Girt By Sea

A few years ago a great man said that the internet gave everybody a chance to have their opinion heard. Ok it wasn't a great man, it was Gerry Harvey. And Gerry didn't think this was a good thing. I think Gerry believes it's much better to have the commercial TV stations run soft soft stories on say the owner of a large retail organisation, which spends a lot of money on these stations. Then that owner, lets call him Harvey Gerry, where that owner can express any thought that passes through his head, such as that theoretically they are not really in favour of 'helping a whole heap of no-hopers to survive for no good reason'.

Anyway here is my first edition. Future editions will be depend upon when I come across things that annoy or interest me (which is often); and I think others might find interesting (which is less often); and then by when I can be arsed typing it up (which will definitely be less often)

Edition 1

• Young and Free
• Advance Australia Fair?
• Young and (not) Free

Young and Free

With Australia Day almost upon us, I want to give my choice for Australian of the Year. From what I've seen when other people do this is you have to name somebody who has absolutely no chance of winning. My favourite was the person in the Sydney Morning Herald letters page who some years ago wanted Michael Mori to be Australian of the Year. Mori was the man who some admirably served David Hicks whilst he was in gaoled at Guantanamo Bay. However the idea that the Australian of the Year could be won by a citizen of a foreign country, is almost as ridiculous as the idea of having a citizen of a foreign country being the Prime Minister of Australia.

Anyway my choice is Freya Newman.

Freya Newman was the young lady who was working part-time at the Whitehouse Institute of Design in 2011, when she learned that Frances Abbott, the daughter of the then opposition leader Tony Abbott, had been awarded a lucrative scholarship (about $60,000) by the Whitehouse Institute.

Ms Newman passed the details onto New Matilda and resigned from the Whitehouse Institute. New Matilda subsequently published the story. It turned out that this was only the second time that the Whitehouse Institute had offered such a scholarship, and that the scholarship was not advertised and that other students doing the course were not made aware of it.

Tony Abbott did not disclose the gift, and under parliamentary rules he didn't have to. But as the opposition leader and potential prime minister (of course he is now the Australian Prime Minister) he would be in position to make decisions that could greatly hurt or benefit the Whitehouse Institute. My view us that at a minimum he should have disclosed this news. However what he really should have done made it clear that his daughter could not accept the scholarship if there were any hint of impropriety in it being awarded to his daughter.

Well one of the people involved in the case was charged and ended up going to court. Of course that was Freya Newman. After the case ended and no conviction was made against Ms Newman, the Education Minster and mincing Poodle Christopher Pyne said 'I'm not convinced the sentence in the Freya Newman case sends a clear message that breaching another's privacy is wrong'.

However, luckily, our PM is a big fan of free speech. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings he told us, 'I believe in free speech - I absolutely in free speech'. And he certainly does believe in the right of Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones to continue to make bigoted remarks (as they like to defend Mr Abbott, with Alan Jones once defending Mr Abbott by saying 'And I've known this bloke for a thousand years...'). However Mr Abbott is not so supportive on freedom speech as to appear on Q&A. Or to release information on the number of asylum seekers trying to come to Australia. Or to release proof that he has renounced his British citizenship and is actually eligible to be in the Australian parliament. Or to have stood up against the prosecution of Freya Newman.


Advance Australia Fair?


I've been considering writing a blog for a while now. The event that finally convinced that I actually should do it was the incident involving Australian cricketer Dave Warner and Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma. Amazingly this event was also a major cause in a friend starting a blog (whose account of the incident is fantastically written and is much funnier than mine).

I'll declare I'm not a fan of the Australian cricket team. I came to live in Australia in 1977 from England and whilst I do like a number of Australian national sporting teams, especially the Socceroos. I also other like the basketball and baseball teams as well as a number of individual sportsman. But if came down to the crunch and England and Australia met in the final of the football World Cup (ok a group game or possibly a round of 16 match is almost undoubtedly the latest they would meet) I'd be cheering for England.

I've never managed to like the cricket side, even if I did like some players. The main reason is I think they have looked like a bunch of unlikable bullies. In particular I find their sledging and some of their antics to be unacceptable.

I'm not against all sledging. I think the higher you go up the sporting chain the more acceptable it is. But always they has to be some common decency and the sledging should be about the game so 'Excuse me sir, but to my eye the flaws in your batting technique means that it is unlikely you will be laying willow upon the leather any time soon' is acceptable. As would be 'you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a fucking boat'. Well assuming it was said in a test match and not in an under 8's game.

And certainly sledging is more prevalent in Australia. I was playing third grade in a Saturday morning comp against a team made up of players from a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre. Their opener scored a century. I along with most of our team started to applaud when one bloke on our team yelled out 'Don't clap him, that's the worst ton I've ever seen'! Staggering. Michael Clarke had a dig at Steve Smith for being too friendly with Pakatani batsman Azhar Ali during the recent series. Steve Smith later clarified 'I was actually getting into him (Ali). So it (the spray from Clarke) wasn't what I expected, but I guess that happens'. Oh you poor thing! You got abused on the cricket field! And not because you were being friendly, but because you were abusing a player from another team. That just isn't cricket, old chap.

Australian cricketers have an unwritten rules that any sledging is acceptable and that 'what happens on the field, stays on the field'. So like our PM they are in favour of free speech, however, just not all of the time. My view is that is that what is said on the field is fair game to be repeated later, and that if you are embarrassed by a person retelling what was said, you were almost certainly out of line in the first place.

The Australian batsman Matthew Hayden once wrote 'I tried to be subtle with my chirps, sometimes walking in the opposite direction when I spoke or covering my mouth'. When he said 'subtle' I think he meant in terms of not being caught rather than in terms of what was said. I take what he says as really meaning 'I was a coward with my chirps, sometimes walking in the opposite direction when I spoke or covering my mouth'.

Now onto Dave Warner. I love to watch him bat. And he has been in fantastic form for the last 18 months or so. Dave Warner is also a player I correctly predicted would have a good career (even when he couldn't make the NSW Sheffield Shield side). It's always nice to get one right and goes somewhere toward balancing the ledger for getting Matthew Elliott and Usman Khawaja wrong.

However I find his behaviour on and off the field to be unacceptable. The most famous incident involving his bad behaviour was when he punched English batsman Joe Root in a pub. What apparently provoked Warner was that Root was wearing one of those silly wigs as a beard and that Warner thought Root was taking the mick out of Hasham Amla. By all accounts Root certainly was not making fun of Amla, and that it was highly likely that Warner's judgement was impaired by the consumption of alcohol. Warner was suspended and missed the first two tests of the Ashes series. In my mind he should have been sent home and missed the whole series.

I read an interview with Warner a few years ago. I forget that the word was, but he used what in the movie 'Heathers' what would have been called a 50 cent word. But he totally botched it up. I got the impression he thought he was a philosopher-king sportsman, however, without anywhere near the kind of intelligence needed to pull this off (sort of like Jason Akermanis).

Before the Sydney test I read some articles about how he was rebuilding his reputation. Yes he was now a father. Congratulations to him, but I'm not sure that automatically makes you a better person. And, yes, he had scored a mountain of runs, but again that doesn't really mean his behaviour had improved. In the test series versus India he was fined for his behaviour in Adelaide and was involved in another incident in Melbourne.

Onto the Rohin Sharma incident. Sharma had the audacity to take an overthrow following a wayward throw from Warner. Warner, mistakenly, thought the ball had hit Sharma and that to do so was unsporting. However, Warner didn't politely make this point to Sharma, he did so aggressively. At some point he told Sharma to 'speak English'. Now it's not clear if Sharma had even spoken to Warner or if he was talking to his team mate. However if Sharma was speaking to his team mate, then Warner has no right to be telling Sharma what language he can or can not use.

Warner was fined half of his match fee for his actions (again in my view another inadequate punishment). What was worse was his justification for his actions. And in trying to defend himself completely forgot all about the rule of 'whatever happens on the field stays on the field'.

'I did the polite thing and asked him so speak in English, therefore he did and I can't repeat what he said'.

Errr Dave the polite thing would have not to have said anything at all to Sharma. But if you want to speak to him you could have politely done so and not confronted him an aggressive manner. And as for saying that you can't repeat what he said, you seem to be implying that Sharma used impolite language. Well Dave that is hardly surprising considering your actions.

'We've just not to try and cross that line, because we're all about playing cricket the right way'.

Errr no, you are about winning at almost any cost. You're about about trying to get away with as much as you can, and then when you do cross that line where your behaviour is considered unacceptable by most people, you are about not apologising. When you push so close to the line, that line will inevitably be crossed at times. And fines are just an occupational hazard.

'When I went over to say something to him. he sort of said something in their language, and I said 'speak English' because, if you're going to say something, understand that theoretically I cannot speak Hindi'.

Oh dear. Once again Dave has used a 50 cent word by using 'theoretically'. So I'm not sure if Dave is saying that theoretically he can not speak Hindi, but in practice he does. Or if he has just misused the word. I think it's safe to assume it was the latter. Dave, please stop. You've already embarrassed us by insulting a guest of this country, now you're just embarrassing yourself.

Still you are averaging over 48 in test cricket with a strike rate of almost 75 and along with Steve Smith you are the favourite to win the next Allan Border Medal. So apart from the occupational hazard of a few more fines you'll be unlikely to receive any other penalties. Actually Dave you should check if those fines could be considered as tax deductions for being a legitimate work expense.


Young and (not) Free

Indonesia executed 6 people convicted of drug offences about a week ago. Now drug smugglers/dealers don't get much public sympathy (and rightly so). As a group possibly only paedophiles and child murderers get less public sympathy.

Included in the 6 people who were executed were a Brazilian & Dutch national. So Indonesia has shown that is prepared to execute foreign nationals. Australia has 2 people on death row in Indonesia.

Now the story of how they were arrested in Indonesia is an interesting one. Lee Rush was concerned about a trip his son Scott was making to Indonesia. Lee contacted a lawyer who in turn contacted the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to inform Scott was probably involved in a drug smuggling scheme. They were informed if Scott tried to fly to Indonesia he would be stopped from flying there.

Now to cut a long story short the AFP did not stop Scott or the other 8 members of the drug group. Instead they let them fly there and tipped of the Indonesian police about what was happening. Now 2 Australians are on death row.

The number one priority of any government is to protect the citizens of its country. That means protecting our borders from being attacked; trying to protect citizens in the country from attacks, discrimination, unfair prosecutions etc; and defending the rights of Australian citizens who find themselves in trouble overseas. The second priority is the management of the economy and public institutions such as hospitals and schools.

Here we had the AFP actively helping a foreign government in putting Australian lives as risk, rather than protecting Australian lives. Mick Keelty, the former head of the AFP has a lot to answer for. And if I was responsible for writing the laws of this land he would have to answer for what he did.


So on January 26 happy Australia Day/Invasion Day to all Australians, including Freya Newman, Tony Abbott, Dave Warner, Myuran Sukumaran, Andrew Chan and Mick Keelty.

And happy Republic Day to all Indians. Especially you to you Rohit Sharma. And feel free to speak as much Hindi as you want.