Blogotariat

A Town Is Born: The Fitzroy Crossing Story
By Steve Hawke
Magabala Books | $35

A guest post by mikestasse.

The media is alight with reports of GMH Holden closing its doors some time in 2014. And this, so short a time since Ford Australia told the world it was doing the exact same thing earlier this year.

Tens of thousands of South Africans have joined dozens of world leaders for the national memorial service for former President Nelson Mandela.

More than 500 of the world's leading authors, including five Nobel prize winners, have condemned the scale of state surveillance revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden and warned that spy agencies are undermining democracy and must be curbed by a new international charter.

We have seen numerous boycott calls with regard to academic publishers but they have generally been about market power and its exploitation. Today, a more serious boycott call was launched with the claim that some publications are harming science itself — a potentially more serious charge.

The IPA tonight held a Christmas drinks function at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra. While the capital is under new administration, the enemy is fighting a rear guard action.

In the splendid Art Deco surroundings of the Hyatt, the packed audience of IPA supporters – who would have thought there were so many defenders of freedom in Canberra? – heard the inestimable Nick Cater, Chris Berg, Simon Breheny and James Paterson give a ringing defence of liberty and freedom and discuss the continuing threat from the Nanny State.

It is impossible Bronwyn Bishop can survive as Speaker. Peter Slipper lost that office for saying ‘cunts in brine’ in a private letter to friend. She wanted Nelson Mandela hanged, and said so in public. She has not denied this, or apologised for it.

She cannot be thought any more to be a suitable person for the job she is in. She called for the murder of the most acclaimed human of the last hundred years. She got it that wrong.

I can debate this with her, any time.

In the meantime, I urge her to resign her seat.

And I, of course, will stand for it.

Twenty-three years ago in Bowraville, a small town on the NSW north coast, three Aboriginal children were murdered in five months writes Dave Clarke in Red Flag. The families of the Bowraville Three are still fighting the racist indifference of the authorities.

One of the big problems with public goods is choosing which to build. The goods themselves are joint in consumption but the community may not know, indeed is unlikely to know, how much to spend on one pubic good compared with the next. How much should be spent on guide dogs and how should that be traded off against suburban roads.

The signs are pretty clear. The Abbott Govt's position is clear. There will be no more public subsidies for an unprofitable car industry that requires corporate welfare to survive in Australia. So let the car industry close. That's what case for pulling the plug on industry support after 2016 means given the high Australian dollar and almost no tariff protection.

Large car sales have nosedived in the domestic market and export markets have dried up largely due to the unexpected strength of the Australian dollar that has made imports cheaper and exports tougher.