Olympics bleh

There was a time when I watched the Olympics with suitable patriotic pride and interest. Then came the baloney of the Sydney bid which I observed at first hand on behalf of businesses desperate to jump on the gravy train, and got an appreciation of the unbelievable snobbery and preciousness that afflicts so much of the ‘Olympic family’, as they are pleased to style themselves. When it takes the person you are going to visit on business 10 minutes to make a cup of coffee in a $200 plunger while he talks about blends and brews and other nonsense, you know you are in the presence of gold medal wankers.

Then of course came the deluge of drug stories and the ugly jingoism that was rampant in Sydney and subsequently, and now I couldn’t give a continental if we win a single medal in Beijing. They could cancel the whole event for all I care. I’ll get much more fun watching the local school athletics carnival.

Maybe I’m in a minority, however, because today we get this story:

The Federal Government has been warned that Australia will slip out of the world’s top five Olympic nations if sports funding is not drastically increased.

The speaker is John Coates, who admittedly is not such a prize Olympic snob as Kevin Gosper but that isn’t saying a lot. My reaction is to ask why anybody would be disappointed if we are not in the top 5 Olympic nations; indeed to be amazed that anyone would expect Australia to be there in the first place. I would have thought that the great Australian inferiority complex which compelled us to be the best in sport cos we have beaches and stuff was well and truly on the wane. All other things being equal, sporting achievements should roughly reflect a nation’s share of the global population and the amount of money it is prepared to devote to coaching and training programs.On that basis Australia should expect to win an occasional medal along with Finland and Iraq unless it wants to spend an entirely disproportionate amount of national wealth on sporting programs … which of course is exactly what has been happening.

But not enough to please the sportocracy. There is never enough for them.

“It is a very big challenge and I don’t expect that there will be more money forthcoming in this week’s Budget for sport, but gee there’s got to be more money sometime not too far into 2009 if we’re going to get good results in 2012.”

If sportspeople had at least to participate in a HECS-type scheme to fund their endless demands on the public purse it might be a good start to reforming the system and justifying more taxpayer support, but any suggestion along those lines is invariably met with howls of outrage. They even protested loudly about a ruling that their winnings should be taxable income. Hints that sporting celebrities are just making a living like anybody else and should be treated accordingly are greeted with gasps of horror. They are representing their nation, don’t you know, and making incredible sacrifices in the process.

Self-serving garbage. They’re like the students who expect special consideration in assessment because they’ve been ‘representing the university’ at some games somewhere, when in fact they’ve been having the time of their lives at a terrific social event subsidised heavily by the student’s union (although not so heavily as when membership was compulsory).

Coates maintains that ‘the Australian public will not put up with being unsuccessful at the Olympics.’ Well I wonder if that is really the case, especially if the Australian public knew how many hundreds of millions of dollars are devoted to elite sport and what else that money could buy if it was spent on other public services. I’d like to see some proper research rather than rely on John Coates’ assertion.

I think Coates would be well-advised to STFU and be grateful for what he gets now. Stirring the pot and making vague threats to try to extract even more money from us might prove to be a very counter-productive move.

School improvements

It’s taken a while, but the improvements to the school in the Philippines are slowly being done.

Some practical aspects of the exercise proved to be quite difficult. For example, Filipinos don’t build things like this using Australian contractual arrangements. They buy some materials and pay workers 200 pesos a day to build what they want. When the money runs out they just stop and the project sits there until they can find some more, when they’ll build another bit. So it took a while to get a reasonably precise description of the works and a firm quote.

Once that had been accomplished it took more time and effort to work out how to transfer the money. I had naively suggested sending it to the school bank account but they don’t have one, or at least not one that they can use for this kind of transaction. I transferred some from my bank to the school principal’s bank but the bank fees were horrendous: $20 at this end and a cool 10% of the total sum at the other end. I ended up sending it through a commercial transfer company which was reasonably priced but not something a firm of auditors would have liked.

Anyway it’s up and running now as you can see. At least the kids and teachers won’t get wet and muddy now when it rains, or at least not as muddy as they used to get. I’ve also sent 300 bags so all the kids will have something to use to carry their bits and pieces, and I’ll send some other stuff soon. Again the cost is appalling - about $30 flag fall plus $10 a kilo via Australia Post - so I’m being very selective in what goes in the box.

Many thanks to all who were so generous with donations. I can assure you that the money has made a significant impact and will continue to do so.

I hate the ATO

The Australian Tax Office and the system it administers suck.

For years now I have submitted my own tax return, using the eTax online software. I ask for my refund to be deposited direct to my bank account. You would think therefore that it would occur to the ATO that I don’t have much use for snail mail.

But no, yesterday 2 May I collected one of their regular harassing letters from my PO box that I clear about once every 10 days. For whatever reason, they didn’t adopt normal 2008 business practice and send it electronically … they didn’t even have the courtesy to email me and tell me to expect a letter. No, they just sent a letter out of the blue, dated 15 April, telling me if they hadn’t got my response by 29 April I’ll be in deep shit.

Wankers.

The letter queries the work-related expenses that I claimed in 2006/07. I got a similar one a few years ago. It demands that I explain why I believe I am entitled to claim these expenses and detail the evidence I have for the expenditure, giving a space about the size of a postage stamp to respond. The letter is peppered with invitations to admit that I am a fraudulent liar, but if I make a full confession the ATO might graciously reduce the penalties that they inflict on me.

Arseholes.

In fact, for as long as I can remember, I have deliberately understated the deductions that I claim on my tax return for the explicit purpose of avoiding this kind of petty bureaucratic badgering. The whole income tax system is designed to make it hard for ordinary citizens to claim all the deductions to which they are entitled. Every time I fill out a return I am made to feel guilty because I want some of my own money back. Yet the methodology of the ATO is clear: anybody who fails to make a tax agent rich and/or who dares to exceed the absurdly low ‘normal’ limits on work-related expenses will be hassled and harassed until they conform to their preferred practices.

Over the last 15 years I’ve worked as a self-employed consultant and as a casual/contract employee. I paid virtually no tax on my earnings as a consultant; consultants can claim just about anything as a legitimate business expense. If i had had a dog I reckon I could have claimed the Pal Meatybites as a business expense because the dog was guarding the office. Being self-employed in Australia is a formula for freeing yourself of income tax forever.

At all costs, however, avoid doing the same work as a casual employee. As a casual employee you will be expected to drive in your own car to work at various locations - all of which would be legitimate business expenses if you were self-employed - but as far as the ATO is concerned, any claim for work-related use of your private vehicle is highly suspicious. You will be expected to work from home, because the ‘office facilities’ that your employer makes available are appalling or non-existent, but the ATO will want you to produce receipts for every last pencil and printer cartridge. Not only that, but you will be expected to produce detailed logs of your telephone and internet usage to justify a claim that some proportion is work-related. And even though my doctoral studies are funded by FEE-HELP, all details of which are available to the ATO because it has to calculate how much I have to pay back each year, I am still expected to produce documents proving how much I have spent on my doctoral studies.

Fuckwits.

The thing about this which really pisses me off is that permanent employees get all this stuff laid on for free. They don’t have income tax problems. Not only do they get to do all their work on their employer’s telephones and office equipment and internet, they also get to use it for half their private business too. Where I work, permanent workers get their postgraduate fees paid by their employer - it’s only casuals who have been employed for 6 or 7 years on a series of short-term contracts who have to go into debt to pay enrolment fees. So casual workers get hit twice: once by having to fund all this crap themselves instead of getting it as a work perk and again when the ATO comes blundering in officiously hinting strongly that the casual worker is a lying bastard trying to rip off the government.

They really give me the shits.

Of course the long-term objective is the one that Cut’n'Run Peter Costello wanted to achieve … cut out work-related expenses altogether. Give permanent workers yet another tax cut to compensate them for their non-existent losses, and cut out work-related expenses for casuals and contract workers, which at a conservative estimate would cost me at least $4,000 a year. That’s how much I would end up subsidising my various employers by providing office equipment and services used for their purposes when they have to provide the same things to permanent workers at the employer’s expense.

The system stinks. And you know what? I reckon after Kevin’s ‘comprehensive review’ it will stink even more.

Cutting the MSM apron strings

Do you occasionally have moments of sudden, brilliant insight? When you’re sober, I mean. Moments when the truth about a previously unexamined part of your life becomes stunningly clear and you see a new future opening up before you?

Well tough luck if you don’t, because I do. I had another one today. This wasn’t quite as life-changing as a few previous ones like the I-should-pack-up-and-leave-Sydney or the I-should accept-that-job moments but in its own modest way it’s overturned a lifetime of custom and practice. You see, I’ve decided to ditch mainstream media.

Let me explain.

Certain habits in my family go back a long way. One is the 7 pm ABC news bulletin. The wireless version was kind of a defining part of the evening in my childhood and I know from family mythology that the practice dates back at least to the Second World War. Once television arrived the nightly ABC News was a seven day a week ritual.

Same with the Fairfax newspapers. The local newsagent delivered the Sydney Morning Herald every morning and dad came home with the Sydney Sun each week night. Once I grew to a man’s estate I did the same, after switching to the Telegraph for a while in a show of youthful rebellion only to be repelled at the rancid populist muck it publishes every day. Lying in bed with the Sun-Herald while the rest of the family went to church was one of the great pleasures of my adolescence.

Since those days in the long distant past, my days have been unconsciously anchored by two things (the Sun vanished many years ago): getting the Herald in the morning and watching the ABC News at night. Oh sure, a few years ago I realised that I had got to page 34 of the Sun Herald before I actually paused to read anything, and vowed never again to buy a Sunday newspaper, but the other six days a week I was hooked. I was so addicted I resented the fact that no newspapers were published on Christmas Day.

Since I became an internet news junkie, however, things have changed. These days I catch up on the news via Google Reader while I shave. I noticed that the nightly ABC News resembled nothing so much as a talking head reading highlights of the first few pages of the Sydney Morning Herald, which in turn did little more than regurgitate stuff I had already read online. Even so, I couldn’t break the habits of a lifetime until today, when one tiny event caused that moment of startling clarity that I mentioned at the beginning.

I went to buy my Herald as usual and was charged $1 over the normal price. Fairfax started this nice little earner a few years ago: they publish all the Saturday classifieds and extra supplements on a Friday before a long weekend and charge Saturday prices; then on Saturday you have to buy the same hefty bundle of crap a second time for the same inflated price. Walking back to my car to get my extra buck I remembered all the times lately I chucked the paper out before I even read it and I kept on walking. And since I have now discarded that part of the day devoted to reading the newspaper it just seems natural to ditch the nightly news as well. If nothing else, it will be good for my blood pressure not to have to watch Our ABC showing endless stories about Alexander Downer and Sophie bleedin’ Scott telling us about the latest medical miracle.

That’s at least an hour a day of my life reclaimed. It’s like the day I realised it was cool to swap my briefs for boxers … I feel so liberated.

Organ donors?

No posts lately. Too much work. Marking … bah!

But some things are too good not to share.

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

Some people … honestly

There are some people on all sides of politics who do their cause no good whatsoever by the style of their contributions to public policy discussions. They react to code words or phrases with an outpouring of emotion and hyperbole, drowning out any rational discussion in the process.

The ABC is a good example. Several times I have written that ABC TV (which is far from being the whole organisation) should be sold and the ABC should be revitalised with a new charter. Very little informed discussion followed because the conversation was immediately overwhelmed with cries of outrage that anyone should want to privatise the ABC … which of course had never been suggested.

Something similar happened on my own blog when I mused about the personal qualities of gun nuts. Instantly, commenters descended in righteous fury to explain that there were no links at all between gun regulation and the incidence of crime, which while untrue had nothing whatsoever to do with my post.

There was another example recently when a few journalists played the old, old game of ’something’s in the budget cos the government refuses to deny it’. This time the subject of the speculation was the so-called carer’s bonus (quickly joined by the ’senior’s bonus’). No matter that no decision had been made and it was all a media beat-up; the moral indignation flew thick and fast. Rudd was a low-life bastard totally lacking in compassion and if he didn’t change his mind they’d never vote for him again, ran the more emotional outbursts.

Now we have the non-story that the government wants to change the law to let employers read your emails!!! Once again, this has set off reflexive hair trigger explosions of outrage all over the place. Here, for example:

All you need to know about the ridiculous proposition that employers should be able to access employees’ emails is summed up in this tagline - “Gillard: All Workers are Possible Terrorists”.

Is there any limit to the absurdity of intrusions into privacy and civil liberties in the name of national security?

What’s absurd is the suggestion that employers being able to supervise what their employees do in the employer’s time with the employer’s equipment is a breach of civil liberties or infringes a worker’s privacy. There’s more here:

‘Yep, just another BS excuse to slowly but surely restrict our freedom’ runs one comment.

‘Once centuries-old freedoms are lost it will be all but impossible to ever reclaim them. Freedoms were not handed to the people by the goodwill of politicians and governments. They were the product of long difficult evolution and struggle’ starts another.

A third argues ‘I see little difference between this & opening our letter mail & reading it to see if we are “unsavoury”.’

All this bluster and bloviation without anyone being aware of what the government is actually proposing and without any apparent understanding of the existing legal principles. Nor is there any attempt made to develop a reasoned argument why it is wrong for employers to read workers’ emails; there’s just this over-the-top response of “OMG look what the bastards are doing now what is our world coming to I don’t know where it will all end.” It’s like some people just can’t wait to explode into righteous indignation about something.

Of course employers have the right to read workers’ emails. Of course they have the right to monitor workers’ internet use. Out of abundance of concern for privacy the law says employers have to inform workers that they intend to do this but even that seems unwarranted. Employees use email and the internet to conduct the business of their employer - that’s why they have access. It’s entirely legitimate for employers to monitor the use of email and the internet as part of normal supervisory tasks. Supervising employees’ use of the internet is no more a breach of privacy than checking that no petty cash is missing or that workers aren’t using the photocopier to run off the local footie club’s newsletter.

Sensible constructive consideration of public affairs is not fostered by this emotive, reflexive style of commentary. Taking a deep breath, doing a little research and trying to write a logical case in support of one’s point of view usually leads to much more constructive discussion. There’s enough ill-informed ranting on blogs like Bolt’s and Blair’s without everyone else joining in.

China to boycott Olympics

The Chinese government has announced that it will boycott the 2008 Olympic Games.

“We are sick of the faux outrage being expressed by those who have invaded and occupied Iraq and destroyed the lives of its people,” said* a spokesperson for the Chinese government. “Concern for human rights comes oddly from the mouths of those who think nothing of murdering people from 10,000 metres or forcing millions from their homes.”

The Chinese authorities said the games facilities would still be there for anyone who wanted to use them. “Just don’t expect us to provide any help,” the spokesperson said. “We thought Western countries were serious about making a distinction between Olympic games and political games but obviously we were too naive.”

The Australian Olympic Committee expressed its outrage at the decision. “How can we win gold medals with our spiffy new hi-tech swimsuits while chanting ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi’ in a strictly non-political way if there’s no water in the pool?” asked a spokesperson. “The Chinese government should be ashamed of itself by injecting politics into this joyous, carefree, strictly amateur gathering of a lot of kids who only want to have fun.”

* Reporters gasped and applauded when the spokesperson spoke in English. “Chinese person does us great honour to learn our language,” said one of the Australian media pack.

Corporate ethics

You might have seen this story in last Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald:

A PRIVATE school principal sacked for defrauding $2 million in government funding in a failed bid to save his school from closure says he is not alone in rorting the controversial Commonwealth funding scheme.

“It does go on quite a lot,” Lyn Mazey told the Herald yesterday, a day after 120 students at the Lakeside Christian College secondary campus in Tweed Heads learnt it would close on April 11 because of unpaid debts of more than $5.5 million.

At first I thought this information about other schools doing it was in the nature of a confession; that Mazey was finally getting it all off his chest to try to make up for his guilt. But as I read on, it became clear that he wasn’t trying to do that at all. He was, in fact, explaining why he didn’t think he had actually, personally, done anything that was, you know, like wrong or anything. We see in the quote above the first leg of his self-justification, one that will be familiar to anybody who deals with small children: “But everybody else does it”.

Mazey went on in fact to give such a textbook display of contemporary corporate ethical logic that I’ve saved the article for future use as a case study. After trotting out the line about the other boys doing it too, he brought out excuse number 2:

He admitted to “overstating” enrolments for at least three years in a row and said the Federal Government had not audited his school since it opened.

“In 16 years I was there, we never got audited,” Mr Mazey said. “There needs to be a regular auditing process.”

There, you see? It was the fault of the government for placing him in a position of moral hazard (did I mention this was a religious school?). The stupid government gave him all this money and never even checked to see if he was telling the truth. I mean what normal god-fearing principal wouldn’t take advantage of such an opportunity to tell a few fibs and wangle an extra million or two out of the pockets of his fellow citizens … oh wait, no, he wasn’t getting money from fellow Australians, it was money belonging to ‘the government’. It’s a well-known fact that government money is grown in large hydroponic factories in Belconnen and taking the odd million doesn’t actually hurt real people or anything.

And finally, if you weren’t convinced by his defence so far, he’s got this killer argument:

Mr Mazey stressed he had gained no personal benefit. “In hindsight, I wouldn’t do it again, but the school wouldn’t have survived,” he said. “I think it is a tremendous pity after I put in 16 years to build the school from nothing, only to see it closing.

“I ruined my career through doing it and it is something I have to live with.”

You know, I’m tearing up just thinking about the sacrifices that this wonderful man has made. All for no personal benefit. Well apart I guess from the status of being headmaster of a well-respected college, and being called ’sir’ by hundreds of kids, and invited to Rotary meetings, and fawned upon by staff hoping for a pay rise, and presumably enjoying a competitive salary package with associated benefits, and potentially a launching pad for a headmastership at a larger and more prestigious school … apart from those few trivialities he got no benefits from his work at the school at all. I don’t think he deserves to be prosecuted, I reckon he should get a medal for self-sacrifice in the cause of education.

Unfortunately, this mentality is typical of the ethical standards that are widespread amongst Australian managers. It’s OK to do something if others are doing it too; if people fail to be suspicious enough to check up on you all the time it’s their own fault if you rip them off; and personal benefits are only wrong if they take the form of large lumps of cash which you misappropriate for your own use.

Head of Christian Schools Australia, to his great credit, corrected Mazey’s self-serving snivelling:

“This is not the fault of the Commonwealth,” Mr O’Doherty said. “He has done the wrong thing, and it has led to a bad outcome. He is responsible and accountable.”

Responsible and accountable? Gosh, you don’t hear words like those associated with Australian managers very often.

Actions and attitudes like Mazey’s create a predictable response over time: more audits, more regulations, more supervision, more complex procedures. His ethics are the ethics of the immature school playground, leaving no room for adult behaviour governed by independent moral principles. Fortunately not all managers share his rudimentary ethical standards, but sadly, many do.

Common cause

Damian posted a week or so ago about the situation in Tibet, suggesting that things might not be quite so black and white as they were being painted in the media. I agreed; I had the same response as I do when I hear of any ’separatist movement’, namely when is it legitimate for a group of people to demand sovereignty and when should they be told to shut up and accept that they are part of a bigger nation state and they’d better get used to the idea?

I don’t pretend to have a pat answer to that question, by the way. I just wish other people wouldn’t leap so reflexively to the side of the perceived underdog without thinking through the implications. Are we supposed to support, for example, demands for independence in Aceh and West Papua? If not, how can we rationally distinguish those situations from that of East Timor? There might be a good case in support of different treatment but I never heard Alexander Downer make it. Why was it OK to support separatism in Northern Ireland but not in Mindanao? In both places the justification hinges fundamentally on alleged religious incompatibilities. Why are we expected to cheer for the Tibetans but condemn the Tamil Tigers as terrorists?

There are no glib answers to these questions and I just wish people would consider them with a bit of calm thought instead of getting all ‘Boycott the Olympics that’ll show the bastards!!’ about it.

A thought-provoking piece appeared in the Asia Times yesterday. It suggested that the CIA might have a hand in the Tibetan troubles. I hasten to say that I found the article unconvincing; it was completely speculative and the circumstantial evidence that it relied upon was thin. Nevertheless it remains true that many people in Washington, including the Bush Administration, would welcome the embarrassment that the Tibet situation will cause China. Moreover they must be delighted that for once, the despised lefties are just as vocal as the conservatives about the perceived Chinese oppression. It must be great to have the whole nation finally unite behind a bit of Commie bashing.

If the American Civil War broke out today, I wonder how many international voices would support the right of the North to use force to prevent secession … and how many would advocate the rights of the separatist South to go it alone if they wanted. The latter would be the majority view I suspect, but you don’t read many views these days that Lincoln was a great oppressor of human rights.

This is not an argument that all these issues should be decided on pragmatic grounds. They have a strong moral and ethical dimension. I just think many people are a bit too quick to adopt the dominant moral view presented by governments and the media, which tends inevitably to be a simplistic black and white one. Complex situations deserve calm considered analysis, not sloganeering.

Time to fight back against the Dasyatido-fascists

How much longer are we going to tolerate blatant terrorist attacks like this?

A 34-kilogram stingray killed a Michigan woman when it flew out of the water and struck her face as she rode a boat in the Florida Keys in the United States, officials said.

People might not want to admit it but we are obviously facing a well-organised campaign of terror to force us from the oceans. We should have hunted down the creature that killed Steve Irwin but oh no, as usual the bleeding heart do-gooders won the day. Now the stingrays - or the Dasyatido-fascists as scientists have begun to call them - think they can strike with impunity against weak liberal boaties anywhere.

Well I’ve had enough. Any time I go near the water from now on I’ll be carrying this, and any gutless hippie who tries to stop me better have fully paid health insurance.