Menzies House

Hasten Slowly

David Russell no-doubt controversially argues that it might be time for the Coalition to change tack and lay off attacking Labor: 

There are many who so thoroughly dislike  the Gillard Labor Government (or, perhaps, just the Australian Labor Party, per se) who will not like the following viewpoint. But it may still have validity.

The issue is the simmering determination of many key MPs in the federal Liberal-National Coalition to seize the reins of power at the earliest possible moment. They view the performance of the Gillard administration with such distaste and disdain that they are inclined to take any possible advantage to end its rule prematurely.

They believe fervently that they would be doing the nation a favour to rid us of Labor and it is hard not to disagree. Quality governance and the Gillard track record are oxymoronic terms.

Yet, patience is so often such a wonderful virtue.

Imagine if the Coalition maintained a steady pressure on the government but took a substantial step back from constantly conveying a climate of crisis about its performance.  The sky would not fall in and life would go on pretty much as normal.

Would Labor’s chances of winning the next election be substantially enhanced by such a strategy? There are no guarantees but such is the visceral antipathy to Julia Gillard  that it is very difficult to imagine a revival. Would a Rudd return restore Labor’s electoral prospects? Hardly likely given the advertising ammunition available to the Coalition from the trouncing of Rudd’s most recent leadership bid. No-one else in Labor’s wings appears to stand a snowflake’s chance in hell.

Craig Thompson's Legal Strategy Revealed

 

h/t Alan RM Jones

Anyone believe Thompson's Statement?

Post your thoughts here! 

How Malcolm Fraser gave away the Moon , Asteroids and the rest of the Solar System to International Socialism.

Ralph Buttigieg condemns Malcolm Fraser's decision to ratify the "straight on Marxism" of the Moon Treaty, and discusses how its damaging effects will increase in the years to come:

Its been known for decades that there are vast resources in Space. Asteroids contain nickel, iron and platinum group metals.  The Moon has He3, an isotope that could fuel nuclear fusion reactors. Lighter elements and water are also available. These minerals could provide humanity with extraordinary abundance. Previously the idea of  extraterrestrial mining has been seen a pure speculation but recently that speculation has taken a major step towards reality.  In April a high powered team of entrepreneurs  announced the formation of Planetary Resources a company that has asteroid mining as its goal. Its founders include film maker-explorer James.Cameron,  X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis,  Google  executives Larry Page,  Ram Shriram and  Eric Schmidt, former Microsoft executive and veteran astronaut Charles Simonyi,  and Ross Perot Jr., the son of Ross Perot. These are serious men with serious money, the project has to be taken seriously. 

Australia has a long mining history so so it was  to be expected  that Australians have started taking  an interest. Leonhard Bernold from the University of New South Wales has given much thought as to how to mine the Moon and deal with the dust problem.  Duncan Steel again from University of NSW has explained the role local astronomers can play in such ventures.  However despite what ever comparative advantage Australians may have , its really beside the point because Malcolm Fraser shut the door on Australian Space development years ago.

Space is not some fantasy  filled with Angels and Klingons . People need to remove the restriction of the “Only One Earth” thinking and remember that the planets and moons of our Solar System are new territories available for economic development and eventual settlement. Conceptually   they are no different the New Worlds of the Americas and Australasia. However there's not going to be much economic development without a functioning market and a market economy requires property rights . When Captain Cook came to Australia the first thing he did was raise the Union Jack and claim the territory for King George 3rd . So when Governor Phillip  came here with the First Fleet   land titles could be allocated. Titles that would be recognised anywhere in the British Empire.  Traders need to own something for them to trade it. Developers need to own title to land to raise capital and develop it. In my view its the lack  of Space property rights that's has held up Space development. 

There are two international treaties relevant here. Firstly there's the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies of 1967,  commonly called the Outer Space Treaty which  most countries have signed. That treaty forbids nations claiming sovereignty over extra terrestrial bodies and thereby bans the most time tested way of establishing property rights. There's some dispute if this treaty completely  bans property rights, some lawyers say it does others say it does not. However it does not explicitly say  private property is banned. In fact if space organisations such as NASA have taken legal action to get back  Apollo Moon material which they claimed to own.   

Some people have been happy to work with the Outer Space Treaty and have developed schemes to establish Space property rights.. Rand Simberg from the Competitive Enterprise Institute has propose  a plan that would allow the development on Lunar and Martian resources without huge government funding.   

However its another treaty that the real killer. The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies of 1979,  commonly called the Moon Treaty specifically forbids property rights.

Emmo’s songsheet

David Russell looks at Craig Emerson's recent piece in the Wewkend Australian: 

Pity poor Craig Emerson, Labor’s Minister for Trade and Competitiveness. No matter how hard he tries to tell us that Labor is our salvation, he just can’t get the words and the music right.

In The Weekend Australian he opened an opinion piece with the fateful words: “With a mining tax and a carbon tax starting on July 1, get ready for assertions that Gillard Labor is the highest taxing government in Australia’s history.”

Could have been a beautiful story. Truly. But before going to press Craig forgot to talk to that mythical someone who is coordinating Labor’s approach to domestic politics. The person who inspired Nikki Savva’s inspired critique of Labor’s spin doctoring on the carbon tax – fatefully in the same edition of The Weekend Australian.

Savva explained how Prime Minister Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan have resorted to the ultimate trick in Labor’s bag of political scheming foibles: ignore the truth and pretend it’s something else.

Savva catalogued with admirable finesse how the words ‘carbon tax’ has disappeared from Gillard and Swan’s lexicons. They have been supplanted by the term ‘carbon pricing’. Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, was also issued the same songsheet and he has sung sweetly about ‘the carbon pricing mechanism’. Curmudgeonly members of the commentariat have displayed their typical bitchy refusal to bow before The Great Spin Doctor in the Sky and have questioned these eminent representatives of the Australian electorate about their quibbling only to be met with a straight bat of price rather than tax.

Until Craig left his songsheet at home and blundered into print with an opening salvo that would have Labor’s apparatchiks vomiting their breakfasts by raising, in his opening paragraph, the very spectre of Gillard Labor being the highest taxing administration in Australia’s history. Oh, Craig, how could you?

Certainly Craig went on to intellectually propose the alternative viewpoint but all too little, too late. Could be a frosty reception at the next Caucus meeting, Craig. Just quietly, mate, the word tax has been removed from the hymnal.

And to think there will be former Labor MPs after the election who will wonder just what happened and why? Yeah, go figure, guys.

David M. Russell is a professional communicator with a passion for good governance. His personal blog can be found at davidmrussell.wordpress.com.

FREE eBook: Globalization, Poverty, and International Development

For today only, you can get a FREE electronic copy of the book "Globalization, Poverty, and International Development", published by the free-market Acton Institute's "Christian Social Thought Series":

 

One subject that never fails to spark debate is globalization. The phrase is used in every possible context, and yet its origins, nature and implications - especially for developing countries - are often misunderstood. In this monograph, Lord Brian Griffiths examines the theory and practice of globalization, and underlines its positive influences on wealth-creation and its success in raising millions out of poverty. Griffiths warns, however, that the benefits of globalization are predicated on the culture that it reflects, and urges Christians to work to ensure that globalization reflects the principles of Christian anthropology.

 

Click here to download your copy.

Labor's Military Madness

David Russell looks at Labor's Defence Cuts: 

Ya gotta love Labor’s new guru, Bob Carr. He strides into the Foreign Ministry like a prodigal son returned to save the whole disgraced family. Good luck with that, Bob! Still, he’s an enthusiastic son of a gun and worthy of a good deal of respect. But ya still gotta wonder just where his head is at.

So, he goes to China and makes a few small fluffs. Nothing catastrophic but just enough to ring some warning bells for his hosts.

Then, with a first class seat awaiting him, he takes off for Japan. And this is where he then lambasts his Chinese hosts for not being transparent about their military escalation. Bob softens his blow by saying that their economic rise is a good thing and the world can sleep tight at night coz building your military might is just what a growth-oriented nation would do. Of course.

In fact, he said: “A country that is growing economically and re-emerging as a great power in the world will seek to modernise its military in an appropriate fashion and this is happening with China.”

But, hold on a minute what: what’s the score with good old Australia? Well, clearly we are not a great power but we do get to exercise a degree off influence well ahead of our economic size and power and we fight in most of the conflicts going around the globe at any one time. All in the name of keeping our alliances tight, naturally.

So, Bob, how come your party is currently winding-back our military to a level not seen since before the Second World War? Just as our global influence arguably reaches a new peak on the basis of our quality economy, your colleagues emasculate our military, in defiance of your own mantra about global power projection?

Wikileaks Led to Hanging Death of Western Spy This Week in Tehran

The leaked US documents by far left hero Bradley Manning and Wikileaks website led to the hanging death this week of Western spy Majid Jamali Fashi in Tehran.

The Wikileaks scandal led to the hanging death of Western spy Majid Jamali Fashi in Tehran
Times of Israel reported, via OrbusMax:

WikiLeaks may have been responsible for exposing Majid Jamali Fashi, the 24-year-old kickboxer who was hanged in Tehran on Tuesday morning after “confessing” to assassinating a nuclear scientist on behalf of Israel, a British media report said.

The Times of London reported Wednesday that a document from the US Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, seemingly drew attention to Fashi. The September 2009 US diplomatic document — identified by the code 09BAKU687 — quotes an Iranian source who was a licensed martial arts coach and trainer as describing to his American contacts pressure from the Iranian regime to train soldiers and militiamen in martial arts.

Fashi was reportedly in Baku for an international martial arts competition only days before the US Embassy document was written.

The suggestion is that the Iranian authorities identified Fashi as someone who was in illicit contact with the West on the basis of the document.

He was arrested days after the publication of the document by WikiLeaks in December of 2010 and charged with carrying out the January 2010 assassination of nuclear scientist Masoud Ali-Mohammadi on behalf of the Mossad.

via www.thegatewaypundit.com