

So instead of madly trying to find a message that won't piss people off why don't you show a bit of leadership? The last time we had real agenda-changing leadership in this country was from Paul Keating over Wik and Mabo. The population didn't like it but Paul went out on a limb, he provided the moral leadership that was required. The result was that the population accepted the complexity of the issues around native title and the political danger went away. That's right Kevin, if you have a little guts, if you show a little leadership at home then you can do the right thing and avoid political danger. Leadership like that is long overdue - we haven't seen it for years and we're not seeing it now.

As it stands you are sitting on the fence trying to please everyone. You run the serious risk of getting a fence paling up your arse. This isn't why we elected you, this isn't who we thought we were getting as a Prime Minister. Why don't you stay true to the faith we had in you rather than pissing it away in a vain attempt to pander to the polls?

They are not illegals, they are not queue jumpers, they are people in need. Do the right thing and do it now.

Thanks Kevin.

Death & Destruction - The TAIC Report

I had previously written about a crash that killed a cousin of mine and the delay on behalf of NZ's TAIC in producing a report.

On 1 October the TAIC finally released their report. It can be found here as report 08-001.

The report is a simple thing and yet it tells a damning story and has a lesson for regulators, aerodrome operators and pilots.Briefly the facts of the crash as set out in the report are:

• The C152 was on a solo flight and had departed from sealed rwy 34;
• It departed the circuit and performed airwork to the north;
• The R22 was conducting flight test operations from parallel rwy 34 grass with a student and testing officer onboard;
• The C152 returned and made a standard overhead join for a left hand circuit on 34 seal.
• As the C152 completed its turn on the "dead" side and began its crosswind entry at 1000' AGL it collided with the R22 which was on a right downwind for 34 grass;
• All required radio calls had been made. The aerodrome was not controlled;
• It appears that no avoiding action was taken by either pilot;
• All 3 occupants were killed.

What is salutary is that as far back as 1996 the potential for conflict with respect to contra circuit operations at the crash airfield had been identified. It was proposed that a modified circuit joining procedure be developed. This had never been done - for reasons that remain unclear.

In contra direction circuit operations - certainly as they are practiced here and and in NZ - the potential for serious conflict exists at two main points:

• Overhead the airfield at a height of 1500' AGL as aircraft from each circuit cross to their respective "dead" sides; and
• In the downwind position for each circuit as aircraft from the "other" circuit cross at 1000' AGL towards their own downwind.

Circuit operations are specifically designed to avoid placing aircraft in conflict with each other. However contra circuit operations with un-modified overhead joins create real conflict. They are in my view inherently dangerous, yet nobody had done anything to alleviate this situation despite knowing that it existed.

The lessons for me from this crash are:

1. Whilst the pilot of the C152 was notionally the give way pilot all pilots had a responsibility to see and avoid. This accident shows that, as other studies have found, see and avoid has serious limitations;
2. Systems of operation create the conditions within which a crash can occur. In this case the accepted system of operation created dangerous potential for conflict which remained unaddressed. So whilst the pilots had primary responsibility for collision avoidance, they were hampered in safe operations by the system within which they were operating;
3. That the various parties had failed to address the safety issues suggests that familiarity had bred an acceptance of risks which prima facie would appear to be unacceptable. Call it perception fatigue if you like but it's the reason we have regulators. They claim in this case limited ability to act. Is that good enough?

The bottom line is that there is a better way to join when contra circuit operations are taking place. I personally would never join overhead in that situation unless absolutely compelled to do so. If there is no real dead side then in my view you cannot conduct a safe overhead join. My choice would always tend to be an oblique downwind after taking care of spacing.

A history of conducting overhead joins in a contra circuit environment without incident does not mean that it is safe to continue to do so. Are your circuit operations as safe as they could be?

iPhone for Pilots - ThinkDigits

ThinkDigits is a great application if you're a pilot. What's more, it's the brainchild of a very smart guy in Melbourne - made in Australia! Initially it's hard to describe what ThinkDigits is, partly because it's an entirely new class of application as far as I can tell.

I think the best way to describe ThinkDigits is as a "mind-mapping calculator". You create mind maps which are actually "flows" of calculations or "calculation models". This is quite interesting in itself because it lays out the logic of solving the problem in a visual fashion so that you can think through it. What's more it's easier to audit than an Excel spreadsheet and easier to use.

The simplest way to show you what ThinkDigits does is to work through an example. My first example is calculating crosswind component - let's imagine you get the ATIS and think "ooh that's a big number". You'll more than likely be interested in knowing the crosswind component. There are of course rules of thumb for doing that and the whizz wheel but ThinkDigits does it pretty nicely as well.

First I created three "bubbles" to take the data inputs: Rwy direction; wind direction; and wind speed. You create these bubbles by typing a number in the keypad and then dragging the result to the page. Then you can format and label the bubble. In order to update the value in a bubble you simply type a new value in the keypad and drag it over your existing bubble.

OK we've now got our data values, now we want to calculate the answer, which in this case is the crosswind component.There are a number of steps to do in order to get there. ThinkDigits has a wide range of functions built in, including trig functions. My first step was to created a simple "calculation bubble" which subtracted rwy direction from wind direction. To do this I "dragged" the function key across to the page and in the menu that popped up I selected the function (subtraction) and the various format options I wanted. Once the calculation bubble was ready I simply dragged wind direction across to it and when the bubble "pulsed" I released the wind direction bubble. A window opened and I selected which "slot" in the calculation I wanted that value to fit into (the first one). I did the same for the rwy direction but attached it to the second slot. The calculation bubble now showed me the "relative" wind direction. Next I created a new calculation bubble to convert the relative wind direction in degrees into radians. This was simply a matter of creating the bubble, selecting the radians function and connecting my last calculation bubble as the input. Each calculation bubble shows the current result of the calculation it's doing.

Next step was to calculate the sine of the relative wind direction - another calculation bubble and join the radians bubble to it. Finally a cacluation bubble for the "answer". This bubble is labelled "Crosswind" and it takes the wind strength and the sine of the relative wind direction and multiplies them. Giving a crosswind component in knots with negative values for left crosswinds.

I like it because I now have a little visual calculation page that doesn't strain my tiny mind. I have bubbles for each of the three required inputs and I simply put the values into those bubbles and I get my answer.

What you can't see in this screenshot is the the intermediate bubbles that calculate relative wind direction, convert it to radians and calculate the sine. They are all there - you can see the connectors running off the page - and you can scroll to them with one flick if needed!

I've constructed a similar page for headwind/tailwind component and I'm working on one for density altitude.

The punch line to a long winded story is that I really like Thinkdigits. It appeals to my visual nature, it's much more powerful than you first think and it is simple to use. What's more it now has a facility that allows you to share your models with other ThinkDigits users. You can find ThinkDigits in the app store and their homepage is here.