Pete Green

I wasn’t keen to write anything about the National Student Strike, mostly because I figured that it was a no win situation; no matter which position I took, my comments would either seem jaded and cynical or I would be associated with a group of people who seem to think that students are early 20^th century coal miners. Then I realised that’s not a no win game, so here are the reasons yesterday’s student strike, at least in Victoria, was an atrocious waste of everyone’s time.

Let’s start with the basics that have been doing the rounds on social media for the last couple of weeks. The idea of a strike is to deprive your employer of your labour in order to pressure them to appease your demands, it is and has been for centuries an effective tool for employees and labour unions in workplace bargaining situations where negotiations between employers and employees have broken down. But if you think really hard about your relationship as a student with your university, you’ll realise that you’re not an employee but what is known in business as a ‘consumer’. The university offers a product (courses), which you consume. The correct term then for what didn’t really happen this week is a boycott, but generally speaking that strategy works better when the business you are boycotting is impacted in some way by the boycott. Which the university, to whom you have already paid your fees this semester, is not.

I’d like now to move on to timing. Budget day certainly seems to be the right time to protest funding cuts, until you realise that it’s unlikely the government is still finalising budgetary policy six hours or so before the treasurer stands up in parliament. “But Pete”, I hear someone cry, “it’s not about changing budgetary policy, don’t be silly, that’s a ridiculous target to set for a student protest”. Well, anonymous and fictional objector, if you want me to miss a whole day of classes and study in a week when I, like many students, will submit more assignments than I will have hot dinners, you better have some lofty fucking ambitions. “But Pete!” shouts the part of my brain that realises opposition is necessary to the continuation of this article, “it’s about grabbing media attention, letting the government know that we’re not going to stand idly by while they bankrupt the future of education, and stuff.” To that I would point out that Saturday is a slower news cycle than Tuesday, during which media outlets are more actively looking for content, which would be more favourable conditions in which to compete with the big stories of the week. Also there are no classes on Saturday.

I have deliberately left discussion of the execution of the protest for last because I’m not one for eating dessert before dinner and frankly this magnitude of clusterfuck is the intellectual equivalent of a wedding cake made entirely out of jelly and donuts.

The main aspects you need to consider when organising a protest, or any event really, is how you plan to publicise it, and just how much abuse you want to scream at people who disagree with you, and how many building-wide evacuations you are willing to cause in an ill-considered and panicked attempt to drum-up more support. In the case of yesterday’s protest the answer to these central questions seem to be ‘if it was good enough for Woodstock it’s good enough for us’, ‘there can never be enough’ and ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, wink.’

There is no excuse in the era of social media for not letting people know what you’re doing. Yet on Tuesday afternoon when I tried to find out how many people had turned up in the city I couldn’t find any information, mostly because I wasn’t really sure who was organising the protest, a situation that wasn’t easily remedied by reading any of the handbills that seemed to be the primary mode of communication favoured by this particular protest. ‘Cause fuck the internet and the environment right fellas?

Obviously some people involved in the protest felt that getting their message across was a bit of a weak suit as well, so they decided to get a microphone and stand in the middle of the Menzies lawn screaming at no one. Stunned by the lack of response to this tried and true campaign tactic it is alleged a member of the socialist alternative activated one of the smoke alarms in Campus Centre to try and force people onto the lawn. Apart from the fact that having the fire brigade come round costs the university a reasonably large amount of money and the protest was against taking money from universities, I’m not convinced that making people think there’s a fire and then surprising them with a socialist alternative rep yelling at them through a megaphone is a winning tactic. I’m not saying I’d definitely prefer to burn to death but I think I’d like to have the freedom to explore my options.

Which neatly brings me to my final point. Choice.

If you want people to come to your ill thought out, pointless and in some ways destructive protest, that’s fine. But if some people decline, those people are not your enemy, and definitely don’t deserve to be treated like they’re betraying some fictional industrial action or have abuse yelled at them through megaphones. Apart from the obvious incursions of basic human decency, it seems to suggest that you think calling someone a right wing bitch, or telling them they don’t give a shit about their education will change their mind about joining your protest. If I didn’t chip in some loose change for the Salvos and the old gent with the tin started hurling abuse, I doubt I’d turn around and start franticly looking for change.

Pete Green

Tomorrow will mark the first student general meeting in several decades for Monash University’s Clayton Campus. The meeting will address the controversial cuts being made to university budgets around the country. As a student of politics and history at the aforementioned campus I can proudly say that I will not be attending.

It’s not that I am apathetic about the cuts to university funding, no liberal democratic government who claims to have the best interests of its people and their future at heart should be taking money away from education at any level, even if it is supposedly aimed at propping up another area of the education system. The idiocy and short-sightedness of what the government is currently doing should be obvious to any cognisant person.

So why am I not standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my down-trodden fellow students to demand an end to the governments jack-booted tyranny? Because the people who organise these meetings, who take it upon themselves to represent us as a student body, would not see any hint of hyperbole in the previous sentence. These are the people who have been protesting against the instillation of security cameras, not on the entire campus but in a formerly cooperative vegan restaurant for almost a year, to no affect other than convincing me that they must be doing something seriously illegal in the back-room. Why would you possibly be against security cameras? If you’re not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about, and if the university really uses them to monitor your “subversive activities” or steal your lentil curry recipes, take them to court like grown-ups. If I was ever happy with these people representing my views, that time was ever so many lecture-interrupting rants, patronising flyers and pointless election campaigns ago.

The paranoid, self-obsessed, hyper-sensitive mutterings of the student political movement are as constant as they are detached from the life of the average student, or the plane of reality that student inhabits.Their presence in important political debates such as this one removes student support and lends the entire exercise the same sense of entirely futile effort that accompanies an intervention for Lindsay Lohan. If they manage to round up the 300 students required to form quorum tomorrow then power to them, but given the 40-strong attendance of this morning’s storming of the university admin building, I don’t think I’m putting myself out on a limb when I promise to greet such an event by digesting my hat.

Phil Peters

The National Broadband Network debate seems to have quickly escalated into a “he said/she said” battle of false figures and meaningless rhetoric, so the present situation is not only difficult to read, it is also almost impossible to claim to know the “right” answer. However, it seems that the passing of Margaret Thatcher came at a curious time in the course of this debate, because as many of you will know, Mrs Thatcher was a big proponent of the “just good enough” approach when it came to government spending, and it seems as though the Lib’s plan for the NBN is in the same vein.

As I mentioned before, the debate between the two major parties’ NBN plans has become somewhat of a pissing match, but really at the core of the proposals is not a difference in “the vision for Australia”, a difference in ideologies. The Liberal party believe that discarding the “perfectly good” current copper wiring system is unnecessary, and simply upgrading the part of the network will be sufficient to keep most Australians’ internet ticking over. The Labor party believe that now is the time to install a new fibre system capable of delivering faster speeds and potentially longer-term stability, but at a greater cost.

Now it’s true that the Labor NBN is a costlier short term investment, especially in the “we must have a budget surplus because……reasons” era of politics, but many believe that the Liberal NBN plans could end up being costlier in the long term anyway, economically or otherwise. The copper wiring that has been in use for over half a century is slowly but surely degrading and will need constant maintenance until eventually it will need replacing. The argument that by that time, fibre technology will be cheaper to implement is valid, but even if the theoretical mountain of money can be saved by that time, it seems like a “save a penny, lose a pound” outcome.

Australia is already behind the rest of the developed world in terms of both internet access and speed, and the highest possible speeds that the Liberal party could promise by 2020, up to 100mbps, is already being surpassed in America where Google’s own experimental fibre network is already delivering speeds of 1gbps. That’s 1000mbps, or 10 times the theoretical Liberal NBN speeds. And let’s not forget that “theoretical” government plans rarely deliver their “theoretical” peak. The Labor party on the other hand has the upper hand in the theoretical speed department, and as fibre is basically an entire new system it too can be upgraded as needed moving forward.

As you can probably tell I am more of a fan of the Labor NBN plans, but I can see the merit of the Liberal plan too. However it seems to me that the Liberal party’s plan would have been revolutionary five or ten years ago, but greatly underestimates the needs, and desires, of the public. The internet is one of, if not the most used and most important part of the every day lives of the Australian people, and seeing that Australia is in the favourable position that it is compared to other countries economically, now seems like the perfect time to invest in a technology that can tangibly help a majority of Australians. Despite the higher economic cost compared to the alternatives offered, it seems to be the opinion of many industry leaders that the cost of not having it would be greater.

Peter Green

Cody Wilson, founder of Defence Distributed

There has been a lot said and written about gun control in the US in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre and a spate of other mass shootings in 2012. However Defence Distributed, a small firm based in Austin Texas, and its founder Cody R Wilson, might have found a way to completely curtail the arguments for stronger gun control being made by many in the US political class and notably President Obama. Mr. Wilson and Defence Distributed are using 3D printing technology to print (among other parts) lower receivers for the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The same gun that was used at Sandy Hook by Adam Lanza.  The lower receiver is the component that houses the trigger mechanism, and to which all other components of the gun; barrel, stock, magazine etc, are attached. For this reason, this part alone is considered to be a firearm under America’s 1968 Gun Control Act. Making printable patterns for this part and distributing them to people with 3D printers means that anyone with the correct technology and an Internet connection can download and print a lower receiver. You can then order the other parts of the rifle in the mail (as these are not regulated because they would be useless without a lower receiver) and assemble the finished product literally without needing to leave your bedroom.

There are several problems with this process at present. Despite recent advancements in Defence Distributed’s production and design process that it claims (and has demonstrated on their YouTube Chanel) mean their parts will now not fail under the stresses of firing, printed receivers have previously failed after a relatively small number of shots; a prototype demonstrated for Vice failed after 27 rounds. Magazines and other components have also been problematic. However the process is still in its infancy, as is the printing technology on which it is based, and both the design process and the materials that can be used in the printing process are still being developed, and are improving on a daily basis. Defence Distributed had also faced legal problems in distributing their lower receivers, but have previously attained a license that allows them to make and sell fire-arms legally. Despite this, Mr. Wilson is not currently, and apparently does not plan to, make his receivers commercially available, but will instead distribute the pattern for their manufacture free of charge online.

Cody Wilson fires an AR-15 equipped with 3D printed compontents.

This is because Mr. Wilson is not attempting to turn a profit, but rather to make a political and technological point. Even if his components fail in a relatively short time, they can be made from around $20 worth of raw materials with a printer currently worth around $1000. I say currently because if New York Times technology reporter Nick Bilton is to be believed when he says that there will be one of these printers in most homes in the next ten years (see below), then that seems like a price that is only going to move in one direction. If this turns out to be correct, then by 2030 we could be living in a world where 3D printable files are consumed and traded in the same way that MP3 files are at present. This is a version of the future that Mr. Wilson not only believes in but welcomes as a new dawn of unregulated information and goods similar to the birth of the Internet. And he is absolutely, perhaps worryingly right.

At present, though the Internet can get you many valuable things: music, films, images and even tools that one can use for cyber terrorism without and sometimes in spite of government regulation, it is more difficult to obtain regulated physical goods. This is because while software and computer files can travel anywhere in the world without anyone’s approval and remain mostly undetected, freight and shipping companies or the physical transportation of goods by other means are a necessary part of transporting physical goods around the globe, and this enables most governments to reasonably effectively regulate the goods that are bought and sold both within and beyond their borders.

However, in a world where everyone has a 3D printer, there is no reason why gun components, even entire guns, accessories and attachments could not be proliferated in the same way that music, movies and TV shows are now. While it might be easy at the moment for government agencies to keep tabs on the trafficking in down-loadable AR-15 lower receivers, you can see on DEFCAD, (a distribution site hosted by Defence Distributed which is currently one of the only sources of templates for weapon parts) the demand and supply are extremely low. At present the market is limited to a small group of young people who have adopted the technology, a large part of this group are also ideologically opposed to what Mr. Wilson is trying to prove: that this technology makes government regulation of not only guns, but all forms of deadly weapons, as well as a huge and perhaps limitless number of other goods, completely meaningless.

Do you remember that ad that used to run before the main feature on DVDs that reasoned that your shouldn’t download movies because you wouldn’t steal a car? What if you could download a car? It probably won’t be terribly complex, but an entirely mechanical car with no electronics involved in the moving parts should be fine, I drive one, they’re lovely. I’m not sure I’d want to drive one made entirely out of plastic but I’m sure I’d get used to it. What we are talking about here is a revolution in the way people do business, the way we look at ideas like copyright and intellectual property, the ability of the government to control what we do, what we have access to. What people like Cody Wilson see in 3D printing is that it puts the means of complex production entirely in the hands of individuals. Where previously barriers of technical skill and industrial capability stood between the population and the production of high-end manufactured goods, this technology means that almost any object can be manufactured with minimal outlay and absolutely no effort in your own home. Viewed in that context, while perhaps they are a worrying example, the proliferation of fire-arms barely even rates a mention in what could well be a global shift in the way our society operates and interacts with business and government.

Vice’s Documentary

Nick Bilton’s New York Times article

Defence Distributed and their YouTube Channel

Luci Leptos

The job of trailblazing guinea pig isn’t one people generally want to put their hands up for, especially when the person in the lab coat is a teenager with a Twitter account. This, however, didn’t seem to faze the Federal member for Kooyong, Mr. Josh Frydenberg.  Since taking office in 2010, this Liberal MP has penned and presented a multitude of opinion articles and speeches, sticking to his website’s masthead of striving “to bring a passionate and energetic voice to the important challenges we face”; this instance was no exception.

Last week I promised (read: prophesized) crocodiles and cannibals, and my interview with Mr. Frydenberg didn’t disappoint. It is here we had our first crocodile sighting; the Clean Energy Act or, as it’s commonly known, the Carbon Tax. A contentious and prickly issue since its instigation in 2011, it has grown and matured into what is now an invaluable vote-winning tool, with quite a few more teeth. It’s not surprising then that it poked its head above the murky waters of the political swamp. The scaly reptile appeared in this interview as the one piece of legislation Mr. Frydenberg would most like to see turned into shoes. Why? In a time when the nation dances on the precipice of economic downturn, the rising price of carbon is simply “too much of an impost on families”, and this government’s tax an unreasonable size.

I suggested that perhaps a carbon tax, of some description, as an interim solution could be justified; at least until a proper discussion surrounding alternative energy sources (particularly nuclear energy) is held. It was met with a swift and adamant ‘no, no, no, definitely not’ sort of response; the debate on nuclear energy must be reopened now.  With around forty percent of the Earth’s retrievable uranium deposits in our own backyard, why isn’t nuclear energy being utilized in Australia? Safety appears to be the central issue. The disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant has brought back into light the risks involved but we don’t have to look far to see the accident has deterred few nations. In France, nuclear power provides over 75% of the country’s total electric power while the United States is the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, with twenty two percent of its uranium coming from Australia. Figures such as these fuel the clean energy debate and as it continues to heat up, I have no doubt this particular issue will be making regular appearances in this column.

Not reptilian or cannibalistic, but certainly interesting is this MP’s dream piece of legislation. It’s probably not what you’d have thought, unless what you thought was the reinstating of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) . Officially abolished on the first of June last year to make way for the Fair Work Building Commission (FWBC), Mr. Frydenberg suggested the only reason for its closure was the ALP’s personal vendetta against the Liberal Party; a childish move. The FWBC, with diluted powers from its predecessor, has seen the number of industrial disputes has increased almost two fold since the time of the Howard government, hindering the efficiency of domestic industry.

In times of economic uncertainty, a drop in productivity could have potentially disastrous consequences for the many Australians, and their families, employed by the sector, both directly and indirectly. It is for this reason, that being the sheer number of people whose livelihoods are dependent on Australian industry, that the ABCC was so vital to the proper upholding of construction laws, and reasons for its unnecessary closure juvenile and immature.

An interesting and thought provoking first interview and I thank Mr. Frydenberg enormously for his generous donation of time and insight. Next week I’ll be continuing the safari with Federal member for Higgins, Kelly O’Dwyer.

Pete Green
The leadership speculation in the ALP has been all the rage in the media over the last couple of weeks, and if there’s one thing we love at The Bucket, it’s letting the real media have a go at a subject for a couple of weeks and then cherry-picking a smart-arse response. So here goes.

The two ways of approaching this story rely on different understandings of Kevin Rudd’s mental health. The narrative in which he is currently canvassing for support and planning a leadership challenge assumes that his unquenchable thirst for leadership and the love of the Australian people is roughly similar in ferocity to Bono’s desire to “feed the starvin’ children”, and that it has eclipsed entirely anything resembling common sense or political calculation in his mind. The second assumes that while his desire to lead is strong, it might be more in the range of Joe Hockey’s need for sustenance,  which we note with admiration has been rather well tamed in recent months.

Any Kevin Rudd supporter should be hoping that the second option is closer to the truth, because the first has two possible outcomes, both of them not very good.

If Rudd challenges, which he would probably need to do next month so as to make time for preparations leading to the Budget, and wins, he would essentially be taking the wheel of a car which everyone has pretty much decided they’re happy watching drive off a cliff. To speculate that he could pull off a dramatic turn-around in the polls after the  downturn they tend to take following a change of leadership at this late stage and considering their current position is probably more wishful thinking that justifiable hope.

If he challenges and loses he would have destabilised the ALP for no result twice in just over a year, and would likely lose some if not all support he would be able to garner before the vote within the party and the electorate.

The more mentally stable approach would be to wait until after the election, and have a shot at what will likely be a vacant ALP leadership. He would not even need to wait three years for another crack at the job he clearly thinks he was born to do, because Abbott’s pledge to repeal the Carbon Tax will likely lead to a double-dissolution election early in the new parliament.

Whether or not the ALP would lose this in a land-slide or at all, and whether the ALP under Rudd would choose to force it is a matter of contention, however it is much less certain than the outcome of the contest on September 14th. Perhaps the more interesting question is whether Malcolm Turnbull would be willing to ride the pine for another three years, or if he would challenge after the election, potentially removing the prospect of the Carbon Tax’s untimely demise, and therefore the double dissolution election itself, possibly trapping a new ALP opposition leader on the wrong side of the chamber with no escape in sight.

Peter Green

As Team America taught us, freedom isn’t free. There is no such thing in western liberal society as true freedom. Despite what Tony Abbott might tell you, you don’t have absolute freedom of speech, you don’t have absolute freedom of action or association. To grant these unfettered freedoms would be anarchy. Once you accept this it is simply a matter of where to draw the line.

This brings us to Mr. Abbott’s comments this week regarding his intention to repeal the Racial Vilification section of the Race Discrimination Act because it requires what he sees as a ‘hurt feelings test’ and restricts every Australian’s right to be rude or even offensive if they choose. This, he says, is the cost of free speech. He sights of course the infamous case of Andrew Bolt vs. Doing Your Fucking Research, in which a group of ‘fair skinned’ aboriginal Australians sued Bolt after he claimed they were only pretending to have Aboriginal heritage to attain benefits.

In my opinion the tragedy of this case is not about Bolt, the righteous crusader for racial equality, being brought to his knees for simply speaking his mind. It is that had the plaintiffs sued Bolt for defamation on the basis that nothing in the story was true and it damaged them professionally, they would have won and no one would have argued that defamation law relies on ‘hurt feelings’. Not a bad law but one applied poorly. It seems to me that the racial vilification law should be reserved for examples of racism that are simultaneously more obvious and more stupid than Bolt’s admittedly moronic, factually bankrupt and subtlety racist but well calculated writing.

Examples like the “Aboriginal Memes” Facebook Page.

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Peter Green

As the asylum seeker debate (much like the Carlton Football Club) reaches its seventh or eighth final, do-or-die, point of no return, line-in-the-sand moment in a month, it seems rather absurd that the Gillard government and the Abbott opposition cannot find a suitable third party country on which to jettison the human cargo shipped to this country by enterprising Indonesian amateur travel agents. As Scott Morrison, the Shadow Minister for Immigration, never fails to remind us, there are in excess of 140 countries that have signed or ratified the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and are thus suitable destinations. It strikes me as odd that given this surplus of able and willing receivers of refugees, Mr. Morrison never seems willing to name one that isn’t Nauru…

Surely given this huge number of possible processing sites there is a single locale that will satisfy the government’s desire for a firm but humane deterrent centred on offshore processing, and the opposition’s desire for a firm but humane deterrent centred on offshore processing.
A country that satisfied these requirements would remove the need for the government’s “Malaysian Solution”, which as we all know is worse than the Howard government’s policy of offshore processing on Nauru before that nation ratified the convention because Tony Abbott has said so in writing, meaning it is the Gospel Truth.
It would also mean that any future Coalition government would not need to tow boats back to Indonesia, a country whose government would not accept them anyway, and in any event is not a signatory to the convention, so Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and the Coalition say you can’t send asylum seekers there.
As such, in the spirit of giving the national debate a point in the right direction, The Bucket has prepared a short-list of countries taken from Mr. Morrison’s legendary 140.

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Lachie McLaren

As I ambled home today, in the same manner as I always do, something queer happened. I came across a man in the most peculiar of positions. He was dressed in quite normal attire, his waistcoat neat, hiding his pressed white shirt, and in turn hidden by a moss green felt jacket.  With one hand, he tipped his cap at me and smiled, distorting his exquisite moustache. The other was attached with a thick rope to a drainpipe nearly ten meters above the footpath.
“Good afternoon” he said.
Confused as I was, courtesy did not slip my mind and I returned the gesture.
“Good afternoon” I said, “Do you mind if I inquire as to what circumstances led to your being up there in such a precarious way?”
His smile waned and he rolled his eyes.
“Oh. Naturally. You’d have to be one of those people.”
Well I hadn’t the faintest idea what one of ‘those people’ was, but I was most certain that I should be offended.
“No, excuse me, I am not one of ‘those people’, I am me, and who are ‘those people’ if you don’t mind me asking.
“Exactly” he answered me, or didn’t really, in a most unnecessarily exasperated manner
“I’m afraid I’m not up to par with this conversation, what do you mean exactly? What are you doing up there?”
“Carry on. Good day.”
Well I must admit, that this unfair dismissal got the better of my temper, or worse, should I say.
“Don’t ‘good day’ me, sir,” I demanded reasonably.
“Please” he said, “I am waiting for someone who will help me, rather than discussing my present circumstances, which you may have noticed are not ideal! Oh how I wish you had just said “Let me help you down,” rather than complicating the matter unnecessarily with your ‘whys’ and ‘hows.’”

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by Peter Green

When you give almost limitless power to a group of people who are not particularly bright and see their role as protectors of some kind of social/cultural/world order, history should tell you that they’re about to make some shitty decisions.

In the case of Queensland after the recent state election, this applies in the same way that it would if you gave Barnaby Joyce command of the RAAF and a case of Bundy. The situation is such that the only limit of the power of Campbell Newman’s government is Campbell Newman’s imagination. Although given the conservative government of Bob Katter’s home state has spent its first few months embarking on an almost unprecedented roll-back of civil rights for gay people, that might be more of an impediment than you’d think.

The move by the LNP government this week to strip gay couples, singles and de-facto relationships of less than two years of the right to have children through surrogacy is as almost bigoted as it is silly and confusing. It also comes after the Queensland government decided to allow civil unions to continue but ruled that the state would no longer conduct services as a concession to Christian lobby groups. In addition they’ve sacked most of the public service, but that’s a shit-storm of such a vast magnitude that we’ll save it for another time.

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