A family event

Google has introduced a new comments management system. Apart from spam prevention, it allows all comments to be reviewed within the content management system.

I don't get a lot of comments as compared to, say, The Poll Bludger which can get more than 3,000 comments on a single story. In fact, on this blog I have fewer comments than this in total! Still, at 2,737 comments including my own responses I have quite a memory problem to remember what people said where and when. Pretty obviously, I can't.

The new comments management system overcomes this. Now I can look back. This is especially important with substantive comments, including any responses that I have promised.

This photo shows youngest daughter (left) with friend Becky.

In a comment on  The importance of community activism, Jacqui wrote:

How do we get our youth to become more involved though? Because this is the generation we need to inspire to lobby for personal and social rights.

In responding, I said that I wasn't too worried about this when I looked at my daughters and their friends.

Youngest has just turned 21. For her party, she wanted a gathering of her friends around a musical show theme. Elements of the planning went on for months via Facebook centred on which musical should be allocated to which person.

Those involved had a lot of fun, for the key was to select a musical/character that fitted with perceived personality. This opened lots of possibilities.

Having had some experience, I wondered how many of those accepting would come (this is actually a problem with the modern Australian young: they are more casual about invitations). I also wondered whether people would actually dress to fit their character.

I need not have worried. There were some drop-outs, but most came, while nearly all if not all did dress to fit their allocated part.

Reflecting youngest's personality and range of interests, it was a very mixed group. Old school friends, friends from the Macquarie University Ancient History Society or the University of of NSW Circus Society and others all mixed. There was no trouble, nobody got drunk, people had a good time. I thought what a nice crowd they were.

The next photo shows the four of us. Youngest, wife, eldest, me.

In allocating roles, youngest took pity on me and allocated me Henry Higgins. This made it very easy. I could get away with a tux!

Friend Catherine  put together the usual slide show based on selected photos showing youngest over time. I found this quite nostalgic and distracting.

The speeches, there were a number, drew out elements of youngest's character: her sense of adventure and lack of fear, leading to frequent visits to hospital emergency departments; her generosity; the way she organised things; and sometimes her sheer eccentricity. As I listened to the speeches and watched the slides, I thought of the way that she had taken a group of girls at school that did not quite fit into conventional groups, that might otherwise have become misfits, and helped turn them into a group that held its own eccentric place, that was a force to be reckoned with.

Both my daughters are strong women who also happen to get on well with each other. Both are involved in a variety of things. This is why I responded to Jacqui's comment in the way that I did.

At some point, I will do a more detailed analysis showing the patterns of engagement and involvement among the young as I know them. For the moment, I am just pleased that my wife and I seem to have done some things right! Really, though, the girls did it themselves.       

Sunday snippets - another blog round up

Almost a month has passed since the last time I went round the blogging traps.

On bizchicksblogs.com, Tia Peterson has carried out hew own regular blog round-up in 27 Posts That Will Save Your (Blogging) Life. Tia has spotted some interesting material; worth a browse.

Have you ever heard of prosopography? I had not until I read the Resident Judge of Port Philip's ‘Professors of the Law: Barristers and English Legal Culture in the Eighteenth Century. I had to look it up. According to Wikipedia:

In historical studies, prosopography is an investigation of the common characteristics of a historical group, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable, by means of a collective study of their lives, in multiple career-line analysis. Prosopographical research has the aim of learning about patterns of relationships and activities through the study of collective biography, and proceeds by collecting and analysing statistically relevant quantities of biographical data about a well-defined group of individuals. This makes it a valuable technique for studying many pre-modern societies. Prosopography is an increasingly important approach within historical research. The term is a popular one, and the concept is easily inflated.

I guess not knowing the name shows that I remain out-of-touch with academic history, probably inevitable working alone with still limited contact with academe. Still, if I don't know the name, I certainly know the approach and it can be very useful.

Most Australians, for example, know that Chinese people came to Australia with the gold rushes, fewer know that the Chinese were here before that. I looked at this in a limited way in The Chinese in New England 1848-1853.

We have very little information on individuals. However, in Indentured Chinese Labourers and Employers Identified New South Wales 1828-1856, Maxine Darnell from the School of Economic at the University of New England presented in tabular form basic information she discovered from the historical records. With this, it is possible to look at patterns that can then be extended from other material.

In Gathering Images of #Urban zones in #Sydney for a #DERNSW Project, Maximos62 talks about copyright and his DER Leading Learners research project on Urban Growth and Decline in Sydney. The post includes some photos of Sydney showing different architectural styles.

Earlier in a very interesting post, #Indonesia and #Australia: perceptions of border security from the land that’s girt by sea, Maximos 62 looked at Australia's perceptions of borders. I don't think that I have commented on it before, but it bears upon some of the things that I have been thinking about in a historical context.

This year, the end of Ramadan, 9/11 and that very silly plan by the US pastor to burn the Koran all seemed somehow jammed together. In Condemns the Koran burning plan, Tikno added his own condemnation,  concluding: "Along with this post I want to say Happy Eid Ul Fitr 1431H to all Muslims. Please forgive any of my physical and emotional wrongdoings."

Similar wishes came from Niar and Harry Nizam.

Free Range International continues to provide an on-ground perspective of the Afghanistan war. I suppose that there is a kind of gruesome fascination with some of the war material, but I actually find that the combination of stories and photos gives me a far better feeling for the nature of the war than I get from the main stream media.

Staying with the depressing, Paul Barratt had two interesting posts on Iran and Israel:

• Israel ponders a nuclear Iran
• Will Israel bomb Iran?

Like me, Paul has his own biases. Accepting that, his knowledge and analytical skills have often informed me: I can adjust for his particular positions. Reading the posts added to a concern already fuelled by other things, a growing feeling that response and counter response may actually spiral into another war. Political dynamics create their own momentum. Still, that's just too depressing for a reasonably bright Sunday morning.

Winton Bates also had two interesting if less depressing posts:  Is reasonable regulation compatible with democracy? and Do global problems require domestic solutions?. 

Like Paul, Winton and I have many common experiences, but different perspectives. For example, in Is a hung parliament a good election outcome? he bemoaned the prospect of a hung parliament whereas I thought that it was likely to be a bloody good thing! Mind you, I wouldn't necessarily want a hung parliament as the norm, but I thought that in this case it might be helpful in breaking, or at least reducing, rigidities that had crept into the Australian system.

While we do have different perspectives, we also both struggle from time to time looking at the way that Governmental systems do or might work.

Dear me. Look at the time. I will have to finish here, but will pick up Winton's issues in a later post.     

Full Gillard ministry list

Yesterday I said that I would post the full Gillard ministry once I had it. This follows.  

 

Australia's new Gillard ministry

At his point the full ministry list has yet to go on-line. Further, we won't know the final detail of break-ups until the new Administrative Orders are released. Subject to these qualifications, we have:

• PM Julia Gillard
• Deputy PM, Teasurer Wayne Swan. He will be supported by Bill Shorten as Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Superannuation and Financial Services
• Minister for Finance, Penny Wong
• Mister for Trade, Craig Emerson, supported by Justine Elliot has Parliamentary Secretary for Trade
• Minister for a Sustainable Australia, Communities, Environment and Water, Tony Bourke
• Special Minister of State, Gary Gray
• Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd
• Defence, Stephen Smith. He will be supported by Jason Clare as Minister for Defence Procurement, Warren Snowdon as Minister Defence Science
• Minister for Regional Affairs, Local Government and the Arts, Simon Crean
• Minister for Ageing and Mental Health, Mark Butler
• Minister for Climate Change, Greg Combet
• Minister for Schools, Early Childhood and Youth, Peter Garrett
• Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen
• Minister for Employments, Skills and Workplace Relations, Chris Evans
• Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare, Kate Ellis
• Minister for Indigenous Employment, Social Housing, Homelessness and Sport, Mark Arbib
• Minister for Community and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin
• Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon
• Minister for Veterans Affairs and Defence Science, Warren Snowdon
• Minister for Industry, Kim Carr
• Minister for Indigenous Employment and Development, Social housing and Sport, Mark Arbib
• Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism, Martin Ferguson
• Minister for Agriculture, Joe Ludwig
• Minister for Human Services and Social Inclusion, Tanya Plibersek
• Minister for Small Business, Nick Sherry.

There are, I think, some parliamentary secretary positions. I will post the complete list and portfolio structures when I have them.

Postscript:

Miss Eagle has a fuller list than mine. I have now posted the full list - Full Gillard ministry list.  

Saturday Morning Musings - managing population decline

A tweet by Mathew Ingram drew my attention to a fascinating statistic from the Boston Globe: eight of the 10 largest cities in the United States in 1950, including Boston, have since lost at least 20 percent of their population. In the case of Detroit, more than half the city's population has gone over the last fifty years, leaving vacant city buildings and entire boarded up blocks.

The photo shows Detroit's main train station, opened in 1913 but not used since 1988.

We live in a world in which part is experiencing, rapid population growth, part facing actual population decline. In Belarus for example, the total population has fallen from 10,045,000 in 1999 to 9,500,000 in 2009. This decline is likely to continue. Not only is the population aging, but there is also a growing gender imbalance - there are now 1150 women for every 1,000 men, an imbalance part linked to population aging.

Belarus is not alone. A number of other countries are already experiencing or will soon face population decline.

We live in an urbanised world. Countries like Australia have been urban for many years, other countries like China are urbanising now at a very rapid rate.

The next photo shows Detroit's spectacular Spanish Gothic United Artists Theater. This was built in 1928, closed in the 1970s

Those of us from regional Australia have experienced population decline at first hand. Schools, stores, banks, civic facilities all close.

Small scale decline can be ignored,especially when the rest of the country is growing. But what do you do when major urban centres, metropolitan cities, go into population decline?

As populations fall, so do rate bases, civic services and urban developments. Vast patches of desolation emerge. It becomes harder to maintain things, not just because costs have to to be spread over smaller populations, but also because large slabs of infrastructure designed for specific populations have to be maintained to meet diminishing needs.

You see, the pattern of decline is not uniform. Some areas suffer more than others. So some areas are still okay, other's bear costs that cannot be related to population. People fight to maintain areas and services, but ultimately they go. 

The photo shows Detroit's Wilbur Wright public school closed in 2005.

Now all this may seem a long way from Australia. After all, we are presently worried about the size of the population increase, not issues associated with population decline. Yet we do need to think about it.

For the present, our problems lie not in the overall size of the population, but in its structure and distribution. This, by the way, is not an argument for more decentralisation, although that may be important. Rather, I am trying to tease out a few broader issues.

We have an aging population. This means that we have to invest more in aged care. We have a population in which the number of households is rising faster than the population, reflecting both changing social patterns and underlying demographic trends. So we need to build more housing of one type or another to match this faster growth.

The Australian population is not uniformly distributed. A self-evident statement I know, but I am thinking not just in raw numbers, but of the varying structure of of the population across space. Retirement areas, for example, have very different population structures from outer metropolitan areas. Then there is internal migration, the progressive shifts of population across space and time.

We have already seen examples of the impact of this type of shift. In Canberra, for example, the city's rapid growth required shops and schools in certain areas to meet rapid population growth. Just thirty years later, maturation meant declining needs for those shops and schools. This created significant adjustment problems.

When I look at Australia just at present, I see the Canberra example writ large. If you just crunch numbers for some areas popular with retirees or simply aging because the young are leaving but ignoring future internal migration, the numbers show fast population declines within a not so distant time horizon. In this event, it's not just the aged care facilities that will become redundant, but large slabs of the commercial and civic infrastructure as well.

Just at present, we tend to respond to this type of challenge in two ways. Either, we say the market will work it out or, alternatively, we go all prescriptive. I am not sure that either is very sensible.

When I read the Boston Globe analysis, I think that the think that interested me most was the differential nature of the responses. As part of this, the idea of using contraction as a device to improve overall life style and livability attracted me. I don't know that I have very clear or sensible ideas here. I just found it interesting as an alternative way of thinking.  

The importance of sherry

My wife has been away. Wednesday evening, she sent me an sms to say that she was drinking a nice fino. Dear that took me back.

Growing up, my parents used to have a nice dry sherry before dinner every night with a few biscuits. Later, I was allowed to join them. It became a tradition.

I very rarely drink sherry now, and found myself wondering why because I am still very fond of it. When did it happen?

Thinking about it, sherry went into decline in the eighties. It wasn't the only tipple to do so. Gin and tonic, another drink that I am very fond of, went into decline at the same time. Eldest works part time in a pub. Now nobody there orders it. Indeed, most pubs don't seem to serve it at all. 

Part of the reason for the decline lies in the rise of other drinks. Wine, for example, is now drunk before dinner as well as at dinner. There is a far wider variety of wines and of mixed drinks, including the pre-mixed. In fact, more spirits are drunk now and in a wider variety of forms. However, I think that it is a little more than this.

The type of alcohol drunk was directly related to perceived social status; both dry sherry and gin and tonic were drinks of the "genteel" middle classes; wine, too, was a middle class drink; by contrast, while the ubiquitous beer spanned classes, it was especially a working class drink.

I suspect that the changing drink patterns can be directly linked to the blurring of previous social distinctions, the collapse of previous social structures. The form of alcohol drunk has become a less reliable indicator of social group.

The independents' quid pro quo

My responses to Ramana's question as to what the quid pro quo was in the deal between the two country independents and the ALP left him unsatisfied. So I thought that I should try to answer it more fully.

Both members are taking an electoral risk in supporting the ALP as compared to the coalition. While they have huge majorities in their seats (New England and Lyne), many in their electorates wanted them to go with the coalition. This includes a large number of traditionally coalition voters who have been voting independent, some of whom may now shift back. There has been quite a savage on the ground reaction to the decision among some of this group. Both men are going to be judged on the results of the arrangement as seen through the eyes of their electors.

There are two main components to the deal between the two country independents and the ALP, parliamentary reform plus regional development.

The effect of the parliamentary reform component is to somewhat strengthen the power of parliament relative to the executive. This is especially important to independents. All the Northern NSW independents at state and federal level (New England is the heart of the independents' movement) constantly battle the charge that an independent vote is a wasted vote because independents have no power. As the independents did in NSW earlier when they held the balance of power there, the aim is to entrench changes that enhance the power of all parliamentarians. All benefit, but the independents benefit most.

In this context, it is important to recognise that while the New England independents are not a party (the very concept of independence precludes this), they are effectively a movement that draws from the same type of traditions that I often write about. It is not a coincidence that Northern NSW is independent heartland just as it was Country Party (now National) before this. If, as is widely expected, Tony Windsor stands down at either the next election or the one after, then Richard Torbay, state independent member for the Northern Tablelands, is expected to run for the New England seat. Mr Torbay is the independent speaker of the NSW Parliament and also Chancellor of the University of New England.

Parliamentary reform was agreed with both ALP and coalition. With an equal quid pro quo, the deal then came down to what both sides offered regional voters in general, with flow-ons to their electorates. Here, I suspect, important strategic and tactical considerations came in that link back to the electoral position in Northern NSW,

Both Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott emphasised stability in government. Both wanted time to bed changes down, to get best use of their balancing position. I think that there was a concern that if they supported Mr Abbott, he was was more likely to do a run for the polls regardless of any agreement if he saw public opinion favouring his Government. In that event, the usual on-ground National vs independents contest would simply resume.

If we now look at the broad structure of the offerings, and accepting that I don't know the details of the coalition offerings, I think that the ALP plan offered certain advantages that can be summarised this way.

Broadband. Both the two New England independents have emphasised this one. Mr Windsor sees it as critical to the over-coming of some of the relative disadvantages faced by regional versus metro areas. The agreement for an Australia wide wholesale price, together with a re-prioritisation of roll-out to favour regional Australia, effectively levels the playing field.

If we now look at the purely local level, Armidale (the second largest centre in Mr Windsor's electorate) is one of the initial pilot sites for the National Broad Band network. The pilot area includes the University of New England, with plans recently announced to expand the coverage of the Armidale trial. As I understand it, a second contract development contract was due to be let, but was effectively on hold pending the election. Had the coalition won and cancelled the NBN, then these developments may have either gone or been put on hold for an extended period.

Health. Regional Australia faces major problems in health services, including attraction of doctors. This affects both member's electorates. Even in Tamworth, the biggest centre in Mr Windsor's electorate, local GPs have effectively had to close their books because there just aren't enough of them. This has been a hot issue in Tamworth.

Both Mr Windor and Mr Oakeshott have been campaigning for upgrades to Tamworth and Port Macquarie hospitals, the biggest base hospitals in their electorates. The on-again, off-again nature of development plans over a number of years especially for Tamworth base hospital has been another hot issue.

Both the Government and opposition have emphasised increased training of health professionals in regional Australia as a part solution to the supply problem. The Universities of Newcastle and New England have introduced a joint medical training program specifically targeting rural GP needs. This includes a new medical school at UNE.

One of the bottlenecks here is the availability of the appropriate clinical training in terms of both facilities and distance between facilities. Hospital upgrades in combination with broadband not only improve immediate service delivery, but also strengthen the longer term supply of health professionals.

I haven't been able to do a comparison between the ALP and coalition offers. My feeling is that the agreement with the ALP offers a better integrated longer term approach.

Education. Like health, education has been a significant issue in regional Australia in general and in both electorates in particular.

Mr Oakeshott has been campaigning for improved educational facilities in Port Macquarie. The Southern Cross campus that had provided some local tertiary options closed. In it's place, I understand that Mr Oakeshott has been campaigning for a new integrated facility that combines school, TAFE and university to achieve viability.

Lyne is a very poor electorate. I think that one of Mr Oakeshott's objectives is to create an improved base that might attract more jobs to the electorate.

Education is big business in the New England electorate and especially in Armidale. It is also a business that at tertiary level has been under challenge as a consequence of broader re-structuring of the sector.

The stagnation in the inland population, another of Mr Windsor's concerns, has created further problems for the University of New England because it reduces the size of its immediate catchment area. Beyond these issues, the electorate would have lost three trade training centres had the coalition formed government.

So one of the quid pro quos that I think likely to come from the agreement is action to develop and protect the region's educational base.

In Country independents, regional development and spin, I expressed some concern about elements of the regional development package, partly on wording, mainly on my own lack of understanding. I still haven't done a full analysis, but I hope that this will give Ramana a better feel for quid pro quo issues.

Of course, as the new parliament evolves, other things will come up, including the interactions between the major parties, the Greens and all the independents. I really don't know how this will break. There is sure to be a fair bit of horse-trading. However, so far as the two New England independents are concerned, we can be reasonably sure that they are likely to stay pretty focused. Having taken the pain, they have to justify their decision not just in immediate electoral terms, but more broadly.   

Country independents, regional development and spin

One of the reasons why I so hate spin is that the desire to present things in the best light leads to distortion.

I say this because Ramana asked in a comment what the quid pro quo was in the deal between the two country independents and the ALP. For that reason, I put up  Agreement between the Australian Labor Party and the Independent Members. The way I did it makes it a bit cluncky to load. The Australian has a PDF version that may be easier to read.

The headline treatment of the deal generally reads something like independents gain $10 billion for the bush. I have yet to analyse the document in detail, but the reality appears to be nothing like this. Regional Australia would have got some of this money anyway. What the deal does do, it seems to me, is to add some spending at the margin plus shift the timing of spend between metro and regional areas. The real content lies in these areas; the $10 billion number should be ignored.

I must say that my heart sank when I read some of the wording obviously supplied by the ALP side. It's full of that type of language so beloved by current governments. Everything is expressed in positive terms, great weight is placed on the things done, it's all packaged. This means that each sentence has to be critiqued for real meaning.

This doesn't mean that package won't bring real benefits to regional Australia, I think that it will, simply that it cannot be taken at face value and has to be analysed properly.

I will try my hand at this over the next day or so, looking generally at the package on this blog, at the specific New England implications on New England Australia. 

Agreement between the Australian Labor Party and the Independent Members

A sense of relief as the independents decide

As I listened to the two independents I felt a sense of relief. Partly, this was due to the fact that a decision had been made. Partly, too, to the decision itself.

When I write professionally on this blog, I try to be objective. However, those who read the things that I write on will know that I feel that current structures mean that some of the things I think to be important have just been ignored. it's nice to have them forced back onto the national agenda.

But why a sense of relief at the support for Labor? Well, as Mr Oakeshott said, this is a bit of a judgement call. In my case, I have been very critical of the Rudd/Gillard approach to public policy. However, at the end of the day, the things that swung me in a personal sense were:

1. Boat people. I became increasingly concerned with what I saw as the Howard Government's increasing inhumanity and breach of process in its treatment of refugees. I saw Mr Abbott going down the same path.
2. Broadband. There may well be significant problems in the NBN proposal. However, I became concerned that the opposition's proposals were going to disadvantage the areas that I was especially interested in.
3. Climate change. While I have mixed views on the climate change debate, I think that action does need to be taken. I thought that Labor was most likely to do this.
4. New ideas. I didn't think that the opposition had had sufficient time to develop really new thoughts.

Note that I wasn't influenced by policies towards regional Australia. Neither Labor or the coalition started  with any really new ideas here. We haven't seen the offers from both sides, but I expect that they are in fact much of a muchness. The real debate is still to come here.

Now that a decision seems to have been made, I can go back to analysing policy as it emerges.

Waiting

Like the rest of Australia, I am poised waiting for the country independents to come to a decision. Meantime, I am trying to catch up on my backlog work.

In comments on Tea parties, corruption and climate change, KVD and I have been chatting about various issues associated with climate change. In my last response, I mentioned that my studies of prehistory gave me a good base for a disaster scenario.

Actually, that might be rather fun. Something different at a time when,  as I said yesterday in Just a moan, I feel that the world is crowding in around me. What do you think? 

Tea parties, corruption and climate change

At end August in Musings on the changing world of blogging, I talked about changes in our little blogging community. Thomas responded in Rebuilding the village. Since then he has had a very interesting series of posts on the US elections, with a special focus on the Tea Party Movement.

• Centrists in the US Senate? looks at the prospects of a hung parliament US style.
• Tea Partiers in the US Senate? and More on the Tea Party takeover are as the title says.
• finally to this point, The Tea Party looks at the movement's basic principles.

Thomas writes from a particular perspective, but he certainly educates me.

In Life with remorseless forceps beckoning, Marcellous deals with absent-mindedness, something that I am prone to too. In Corruption, Marcellous looks at at a small but intriguing case of apparent corruption within the NSW system; the problem appears to be not so much the action as the apparent denial of the action.

In a reasoned piece on Skepticslawyer, Climate change, scepticism and elitism Legal Eagle discussed her views on climate change in the context of a forthcoming SBS Insight program in which she participated. Marcellous responded in $50 a month. My own position can be summarised this way:

1. Like LE, I have been concerned at the way in which a polarised debate blocks out alternative views.
2. On the balance of probabilities, my feeling is that climate change is a real issue that needs to be dealt with now, although I have expressed frustration at the way (at least as I perceive it) polarisation limits discussion on possible responses.
3. It is clear that any form of action has costs whose impact will be differential; different people will be affected in different ways. The analysis of costs is essentially a factual one. Here, again, I would argue that the current debate is superficial. Crudely, one side wants to present costs as minimal, the other to present maximised costs.
4. My feeling has been that the cost issue has actually been the real elephant in the room. Look at the NSW electricity price discussion as an example. To many households, the proposed cost increases linked to climate change action were quite worrying. In combination, the potential rise in costs is far more than an average of $50 per month per household.
5. Once the pattern of cost increases associated with particular responses or combination of responses has been analysed, then and only then can social equity issues be properly analysed.

This post is meant to be a blog round-up, so my apologies for inserting my own views. However, I simply couldn't resist on this issue.

Turning to other matters, Neil Whitfield (Ninglun) has been much involved with his move from inner city Sydney down to the Illawarra.  We can see the influence already. His latest post, Bravo, Richard Harrison, quotes the Illawarra Mercury, not a paper referred to before!

In a comment on Thomas's blog, I described Neil as the godfather of our internet village. This led to a series of related comments. I think that Neil was worried that he might find a horse's head in his bed! Still, that was actually the godfather's response, so I don't think that the rest of us need to be worried!

My real point about Neil, though, lay in the way he interlinked a variety of bloggers and thus helped from the village.

Well, I am into working hours and have a lot to do. More later.