Showing posts with label Guest posts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guest posts. Show all posts

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Stay informed for Election 2010 - Labor Factions: Basic Questions Answered

By Andrew McMicking

Why does the ALP have factions? What are the benefits?

Factions have been set up to serve a useful purpose in the ALP. In brief they:

• Allow support to be readily marshalled behind candidates and ideas.
• Provide for a sharing of power between different philosophical or ideological interests in the party.
• Serve as a mechanism to settle disputes.

Any organisation or group of people – be it the workplace, a golf club, church group or school classroom – will always see groups of like minded people associate more readily together. The ALP has recognised this and, through factions, has formalised such groupings. Members and unions in the ALP can now formally apply and join a faction. Each faction usually has a membership list, executive, AGM, bank account, fundraising activity and negotiation committee for dealing with other factions. This formalised nature allows the principle of solidarity to be applied i.e. a decision is made within a faction and all members are bound to abide by that decision.

What is Right and what is Left?

You often here the terms ‘left wing’ and ‘right wing’ applied to factions by both the media and in public discussion. In political/philosophical terms, ‘right wing’ means you tend to take a more conservative and pragmatic view of policy issues, whereas ‘left wing’ means you tend to take a more reformist or progressive view. Support for a budget surplus, tax cuts as opposed to more government spending, a close defence relationship with the US, free market economics, less red tape for business and uranium mining is regarded as ‘right wing’. Support for greater government spending on health, education, disability services and infrastructure, an Australian Republic, recognition of the rights of indigenous people and other minority groups, and opposition to the war in Iraq is regarded as ‘left wing’.

What do we currently have in Qld? Federally?

The ALP, in each State, have factions which can be classified as either Left or Right.

In Qld we have The Left as a left wing faction. However we have two right wing factions: Labor Unity known as the ‘Old Guard’ (refer page 3) and Labor Forum known as the ‘AWU’ faction (as the AWU, Qld’s biggest union, dominates this group). These two factions are now in close alliance together and many view them as one right faction. They technically remain separate entities, though, and many in Labor Unity would not see themselves as a right wing faction, but more in the centre between The Left and Labor Forum.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A Rum Thing

Guest post by Stephen Hogg

This Business Spectator article gave me pause for thought. It is discusses how ASIC recently made a ham-fisted attempt at reigning in rogues in the market making a buck off spreading a rumour and then profiting from inevitable price movements. It’s called rumourtrage, and is the practice of spreading false or misleading information in respect of securities in order to take advantage of artificial changes in market prices.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a cunning idea. I know a lot of people who wish they had thought of it some years ago. But I became stuck on one point made by ASIC. At the end of the article it is made plain that when ASIC was figuring out how to put a stop to all this, that:

"The principles were developed noting concerns that confidence in the integrity of Australia’s markets could be undermined if investors believe rumours are actively spread in the market to distort proper price discovery"

I think is a flawed statement.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

iHate Steve Jobs or Why I Won’t Buy Anything Made by Apple (Yet)

Guest post by Ben today

At the moment it seems that the ascendance of Steve Jobs and the Apple Empire knows no limit. With the media player and smart-phone markets sewn up and their eyes firmly set on conquering the tablet PC market with the omnipresent iPad, it seems that Apple can do no wrong.

But not for me; I can see the Apple vision for the future and it’s a safe, bland, white-chrome corporate hell. Why do I say this? Well maybe it might have something to do with:
  • Apple’s restrictive licensing conditions for the sale and development of apps which basically amounts to censorship and discourages innovation;
  • Their refusal to allow 3rd parties to sell apps; iTunes is it – monopolistic price gouging anyone?
  • Draconian digital rights management – installing unlicensed apps on you iProduct voids the warranty as does ‘jail-breaking’ them;
  • Stupid ongoing court antics with Adobe meaning that iProducts aren’t compatible with Flash;
  • Rechargeable batteries which can’t be replaced;
  • And the thing that irritates me the most: requiring the use of propriety peripherals e.g. iPod shuffles are designed so that you can only use Apple headphones; USB devices or HDMI monitors can’t be plugged into an iPad - you need to purchase a Apple ‘adapter’ first etc.
But these are secondary to my main issue with Apple, which is their pricing policy.