The Socceroos must not give this vile man a free PR kick

Sport and politics shouldn't mix.  But they do.  And that is why the Socceroos, Australia's national football team, shouldn't play North Korea as planned on Wednesday night.

North Korea's communist government has been brutalising its people for decades.  Human Rights Watch reports that North Korea is virtually an open air prison where the people are forced to work for no remuneration of any sort, the state owns all property and freedom of expression is non-existent.

Dissenters are sent to forced labour camps called gwalliso where they are tortured and executed.  The state controls food distribution and is currently in the process of starving its people with its ''military first'' policy.

And then of course there is the fact that the regime is planning to test long-range rockets capable of carrying nuclear warheads this month.

In terms of vile governments, North Korea is as evil as any in history.

But so what?  What's that got to do with a football match?

The reality is that awful governments such as North Korea's use sport to legitimise their rule — both to their own people and to the rest of the world.

After narrowly losing to Brazil in the opening match at the 2010 World Cup, the regime decided to televise North Korea's second match to the nation, in what is believed to be the first ever live sports telecast in the Hermit Kingdom.  After their 7-0 drubbing in that game, the event was simply not reported in the state-controlled media.

But the North Koreans aren't the first to understand the power of the reflected glory of sport (and the opposite in defeat).  Throughout history, nefarious regimes have used sport to consolidate their power and butter up the international community.

Famously, Hitler enthusiastically hosted the 1936 Olympics to showcase Nazi rule and Argentina's military junta spent 10 per cent of their national budget on the 1978 World Cup.

On the other hand, boycotts and bans have been shown to put a dent in the power of repressive governments.  When sports-mad South Africans describe being ''closed off from the world'' as a key factor in the downfall of apartheid, they aren't just talking about trade.

Some will argue that athletes shouldn't be punished for the activities of foreign governments and that they personally don't have any higher moral obligation, other than to do their best.

That's not quite true.  Soccer, along with many other sports, receives an enormous amount of public funding in Australia.  National team manager Holger Osieck is among Australia's highest paid public servants and the players themselves were the beneficiaries of extensive government support as youngsters developing their skills at facilities like the AIS.

Given the way any success the North Koreans have on Wednesday night will be used by the communist government, Australian taxpayers are effectively picking up the tab for Kim Jong-un's PR campaign.

This will no doubt raise questions about some of the nations Australia is regularly pitted against as a member of the Asian Football Confederation.  If we're not going to play against North Korea, then maybe we shouldn't play Saudi Arabia, given the disgusting treatment of women in that country?  Or Syria?  Or Iran?  Where do we draw the line?

That's a great question, and it's a debate we need to have.  The government, sporting bodies, the media and fans need to face up to the reality of what sport is and how it's used.

But Australia has form in this area.  In 2004, cricketer Stuart MacGill ruled himself out of a tour of Zimbabwe as a protest against Robert Mugabe's murderous regime.

And in 1971, debate raged over whether Australia should play the South African cricket team, in which black players were prohibited to play.  Cricketing icon and the Australian Cricket Board Chairman at the time, Don Bradman, flew to Johannesburg to meet with the South African Prime Minister B.J. Vorster.

When Bradman asked Vorster why blacks were banned, Vorster replied that their inferior intellect meant they couldn't cope with the complexities of the game.  Bradman asked him if he'd heard of Garry Sobers, promptly concluded the meeting and Australia didn't play South Africa again for over 20 years.

Australia's soccer players have been an incredible source of pride for the nation over the last decade.  But while their heroics in Sydney and Kaiserslautern and Nelspruit at the World Cups will never be forgotten;  they would have no finer hour than if they refused to play North Korea this Wednesday night.

ADVERTISEMENT

Destroy! Gillard Government goes all Dalek on charities

As Christmas approaches, many Australians will be planning to donate to charity.

Few would realise, however, the incredible damage the Gillard government is about to unleash on the sector with the advent of the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC), expected at some point before the end of the year.

The ACNC will force charities to adhere to a raft of new tax and compliance requirements, dissuade people from becoming involved with charities and turn people off from donating.

There are 600,000 not-for-profit entities (NFPs) in Australia of which approximately 56,000 are charities.  In relative growth terms, the NFP sector is second only to mining.  Clearly, charities in Australia are big business.

In May 2011, the government announced $53.6m in funding for a ''one-stop-shop'' for the ''support and regulation'' of the NFP sector to replace the various arrangements in place in each state and territory and federally with the Australian Taxation Office.

It's admirable for the government to cut the red tape and make things easier for charities — but that's not what they're doing.

The ACNC will force many charities to submit ''Annual Information Statements'' for the first time.  They will have to give the government detailed information about their activities, operations and volunteers.  And more charities will be compelled to notify the ACNC if they make changes to their board of directors or amend their constitution.

The cost to charities of this will be huge.  The Baptist Ministries initially estimated that the ACNC would cost Baptist churches across Australia an extra $1 million on compliance.

So far only South Australia has announced that they will be amending their current arrangements to fit in with the ACNC.  Far from creating a one stop shop, all the ACNC has done is whack another layer of regulation on charities.

The ACNC will also ramp up the penalties for when things go wrong.  Australians currently donate $14.6 billion in volunteer time every year to charities.  The ACNC legislation proposes that volunteer board members could be held personally liable in cases of management malpractice and will introduce exorbitant fines as penalties.

Indeed, the potential penalties faced by volunteer board members of charities is greater than a director of a normal business in many cases.

These measures won't stop people from doing the wrong thing.  They will simply discourage people from becoming involved in charities in the first place.

And the ACNC will force charities to submit increased levels of information about their donors which can be made publicly available at the discretion of the Commissioner.

Whilst the level of detail of information required is yet to be made public, the fact that individuals may well be forcibly identified to the government and publicly ''outed'' against their will only serve to prevent many from giving at all.

Of course, it's also a gross violation of a person's right to privacy for details about their private donations to be handed over to the government.

Apart from the damage the ACNC will do to charities, and the bungling over the issue of getting the states and territories on board, the government's communication with the sector over the proposals has been appalling.

To take one example, the government will be increasing taxation to the earnings of NFPs that are deemed to be ''non-altruistic''.  It is yet to be communicated to charities what is considered non-altruistic and what is not.  To make matters worse, this increased taxation will be applied retrospectively.  As in, right now.

Indeed, the sector is currently in the farcical situation of operating under a taxation framework that is yet to be finalised and certainly yet to be communicated.

The ACNC is one of the worst examples of government involving itself where it is not needed or wanted.  Far from making things easier for charities, the ACNC will make things harder and more expensive.  Charities should be left to get on with serving those in need, not the government.

ADVERTISEMENT

Free speech? ''Whatevs,'' says the United Nations

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon last week expressed concern about free speech because sometimes it can be ''used to provoke or humiliate''.

God forbid we allow lively debate to take place.

With the advent of this proposal the UN has nailed its colours to the mast — it is unmistakably an anti-freedom of expression organisation.

Australia decided last century to erase these heretical laws from our statute books.  We recognised they have no place in a society that values free speech and religious plurality.

Today, the only Commonwealth remnant is the Australian Maritime Safety Authority-enforced law that disallows the registration of blasphemous ship names.  That, too, should be repealed.

Throwing a person in prison for insulting someone is wrong.  Doubly so when the law can be used as a tool by governments and religious majorities to crackdown on minority groups.

Overwhelmingly, blasphemy laws have been used as an often-deadly weapon in long-running sectarian disputes.

Pakistan is the most obvious example.  Christians have been persecuted for decades under laws that allow the Muslim majority to attack the religious minority over allegations of defacing the Koran and insulting Muhammad.

Recently, a young Christian girl was accused of destroying the Koran.  She was accused of blasphemy and imprisoned for three weeks.  It has now been revealed that an Islamic cleric burned pages of a Koran himself and framed the girl for the crime.

The Catholic minister for minority affairs was assassinated last year after criticising the country's blasphemy laws.

And it's now countries like Pakistan that are pushing for blasphemy laws to be implemented around the globe.  Political leaders from Egypt and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference have also spoken out in favour of international blasphemy laws.

Momentum for these restrictions is being driven in the context of a worldwide backlash to a stupid but utterly amateur film criticising Islam.

Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has said in response:  ''We would go to the UN and OIC and get a law passed to stop anti-Islam activities, including blasphemy, forever.''

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had this staggering addition:  ''Freedom of thought and belief ends where the freedom of thought and belief of others starts.''

This revelation is extremely concerning.

Turkey's political power is potent — it currently heads the OIC.  This is alarming because it is voting blocs like the OIC that will use their influence in the UN to push for blasphemy laws and decide which expressions will be outlawed.

Imagine the kind of radical limits to freedom of expression that would satisfy Erdoğan.  It goes way beyond restrictions of expression and probes the beliefs and values of individuals.

The proposal is disturbing and irrational.  Such a reality would invite the UN to police the thoughts and feelings of seven billion.

The UN's push for the criminalisation of blasphemy perfectly exemplifies what an artefact the organisation has become.  It is a soapbox for extremists and bigots and its orthodoxy should be dismissed as such.

It's weird that Australia would want a seat at the table of such an illiberal organisation.  Yet Prime Minister Julia Gillard is in New York all this week arguing for just that — she wants Australia to occupy one of the non-permanent UN Security Council seats.

We should abandon the attempt.  The UN should be left to the extremists and bigots who want to crush freedom of speech through relics like blasphemy laws.

It is beyond salvation.

Pollies just trawling for votes over super-sized ship

If a movie director was going to invent a name for the ''ship of doom'' they'd probably come up with ''supertrawler''.

Let's face it, supertrawler sounds bad.  It's super (and not in the good way) and it ''trawls'' the ocean rapaciously consuming fish into its vast nets and freezers of doom.  When the word ''supertrawler'' is said out loud it almost deserves its own soundtrack.

But it's politics that led the Gillard government to turn its trawl of duty from the Netherlands to Australia a wasted journey.  Now the government's legislative response means the same quota of fish can be taken out of Australian waters by smaller, less efficient boats.  Their net sizes can be the same.  And they can waste fuel and emit greenhouse gases by returning to shore to dump the fish before going out to get extra catch.

Unsurprisingly some scientists are arguing the government's moves smack of ''populism before science''.

Congratulations Environment Minister, Tony Burke.  You've really chalked up another victory for the environment.

Sadly the government's reaction fits into a much broader pattern of behavior by our nation's politicians and their indifference to how legislative action can deliver environmental outcomes.

Take the Federal government's current progressing of its Illegal Logging Bill.

The point of the Bill is to stop timber illegally felled in other countries from making its way into Australia and being sold as the desk that your computer sits on top of.

The objectives sound admirable on environmental grounds.  Illegally logged timber ''bad''.  Legally logged timber ''good''.  And in many ways the government's motivations are right.

But good motivations don't ensure the policy response attracts the same qualities.  Especially when the government's own advisers concluded an Illegal Logging Bill wouldn't work.

The Centre for International Economics was commissioned by the Federal government to investigate what any illegal logging law would do.

Their study concluded ''0.034 per cent of global timber production, and 0.34 of products incorporating illegally logged timber ... [so the Bill] could reduce the global costs of illegal logging by 0.34 per cent ... and may not be fully effective in eliminating illegal logging''.

Put more bluntly, a new law won't stop the small problem but we'll all feel a warm inner glow.

The problem is it that the Australian timber industry will pay for our good intentions by carrying more cost to prove they're not illegally logged impacting on their international competitiveness.

Not that illegal logging is alone.

Taxpayer-funded organisations are similarly lobbying the government to make consumer boycotts against palm oil easier.

You know the drill — forests are being converted into agriculture land to grow palm oil in parts of Malaysia and Indonesia.  And those palm oil plantations threaten orangutan populations.

So if we legislate to label palm oil on products, consumers can haze products that use it as an ingredient and save the orangutans.

Except, it isn't that simple.

A recent study published by the New York Academy of Sciences found that there are a range of measures causing orangutan population loss, including farming practices and hunting by those on a subsistence living.

The study identified that ''singling out a particular industry as the main culprit in this process ignores the contribution from others and is unlikely to lead to lasting solutions''.

Using simplistic measures like consumer boycotts might make ourselves feel better, but it only have a modest impact on addressing the root problem.

Worse, it could have the reverse effect and make it harder for subsistence farmers to survive meaning they convert more forest land for agriculture, not less.

That hasn't stopped local retailers, like Subway, being targeted to change behavior in the false expectation that it will actually save orangutans.

That outcome wouldn't be a victory for the environment.  Unless a problem that is out of sight, is also out of mind.

Despite the reality of these simplistic campaigns their consequences were largely ignored in Parliamentary hearings into a Bill designed to drive consumer boycotts.  Again, the passage of the Bill would have allowed us all to feel good about ourselves, even if it did nothing for the environment.

Businesses are rarely perfect.  But in all three cases working with the companies involved seem like a more logical solution to achieving good environmental outcomes.

But as political responses to the supertrawler, palm oil and logging show, facts and evidence only play a small part behind grandstanding politicians who want to be seen to be in favour of the environment — even when there is no environmental benefit at all.

ADVERTISEMENT

Australians are working less and earning more

ACTU President Ged Kearney announced at the National Press Club the results of a poll of union members grandiosely labelled ''The Census''.  And she also talked about it yesterday on The Punch.  But far from being an impartial look at the Australian workplace, the ACTU's census is nothing but a narrow poll of self-selected participants.

The headlines shouted ''Australian workers productive but stressed''.  The findings to emerge from The Census included that respondents were working longer, finding it difficult to get by on their income, delaying dental treatment and were contacted about work outside of work hours.  An overwhelming majority supported unions campaigning for better pay and conditions of workers.

The Census survey methodology is instructive.

It was primarily an online survey, open between May and July 2011.  A temporary website was used.  The survey was promoted by unions to their members.  The ACTU also promoted the survey through its website, blogs and social media.

The respondents totalled 42,085.  They were eligible for three $1,000 prizes.  The prizes' eligibility was restricted to respondents who were over 18 and -- interestingly -- were union members.  The ACTU commissioned a parallel public poll of 1,000 Australians using ''an online public pool of people''.  This allowed for comparisons between The Census and public poll results.

The overwhelming majority of Census respondents in employment, 92.9 per cent, were union members.  This contrasts with union membership in the workforce now at an all-time low of 19.1 per cent.  At least the public poll at 20 per cent is more representative of the Australian workforce.

This all means that caution must be applied in analysing the results of The Census.  The ACTU report on The Census, ''Voices from working Australia'' acknowledges these limitations.  Admitting that:  ''The Census results are intended to be a discrete study and do not constitute a random sample of either the trade union membership or the overall working population.''

Ms Kearney used the announcement to express concern that the Reserve Bank and Productivity Commission by increasingly representing narrow corporate interests risk ''not only becoming aloof from the concerns of working Australians, but losing the confidence of the broader community.''

However, the institutions have a better fix on the issues of concern to Australians and their future well-being.  The ACTU is in denial over the growing crisis in productivity.  The unions equate productivity improvement with working harder.  In contrast, most see productivity emerging from working smarter -- not harder.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics paints a very different picture to the hand wringing of the ACTU.

According to the ABS, the average number of hours worked per week has decreased over the last three decades.  The number has fallen from 35.7 hours per week in 1979 to 32.9 hours in 2009.

At the same time, household wealth has increased over the last decade, with the real income of low income households increasing by 41 per cent between 1997-98 and 2007-08.  The increase for middle income households was 46 per cent.

The ABS has found that participation by Australians in sport and recreation has increased between 2000 and 2006.  Attendance at cultural venues and sporting events has remained stable over the same period.

So according to the much more reputable data from the ABS, we're in fact working less, earning more and recreating more than ever before.

Australians overall are not as stressed and hard worked as the ACTU ''Census'' suggests.  A reliance on narrow union dominated surveys supported by prize inducements is unlikely to provide any meaningful insights into the attitudes of the broad Australian community.

If the ACTU really wants to get an accurate picture of Australians' attitude to workplace issues, they should commission a genuine scientific survey conducted by a member of the Australian Market and Social Research Society.

ADVERTISEMENT

Government bully girls are just as bad as bully boys

In her recent contribution to the Punch, Tanja Kovac illuminates her readers with a startling observation.  That I am talking about the risks of paternalist policies, colloquially labelled the ''nanny state'', for our economic and social freedoms.

Kovac singles me out for ''whipping off articles condemning the nanny state quicker than you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.''

So why was I singled out for special attention?

Perhaps, in the minds of some pro‑nanny statists, critiques written by female classical liberals and libertarians are nothing more than a passing phase, a strange aberration, or obscure ranting by sisterhood outcasts that should never be spoken about?

So, Tanja Kovac feels a sense of indignation that the description of state paternalism has evolved into a highly gendered metaphor.  I don't know how she would feel, then, if she discovered that the phrase ''nanny state'' replaced the term ''grandmotherly government,'' which appeared in an 1873 edition of The Brisbane Courier?

In all fairness, the fellas don't get off lightly when it comes to gendered metaphors or colloquial phrases.  After all, the term ''big brother'' has been used ever since George Orwell's 1948 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty‑Four to describe governmental invasions of financial and personal privacies.

All of that said it's not Kovac's criticisms of me or my work that I worry about.  What shouldn't be left unchecked are her misguided economic and political strictures based on radical feminist theory.

Much of modern feminism perceives markets (remember, those things that provide us with food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and even paid care) are being fundamentally exploitative, often to the detriment of women.

For example, the American feminist economist Julie Matthaei once described a ''capitalist patriarchy'' whereby ''competition pervades the masculine economic sphere. ... The new ideal ... becomes struggling to advance oneself in the ''dog eat dog'' economic world, in which everyone is out to get you.''

Competition between sellers for buyers in a market might look ruthless, but in fact the outcome is social cooperation as successful transactions secure the peaceful and mutually beneficial exchange of products for money.

As the famous philosopher Sir Henry Maine once wrote markets fundamentally changed the nature of social relationships from ''status'' to ''contract'', meaning that anyone, regardless of race, religious belief, sexual preference or, for that matter, gender can arrange to strike a deal within free and open markets.

Prior to the second and third waves of feminism that barnstormed the Western world from the 1960s, feminists saw as their primary objective the elimination of government restrictions preventing equality of opportunities for both sexes.

This meant liberalising laws enabling women to acquire their own property and to participate in the workforce if they so wished.  The results of the first wave of the feminism project were nothing short of historically transformative.  The labour market opened up, and women were able to earn their own incomes outside the home.

Women today are free to choose any occupation that matches their skills, aptitudes and aspirations.

We see women driving huge trucks carrying iron ore in Western Australia, we see women dedicate time and emotional capital in the paid care of our elderly and disabled, and, yes, female Prime Ministers are now an Australian reality.  And the current debate about female representation on large company boards becomes somewhat irrelevant when we recognise that most small business entrepreneurs are women or, in effect, their own bosses.

Technological innovations, including in electrical whitegoods, and the market outsourcing of some previous aspects of home production, such as child care, have helped make the age‑old feminist agitations over the gendered division of home labour increasingly redundant.  Hubbie can not only mow the lawn but pop the clothes into the washing machine and change baby's nappy for good measure.

So, if we consider that markets are not detrimental to the interests of women or men, what are we to make of government?

Despite all the superlatives that Kovac wishes to attribute to it, the fact is that throughout history government has possessed monopoly power to coercively regulate and tax its citizens.

One might label some of the government's measures as ''nannying'', but perhaps we should really just tell it like it is.  With its powers of coercion in tow the government is a straight out bully, pure and simple.

No amount of skewing parliament's gender composition, such as the aim of Emily's List, can ever change the fact that government was, is, and always will be a bully.

It is cold comfort to feminists, that a female Prime Minister and Health Minister are taking government's bullying to new heights, whether it is alcohol floor prices, tobacco plain packaging, gambling precommitments, punitive carbon and mining taxes and so on. 

It seems that government bully girls are just as bad as bully boys.

The only fair thing to do is sound out concerns about bad public policy regardless of the gender of those pushing them.

ADVERTISEMENT

Medicare needs a shot in the arm

Structural reform of Australian healthcare financing can cut inequity and promote universal choice as well as universal service delivery.

In a society as wealthy as ours it's understandable that Australians support universal access to healthcare.

But accepting this principle and the current one-size-fits-all structure of Medicare are different.  Under the current structure only those who can voluntarily afford to opt out of the system have real choice.

For the rest of us, the government predominantly picks up the tab through wholly taxpayer-funded visits to local GPs and hospitals with restricted choices.

With only some services requiring co-payment most Australians have no real understanding of how much healthcare costs, armed only with anecdotal stories of nightmare scenarios faced by travellers in the United States' messy pseudo-public/private system.

But healthcare in Australia is expensive as well.  And it's going to become more so.

According to the latest Treasury Intergenerational report based on 2009/10 dollars the government's expenditure on total healthcare provision is set to increase three and a half times by the middle of the century.

Considering research consistently finds health expenditure is concentrated in the final months and years of life the looming acute pressure on taxpayers with a dramatically ageing population is quite horrifying.

Today's taxpayers are paying for the managed departure of their grandparents, and there's about to be a lot more of the latter proportionate to the former.

Without reform universal healthcare cannot continue to enjoy funding consistent with current levels of care.  As a consequence individuals will either have to pay more or there will be rationing of services universally enjoyed.

It's essentially the same challenge government faced with the pension resulting in the introduction of compulsory superannuation.

Instead of continuing to provide universal health financing through a top-down government-knows-all-model the government should use the opportunity of this temporary resources boom to restructure our health system toward a bottom-up individual health account system.

Put simply every Australian would have an individual health account that they contribute to on a periodic basis from their income, like superannuation.  That savings account would then be used to pay for healthcare services as required throughout their lifetime.

As outlined earlier, considering the bulk of people's health expenditure occurs at the end of their life people should easily be able to accumulate savings for their final health bill over a lifetime.

The scheme would also need to be complemented with progressive tax cuts as the transfer of the health financing burden shifted from government to individuals.

Healthcare financing accounts for children would need to remain wholly government subsidised since they will not have had the chance to contribute to their own accounts. 

Equalisation subsidies would also be needed for welfare recipients, low-income earners and people with specific diseases to ensure universality and that no one is disadvantaged because of socio-economic status or because they were born with a particular disease.

According to Monash University Academic Just Stoelwinder's research the Dutch system has working equalisation subsidies supporting their compulsory health insurance scheme.

While the intent of health accounts is for individual management through appropriately regulated financial products, the scheme could be designed to allow Australians the choice to take up an insurance alternative to increase service access and pool risk.

The benefits of restructuring Medicare around individual health accounts are manifest.

That's not a tough budget -- this is a tough budget

You might have picked up a theme in Wayne Swan's fourth budget.  It was tough.  How do we know this?  Because the government told us so.

In a major pre-budget speech, Treasurer Wayne Swan said ''tough decisions are required'' and ''this will be a tough Budget''.  Finance Minister Penny Wong, in an interview in the lead up to the budget, used the word ''tough'' more than ten times, including four times in one answer.

But did the reality match the rhetoric?  In his budget speech, Swan announced $22 billion in ''savings'' over the next four years.  Yet much of those so-called savings are actually tax increases like the flood levy, and regardless, they have been almost completely offset by increased spending in other areas.  They've been roundly criticised already for failing to deliver a tough budget.

So what would a really tough budget actually look like?

Here are eight government programs that could have been easily cut and helped return the federal government to surplus earlier:

1. Set top boxes for pensioners:  As David Penberthy wrote yesterday, this one is a no-brainer.  If times are as tough and resources as limited as the government argues, can we really spare well over $300 million on retro-fitting old TVs for pensioners?  Many, if not all, would have bought set top boxes of their own -- for as little as $50 -- or new digital-compatible TVs before the analogue switch off in 2014 in capital cities.

   Savings:  more than $300 million over four years.

2. The Automotive Transformation Scheme:  Governments of all political stripes are guilty of subsidising domestic industries for political reasons and this government is no exception.  For years, the Australian car industry has soaked up literally billions of dollars of taxpayers' money because it often can't compete with international competitors.  But we learnt decades ago that protectionism does not pay in the long run, and these subsidies are an unnecessary cost to the budget.

   Savings:  approximately $650 million over four years.

3. Buy Australian Campaign:  Like the Automotive Transformation Scheme, this is another brainwave from the Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Department.  This multi-million dollar program encourages Australian businesses to buy other Australian businesses products and helps them work out how to sell their products.  If you need a federal government program to work out how to sell your products, perhaps you shouldn't be in business.

   Savings:  approximately $35 million over four years.

4. Harmony Day:  You can thank the former Howard Government for this Orwellian-sounding program which splashes around taxpayers' cash in the aim of creating community harmony.  Sure, community harmony sounds like a nice thing to have, but do we really think it will be delivered via federal grants?  Some of the projects which have received cash in the past sound like jokes from a late night TV show -- such as the $50,000 grant given to the Australian Wrestling Federation to encourage wrestlers not to sledge each other.

   Savings:  Harmony Day is just one of the Immigration and Citizenship Department's ''diversity and social cohesion'' programs.  Cutting all of them could save up to $300 million over four years.

5. Public servant hiring freeze:  In 2010 the Coalition estimated that a freeze on public service hiring, without sacking existing workers, could save the budget billions.  Given the massive expansion of the public service in recent years, it seems reasonable to assume the wheels of government would keep turning without hiring new employees.

   Savings:  up to $3.8 billion over four years.

6. Community Cabinets:  Did you know that this government road show receives $10 million in funding each year?  Pioneered by Kevin Rudd, these Cabinets have clearly been used for political purposes and have no business being funded from our taxes.

   Savings:  $40 million over four years.

7. Youth engagement:  As a young person, you may be surprised to hear my life did not change when the Office for Youth was established in 2008.  Nor is it enhanced today by the Australian Government's Youth Engagement program.  I think most young people will find a way to survive without it.

   Savings:  at least $30 million dollars over four years.

8. International climate change negotiations:  If you thought that international climate change negotiations were a fruitful exercise, hopefully the debacle at Copenhagen disabused you of that notion.  Yet the government is still planning to spend millions of dollars in the vain hope that a massive team of Australian bureaucrats attending these international conferences will affect the outcome.  Instead, Australia could send a skeleton team to future negotiations.

   Savings:  approximately $60 million over four years.

These proposals, totalling more than $5 billion over the next four years, merely scratch the surface of wasteful government spending.  Importantly, none of these are radical measures.  No departments would be closed, and health, defence and education spending would be preserved.  But the federal government's bottom line would be much healthier.

ADVERTISEMENT

It's Friday. Are you even aware of what else today is?

Most of us should be pretty happy it's Friday -- even if it means the end of Tourette Syndrome Awareness Week.

(Tourette Syndrome is never, ever funny.  Not even in this clip.)

If you didn't know, it's actually an inherited disorder involving ''tics'' but for most sufferers it doesn't involve involuntarily saying four letter words that begin with ''s'', ''f'' and occasionally ''c''.  Nor is it probably how namesake George Gilles de la Tourette probably expected to be remembered in history.

But what purpose does Tourette Syndrome Awareness Week actually serve?  More to the point what do Awareness Days, Weeks and Years provide, period?

Awareness Days/Week/Years no doubt started out as a celebration of things that matter.

In 1959/60 the United Nations established the World Refugee Year in the wake of nearly a quarter of a century of war-related migration.

And 1978 celebrated International Anti-Apartheid Year, which sent a pretty clear message to the government of South Africa.

But by 1992 the UN was already clutching at straws by endorsing International Space Year.

And by 2008 they'd tired of space and decided it was the Year for Planet Earth, along with the Year for everything else including Sanitation, Languages and the Potato.

I understand the big pumpkin lobby was pretty pissed about the last one.

And it goes well beyond the UN with Google supporting 2007's Geography Awareness Week which, call me cynical, probably coincided about the same time they were setting up Google Maps.

And then there's Wound Awareness Week to draw attention to the issues facing people with, well, wounds.

Despite my best Googling skills I haven't found much evidence that naming days, weeks or years achieves very much.

After all, while Tourette Syndrome Awareness Week sunsets today, according to the Department of Health, so do National Mothering Week and Motor Neurone Disease Week.

And by Monday we're already in World Homeopathy Awareness Week, Diversional Therapy Awareness Week and Allergy and Chemical Sensitivity Week all enveloped in Neurofibromatosis Awareness Month during the International Year of Forests. 

What they do is provide a focus for awareness activity like tomorrow's conference under the witty banner ''X Don't get cross ... Because I tic!'' which, for a $55 registration fee ($45 for members), you get some lectures and a DVD and brochure ''What is Tourette Syndrome?''.

By comparison, events supporting World Hug Day (21 January) are pretty self explanatory.

No doubt branding plays a big part in their success.  For example, EB Awareness Week uses in its advertising images of a teddy bear with a face made out of a cactus -- apparently that's what a teddy bear feels like for a kid with the rare skin disease Epidermolysis Bullosa.

I suspect it's far more effective branding than the Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health, or AWASH, and their celebration of Salt Awareness Week with its insightful branding ''Danger, Watch out for SALT''.

All jokes aside, these Days/Weeks/Years clearly matter to the people involved.

As someone who works in intellectual property policy I celebrated World IP Day yesterday.

Unsurprisingly I doubt many others were as excited as me and opened a few geographical indication-protected champagne bottles in celebration.

Well actually it was more like trademarked Coke Zero cans.  But you get the gist. 

Because while some days are there for celebration, many are about serious diseases that one day might affect you, which is why we should probably all celebrate July's Continence Awareness Week.

Nanny state's thriving on tax harvested from smokers

The latest move by the Federal Government to make smoking a habit of the past is the latest salvo in the rapid expansion of the nanny state.

Recently the Health Minister Nicola Roxon re-announced the government's intention to force tobacco companies to adopt plain packaging for all cigarette brands.

From next year, smokers will be greeted with a standard olive-green packet emblazoned with graphic health warnings screaming that ''every cigarette is doing you damage''.

With tobacco companies looking to exercise their right to legally challenge the potential loss of trade marks that are represented in existing packaging, the recent ministerial announcement is by no means the end of the matter.

According to statistics supplied by the government's own health preventative taskforce, smoking prevalence amongst the adult male population has fallen from 40 per cent in 1980 to 21 per cent in 2007 with smoking rates lower for females.

In seeking to speed up smoking quit rates the government has relied on two general premises that do not stand up to closer scrutiny.

The government has stated that the costs of treating tobacco-related illnesses, such as lung disease, on the public health system are substantial, and that action is needed to reduce these costs.

However, it is incorrect to regard the pecuniary effects of private actions as an externality and thus it is unclear that the fiscal implications of tobacco use should be of concern to government.

In any case, the amount of tobacco excise fees collected by the government is well in excess of even generous estimates of tobacco consumption costs on the health care system.

The second assertion is that since tobacco is addictive smokers have lost their free will to quit, and so governments should do whatever it takes to nudge people away from Winnie Blues, rollies or Havanas.

Apart from the fact that smokers today are very well informed about the health risks, and choose to stick with their habit, a growing portion of non-smokers today were smokers in the past.

Instead of all the energy and expense involved in hectoring people to quit, an obvious question to ask is why governments could not ban smoking altogether?

Growing evidence from Australia and overseas suggests that high tobacco taxes and official restrictions on legal tobacco sales encourages black markets in the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

In other words, promises by government to make smoking ''history'' are largely empty ones given its vested interest in taxing legal tobacco rather than collecting no tax from illegal black market products.

And, as Rex Jory reported on The Punch earlier this week, groups such as the Cancer Council are agitating for blanket bans on smoking in private residences such as apartments.

This comes on the back of reports earlier this year of apartment owners in Sydney's inner west which are looking to ban smoking inside flats and even on breezy balconies.

These ideas flagrantly violate the age-old notion that one's home is one's castle and that anyone who seeks to violate what we do in our own private home space is tantamount to raiding our castle.

While most non-smokers might look dimly on the rights of smokers to indulge their habit, there is a fundamental issue at stake affecting all Australians.

At what point does the government stop interfering with individual rights to enjoy pleasures, even guilty ones that cause individual harm in some cases?

As the economist James Buchanan wrote in 1986:

Let those who would use the political process to impose their preferences on the behavior of others be wary of the threat to their own liberties ... The apparent costlessness of restricting the liberties of others through politics is deceptive.  The liberties of some cannot readily be restricted without limiting the liberties of all.

So, like to indulge in an occasional flutter on the pokies or a punt on Black Caviar?  Enjoy a burger with fries on the weekend?

Governments are increasingly interfering with our choices in these areas, too, which in some instances could never have been contemplated even in the recent past.

Many of us may not agree with the habit of smoking, but there are inherent risks in the majority of us consenting to the fiscal and regulatory exploitation of a minority of smokers.

This is because, just as the economist Buchanan warned over twenty years ago, we just might find nanny governments gradually taking away our rights to choose in many other areas of life.

Carbon Bob: Can he fix it?

I mean, take environmental progressive Bob.  Bob's a model citizen and busy man trying to save the world from the hundreds of big bad carbon polluters required by law to report their environmental vandalism to the government.

He starts by using his mobile phone as an alarm clock in his Canberra bedroom.  (Telstra:  emissions of 1.43 million tonnes CO₂ in 2009-10).  It's cold this morning, so Bob's gotta have an environmentally considerate 4 minute shower to get clean and warm for the trip up the hill (ACTEW Corporation:  219,000t CO₂).

And that lentil stew from last night didn't sit right in his stomach (Kimberly Clark Pacific Holdings Pty Ltd:  370,000t CO₂).

He has baked beans (Heinz Watties:  90,000t CO₂) on toast and a coffee (Nestle Australia Ltd:  208,000t CO₂) with a dash of milk (Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co Limited:  638,000t CO₂) while reading his favoured Sydney Morning Herald and The Age online (Fairfax Media Limited:  97,200t CO₂).

He resents the fact that he needs to read The Daily Telegraph and The Australian (News Australia Holdings Pty Ltd:  128,100t CO₂) to see how the enemies of the future are justifying the raping of the planet.  But it's all part of Bob's job.

It's actually too cold to walk to work today so he gets picked up by his chauffeur-driven Prius (Toyota Motor Corp:  170,261t CO₂ and Caltex Australia:  2.1 million t CO₂) to the big doors on one of the four sides of his office building.

After some early media commitments about how only he can be trusted to save the planet, Bob hosts morning tea with staff.

It's Christine's birthday so there are some celebratory Arrowroot biscuits (Arnotts Biscuits Holdings:  91,000t CO₂) bought from a local supermarket (Woolworths Ltd:  2.8 million t CO₂) and cheese (Bega Cheese Ltd:  136,223t CO₂) bought from Coles (Wesfarmers Ltd:  5.2 million t CO₂) at the nearby Woden shopping centre (Westfield Holdings Limited:  339,000t CO₂).

Bob doesn't like tea so he sips from a Diet Coke (Coca Cola Amatil:  185,396t CO₂) from his big leathery, Australian-made chair.

And the regularly hazed non-vegan staff member eats his cold cuts (Nippon Meat Packers:  113,257t CO₂) from another local store (Aldi Stores:  172,987t CO₂) in the dunce's corner.

After morning tea, his staff make arrangements for a business class flight to Sydney Airport (Qantas:  4.18 million t CO₂ and Southern Cross Airports Corporation Holdings:  92,935t CO₂) with a donor who'll pay for TV ads before taking another flight (Virgin Blue Holdings Ltd:  1.74 million t CO₂) to Melbourne.

In Melbourne he's the guest of honour at a cocktail party with green carbon investors including representatives from banks (Westpac:  194,300t CO₂), National Australia Bank (158,268t CO₂) and other investors (Macquarie Group Limited:  98,347t CO₂ and AMP 180,458t CO₂).

Those at the function help themselves to the beer (Lion Nathan National Foods:  391,949t CO₂), Pinot Gris (Fosters Group:  233,899t CO₂), and delicious chicken bites (Baiada Pty Limited:  305,049t CO₂).

But being environmentally conscious Bob prefers a soy yoghurt (Parmalat Australia Ltd:  103,390t CO₂) and tap water (Melbourne Water Corporation:  420,035t CO₂).

Bob gives an inspiring address about the importance of cutting global carbon emissions to a standing ovation from the supportive university faculty members (University of Melbourne:  135,493t CO₂) also in attendance.

He just hopes he was convincing while he wipes sweat from his brow (SCA Tissue Australia Pty Limited:  226,592t CO₂) because the lights were bright and the room was hot because the air-conditioning was a little too low (Origin Energy:  1.926 million t CO₂).

It's been a long day so Bob gets frustrated that his trip to the hotel (Mirvac Ltd:  246,707t CO₂) in a Holden Statesman (General Motors:  150,813t CO₂) is delayed, but was relieved to see the traffic jam was caused by an ambulance taking an accident victim to a nearby hospital (Ramsay Health Care:  166,330t CO₂).

The day ends where it started -- in a hotel room where he boots up his notebook (IBM A/NZ Holdings:  99,927t CO₂) and sends some emails, including one about a direct mail (Australian Postal Corporation:  309,999t CO₂) to his supporters.

Some dedicated volunteers drop by to discuss a forthcoming protest march against big polluters and order Domino's vegetarian pizza (Competitive Foods Australia:  142,187t CO₂) before then they realise there's a 24 hour ''restaurant'' serving fish burgers downstairs and go there (McDonald's Australia:  131,862t CO₂) as they leave Bob's room for the night.

Finally Bob's alone and can go to bed after a productive day realising he's part of the greenhouse gas solution, while the big bad polluters remain the problem.

It's better to take Q&A as a comment, not democracy

Why didn't the Q&A shoe thrower Peter Gray toss former Prime Minister John Howard a lamington instead?

Taking his cue from an Iraqi journalist, turned footwear rejecter, who flung his possessions at then US President George W Bush, Gray in one unoriginal act exposed the limitations of the Q&A program as an uninhibited experiment in deliberative democracy.

According to the program's website, Q&A aims to place punters, pollies and pundits together to ''thrash out'' the hot issues of the week.  Think of it as the political equivalent of a WWE steel cage match.

The website also insists ''it doesn't matter who you are, or where you're from -- everyone can have a go and take it up to our politicians and opinion makers.''  Gray certainly took this calling to heart, and later proceeded (perhaps in a shoeless state) to hyperbolically claim that Howard is a ''war criminal''.

It is understandable why the format of the program, with insider politicians subjected to critical questioning by outsider citizens, would prove to be an attractive hour of television viewing for many.

With the act and consequences of political action often falling short of their objectives it is also clear why numerous people may wish to submit questions or Tweet messages that, ahem, exhort the likes of Gray to throw shoes at political panelists they don't like.

However to objectively call Q&A a successful application of Australian ''democracy in action'' would be grossly stretching the argument on two counts.

A mere 656,000 people witnessed the shoe debacle this week (for the record, I finished watching the ''Vampire Diaries'' on Channel Go! and settled in for the night browsing online).  That same evening, considerably greater numbers of Australians watched Today Tonight (Seven) (1.33 million viewers), A Current Affair (Nine) (1.07 million) and The 7pm Project (Ten) (752,000 viewers).

The important point to emphasise is that Q&A does not attract mainstream attention, even though it might enjoy a ''shoe echo'' improvement in its ratings next week.

Arguably, nor should Q&A be receiving any special attention above the light entertainment options on other channels or elsewhere since, after all, the political panel will respond to questions with their normally dismissive spin.

In any case, the ''hot issues'' of today become yesterday's news tomorrow and, besides, the chances that a given individual's vote will be decisive at the next election is infinitesimal.

What Q&A tends to draw for a crowd are the political junkies, the lobbyists, the pressure group flunkies, and those with intense single-issue opinions on sometimes rather obscure issues.

The idea that Q&A should be a riotous, unabashed celebration for the intense to say whatever they want to say, and do whatever they want to do, leads to the disrepectful outbursts waged by the likes of Gray where strength of feeling, rather than consequences, are applauded.

Instead of shoe-throwing or verbal barbs expressed by the Twitterati on a television program gone awry, there is arguably a much better place to register one's intensity of preferences concerning political opinion -- and that is votes for preferred candidates for the Australian Senate.

I suspect like many other Australians if I want entertainment I won't go to a current affairs program, ''democracy in action'' or otherwise.  We'll keep tuning into entertainment programs provided by the commercial channels or, in my own case, watch romantic vampires followed by surfing the far more interesting Internet.

ADVERTISEMENT

7.30 meltdown shows PM is hot under the collar

Kevin Rudd's "passionate" outburst on climate change during an interview with the 7.30 Report's Kerry O'Brien on Wednesday night shows he's out of touch with voters as much as his temper.

In response to criticism that he lacks the political kahunas to go to a double-dissolution on climate change Rudd said professed "Penny Wong and I sat up for three days and three nights (at Copenhagen) with 20 leaders from around the world to try and frame a global agreement.  Now it might be easy for you to sit in 7.30 Report land and say that was easy to do.  Let me tell you mate, it wasn't".

And the tone of Rudd's voice suggests it wasn't just in Copenhagen that he was getting sleepless nights and by the emphasis he put on the word "mate" it was probably code for something else.

But the problem for Rudd is that voters clearly don't share his feigned outrage.

Results from a Galaxy poll we recently commissioned showed that 65 per cent of Australians now believe that climate change is entirely natural or the science is contestable.

Australian poll figures on this subject are not unique.  A February Ipsos Mori poll from the United Kingdom saw a drop of public support for the number of people who believe climate change is "definitely" happening dropping from 44 per cent to a mere 31 per cent.  And the number of people who thought concerns about climate change are exaggerated doubled from the previous year.  It's probably why climate change barely factored in the UK election.

Similarly a March poll from the US found that just under half of all Americans think that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated.  And this result wasn't a one-off with the number doubting the seriousness increasing four years in a row.

But despite the current dip in support for the science of climate change, no one should doubt that the issue is going away.

Next week the conference equivalent of Mecca for climate change sceptics is being held in Chicago to address the future of climate change science and economics.

The Heartland Institute's 4th International Conference on Climate Change themed on reconsidering the economics and climate change is likely to be a balance of serious policy discussion and triumphalism from opponents of the US' cap-and-trade scheme and Australia's ETS scheme.

But sceptics shouldn't think they've slayed the climate beast for good.

In this week's budget the government included a $30 million propaganda campaign to run print, radio, television and web-based campaigns to give confidence to voters that the dodgy science in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth assessment report was just an accident.

The problem for Rudd is clearly that most voters clearly don't share his view or his passion on climate change anymore.  And instead voters are reading the science of climate change with the same cynicism that they're taking to Rudd's outbursts.

ADVERTISEMENT

The perils of a fat tax

If the legislation for the Orwellian-sounding Australian National Preventive Health Agency passes, then expect an avalanche of make-work exercises by the Agency all for the cause of making us healthier.

Armed with a budget of $133 million of your money over four years, the agency would get to work advising commonwealth and state health ministers about health issues surrounding alcohol and tobacco consumption and obesity.

It will look to create new policies about interventions in settings such as schools, workplaces and communities.

Backed by an exponential funding increase for "social marketing" in its first two years, the health nanny agency is setting itself up to be a pestering one.

Perhaps the only respite for ordinary Australians from the agency's push-marketing will be in their sleep.

The agency will also administer research grants from a "preventive health research fund" to universities, academics, states and territories and NGOs.

The public health lobby will be keen to hitch a ride on that fiscal (gluten­free) gravy train, and perhaps the climate change vegans will want their share of the budgetary lentil soup too.

The research script for the agency is already mapped out in the form of the final report of the National Preventative Health Taskforce.  The problem with that is the taskforce report gave scant regard for any evidence critical of its paternalist policy inclinations.

This sets a worrying precedent for the future under a preventive health agency.  With little effective internal or external restraints imposed on it, the agency will likely present findings confirming the interventionist leanings of health ministers keen to change what we eat, drink and inhale.

One area the agency will be keen to sink its teeth into (excuse the pun!) would be on the issue of an Australian fat tax, to possibly add to the distortionary hodge­podge of 125 different taxes already levied by governments.

The health taskforce report stated that a corrective fat tax might be needed to shift production incentives so that manufacturers produce healthier foods, and also re-weight consumer choices by lowering spending on fatty and sugary foods and drinks.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the taskforce recommended a commission to review how taxation, grants, pricing, incentives and subsidies could "decrease production, promotion and consumption of unhealthy food and beverage products."

Such a review is likely to be one of the preventive health agency's first items of work.

While the health nannies suggest that a fat tax will discourage unhealthy consumption, and help fund the health costs of obesity, the research base in favour of this tax grab is not strong.

A study by researchers at the University of California Berkeley find that a ten per cent fat tax on dairy products such as whole milk, cheese, ice cream and margarine will raise more revenue for governments, but will not lead to significant reduction in consumption.

The taxes are also likely to be regressive, hitting poor families harder than the rich.

The researchers state "people could reduce their consumption of fattier products without government intervention.  Forcing them to do so by raising prices lowers their short­run welfare."

A paper presented to the 2006 international agricultural economics conference found that a fat tax on meats to fund social marketing efforts may actually increase total fat consumption.  This is because consumers will switch to poorer, less nutritional cuts of meat.

American researchers Michael Anderson and Daniel Matsa wrote a paper last year finding no evidence of a causal link between restaurants and obesity.

When considering the effect of a fat tax of 50 per cent on restaurant meals, they also concluded that "although a restaurant 'fat tax' would have little effect on obesity, it could produce substantial dead-weight losses" that reduce consumer welfare.

An active front for the nanny statists "let's tax obese people" crusade in the US at least has been the idea, supported by Barack Obama, to levy a national soft drink tax.

A study by Fletcher, Frisvold and Tefft analysed the impact of changes in US state soft drink taxation rates from 1990 to 2006 on changes in the body mass index.  It found that a one percentage point increase in tax rates reduced average adult BMI by a miniscule 0.003 points.

Of course, Australia already has its own implicit "fat tax" in the form of the GST.  According to former Democrats leader and GST negotiating powerbroker Meg Lees, the GST "serves public health interests in that the price of fresh, healthy food would actually fall but the price of some junk food would rise."

However, ABS data on turnover in the takeaway food retailing industry shows that sales have increased since 2000 implying an increase in food consumption.

Data from the household expenditure survey also indicates that average weekly household consumption of fast food rose between 1998­-99 and 2003­-04.

There is enough evidence to suggest that a fat tax would do a fat lot of food for reducing obesity prevalence.

If the preventive health agency becomes a reality, one can be almost certain it will waste precious time and scarce resources on potentially self-defeating nanny policies.

ADVERTISEMENT

Poor palmed off by a load of old monkeys

In a choice between the life of a cute, fuzzy orang-utan and tighter food labelling regulations, who'd be surprised if the orang-utan won?

It's what Melbourne Zoo is betting on in their campaign to have Food Standards Australia New Zealand regulate palm oil to be labelled as a separate ingredient on groceries.

Melbourne Zoo's campaign is predicated on concerns that the developing country farmers aren't doing enough to stop deforestation and the loss of habitat for orang-utans in their quest to keep themselves above the poverty line.  And the solution is a misguided campaign to stop Aussies and Kiwis buying palm oil.

But a win for those cute, baby orang-utans is a loss for cute, baby rural Indonesians and Malaysians whose families rely on palm oil for their livelihoods.

Deforestation occurs because poor rural communities want to lift themselves out of poverty, and the best way they know how is to grow agriculture commodities that people want to buy.

Palm oil is grown in developing countries for the same reason that most farmers grow agriculture commodities -- it is profitable.  And in the case of palm oil it's conveniently in demand domestically and for export because it's used in many household food items that require oil ingredients.

Less palm oil consumed in developed countries means that either other crops will be grown in their place, or developing markets will be flooded with cheap oil.  And since one million of the world's poor die from Vitamin A deficiencies, and palm oil is Vitamin A rich, demand isn't likely to drop.

Its economic importance is underlined with more than one million Indonesians and Malaysians dependent on the industry for their livelihood.  And from the total area of palm oil grown 40 per cent is gown by smallholders in Malaysia, and reaches 45 per cent in Indonesia.

The irony is that palm oil actually limits environmental degradation because it has a four-fold yield potential from other oil seeds.  If farmers switched they'd need more resources to produce less.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but the best way to improve the environment in poor countries isn't to stop them developing, it is to help them prosper.  All over the world the evidence shows that as societies become richer they're more concerned about, and can afford, to protect their environment.

But so long as poor palm oil growers are worrying about where their next meal is coming from, concerns about the environment are likely to come second.

It's a decision that looms much larger than that of armchair environmentalists who are concerned that they can't tell whether palm oil is an ingredient in their potato chips.

The nanny state will nag you to death

This week parliament will debate a bill to establish a national Preventive Health Agency, reminding of that classic Mark Twain observation:  nobody is safe while the legislature is in session.

On The Punch Federal health minister Nicola Roxon insisted that she was no nanny statist, and that the purpose of the Agency was about saving lives and reducing health costs.

Most modern governments understand the follies of outright bans, such as the failed US Prohibition movement from 1919 to 1933.  However, the Agency plans what it sees as the next best thing.

With a total budget of $133 million over four years, it intends to tax and regulate your booze, ciggies and fast food that it's more expensive or harder to get.

Minister Roxon denies that the Agency will embark on a nagging agenda.  However it plans to spend $2 million this financial year on marketing campaigns about stuff you know already.  (Really?  Over-indulging in junk food has health consequences?)

So if that's not nagging, then exactly what is it?

The following year, in 2010-11, the proposed Agency intends to go into a healthy living ad campaign overdrive with the marketing budget lifted to $33.8 million.

That would represent a seventeen-fold increase in taxpayer-financed spending devoted to hectoring and cajoling you to skip your Friday night pizza and Tim Tams with coffee.

The other element of the Preventive Health Agency is more money, or $13 million over four years, thrown at what the Minister describes as translating research into practice.

What that essentially means is new opportunities for public health boffins to get out of universities and into plush government secondments.

Once this occurs, they will be set the task of writing a stack of papers about ingenious ways to nudge people into a ciggie-free, teetotalling life with no hamburgers or Mars Bars.

Those tasks pretty much amount to what the public health lobby do already, except that poor Joe (or Joanne) Average get slugged with a tax bill for the privilege.

It can also be argued that there are more effective research paths to help improve our health and life expectancy.

Think of the serious, cutting-edge research and development into new drugs by pharmaceutical companies that often require billions of dollars but promise massive payoffs.

One should take the assurances of the Minister and the public health lobby that the costs of the Preventive Health Agency are small, and will always be small, with grains if not buckets of salt.

The Bill being debated in parliament states that the Agency must develop triennial year strategic plans for health improvement, backed by annual plans relating to the strategic plan.

These plans present an open-ended recipe for a fiscal cost blowout.  They rely, in part, on state governments and other entities being able to deliver desired preventive health outcomes on behalf of the federal government.

If the Minister or her senior bureaucrats feel that the plans are ineffective, or that the pace of health improvement is too slow for their liking, then even more dollops of funding will likely go to the Agency.

Minister Roxon likes to portray her critics as a hysterical bunch that cares little about the desirability of good health.  The Minister can continue to trumpet this line at her political peril.

A recent analysis of media coverage of the Preventative Health Taskforce, which will surely inspire the activities of the proposed Agency, shows that public opinion was overwhelmingly against greater paternalism in health.

Average Australians that responded to the Taskforce report expressed concern about potential increases in taxes and regulations, as well as infringement on civil liberties.

The Minister may protest that the Agency will not ban goods seen as unhealthy, but will instead seek to nudge people towards a healthier path to living.

Assuming that no Australian listens to the braying of the proposed nanny health agency, and goes on eating, drinking and smoking as before, there will still be significant costs imposed.

This is because, no matter what we do, we won't be able to avoid increased taxes on alcohol, tobacco and fast foods if they come to light.

We won't be able to avoid the pain of higher prices at the checkout as businesses are forced to pass on the costs of more intrusive regulations.

Australians certainly won't be able to bypass the fiscal burden of paying for Preventive Health Agency administration.

Whichever way one looks at it, Nanny Nicola is coming to a bottle shop, takeaway food bar and tobacco retail outlet near you if the legislation passes.

Australian authors on Clown Street over book prices

Tim Winton is the master of fiction.  But his latest tirades prove he doesn't understand when reality kicks in.

Last week Winton won a fourth Miles Franklin Award for his book, Breath.  And to celebrate he used his moment in the spotlight to attack the Productivity Commission's review to scrap protection for Australia's book industry.

Parallel import restrictions require books sold in Australia to be produced in Australia.  It's an idea so bad the New South Wales government could have thought of it.

The PC is releasing its final report at the end of the month.  The draft recommended partial-liberalisation, because exposing Australia's book industry to competition is a bridge-too-far.

And even that recommendation has caused alarm bells.  Fellow author, Peter Carey, has attacked liberalisation as a form of "cultural self-suicide".  And Winton has previously slammed liberalisation arguing it will result in "great bitterness" amongst Australia's authors.

Authors been deceitfully whipped into a lather by the publishing and printing industries who want to ensure books are more expensive than they need be, delivering profits to line their pockets.

The publishers and printers argue that import restrictions stop competition that would crush the industry, while guaranteeing jobs stay in Australia;  and the minimal extra cost is added to the price tag of a paperback that can be significantly cheaper overseas.

And in arguing their case, they've convinced authors that liberalisation will also diminish their copyright.  They clearly don't understand the nature of copyright.

In a book there are two property rights.  The first is the physical book -- the paper, binding and printing ink.  The second is the copyright, which is basically the idea expressed through the arrangement of the letters printed on the pages.

Without the copyrighted text a book is just something to jot notes onto.

Import restrictions exist to protect the physical book, not the copyright.  So long as the book is produced in a country where Australian copyright is respected and royalties are paid, Winton's copyright is safe.  And if it doesn't, the book's a fake in the Australian market and can be pulped.

Similarly the authors claim the industry will stop seeding new talent with cross-subsidies of the profits from existing authors.

But the evidence doesn't support them.  In my recent study, Unbinding Book Barriers, industry data is analysed to assess the impact of removing import restrictions in 1998 on copyrighted sound recordings, read CDs.

The results are clear.  The total funds distributed are up.  The total number of recipients of royalties is up.  And the wholesale price of CD albums is down by 32 per cent.

Winton's real beef is that authors get paid diddly-squat.  And he's right.  But most earn diddly-squat because they write things people don't want to read.

And Winton knows it.  In his submission to the Productivity Commission's review he says he has "enjoyed considerable critical and commercial success".  He does so because he produces fiction that people want.  Not because of any import restrictions.  They just go toward beefing-up the salaries of publishing executives.

But the greatest irony of Winton's criticism is that in his own submission he uses evidence of the failings of import restrictions to justify their perpetuity.  Winton argues that when he first started being published Aussie authors could be "edited and published in Australia and forego a British readership entirely, or to have work originate from London and have Australian(s buy) imports".

He's right.  That was because of market segmentation through import restrictions that were partially liberalised in the early 1990s.

Australian authors, publishers and printing companies will do well when they adhere to the simple principle of "supplying" what consumers "demand" -- and that's an interesting read.

In the meantime authors seem happy to enjoy protection that author, Di Bates, hails as essential to stop Australia being "flooded with cheaper book(s)".  Because the income streams of our less-talented of authors is a higher national priority than making tools for education more affordable.