The Queensland Liberal Party has scanned the horizon, decided there are no elections in prospect for a year or two, and now they are moving on their long awaited expulsions. Well, at least one of them.
This evening Margaret Krause has been served with a “writ” to attend a hearing of the Disciplinary Committee. A process server turned up this evening, eye-blinding flashlight in hand, to start the process.
Krause stands accused of sending an article about Michael Johnson, the Member for Ryan, to Crikey, then circulating it to her email list and sending it to the local newspaper as a letter to the editor. For this alleged heinous crime she is to appear before the committee in a fortnight and is to be denied legal representation. The Disciplinary Committee couldn’t have known that Margaret’s husband Bill would have been recuperating from a heart operation yesterday, but it does make you wonder why they needed to use a process server in the dead of night. Some recuperation.
I wonder whether the other potential recipients of Disciplinary Committee attention – Margaret “GST” Watts, Marion “the Challenger” Feros, Russell “The Rodent” Gault, and “minor electronic press baron” I – will also have to deal with luminscently gifted process servers tonight, or tomorrow night, or any other night. If they are keen to give me attention, then I probably added to their keeness this morning by becoming a regular on Steve Austin’s 612 ABC morning radio programme.
Stay posted. I’m keen to find out what exactly it is I’m alleged to have done. I might find out soon.
Don’t think there’s too much in Crikey’s archives to incriminate me, but they might want to start excluding sources so as to help Margaret out. She might be a sort of electronic paper boy, throwing copies of the email newsletter over the fence for friends, but I doubt that she is a stringer for them. They owe her for her diligent efforts in giving them publicity and circulation. Hope that under the Beecher/Gribble regime they’re not going to start getting precious over breaches of their copyright.
February 09, 2005 | Graham
Curse of Crikey – Libs move on Queensland expulsions
February 09, 2005 | Graham
Difference between degree and direction
In this postmodern world one human being’s lie is another’s truth. Knew it wouldn’t take some blow-hard long to claim that John Howard promised in the last election that interest rates would not rise under him. Of course, the claim was that interest rates would be higher under Labor – a claim about the degree of increase, not the possibility of an increase.
I suspect most borrowers will have understood the difference, but that hasn’t stopped Kim Beazley raising the issue in Parliament yesterday. Not a good move really. Shows that Labor hasn’t learnt anything from the last election and that the leadership change means very little in terms of degree or direction when it comes to its fortunes. But what’s the bet some website next election lists this as another of John Howard’s “lies” (sorry Tim).
Whatever they say you can trust some politicians to stay true to form, even if it’s as rotten as Matt Hayden’s currently is.
February 07, 2005 | Graham
Sentencing and due process
They say that you should never forgive, and never forget. Ken Jarrett and Robert Lacey might be forgiven for adhering to that litany, and adding another of their own – never confess.
Who are Ken Jarrett and Robert Lacey? They are the members of a reasonably exclusive club of the reluctantly honest. Jarrett was the Elder’s executive who pleaded guilty to his role in syphoning $66.5 million of Elder’s money off through a foreign exchange deal. Jarrett went to jail, but his co-accused, John Elliott, Peter Scanlon and Ken Biggins, escaped on what appeared to be a technicality. The Supreme Court ruled much of the evidence against them inadmissible because the NCA (who was prosecuting the case) had gone beyond their terms of reference in collecting it.
Jarrett must have got some satisfaction from the fact that John Elliott has just been forced into bankruptcy and very public disgrace. Never forgive and never forget.
Robert Lacey was co-accused with Sugar Ray Robinson of stealing $4,800 from the Indigenous Housing and Construction Company. He, like Jarrett, coughed and pleaded guilty. Robinson was acquitted on Friday. Robinson doesn’t deny that he helped to withdraw the money, just that he did it under a mistake as to the legitimacy of withdrawing the funds, and that he derived no personal benefit from them. The jury finding implies that Lacey was a rogue who inveigled Robinson into countersigning the cheques for his own benefit.
Of course one reason why someone might plead guilty and implicate someone else is to limit the severity of their sentence. In this case Lacey fingered Robinson as the instigator, making his role subsidiary, and therefore less blameworthy.
It is also possible he was telling the truth, but the DPI couldn’t make the charge stick “beyond reasonable doubt”. Not that they didn’t try to introduce doubt. Prosecutor Jeff Hunter quizzed Robinson on the $4.3M he had allegedly gambled on poker machines at Crown Casino. On the averages this should have amounted to $615,000 worth of losses. “Where would I get that sort of money from, brother” Robinson said. “We might well want to ask you that,” the Crown replied.
Trial Judge, Charles Brabazon directed that the jury should ignore this evidence – not a technicality, but one might well want to ask Robinson where the money came from.
Something that might have changed the outcome of the Elliott trial, if not the Robinson one, was a suggestion by retiring Supreme Court Judge, Geoff Davies that evidence obtained illegally should be admissible in trials.
February 05, 2005 | Ronda Jambe
Lessons from the tsunami: a global intelligence test
The waters have receded, and the long term work of rebuilding lives and towns is underway. The willingness of the world to help in a sustained and unselfish way is a test of our common humanity. But the tsunami is also a test of our ability to set common goals and recognize common threats. And while the wave was triggered by seismological rather than environmental shock, there are long term lessons about the fragility of coastal areas that we need to absorb and act on.
Our species seems destined to be defined by extremes: Mozart, Shakespeare and the collective miracle of the Internet, but then child porn, sanctioned torture and death camps. Somewhere in between are the bureaucrats and technocrats that sign the papers to condone the plundering of the planet and the erosion of social capital. All in the name of progress, or perhaps just in obedience to the Minister’s wishes, or so they used to tell me in the public service.
The globally connected masses that witnessed the tsunami from afar, like the masses who lost their lives, loved ones and livilhoods, wish no one ill. But can we see past this burp of kindness to the real lessons we should be learning? Like a smoker with a cough, we get many warnings. Are we smart enough as a species to learn what we need to do to survive?
We have been told, by no less than Jared Diamond, that the world could become like the more ravaged parts of Africa. Over ten years ago, Robert Kaplan (in the Atlantic Monthly) predicted ‘the coming anarchy’, which he presaged would be driven by environmental degradation. There has long been talk of ‘environmental refugees’, and some hapless tourists have now experienced that first hand.
Do we get it yet? Building on every available beach front with reckless disregard for mangroves and sea grasses, coral reefs and peatlands is not likely to provide enhanced protection from surging seas, whatever the cause. It ain’t rocket science, as the cliché goes.
Vandana Shiva has written eloquently (on Zdnet) about the environmental lessons from the tsunami. She points out the ‘disconnect between the health of the market and the health of the planet and her people.’ She warns of the need to be prepared for future catastrophic events, for example should the Tehri dam on the Ganges burst its walls. She notes that animals and indigenous communities had the intelligence to anticipate the Tsunami and protect themselves. Our high tech systems failed because they are not designed for global awareness, just market awareness.
The tsunami tests our intelligence, and the values embedded in the design of our information systems. Are we smart enough to recognize that development has to work with nature, rather than arrogantly obliterating it? Are we capable of achieving balance, so that the profits from coastal based development such as industrial fish farming, tourism or oil extraction are balanced and do not endanger the very peoples they are rhetorically intended to benefit?
The embedded values in our information systems are a logical place to look for signs of global learning. Some nations did not get the tsunami warnings because they weren’t active participants in the agreements – at least one hadn’t responded to requests for a contact person. Clearly, the global information systems work best for commercial issues. Ironically, governments are too short sighted to see that protecting their environments and people are the most important task their information systems can perform. It should be an embarassment for telecommunications officials in the region that animals and indigenous people had better warning systems than those staying in 4 star hotels. What does that say about global information systems and their effectiveness?
Closer to home, our governance of information seems to fail us too. Just scanning a few media items recently illustrates how current provisions for disclosure fail to serve the public good. The Labor Party is breeching the spirit of the law, according to the Australian Electoral Commission. The party is flush with funds from secretive donors, a polite form of laundering. At the same time, born-again Beazley has made some classic hedging statements on abortion, paving the way for changes to party policy. The hidden message (at least to me) is that we haven’t been told all of what the Bush administration wants from Australia, but Beazley knows and Howard knows, and moving closer to US policy on abortion is the kind of move that will keep our opposition leader in their good books. Will the real suck holes please stand up? (and go home) But who knows? The forms of legislated transparency necessary to reveal the truth aren’t available. One might also wonder where the funds for Family First came from, to allow them to field so many candidates in last year’s election.
On a more global level, a TV program quoted research on viewers of Foxtel, showing that regular watchers of their news channel were less likely to be correctly informed about basic factual matters. Gee, isn’t there a duty of care somewhere, to at least not make your audience more stupid? But then more research showed up in my email box, indicating that one third of US students think the press ought to get government approval before publishing stories, and had little understanding of their famous Bill of Rights.
Clearly we have a long way to go before the global information commons serves the common person’s interests. But then, it hasn’t been designed to develop democracy. (But online opinion has.) We come back to our extremes: anonymous help and donations online versus cyber terrorism, global spin versus global warming. We pays our money, but do we make an informed choice?
February 02, 2005 | Graham
Crikey, Beecher leaves us out in the surf alone
Eric Beecher, publisher of The Reader has skinned Stephen Mayne, publisher of www.crikey.com.au by buying effective control of the zine for $200,000 paid in instalments over the course of 2005. This would appear to bring to an end one of the chapters in independent online media in Australia, as well as signalling that there is a financial future for some online news sites.
Beecher’s non-refundable $200,000 deposit gets him the right to drive the Crikey site for 18 months, starting from the first of March this year. If he smashes it up in that time, all he loses is his $200,000. If it survives and he decides to keep it then he has to pay an additional $800,000 – a nominal total of $1,000,000.
This is a brilliant deal for Beecher, although the dollar figures are in the category of what one of my property developer friends calls “rats and mice”, so may not make a huge difference to his net wealth.
From what we know of Mayne’s financial position, Beecher is buying the operation for around 2.5 times sales – Mayne makes around $100,000 from advertising and $300,000 from subscriptions.
Mayne appears to have around 5 paid employees, including himself and his wife and some office and webhosting costs. The operation probably just about breaks even.
Beecher has an established operation, so presumably the purchase will cause a negligible increase in his accomodation and webhosting costs. He already has someone looking after business and subscriptions, so he can probably shed some staff costs. If he can produce the journal with Mayne and political correspondent Christian Kerr, and perhaps one other, then he might manage to make an effective $100,000 EBITDA from the existing operation, meaning he is paying $1M for something worth around $1M.
But if he can actually grow the operation, then his investment is worth much more. Doubling Mayne’s subscriber base on the same staff would bring in another $300,000, turning $1M into probably $4M. It’s also possible that he can use some of Mayne’s networks to cut costs on The Reader, (which is no more than a collection of media snippets), by repurposing content.
Recent industry talk in the US is that advertising spending on the Internet is increasing strongly. Another upside for Beecher is in advertising revenue – Crikey’s email advertising appears to sell quite cheaply compared to US rates, and he appears to reap negligible amounts from banner advertising.
Beecher’s purchase is made at a good time in the financial cycle. Investment markets everywhere are booming, but tech stocks have yet to recover from the bust. Investors are looking to the non-listed market for value. Beecher’s purchase is in the non-listed market and the tech sector, magnifying the chances that his investment may be much more valuable in 18 months time merely as a result of a re-rating of private companies specifically and the technology industry generally.
Of course, there is one considerable downside for Beecher. While Crikey! has always been a commercial concern, it is also a cottage undertaking with a strong sense of community – witness the many subscribers who were prepared to stump at least $100,000 to meet Stephen’s legal costs in his defamation action with Steve Price. Will the Crikey army stick around now the site has lost its battler status and is associated with a minor media mogul? If it doesn’t, Beecher has really bought no more than a mailing list.
It is also likely that Beecher’s $200,000 is much less than the money that he will need to spend renovating Crikey! The public details of the purchase were contained in an email released to Crikey subscribers this morning by Mayne. While it is fairly detailed, it does leave some questions in my mind.
For example, if the only thing that changes in Crikey! is the management and the fact that Mayne has $200,000 that he didn’t have before, how exactly does Beecher ramp readership and incomes up? Beecher must have huge discretion to change the Crikey structure, and an intention to spend some money on it.
Another question is why Mayne is letting Crikey go. Very few entrepreneurs would spend 5 years building something from nothing to $1M and then walk away completely, unless they thought it wasn’t worth that much. If the issue was capital, or managerial experience, then they would normally look around for an investor and some expertise, and give them some small share of the enterprise in return for their money or sweat equity. Does Mayne see Beecher as his “Alan Bond”?
This is pure speculation, but perhaps it is Paula Piccinini, Mayne’s wife, who is really pulling the plug. She returns to her Family Law practice in July so will no longer be running the business side of Crikey!, they have three young children and $50,000 remaining in debt. On top of this, growth in the Crikey! readership seems to have slowed significantly – 12 months ago they had three times our site traffic, now it is closer to 2 – making it possibly appear unlikely that Mayne could ever make it profitable.
If Stephen was under this sort of pressure, then he had very few options apart from selling to Beecher. Selling to mainstream media would have decimated the subscriber base and raising fresh capital or taking on new partners aren’t solutions if the issues are emotional.
This way Stephen walks away with at least $150,000 in his pocket ($200,000 first installment less $50,000 debt) and a job with Beecher for 18 months. If all goes well, another $800,000 comes along. Of course there could be tax to pay on some of this.
While Mayne’s email claims that it will be “business as usual” it is hard to see that really being the case. Crikey is moving from buccaneer to privateer status, and next may even be “mainstream” media. While OLO and Crikey! have very different aims, we started at much the same time, and it’s always been comforting to have them out in the surf at the same break. True, we’ve taken on equity partners, but they’ve all been either educational institutions or not-for-profits, and there has never been any intention to make ours a commercial site. It’s not going to feel quite the same tomorrow.
February 01, 2005 | Graham
‘Rotten Romans’ could teach ALP, and all of us, some lessons
My older daughter, Libby, has been reading Rotten Romans one book in a series of Horrible Histories. It explains that the Romans beat the Britons because while both the Romans and the Britons made military mistakes, the Romans learnt from their mistakes and tended to only make them once. When I was a kid growing up, and they still called England “the mother country”, you’d occassionally hear someone praised for being “a true Brit”. Well, in the Rotten Romans lexicon, perhaps “true Brit” is a phrase that could be applied to the Australian ALP – they certainly aren’t learning from their mistakes.
In this week’s Sunday Mail Glen Milne reveals that “KIM Beazley has moved immediately to junk two of Mark Latham’s most divisive policies at the last election – his punitive attack on private school funding and his open-ended commitment to save Tasmanian old-growth forests.”
Sounds decisive, until you read the small print. The private school funding policy has gone, but Beazley is opposed to the Government’s funding formula, so the retreat isn’t really a retreat at all – some private schools are obviously going to lose funding. Same thing on old-growth forests. Labor is still going to protect old growth forests, but under Beazley there won’t be any job losses. Old policies are repudiated and embraced more or less simultaneously.
Beazley attempts to side-step the Medicare Gold issue, by claiming that it has already been dropped. As Milne notes – this is news to Julia Gillard, the relevant spokesperson.
However, he is decisive on one issue – the promise to bring troops home from Iraq by last December has definitely been dropped!
One of the iron rules of politics is that you don’t talk to journalists unless you have something to say, otherwise you will say too much. Beazley’s entitled to time to reshape Labor’s policies, and while he’s doing so, he should stop talking to journalists.
Of course, sometimes you can’t avoid talking to the press, so it was appropriate that Kevin Rudd was on ABC this morning talking about the Iraq election, but completely inappropriate that he used the opportunity to fight the last battle. What he should have said this morning is that the Iraqi election has been a great success; that he wishes the Iraqi people well and commends them for their bravery; and that above all, now is not the time to be revisiting the issue of whether the US should have invaded Iraq.
Instead Radio National listeners were regaled with a lecture on the way international relations has been crafted around respect for national sovereignty. Good thing for Labor that apart from Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister (who revealed during the last election that it is RN’s breakfast programme he listens to every morning – bad luck Alan Jones), and me, probably no-one else was tuned in.
However, this leads me to another point. Madeleine Albright suggested in a lecture last year that we needed to develop theories of international relations to deal with situations where countries might want to invade other countries because of the criminal action of the rulers of those countries. On this count Saddam Hussein would have been a prime candidate.
Afterall, the Rudd doctrine, taken to its logical conclusion, says that as long as the ruler of a country doesn’t act criminally towards other countries they can do what they wish within their own borders free of foreign interference. So, the holocaust would have been OK, as long as Hitler hadn’t invaded Poland.
I’m with Albright. While I was a post facto supporter of the war in Iraq I was never easy with the original decision. However I had no such qualms with Afghanistan, and my concerns with the NATO deployment in the former Yugoslavia was not that it occurred but that it consisted significantly of bombing of civilians in order to bring their rulers to heel – surely a war crime.
Social contract theory was invented originally as a way of justifying insurrection against a properly appointed ruler by their subjects. It could easily be expanded to take account of the current state of international relations. With the competition between two more or less evenly matched contestants of the Cold War a receding memory, we now have a possibility of reimagining the world in a new way where we come closer to guaranteeing everyone on the globe basic human rights.
We’ve made plenty of mistakes in Iraq, but the way forward for all of us – citizens and politicians alike – is to learn from them. Of course, the trick is to learn the right lessons.