(By Editor Sandi Sieger with contributions from the Onya Team)
I’m in the business of celebrating Australia every day. Being
Editor-In-Chief of this magazine means I see, do, taste and feel so much
of this great land every day of the week. So when I sat down to think
about the meaning of Australia Day, I was a little stuck. It’s just
another day, after all.
Sure, there’ll be a lot of stereos beating to the sound of Triple J’s
Hottest 100. There’ll be a lot of barbeques sizzling with snags and
steaks, and tops being twisted off bottles, and corks being popped.
There’ll be Australian flags emblazoned on windows and cars and tattooed
on the shoulders and backs of the citizens of this country. But what
about it should matter?
Read more at Onya Magazine.
Showing posts with label australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label australia. Show all posts
16.9.09
Warning: Politicians Talking
Outside my apartment in Atlanta, GA, there's a small post with a fluorescent marker on the top. It reads "WARNING: UNDERGROUND FIBER OPTIC CABLE." I kind of laughed first off, considering that the only people afraid of Fiber Optic cables are Telstra and the Australian Federal Government. In the US, people lament that their Internet services are sub-standard at best, saying that Asian powers such as South Korea and Japan have got the right idea and are beating them over the heads with it. That may be true; however, if the US are blind, then Australia is blind, deaf, lame and crippled from the waist down when it comes to providing internet - wireless or otherwise - to its citizens.
As huge billboards proclaim that "4G is now in Atlanta" most of Australia can't even manage to lay claim to having workable 3G services in urban areas at even half-affordable prices. Working with the Australian Domain Name Administrator earlier this year, more commonly known as auDA, we had to facepalm ourselves almost constantly every time the Government announced a new "initiative" regarding communications and the internet. We recoiled at how embarrassing our "firm" was presiding over the fair use of domain names when next to no-one could put anything on their websites that people could access with their supposed "broadband" connections (which may or may not be capped. Why do we cap data transfer? Like the IT Crowd chides Jen for wondering why "the internet" feels so light; it doesn't weigh anything.)
First there was the whole content filtering debacle and now the government costs Australian business money by flaking on even the most obvious infrastructure upgrades (Fiber to the home, for instance) that will futureproof domestic communications, even while wireless services catch up to fill the gaps, eventually becoming the standard for rural and regional centers. If the world thought Australia was a joke before, we might as run around with clown masks on now.
If Conroy and co. ever get a clue, please let me know so I can call up Julia and congratulate them myself.
---
And now it's raining and thundering so much here I can't remember a time when I saw such a thing.
As huge billboards proclaim that "4G is now in Atlanta" most of Australia can't even manage to lay claim to having workable 3G services in urban areas at even half-affordable prices. Working with the Australian Domain Name Administrator earlier this year, more commonly known as auDA, we had to facepalm ourselves almost constantly every time the Government announced a new "initiative" regarding communications and the internet. We recoiled at how embarrassing our "firm" was presiding over the fair use of domain names when next to no-one could put anything on their websites that people could access with their supposed "broadband" connections (which may or may not be capped. Why do we cap data transfer? Like the IT Crowd chides Jen for wondering why "the internet" feels so light; it doesn't weigh anything.)
First there was the whole content filtering debacle and now the government costs Australian business money by flaking on even the most obvious infrastructure upgrades (Fiber to the home, for instance) that will futureproof domestic communications, even while wireless services catch up to fill the gaps, eventually becoming the standard for rural and regional centers. If the world thought Australia was a joke before, we might as run around with clown masks on now.
If Conroy and co. ever get a clue, please let me know so I can call up Julia and congratulate them myself.
---
And now it's raining and thundering so much here I can't remember a time when I saw such a thing.
21.8.09
Tried, Tested, Success-ted
Apart from the brilliant riposte given by a Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts to a ill-informed town hall protester with a reality tunnel so narrow the light of day seldom enters through, many people are confusing the "public option" - namely setting up a government run enterprise to compete against private insurance companies to cover uninsured Americans - with "nationalized" medicine directly owned and administered by a government agency much like Medicare Australia or the UK National Health Service.
What many people aren't aware of is that what Mr. Obama terms the "public option" has been tried and works rather successfully in Australia under the guise of Medibank Private, the government-owned public health insurer. Originally a not-for-profit entity, it was recently incorporated and thus required to pay tax on its earnings; therefore wholly funding itself (through users subscribing to its service and reinvesting profits into the business) and contributing toward the upkeep of the public health system through the 10% GST (as well as the other taxes it will now be required to pay as an incorporated entity.)
As a beneficiary of Medibank Private* rather than one of the myriad other private insurers on the Australian market, it works rather well if you can afford to pay, as well as taking up the 30% government rebate and the waiver of the Medicare levy surcharge if one earns over AU$73,000. Of course people still point to the public health system as inherently inefficient despite the private sector attempting "relieving the burden" on it. In my view, pundits from both sides should be looking at the other side of the coin: in reality Australians that are covered with private health insurance experience little to no waiting times for care in the private sector - which is the only option most people in the US have. Although the fallacious "USPS does well against privately run mail carriers" argument may fall through, an extensional and largely functional example could prove more compelling for policymakers and those who matter the most in this debate - the 46,000,000 uninsured.
*in July 2007 I underwent a hernia operation and could pick my doctor, time of surgery and hospital I was admitted to, all with a private room via my coverage (at the time) with Medibank Private.
What many people aren't aware of is that what Mr. Obama terms the "public option" has been tried and works rather successfully in Australia under the guise of Medibank Private, the government-owned public health insurer. Originally a not-for-profit entity, it was recently incorporated and thus required to pay tax on its earnings; therefore wholly funding itself (through users subscribing to its service and reinvesting profits into the business) and contributing toward the upkeep of the public health system through the 10% GST (as well as the other taxes it will now be required to pay as an incorporated entity.)
As a beneficiary of Medibank Private* rather than one of the myriad other private insurers on the Australian market, it works rather well if you can afford to pay, as well as taking up the 30% government rebate and the waiver of the Medicare levy surcharge if one earns over AU$73,000. Of course people still point to the public health system as inherently inefficient despite the private sector attempting "relieving the burden" on it. In my view, pundits from both sides should be looking at the other side of the coin: in reality Australians that are covered with private health insurance experience little to no waiting times for care in the private sector - which is the only option most people in the US have. Although the fallacious "USPS does well against privately run mail carriers" argument may fall through, an extensional and largely functional example could prove more compelling for policymakers and those who matter the most in this debate - the 46,000,000 uninsured.
*in July 2007 I underwent a hernia operation and could pick my doctor, time of surgery and hospital I was admitted to, all with a private room via my coverage (at the time) with Medibank Private.
7.6.09
Democracy of One
I love the Australian Parliament. No really. I mean, how great is it when the entire future of environmental political economy in Australia comes down to one man who hates pubs and lesbians - I mean, what would Jesus do when the fundament of the Australian economy is put into his sweaty hands? Say G'day to Obama and co., of course! From The Australian:
But in Australia, the government has to reason with just one person at times since they hold the balance of power in the Senate. They do have the power to force their own agenda and play the hero. If they don't, they'd risk sending everyone back to the polls (and I mean everyone - voting is compulsory in Australia at all levels) and piss the electorate off even more. Kinda makes me wish we had a filibuster.
[Fielding] told The Australian he came to Washington to hear both sides of the climate change debate -- today's conference was just one in a series of meetings he was holding with advocates on both sides of the issue. "I've paid for this out of my own money," Senator Fielding said. "This issue is too important to Australians not to look at the debate first-hand in Washington. In the end I will draw my own conclusions."Umm, OK, cool. I guess being there makes it extra-scientific for him. I mean, a copy of the Skeptical Environmentalist and An Inconvenient Truth and some half-decent reasoning skills wouldn't have been good enough to improve/fuck up the entire Australian nation. Hey, neither one of them are right! You just have to choose who you think is more wrong. But hey, what would Jesus do? Probably block my website at an ISP level.Senator Fielding says tomorrow he is scheduled to meet Obama administration environmental specialists in the White House. President Barack Obama campaigned on green jobs and greenhouse gas emission cuts.
"To get to the bottom of it I have to talk to both sides," Senator Fielding said.
But in Australia, the government has to reason with just one person at times since they hold the balance of power in the Senate. They do have the power to force their own agenda and play the hero. If they don't, they'd risk sending everyone back to the polls (and I mean everyone - voting is compulsory in Australia at all levels) and piss the electorate off even more. Kinda makes me wish we had a filibuster.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)