A Royal Commission?

Pic courtesy CPA

We're hearing, gentle reader, a clamour for a Royal Commission after the Bondi tragedy.

I have written that this clamour can be classified under the heading of "cashing in" on that tragedy, but beyond that, perhaps the notion has some merit. 

Let's put aside the politics and the ghoulish behaviour of most of the media, (especially social media) and consider terms of reference for a Royal Commission.

The generality of the call is all we're hearing at the moment, not the specificity* of its terms of reference.

Here are my humble suggestions of what those terms of reference should be -

1. Was there a connection between the events of October 7th 2023 on the Gaza/Israel border, the IDF's response since, and an increase in anti-semitic rhetoric and behaviour in Australia?

2. Was there a connection between the activities of Islamic State Franchises in the Philippines and Australia and the radicalisation of the shooters at Bondi?

3. Was the granting of a firearms licence to Sajid Akram an oversight on the part of the NSW firearms registry?

4. Are the various state firearm's registries competent to ensure that militants don't gain access to weapons, and are they sufficiently resourced to ensure this?

5. Are the National Intelligence Community (NIC) agencies competent to cooperate and share information that will prevent a recurrence of this atrocity?

If this is to be a good faith enquiry to prevent another attack like Bondi, these are the factors that need to be examined. The brief of the commission needs to be narrow and specific to prevent it weaponizing the politics of the situation.

A simpler brief will also allow the findings to be expedited. A Royal Commission needs to heal divisions, rather than exploit them, to unify rather than to blame, and to provide a strategy to prevent this obscenity from happening again.

Any outcome that doesn't ensure the last one is futile. 

*With apologies to Kevin Rudd.

 

Not the Pajama Game

 

Pic courtesy The Weekly Times

I had expected, gentle reader, to be listening to test cricket today.

I say "listening", because watching it on television means being unable to do much else, whilst listening allows opportunities for other simultaneous activity.

No doubt this is a product of a lifelong habit which began when as a child, I made a crystal set, and listened to the cricket with the earplug that was part of the kit.

This had the advantage of not disturbing anyone else when Australia was touring in the UK, and the broadcast was going out in the early hours of the morning. As the eldest of six, this was important, as school residences (in which I grew up) were designed for smaller families. Sharing a bedroom with a sibling was routine.

I'm not listening to cricket today, of course, because the Melbourne ashes test lasted only two days, following the pattern established earlier in the series.

There's much wailing and gnashing of teeth, from Cricket Australia and the barmy army. The former has lost a motsa, and the latter group has spent a great deal of money on travel and accommodation, only to find big gaps in their planned itinerary.

There are solid reasons for tests not lasting more than a couple of days. It's an obvious trend, which in my humble opinion is a reflection of the influence of white ball cricket.

I don't know a lot about cricket, although I've been following it for over seventy years and played as a schoolboy at boarding school. I was a hopeless batsman, because my eye/hand coordination has always been poor, but I fancied myself as an off-spinner.

Almost all the test players play the pajama game which demands a very different approach to both batting and bowling than test cricket. They have developed a set of skills which suit the shorter form of the game, and much of this approach to the game has leaked into test cricket.

Hence "Bazball" with its range of shots including the ramp shot, the switch hit, the helicopter shot and the reverse sweep which are now appearing in test cricket. From the bowler's point of view techniques such as bowling dry and angle creation have come into favour.

I guess cricket is evolving. To be honest, I would prefer to listen to test cricket which is closer to what I was used to back in the day. Test cricket should be cerebral rather than physical. 

What really irks me is male cricketers being described as "batters". What's wrong with "batsmen?" To me "batter" has always been a method of cooking fish.

Cashing In

 

Last Sunday's obscenity at Bondi has elicited a range of responses.

The most rational are shock, grief and anger. There is also, for me, at least, a sense of numbness. This probably relates to personal experience.

A friendly fire incident on the 13th March 1970 had me within centimetres of half a belt of M-60 at 200 metres. It struck the soldier next to me on the side of his face. He went out on a medivac chopper,  had plastic surgery and recovered. He probably used up all his luck. but is still hale and hearty and living in Perth, fifty five years after the event. 

That sense of numbness occasionally returns to me, probably as a flashback. I'm sure that those caught in the cone of fire at Bondi will encounter this feeling for the rest of their lives.

The victims need all the support we can give them, but beyond the victims, there are two cohorts cashing in on this obscenity. I use the word "cohort" because it is a neutral term. Perhaps "cabal" is a better expression.

The first is the media. They have an obligation to report, but what I've seen in the last few days is way beyond reporting. They are wallowing in the sensational nature of the tragedy, and milking it ferociously. They have to sell newspapers, attract clicks, and pay their sponsors. The repetitious nature of much of what is posted in social media has become ghoulish.

Then there are the politicians. They use blame, abuse and misinformation to make political capital. Again, I have personal experience of being used as political capital (or more accurately cannon fodder) by those in power in 1969/70.

The issues of gun regulation and radical Islam are in a sense peripheral. To blame the current government and public support for Palestine is completely spurious. The two gunmen were obviously radicalised long before October 7th, and events since would hardly influence such extremists one way or another.

Whether we like it or not, there exists a tiny minority of psychopaths in our population, and nothing government, police, or security agencies can do will ever completely identify them, let alone eliminate them.

Considering that, if we can't eliminate the psychopaths, we can make it more difficult for them to get their hands on the means to carry out slaughter. Imagine the consequences had they carried full automatics.

Best we can do is to live without fear, support one another, and accept that whilst lunatics have the means and motive to frighten us, we should not allow ourselves to be controlled by them.

 

 

Advent

Our family group's hampers

Advent is here, gentle reader. It marks a space on the Christian calendar which involves preparation for Christmas,  and is a season of hope and anticipation.

Given the current international outlook, hope is important right now.

In our local parish, in recognition of the families doing it tough leading up to Christmas, we get involved in the Saint Vincent De Paul advent activity.

This means identifying needy families, donating money to buy mostly non-perishable foods and small goods, and donating them, as a parish to the charity.

SVDP* have the task of identifying the families, and collecting and distributing the hampers. 

Each family group in the parish has the responsibility of buying goods with money donated, putting the hampers together, and getting the hampers to SVDP.

Just a few of the local collection.

Our family group raised a four figure sum, and with that we were able to shop for goods and vouchers until all the funds were used up. The shopping process is interesting, involving couples, the wives doing the selection of goodies based on the description provided of the family, and husbands following around like bookies' clerks tallying up the expenditure.

Fellow shoppers must have wondered what was going on.

Yesterday we delivered the carefully decorated hampers, and they will be distributed tomorrow.

Whilst this level of generosity in our community is positive, the dimensions of the need it seeks to meet is not. 

A combination of factors including housing and energy costs, declining wages and corporate greed is responsible. At least this activity provides an opportunity for ordinary people to do something about it.

Our political leaders don't appear to have any answers. 

*St Vincent De Paul

Housing and Migration

Pic courtesy the Wire.

One of the memes doing the rounds in social media at the moment, gentle reader, connects migration with the housing crisis.

Lets have a look at that, and attempt to establish the reality.

First up, what are the actual existing migration rates in Australia?

The graph (from the ANZ Bank) is interesting. We see peaks in 2007, 2011 and 2024. Between 2006 and 2019, the rate was more or less steady around 400,000. Then we see a precipitous drop with the pandemic, with a rebound about 650,000 peaking in 2023.

The rate began to fall after this peak, and continues to trend down.

A graph (from Adviser voice) of the accumulated shortfall doesn't match all that well with migration. It was higher between 2012 and 2015 than it is now.

No doubt migration is a factor, but it part of a complex picture that has been developing for decades. Issues such as planning systems and zoning are important.

Interest rate changes, fewer people per household, and investment policy are also significant.

So why has it become a political issue?

That's much easier to understand. The alleged link has become a meme (an idea that spreads). Social media amplifies memes, and they develop a momentum of their own very quickly.

This is especially the case if gross oversimplification provides the structure of the meme as it does in this case. 

Link that with the xenophobia that lurks in the dark corners of Australian politics, and before you know it, some people take to the streets.

Maybe we should be looking at better solutions than restricting migration. This would have a minor impact on housing, and conceivably would have unintended harmful consequences.

Any housing reform needs to address the issues of construction and supply. It should also look at less restrictive zoning and planning. Approval pathways should be streamlined and development approvals fast tracked. 

The use of prefabricated and modular homes needs to be considered. It's always been a mystery to me that homes in Australian are built one at a time. As a petrol head I understand that motor vehicles haven't been built as unique units since Henry Ford invented the assembly line. Most cars are not custom built these days, and if they are, they cost an arm and a leg.

Social  housing seems to have been abandoned completely by one side of politics, and only halfheartedly promoted and supported by the other. Of course, it's difficult to make money out of investing in social housing. Social housing seeks to provide affordable rents which limits revenue.

Given the dimensions of the crisis, maybe it's time for some radical measures. Here are some suggestions -

1. Remove negative gearing beyond the residential home.

2. Abolish the Real Estate industry. It's unnecessary, and its costs to buyers and sellers operate as a handbrake for people trying to enter the market.

3. Remove stamp duty and land tax.

These radical measures terrify most politicians, so we probably won't see them anytime soon.

What operates now in the housing sector defies Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The first level on his pyramid specifies shelter after all.

Assumptions and Spin

 

Image courtesy Richard Bradley

To be perfectly honest, gentle reader, AI gives me the yips.

But every now and again, just to stir the possum, I ask it a question.

I asked - "Why have energy prices in Australia increased?"

The answer didn't mention "net zero". 

Here it is in full -

Australia is a major energy exporter, and domestic prices for gas and coal have been driven up by high global demand and geopolitical factors, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Gas-fired generators are often used to top up supply when other sources are insufficient, and the high cost of gas in the wholesale market effectively sets the price for all electricity during those periods.

A large portion of an energy bill (around 40-50%) covers the cost of the poles and wires network. Significant investment is currently required to replace aging infrastructure, improve cybersecurity, and build new transmission lines to connect remote renewable energy projects to the main grid. 

These costs are passed directly onto consumers through network charges.

Many of Australia's coal-fired power stations are old and becoming less reliable, leading to frequent unplanned outages. When these major generators fail, backup power (often more expensive gas) is required, causing price spikes in the wholesale market.Inflation and Interest Rates.

The general rise in inflation and interest rates has increased the cost of capital expenditure for energy companies, which in turn influences the final price for consumers.

The only rationale across this list with a direct relationship to the current government's policy refers to the cost of replacing infrastructure. Some of this replacement is simply maintenance, as what is in place now is aging. This would be necessary irrespective of how the energy is generated.

Certainly, the cost of networking wind and solar is a factor. The Australian Energy Council has presented estimates, but they don't necessarily show that the generation source is the prime factor driving increased costs. There are a range of factors, it's very complicated, and a long way from the "Net Zero is to blame" meme.

Perhaps there is another very significant factor which arises from how energy is marketed and sold, not how it is generated.

Electricity costs in Australia rose by 183% between 1996 and 2016, which was about three times the general rate of inflation. South Australia is  fully privatised and has the highest prices. Marketing, advertising, managerial and sales staff (increasing by over 200% in comparison with pre-privatisation) has a cost attached. 

Privatisation has delivered high rates of return to private owners, who were able to inflate the asset based used to calculate permitted returns at a net loss to the taxpayer.

Private companies face higher borrowing costs than government, and these are passed on to customers. Contrary to expectations of increased efficiency with privatisation, the sector experienced a marked decline in labour productivity after privatisation.

The history shows that privatisation was not the efficiency silver bullet expected, and it's worth considering whether nationalisation of the grid might at least be worth consideration. It's an essential service, after all.

But then ideology would emerge as a consideration, and debates over ideology never end well....

Disappearing Retreats

 

Pic courtesy Veterans' Retreats Australia

In the process of testing my homebuilt RV, I visited a veteran's retreat just outside Miles last week.

For ten years I'd driven past it, up and down the Warrego Highway, but because I was working on EQ's time, I was never able to take the 14km of gravel road to check it out.

It's worth a visit. The location is perfect for anyone wanting peace and solitude for a while. The owner is a veteran, and like most of us is approaching the age where managing such a site is difficult.

He'd like to sell it, but hasn't as yet found a buyer. It occurred to me that an ex-service organisation (the RSL) might consider it a worthwhile project.

There are many of these retreats scattered across the country. They typically offer cheap basic accommodation to veterans, but many are open to the general public. I've stayed at one or two over the years, as they provide an interesting option if you're not in a hurry.

I gave up hurrying on my 70th birthday.

The first retreat I'm aware of was Pandanus Park, set up by Les Hiddins of Bush Tucker Man fame. It's still listed as open, but subject to road conditions.

There is a website (a work in progress) which lists, state by state, retreats across the country.

It would be a great shame if these retreats shut down, but the inevitability is that they will, as we run out of veterans. If we run out of veterans, we have run out of wars, and that has to be a good thing.