Jeff Kennett: recycle or refuse?

Out with the new, in with the old again seems to be the current trend in Australian politics. That's what gave us John "Lazarus with a triple bypass" Howard, and that's what appears likely to propel Jeff Kennett back to the leadership of the Victorian Liberals even though he doesn't even have a seat. But surely you'd need a really thick pair of rose-coloured glasses to convince a majority of Victorian voters that they like Kennett again.

I think we can confidently assume Jeff will come back. This has been in the cards for a while – Crikey ran a great piece on Monday on how he's been repositioning himself for a while, and since Stephen Mayne used to work for the Libs, he's less unreliable about this subject than most others. All Kennett is doing now is making a show of considering whether to run again over the weekend, so that he doesn't look arrogant – the perception that got him dumped last time.

Steve Bracks is so popular in Victoria that desperate measures are required. And exhuming Jeff is certainly pretty desperate. But what Kennett will gives the Victorian Libs is what they urgently need – brand recognition. Victorians will at least know what the party stands for, even if they reject it at the next poll. Who wanted to vote for Robert Doyle? Who is he, really? Even the Wikipedia article on him is mostly about Kennett! When you're in the wilderness, even an unpopular familiar person beats out a complete nobody.

Nowadays old politicians don't retire, they lie in wait on the backbench until the new guard falters, waiting for another go at the destiny they've always believed was theirs. Kennett at least had the decency to leave Parliament after being thrashed by Steve Bracks – which is more than can be said for the "unflushable" Kim Beazley.

John Howard has a lot to answer for here. He's convinced Beazley that no position is so bad that you can't recover to become PM for a decade. So it's theoretically impossible to convince Kim Beazley that his time is up. He will, in all likelihood, never believe that. You need a pretty healthy self-regard to run for public office in the first place anyway, so politicians don't need much ego-prodding to be convinced that they are election winners depite their results, which are just a question of timing. Even though he is now the only person in Australia who realistically thinks he's got a chance at the next election.

If it turns out that the electorate are willing to forgive leaders it dumped for being too arrogant – a political version of absence making the heart go fonder – then perhaps other parties should adopt the same approach? If so, come back, Paul Keating, all is forgiven. I always thought he was a fairly good Prime Minister, but compared to his successors, he's a genius. Clear policy objectives, an effective communicator and an ability to take it to his opponents. Like Jeff, he'd certainly score more points, even if he probably couldn't win the match, coming off the bench so late.

I'm also sure that Bob Hawke still believes that he "remains the best person to lead the party to the next election", and that Gough Whitlam would, as always, to support any argument that he resume the Labor leadership.

But let's not take the whole trend of reappointing memorable leaders too far. Because too far might mean the ALP reappointing Mark Latham.

Parasites flock to Beaconsfield

Shows how much I know about mining! I thought the two guys trapped in Beaconsfield would be out days ago, right after they were tracked down. But no, they had to get a special borer in. Cue the same puns that everyone else has made about the special borer being David Koch ... which is very unfair to the Today Show crew - also in Beaconsfield and even more boring.

But hasn't the media enjoyed itself? Virtually every show on TV's done a special "live from Beaconsfield" – a description that seems a little insensitive in the wake of one death, and the chance of two more. The media hasn't had a good old frenzy like this since the tropical cyclones.

Of course, the line between life-threatening situation and brilliant product-placement opportunity is a very thin one. Imagine the joy the good people at Sustagen would have felt when it was breathlessly revealed their product was being shipped down the hole to the miners because of concerns that jelly beans weren't nutritious enough for them.

You can't buy that kind of good publicity. Unless you talk to Harry M. Miller, who did that infamous deal to get Mars Bars to James Scott.

Then there was the news that they'd been given iPods. What was the point of that? No-one could see into the pitch black mineshaft to be impressed by their cool white earphones, removing the device's primary purpose as far as I can tell.

No, that's not fair, I'm a devout iPodder, and I reckon giving them music is a really nice idea - even if it's the Foo Fighters. But given iPods' still-woeful battery life, I really hope they have a kilometre-long extension cord down there.

Apple and Sustagen weren't the only ones whose brands were promoted, of course. (And for the record, Sustagen has denied it paid anything. As you might hope!) The miners were also seized upon by men promoting brands that have had a rougher time in the marketplace recently – Kim Beazley and AWU President Bill Shorten.

Now, I must take issue with those who've criticised the Opposition Leader for using the disaster to benefit politically. Kim Beazley's never benefited politically from anything. But it sure was tacky to go launching into a critique of the Federal Government's WorkChoices legislation.
His points about training were valid and the union's involvement may have saved the two men's lives – so far. But there's a time to make these sorts of points, and it's pretty clearly when the two survivors have actually, um, survived.

By speaking so soon, Beazley has successfully undermined his entire argument by allowing the Government to shift the debate onto whether his comments were appropriate. How many times does this have to happen before Labor wises up to the idea that criticising the Government works better if the manner in which you do so isn't itself vulnerable to criticism? Even Steve Bracks, a far more media-savvy leader than Beazley, has criticised him for it.

Then there's Shorten, who rushed to the scene on Sunday night and was confidently speaking today about the various rescue methods, as if he was the one greasing up to pull 'em out, like a trade unionist Groundskeeper Willy. This is exactly the sort of situation where the union should play a role in ensuring workers' safety, of course. But let's not make this about WorkChoices. I think the new industrial relations regime is outrageous as well, but now's not the time. Otherwise all that will happen is that workers considering whether to join a union will opt out, for fear their hour of need will be hijacked by a limelight-seeking bureaucrat.

Who, surprise surprise, is going to run at the next Federal Election. So he'd better get used to these endless press conferences. (Source: The Age)

In Shorten's defence, he's held off attributing blame until after the ordeal's over. And there's little doubt he's been helpful. But not as helpful as this has been to his profile. He was spoken of as the "great hope" of Labor before all this, and the Rudy Giuliani of Beaconsfield has certainly handled it better than Beazley.

There will be a time for blame, and a time for point-scoring. Let the free-for-all begin as soon as we're certain that the two guys stuck down there aren't going to die from another cave-in caused by the rescue effort. Until then, as hard as it may be for Kim Beazley and Bill Shorten to believe, this isn't actually about them.

Melbourne: dreary city, great comedians (well, apart from Rove)

Comparing Sydney and Melbourne can become an obsession. Particularly in Melbourne, which - let's face it - usually comes off second best.
But in the area of comedy festivals, comparison favours our numerically disadvantaged neighbour. Melbourne's is one of the world's big three, alongside Edinburgh and Montreal, and it's not surprising three cold and dreary cities can pack audiences into warm spaces where there are funny people to cheer them up.

Melbourne's festival, which continues until Saturday, is remarkable in its scale and diversity. It must be the biggest arts event in the country. The festival centres on the grand old Melbourne Town Hall, but the venues range from huge theatres to broom closets. And there are hundreds of shows around the city, ranging from superstars such as Ross Noble to desperately untalented uni students performing in tiny storerooms in back alleys. (The latter I'm not so jealous of.)
The Sydney scene has grown in recent years and, bizarrely, we have spawned two smaller, simultaneous comedy festivals.
There's the Big Laugh (which began at the Parramatta Riverside Theatres and has expanded east to the Seymour Centre) and the Cracker Festival based at the Enmore Theatre. They've had some successes - the Big Laugh's Goodies show was a blockbuster - but neither has approached Melbourne's level of popularity.
It's a shame, because Sydney audiences are missing out. Live comedy is fantastic entertainment and Sydney's home-grown performers are generally forced to earn their stripes down south because of a lack of opportunities.
Take Nick Sun. He's won awards in Melbourne and Edinburgh and is selling out at the Melbourne Town Hall this year, but few in our city would have heard of him.
Our own Town Hall and wonderful CBD venues should be pressed into the service of a decent Sydney comedy festival. But until our arts administrators get their act together and give Sydney comedy some serious public funding, the best option for comedy fans is to fly south for the autumn.
Yes, even to Melbourne.

Britney baby one more time

Well, having already broken the first one, Britney is apparently once more with child. Rumour has it. Oh, and I didn't think of that headline, by the way, I ripped it off the London Free Press. I also quite like The Sun's "Oops, I Dad It Again", referring to Kevin Federline, who – if this is true – will be up to baby number 4. What a pity his remarkable sexual potency hasn't translated to his rapping.

I'm a little offended, to be perfectly honest, that I haven't heard about this from Kevin Federline personally. He's a personal friend of mine. Well, not exactly – he added me to his friends on his MySpace page, which I've long believed is the funniest site on the net. That said, his latest "jam" isn't actually that bad, at least compared to PoPoZau or whatever his appalling first single was called. It consists mainly of singing "Kevin Federline" over sirens, presumably coming to arrest Britney for driving with the baby on her lap.

Some of his fans are into it, though. As one of them said, "damn k-fed, your shit is tight. keep makin music 4-eva". Quite.

Poor Britney. Not only is she married to this chump (that's a technical rap term meaning "moron", by the way), but she now can't even make FHM's hottest 100 list a mere two years after she topped it, as the sympathetic Sun explains.

Anyway, I'm getting distracted by how funny I find Kevin Federline, when I'm supposed to be writing about how funny I find Britney. (It seems being a laughing stock is sexually transmitted.) So here's a quick roundup of the Britney baby rumours doing the rounds right now:

• The rumours started when she looked big in a bikini while on holiday in Hawaii.
• And she's now been spotted shopping for baby clothes.
• And avoiding sushi, which is absolutely tell-tale sign that she's up the duff. (Or just doesn't like raw fish.)
• But it's been confirmed exclusively by "a source close to the family". Though not close enough to give their name.
• And also by her "pals". I'd say that's conclusive.
• For some scurrilous gossip rags, this is old news because she was throwing up and had stomach cramps in February. For sure.
• Her agent was shocked by the revelation.
• And it's putting pressure on her marriage. Which isn't hard, judging by the constant impending-divorce rumours.
• And led her to fire 4 minders.
• K-Fed hasn't exactly denied it, but has said he "wouldn't bet" on it. But this may be because he doesn't have any money of his own.
• There will be a press conference on Thursday where it's suspected she'll confirm it.
• It's great news for a tacky, pro-life sculptor, as it may open the door to a second sculpture like this one.
• Interestingly, according to a popular book, she's also a three-headed alien.

But my favourite take on the whole thing, as is often the case, comes from Defamer, which writes "World Surprised It Took Britney Spears This Long To Get Knocked Up Again"

There's been no official confirmation of the story, and K-Fed came close to denying it. Not that he has any connection with reality whatsoever, though. So – is Britney pregnant with baby #2?

Really, who cares?

But it's fun to gossip, so start your own rumour below. That way NW can reprint it with the words "according to the Sydney Morning Herald", without clarifying that it was actually a commenter on a blog. Bet you it works.



Dominic Knight

Big Brother's big bashing

Oh. My. God. (sorry, but you have to punctuate like that sometimes when you're a blogger.) Big Brother contestant David Graham came out in the house last week. That's right – he actually admitted he was gay, in public. Now that's the kind of edgy stuff that makes Australia's longest-running reality show truly avant-garde television. By 1960s standards.

Clever approach by the BB producers, though. Ensure an issue of sexuality gets them the controversy-driven headlines they need to get ratings, but that because there presumably aren't any other gay guys in the house, there won't actually be any action to trouble the censors.

Plus, because he's a spunk, there's a non-threatening piece of eye candy for the pre-pubescent girls who form the show's core demographic. Much better casting than last year's token rustic Glenn, who turned out to be a bit seedy.

(Never fear, though, Uncut fans. With 3 models and a nightclub host, there's enough vapid eye-candy to keep the pages of FHM full for a few months, and satisfy Uncut's voyeur audience who don't mind how boring a show is as long as it contains a smattering of nudity.)

David even cried when he made his confession. How perfect is that? But you have to pity him a little – he won't know his parents are cool with it until after he gets out, and it must be upsetting. But he ultimately shouldn't worry about his small town – becoming a BB-grade celebrity surely trumps any rural homophobia.

And David certainly knows about homophobia. What has been genuinely controversial and interesting is the revelation that David was bashed earlier in the year. (Which is not the only revelation in store if his former agent gets his way – let's hope he doesn't.) It's a rather uglier element to add into the story, and it'd be interesting to know whether the producers were aware of it.

The fact is that most gay men – even nice, spunky, beefy ones like David – face violence at some point. And whether it intended to or not, the role BB has played in bringing the national media spotlight onto an ugly problem will probably help enormously. While the Federal Government has spent millions on the violence against women campaign – as it it should have – we don't often hear that Australia says no to violence against homosexuals as well.

With all the fuss, it's interesting to contrast Graham with BB01's openly-gay Johnny Cass, an Oxford St identity. Then, there just happened to be a gay guy in the house as part of the mix, without any particular fuss or fanfare. That was back in the days when they went for an interesting group of people, before they went in the direction of trying to get everyone to shag.

Now, it's a big deal. A talking point. Doesn't feel like it's six years, later, does it?

David's also outed himself as something far more embarrassing than being gay – a Nationals supporter. The party must be mortified. If Joh was still around, David would have been seized from the BB house by the Special Branch and locked up in far less comfortable surrounds. Whereas with today's Nats, let's just hope BB06's pinup boy never wants to get married.

On this occasion – perhaps inadvertenty – Big Brother has brought a genuinely important issue into the spotlight, but it doesn't genuinely push the boundaries. It's ultimately about selling advertising and SMS votes. And that seems an appropriate note to end on. So let's assume that the closet David's been in for his whole life so far was courtesy of Freedom Furniture.



Dominic Knight

'9/11: The Movie', anyone?

Normally a filmmaker would be devastated if their movie was greeted with silence and sobs. But when it's the first movie to be made about 9/11, it's a form of acclaim. That was the response to a new movie, United 93, which got a fantastic reaction at New York's Tribeca Film Festival. It's evidently strong stuff – look at the smoking buildings on the skyline at the bottom of this image. Even depicting the towers is usually taboo these days.

But if Vietnam is any guide, this is just the first of a plethora of painful re-enactment movies as America grapples with the legacy of "the day the world changed". The only problem is that I can't think of anything I'd less like to spend two hours in a cinema watching.

The tale of how the passengers on United flight 93 revolted, causing their hijackers to crash the plane into a field in Pennsylvania instead of the Pentagon or White House – you know, "let's roll" and all that – is certainly an inspiring story of heroism.

But I just figure I've seen enough images of 9/11. The real images are so vivid in my memory that I've no wish to augment them with fictionalised ones, even of the high quality that this movie evidently is. I watched it all unfold live on CNN, and seeing the towers collapse with the realisation that hundreds of people were dying right before my eyes counts as the most awful, upsetting thing I can remember.
That night, the familiar scenes of Hollywood disaster movies became horribly real on our screens. (Am I the only one who still shudders in recollection every time filmmakers destroy NYC with CGI again in movies like The Day After Tomorrow?) Now, reflexively, Hollywood's making a fictional version of the real-life disaster movie.

Watching the trailer provides an excellent introduction to the film's very realistic documentary style, the facts laid bare. We see the familiar banality of air travel, interrupted by disaster.

But looking at the film's beautifully designed website, with a map of events accompanied by the warbling of an Enya clone, reiterates how much I don't want to put myself through this film. You can see the snapshots of the tense pilots as they learn about the WTC crashes. You can see the fear on the faces of the passengers, and you can see the hijackers. Everyone knows what happens, and everyone knows it's awful. I really don't need to see that redramatised. I already know what those emotions are like.

* * *

Speaking of falling from the sky – yeah, that's a pretty tacky, tenuous link, sorry about that – I want to pass on one of the greatest email forwards I've ever seen. This President Bush animation has given me hours of satisfaction so far – apparently it's the most popular screensaver in the US. And the great thing is that his poll numbers are falling even faster because of what he did in response to this day – drop bombs on Iraq. You'd think these events would have made the Americans reluctant about airborne explosions, wouldn't you?

Oh sorry, I'm "politicising" people's deaths again – some of the commenters will be upset. Apparently you're only allowed to do that when you advocate invasions.

Anyway, wild horses couldn't drag me to go and see United 93. Anyone planning to put themselves through it?

Saving Private Kovco ... from further indignity

The debacle over poor Private Kovco, our first troop fatality, just keeps getting more ridiculous. To summarise, we don't know why he died, where the body is, whose body we do have instead, or when the right one is coming back. "It seems to be a series of things," Defence Minister Brendon Nelson said. Now there's an understatement.

First there was the accidental death. But then they shipped the wrong body back to Australia, meaning that a military service due for today had to be cancelled. Instead, it seems we've obtained the remains of some miscellaneous Bosnian.
What, do they not label them or something? Shouldn't it have been draped in an Australian flag at all times? You can't help but thinkFedEx wouldn't have stuffed it up like this.

Then it emerged the initial explanation for his death – that he was cleaning his gun – was wrong. It had always sounded fishy – he was a weapons expert, an elite sniper who'd used guns all his life. And although I've never handled one, even I would not be so dumb as to try cleaning a gun when it's loaded.

Brendan Nelson wasn't able to explain how he actually died on radio today, but promised it wouldn't be covered up. How reassuring.

All he could tell us is "It was near him in his vicinity and he made some kind of movement which suggests that it discharged." If you can make any sense of that, please explain it for the rest of us who are unable to decode bureaucratese. Sure, he made a movement that would indicate it had discharged. It's called being shot. But why? And how?

Now, the Herald reports that a public holiday in Kuwait may cause additional delays – a combination of hopelessness by the contractors (there's that famed efficiency of the private sector again) and a Muslim public holiday. Farcical.

In an attempt to avoid even further embarrassment, John Howard has offered to send his private plane to retrieve the casket, but Mrs Kovco has understandably turned down this sort of VIP fuss.

Even more surprising than all these stuff-ups, though, is that a fatality hasn't happened sooner. The US has lost well over a thousand troops since the war began, so for Australia's military to have avoided any for three years really is remarkable.
More than that, their survival for so long in the maelstrom of random death that is Operation Iraqi F**k-up begs the question of what our troops have actually been doing.
Have they somehow found the bit of Iraq where the rightfully dissatisfied locals express their anger not by blowing people up, but writing scathing letters to the editor?

I've always had the impression that our limited troop presence was brilliantly designed to avoid fatalities, as if Howard had struck a deal with the White House.
We seem to have only sent a combination of logistical support and hardarse Special Forces troops who were so well-trained and sported such fancy gear that none of them got killed. A clever bit of negotiation.

So if we have very few troops and they're largely out of harm's way, why are they there? It's about politics, of course. Primarily it's about the US being able to call everything “Coalition”, rather than “American”. It's a fig-leaf to hide the unilateralism of the decision. In that sense, even a single Aussie troop whose only job was to get maggered in the finest pub in Basra would be invaluable to the Americans.

Since this whole caper was their idea, they're the ones who've had to carry the heavy lifting and all the casualties. And it's Bush who's being hammered in the polls. (Well, Howard's being hammered over AWB, but that's an entirely separate Iraq-based disaster.) Seems fair enough.

Except for poor Private Kovco and his family, of course. Let's hope they understand how important it was that Australia participate in an ill-conceived war in a country on the other side of the world which had no bearing whatsoever on Australia's national security.

The thing is, our commitment in Iraq is actually essential for Australia's security. Not because of any threat from Saddam's regime, of course – even Tony Blair surely doesn't believe all that WMD bollocks anymore. But our nation's self-defence relies entirely on sucking up to America. That's why we're still in Iraq, and that, sadly, is why Private Kovco is coming home.
Well, once they find him.

Image supposedly of Pvt Kovco's coffin supposedly en route to Kuwait. Supposedly.

Lest we forget, so why do we keep forgetting?

It’s easy for young Australians to forget that yesterday was about more than biscuits, two-up and a day off work. The city was clogged with elderly men in their Sunday best, wearing freshly polished medals – shiny trinkets that seem hardly enough to recognise such bravery.

Still, it’s a more dignified way of commemorating their sacrifices than a shabby old RSL club.
We don’t revere much in Australia, but we’re right to honour our veterans for enduring unimaginable horrors on our behalf. I find it impossible to relate to being conscripted to risk death for my country.
How would my apathetic, self-absorbed generation cope with going and getting shot at on a beach in Turkey when we find it almost too much effort even to vote, except in Big Brother?
Our national obsession with a military disaster seems a more accurate understanding of the nature of war than countries which are hung up on some ancient victory. With Gallipoli seared on our consciousness, Australians, above other nations, should be pacifists.
But now our country has gone to war for no good reason, thanks to the Bush doctrine of “pre-emptive war”. The CIA has revealed the White House knew there were no weapons of mass destruction, but the hawks went ahead anyway thinking the horrors of war could be avoided with modern technology.
But that only happens when you go to war on your PlayStation. George W. Bush went to extreme lengths to avoid Vietnam, hiding out in the Texas National Guard; Dick Cheney got several deferments; but countless thousands of Iraqis and Coalition troops haven’t been so lucky. Try telling the family of the young Australian soldier who just died in Iraq that the “mission” was “accomplished” years ago.

The true lesson of the Anzacs is not that Australians are brave in war, but that we should do our utmost to avoid situations where they need to be. If they must go, we should follow the restrained “Colin Powell doctrine” that was disastrously lacking in both Gallipoli and in Iraq today, and have clearly defined, realistic objectives and an exit strategy.
Because war, above all, is inevitably a waste. And even though we all solemnly said “Lest we forget” yesterday, the sad fact is that our complicity in inflicting an unnecessary war on Iraq shows that we have, in fact, forgotten.

Michelle, still belle...

Michelle Leslie’s back on the catwalk in the skimpy underwear for which she’s famous. (Which was greeted by the SMH website, of course, with a celebratory photo gallery and video.) It’s funny – Michelle only ever seems to be pictured in two kinds of clothing – burqas or skimpy swimwear. It must be really tough for her to know which to go with when she gets dressed in the morning.

Now, I do agree that she’s suffered a lot. I wouldn’t wish even three months in a Bali prison on anyone – and given the sentences for the most recent Bali bombers, Indonesian courts feel the same way. What with all the doubt over whether the drugs were hers, she certainly has had terrible luck. As Kate Moss found, it’s a big shock when models get busted with drugs, even when they’re snorting them themselves. They generally get to operate in a pleasant moral bubble because they’re beautiful, and it must be difficult to cope when that’s burst. Plus, she’s probably really nice. And the media’s picked on her lots. And John Howard did too. And she can’t really find work at the moment. The poor dear.

Well, tough. Models have it so good that this is one of the few places where the tall poppy syndrome actually seems justifiable. These are people who get paid a fortune just to show up and be beautiful. We have pretty much no control over our looks, so the only bit of their jobs that models actually have any input on is the showing up part. No wonder we resent them.

It’s natural to be jealous of models. These, after all, are people whose job involves trying on beautiful clothes and walking. Who always get admitted ahead of us in nightclub queues. Who get any man they want. Who earn fabulous money for essentially nothing. Who get to swan around the world while the rest of us have to bust our guts working. So when one model gets in trouble, when one of the alpha pack shows a sign of weakness, is there any wonder that the rest of us descend like a pack of vultures?

If she’d had a regular job, if she’d been on struggle street, I’m sure we would have been more sympathetic. Look how ape everyone went over Schapelle – almost every article stressed how beautiful she was, and how she was a beauty student. I’d say she had lots more to learn about putting on makeup subtlly, but then again I haven’t studied the art the way she has. If Michelle had not been a model, or even if she hadn’t pulled the burqa stunt when there were so many photos around of her in undies and body paint, she’d be a national hero. Channel Nine would even have held a second embarrassing people’s inquiry that would have exonerated her via worm. And you can't get fairer than that.

Michelle used to have all the privileges of model status without much of the downside of fame. Now, she has to deal with a degree of infamy, which will wear off slowly. They’re the cards. But I reckon the hand she’s been dealt is still pretty darn good. (And judging by the photos, the rest of her’s held up alright as well.) As Kate Moss proved, scandals are temporary, but hotness is permanent.



Dominic Knight

Fine, but what happens when Nauru goes under?

John Howard is caught between Indonesia and his own bleeding-heart back bench on the issue of mandatory detention of asylum seekers. Bruce Baird, Petro Georgiou and Co are expressing inconveniently principled objections to the idea of shipping everyone off to Nauru. And Indonesia, the country that brought us the Dili massacre, is outraged at the very idea that persecution might be occurring in Papua. John Howard must surely be tempted to banish 42 of his backbenchers to Indonesia as a swap.

Mandatory detention policy is a difficult balancing act. We need to keep the Indonesian Government happy because it stops the boats coming, and also the Nauruans, because they lock up the ones who get through.
However, this involves vast expense as well as human rights compromises unforeseen by the people who devised the decades-old refugee conventions.
Given all this inconvenience, it's no wonder we're so reluctant to sign any more international treaties.
Fortunately, our Government is making real headway on the underlying causes. The best long-term solution to the refugee influx is improving conditions in the countries of origin, as we've done so brilliantly in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both those countries, the threat of being slaughtered by the government has been almost entirely alleviated. And while it's been replaced by a much greater threat of being randomly slaughtered by insurgents, that, happily, is not grounds for seeking refugee status.
The alternative approach is to make Australia a less desirable place to live. WorkChoices means unskilled migrants now face a choice between a sweatshop in their country of origin and a sweatshop in Australia. Which makes being locked up on a Pacific island a relatively attractive proposition.
And thanks to global warming, of course, any Pacific solution can only be temporary. Tuvalu has filed environmental refugee applications for its entire population as it becomes submerged. Australia, funnily enough, was unsympathetic. Even our Nauruan friends have been talking with us about mass resettlement.
So, bizarrely, we are detaining asylum seekers on an island whose entire population is likely to become refugees. They must be hoping our regime will have relaxed significantly by the time they need to use it.
Ultimately, the question must be whether we're comfortable with locking up children. And of course, we aren't. It's so much easier - and, conveniently, less visible - to pay the Nauruan Government to do it instead.

The unquiet Americans

Their culture may dominate the world, but there's nothing like meeting American tourists overseas to give you a glowing sense of superiority. Because everyone was away from their desks yesterday stuffing their faces with chocolate, you may have missed a great opportunity to feel smug in yesterday's Herald. It seems that even the US State Department now recognises the problem, and even more surprisingly, wants to do something about it.

They've released a sensible checklist of suggestions under the slogan "Help your country while you travel for your company." And given the irritating patriotism that surely tops anyone's list of things they hate American travellers, an appeal to that overdeveloped sense of national duty may just work.

The suggestions are pretty sensible, including "Think a little locally: Try to find a few topics that are important in the local popular culture. Remember, most people in the world have little or no interest in the World Series or the Super Bowl."

I love this, because it highlights how arrogantly stupid it is to call a domestic competition the "World Series". Much as they arrogantly refer to the NBA champions as the "world champions". I think what makes us all most angry may be the way that America is that it simultaneously dominates the world while having not the slightest bit of interest in it.

Can you imagine an Aussie rabbiting on about AFL to foreigners, assuming they'll be interested in it? Although our problem's opposite – we're keenly aware of most of the rest of the world, and how very far we are from it.

I think the list, though, can be summarised in one simple rule, which is unfortunately anathema to anyone raised on Oprah. This list is basically telling Americans: don't be yourself.

Anyway, the website about all this is just as funny, actually. How do they propose that all this be implemented? "Designate an executive to attend BDA roundtable discussions where best practices can be shared, collective actions discussed and new tactics devised." I haven't been to no roundtable, but surely stopping speaking in business-ese like that has to be a great start for improving communication abroad.

But if they're serious about improving America's image abroad, they need to greatly expand the list of don'ts for their travellers.

Other countries have different food from ours: Some countries do not have the delicious treats of modern America. Some nations do not even have ready supplies of spray-on cheese. And even though McDonald's and KFC is everywhere, residents of foreign countries may want you to eat at one of their unusual ethnic restaurants – and yes, there are foreign foods other than Tex-Mex. Eat a small amount then go for a burger later.

Other nations eat less (not applicable for visits to Australia): This may be foreigners are, in general, less fat. Therefore, what you perceive as a starter may actually be a main course. Don't comment on this. Just feel quietly smug that your land is so much richer than theirs.

Respect other people's religions: When you see a Palestinian wedding party, try not to bomb it.

Be conscious of cultural differences: In the rest of the world, for instance, Deuce Bigalow is simply not funny. Nor is Adam Sandler.



Free speech is important, but not universal: This might be difficult for you to understand, but not everyone thinks free speech at all times is good. You may find yourself better able to understand this if you ask any foreigner their honest opinion of President Bush.

Read up on your destination: A bit of research before you go can save a lot of hassle. For example, you might want to check on whether a nation will welcome an invading force with "garlands of flowers" or a prolonged and deadly insurgency.

Not everybody hates the French: You will be fine in England, but minimise your use of the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". Be aware that this will go down particularly badly on visits to France.



Make a token effort to speak other languages: Your accent will be so appalling that the foreigners will gladly converse with you in English just to stop you massacring their native tongue.



Not everyone is glad of America's military presence: As strange as this may seem, some countries view American troops as sinister rather than reassuring. Take for instance the residents of Okinawa, who are strangely against American troops just because our base totally dominates their island and the troops have committed a whole bunch of violent crimes over the years.

Try to understand of "irony": This is a tough one, but the rest of the world often doesn't mean what it says, and in fact is sarcastically saying the opposite to what they actually think. For instance, when the characters on The Simpsons patriotically chant "USA, USA", this is a coded ironic message to the rest of the world that the idea of mindlessly chanting "USA, USA" is stupid. And yes, they should be arrested for doing that.

Add your own suggestions and I'll email the list to "Business for Diplomatic Action." I'm sure they'll reply abusively. Will they never learn?



Dominic Knight

Iran was always the target - Bush just got the spelling wrong

Never assume things can't get worse in the Middle East. Iraq's such a disaster that even Condoleezza Rice admits the US made "thousands of mistakes" - an underestimate, surely. Meanwhile, Palestine has been taken over by that happy bunch of pacifists, Hamas. But that's nothing compared to what the Bush Administration has in store.

Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, says the White House plans to invade Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons. And while the report has been played down by the administration, it also played down Hersh's last major exclusive -Abu Ghraib.
Some reassurance has been given by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who described the idea as "nuts". Yes, but so was invading Iraq without any plan for long-term stability and that didn't dissuade them.
One of Hersh's sources says Bush has been focusing on Iran since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 - fortunately for Osama bin Laden - and that the President thinks "saving Iran is going to be his legacy". Well, it certainly isn't going to be saving Iraq.Second-term presidents are always obsessed with their legacy and since Bush's is likely to be "lame-duck president who launched a catastrophic invasion that led to the deaths of thousands of American troops and countless Iraqis", I'd be desperately hunting for a fresh concept as well.
Of course, it shouldn't be necessary to invade Iran in the first place, if the damned Iranians had just followed the script. If you remember, we were promised that Iraq was going to shine the beacon of democracy across the region and spark spontaneous regime change around the Middle East. And indeed Iraq is shining a beacon - it's just unfortunate that it's a warning beacon.
This latest crackpot nightmare is apparently part of Bush's "Messianic" vision of his leadership and appropriately so. Sparking a conflict that might involve nuclear weapons could well bring about the end of the world. Let's hope the American voters indulge his messiah complex - and crucify him in the mid-term elections.

Photo: by Reuters/Larry Downing

Girl, you'll be a woman too soon

Well, after the demise of my last post, I think I'll stick something that's always safe ground for SMH bloggers: dating. Specifically, a Queensland group (of course) that wants to stick a ban on minors dating people who are more than 5 years older than them. What do you think? Have you ever been in a relationship like this? Or has one of your friends? Or would you like to be? How old is too old? How young is too young? So many interesting questions.
If we're going to pass a law like that, though, let's do it immediately. Before the Rolling Stones gig ends would probably be sensible.

To be fair, noted child-dater Bill Wyman's no longer in the band – and I'm sure the rest of the Stones are extremely careful about observing consent laws, and indeed all laws, in all the countries they visit. But what a great example to consider. Mandy Smith was only 13 when she hooked up with Wyman – whose son, bizarrely, was dating her mother. And did she suffer? Huh? Well, almost undoubtedly. But she got so much out of it, infamy wise. She even released singles whose titles totally cashed in on the scandal, such as 'Just can't wait' (yuk) and 'Victim of pleasure' (even more yuk).

She even won the coveted 'Rear of the year' award, Wikipedia tells us, in 1994. Now you try telling me that she would have reached such dizzy career heights if Wyman hadn't ruined her childhood when she was barely a teenager.

Anyway, onto the law's specific details. It's been proposed by 'Bravehearts'. Which is an unusual name for a group of moral campaigners, since the film involves William Wallace impregnating another man's wife. Still, when did the actions of moral campaigners ever make much sense?

The group's Hetty Johnson (what a perfect name for a morals campaigner) says it's about stopping predators, and protecting young people who may be flattered into doing something they later regret: "If you're a young person, 16, 17 and you've got an opportunity to go out with someone who's much older than you are and they shower you with wine and cards and flowers and dinners - bit difficult for those young people to be able to see that relationship for what it is."

Johnson, presumably, knows what it is better than either of the people involved. There's just no possibility whatsoever that it could be a genuine romantic attachment. It's automatically predatory. What bollocks.

Just think of all the beautiful, romantic, completely healthy relationships this law would have rendered illegal. Woody Allen and Soon-Yi. Rob Lowe and that teenager he was videoed with. Charlie Chaplin and, well, a whole bunch of teenagers; most classily Lita Grey, who was 16 when he was with her at age 35. Oh, right, I see where they're coming from with the law idea.

Being fairly judgemental and prudish, I find relationships between young people and much older people fairly gross. If I had a 16-year-old daughter who was dating a 22-year-old, I'd be asking some questions. But you can't generalise completely, and this law's clearly interfering far too much. 16 is fine as an age of consent, and the Bravehearts should get a life instead of interfering in other people's.

In fact, they'd do well to remember William Wallace's cheesy last word: "Freedom".

Google's searching for stalkers

Google's mission, famously, is to organise the world's information. And they've broadened this in recent years to include pretty much anything. Now the boffins want to organise your socialising. But do we really want a bunch of Californian nerds controlling how we socialise? And, scarily, how stalkers socialise?

The internet makes pretty much anything you want to do with your life easier. So just as it's made it far simpler to be antisocial, and never leave your bedroom, a string of social networking sites like Friendster and MySpace have sprung up that allow people who actually have friends to catch up with them. Most popularly, it lets you make new friends, on the principle that you're more likely to get along with friends of friends.

But a new American site called Dodgeball, which has just been bought by Google, lets inner-city hipsters in the US meet up with their friends using their mobile phones – when they're away from their computers. We already send out tentative SMSes to friends when we're out to see if they're around, and Dodgeball is like the deluxe version of the drunken "Whereareya?" SMS.

First you sign up your friends to a contact list. Then you text Dodgeball the details of where you're at and it flips an SMS with the address to all the friends on your list. But trickier yet is the friend-of-a-friend feature. If someone else who's in the contact list of one of your friends is within 10 blocks, it sends you a photo of them saying "This is x, you know them through y". Which provides the perfect beginning to a conversation, of course – you just get to bitch about your mutual friend.

The other feature – which is very Sex & The City (more's the pity) – is a feature that lets you register up to five "crushes" – any user on the site, I think. If they're in the vicinity, it'll alert you and tell you where they are. You're apparently allowed to have a couple of people on the go in the States – so imagine how complicated things could get if your crushes all converged, you were chatting one up and then another popped up?

Dodgeball sounds to me like a social nightmare – would you really want people you were interested in to find out about that in such an unromantic fashion, let alone be forewarned you were approaching? But the Americans are always strangely straightforward about these things.

This all seems well and good, but tracking people's movements like this is also a fantastic way to invade someone's privacy. Even without signing up, I can randomly click on people's photos on the website and find out which bars they regularly hang out in. What a brilliant way to attract crazy stalkers!

But it's not as bad as another site specifically designed for obsessive fans: Gawker Stalker. It's a central repository for sightings of famous people in NYC, And of course, the sophisticated mapping engine it uses is provided by the ubiquitous Google. For instance:

Stocking up on turkey chili at Balducci's, see a dude in a black sweatshirt. I realize it's David Schwimmer. Looked like he rolled out of bed. He was there with a guy stocking up on provisions.

Schwimmer is probably stoked that anyone's still interested in him, but George Clooney has complained about the site, as well one of its victims might. In particular, it seems like a fantastic way to put mentally ill people in touch with the famous people they want to stab. One of the sightings on there at the moment is Christian Slater coming out of the Dakota – the same building John Lennon lived in when he was shot by a crazy fan. Well done, Gawker and Google!

Clooney suggests that celebs get their underlings to just post fake sightings, but what a total waste of time. And surely not everyone has a phalanx of PAs. You can't tell me John Stamos ("doing the breakfast thing at the Millenium Hilton's Church & Dey eatery") can afford to keep a staff anymore.

As always, Google's got great technology, but serious privacy problems. But there's a brilliant solution. Clooney should pay people to obsessively stalk and post the movements of Gawker's staff, and the nerds at Google whose technology makes it all possible. Even if it's just "Larry Page spent all night at his office programming. Again." They'd soon become passionate privacy advocates.

But Gawker Stalker could have its uses. Imagine the reassurance for women of being able to avoid the pub where Warney and his mates were trying to pick up. And I'd pay good money to receive a warning SMS to stop me from accidentally visiting a pub where Russell Crowe was singing.

Cartoon Capers

First we had the controversy over the Danish drawings of the prophet Muhammad and now Indonesia and Australia are locked in a cartoon shoot-out. Samuel Huntington really should have clarified that his so-called "clash of civilisations" would be fought between duelling cartoonists.

The Indonesian cartoon depicting Alexander Downer and John Howard as fornicating dingoes only highlights the yawning cultural gulf between Islamic nations and the West.
It was designed to offend us out of revenge for the offence we caused Indonesia by granting asylum to a group of West Papuans. But far from firebombing our local Indonesian consulate, most Australians seemed to think the cartoon was awesome.
I'm sure it's displayed prominently in every student union office in the country. And I've stuck it up on my fridge, because there's nothing I like better than visualising two of our nation's pre-eminent political leaders as copulating dingoes whenever I get a glass of milk.
My only objection would be that given Downer's efforts over the years, the image isn't quite graphic or offensive enough.
It's not all fun, games and shagging wild dogs, though. Bill Leak has entered the fray with a racy picture of President Yudhoyono buggering a Papuan. And our embassy in Jakarta has been put on high alert ahead of possible reprisals.
But must Indonesia respond with crude explosives when it can instead respond with more offensive cartoons?Downer and Howard were barely fazed by the dingoes. Obviously, Indonesia's illustrators need to lift their game.
If they want to offend the PM, they should invoke the two things he holds dear - Don Bradman paddling his bare buttocks with a cricket bat while the Queen looks on, perhaps. And if they want to offend Downer, they could ... actually, forget it. A guy who'll willingly pose in fishnet stockings had no sense of shame to begin with.
Let's hope things cool down and nobody gets hurt. Otherwise we may have to bring out the ultimate weapon: Ginger Meggs.
Even Yudhoyono is small fry compared to Tiger Kelly. Consider yourself warned, Indonesia. You may have started it, but with our arsenal of tepid satirical cartoonists, we'll finish it.

Dominic Knight
PHOTO: David Mariuz

Radar's Gold Logie form guide

Looking at the list of Gold Logie nominees for 2006, it becomes clear Australia's galaxy of stars has never contained so many dim bulbs. And the network once known as the "home of the stars", Nine, has only two of the eight – well, three if you factor in the size of Bert's head. So, as the Herald noted today, television's night of nights will increasingly be a question of which Seven and Ten stars will clean up on Nine's primetime airwaves.
Here's a form guide to the eight lacklustre candidates – add your predictions below.

Ada Nicodemou

This is Ada's third crack at the Gold Logie, and the Gold Logie's new SMS voting format could help her snatch the prize on this occasion. She won Dancing With The Stars last year, and also won the uncoveted title of 'Champion of Champions', so she clearly excels at superficial text-message-based popularity contests. 3 to 1

Bec Hewitt



How inexplicably popular is this woman, exactly? And how little does she have to do before getting nominated for the Gold Logie? She's hardly appeared on any show in the past 12 months – except for all those infuriating profile pieces on Today Tonight alongside her pet ferrett, Lleyton. But I've been betting against Bec succeeding ever since she limped onto our screens all those years ago, and then launched an ill-judged pop career, and still she seems to triumph. 4 to 1

John Wood



His tenth successive nomination, and surely his last given Blue Heelers' axing. "Woody" is the sentimental favourite. But then again, he's been the sentimental favourite for the past decade and it hasn't helped him in the slightest. Buckley's. 20 to 1

Bert Newton



The other sentimental favourite. Not because he's a legend – the guy's already won four Gold Logies for that – but because he's sure to get the sympathy vote. Just as we feel sorry for old dogs who are cruelly chained up by abusive owners, our hearts will go out to an old showman cruelly forced to host Family Feud. Many people have wondered how on earth he got the nomination after presiding over that disaster – but when you think about it, surely it counts in Bert's favour that absolutely no-one watched the show. 9 to 1

Kate Ritchie

The candidate who should be most grateful that Nine's blown the list out to eight in a tacky effort to maximise SMS revenue. She was infuriating as a small girl, and age has only made her less endearing. As the TV Week blurb reminds us, Australia's own Olsen twin, the Guinness recordholder for the longest time playing the one role, has "grown up on our screens". A statement that would ring particularly true for those who've watched some of her video work that hasn't gone to air on national television. 10 to 1

Bridie Carter

McLeod's Daughters is so boring I can't even be bothered bagging it out. What else... well, her name sounds a bit like "Bec Cartwright", which surely won't endear her to anyone. Add that to the fact that she's on the now-obscure Nine network, and you have a rank outsider. 16 to 1

Natalie Bassingthwaighte



Fairly talented and attractive – apparently she can actually sing, unlike most Neighbours alumni. But someone who portrays a vixen has no chance in an award traditionally the preserve of dull-but-wholesome stars like Georgie Parker and Lisa McCune. Odds go out to 10,000 to 1 if the SMS system requires voters to correctly spell her absurd surname. 15 to 1

Rove McManus

He's won the past three, so you'd think he'd be tough to beat. But his show dropped well back in the ratings late last year, and has had to be "reinvented". And hasn't, really. In fact, Rove Live would work much better without Rove as host. Will also be hampered by last year's speech – a win everyone was predicting for Australia's most popular comedian, and all he could do is quip that he wet himself. Still, he wasn't all that funny on Rove, either, and everyone voted for that. As as lukewarm a favourite as a tepid Logies lineup can boast. 5 to 2.

Dominic Knight

No gay bouquets for Philip Ruddock

What a surprise. No sooner had ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope announced a plan to recognise civil unions – both heterosexual and same-sex – than Phillip Ruddock announced the Feds would veto it. Our Attorney-General hasn't had this much fun since there was last a refugee boat on the horizon.

It might seem pointless for Jon Stanhope's "government" (so cute, it's like a little toy parliament!) to even have tried this on. Unlike grown-up jurisdictions like NSW, any Territory legislation can be overridden by Federal laws. That's why the NT's euthanasia bill got snuffed out by Kevin Andrews' private member's bill, which wouldn't have had effect if NSW had legalised it.

But when you're one of 17 MPs elected to represent only 300,000 people, what else is there to do? It sure beats the traditional pastime of ACT legislators, twiddling their thumbs.

Besides, the ACT has always legalised things that are banned elsewhere in order to make living in a town of public servants more bearable. That's why most Canberrans spend their weekends smoking pot, letting off fireworks and watching porn, sometimes simultaneously. Allowing couples to register civil unions is definitely a better tourist attraction than Questacon.

This is one of these issues that just makes me angry. We aren't talking about marriage in a church. Homosexuality's pretty clearly vetoed in the Bible, so it's not astonishing that churches object to it, as hurtful as this is to gay Christians. We're talking about a harmless ceremony registering a union that already has substantially the same rights and duties associated with it as marriage, thanks to the existing de facto legislation. We're talking about stopping people who only want to celebrate their love, and make a commitment. Shouldn't we, as a society, be in favour of that? (Hint: yes.)

Who would these laws hurt, exactly? Or more to the point, which of the members of Fred Nile's support base do we not feel perfectly okay about upsetting? And isn't giving a few wowsers bees in their bonnets about a matter that isn't really any concern of theirs far less problematic than discriminating against a large section of our society because of their sexuality?

Every Labor state and territory should do the same thing as the ACT, and take it to the High Court, even if only to make Philip Ruddock look bad. Tasmania has already passed laws recognising civil unions, though it doesn't go nearly as far as the ACT laws, which would make civil unions legally equivalent to marriage. Come on, Australia, it's 2006. If fusty Britain can allow Elton John and David Furnish to pledge their troth without crumbling to pieces, then surely our society – which used to be more progressive on these kinds of issues – can cope as well.

We're watching way too much illegal TV

Aussies are the best in the world - or at least the Commonwealth - at lots of things. But we don't give much recognition to another area in which we're way out in front - illegal TV downloads.

A study by Envisional, a consultancy firm, last year found that Britain was No. 1, with Australia in second place.
Per capita, though, we're miles ahead. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
Blame the appalling scheduling of hit US shows such as CSI and The West Wing, which forces addicts to turn to dodgy, painful and frustrating services such as eDonkey or BitTorrent to get their fix. It's tragic. Just as I forgive junkies so desperate for heroin that they smash my car window, it's hard not to pity those so eager for an update from Wisteria Lane that they'll bother spending a day downloading Desperate Housewives.
It's futile to stop people from violating copyright like this. Shutting down Napster, for example, has simply led to the development of unblockable alternatives. And when Metallica whinged about copyright infringement, they came over as spoilt brats, not the victims of a terrible crime.
The solution is to offer cheap, convenient legal alternatives. People who are addicted to downloading The Daily Show, for example, are going to watch it regardless. American networks have realised this and have worked with Apple to develop legal alternatives. Apple's iTunes Store now sells many hit shows - and The Daily Show offers 16 episodes for a lousy $9.99.
Take a show I'm working on, The Chaser's War On Everything. It screens at 10.15pm on Fridays, when many people are out. So we're inundated with requests for copies, but there is no legal way to provide them. (No one uses VCRs any more, it seems.) So others have stepped in and our show is widely available on BitTorrent. We'd be better off selling cheap copies.
The TV industry needs a new system where it earns less from advertisers (Channel Nine is off to an excellent start) and more directly from consumers, who've spoken loud and clear. They want new episodes, without ads, as soon as they become available. And they're going to get them whether the networks like it or not. So, as any drug dealer knows, they may as well make a buck out of having a desperate, captive audience.


Photo - the cast of Desperate Housewives waiting on eDonkey.

Beer and loathing in Victoria

After years in denial, I have finally realised that bars and pubs in Melbourne leave ours for dead. And, like everything else, it's pretty much Morris Iemma's fault that there's nowhere in this city of pompous, sardine-packed watering-holes-from-hell that I can go for a quiet beer on a Saturday night. Oh, and the loathing? That'd be jealousy.

Like any Sydneysider, I'm reluctant to give Melbourne credit for anything. They're always yapping on about how cosmopolitan they are, how they're the world's most livable city, blah blah blah, like a little brother desperate for his cooler big brother's attention. So you can understand how much it troubles me to have to admit that going out in Melbourne seems to me far and away better than hitting bars in Sydney.

This realisation struck me after I spent two days in Melbourne last week without actually managing to make it to any of the Commonwealth Games. A pretty special – though not deliberate – effort, even though they were giving tickets away. But I did go to quite a few bars, and I couldn't help but notice how much nicer they are. Sadly, we could learn a lot from how Melbourne does it.

1) The licensing laws. Probably due to the lack of a powerful hotels lobby to ruin things for everyone, it's much easier to get a liquor license. And as a result, the line between cafes and pubs is blurred. Melburnians can sit in a cafe in a quiet laneway, apparently without any corruption of their morals whatsoever. And because they're drinking trendy stuff like Asahi and Grolsch, they can't actually afford to get drunk and disorderly.

2) The atmosphere. Sydney's idea of a great bar is a massive waterside space, standing room only, that's jam-packed with overdressed tossers shouting over loud music. Melbourne's is a quiet, dimly-lit back room that no-one knows about but the regulars, where you can lounge back on a sofa and chat languidly over music that's barely audible. (No need to worry about cramming people in to cover water-view rent when the only water on offer is the unprepossessing muddy ditch known as the Yarra.) And sure, both scenes are totally posey, but there's only one where you leave with a blinding headache.

3) The variety. Because there are more licensed cafes and small bars, there are correspondingly fewer pubs. And the liberal laws have led to lots of quite small, intimate bars that only seat 20-30, like Hairy Canary, Robot and the Croft Institute, which pack the dark corners of Melbourne's laneways. Whereas Sydney only has two kinds of watering-holes. Down-to-earth pubs, which are great when you're in the mood, and overly pretentious bars, where drinks are overpriced and the door policy dramatically overstates how cool the overdesigned, trying-so-hard-to-be-cool-it's-awkward bar actually is. I can't think of a single place in the inner-city where you can go and actually have a quiet drink on a Friday or Saturday night. And that's not to say Melbourne can't do noisy and backpacker-crammed – it has as many tawdry Irish pubs as we do.

Cookie, a lovely, albeit posey, bar right on Swanston St

4) The lack of pokies. Because liquor licenses in Sydney are tightly controlled, and therefore expensive, landlords need high returns. That means big pubs and bars that cram in punters, and also pokies – a guaranteed return on that high initial investment. There are lots of pokies in Victoria too, but they're in far fewer licensed venues. And Melbourne tends to have pokie-only venues called Tabarets, which let problem gamblers blow their wages in an appropriate level of drab squalor.

5) The attitude. In recent years, Sydney has spawned a lot of places that think the sun shines out of their bars. (Sorry.) Trying going to the Establishment or Hugo's Lounge without feeling like a social leper – and if you can pull that off, then you deserve to have to hang out with the insufferable crowd of regulars. Melbourne bars' preferred pose, by contrast, is to be laid back, meaning you generally don't have to sport an Italian suit or know the DJ to get in.

It's a perilous situation. The lack of decent places to drink in Sydney has led us to desperately convince ourselves that drab holes like the Judgement Bar are cool. The latest of these seems to be the Gaslight in Crown St fot instance. I remember when it was an dilapidated pub full of lonely old men nursing a glass of the house plonk. Now, it's crammed full of young trendies every night, and impossible to hear yourself think, let alone get a chair. And if the decor's cool, it's only in an ironic sense. Same with the Hollywood. But they're still better than sterile, overdesigned places like Cargo and Cruise.

NSW desperately needs Victorian-style licensing laws, like Victoria's. It won't lead to more drunkenness, as the hotel lobby argues, it'll lead to less, because people will drink with their meals. And what nonsense that pubs serve alcohol responsibly. How could there be any more pissed people on our streets than there already are in the Rocks or in the backpacker area near Central?

Why on earth can't the government trust to have a beer at a pavement cafe? It's ridiculous. So much so that I've had to admit that Melbourne's got it better than us. And that pains me even more than John Howard saying that the Commonwealth Games were better than the Olympics.

Now's the time when our two lacklustre political parties jostle for our vote, and promise anything they think we want. I'm voting for whichever party promises to liberalise the laws, and add a pinch of Melbourne to the unpalatable cocktail that is our pub and bar scene.

Photo: Marina Oliphant

Diamonds from Sierra Leone

Quick, reopen our gulag in Nauru! More people are trying to jump the queue and live among us. Outrageous. Only this time, it's not Iraqis or Afghanis, but athletes from Sierra Leone. That is, the country where they force children to become soldiers (like the poor kid in the picture – a potential shooting Olympian if he migrates here), and thousands of people have had their limbs chopped off with machetes. And I'm sure that on this occasion, Australian Government will welcome them enthusiastically – if they can post decent times.

I've never quite understood what the big problem is with taking refugees, and indeed any kind of migrants. Sure, I understand there's a process to be followed, and that it's not really fair to let people who just rock up in ahead of those who follow it. I get pretty pissed off in nightclub queues when they let miscellaneous hotties who've just rocked up and gone straight to the bouncer in ahead of me.

But if I knew that there was a chance that those hotties were about to get gunned down in some kind of drive-by if they weren't allowed straight into the venue (and yeah, I do go to those kinds of hardcore clubs all the time, ok?), then I'd be OK with it. More OK than this tortured analogy, anyway.

I would have enormous difficulty telling anyone from a severely impoverished country, riven by civil war, that they couldn't come and live in a nice place, where the weather was pleasant and there weren't quite so many people who wanted to kill them. Sierra Leone is only just recovering from being a total basket case, so why shouldn't support its residents' understandable position that they'd rather not live there, thanks very much? I know I'd be out of there faster than Jana Pittman can pull out of a baton relay.

In North Korea and China today, many classes of people require internal passports before they can move around freely within the country. (It's a good way from keeping your rural poor from coming and annoying your political elite and new, rich middle class.) In Beijing, I've seen PLA officers inspecting residents' papers on the way into Tiananmen Square so they can bus the hicks back to wherever they've come from. And that denial of the opportunity to seek a better life is why human rights activists have always deemed freedom of movement one of the most fundamental human rights.

The European Union has recognised this freedom between European countries, but now seeks to stop an influx of migrants from the newest, more impoverished members. But why should that freedom stop at national borders? I can't understand any principled argument why people should have to stay in the country in which they were born, so long as they're willing to pay tax in and otherwise abide by the laws of the country they seek to join.

The problem, of course, is a practical one. You need the infrastructure and so on before you can just let most of Sierra Leone move in. But fortunately, Australia is in a unique position. We can easily accept millions of new immigrants, as long as they agree to live in Adelaide.

What better place to put them? It's big, it's very quiet, and there's a rather good Bradman Museum. Most importantly, all the native South Australians are moving away to live in more interesting places, so the population's declining. But sometimes, a quiet town is a real asset. Why not settle millions of people there who won't care that there's not much to do on Saturday nights as long as there's no risk of being tortured for their political beliefs?

So let's allow all the Commonwealth Games athletes to stay, if they like. (We're close to winning all the medals as it is.) They would just have to sign a contract requiring them to maintain their primary residence within South Australia. They can freely visit NSW and Victoria on their holidays, of course, but Sydney's clearly bursting at the seams, and our train system can't take a single extra passenger. In SA, though, having to stand up on a train is an exciting novelty.

In Sierra Leone, having an un-blown up train at all is a huge luxury, of course. And even if there are some social problems, it's not like the murder rate could get any higher. It's time we handed over Adelaide to some people who might actually appreciate it.