The High Court decision in the Voller case concerns whether a publisher can be held responsible for comments readers post on its website. Specifically, the decision applies to Facebook but would appear to apply equally to any social media publisher, potentially including this website. Indeed, The Conversation seems sufficiently concerned to shut down all comment and discussion on the case in question – an over-reaction perhaps.

The majority High Court decision found that Facebook were a publisher, upholding the findings of the New South Wales Court of Appeal. The appeal judges had found that the media companies facilitated and encouraged the posting of comments by third parties on articles made available on their public Facebook pages. In doing so, the media companies participated and were instrumental in bringing about publication of allegedly defamatory matter, irrespective of whether others also participated in the publication

This decision may mean that any social media website can be sued in defamation as a publisher over any offensive or damaging comments posted by readers and contributors. Potentially, this means that moderation of every post will have to take place before it is published or alternatively that no third party comment will be invited.

So far, the major social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and the like have strongly resisted being tagged as publishers. They have maintained that they merely provide a platform to facilitate comment and discussion : all that may be about to change in Australia at least.

Watch this space as further clarification on this majority High Court decision takes place and the full implications on the implied right to freedom of speech are explored : ironically The Conversation a site where you would normally expect reasoned academic discussion have already decided that this subject is too hot to handle.

Interesting times !

Sky News Regional – a new free-to-air television offering – has just launched in regional areas across Australia with such luminaries as Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, Cory Bernardi, Paul Murray, Rowan Dean and Peta Credlin hustling to get into our loungerooms, to flood regional airways between Cairns and Kalgoorlie, with anti-immigration rhetoric, climate denialism, conservative claptrap and vaccine misinformation all masquerading as news.

In the meantime, Sky News has been banned from uploading any new content to YouTube or live streaming for a week after violating the social media site’s misinformation policies.

This follows Alan Jones – the poster boy for after dark conspiracies – being dumped from his regular Daily Telegraph column after his misinformation on COVID-19: Newscorp said that Alan Jones ‘no longer resonates with our readers’.

At least six videos from Sky News Australia hosts Alan Jones, Rowan Dean and Rita Panahi have been deleted from YouTube for spreading COVID-19 misinformation about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as treatments.

You may well wonder why it falls to the Google-owned YouTube to be governing content quality coming from Sky News Australia and why the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is not acting against the divisive, dishonest and damaging enterprise that has become known as Sky-after-Dark: after all ACMA is a government-controlled entity who tell us that their job is to regulate communications and media to maximise the economic and social benefits for Australia. The reason that ACMA have failed to act and left it to a foreign social media site to provide content governance on Australian media output is possibly due to the fact that they have no teeth and this Liberal government is unlikely to change that situation while they continue their unhealthy relationship with the Murdoch organisation and its entities.

What is at stake here is the right of a so-called news organisation to deliver far-right conservative rhetoric, conspiracy theories and outright lies under the guise of news but avoiding the inconvenience of fact-checking, research or traditional investigative journalism. They label it as ‘opinion’ which means that none of these standards apply: this is the business model that Murdoch successfully adopted with Fox News in the US and which his organisation are trying to replicate through Sky News in Australia.

The new free to air offering will potentially reach millions across the nation as a result of the partnership it has developed with two television networks: WIN and Southern Cross Austereo.

Two former prime ministers have warned us about the dominance of the Murdoch media in Australia and the control exerted on our politicians. Kevin Rudd told the Media Diversity Enquiry that:

The “Fox News-isation” of the Australian media was well underway thanks to Sky News Australia breeding climate change denialism and encouraging far-right political extremism, Mr Rudd said.

Malcolm Turnbull told the Enquiry that :

News Corp had evolved from a reasonable media organisation into a highly partisan one which is a danger to democracy. “The most powerful political actor in Australia is not the Liberal party or the National party or the Labor party, it is News Corporation,” he said.“ And it is utterly unaccountable. It is controlled by an American family and their interests are no longer, if they ever were, coextensive with our own.”

Even James Murdoch, the younger son of Rupert, recently resigned from the board of News Corporation citing “disagreements over editorial content”. He told US regulators, he disagreed with some “strategic decisions” made by the company. Whilst he was not specific, he had previously spoken out against the climate change denialism promoted by the company and its editorial positions.

The question is how do we as a society regulate a news organisation so that there is a clear distinction between what is properly researched and balanced ‘news’ coverage and what are alternative facts and the opinions of a group of right-wing conservative ratbags, masquerading as journalists. Clearly, they have a right to freedom of communication and free speech as they will frequently remind us but when it comes to manufacturing fake news and conspiracy theories it is time to call them out.

At an early stage in its evolution, FOX News in the US carried the slogan ‘Fair and Balanced’ but they walked away from that when they cottoned on to the revenues they could generate from far-right fakery, spurious opinions and alternative facts.

Take care, Australia, these people have an agenda: remember the IPA wish list to which they enthusiastically subscribe –

Item 14: Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

Item 15: Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’

Item 50: Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function

Item 51: Privatise SBS

Those words were taken from Don Maclean’s ballad Vincent a tribute to Vincent van Gogh. The way this government toys with us, it’s enough to make you want to scream as Norwegian expressionist artist Edvard Munch may have said back in 1893 when he created his cry from the soul of humanity.

When it comes to the Morrison, Joyce government, not only do they not listen, they don’t care what we think, they are driven by their own egos, ideology and big business interests.

The recent G7 meeting in Cornwall, England in May came out with a commitment to stop international financing of coal projects by the end of 2021 and to progressively phase out such support for all fossil fuels, to meet globally agreed climate change targets. Australia is not a member of the G7 but Scott Morrison was there as an observer but evidently missed this bit, possibly because he was quaffing scrumpy cider and eating Cornish pasties in appropriately quaint pubs.

Do you remember the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility better known as the NAIF, set up in 2016 with a bank of $5 billion to provide loans to new and innovative ventures in the North of Australia – essentially from the Tropic of Capricorn North. At the time it was thought by some naughty left-wing people that this may be a National Party slush fund but to counter any such mischievous thinking, it was written into the legislation that loans could only proceed with the approval, not only of the NAIF board, but also the government of the relevant state or territory – essentially Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia which, the more perceptive of you will have noted all have Labor governments.

After five years the NAIF had to be reviewed and among the matters that the federal government thought appropriate was to bypass the approval of the state and territory governments (to streamline the process you understand), to allow the federal government not only to ‘lend’ money to worthy enterprises but also to take an ‘equity’ position in such enterprises – that means that the money doesn’t actually have to be paid back which was an innovation sought by the National Party.

The state veto got up the federal government’s nose when they wanted to lend money to Adani. If you remember, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk took the position that money should not be loaned to the Adani project writing to then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stating

‘…my Government provides formal notification to the Commonwealth that financial assistance should not be provided to Adani for the North Galilee Basin Rail Project. As such the Government is exercising its veto right under section 13(4) of the Investment Facility Mandate in response to the Adani loan application.’

In January last the NAIF Board approved loan funding of $280 million for the Kaban Green Energy Hub a renewable energy project located in the Atherton Tablelands of Far North Queensland. The project consists of a 157 MW wind farm with approval for a 100 MW battery backup and a network upgrade. It came as a surprise when the minister responsible for the NAIF, National party stalwart Keith Pitt, decided to use his discretion under the act and stop the loan. He said at the time that the funding was ‘inconsistent with the objectives and policies of the commonwealth’.

So, quite a few eyebrows were raised when the NAIF recently announced a $175 million loan to develop a new coalmine in central Queensland.

So far the minister has not exercised his discretion to veto this loan of public money so we must assume that it is ‘consistent with the objectives and policies of the commonwealth’.

So, to those of you who may have cynically said that the NAIF was a National Party slush fund : it seems you were spot on !

In a move that would have Karl Marx and George Orwell high-fiving on Broadway, New York Uber (and Lyft) drivers have decided to take on their masters (who by a quirk of capitalist legal fiction are not really their masters according to the law) and create an ‘app’ that will challenge the dominance of these ride-share gurus.

It has dawned on these drivers that they may have been conned into believing that the GIG economy would make them self-employed masters of their own destiny.

As an aspiring self employed driver they may have missed the bit about having to supply and maintain their own vehicle, pay for their own fuel, insurance and repairs out of their own pockets with their share of the fare they have collected being considerably less than that of the owner of the ‘app’ who, remember, is not their employer. Thus has no obligation to provide employment conditions such as paid holidays and sick leave, workers compensation or superannuation. In fact theses workers are a modern version of the serf of feudal times.

The creation of this gig was a capitalist’s wet dream : create an ‘app’ to give an electronic access point to the traditional taxi market and then encourage a group of people to think of themselves as self-employed while you exploit them and watch the money roll in.

In New York, a number of these drivers are getting together and forming a co-operative where the drivers become shareholder owners of the business thus participating in the profits and genuinely becoming entrepreneurs in a self employed enterprise. What these drivers have done is to cut out, not the middle man so much, but the leech who seeks to take on the role of the Lord of the Manor in his feudal paradise.

In Australia matters have not yet evolved to the stage they have in New York with our sardonically named Fairwork Commission – also known as a grazing paddock for Liberal Party mates, currently bulging at the seams with a President, two Vice Presidents, nineteen Deputy Presidents and twenty commissioners with a couple more on the reserves bench – maintaining that gig workers are self employed and that they just love the flexibility of low paid work.

In the UK things have taken a different turn with the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom unanimously dismissing an appeal brought by Uber against earlier rulings. The Court determined that Uber drivers are “workers” for the purposes of relevant employment legislation and are entitled to, among other things, being paid at least the minimum wage, and to receive annual paid leave, paid sick leave and rest breaks.

The UK decision, which may be influential on any future court challenge in Australia, looked at five key criteria to determine that the drivers were workers who were subject to the control of their “employer”.

These were:

• Uber sets the fare for rides booked through the app and drivers are not able to charge more than the fare calculated;
• Uber specifies and imposes the terms on which the drivers perform their services;
• the drivers’ choice about whether to accept requests for rides is constrained by Uber, for example by penalising drivers who decline trips too frequently;
• Uber exercises control over the way drivers perform their services, via a rating system; and
• Uber restricts communications between passengers and drivers to prevent any continuing relationship beyond an individual ride.

The next move in Australia will be to take the issue to the courts for determination but in the meantime a driver owned co-operative seems like a good alternative for the drivers : after all it doesn’t take much to set up an ‘app’, does it ?

Warning: references to sexual assault and rape are contained in this article.

Normally I wouldn’t be repeating quotes from Peter Dutton, particularly as Spud has made it known that he will sue anybody who doesn’t show him the respect to which he feels he is entitled. Even so, when he glibly dismissed sexual assaults and our justice system, referring to a rape allegations as coming down to a contest of “he said, she said,” he did have a point.

Much publicity has followed the sexual assault case involving NRL footballers Jack de Belin and Callum Sinclair. The first trial resulted in the jury being discharged in March 2020 after having failed to reach a unanimous verdict : the alleged assault described as aggravated sexual assault had taken place in December 2018 so it had taken two years to get to court. A second trial was ordered and we now know that the jury after five days deliberation and having been given the opportunity of a majority decision were unable to reach a verdict on five of the six charges and acquitted de Belin on that charge – a third trial is unlikely.

Last week in the second trial of another footballer Jarryd Hayne – the jury in the first trial had been unable to reach a unanimous decision – resulted in a guilty verdict on one of two charges – he was found ‘not guilty’ of the charges of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent inflicting actual bodily harm, but was found guilty of the sexual intercourse without consent charges – he was sentenced to five years and nine months imprisonment of which he must serve three years and eight months – he has already lodged an appeal.

In the context of historical rape allegations, that is those not reported to police immediately after the assault, the process of gathering forensic and compelling evidence is greatly diminished. The police, as a matter of procedure, must assemble a bundle of evidence sufficient to convince a prosecutor that a successful prosecution can be mounted and persuasive enough to sway a jury, to a standard that will convince them beyond a reasonable doubt that the assault has actually taken place ; that penetration [in the case of rape or sexual assault] did in fact occur and that this was without the free and willing consent of the victim – injured party or survivor are alternative descriptors but the English language has limitations in how to describe with dignity a person who has been assaulted.

If the assault is historical as has been the case in matters raised recently in connection with our parliament and its officers, the task of the complainant and the police becomes even more difficult and some would say almost impossible to mount a case unless the defendant admits the assault which is unlikely to occur.

In the case of a federal politician accused of an historical sexual assault we were told that the rule of law must apply to the extent that, because the victim had since committed suicide, it was inappropriate for an enquiry to proceed or even for the alleged assailant to be interviewed by police.

The case of Brittany Higgins falls into the category of an historic event having allegedly occurred in March 2019 but not formally reported for investigation by police until some two years later. Despite the publicity, the investigation will encounter all of the hurdles that historic cases face : the lack of forensic evidence being foremost and of course the alleged assailant will have the presumption of innocence, the right not to answer any questions and the high standard imposed on a jury to achieve a conviction if charges are ever laid and the matter proceeds to court. No charges have been preferred at time of writing.

In the UK, over the past five years, cases reported to police and initially recorded as rape have risen sharply. However, the proportion making it to court (prosecutions) in that time has more than halved. In the year to March 2020, just 1.4% of rape cases recorded by British police resulted in a suspect being charged. In the same year 58,856 cases of rape were recorded by police forces in England and Wales, these led to just 2,102 prosecutions. In Australia only one in 10 reported cases of sexual assault results in a conviction.

The assault itself will be a traumatic event in the life of any young woman – or young man – but the way our justice system is arranged, the pain will only get worse as the lumbering processes of the law takes over, if the assault is as recommended by the authorities, reported shortly after it has occurred.

All of the state jurisdictions have similar procedures designed not so much for the benefit or well being of the injured party but rather, to meet the demands of our adversarial legal system. The advice from the Australian Federal Police in the ACT illustrate the situation and give a hint to the tortuous procedures about to take place :

“… don’t shower, drink liquids, smoke or change your clothes following a sexual assault. This will assist police and medical staff to collect forensic evidence that may belong to the offender and be used if the matter goes to court.”

The injured party will be admitted to a rape suite or a hospital, have their clothing replaced with a smock, have swabs, probes and photographs taken of any injuries or bruising particularly in the genital area ; all of which will at a later date be trawled over in court by a jury to establish the degree of physical injury to support the prosecution case.

The alleged offender will of course be granted the presumption of innocence and will not be required to make any statement or give evidence unless inclined to do so – the burden of proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt rests wholly with the prosecution.

The injured party will, however, be subjected to excruciating cross examination and probably humiliation at the hands of the defendant’s barrister. The prosecution will have to establish that the assault not only took place and that penetration to one or more orifices occurred but that this happened without the willing consent of the complainant. It is generally the law that a person cannot be considered to having freely consented if they were under the influence of alcohol or other substances or if they are asleep or otherwise physically helpless at the time of the offence.

The jury will then endeavour to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant and must establish this to the required criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt. If the jury, or even one jurer, in the case of a unanimous decision, have any reasonable doubts based on the facts as presented, then they must acquit. To assist a hung jury a judge will frequently allow a majority decision of eleven to one but even this didn’t assist in the de Belin case.

We continue to follow the principle known as Blackstone’s Ratio that “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” But, the inevitable question that arises is this : is our system of law and justice fit for purpose when it comes to sexual assault or is it an absurd pantomime serving only the legal fraternity and leaving the aggrieved parties humiliated, abandoned and disillusioned ?

It’s worthwhile quoting verbatim from The Guardian on the good news flowing to free to air television viewers in regional Australia who have been the subject of the Sky-after-Dark muppet show since regional television operator WIN started broadcasting into the regions including where I live : “Sky News Australia will lose a large chunk of its audience in July after it was dumped by regional broadcaster Win, which has carried the pay TV channel in Tasmania, regional Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland and southern NSW since August 2018.”

The deal saw Sky After Dark beamed into unsuspecting free-to-air households which had previously been immune to Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin and Alan Jones unless they had a Foxtel subscription.

Three years ago, Sky was trumpeting this larger footprint when it signed the historic deal with Win to launch in 30 markets to a potential audience of 8 million people. But along came Nine Entertainment last week to ruin the party by inking a new seven-year deal to broadcast its metropolitan free-to-air television channels 9, 9GO!, 9GEM and 9Life into the regional markets, displacing Sky because it has no room.

Sky News did not respond to a request for comment. “This is such good news in so many respects. As a pay television broadcaster Foxtel/Sky has a minimal audience for the far-right rantings of Jones, Bolt, Dean, Credlin, Murray and others. They rely heavily on fringe right-wing politicians to guide the viewers and spin their conspiracy theories : Craig Kelly, Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan are luminaries in this regard.

Sky were trying to create a mirror image of their US compatriot, Fox News, in Australia but clearly the pay TV subscribers were not going to achieve this for them. With their access to regional free to air Murdoch had a potential audience of some eight million additional viewers to influence and peddle his brand of snake-oil.

Now it’s not going to happen and Sky can return to its echo chamber and no longer affront the good folk of regional Australia, unless Lachlan can convince a very compliant coalition to give him a free to air television licence or find another carrier – let’s hope not !

“Free speech is dead and controlled by leftist overlords.” Thus the shrill voice of Donald Trump Jr. informed those who were prepared to listen to him. I know, I know you are saying why would anybody listen to a junior Donald Trump? It’s akin to listening to a fence post although the latter serves a very real and important function that cannot be attributed to the former.

There is no legal responsibility for any privately-owned platform to host anybody. Indeed there is a strong argument that social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have a duty of care to ensure that what they allow on their platforms – dare I say what they publish – should be moderated to standards generally accepted within our community.

Trump senior has used Twitter constantly for four years to peddle his misinformation and lies and so far he has been able to get away with it. But when he uses a privately owned social media platforms to whip up hatred, perpetuating unfounded claims of a stolen election with no supporting evidence, that’s another matter entirely.

In weighing up the rights and wrongs of shutting down Trump’s Twitter feed I thought of how it was before these platforms were created. In those days, if we had something to say we would write to out local newspaper and take our chances on being published. If you live in Queensland as I do, you would write to a News Corporation publication as there are no others.

But should you want to write a critique of an article by Andrew Bolt for lack of balance or Miranda Devine for lack of objectivity or accuracy that would immediately go into the bin at News Corporation offices.

So, freedom of speech it seems to me is very much in the eye of the beholder. Rupert is evidently very much in favour of Donald Trump’s rights to speak freely and without censure. The memo it seems went out to his editors, print and online, that he was aghast that the leader of the free world should be so arbitrarily shut down by Twitter and Facebook. Sky-after-Dark went off like the proverbial ‘frog in a sock’ to support Donald’s right to his constitutionally guaranteed freedom to speak his mind. But they seem to forget that we probably all agree with the right of the president to speak on matters of global and national importance but that doesn’t include the right to incite violence or to tell lies.

If he wants to communicate with the world he merely has to call a press conference with the White House press pack in attendance and it would – at least for the next ten days – be considered by all the major networks for national and global coverage, but he would be questioned: and that’s as it should be.

In my view Twitter and Facebook have every right, indeed a duty to ensure that their platforms are suitably moderated – just a pity they didn’t think about it earlier.

In a fairly lengthy judgement, District Judge (Magistrates’ Court) Vanessa Baraitser of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London has given Julian Assange breathing space by denying the application for his extradition to the USA, made by the Trump administration. This extradition essentially for publishing information provided to Wikileaks by Chelsea Manning was not pursued by the Obama administration who evidently considered that issues of freedom of speech would make a prosecution unlikely: Obama also commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning who had been the original source of the Wikileaks releases.

Interestingly one of the arguments against the extradition raised by Assange’s team was that there exists in international law a Right to Truth and that in publishing the information Wikileaks, despite the embarrassment to the government of the USA, was merely publishing the truth. The Judge rejected that defence:

138.The defence have not established that the principle of the “right to the truth” is a legal rule that is recognised in either international law or domestic law. They identify no international convention or treaty that enshrines it as a free-standing legal right, still less one that has been ratified by the government and incorporated into domestic law. I accept that the phrase “right to the truth” appears in UN resolutions adopted by several UN bodies, but I have been provided with no authority to demonstrate that this translates into a right enforceable in English courts. I therefore reject the defence submissions that this principle would render Mr. Assange’s acts lawful in this jurisdiction.

This finding will no doubt be the subject of much interest and discussion in journalistic circles.

Judge Baraitser in her judgement skimmed over or dismissed several arguments concerning freedom of speech and other human rights issues and went straight to the Extradition Act 2003 (UK) and the physical and mental condition of Assange and his suitability for extradition balanced with the possibility or indeed probability that he would seek to commit suicide while in detention in the USA. The section of the act that the judge has relied on reads:

91 Physical or mental condition

(1) This section applies if at any time in the extradition hearing it appears to the judge that the condition in subsection (2) is satisfied.

(2) The condition is that the physical or mental condition of the person is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.

(3) The judge must—

(a)order the person’s discharge, or

(b)adjourn the extradition hearing until it appears to him that the condition in subsection (2) is no longer satisfied.

Accordingly, with ample medical and psychiatric expert evidence the Judge made the Order [at 410]

“I order the discharge of Julian Paul Assange, pursuant to section 91(3) of the Extradition Act 2003.”

Even so on Wednesday UK time an application will be made to release Assange on bail pending what is likely to be a long and drawn-out appeal process, if that course is adopted by the incoming Biden administration. Based on the judge’s findings concerning Assange’s ‘physical or mental’ condition it would seem that the bail application must surely succeed rather than continue his incarceration at Britain’s Belmarsh High Security jail where COVID-19 is also a very real risk : in the judgement the judge noted [at 346] that “I find that Mr. Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial.”

The difficulty for Assange is that, whilst he may be bailed and ultimately acquitted in the UK there is always the possibility that, should he return to Australia or another jurisdiction outside of the UK, he could again be confronted with an extradition request from a future vindictive US administration unless, of course, he receives a pardon from incoming President Biden or, less likely, the outgoing Trump administration.

We shall see, but at least things are heading in a positive direction for Assange despite his having been all but abandoned by the Morrison government.

I’m paraphrasing some media reports from the past week :

“An Australian expeditioner has been medically evacuated from Antarctica, following a multinational effort by land, air and sea that spanned thousands of miles on the remote continent.

The Australian, United States and Chinese Antarctic programs collaborated on the five-day operation, which Australian officials on Friday called “an outstanding success” thanks to teamwork and, of course, good weather during the Antarctic summer.

“The synergy of operating capabilities, incredible expertise and a favourable weather window enabled us to bring the patient back from Antarctica to Australia within a week,” said Kim Ellis, the Australian Antarctic Division director, in a statement.

Officials declined to release information about the individual, citing medical confidentiality, but said the patient’s condition is not related to COVID-19. The patient had been stationed at the Davis research station in east Antarctica.

The Chinese icebreaker MV Xue Long 2 happened to be in transit to China’s Zhongshan station, about 75 miles from Davis, officials said. On Dec. 20, the ship’s helicopters transferred a team of Davis expeditioners to a site 25 miles inland, where they spent several days constructing a ski landing area or skiway.

Australian expeditioners constructed a skiway for aircraft equipped with skis at a site near the Davis research station.

Meanwhile, 870 miles east along the southern Antarctic coast, another team worked to prepare a glacial runway at the Australian-operated Wilkins Aerodrome. The aerodrome is a terminal for intercontinental air service, located about 40 miles southeast of Australia’s Casey Station.

The U.S. flew a ski-equipped aircraft 1,300 miles from its McMurdo Station in Antarctica to the aerodrome, where it picked up an Australian doctor. It then made a 1,700-mile round trip to retrieve the patient from the skiway near Davis and return to the aerodrome.

From there, an Australian Airbus A319 picked up the expeditioner and flew some 1,800 miles to the city of Hobart, Australia, arriving just before Christmas Eve.”

The weather in Antarctica briefly offered a window of opportunity: the diplomatic window has also opened briefly – a wise leader would seize this opportunity to extend the hand of friendship, cooperation and mutual respect to the Chinese in recognition of their unconditional and vital support in this medical evacuation… and then keep talking.

One of the odd provisions of our now dilapidated and ramshackle Constitution is the manner in which the composition of our Senate is mandated : each original state gets twelve senators and the mainland Territories, two each – a total of seventy six. Paul Keating once designated this esteemed group of odd balls as ‘unrepresentative swill’.

What Keating was pointing to is the way that some states perhaps have a disproportionate influence on our upper House and the wisdom emanating from the Red Chamber. For instance, Tasmania with a population of around half a million has the same Senate representation as New South Wales, with a bit over eight million, Victoria at six and a half million and Queensland around five million and so on.

So, with this clear imbalance you would be forgiven if you thought that our Senate is supporting a gerrymander : defined as ‘a practice intended to establish an unfair political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating boundaries (and populations) in such a way as to favour one group over another’.

In effect, the make up of our Senate does clearly favour the likes of Tasmania and to a lesser extent the Territories by giving their respective senators disproportionate influence. Hence the need periodically for the government of the day to ‘bribe’ certain senators to get their vote on a piece of scurrilous legislation to, for instance ban humane medical evacuation of sick and ailing refugees from remote Pacific islands – looking at you Senator Lambie !

So why do I raise this now, you may ask ? Well it was during the week when Senate Estimates were underway – a bit like a Star Chamber where senators get to ask difficult questions of public servants and others : questions like “who didn’t get a Cartier watch at Australia Post ?” or trick questions like “how much did you pay for a block of land at Badgery’s Creek valued at $3million ?”

Or as happened when Tasmania’s crazy uncle, Eric Abetz fronted up and asked three Australian citizens of Chinese heritage :

“Can I ask each of the three witnesses … to tell me whether they are willing to unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party …”

What an odd question even from uncle Eric. Can you imagine being asked in another setting whether you were prepared to unconditionally denounce and condemn the Liberal Party of Australia : the National Party not so much of an issue as nobody admits to being a supporter of the Nationals do they ?

For some reason it reminds me of the question posed of the philosopher Voltaire by a priest providing Last Rites to the dying Voltaire : “do you renounce Satan and all his works” asked the Priest. Voltaire never one to be easily tricked is said to have replied, “Father, would you not agree that this is no time to be making enemies ?”

Wisely, the three Australian Chinese undergoing questioning probably thought of Voltaire and declined to answer this nasty line of questioning.

Uncle Eric says there is nothing racist about his question and he just doesn’t want people of an Asian persuasion coming to this country and harbouring feelings of affection for the land of their birth and its political arrangements. A far as Eric is concerned, if you respect a regime that has in twenty years brought a billion people out of poverty into middle-class prosperity you are a ratbag and you should be sent ‘home’ preferably after spending ten years on one of Spud Dutton’s remote islands.

Senate Estimates is the best show in town, perhaps they could learn something from SAS and do us all a favour by pushing Uncle Eric out of a helicopter backwards : now that’s reality TV !