Ranjini

The short summary: Ranjini is a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee - she has been assessed as a refugee by Australia. She has also been assessed by Australia as a security risk. Because of these two interlocking assessments she can neither be returned to her home nor released into the Australian community. She, and her 3 children - a baby boy was born last night, are detained indefinitely. You can see more about Ranjini's story here.
The Australian legislation has ASIO making security assessments of asylum applicants. However neither the applicant nor anyone else (with some limits around a new review process) is allowed to see the assessment or know the reasons for it.
This is the crux of the matter. We have a government and a minister who have so badly botched the issue of asylum that the public no longer trust anything they say on the matter. Yet at the same time the public is expected to believe them when they, in a legislated framework, essentially say "trust us this woman is a risk to the community at large". This is the core issue of secrecy in government. It is also the reason that there must always, in a democracy, be a tension around secrecy.
I have not yet reached the point where I can say "there is never a reason for government secrecy'. What I do believe is that secrecy, in and of itself, is a danger to democracy. In the hands of the inept - and that's where I place this government - or the despotic, it is truly dangerous.
When we do not have trust in the sound administration of government why would we trust the executive when it says to us, in effect, "trust us this woman is such a danger to all of us that she must be locked up indefinitely without trial, without public scrutiny of the evidence and without capacity for appeal". That seems neither acceptable, reasonable, democratic nor humane.
So will Ranjini ever be deemed able to be released? Will successive governments continue to incarcerate her without trial or procedural fairness until she is so old and feeble as to be deemed a risk by nobody? What will happen to Ranjini? Will she ever be released? Will this or successive governments ever accept that they have an obligation to disclose to the public and to the affected person the matters that they say are enough to indefinitely detain them?
We release bombers, rapists, murderers and paedophiles into the community at the end of their sentence. Some at least of those people have been shown by research to be a high risk of re-offending. Yet we, rightly, say that they have served their time and we release them.
Ranjini has never been convicted of anything. Ranjini has never seen the evidence that purportedly shows her to be a risk, Ranjini has never seen the negative security assessment. No fairness, no natural justice and no scrutiny of the actions of secret government.
In the absence of the capacity to review, debate and scrutinise these matters in a competent court, we are left with only one way of viewing this: The decision to indefinitely detain Ranjini, and many others in her position, must simply represent complete paranoia on the part of the secret arms of the government and on the part of the executive. Why else would appropriate scrutiny of the assessment be barred? Why else would there be no basis for appeal?
We as a country should be scared for Ranjini and others like her. We should also be scared for the implications for legal fairness and democracy for the rest of us.
_____
A brief addition to provide some more articles to help understanding of the situation Ranjini finds herself in.
Julian Burnside
Michael Gordon

Being a Git!!

To paraphrase Linus Torvalds, he’s an egotistical bastard and so he always names his software projects after himself. Hence the name Git!
This post is not for coders, hackers or other nefarious creatures who write software for a living. This post is aimed at the common (wo)man in an ordinary old business.
Why would that sort of person be interested in Git? The Git that’s a distributed version control system (DVCS)? The Git that’s written for software development teams, like the one that builds and maintains the Linux kernel?
Let’s look at Git a little bit first (please don’t go away…I’m getting to the point). Git is:

• A file system based version control system. That means it keeps its files in the file system of your computer, accessible to you with all the tools you might normally use to manipulate and work on those files.
• A distributed system. That means that there doesn’t have to be a centralised repository although there can be. It also means that you can keep a copy of the repository on your local machine - desktop or laptop or both - and you can share it with other users without a central repository…or with a central repository or a number of central repositories.
• A version control system. That means it keeps track of every change to every file that is added to Git for the life of the repository.
• Capable of initialising and using remote repositories to enable repositories to be backed up and shared.
• Lightweight, in the sense that it is trivial to install and manage, but deceptively powerful.

Imagine a scenario where you are an executive in a company, you travel a lot and you are currently working on a major rebranding of a product line. You are using an external graphic designer to create the logo and the “look” for the rebranding.
You want to be able to work on the rebranding project - all the documents and supporting materials - on the plane when you are travelling and in your hotel rooms. Meanwhile the designer is working on the logo, the general branding, the templates for the brochures and product information. She needs your feedback regularly. You’ve tried doing this by email and saving files to your local machine. However your boss is very picky, he wants to make sure this is exactly right. That means that you and the designer have been through multiple iterations and you are both losing track of the file names which are starting to look like logo_draft13_pete_v0.23.
This is the sort of situation where Git excels. It is trivially easy[1] to set up a Git project that saves you all the hassle. It would look something like the following picture.

Here’s how it works:

• One of you would set up a local repository and, because of your specific needs, that person would also set up a remote repository[2]. It might be possible to operate in this scenario without a remote repository but it will be simpler with one.
• That person would then add[3] and commit all their relevant files to their local repository.
• That same person would then push their local repository to the remote repository.
• Person two would now clone the remote repository to their local machine.
• Finally person two would add and commit any files that they have that are relevant and that are not yet in the repository. They would then push their local repository to the remote repository. Person one would pull the remote repository. Now both people have all the files in their local repository and all the files are also in the remote repository.

Now the small fly in the ointment is that Git, by design, is a command line tool. Most of us can’t be bothered with tools like that. We are so used to GUI tools that we simply don’t want to work any other way. So we want a setup like this:

Every platform has various Git GUIs available, I use Sourcetree on the Mac but there are lots of choices.
As each person works, they work on the files in their local repository. They add new files to that repository and commit those files. At each commit Git takes a snapshot of the project and gives that snapshot a unique name. You can wind back to any commit at any time. It’s like endless versioning.
When either of you is ready they can push their local changes to the remote repository. This merges those changes into the remote repository. The other person, when next on line, is warned by their GUI tool that they are “behind” the remote repository so they can pull the remote repository to their local repository. That merges those changes in with their work and they can then push their changes back to the remote repository. Then the other person can pull…and so the process goes on[4].
Of course the next thing that happens is that your boss wants to see where the whole project is up to…well they can just clone the remote repository onto their machine and they have all the files to hand. The boss then thinks you need more help, the project’s growing, so he assigns two more members to the team. They just need access to the remote repository, they clone it and they’re ready to go.
This brief run through has barely scratched the surface of how Git can be useful to “non-coders”. For more information start with the following references.
Git homepage
A great Git book freely available on-line.
Github is a hosted Git service with both free and paid plans.
Git is also used as the “back end” for blogs and wikis and a whole range of other tasks. Google around and see what you find.
Oh, did I mention that Git is Free Open Source Software?

---

1. Installing Git is a very simple and quick process, indeed if you have a Mac or a Linux machine it may come already installed, if not it’s the work of 30 minutes. Installing Gitolite (see other footnotes) is the work of maybe an hour, mostly getting keys set up. Anybody who can type in the console and can read instructions can do this from the very good directions available. Once installed setting up a repository takes less than 5 minutes.  ↩
   
2. Remote in this sense means on a server accessible to the internet. Typically this repository would have its access controlled with something simple like Gitolite. Gitolite enforces extremely fine grained access control and requires all traffic to occur over SSH which is a secure link. Alternatively you could use a hosted service like Github.  ↩
   
3. Text formatted like this denotes an actual Git command line command. To add a file called test.txt to Git the command would be entered like this: git add test.txt with add being the key word. You can do it quickly and simply from the command line, or more usually, you can use a GUI tool.  ↩
   
4. Git can diff files between commits to show you what has changed. In general this capability is limited to text files of all sorts. Binary files such as PowerPoint, Word, Illustrator…can’t be diffed. Git knows that they have been changed, but can’t tell you visually what has been changed. Nevertheless Git keeps a version of every change that you have committed.  ↩
   

The Unexpectedness of Loss

Googling around tonight, as no doubt we all do from time to time, I was hit with a sudden sense of loss. I found that a bloke I knew briefly, but well, had died just over 3 years ago.

Ray Lynskey was a young bloke in the Royal New Zealand Airforce in 1978 when I met him. Ray was also a glider pilot. I was younger by a few years, a first year Uni student, far from home and finding life tough.

My escape was to fly gliders. That's where I met Ray. After a long day flying from a freezing airstrip at Wigram in Canterbury, we would retire to the bar. From there it was too far, too late and too cold to hitch a ride back to Uni. Instead Ray would give me a bed in his immaculate but very plain Airforce house on the base.

Ray was a quiet, upright sort of bloke. He looked after people and was a quiet leader.

I moved on, left Uni and went back to the north of the country where it was at least warm. Ray moved on too. Later leaving the Airforce and becoming a commercial pilot. Along the way he became the World Gliding Champion in 1995 and becoming the first pilot to fly a glider 2,000 km non-stop in 1990.

Ray died in 2009, of an inoperable brain tumour, after a short illness. I didn't know that until tonight. It took me aback with a strong feeling of loss. Ray was a great bloke, quiet and kind. He supported me when I needed it and for that I will always be grateful.

The Distributed Social Web

It's 30 years since the Internet began with the roll out of TCP/IP. Earlier than that the basic design of the Internet was generated in the ARPANET. The Internet and its progenitors had as a key design goal a distributed and resilient infrastructure. Poor reliability of links and nodes meant that the network needed to continue to operate even if links or nodes went AWOL.
Those requirements remain and much of the infrastructure that runs on the Internet demonstrates similar design. Two good examples are email and the XMPP protocol, both of which use a federated model. My mail and XMPP servers don't have "hard wired" connections to other mail or XMPP servers. When I send mail or message someone on another network I don't create an explicit connection between my server and theirs. Instead the traffic is routed through servers which federate with mine as required. In the case of XMPP the federation is generated either when I log on to an XMPP account not on my server or someone on another remote server messages me. In the case of email it happens when I send or receive email. In either case there are often multiple routes available and the connections live only as long as needed.
It's a good system that requires little human interaction. I don't have to determine how to get my email to you. Instead I enter your address and the various components of the email system work out where you are and how to get to you. Ditto with XMPP. The more infrastructure nodes that are "out there" on the Internet, the better the system works.
Now to a change in the way the Internet works. I'm not talking about the underpinnings...rather I'm talking about what sits on top of them. We are seeing the rise of the internet monoliths. Google, Facebook, Twitter...the business model of these and other Internet monoliths requires that you go to their "monolithic" location (I know that they are certainly using distributed infrastructure, its the presentation I'm talking about).
The business model relies on monetising either your presence, your traffic or increasingly it seems, your data. At the heart of all this is your data. We've seen the "privacy" shuffling going on at Facebook for some time, we saw a recent Instragram furore about data (and no I don't buy the hysterics over that but it was nonetheless troubling). Facebook was recently reported to have 900 million members. Facebook in this post suggests it's 1,000 million people. Those are phenomenal numbers. If you are one of those people, then your data is deeply embedded in Facebook. How would you migrate to another platform? What do Facebook's terms of service say about ownership and copyright of your data? Do you know?
These are all pretty valid questions given that, in simplistic terms, you and Facebook have different goals. You want to create and maintain connections with your friends. Facebook wants to make money out of your presence on their site and your data on their site. Please note: I am not saying that Facebook wants to sell your (explicit) data. I do believe that it's clear however, that their game plan is to make money from the fact that your data is on their site. That's good and proper that they should want to make money. It's your choice about your involvement however.
Data is also explicit (your posts, your pictures...) and implicit (who you talk to, what you say you do, where you say you visit...). The implicit data is probably more important than the explicit...hence the issue of Facebook following users beyond Facebook that arose last year.
Given these divergent goals it's likely at some point that someone is going to be unhappy about the deal. More to the point it comes to some basic questions about what we want from the internet...do we want large monoliths that can arbitrarily decide how we use the internet and what, to a large extent happens to our data?
The problem is fundamentally that the infrastructure of the "social web", unlike the infrastructure of the older parts of the web, is these monoliths. It isn't distributed - you aren't choosing a "Facebook provider" you're choosing Facebook.We are putting a lot of our eggs in one basket with our use of the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
The other option that's emerging from these concerns are distributed social networks: you choose which provider you use, or you create your own, and then you federate with other providers so that you remain connected and can interact and collaborate with others. One good example of this is Diaspora which grew out of exactly the concerns I've expressed. It's an early stage project which is just on the verge of being generally available.
I'm hoping that the next wave of the internet sees the rise of the Distributed Social Web. That way we begin to have choices. We can continue to use the big monoliths or we can begin to take control of our presence and our data and connect with our friends, family and colleagues in new ways and with new capabilities.

Which Blogging Platform?

I’m looking for a new blogging platform without a lot of success. So, here are the criteria:

• Must store posts in a user-accessible directory structure as text files. I’m not going to be stuck again unable to get posts out if I want to migrate somewhere else.
• Must be able to use Markdown as the preferred markup language.
• Must be self-hosted.
• Technical requirements:
  • Any of PHP, Ruby (but I’m stuck at 1.8.7 on the server so no requirements for 1.9.x), Python…Mac OS 10.6.8 is the server version and we’re stuck there for various reasons for the foreseeable future
  • Simple to install - I don’t want to have to spend days installing and then have a heavy management load. So installation should be fully scripted or installer based
  • Git backend would be a big bonus. We’re running Git with Gitolite on the server. It’s magically easy to install and use and I’m a big fan. No hosted Git solutions though please…so no Github or Heroku
• Should provide existing CSS, templates and blog structure. I don’t want to have to fight for days to set up a site that looks OK and has some basic structures such as menus
• Preferably with its own on-board commenting system
• Must be FOSS (Open Source) software

If you know of anything that fits the bill please talk about it in the comments or head over to Twitter and tell me about it…I’ll be eternally grateful.

Drafts and Dropbox Sync

I like Drafts on iOS. It’s simple, quick and efficient. However the way it appends to Dropbox annoys me.In my Dropbox I have one directory called nvALT which is where I keep all my miscellaneous text files. I rely on nvALT to find stuff in those files and nvALT will only act across a single directory. I have a scratch file in nvALT that I use for all text clipping I do. I use a LaunchBar shortcut to append selected text to that file.
Drafts will append text to a file in Dropbox also. The problem is that it always puts it into /Apps/Drafts/Journal.txt and that appears to be a hardcoded path.
I don’t want two sets of text clippings, and I don’t want one of them outside of my nvALT directory. This sent me on a path to see if I could somehow move all the text into my scratch file in nvALT. I’m a rotten coder but I managed to hack something up that does the job. It’s in two parts. The first part is a bash script that checks to see if the /Apps/Drafts/ directory content has changed and then checks if the Journals.txt file has changed. If it has it appends the contents to scratch file.
The second part for Mac users is a plist that loads the script and keeps it chugging away.
As always, use these scripts at your own risk and I’d love to hear all the ways that you find to make them smarter, better, more elegant and more robust. I told you I’m a crap coder.

#!/bin/bash

#This script is designed to combine two scratch files that I use for holding snippets of text.
#They are both in ~/Documents/Dropbox. The first is in the /nvALT directory and is called ScratchX.txt I use it for clipping text to on Mac
#The second is used by Drafts on iOS and is in the /Apps/Drafts directory and is called Journal.txt
#I create a dummy JournalB.txt and use diff to check whether it and Journal.txt remain the same. If they differ we copy the diff to ScratchX.txt
#It requires a change in the /Apps/Drafts directory to trigger anything further.

#Create a directory listing file
touch ~/tmp/dirb.tmp


while true; do
  #List the directory and put it into dira.tmp 
  ls -l /Users/criticalold/Documents/Dropbox/Apps/Drafts > /tmp/dira.tmp
  #Check whether it differs from the last directory listing and tell us if it does
  diff /tmp/dira.tmp /tmp/dirb.tmp || echo 
  #Then do a diff on the files and send the diff to grep to get rid of some numbers that diff creates then append to ScratchX.txt.
  diff /Users/criticalold/Documents/Dropbox/Apps/Drafts/Journal.txt /Users/criticalold/Documents/Dropbox/Apps/Drafts/JournalB.txt | grep '^<' >> /Users/criticalold/Documents/Dropbox/nvALT/ScratchX.txt
  #Do our housekeeping for next time by making the *b files the same as the *a or the Journal file so that we do a valid comparison.
  cp /Users/criticalold/Documents/Dropbox/Apps/Drafts/Journal.txt /Users/criticalold/Documents/Dropbox/Apps/Drafts/JournalB.txt
  cp /tmp/dira.tmp /tmp/dirb.tmp
  #Wait for 25 seconds before checking again.
  sleep 25 
done

Now for the plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.critical.dropbox</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/criticalold/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app</string>
    </array>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/criticalold/Documents/ShellScripts/checkdirectory.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</plist>

On death and dying...

A close and dear friend is dying of cancer. He's young - early 50s and has been very energetic, active and fit. A high tumour in his large bowel meant that it was diagnosed late and the rest...is inevitable, despite his vigorous efforts to stave it off.
He has had surgery, chemo, a recurrence, a bowel obstruction, more surgery, a second opinion, peritonitis, a major wound infection and has been told he has limited time left. He's having more chemo to improve his quality of life and limit the tumour but ultimately that will change nothing. In the last few days he has again been admitted to hospital with another obstruction.
The medical and physical parts of this process will become increasingly difficult. I've been a close observer to the process too often before. Fortunately or otherwise my friend and his partner have not had the same experience. They don't have an intimate knowledge of what's to come.
In cognitive terms this is very hard to rationalise however. My friend was so recently fit, strong, energetic and absolutely in command of his chosen craft. His energetic stride, nearly impossible to keep up with and his energy and appetite a thing of wonder.
On his good days he looks little different, except for the obvious impact of exertion and the pallor of his skin. A delightful meal, dispatched in short order; an enlivened conversation; an energetic bush walk all lead you to thinking that this is the same old person you've known over time. It's a sudden jolt when you re-remember that here is a man with a death sentence. That's the thing he finds so hard. We talked about his strong preference to simply have died unexpectedly one day, far in the future. The difficulty of waking each day knowing that things are not going to improve much if at all, that whatever effort he makes - and he's making lots of effort to extend his life - it's unlikely to change the outcome. The difficulty of waking each day, knowing that the end is close and he doesn't want it at all.
I live every day with cancer, I've been through the process of being told I have cancer, that I will never be cured. But I also have every expectation that I will die, in due course, with cancer, not from it. Nevertheless I've got some small insight into the mental pathways that arise from that knowledge. It is much, much harsher for my friend. Some days he feels so good he, almost, cannot believe what he's been told. On other days the knowledge is clear, present and almost overwhelming. He describes it as being like what being on death row must be.
The physical hardship will get worse for him but the mental anguish and the ongoing grief for him and all of us around him is what's hardest to take at the moment.
Note: Apologies to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for stealing the title.

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.

Jabber, XMPP and why not let SMS die?

The history of internet messaging, as opposed to email, is somewhat vexed and perhaps nerdy. I suspect that's why Jabber has not yet caught on like it should. That's not to stop you getting on, what is now, a fast-growing bandwagon.
First what's Jabber? Jabber is an internet standard which was developed in the 1990s and is now called XMPP - eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol. You can find details at http://xmpp.org
You might be familiar with it under other names. On the Mac iChat uses XMPP and the iChat server on Mac is an XMPP server. GTalk in Google also runs on XMPP, as does Facebook chat.
But let's backtrack a little. Firstly what's so good about Jabber? Well Jabber is just like email. There is no "central" server. Instead a whole raft of servers across the internet provide Jabber services and they in turn contact other servers and "federate" that is one server talks to another. This is just the same as email. It's helped by the form of Jabber addresses: user@example.com is recognisable as a fully routable email address. It's also a complete Jabber address. You can message me for instance at criticalalpha at gmail dot com . So we remove all the complexity about needing to know what server somebody is on and, through the magic of something called transports, what legacy messaging system they might be on.
Next is a really nice feature: presence. If you are in my roster (the XMPP name for my buddy list) then Jabber tells me when you are online and when you aren't. It makes it simple to determine whether you are available for a chat or not.
The most basic service on a Jabber server is text chat. Depending on the server and the client you use however you can also use voice chat, video, screen sharing, multi-user whiteboard, file transfer, Multi-User Chat (MUC) and lots more. Jabber also provides store and forward treatment of text messages when the other party is offline. When they come online the message is delivered.
What's all this got to do with SMS? Well we seem to be addicted to SMS. But every time I send an SMS I'm chewing up either a fee per message - $0.25 or so, or an allowance of text messages. In addition I have no presence information for the other user and no information usually about whether the message has been delivered. With Jabber on the other hand, I know whether the user is online. I get error reporting if the message is not delivered and it costs me peanuts - the cost of a few bytes of my data allowance. In addition I can be logged into my Jabber account from a variety of places at the same time - my computer, my phone, the web...it means that in effect I'm ubiquitously available if I wish to be. XMPP is also completely cross-platform, it's not proprietary so you can send messages from one platform and receive on another...just like email. Since using XMPP my SMS usage has fallen very sharply, it's now perhaps 15% of what it used to be. Using iChat voice calls are clearer and more reliable that Skype...
So what do you need to get started on XMPP/Jabber?

1. A Jabber account. If you have your own Jabber server that's easy. If not a GMail account will also give you a GTalk account at the same address. Alternatively there are lots of free servers around, try here for a start: http://xmpp.org/resources/public-services/ .
2. A client on your laptop or home computer. If you are a Mac user that's easy, iChat comes with the Mac and supports MUC, screen sharing, file transfer, video and voice as well as text chat. If you are on Windows try googling Adium, Spark or Psi+ for starters. Here's a list of over 90 clients: http://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/clients/ (both computer and mobile).
3. A client for your smartphone. Beejive is a multi platform client. It's not cheap but it supports push and staying live for up to 7 days on the iPhone as well as connection to GTalk, Facebook, Yahoo messaging, MSN, AIM and MySpace. You could also try imo, OneTeam or Jabba on the iPhone. Some of those are also cross platform, working on Android, Blackberry etc.
4. Some buddies...

It pains me to see telcos earning massive profits on their SMS traffic when the cost is fractions of a cent per message. Take advantage of the enhanced capability of XMPP/Jabber and the lower cost and get on board today.

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.

An open letter to Bob Brown

G'day Bob,

I decided it was time to write to you, because the country is pretty fucked and we need you to act.

At the last election an interesting thing happened. The collective mind of Australia created a hung parliament. We also gave the Greens a bigger vote than we ever have before. In my electorate we elected the first lower house Green in Federal Parliament.

We did all that for a reason. It wasn't a mistake, it wasn't chance: it was Australia's collective consciousness saying we trusted neither Abbott nor Gillard with the reins of the place.

Well we've been proved right. The two of them are chasing each other to the bottom, playing up the fears of the populace and competing to be the most effective dog whistler.

Meanwhile in Victoria Ted Baillieu and the central committee of the Victorian Liberal Party have embarked on their 5 year plan - commonly known as the Great Leap Backwards. Swearing is now a focus for police action (simply another avenue for police harassment of the poor, the young, the homeless and the Aboriginal people); the anti discrimination legislation has seen changes rammed through to allow religious groups to discriminate on the basis of sexuality, gender, marital status...mandatory sentencing has reared its ugly head, new prisons are on the agenda... You get the picture - a race to the bottom, playing on fear and forgetting 50 years of progress as an aware and tolerant society. Greg Barber where are you?

But back to the important subject of Federal Parliament and asylum seekers. Abbott and Gillard and competing to be "toughest" on asylum seekers. Gillard's "Malaysian Solution" even has the Liberals calling foul. As it should. I'm repeating myself, but nevertheless: asylum seekers and refugees are good for this country, arriving by boat is a plus not a minus. Somebody needs to show some leadership here and the only person left standing Bob, is you!

The populace doesn't need to be told that they need to fear these people. Somebody in public office needs to stand up and take a moral stance on asylum seekers. Somebody needs to do the thing that people in public office haven't done since Bill Deane and Paul Keating took leadership stances on what is good for Australia and what is good for humanity.

Nobody is doing that at the moment. Every political figure is...playing politics, playing the polls.

Well Bob, I'm looking at you. Here's your opportunity. It's what we put you and Adam Bandt and the rest of your team there to do. At the moment all we get are minor noises from Sarah Hanson-Young.

Do not mistake this: the reason the Green vote improved so much this time is because we didn't trust Gillard and Abbott and we were right not to. When we need you however we find you wanting. No vocal leadership, no moral leadership. Instead a committee of inquiry. We don't need a committee! We need you and your team to stand up and call the shots.

The refugee policies of Abbott and Gillard are unacceptable, contrary to the best interests of ALL Australians and inhumane.

You've got a choice: do something pretty effective about it or face annihilation at the next election. This is the reason your team were trusted with our vote. At the moment it doesn't look like you are living up to our trust in you. Do you intend to change that?

Immigration Detention

Yesterday, I had the most depressing interchange, on Twitter, with a fellow called @StreetSmarts111 . His profile called out his conservative political bent. The reason the interchange was so depressing, and indeed the reason I ultimately blocked him, was that there appeared no intent on his part to engage in an exploration. This Tweeter simply wanted to pound a mandatory detention path.

What frustrates me also is that 140 characters is only the first intake of breath on a subject like this. So here goes.

Firstly about Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. Reprehensible is the only word that works for me when I think about their refugee policies. They and the parties they lead continue to chase each other to the bottom of a very unpleasant slope. They are both playing to first world paranoia. They are seeking to garner even a few voters by playing to anxieties and misapprehensions amongst the population. They are doing this by causing irreparable damage to the lives of asylum seekers and, increasingly, damage to Australia's international reputation.

@StreetSmarts111 stubbornly equated mandatory detention with the need to "process" people. Let's just unpick that. Australia engages in mandatory, indeterminate, arbitrary detention of asylum seekers arriving by sea.

• Mandatory - you come in by sea, you must be detained;
• Arbitrary - the mandatory nature of detention means that, no matter who you are and what your risk, origin or claim you are nevertheless detained;
• Indeterminate - it is impossible to say how long you will be detained for.

Now @StreetSmarts111 argues that all that is necessary in order that we be able to "process" what he chooses to call "illegal immigrants". Firstly let's put the illegal to bed. It's anyones' right to seek asylum in another country. That other country has the right to determine their view of the veracity of that claim. These people are not "illegal immigrants" they are asylum seekers.

So let's look at processing. What does Australia need to do in this regard? I'd argue that the necessary components of a processing system are:

• It focuses firstly and quickly on simple things like "who are you?", "where did you come from?" and "who came with you?". That check is done daily at our airports to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people. Not all of them have pre-issued visas. That system does not lack integrity suggesting that such immediate information should be accessible, even for quite large boatloads in 24-48 hours. That information also allows the commencement of security checking (more on that later);
• Health checks. We would reasonably want to know whether arrivals were suffering from a communicable disease. We would also want to know, for the sake of the arrival, whether they were suffering from medical conditions requiring treatment;
• The next step is to determine the nature of the claim that each person is making for asylum. This is a longer step, but in fact does not require continued detention for its conduct. By now we should be in a position to know who each arrival is and to have made an accurate assessment about whether they pose a security risk, or whether there is a high level of uncertainty about their identity, or the risk they pose. In default of such risks they are ready to be released from detention. That is not to say that they have a place in Australia as a refugee, it is not to say that they are in fact a refugee. It's simply to say that we have adopted a risk-management approach and formed a view that they can be released into the community pending a decision on their status and whether they will be granted Australian residency.

Such an approach would leave the vast majority of arrivals in our community within a month or so. Some small proportion would be detained on the basis of their risk and perhaps even removed to their country of origin (after the exhaustion of their avenues of appeal under Australian law).

So what are the risks to Australia from such an approach, rather than mandatory detention? There are none. You are more likely to be run over by a car on your way to work than harmed in any way by one of these arrivals with such a sensible managed, streamlined processing system in place. There is no physical risk beyond that which already exists through homegrown extremists, organised crime and bikie gangs - none of which have anything to do with people arriving by boat. There is no economic risk. These people in the main are hard workers, delighted to be in a place of opportunity. They contribute to economic growth which we all benefit from. They do not steal jobs from "Australians".

But there are a couple of issues. Firstly the government needs to deal with both the legislation and the performance of ASIO with respect to security vetting. As I understand it, if you receive a negative security vetting you cannot find out why and on what it is based. You simply have a negative vetting. Why is that acceptable in a democratic country? Where is ASIO's accountability to parliament, the courts and the populace? How do we know what standards are being applied by ASIO? How can we know whether their standards are hopelessly laissez-faire, entirely appropriate to the needs of modern Australia or based on utter, unfounded paranoia? We can't under the legislation and the recipient of a negative vetting is unable therefore to effectively challenge it. The legislation needs to be changed to allow proper scrutiny and review of decisions.

Equally as important, the process of security vetting needs to take place at a brisk clip, not the current inefficient, glacial pace. If it's a matter of resources then the government needs to act. If it's a matter of priorities then the government needs to set ASIO straight about what's required. In any event the current pace and framework seems unacceptable.

So what would be the benefits of ending mandatory detention and briskly processing arrivals?

• The massive cost of mandatory detention - the financial cost - would end;
• The irreparable human damage caused by indeterminate and arbitrary detention would be greatly reduced, perhaps eliminated;
• Australia would begin to benefit rapidly from the contribution of these people to our society and to our economy. Yes there's a cost - people need access to support and to healthcare and education - but that cost is minuscule compared to the costs of mandatory detention and it is a cost that accrues for every member of society.
• Australia's international reputation would cease taking the battering it is now.
• The politicians could focus on matters of real national importance such as overhaul of the health system, implementation of an appropriate carbon strategy and ensuring the country enjoys long term benefit from the "minerals boom" rather than ending up as a bankrupt hole in the ground.

Let's not either begin imagining a mass exodus from countries around the world, all attracted to Australia by these new arrangements. That's simply a paranoid fantasy. Asylum seekers are "pushed" to leave the place they know by circumstances we can barely imagine. They are not "pulled" from the comfort of their homes by some vision of an Australian nirvana.

Asylum seekers make up such a small proportion of the immigrants coming to this country each year, that even a doubling of the numbers would have an almost negligible effect...except for the massive burden that we have imposed on ourselves by our mandatory detention policy.

There is only one thing that is needed in order for this situation to change: some sensible, ethical and moral leadership from our politicians. Our politicians need to start informing the population, they should lead the change in thinking about this situation. Instead they resort to the politics of fear, they dog whistle to those who fear everything including their own shadow.

All we need is a clear political message that asylum seekers are a positive and welcomed part of Australian life for this whole issue to vanish.

That won't unfortunately happen whilst we have the current morally bankrupt political leadership that we have - on both sides of parliament. I'd rather spend a day with any of the refugees that I know than be caught in the same room as our current political "leaders".

Spinal Fusion - The end of stage one

The last week has been a bit of a milestone week in terms of my recovery from the surgery. It's also caused me to pause and reflect about the whole process. So this post is really a brief review of the achievements and a little bit of reflection and recounting of my learning.

First the milestones. I had my 8 week review with the surgeon. That was great. Many surgeons only want to hear the good, mine however listened to and explored both the good and the not so good. We charted a path forward - with two more milestones - and we worked through a list of dos and don'ts. The next milestone is at 4 months. Until then I'm allowed to flex (bend forward) but I can't lift, pull or twist and I can only extend (stretch backwards) in a very minor way. I got to do my own shoes and socks for the first time in his rooms as he examined me - that was so tough! I'm also only allowed to sail on calm days for the next two months. The aim being not to fall on my arse until the bone has had a little more time to heal. The great thing was I got to chuck away the orthotic brace I've worn since the surgery.

I left the surgeon's rooms feeling buoyed up and positive.

On Friday of last week I finally finished all the opioid painkillers. I'd been going through a process of tapering those off and that finished on Friday. That also felt like a huge achievement and the pain - such as it is - is easily managed with some paracetamol. This is a hurdle that I'm told many people find hard. Indeed a fair proportion find it too difficult to get over the painkiller hurdle. So that felt like an achievement and I feel more energetic now that they have gone.

On the Sunday I drove for the first time in exactly 9 weeks. I refused to drive whilst on the opioids, even though there was apparently nothing to stop me doing so. I didn't feel it was right. I also liked being forced to walk everywhere I needed to go. Not driving kept me walking.

The actual driving part was easy - like riding a bike - once learned never forgotten. What quickly became clear was that it was going to be very hard to find a comfortable driving position. The actual process of driving and sitting in the car triggered off all sorts of pain and I'm still working on the best driving position.

Monday brought a return to work. That was easier than I expected. The drive to and fro was hard but the actual process of going back was easy, made easier because the work environment demands a lot of walking.

So what are the lessons?

Firstly, would I do it again? The answer is a resounding yes! I had substantial pain and very limited capacity to stand and walk prior to the surgery. I could only stand comfortably for less than 5 minutes, sometimes less than 2. Longer became intensely painful. I could not walk 150 metres. After the surgery I have virtually unlimited standing and walking tolerance and I have walked up to 7 kilometres at one go. That is a great change and it's kind of returned my life to normal. I caught myself looking for the next seat and the next tram the other day and laughed when I realised that it was an old habit and I didn't have to do that anymore.

Is it a miracle? No! I still have, and probably always will have, some pain and some lack of flexibility and function. Having had substantial back problems for nearly 30 years it's simply silly to expect one operation to wash that away like some magic wand. What I have got is hugely improved quality of life and physical function. What more could you ask for?

What would I do differently? My surgeon prefers simple walking as rehabilitation for the first 8 weeks. That however left me on my own and without a lot of guidance for those 8 weeks. My GP had little experience of rehab from this surgery so he couldn't provide much guidance. When I had a new pain, or spasm or pain was slow to go, I had nobody to turn to, nobody to help me understand what was happening and whether it was "normal" or worrying. To counter that I took myself back to my physio in the first week out of hospital and started very gentle strengthening exercises and some massage to relieve muscle spasm. She also provided very good guidance about how fast/slow I was recovering, based on the many patients like me that she sees. That guidance included letting me vent and deal with my anxiety when things didn't go well. In retrospect I should have asked my surgeon to write to her when he discharged me from hospital so that she was "part of the team" and knew what the surgeon expected.

The other thing I'd do differently is to get into the pool earlier. From 6 weeks I've been going to hydrotherapy sessions with a physio at a local hospital. These sessions are fantastic, they really aid strengthening and leave you feeling relaxed and flexible and tired. In retrospect I should have covered the one small part of the surgical incision that was slow to heal and got into the pool at 4 weeks - or earlier.

It's also important to understand that this is not just a physical challenge. It's an emotional challenge. At times I couldn't see how I would ever return to normal; I couldn't see how the pain would ever go away; I couldn't see how I would ever function "normally" (drive, tie my shoes, bend...); I couldn't see how I would ever return to work. I would get very depressed and emotional. I was also lonely. I spent most of my days walking alone or resting. I was alone with my thoughts most of the time, and when my thoughts turned dismal it was very hard to stay happy. A real blessing was ringing up my mates and arranging to have lunch with them. some weeks I had lunch with somebody every day! I don't know what they made of it, but it was a really important part of keeping me whole and happy and I thank them for putting up with me.

I think it was also much tougher than I realised on my family. Even though I had all these dark concerns about the future and about my recovery, I never felt overwhelmed by it, not after I left hospital. So for me ultimately it was a series of challenges that, in retrospect, were all pretty manageable. I've since found out how hard it was on my family and they didn't see it as very manageable for me. My wife has back problems. The other night I jokingly said to her that I could thoroughly recommend a fusion. She burst into tears, as a reaction to what she perceived I'd been through. Somehow I should have looked after them better. I'm never one to be stoic, I'd rather be truthful and accurate when someone asks how I'm going. Perhaps some more stoicism would have been better.

My final piece of reflection is that setting and knocking over goals is important and you need support for your goals and support to achieve them. For me, the biggest single challenge was to get the right strategy to taper the opioids without getting withdrawal. I didn't want pain and withdrawal together because I wanted to get it right and over with first time. I had a lot of support to get the right strategy and to implement it. The sense of achievement and of personal capability is really dramatic and in my view is the single most important step in my recovery - moving beyond artificial means to manage my pain and getting rid of the unwanted effects of the drugs.

DX before Dinner

Last year, in a fit of boredom, I decided (for reasons still unknown to me) to go off and do my exam to become an amateur radio operator. I've been qualified as a marine radio operator for years and also have flight radio operator quals. I wanted to do my amateur license though. First off I did a two day course and got my Foundation license. This is an "operators" license and the lowliest of the amateur qualifications. It allows you access to limited frequencies and you are not allowed to make or modify your radio.

For a quite small amount of money I bought a second hand HF set and got on the air - I made my own antenna. The antenna was quite a challenge - we have no external area where we live - so I needed a compact solution. I found a simple antenna that goes on my roof, made with a 9 metre fibreglass squid pole and some wire. It works brilliantly.

A little later in the year, in a further fit of boredom, and as it turned out a fit of madness, I decided to upgrade to one of the other licenses. I targeted the Standard license which is an intermediate grade license - more frequencies and able to build your own gear. So off I went with about a dozen other souls. For 15 weeks in the depths of winter we sat in a freezing cold classroom for 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon. It was beanie, jacket, jumper and still cold kind of freezing! I toted around heavy text books and most of the time wondered if I was mad. It was all new to me and I could make very little of the electrical theory, transistors, diodes and other stuff at first.

When it came time for the exam I decided (in a further fit of stupidity) to sit the Advanced exam. This is the ultimate amateur qualification and gives you free run of all the amateur frequencies and privileges. I thought I'd give it a crack and if I failed I could still sit the Standard exam.

The exam papers are selected from a question bank by computer - a fixed number of questions on antennas, a fixed number on electrical theory, propagation etc until you have 50 questions. What that means is that, by chance, you can get a simple paper - all the simple questions in the question bank, a medium paper or a really tough paper, within each amateur category. When I opened the paper to read through all I could think of was "Beam me up Scotty". It was a bastard of a paper and I couldn't work out many of the answers. I seriously thought of getting up and handing it back and saying "I'll just do the Standard".

I decided to knuckle down and do it and knocked it off as well as I could in well under the 90 minutes allowed. It was marked on the spot. The pass mark was 70% and I passed with a modest amount to spare...who knows how!

I was relieved not to have to sit the Standard and also to know that I had, in the space of a few months (5 in fact) progressed from nothing to an Advanced license.

My main interest is HF. I find it very satisfying to use a piece of technology that dates from the late 19th century and use it effectively to communicate. DX refers to radio exchanges with distant contacts. There are many DX hounds out there who work furiously to fill their log books and to chase all the weird and wonderful places. I don't work like that. I enjoy switching on before dinner at night, just as the sun goes down and making a couple of contacts from somewhere interesting.

Tonight I spoke to Orlando on Grand Canary Island, last night Chris from Inverness in Scotland. I've spoken to people in Italy, Hungary, Spain, New Zealand, Hawaii, the Ukraine and many more.

I don't know why this old fashioned technology makes me happy, but it does. It's something about the randomness of the contact, the unplanned nature of who you might talk to, the difficulties of propagation over distances up to 20,000km, or the fact that it costs nothing to chat.

I looked at my mobile sitting beside the HF set as I talked to Orlando tonight. I could use it to call anyone anywhere with much better quality than the conversation I was having. But I never would have thought to call someone on Grand Canary and I wouldn't have known Orlando to start with.

I usually don't hang around too long - chat to a couple of people and then dinner. But it's very satisfying!

Eight Weeks, has it really been Eight Weeks?

The first week of this whole saga was spent in hospital and it was a bit of a blur, the days and nights seemed to fly by, and in retrospect I suspect a fairly heavy drug load helped that. Since then you've been able to read about the ups and downs here on a weekly basis. This is the last weekly update unless there's something pretty interesting.

This week has been all about reducing pain relief quite dramatically. By next week I'll be down to zero as far as the heavy duty pain medication is concerned. I've had some withdrawal symptoms which haven't been nice - mainly gut cramps. In reality they've been pretty mild so far.

I've continued my walking, but in line with last week it's been more moderate than earlier weeks and that's been good. Total for the week is 23.5 km. I also did another session in the pool - some walking and gentle exercise. I came out feeling like I'd done a work out but very relaxed and flexible. It was great and I think I could get addicted!

As in previous weeks I've had ups and downs with pain and discomfort. It's become clear that this whole saga has been a big success. I've gone from being unable to walk 150 metres 2 months ago to being able to reel off 7 km at a reasonable speed if I need to. That's success if ever I heard it. It's also clear that after having had various back pains and problems for most of my life - starting as a teenager in the early '70s - a single operation isn't going to solve all of that. One or two other levels in my spine that had previously been problematic but which were fairly settled before the surgery are now complaining again. I think that will settle down over time. The lumbo-sacral area of my back is best described as "fragile" at the moment. It's not hard to trigger off unsettling localised pain and discomfort - low key but annoying. I think a lot of that is about a few bits of titanium being buried there and the muscles needing to get used to sitting over and around that. It's too easy to focus on that sort of thing when you've just had major surgery. It's too easy to become a bit obsessive about things, so I've been trying to ride with that stuff and it generally passes after a few days. In addition I've got a 16cm scar from the base of my spine. That's become more of an issue over time, feeling slightly tight and "catching" at odd moments when I move. Again I'm trying not to focus on that and just working instead to maintain flexibility.

The things I still can't/haven't done are interesting: I can't put on my shoes and socks, mainly as I don't want to bend and twist enough to do that; I haven't driven for 8 weeks - I refuse to do that whilst on painkillers even though I think I'm quite OK to do it; I can't sit for long periods, though that's improving - up to about 20 minutes in the right chair; I can't lift and pull or push; I don't think I can sail yet and want to talk to the surgeon about that; I haven't flown - I can't get into the aircraft and the drugs prohibit it anyway.

So that's it. I've got a review with the surgeon on Wednesday and I'm planning to start work the week after. It is a good moment for thanks though: to my daughter who has faithfully put on socks for her ageing dad for most of the last 8 weeks; to Sandy in a local shop who smiled and got down on her knees to undo my laces one day when I got trapped in my shoes with nobody to help me get them off; to Maddy and Dan for the lifesaving Red Cross parcel of books - thanks guys you don't know how much I needed that; to the surgical team - you guys rock; to the nursing staff at 3LP - I couldn't have asked for more care and support and all with a smile; to my mates for enduring lunch with me when I needed company; to my neighbour for his words of wisdom; to my physio for holding my hand when it all got too much; to Chris for his wisdom and support; to Graham who'd been there before and was a calming force and full of great advice; and to my wife for all her support and for putting up with me at all!

It's been a real team effort and I can't imagine how much more goes into something like winning an Olympic Medal!

People Smugglers, Refugees and Confusing Push with Pull

There's a continuing misguided swirl of political rhetoric in Australia with respect to the role of "people smugglers" and the issue of "queue jumpers". I'm prompted to write this, in part, by an ongoing conversation on Twitter with @kristinmoore2 and @timhollo. 140 characters simply isn't enough sometimes.

Let's try to get some clarity through the middle of this highly charged argument. Firstly to the issue of refugees. That's what they are properly called. The Australian political rhetoric is all about queue jumpers trying to get to Australia quickly. This is a "pull" argument and is both fatuous and wrong. It relies for its validity on some view that the allure of Australia is so great that there are queues of people around the world with their eyes fixed on the shiny attractions of Australia. Under this argument arriving by boat is simply unfairly jumping these veritable queues and is not to be countenanced. People must be made to see that they cannot jump the queue. It's simply crap and what's most disturbing is that it only takes about 10 seconds of thought to understand that.

The alternative and accurate argument is a "push" argument. This argument says that refugees find the situation in their homelands so intolerable that they have little option but to seek an alternative place to live. The "push" arises through war, persecution, torture or other substantial perils in their homeland. People do not uproot themselves and look towards an unknown future unless there are huge pressures that close off all other options.

I go to sea in small boats a lot. Each time I do I focus intently on the safety of what I intend to do. If I'm not the skipper, I carefully evaluate the vessel, the skipper, the plans and make a decision about whether the safety meets my standards. I have on more than one occasion made a decision to stay on dry land.

Imagine being a refugee in the hands of people smugglers. These smugglers are business people: for a fee they offer to provide transport, by sea, from one point to another. From their point of view it's a one way trip for the boat - it very probably isn't coming back. So the boat is a cost and of course they must be sorely tempted therefore to scrimp on that cost. As a refugee, you get no chance to check out the crew, the boat, the plans, the safety equipment (should there be any). You simply cast yourself on the services of your chosen service provider.

I have met very few people of any nationality who do not have a care and concern for their own personal safety and that of their family, particularly their children. How must it feel to put your lives in the hands of someone whose motives and track record are unknown to you?

As @kristinmoore2 has pointed out, this issue of paid escape has a long precedent in recent history, no more so than in the run up to and during World War II. What is wrong with paying a service provider if you are under threat of your life and feel that you have no option to escape? Wouldn't you if faced with that choice? Of course you would. The lack of payment does not therefore lead to some moral high ground.

Please be clear however that I am not arguing that the people smugglers are shiny philanthropists. I am not making that point at all. I suspect that many are shady and careless of the lives of their human cargoes. Nevertheless their existence and the service they provide should be of no surprise to any of us.

What is most worrying is that both major political parties in Australia seem intent on continuing their false rhetoric about a "pull" theory with respect to asylum seekers. Please, let's all do away with that fiction and deal with the real issue: The world is in turmoil, much of it is turmoil on our doorstep. Indeed Australia is involved militarily in some of that turmoil. Under such circumstances refugees are part of what we should expect. People are being pushed from their land and the things that they know. They are being pushed into the hands of service providers they do not know and onto leaky boats for a perilous sea crossing. These are people under enormous pressure, displaying grit and determination that we should all show due respect for. We should expect refugees to arrive by boat and we should provide a proper and humane welcome to Australia for them.

Week 7 - Up, Down, Up, Down...

After a pretty good week in Week 6 this week has been a bit of a mixture. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were particularly bad days with a return to pain levels of a couple of weeks ago. The heat packs came back into use and my mood plummeted. I took things pretty quietly and just tried not to aggravate anything and it seems to be settling down.

I started the week pretty well with a long walk on Monday and a walk and a session in the hydrotherapy pool - my first - on Tuesday. The hydrotherapy pool was great, the water was warm and the gentle exercise with lots of my weight supported was great. Interestingly I clearly used muscles I hadn't used for some time as I could feel them the next day!

I'm not sure what caused things to go down hill later in the week but I found it particularly frustrating as I'd been going so well! Because of the progress in week 6 I'd also chosen Friday of week 7 as the day to start reducing my reliance on heavy duty painkillers. After a conference with my doctor we settled on a gradual reduction approach and the use of paracetamol as needed to take up any slack. Being stubborn I chose to continue with the plan and cut my daily intake by 25%. I've had to use paracetamol a couple of times to take up the slack but not in any continuous way. I also haven't yet suffered any untoward withdrawal effects from reducing the heavy duty painkillers. So that's all positive. Tomorrow I'm due to reduce intake by a further 33% so let's hope that goes as well!

Distance walked this week was 25.2 km which is a slight reduction on the previous week and reflects my "take it easy" approach over the latter part of the week.