state i'm in: now bespectacled.
tune: peter, bjorn & john 'young folks'.
in addressing the united nations climate change conference currently underway in bali, prime minister kevin rudd, in an affirmation of the convictions of so many australians i know, declared that he and his team "have a determination to resurrect the good name of australia in the world". these are words the likes of which i have longed to hear for so so long. finally, the keel is evening out.to date, mr rudd's government's efforts can be largely commended. whilst only very early days, he is making good on promises and the labor government is standing strong on commitments.
internationally, the kyoto protocol has been ratified by australia, ending an embarrassing saga rooted in the dogmaticism of the howard era. from several angles, the government has been subject to pejorative comments regarding its refusal to set a precise target for 2020 emissions cuts, and with some justification. however, i will have more respect for the government if it indeed keeps its word and waits for ross garnaut's report on the issue due mid-2008, just as it committed itself to doing before the election. whilst the importance of the issue of climate change cannot be discounted, the report's release will coincide well with the timetable for the laying down of targets for developed nations to 2050 and will also help cement mr rudd's claims to be a man who takes advice from experts seriously rather as opposed to following blindly an ideology.
also, the new government has shown to be firm and fair in its treatment of asylum seekers. already a group of burmese asylum seekers, until now stuck in detention on nauru, have had their claims processed and will enter the community as resettled refugees before christmas. meanwhile a group of indonesians found stranded in a stricken fishing vessel in waters north of the country have been repatriated to their homeland, after their reason for peregrination was established to be for purely economic reasons (in fact, due to australia's cracking down on their illegal fishing activities in this country's waters leading to a substantial reduction in their income).
on the domestic front, the government has taken steps to ensure that findings of guilt associated with breaches of the trade practices act involving 'cartelling' will carry criminal provisions, including custodial sentences. this parallels moves taken in the USA, much of europe and other developed nations. society ought to be protected from the machinations of cartels, a concept born of capitalism, but one which runs anathema to the concept of the free market, and hurts consumers and other businesses alike.
another area that has received the new government's attention is the establishment of a code of conduct for ministerial ethics. almost immediately subsequent to the swearing in of the new cabinet, the screws were tightened on political lobbyists, ministers' employment after leaving office, electoral fund-raising and direct shareholdings. mr rudd claims that more tinkering to the ethics of politics will occur before parliament sits in the new year, and i am quite keen to see what this unfolds to mean.
one area that i will be particularly looking for, and of far larger potential for abuse than the ethics of ministerial conduct, is the regulation and scrutiny of party donations. under the howard government, the limit set for the requirement of public reporting of donations to a political party was increased from AU$1500 to AU$10500. this does not include the aggregate of several donations, making it very easy for individuals, corporations or lobbyists to make repeated donations of under AU$10500 without any public scrutiny whatsoever. one must ponder the power of such large sums of donated money, possibly many tens of thousands of dollars or more, to steer a politician or their party in a particular direction, howsoever unfavourable to the wider community. if mr rudd is to be taken seriously in his quest to rid the political sphere of as much unethical behaviour as is possible, than this area more than most must receive his prompt attention.
i remain a continual optimist these days about the bearing my nation is steering with and some of the milestones we may achieve along the way. godspeed!
---
image: public (let's just hope that's not grog in the bottle. we all know what kevin's like after he's had a few...)
