Category: Activism & activists

The return of the amenities fee

~ Andrew Norton ~ 19 Comments

The VSU debate is back on. Youth Minister Kate Ellis has announced that from mid-2009 universities will again – subject to Senate approval – be able to charge students for non-academic amenities. There are, however several significant differences from the pre-VSU situation:

* the amenities fee will be price capped, at $250
* there will be a new income-contingent loan scheme, SA-HELP, to help students pay for it
* what universities provide students will be regulated for the first time, with ‘national benchmarks relating to the provision of student support services’ and ‘new representation and advocacy protocols’
* actual membership of student assocations will continue to be voluntary

The Coalition is already brawling over it, with the Liberal students running a Save VSU Facebook group, Barnaby Joyce threatening to again cross the floor on the issue, and Shadow Minister Chris Pyne opposing money going to political activities, but leaving open the possibility of supporting a proposal that funded amenities only.

The government’s position is no more coherent. Continue reading “The return of the amenities fee” →

Conflict of interest laws vs democracy

~ Andrew Norton ~ 9 Comments

One of the West’s great cultural and political achievements is the idea of an ‘office’, the idea that certain roles should be performed in the interests of persons other than the person who fills that role at a particular time. While tribal cultures see little or nothing wrong with their leaders handing out ‘public’ privileges to their friends, relatives and cronies, in the West this is now seen as a ‘conflict of interest’, if not corrupt.

But in many cases the line between personal and public interest in a matter is far from clear. The Age this morning reports on legislation before the Victorian Parliament that in my view redefines legitimate political interests in the outcome of issues as personal interests. In the future, local councillors may be prevented from voting on the very motions before council they may have been elected to support or oppose.

For example, they will be held to have become an ‘interested party’ if they have lodged an appeal in relation to a council decision, or have made an objection or submission. Say the Council wants to cut down the trees in your street, or redirect its traffic, or let someone build a house that overshadows your garden. You go through the normal processes to protect your interests, by making an objection. This fails.

So you run for election on one of these issues, win a mandate to act on them, and then because of your earlier steps to protect your interests you cannot vote on the matter. Not only are you deprived of your right to vote, but the democratic will of the people who supported you is also frustrated.
Continue reading “Conflict of interest laws vs democracy” →

Do men have ‘moral standing’ in the abortion debate?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 36 Comments

I expect the right-wing blogosphere will be all over this op-ed by feminist Leslie Cannold.

The problem – at least for me – isn’t the fact that she supports a bill currently before the Victorian Parliament to formally decriminalise abortions that occur in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Rather, the problem is that Cannold argues that

Men lack moral standing in the abortion debate — indeed are guilty of moral arrogance — when they push for control over a procedure they’ll never have to have because they can’t get pregnant.

Except that she’s serious, Cannold’s op-ed reads like a parody of self-centred feminism, with its characteristic refusal to accept that any of women’s interests can be put up for negotiation (if they complete the pregnancy, the rest of us must pay for their maternity leave, childcare, cover for their absences at work, and then pay and promote them as if nothing had happened).

Nowhere in her article does Cannold even contemplate the idea that killing an unborn child is morally problematic, even if (and here I agree with her) a convincing case can be made that, all things considered, this can be the better overall option in the earlier part of pregnancy. You don’t need to be a potential murder victim to stand up for the people others are proposing to kill.

The evidence of women in the abortion debate will usually be stronger than that of men, because as Cannold says they have a range of experiences that men don’t. But the moral standing of women to participate in the debate is the same as men’s.

Banning political party donations

~ Andrew Norton ~ 19 Comments

Since I last posted on political donations, the debate in NSW has escalated beyond disclosure to prohibition. The SMH was endorsing this route again yesterday. As usual, no serious consideration has been given to the likely consequences of such a move.

Arguably, in the Labor Party unelected party officials and conference delegates already have too much power over elected Labor MPs. They were trying again to exercise that influence at the NSW Labor conference yesterday. If ‘outsiders’ have less access to politicians, then the party insiders, in Labor’s case the unions, will have even greater relative influence. That is not to say that they will always get their way – politicians will usually be more concerned with the broader real-world and electoral implications of policy. But the insiders will proportionately get more of the decision-makers’ time.

But a ban on political donations won’t help political parties, even while it will help party power-brokers. Most of what parties do between elections is fundraising. Much of the social capital element of political parties would disappear without fundraisers. Already parties are suffering from not being able to give members enough to do, and this problem would worsen further if donations were banned. Parties would become quasi-state institutions, rather than being parts of civil society. Continue reading “Banning political party donations” →

My 2020 weekend

~ Andrew Norton ~ 44 Comments

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been given a standing ovation by the 1002 delegates to the Australia 2020 Summit in Parliament House.

– The Age, 20 April 2008.

Make that 1001 delegates, at most. While I was in the room, needless to say I was not among those giving the PM a standing ovation. In the latest issue of Policy, I have reprinted an article by Owen Harries on intellectuals, in which he – following George Orwell – notes the propensity to power-worship among intellectuals. This was on embarrassing display yesterday afternoon. For nearly twelve years, this psychological need has gone unmet as the dreaded Howard occupied the Prime Ministerial suite. And now Australia’s progressive intelligentsia has someone as PM who, while carefully not signing up to immediate implementation of their ideas, takes them seriously and flatters their egos.

I was in the productivity stream. At that 100 person level – as opposed to the collective behaviour in the 1,000 person plenary sessions – there wasn’t a smothering consensus. But nor was there much debate. It was more a case of people trying to put their pet topics into the stream statement that was to be included in the summit initial report. By Sunday morning I was bored and disengaged.

What of the actual ideas? From my stream, the one that has received most attention was to let people reduce their HECS-HELP debt by doing community service. That one mysteriously appeared in our stream summary document on Sunday morning, despite never having been mentioned in the group the day before. Nobody I spoke to from other sub-streams within the major productivity stream had heard it before either (I was in the post-secondary sub-stream). Perhaps it came from community submissions.
Continue reading “My 2020 weekend” →

Taxpayer-funded overseas holidays for graduates: the latest NUS anti-HECS argument

~ Andrew Norton ~ 16 Comments

According to a story in today’s Sydney Sun-Herald, the National Union of Students is calling for an inquiry into the ‘economic impact of student debt’. Unfortunately for them, the human interest aspect of the story – one Joy Kyriacou (who by I am sure by complete coincidence has the same surname as former NUS President Daniel Kyriacou) – could not get her lines straight and revealed NUS’s campaign as the shameless rent-seeking that it is:

Ms Kyriacou, who graduated with a Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Arts from the University of NSW in 2006, said the $16,000 student debt burden was stopping her from saving for other things, like her first overseas trip or a house deposit. (italics added)

Of course it was bad enough that we were being asked to to finance a special first home buyers grant for graduates. But now we are being asked to fund their overseas holidays as well. Even by the very low standards of arguments against HECS, this one is a shocker. Continue reading “Taxpayer-funded overseas holidays for graduates: the latest NUS anti-HECS argument” →

Don proves his point

~ Andrew Norton ~ 13 Comments

Part of what keeps a new progressive alliance from forming is that people mistake differences in ideas about how the world works for differences in moral principles. Left-leaning liberals look at the policies classical liberals support and assume that the motivation is to redistribute income from the poor to the rich. And classical liberals look at left liberals and assume that they are motivated by an envious desire to punish the rich even if it means making everyone worse off.

– Don Arthur at Club Troppo, 6 April. Italics added.

If it turns out that liberty really is more important than giving rich people back their money, tormenting welfare recipients and smashing unions, then perhaps classical liberals might consider breaking their alliance with conservatives and forming an alliance with other liberals — the kind of people Andrew sometimes calls ‘social liberals.’

– Don Arthur at Club Troppo, 2 April. Italics added.

This is one reason why ‘progressive fusionism’ is so unlikely in practice, whatever its attractions in theory. Though Don has read more by classical liberals than most classical liberals have, his intuition still says that it is ideological window-dressing for attacks on the poor. And classical liberals believe that whatever theoretical support for liberty exists in ‘progressive’ circles, their desire to reshape society according to their conception of ‘justice’ will lead to excessive state control.

Education, not indoctrination?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 41 Comments

Not sexist! Not racist! Don’t tell Lot’s Wife!

Back in the 1980s, it was left-wing students who used to complain about lecturers expressing inappropriate political views. Due to an attack on him in the Monash student newspaper Lot’s Wife, my criminal law lecturer, the late Kumar Amarasekara, had to preface his often hilarious jokes with the above disclaimer.

As the SMH reported this morning, now it is the turn of Liberal students to complain about political bias. According to their ‘Education. Not Indoctrination.’ campaign they want (getting in on the fashionable language) ‘inclusive’ universities that ‘foster intellectual diversity’. Incidents of bias could include:

* a verbal opinion offered by a teacher or lecturer that is overtly political or ideological
* a method of teaching that is hostile to opposing views
* the use or presentation of one-sided course materials or textbooks
* the promotion of a particular political ideology by university authorities

Continue reading “Education, not indoctrination?” →

Changing minds

~ Andrew Norton ~ 30 Comments

As other bloggers said last week, I survived the cull of middle-aged men living in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra to be selected for the 2020 talkfest. I’m in the stream called ‘productivity agenda – education, skills, training, science and innovation’.

According to the invitation letter I received today, I have to wait for a password before I know how this will all actually work. In the meantime, they are asking all participants to answer two questions in 100 words or less:

1. If you could do one thing in your stream area, what would it be? What is is that you think would make the most difference?

2. What issue have you changed your mind about in the last ten years? What changed your mind? (that’s a paraphrase).

Except for the word limit, the answer to the first question will be easy: higher education themes very familiar to readers of this blog.

The second one is much harder, for me and many other participants I expect. Issues usually involve normative elements, and these tend to be more stable than the facts and evidence that might cause arguments to be modified. On the issues likely to be discussed in this stream, I don’t think I have changed my basic position in the last ten years.

And if most participants are like me, will the 2020 discussions have any chance of reaching consensus?

Ideological contortions on VSU

~ Andrew Norton ~ 20 Comments

A quick student politics quiz:

1. Which student political movement believes that student charges should be increased:

a) The National Union of Students
b) The Australian Liberal Students Federation

2. Which student political movement believes that additional student charges would a significant disincentive to participating in higher education?

a) The National Union of Students
b) The Australian Liberal Students Federation
Continue reading “Ideological contortions on VSU” →