Tuesday, May 31, 2005
The story behind the story of Our Schapelle

Australia is in shock. No, their cricket team has not lost to England; one of its citizens has been convicted of drug smuggling in Indonesia.

Schapelle Corby, from the Gold Coast, was arrested after 4½ kilos of marijuana were found in her boogie-board bag on entrance into Bali for a holiday. Last week she was convicted of 20 year in gaol and a $13,000 fine.

At face value, her defence seemed flimsy and based on the assertion that she didn’t do it, smugglers from within the baggage handling ranks at Sydney airport did it. 4½ kilos of cannabis seems on odd shipment for a major drug smuggling ring – and does seem to point to a small amount smuggled in for personal and peer consumption, whilst on holiday. It is said that the Australian product is of superior quality and is commonly traded between holiday-makers due to the prevalence of entrapment as a process of crime fighting on Bali. This was not Schapelle’s first trip to Bali either. She has made several since her sister married a Balinese man.

Conversely, the prosecution seems just as flimsy. It is based on the assertion that she did do it; she was found with it in her bag and she seemed nervous at the airport.

It seems either side was unable to come up with any forensic or justifiable proof. If the defence believed that simply demonstrating doubt over the prosecution’s case was enough, they were sadly mistaken.

But it is not as though the judge did not allow sufficient evidence before the court. Most commentators agree that a fair degree of latitude in the evidence presented was given.

Her lawyers are now preparing the appeal and the Australian government has quietly allowed two ‘top’ QCs to be engaged at the taxpayers’ expense.

The case has highlighted distinctions in jurisprudence between the Australian combative cross-examination and of innocence until proven guilty and the Indonesian system of criminal inquiry. In the West (and Australia) we base our criminal law on Voltaire’s statement: "It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one".

Voltaire did not influence Indonesian justice, apart from perhaps negatively through association with the Dutch colonial authorities. Throughout SE Asia, and in particular when it comes to smuggling narcotics, a far more punitive regime is in place. If Corby had been arrested in Malaysia, she would not have been facing prison, but the firing squad.

The Australian government has been studiously quiet on the issues – particularly since the prosecutor declared that he would not be seeking the death penalty. Canberra is keen to maintain comfortable relations with its bigger, more volatile northern neighbour. One government interfering with the process of justice of another has long been seen as a big no-no in diplomatic circles – and for good reason, especially where there has at least been a process of justice, of sorts.

That said, it is patently clear that the same process of justice, as in say, an Australian Court, has not been upheld. A number of discrepancies have been highlighted including:

• the disappearance of the day’s security tapes from the baggage handling areas at Sydney; and
• the inability of the defence team to obtain fingerprint samples from the bag.

Hammering another country’s system of justice has become a national pastime in Western countries – despite a fairly shocking regression in human rights violation in the USA, UK and Australia since they all signed up to the war against terror and Iraq.

The reaction in the Australian media has been typical of what I have come to expect from a nation that is dedicated to the plight of Australians overseas, whether they be sporting heroes, soldiers running mercy missions or alleged drug smugglers.

The first thing to happen is the story’s protagonist loses her surname, then they gain a prefix: so, ‘Our Schapelle’.

The Courier-Mail turned over the first 10 pages on Saturday to Our Schapelle’s story, using most of it to moralise on the injustice that has occurred, how it has affected her sister’s Mercedes, sorry, her sister, Mercedes and ensuring that the national hysteria can be maintained to help sales. Then, in a volte-face, it uses its lead editorial and a small op-ed piece to call for national temperance and to hope that the appeal is successful.

Channel 7 – a sort of TV version of the Daily Mail, except just a little more fear-mongering – ran a number of programmes last week, prior to the verdict. One show forensically examined the evidence presented to the Bali Court over the last thee months, but so as not to bore the audience, it was done in under two hours. Surprise, surprise, the telephone poll conducted after the show found that overwhelming, Channel 7 viewers thought that Our Schapelle was innocent.

I doubt such TV shows made any material difference to to the outcome of the trial but they do fuel resentment of innocent parties and reinforce stereotypes of 'civiclised' and 'primitive' socities.

Channel 7 was also one of the two networks to screen the verdict, live and uninterrupted, apart from, of course, by adverts. This was true reality TV. If we had this drama to look forward to every day, we could finally see the back of Big Brother. Rival Channel 9, who had the Corby family under contract for exclusive access also screen the verdict, but seemingly failed to provide an Indonesian interpreter with sufficient capability to translate the judges verdict.

The rest of the media, Sydney Morning Herald apart, is keeping the faith somewhere between the Courier-Mail and Channel 7. Even Triple-M, a commercial music radio station, has surrupticously begun broadcasting phone-in feedback for listeners to sound off and turn a music station into the best type of reactionary talk-radio stations a la John Laws.

The Corby trial and verdict had been great product to squeeze into the news-hole and in between TV ads. Whipping up public hysteria at home is a great way to ensure that the investment in keeping a journalist in Bali for three months pays off.

Bad sadly, a depressing side effect to this induced hysteria is the crassest sort of racism that precipitates out of the public’s outrage at a single Indonesian judge. Letters to the Editor are beginning to ask whether Australians would be quite so generous if another tsunami devastated a part of Indonesia. Some are asking for the money they donated to be given back in a sort of charity ‘money back guarantee’. Consumer groups are asking Australians whether they should consider spending their tourist dollars somewhere else. Hum, that’ll work – collective punishment for the Indonesian people for the differences in the judicial standards.

But corruption in Indonesian judicial system remains widespread. It is suggested that had Corby’s lawyers had had the aforesight to bribe the judge, she could well be back in Surfers Paradise already. This is probably overstating it – the presiding judge was one the island’s most high-profile judges, who had previously sentanced to death three men convicted of the Bali Bomb. But frightenly, this judge is proud of his previously unblemished record of adjudicating criminal cases – in over 5,000 trials he has not delivered one innocent verdict.

An objective opinion is difficult to find. The media outlets who have the Corbys under contract are quite happy to drip feed their customers with banal sentiments creamed from the Corby family, while the media channels denied that direct access are quite prepared to put out negative stories about the trouble Our Schapelle’s Dad had with hashish over 30 years ago.

All this gives the trail and verdict a feeling of unreality. While it must be very real for Our Schapelle, facing twenty years in gaol, the rest of us become at once removed from the issue as the story becomes the story about the case. Schapelle becomes just a celebrity on anther reality TV show. All we must do now, is pick up the phone, dial a premium rate line and vote for her eviction.

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Saturday, May 28, 2005
New pics posted
Latest pics from our trip to Noosa are posted here, along with photos from Norths U7 playing at Ballymore.

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Brisbane from Kangaroo Cliffs
Click to open larger image:

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Thursday, May 26, 2005
A benign dictatorship?
Residents have long been wary of the influence property developers have over local councillors. Research carried out for Brisbane City Council has revealed that many residents maintain a cynical view of council decision making on planning matters; rich and powerful developers tend to get what they want, whilst the Aussie battler must struggle to gain permission for their small insignificant extension.

This view is no doubt influenced by the enormous increase in rates of development, the swelling coffers of builders and the almost ubiquitous advertising of ‘lifestyle homes’ in recently released greenspace areas. It is also no doubt influenced by the ever-increasing amounts of money flowing in to politicians’ campaign donations.

Whether this view is justified, as a council bureaucrat, I cannot possibly say. Politicians in big towns like Brisbane spend bucket loads on election campaigns, most of it donated by well-wishers, like property groups and other businesses.

But when politicians advocate billion-dollar projects as the central plank of their election campaign, we are entitled to ask whether we have a Manchurian Candidate; a frontman, manipulated into a position of power to do the bidding of big business.

In Tweed Shire, just south of the border in NSW, residents’ cynicism appears to have been fully justified. After receiving a damming report into the conduct of the private company, “Tweed Directions” in the last Tweed elections, the NSW Local Government Minister immediately sacked all 11 councillors and placed the council in the hands of three administrators until the next election in December 2008.

The Minister decried that Tweed Directions - a property group - had sought to “buy candidates for their own purpose”.

Tweed Directions stood accused of being nothing more than a political slush fund, to help get pro-development candidates elected to council, with a view to cultivating more favourable planning decisions. The candidates – all of whom purported to be independents – had their campaigns bankrolled to the tune of $630,000 – an enormous sum in a small council like Tweed.
At least one of the benefactors to Tweed Directions was involved in a large property deal in one of the Shire’s property growth areas.

Defenders of the group included the sacked Mayor, who maintained that there was no evidence that any favours had been granted to property developers. He clearly chose his words carefully. Also defending Tweed Directions incorruptibility was Graham Staerk, who ran the Tweed Directions campaign. He said the group had been transparent and had never sought to hide its aim. He also accused the State Government of hypocrisy for receiving political donations from the very same developers.

So now the council will be run by bureaucrats for the next 18 months. How much of difference to council decision making this makes remains to be seen. How much elected members to council help or hinder enlightened decision making also remains to be seen. But provided the bureaucrats’ gifts register is closely watched, there probably wont be too many dramas.

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Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Revenge of the Sith completes the story begun in Episodes I and II and neatly ties up the loose ends linking through to Episode IV – or the first film – A New Hope.

And for the Long Time Ago, Far, Far Away geeks, the extra-narrative lead-ins are there too. There is a subtle transformation of the hardware into that familiar from the original three movies. The starship conveying the infant Leah to her new surrogate family now closely resembles the rebel ship at the beginning of Episode IV and the Imperial Star Destroyers and TIE fighters begin to take on their familiar shapes and sounds.

The original foursome – Luke, Leah, Han Solo and Chewbacca – were a flawed, ragtag bunch of likeable space drifters; the likes of which have dominated sci-fi deep space movies ever since. Unfortunately, there is still too little to like about the central characters in Revenge of the Sith. Anakin and Padme remain staid and formal, Obi-Wan Kenobi barely raises his voice until the final few scenes and Yoda’s arse-about-face syntax is most irritating in its extent that it begins to grate. And as for a robot leader that has a hunched back and coughs; what’s that all about?

Early on, Sith simply remains too tightly directed to give any opportunity for the - presumably quite talented - actors to explore their characters. It is only in the second half of the film that the mood turns. Once Anakin has been seduced by the Dark Side (demonstrating as much resistance as if he was confronted by Kylie) passions rise and the bleakness emanating from the inevitability of Anakin’s downfall come to the fore. The motivation behind his seduction is carefully balanced naivety, misguided allegiance and much deeper instincts made clear in the movie.

But the extent of his ruin and the depths of Darth Vader’s depravity will undoubtedly be more shocking than any viewer could have anticipated. The Phantom Menace's comedic Jar-Jar Binks now seems a long time ago, far, far away.

The political intrigue is interlaced well with the continuing background Clone Wars and the growing sense of the new wars to come. Chewbacca’s home planet’s spoiled paradise is the perfect antidote to the crowded, claustrophobic machinations on Curuscant, home of the Galactic Republic.

But it is Senator Palpatine who steals the show. As the classical wedge-politician he deploys his Machiavellian wit as much as his more sinister powers to manipulate the Senate and those people closest to him. His ‘outing’ as Darth Sidious and eventual rise to Galactic Emperor was greatly anticipated in the Episodes I and II and Lucas does not disappoint.

In Return of the Jedi, up to the point of the Emperor’s destruction, everything transpires according to his plan. In Sith, he displays similar command of his environment, meticulously dividing loyalties and grooming allies whilst staying close to his enemies so he can be quick to stab them in the back when the opportunity emerges.

As ever, Lucas creates new and dramatic worlds, with the action less constrained than Attack of the Clones and more coherent than Phantom Menace. There is plenty of light-sabre action too (maybe too much), with the little green fellow reprising his magnificent act from Episode II.

CGI has allowed sci-fi battle scenes to attain new levels of scene intricacy, with space fighters swirling and blasting around the entire screen. On one level, this complexity makes for outlandishly stunning visuals, but on another, they must remain measured, to ensure the focus of the sequence is not lost amongst the frenetic activity.

The miniatures used in the original movies may not blow away today’s more discerning sci-fi movie-goer (though Jedi remains impressive even by today’s standards) but the effects limitations of 20 years ago did ensure that the director had to focus as much on the dialogue and emotions of the pilots as with what was going on visually around them.

Lucas flirts with crossing this boundary in the early scenes, but on the whole the final product and the final instalment of the ‘six-part trilogy’ nearly puts the disappointments of Episodes I and II behind you. Will Lucas now finally lay Star Wars down to rest?

I doubt it, I believe mini-series city awaits.

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Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Adrian has a job
On Tuesday we all start new jobs. I start in Neighbourhood Planning, still at Council, Penny starts a SAP job for the Queensland Government and Adrian has a trial breakfast shift at a hotel in town. Hopefully, this will lead to a few months of sustained work/income for him.

Richard and Lisa have offered Adrian their downstairs for him to stay in. It is pretty basic, but has a bed, shower, toilet, sofa and TV and will cost him the princely sum of zero dollars per week – only the gardening to be done in leui. This will be a good short-term opportunity for him to find his feet, bakshish.

We can then reclaim our house after 5 weeks of visitors.

Other quick updates:

Penny's new job is with Disability Services, part of Queensland Government. Finally it seems she has found a contracting job that fits the bill – 3 days per week for 4 months allowing her time to continue with setting up her IT training business.

James is just fine, now nearly half-way through his second grade.

Matthew has now settled down a little at pre-school. He had had some teething problems to start with – which got the teacher a bit jumpy, but now he is beginning to listen a bit and at least do as he is asked most of the time. He remains stubborn to the end, but; rarely doing something unless it is in his own interest. He also now attends the after school club on Friday with James. Here, he fits right in.

Both James and Matthew are currently enrolled on some swimming courses and are doing well. By next summer James should be swimming well and Matthew should be at least thrashing about wildly in the water.

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Monday, May 23, 2005
Boreen Point campsite, Noosa
New recruits to the camping fraternity included Sharon and John and their 2 kids Robert (a Norths U7) and Callum, one of Matthew’s friends. Sharon volunteered them all to go after she had had more wine than I had, at my birthday BBQ last week.

Also, Adrian extended his stay in Noosa by two nights, swapping the Backpackers he had been staying at for the canvas of a tent. Richard and Lisa, with their 3 kids, Ellie, Jessica and Jack completed the party.

We camped at Boreen Point, on the banks of Lake Cootharaba, just to the north west of Noosa Heads. It sounds very insular, but it is the furthest north we have been since we have been in Australia. So far north, in fact, that by the time you turn off, the Bruce Highway (Route 1) is reduced to a single lane carriageway; now you know you have escaped Brisbane.

The campsite was fabulous. We were so close to the lake beach and the campsite was so quiet (it is winter, remember) that we effectively had our own private beach.

This meant that we barely saw the kids for the entire weekend, except for when they got hungry.

We windsurfed (well, not really, we tried to windsurf, on a racing board in near-zero wind, so in actual fact, we more like, failed to windsurf) and we took three canoes in convoy out across the lake and a mile or so up a tributary.

We also took a bush walk to “Mosquito Point” (or so it should be renamed, actually it is called Mill Point). The track followed an old logging-tramline, through a swamp of Paperbark Gum trees to a long abandoned saw mill. At some points the mozzies were so rampant, you could not stop to take a photograph without being attacked.

Other wildlife was abundant too. It took us some 12 months in Australia to spot our first kangaroo (admittedly, we were visiting the wrong places and saw plenty of other stuff) but Adrian was lucky; at Boreen Point they seemed to be at pest levels! He was also treated to two large goannas helping themselves to some hapless campers’ lunch they had left out.

Lake Cootharaba is an odd lake, more a depression in the sand dunes that dominate the region to the north of Noosa. You can be three hundred yards offshore and still the water will still only come up to your knees. But it has a soft, muddy bottom and is therefore ideal for not loosing children by drowning.

The entire camp had all skived off an extra day off work/school so we stayed two nights, but really, three nights would be much better; more time to relax. As ever, we had a cracking time and are now planning our next trip away. Richard fancies cold weather camping up at Stanthorpe, Penny fancies beach camping down south in Moreton Bay somewhere. At least it will be warmer there.

(Photos will follow)

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Saturday, May 21, 2005
Caboolture (Grey) 5-15 Norths (White)
The rugby fixtures could not have been organised better as our game on Saturday was away a Caboolture, already on the way to our camping destination in Noosa.

They don’t breed ‘em very big in Caboolture and so we brushed them aside in easily our best display yet. What was most pleasing was we only conceded the one try, testament to our organised defence and brave work by Luke and more cerebral work by Jack.

It has been a hard slog to get the boys to understand that even if they are not directly involved in the defence of their lines, by staying out on the wing, they are fulfilling a vital role. Finally, the training on the passing and finding space is beginning to pay off. The big target for the remainder of the season is to revenge our shocking defeat by (the cheating) Brothers a few weeks ago.

A 4-1 try score line would have been more pleasing, but in the last minute, old habits led to fighting over our own ball, which in turn led to a turn over. Otherwise, it was great to watch and I was really proud of them. So now, so far this season we have won 4, drawn 3 and lost 1. Next week, we play at QLD Rugby HQ at Ballymore.

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Friday, May 20, 2005
All Hail, Brisbane
We have lived in Brisbane for about 18mths but had so far managed to avoid any major hail storms.

Australia's hail is famous. It is often in the news that such-and-such has been hit with a major storm and roofs are often collapsing under the weight of hail, occasionally falling in stones the size of golf balls.

But so far, any bad storms have skirted around the northern suburbs and Northgate has been left unscathed.

Last night's storm was quite severe in some parts of Brisbane, but it had peterred out by the time it hit us. Northgate had to settle for marble sized hail stones; but still quite impressive when they cover the road and are banging on your tin roof.

This shots is from the Courier-Mail, presuambly taken earlier in the afternoon, out west.

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Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The end of a relatively short era
Since its inception, Brisbane City Council has hosted and funded the Secretariat to SEQROC, as part of being ‘regional leader’ and being the largest council in the organisation by miles. This was always bolstered by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane being keen to take on this leadership role.

Since the election last February, Brisbane’s Lord Mayor – Liberal, Campbell Newman – has been in a minority in the Council Chamber and has been thus preoccupied with battles at home, taking his eye of the regional game. Coupled with this, strident Mayors in Logan and Ipswich – a fast growing city – have usurped Brisbane’s leadership and have subtly altered the balance of power at the regional level.

The decision was made a few week’s ago to create a Secretariat independent of Brisbane City Council and to move the organisation away from the operational and low level lobbying that we would do (always subordinate to the Local Government Association of Queensland) to become a vocal and overtly political body, not answerable to anyone. It would be called the Council of Mayors (SEQ), no longer representing the Councils of SEQ, but the Mayors only.

For our branch, this essentially meant that we were all out of job, as 85% of our work in ‘Intergovernmental Relations’ was dedicated to servicing SEQROC.

This move was not wholly unexpected; indeed most Regional Organisations of Councils have independent secretariats, though few are political bodies and concentrate on day to day operational networking, shared service provision and regional collaborative planning.

Bureaucrats live by the whim of their political masters. A straightforward decision can jettison a entire function. Whilst I am well over the bitterness of losing a job (as I have a new one), the way the change was pushed through has been a crass and insensitive.

Firstly, the Lord Mayor and the CEO made the decision to close the branch and cut us loose before the report on the changes had even been considered in draft, let alone coming close to being agreed.

As it turned out, most of the Mayors of SEQROC had little idea what they had preliminarily agreed, so wholly and open to interpretation were the words in the draft report. Therefore a decision by Brisbane City Council pre-empted any decision by SEQROC on its future, locking it into a course of action, few really agreed to.

Secondly, as recruitment to the new organisation is miles down the track (as no one in this office, including me, opted to take up any jobs offered) the new secretariat does not yet exist, so they have been unable and unwilling to wrap up SEQROC, which now has a fast dispersing secretariat, though somehow still functioning.

It is functioning because the CEO will not close us until the transition is complete. We have been instructed to fully cooperate in this transition; this we can cope with. But it seems the longer it goes on (and the more the politicians drag their heels) the more we move into starting to set up the new organisation, which is totally inappropriate.

Thirdly, there is a disappointing feeling that much of this has been driven by the ambition of the Mayors of Logan City and Ipswich City to raise their profiles at a regional level, at the expense of regional solidarity. With those two egos in the room, sometimes you would be hard pushed to physically fit in the meeting room.

Ironically, despite their ultra-large egos and their ambition to get themselves on the nightly TV news, councils and SEQROC often have an over-inflated view of themselves. Recently, during the launch of the Queensland State Government’s Regional Infrastructure Plan for SEQ, the commercial TV networks afforded 6 minutes coverage the State and the property industry’s working breakfast and just 3 quick words on council’s response. Coverage in the next day’s Courier-Mail was similarly as spartan for Mayors of SEQ.

Finally, if the State Government spots a rift between the LGAQ and the Council of Mayors, local government will be picked off all too easily – divide and rule. Potentially, this could cause the greatest rifts, especially if regional and North Queensland councils feel they are being discounted in favour of the bigger cousins down south.

Pastures new

I am one of the lucky ones. Not only did I find a new job quite quickly, but I am also allowed to leave the branch before the transition is complete; so I won’t be hanging around doing some paid consultant’s job.

From Tuesday, I start in Neighbourhood Planning, part of the City Planning Branch. This is somewhat more grassroots and aims to feed community design preferences into planning policies in the Brisbane City Plan. This will be done through a series of workshops (of course), functions and eventually a conference.

It sounds quite interesting but I will reserve judgement until I start and then make a decision on whether I leave council.

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Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Adrian has arrived in Australia
As a young, single bloke carrying a rucksack, arriving from Malaysia, he was given the full works at customs, though they spared him the rubber glove treatment. But eventually he let them in when he remarked he was staying with an up-standing, law-abiding Australian citizen.

He must now find an income and find somewhere to live. He shouldn’t have too much of a problem, but how meaningful any employment can be on a three month maximum contract, I don’t know. I just hope he has brought enough money with him to give it a proper go.

He needs enough to see him through the time it takes to process an immigration visa, which could take some months, but hopefully will not involve a trip to any office in Sydney or Canberra.

Today he has a couple of job interviews in town, mainly bar/catering industry work; but I guess once he is earning he will be OK.

He is a bit happier now that the weather has cleared up. His first full day (Thursday last week) was about as miserable as I have seen it in Brisbane.

He said he wanted his money back.

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Sunday, May 15, 2005
Outclassed
Queensland Reds 21-38 ACT Brumbies
As a birthday treat Penny bought some tickets to see the Queensland Reds take on the ACT Brumbies at Lang Park (aka "Suncorp").

The Reds have had a pretty ordinary season. Going into the Brumbies game they had won 3 and lost 8 in this year's Super-12 competition, including loosing to the NSW Waratahs for the first time in S12 history (9 seasons). I had few hopes that they would take any competition points from this game, especially without both Flatley and the inspirational Latham.

And they didn't.

Despite most sports writers labelling it an 'enthralling game' it was never in doubt who would win, it was just a question of by how much.

So it came as a surprise then to see the Reds up at half-time. But this was in the main due to a lucky hack through from a rare mistake from the Brumbies back line.

The second half was one way traffic - the Brumbies scored 19 unanswered points. Matt Gitteau and Mortlock in the centres for the Brumbies are now finding the form that should put the Wallabies in Tri-Nations contention later this year. It was worth the entrance fee alone just to watch these guys play.

Gitteau scored two sublime individual tries either side of half time, the first from nothing more than a change in pace. No dummy pass, just a drift into the gap and acceleration that left everyone for dead.

Despite the flogging in the second half, the Reds did find themselves just 5 points down with 12 minutes on the clock with a penalty right in front of the posts.

Maybe it is against competition rules or something, or maybe the sponsors get on the phone to the coaches, but in their ultimate wisdom, the Reds opted to put the ball in the corner and attempt to score a try. Needless to say, the resultant attacking play was about as obvious as it had been all night for the Reds, and it led to a straightforward intercept try from Mortlock. It wasn't unlucky, it was simply telegraphed.

Suncorp Stadium looked fantastic as ever. We had great seats: middle of the top tier on the 10-yard line. Looking forward now to the France game against the Wallabies.

After the game we ran in to Rosalie where Shanthi opened her restaurant up for us and we finished off all the curries from the smorgasboard.

(Click on thumbnail to open larger image):

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Saturday, May 14, 2005
North (White) 40-40 Redcliffe (Blue)
Perhaps we should have won, but then thanks to a couple of errors, we were actually fortunate not to have lost. But thinking positively I was pleased that the boys were beginning to implement what we have been learning in training.

A couple of our tries stemmed directly from great passes into space. The team is now finally understanding that you can pass the ball from a to b faster than you can run with it.

Though this creates opportunities in open space, it is something of a high risk strategy (some passes will get out down) and this is probably why we ended up drawing this game.

It was played in excellent spirit and everyone came away happy. Far better than the recriminations stemming from last week's game against Brothers, complete with their arrogant little sh!ts as kids, biased refs and team coaches who blatantly cheat.

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Thursday, May 12, 2005
Just relax and enjoy the moment
Everton manager David Moyes told his lads to go out there and enjoy the occasion, after finishing 4th in the Premiership and qualifying for a UEFA Champions League spot next year.

Clearly the team was a little too relaxed and were torn apart by a rampant Arsenal 7 goals to nil. BBC news noted that it was Everton’s worst Premiership loss. This is true.

Had the journalist done her/his research more thoroughly – and flicked through the Rothman’s Football Yearbook rather than just browsed the Premier League’s website – they would have discovered that this is Everton’s worst Football League defeat EVER!

Everton FC has been in the football league since its beginning in 1888, when with 11 other clubs it kicked off the first full league season. 11 of the original 12 are all still in professional football; the 12th, Accrington (now Accrington Stanley), continues in non-league football.

Everton has clocked up more seasons in the top flight football than any other club, playing just 4 seasons out of the highest league, the last period ending back in 1953-54. No club other than Arsenal has spent as many continuous seasons in the top division.

In that time, and including many other domestic and European cup competitions, Everton’s worst defeat – before this shocker at Arsenal - had been a 10-4 drubbing at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur in 1958. So, in probably in the region of 3,500-4,000 football matches, Everton had not lost by a margin of more than 6 goals.

Next year’s Rothman’s Football Yearbook will show a new record for Everton.

Football League History

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Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Sports round-up
Yeovil Town FC

Just 2 seasons after winning promotion the Football League, Yeovil Town have won promotion to League 1. Last season they missed out in the last week, but this year they held their nerve to the very last week with a comfortable 3-0 over fellow promotion-chasers, Lincoln City.

What is most pleasing is that it has been a tough season. Yeovil won the division despite losing 13 games out of 46, demonstrating how close the competition had been.

Next season's goal should be a comfortable mid-table spot. Other ex-Conference teams, such as Wycombe and Rushden and Diamonds have faded of late, let's see if Yeovil can consolidate.

Everton FC

Everton have clinched the final UEFA Champions League spot, finishing 4th with still two games to play. Manager, David Moyes, savouring the moment I suspect, suggested that Everton have been the best team in the city this year (notwithstanding Liverpool making it to the final of the UEFA Champions League).

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Time for PR?
Judging from the blogs, e-mails and the msm, the latest UK general election appears to have been a dour affair; emphasised by the fact that less than a quarter of the electorate made a positive choice for the winning party. But before the Conservatives get too smug, their share of the vote means they have the support of less than 1 in 5 adults.

Though the turnout held up, this was no doubt thanks to the widespread use of postal ballots. Some 8 million of the 27 million ballots were cast through the mail, but still approximately 4 in 10 adults did not bother at all.

There are many reasons for this disillusionment, not least because voters are perennially disillusioned with their political leaders; the current bunch is really no worse than any other in recent history. But perhaps more worryingly is a growing belief that the UK electoral system is failing to deliver a government that reflects the general will of the people. This is – after all – an election’s primary function.

Tony Blair’s absolute majority has been won with just 35.2% of the popular vote, only 2.9% more than the main opposition. At 66, this majority is quite enough to force through all but the most controversial of legislative programs. Is a system as skewed as this, unfair?

The first point to be made is that, yes, it is unfair. The second point to be made is that the 2005 general election has really been no more or less unfair than any other election since 1945.

The graph below plots the government majority yielded by the margin of popular vote share in general elections, since 1945. The 2005 election sits a little below the best-fit line, indicating that Labour got reasonable value for money for their share of the vote, but nothing unusual.

UK’s electoral system – first passed the post from a single preference – is designed to deliver ‘strong government’. A political party can win an absolute majority of seats from a relatively small margin in the popular vote. It can also deliver minority governments; the 1951 Conservative win was secured on less votes than Labour.

There are numerous consequences of such a system.

Firstly, the incumbent government will never be inclined to change the system, as it would be reluctant to loosen its own grip on power. Only if a government was faced with catastrophic meltdown at the polls would it consider a more proportional power sharing system to its advantage. Reform is therefore rarely on the agenda.

Secondly, elections tend to be won or lost in only a handful of seats (perhaps 50 or so ‘marginals’), where the result of the poll is traditionally close. This lends itself to targeted political campaigning, focused on a few seats in key battle areas. And even within these marginal constituencies the campaigning is targeted at a handful of generally similar social-economic groups, resulting in an entire election, where some 30 million people may vote, being decided by a core of perhaps only 40-50,000 electors.

As a result, political discourse will tend towards policy convergence - such as the pursuit of economic growth and environmental degradation - as each party seeks to deliver the same small, middle class constituency. Radicalism can take a running jump.

The main beneficiaries of this more targeted campaigning have been the Liberal Democrats, though in effect the party is more accurately playing ‘catch-up’ with the two main parties. When the Liberal Democrats secured over one quarter of the popular vote in 1983 (following the Labour Party split) they secured just 23 seats (3.5%).

Back then. Liberal Democrat support was widespread and deep, but the scatter-gun campaign approach ensured they were crucified in the final analysis. Since that low point (or that ‘high’ point in popular vote terms), better targeted campaigns have begun to yield more seats for each increase in share of popular vote, despite the collapse in support in 1992. In 2005, each percent of popular vote for the Lib Dems yielded 2.76 (*adjusted for change in number of total Westminster seats) seats. In 1979 that figure was just 0.77.

But compare those figures with Labour - 7.00 increasing to 9.91 respectively - and the Conservatives - 7.44 down to 5.98.

This imbalance in seat yield lies at the heart of the problem. On the basis of the 2005 election, the Conservatives need to improve their yield by some 61%, whilst the Liberal Democrats, despite improving their yield by some 255% since 1979, still need to improve it by the improbable figure of 242% to gain power.

In contrast, the Australian Labor Party, to win the next election, needs to improve its yield by just 28% to gain power in Canberra. (Though direct comparison is impossible, as this figure is based on the two-party preferred count.)

Without institutional change, tactical voting has become the most widespread grassroots answer to the weaknesses in the UK system. Studies have shown that approximately 9% of all votes cast in 2001 were of a tactical nature and that level is even higher in seats prone to tactical voting. As a result, it is probably the case that the measure of popular vote registered at election bears little resemblance to the true level of support for political parties.

Minority parties don’t get a look in. They have little chance of securing a seat, let alone forming government despite having reasonable levels of community support. It is testament to the grassroots work of Liberal Democrat campaigners that a third party has managed to survive UK’s biased system.

Where is the incentive to vote when there is a good chance it will make no difference?

Tactical voting is not the answer. It is an overtly negative act, explicitly geared towards keeping one party out, rather than voting another party in. Tactical voting is also risky for the elector and difficult to communicate effectively, leading to confusion. A Labour candidate in New Forest West wishing to return a Labour government would be criticised for standing on the hustings and telling her supporters to vote Liberal. And of course, if that candidate did not stand, there would be lack of voter choice and no prospect of Labour activists garnering future support.

But most of all many electors are just reluctant to cast their ballot for a non-preferred candidate, considering it a cynical act of betrayal: their values get in the way.

Electoral systems are about delivering a government for all electors. UK’s system currently only delivers voter disillusionment and the tyranny of the largest minority.

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Saturday, May 07, 2005
Arrogant Pommie Cricket Officials Throw Down Guantlet

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From this months The Bug:

Arrogant English cricket officials have authorised the printing of fourth and fifth day Test tickets for the upcoming Ashes series, a special Bug investigation has found.

It’s the first time in history that English cricket officialdom has bothered printing such tickets and signals a cocky confidence by the host nation on the back of a narrow series victory against the out-of-sorts South Africa. What’s more, The Bug understands that some sadly misguided English fans have bought them.

Australia historically has English Tests wrapped up by the third afternoon of play. The only major exception was at Old Trafford in the 1950s, when England batted first, made 25, Australia hit a quick 52 without loss, all in boundaries, and then completed an innings win by lunch on the first day before the team went off-shore fishing that afternoon on a charter boat booked months earlier.

Authorities at the two London based Test venues, Lord and The Fosters Oval have often saved money by also holding back on the printing of third day tickets. The MCC Committee at Lords was sacked back in the 1950s for rushing out and printing such tickets after the England side had made an encouraging 121 in a day-and-a-half of rain interrupted play, after being invited to bat first. That match was eventually over in two.

It is understood Cricket Australia officials reacted with laughter this week when told of the English ticketing decision. But they also welcomed the news.

“Psychologically, we’ve been having trouble convincing the Australian Test squad that they’ve got a game on their hands this time round,” a spokesperson said. “They know they don’t, we know they don’t. And we know that they know that we know we don’t. The cocky bastards know that this Pommie side hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of being competitive with us this year and it would be easy for the side to drop its guard a bit and find a game pushed into the fourth day.”

“This ridiculous and provocative step by English cricket just might help motivate them a little bit more.”

“Just the other day I heard a couple of the top-order batsmen claiming that they intend to go through the whole Ashes campaign without using protectors. One is considering not even using a bat.”

“Also I heard a couple of the quicks asking whether it would be within the rules to allow the Poms to face up protecting just the one stump. McGrath said he’d always remember his 500th Test wicket more fondly if he got it knocking over just the one peg.”

The Bug spoke by telephone to the one player expected to be the Aussie’s standout trump card in the upcoming series, spin king and the world’s wicket record holder, Shane Warne.

“Your mother took her teeth out last night and, dead set, she’s just about caved me forehead in”, was Warne’s immediate reaction, when told the news.

“Your sister’s a real goer. I love taking her from behind and watching mi' sweat fall on to her back,” he added.

“Your missus told me last day night it was really nice after all these years to be with someone who actually touches the sides.”

A spokesperson for Warne later phoned to apologise for the statements, saying the champion leg spinner was fielding at slip in a county match when he took our call on his mobile.

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Thursday, May 05, 2005
Vote-swapping

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An article in the New Scientist recently touched on the growing phenomena of ‘vote-swapping’. This doesn’t mean attending a party, throwing in your car keys and praying you get your neighbour’s vote, but rather arranging, generally through the internet, to swap your vote with someone in another constituency, where it is more likely to actually count for something.

It is suggested that in the UK 2001 general election, vote-swapping swung at least two seats away from the Tories.

For example, a left of centre, small ‘l’ liberal in New Forest West, who wishes to see a Labour government, would be wasting his time voting Labour, as the New Forest West seat will really be only contested between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. At the last election, the Labour candidate secured just 14.7% of the vote, compared to 29% for the Lib Dems and 59% for the Tories.

His best bet to keep the Tories out, would be to vote Liberal Democrat. In doing so, a popular vote for the Labour Party would not register.

The opposite will occur for a safe Labour seats, such as Hull or Southampton Test. A right of centre voter should vote Liberal Democrat as the best way to secure a Tory government. This is called tactical (or rational theory) voting.

The level of tactical voting is difficult to gauge, but studies have shown that nearly 9% of all votes cast in 1997 were of a tactical nature and that proportion is even higher when seats that were likely to be susceptible to such voting, are isolated. [see http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/fisher/fishermw.pdf]

This level of tactical voting makes any popular vote count from elections meaningless. This year, the Tories and the Lib Dems have complained [though not advocated change] that the constituencies are stacked against them; even with a Tory popular vote majority, the party would not be able to unseat a Labour government. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/seatcalculator/html/default.stm]

But these complaints are made on projections based on flawed assumptions. The popular vote count at elections does not represent real electorate preference and never has done. And despite the Tories crying ‘foul’, it is the minor parties, such as the Greens and UKIP, that have suffered most.

Vote swapping is a grassroots movement which attempts to realign the level of popular vote with the number of seats won at election. Potentially ‘wasted’ votes are swapped across constituencies so that a New Forest West Labour supporter’s vote would be cast elsewhere, swapped for a Lib Dem vote. Both votes would then have a greater chance of making a difference to the election’s outcome.

The consequences of widespread vote-swapping would be a House of Commons more reflective of mass voter preference. This is also called proportional representation.

But what are the implications of such a scheme?

The electors of New Forest West would vote for a monkey, providing it was wearing a blue rosette; so the accepted wisdom goes. This suggests that people vote for the likely government ie. the leaders of the main parties, regardless of where they standing as candidates, rather than for an MP to represent their views in Parliament.

However, this ‘presidential model’ has been recently challenged and the local representative concept revived, with a number of independents (notably Martin Bell) winning seats since 1997 who have no chance of entering government.

The Lower House performs many functions, forming the government being just one. Direct representation is another; an age-old but important function.

Widespread vote swapping will tilt the pendulum back towards the presidential model. Electors will no longer be voting for a specific representative from their community and the constituency link with the MP – and the work they do, often with substantial vigour – will be lost. In fact, such a scheme would move representatives even further from their constituents than a PR system, based on party lists. Thus the red or blue rosetted monkey is even more likely to be returned as the Member of Parliament. Would this improve the quality of the legislature?

Secondly, the UK electoral system relies heavily on trust. When you walk into a polling booth, just uttering your name and address suffices to get you a ballot paper. Postal voting, though it stands accused of being vulnerable, for the most part is more secure. On the whole this trust is deserved and electors obey the rules; namely that they should vote just once.

Maybe electors appreciate just how lucky they are to live in a secure and relatively fair democracy. The institutions trust them, albeit with the threat of fines, and voters obey the rules.
Vote-swapping requires trust between two strangers, who probably never meet and may only tentatively correspond via e-mail. This leaves vote-swapping open to abuse from a dedicated interest group, not keeping their side of the bargain. With no fine or sense of civic duty keeping them in check, the mutual trust on which the electoral system relies, would be undermined.

The UK electoral system is deeply flawed, but the grassroots alternative – vote swapping – is no real substitute for proper institutional reform. It will only serve to fuel cynicism amongst the electorate and will continue to sweep the issue of unbalanced electoral system under the carpet.

The Australian model

Though not perfect, the Australian voting system for the Lower House reduces the sense of electors feeling their vote will be ‘wasted’.

Though still a ‘first-passed-the-post system’, a Member is not returned unless they have received a majority of the votes cast, through a process of elimination in a preference system.

This optional preferential vote allows a primary vote to be cast for the most preferred candidate, by marking ‘1’ against their name. The remaining candidates are ordered upwards accordingly. If the candidate with the most primary votes does not secure more than half the votes casts, the preferences of the last placed candidate are counted and the candidate drops out. Proportions are then recalculated.

Theoretically, this allows a candidate who comes second on the primary vote count to still win the seat if preferences eventually push their count over the 50% threshold.

There are many advantages to such a system. Firstly, the candidate returned is more likely to command the broader support of the electorate, if not being the first choice, then at least the second for most electors. And secondly, minor parties, though still unlikely to return a candidate, can at least watch their vote share grow over time.

Most likely a minor party supporter would cast their primary vote for their most favoured candidate. When this candidate is discounted, the ballot is not wasted, until the preferences are considered.

This has allowed the Australian Greens to regularly poll well, between 6-8% of the primary (popular) vote, in Australia [see: http://results.aec.gov.au/ResultsByDivision-12246-NAT.htm], compared to the paltry 1-2% in the UK, where a Green vote is wasted from the moment it is folded into the ballot box.

But the most important advantage is that although majority governments are still most likely to be returned, ie there is ‘strong government’, preference deals struck before the election and openly communicated to voters, ensure that the major parties’ policies are at least influenced by the minor parties.

For example in the 2004 Federal election, the Liberal-National Coalition struck a deal with the Family First Party to secure second preferences in return for introducing a ‘family-impact statement’ on all policy proposals. The Greens did the same with Labor, over forest policy in Tasmania.

Of course, the drawbacks are the flipside to the above points. In the end Family First polled poorly, but it was able to influence the Coalition’s program and to some extent, draw the coalition further to the right to reduce the number of likely defectors to Family First.: the party that would not support the Coalition in Brisbane, because the Liberal candidate, Ingrid Tall, was gay and therefore, presumably, ‘anti-family’.

Falling turnouts

It is likely that the turnout in the UK today will fall further than the already disgracefully low 59%. This malaise will only be broken when citizens are re-engaged with politics. And a big contributor to the current disaffection is the state of the electoral system.

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Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Not a red letter day

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In addition to the Labour Day public holiday, we had the Tuesday booked off to go sailing to Moreton Island and to do some snorkelling, sand tobogganing on a ‘red letter day’.

When I booked the day, a month ago – to coincide with my father being able to ‘do the kids’ – I had this feeling that they weren’t too keen on that particular day: a Tuesday in the off-season.
As the day got closer, there was still no sign of a cancellation, so by Monday afternoon, despite the inclement weather, I was hopeful that the diving boots I had borrowed off Richard would be put to good use.

Irritatingly, they called at 5pm on Monday, to cancel; ostensibly because of the impending bad weather (in the end the Tuesday was warm and breezy, about perfect). For most, this wouldn’t represent much of a problem, but with kids, work etc., a cancellation like this requires a major logistical rethink.

Or a refund.

Why is that these red letter days always (well, 2 times out of 3) end in a changed, cancelled or invariously mucked around itinerary. Just as well organise things yourself.

To divert extreme disappointment I booked some tickets to go and watch the Wallabies play France in July at Suncorp and then went bush walking – sans les enfants – with my father.

In three attempts, I have so far failed to get to Love Creek Falls, in the Brisbane State Forest. Without the children, here was an opportunity.

The falls lay about 3km up a steadily rising creek bed, through rainforest. The creek gets increasingly steeper and the vegetation gets thicker as you go up, making the upper sections pretty difficult terrain to traverse. Each new cascade presents a new problem: do you climb up it, leap over rocks, or scramble up the valley side to bypass.

I nearly ended up in the drink (along with expensive digital camera, wallet, pocketmail gadget, mobile phone, car keys) when a rotten fallen tree gave way underneath me, leaving me hanging on some vines, reaching for the rocks.

From the car park, it was an ascent of about 300m to the base of the falls. It took 1 ½ hours of scrambling, rock hopping and climbing to get there, but it was worth it. Notwithstanding the beautiful scenery on the ascent, Love Creek Falls are some 20m high, framed by a wonderful opening in the canopy and in the middle of nowhere – 7 or 8 km from the nearest recognised track.

So that’s another of Brisbane State Forest’s reclusive waterfalls explored. Just a few more – and a whole gorge - to go.

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Monday, May 02, 2005
PhotoStitch

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A great bit of software that bundles with your standard digital camera, is PhotoStitch. Absolutely seamless panoramic photography, as you can see by this shot (click to enlarge) from Brisbane's Southbank (on a gloomy day):

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Sunday, May 01, 2005
Brothers (White) 25 - 25 Norths (White)

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Inconsistent refereeing served to both confuse and frustrate the boys. Still, if we can steal a draw in a game like this, we should do alright for the rest of the season.

This is not U6, scattering like rabbits on a rugby pitch. At U7, they know the rules, and so when faced with a referee that does not apply them correctly, they do not understand what more they must do.

Refereeing aside, we did not play that well. Though again, our defending was as committed, stout and organised as ever, our attacking play was dogged by the kids being too reluctant to make ground forward, through fear of being tagged. This leads them to run backwards, to try and find the space, to be ultimately frustrated when they get there to find there is none their either.

Well done to Hugo who made a try saving tackle. It was fortunate that Hugo, after he had made the tag, tripped the guy up, as reflecting the whole game, the referee appeared to have not seen one of our tags.

Sports round up

Yeovil, so nearly there… It makes me nervous when Yeovil go into the last week, still yet to secure their goal; that is normally the time they choose to muck it up. But their last game is a home match against fellow promotion chasers, Lincoln, so hopefully the Huish faithful will help them home. To win the Football League Division 2 would be a great achievement.

I should not have been so worried about Liverpool gaining entry into next season’s European Champion’s League, as it seems that they will get there on their own merit if Everton continue their present run.

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