And now some good news

November 13, 2007 – 1:25 pm

The XO Laptop has arrived. The XO is the outcome of two years of work by the One Laptop Per Child project. It’s a fantastic piece of design and engineering, and it costs just US$200 per unit. Well-known geek blogger Bill Clementson talks about it in more detail.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in From the Candidate | Comments (0)

The Australian Christian Lobby

November 13, 2007 – 12:56 pm

My next opportunity for an open forum with other candidates will come next week, when I will attend a “Meet Your Candidate” forum hosted by the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL). Previously I got to speak to the Women’s Network NT, which was an excellent event.

The forum will be held next Tuesday evening 20th November from 7.00pm in the Mal Nairn Auditorium, Charles Darwin University.

Several of my fellow candidates have already spoken at local fora organised by the ACL. John Humphreys reported that:

We only had a few minutes to talk and then answered a few questions. I was honest, so my answers weren’t popular. Yes, we support gay marriage. No, I don’t want the government to censor TV. No, I don’t want to give you more handouts. No, I don’t want a national campaign for chaplins in schools.

I mentioned the “right of Genghis, left of Cheech & Chong”, which got a laugh. I also mentioned that the size of government in the economy has risen from about 5% to 40% in the last 100 years and tax has increased by 34% under the Liberals. Other LDP positions mentioned were competitive federalism, pro-immigration & euthanasia. There were no votes to be gained at a meeting of the ACL, but it was all very friendly and a good chance to go out and do the “political thing”.

John’s forum had more candidates than I will be lining up with. I received an email today from the local organiser, Lois Fong, with this list:

House of Representatives
David Tollner (incumbent) Country Liberal Party (CLP)
Damian Hale Australian Labor Party (ALP)
Maurice Foley Independent (Ind)
Jacques Chester Liberty and Democracy Party (LDP)
Senate
Senator Trish Crossin Australian Labor Party (ALP)
Peter Flynn Citizens Electoral Council (CEC)
Duncan Dean Australian Democrats (Dem)
Bernadine Atkinson Independent (Ind)

Of interest to me is that the Greens aren’t bothering to show up. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since they didn’t answer the ACL’s questionnaire when it was circulated to parties. Also missing from the Solomon list is Trudy Campbell from the CEC, though her Senate counterpart Peter Flynn will be there. Missing from the Senate list is Nigel Scullion, though Dave Tollner will be in evidence.

It should prove to be an interesting evening, not least because I like John Humphreys will not bring much in the way of soothing words or pork-barreling. I come as a blunt libertarian for whom the role of government is very limited — certainly I disagree with almost everything that the ACL lobbies for.

To their credit, the ACL have also spent a lot of time explaining the preferential system to church-goers. One thing that has struck me while campaigning is how few people understand how it works. All that people need to know is that they should order the boxes according to their actual preferences; and that no vote is a wasted vote. Yet I talk to people who are fretting about putting me 1 because they think it will get someone they don’t like into office.

Also of interest is how they shape the questions to local issues. These are the main questions sent to me by Lois: Read More »

By Jacques Chester | Posted in Campaign Diary, From the Candidate | Comments (3)

The Undecided

November 13, 2007 – 11:24 am

Last night’s 4 Corners followed the first few weeks of this campaign from the perspective of a few swinging voters in Penrith.

There’s already been quite a lot of argy-bargy about the piece, which I found quite fascinating. I am part of the political class — that mix of journalists, politicians, staffers, commentators, think-tank workers and other fellow travellers who dominate politics in Australia. The political class spends its days drenched in policies, polls and political history. Frankly we are far removed from ordinary voters, as shown by last night’s “The Undecided”.

A lot of the political class today has reacted with barely-disguised contempt towards the people featured in the piece. This itself I find contemptible. Voters are regular people with other things to do, other priorities. The political class find politics fascinating, all-engrossing, and wonder at how others don’t. A similar thing occurs amongst certain kinds of computer gurus: “they don’t know about having to regularly defrotz the gerbilsplitzen.sys ini file? Idiots!”

Yet people seem to get by without regular defrotzing. In fact they seem to get by without devoting every waking minute to following politics. The problem arises when the defrotzing would prevent your machine from becoming unusable; and the attention paid to politics would have prevented bad policy.

And so, the challenge for candidates from the LDP is twofold: first we must encourage people to care enough about politics to elect us. Then we must reduce the size of government enough so that people can go back to ignoring it, this time safely. When that day comes I will be able to go back to focusing exclusively on my first love, computers, and the quest to educate my long-suffering family about the necessity of defrotzing.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in Campaign Diary, From the Candidate | Comments (0)

Sweaty Stroll on Day 28

November 11, 2007 – 11:37 am

So today is the big day for the “Walk against Warming”. This event is one of those turn-up-for-a-good-cause jaunts that people often organise. When I was a university fresher the subject of walks-de-jour was reconciliation. I imagine the same people are still walking today.

I was interested in the timing. Apparently the walk starts at 1pm. This is another example of faraway thinking. In Darwin, 1pm is an utterly retarded time to take a walk.

Ordinary animals (but not political animals, apparently) realise that moving during the hottest part of the day in a very hot part of the world is foolish. Today the mercury will probably push to 30-something degrees with 60%+ humidity. So it’s pretty warm already.

As for me, I’m not going anywhere. I have an airconditioned office-slash-bedroom to hide in during the sun’s merciless beating. People in Australia often lose sight of the fact that we could turn this country off tomorrow and have less impact on global warming than all the sheep farting in New Zealand.

Update: The Melbourne Age talks about the walk … with a very appropriate advertisement thrown in:

The Power Bulge

Update 2: They actually held it here in Darwin at 5pm, according to the NT News. Though as the organiser pointed out “most people probably drove here”. Oh well.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in Campaign Diary, From the Candidate | Comments (2)

Australia is a Welfare State

November 9, 2007 – 2:30 pm

Yesterday John Howard said Australia is no longer a welfare state. Today John Humphreys lays out the actual truth of the matter:

Under Howard and the Liberals we have the largest Welfare State in Australia’s history. As we have pointed out previously, Howard has increased tax by 34% per person (adjusted for inflation). And this excludes the GST. So Howard’s Liberals are definitely a high taxing government. But they are also a big welfare government.

Adjusted for inflation, welfare spending has gone from $75.7 billion in 1996/97 to an estimated $96.5 billion in 2007/08. Next year it is projected to top $100 billion. That is $100,000,000,000 of taxpayers money going to welfare.

The welfare state increases inflation, diverts resources from the private sector, and undermines employment. It’s just bad for the country, in other words. The LDP 30/30 plan would fix the problems — have a look at my video to learn why.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in From the Candidate, Policy Matters | Comments (0)

Dr Troppo explains political theatre

November 9, 2007 – 2:18 pm

Politics is bad entertainment because there are too many people trying to write the script and all of the actors are trying to play the character who grew up on a farm and went on to save the universe. When everything is going according to plan it’s like watching Star Wars with two badly-cast Luke Skywalkers, no Darth Vader, and Han Solo gagged and tied up in the basement.

Dr Troppo writes at Club Troppo.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in Campaign Diary, From the Candidate | Comments (0)

Unexpected Questions

November 8, 2007 – 12:48 pm

Politicians (whose grubby ranks I have officially joined at this election) have to deal with curly questions from journalists. Most of this takes the form of on-the-spot quizzes about current interest rates, the price of milk and bread and tax thresholds. It’s a bit silly but you come to expect it.

What’s also common is questions in search of a juicy, controversial story. In that vein most questions put to me by journos in Darwin have followed one of the two narratives which have grown around my candidacy — guns & the independence of my run.

Yesterday I got asked a truly unexpected question. “Do you want to legalise incest?”

Yes, you read that right. Legalise incest. Before we go any further, my answer is hell no.

Unknown to me, a fellow LDP candidate called Bede Ireland called for debate on the topic. The problem is that he didn’t clearly say if he was pro- or contra-. He sort of mused about it. For a journalist, every answer that is not “yes” or “no” is an invitation to read any meaning into the words that make for a good story. And so it was that Tasmanian Senate candidate Bede Ireland came to “support” the legalisation of incest. It also happens that he’s probably caused office wits across the nation to blow the dust off long-forgotten jokes about Tasmanians.

Incest is illegal for the simple reason that it leads to deformity and suffering. That’s pretty much the conclusion of the debate. The feeling of total revulsion most people feel towards it is natural and apparently universally found in all cultures.

What upsets me about this is that it allows lazy journalists to push us into the ho-ho-ho-aren’t-they-crazy box from which it is hard to emerge. It also annoys me as a candidate that I spend more time talking about other LDP candidates than the folk in Solomon. This is a tough enough campaign already without having to discuss the party’s position on incest (ie that it will remain illegal), for the love of tapdancing crazypants.

Edit: As usual, Calvin & Hobbes sum it up well.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in Campaign Diary, From the Candidate, Policy Matters | Comments (4)

Boom & Doom

November 6, 2007 – 12:01 pm

From The Australian comes word of a new report on planned and current investment in resources projects topping $357 billion:

Access Economics said the total value of definite projects in the September quarter is now $178 billion, an increase of 20 per cent over the previous year.

But it says in a report released today, the value of projects in planning has reached a staggering $357 billion.

That’s about $16,900 for every man, woman and child in Australia, by the way. A fairly generous slice of which is being spent in the NT and WA.

Spokesman Chris Richardson says there is already a mature investment boom in Australia.

“We already have investment as a share of national income higher than we’ve ever seen before,” he told ABC radio.
…
Mr Richardson said the outlook in China and India had been strengthened, commodity prices were still good and there were expectations that many of them would continue to rise.

This is a major cause of the strengthening of the Australian dollar. When Chinese, Indian and Japanese businesses buy minerals from companies like BHP-Billiton and Rio Tinto, they do so in Australian dollars. This drives up the currency’s value. This causes inflation because mining companies bid up the price of labour and construction resources. On the other hand, it also drives down the cost of imports.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. Here’s the punchline:

Finance Minister Nick Minchin told the program it was no time to risk the economy with a change of government.

Did you catch that? If it’s going well, don’t risk it, stick with Minchin’s mob. If it’s not going well, don’t risk it, stick with Minchin’s mob.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in From the Candidate, Policy Matters | Comments (0)

Video: The 30/30 tax & welfare plan

November 5, 2007 – 12:57 pm

In this video I talk about the LDP’s 30/30 tax and welfare plan, called “Reform 30/30″. I also discuss flaws with alternative plans being sold this election.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in From the Candidate, Policy Matters, Videos | Comments (2)

Day 21 starts with more lies about my candidacy

November 4, 2007 – 2:12 am

In today’s Sunday Territorian, Scott Stirling (apparently the son of NT Labor MLA Syd Stirling) repeats the false claim that I’m a Dave Tollner stooge. I corrected the ALP’s allegation at the time and I naively thought that would be the end of the matter. Not so, apparently.

I am sick and tired of the ALP and some elements in the media peddling this falsehood. I will be seeking a public retraction from the ALP and Scott Stirling and an end to repetition of the claim, through the courts if necessary.

Edit: Not a good idea, actually. Defamation is game for rich men or politicians. Just ask John Ah Kit.

By Jacques Chester | Posted in Campaign Diary, From the Candidate | Comments (0)