Update on Aussie Publishing

If, like me, you've been wondering what happened to the Productivity Commission's report on the parallel importation of books, the Australian Society of Authors' press release below might help. Sounds as though politics, national conferences and political working groups might be working for the *good* guys. Somebody slap me.

31 July 2009

The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) welcomes yesterday’s resolution of the ALP National Conference “that the Government should give priority to encouraging Australians to keep on buying Australian books and to maximising the economic, cultural and creative viability of Australian literature and Australian book industries”.

The ASA rejects completely the illogical and unfounded research promoted by the Productivity Commission in its recent report on the parallel importation of books, and looks forward to the determinations of the Working Group that the National Conference has set up to consider the report and recommend actions to relevant Ministers.

In the wake of an apology

Since Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generation -- or should I say the bi-partisan apology on behalf of the Australian nation? -- I've been asking different people how they felt about an act of such national significance. Here is a sample of the responses, plus a brief description of the respondent*:

A refugee from Sudan, c. 20 years old (male): What's with the sorry? Where was the compensation? (To which, someone at the same table stated that calculating the compensation would be impossible. By this, it became clear that he meant that no dollar figure could be put on the loss and pain suffered by many of the effected aboriginals.)

A 91-year-old lady: I don't think we should apologise. Many of the people who took these aboriginals were good people, with good intentions. Some of those who were taken got a better education than my husband. Others did wonderfully. By "others doing wonderfully" I think she had in mind people such as Polly Farmer (footballer) and Sally Morgan (author).

A 17-year-old refugee from Eritrea (female): I don't get it. What's the problem with aborigines? Why don't they do something to better themselves?

A 30-something 'professional' (female): It's not before time. Actually, she raised the topic with me in the week of the apology. She also suggested that Brendan Nelson's more qualified and stifled apology was probably due to the deals he had to cut to get his party's support. I'm not sure if this is true, but it seems plausible. (The Australian's Michael Costello called Nelson's apology "half-hearted, grudging, [and] far from the mood of the occasion". From what I heard of it, I tend to agree. For Costello's full article, see In thrall to the Libs' darker angels.)

I've talked with others about the issue, but can't remember what they said. I'm particularly interested in the views of those who've exprienced significant hardship -- refugees and the like. I'll try to post about any other interesting responses I come across.

* I don't necessarily support or endorse any of these views; I merely thought they were an interesting, perhaps representative, sample.

Conquering the Carbon Footprint

Well, Rupert Murdoch isn't a climate change skeptic, as his speech at the Global Energy Initiative made clear.

Two things in the Oz's eight-paragraph "Cut & paste" excerpt caught my attention:

First, Murdoch's PR people have obviously been in his ear: "Our audiences - hundreds of millions of people on five continents - care about this issue. Three-quarters of the American public believes climate change is a serious problem."

And, second, as Murdoch, the shrewdest of shrewd businessmen knows, good PR equals good business. Twice in the Oz's summary he stated that being green-friendly was good business: "And as many companies have already learned, acting on this issue is simply good business. Reducing our use of energy reduces costs." And again: "when so many of the solutions make sense for us as a business, it is clear that we should take action, not only as a matter of public responsibility but because we stand to benefit."

Of course, overwhelming popular opinion and business profitability don't make a scientific case for global warming -- no matter how slick the rhetoric.

What did others make of Rupert's speech?

Another skeptic?

Janet Albrechtsen's writing is always vigorous and usually entertaining.

Her article, "Force-fed warming hysteria", in today's Australian, teased out one, possibly very scary, implication of swallowing the global warming position feathers and all -- i.e. the way children are taught about this issue.

I appreciate the call in her final paragraph for a more critical approach.

Science vs. Ideology

When conversations turn to climate change and global warming, I usually keep quiet. Mostly, it's for fear of getting my head bitten off; also, however, not being a scientist, I know that I don't have a grasp of the facts and figures -- the underlying 'science'.

But it's time to come clean: I am a skeptic. Though the cries of "the earth is doomed if we don't overhaul our ways" are loud and almost universal, I'm not convinced.

"What! Are you crazy? Do you not have ears to hear? Eyes to see?" I can hear you thinking. "Haven't you heard of Al Gore?"

My attitude is captured well in an excerpt in today's Australian. The words were those of Cory Bernardi, a South Australian Liberal Senator. Frankly, I was refreshed to hear such sense from a politician. Here's the closing line from the excerpt, in case you don't get to read the whole piece:

Meeting Australia's long-term environmental challenges requires practical solutions balanced with the needs of our economy, not knee-jerk populist reactions based on conflicting scientific evidence.

The article can be found at A call for cooler heads in the global warming debate .

I'd be glad to hear others' thoughts on this subject. But, please, be gentle with a man who has just 'come out'!