update

It's been a long time since we posted, and it's not because America has suddenly picked up it's game. On the contrary, I've been so engrossed in the pre-election circus over there, I've hardly had time to think about how insane the whole thing is and write it all down.

After all, since we lost John Howard, all we have is George Bush, and even he's been pretty quiet.

The parties over there sure put a lot of money, effort, bile etc into competing against their own people, then as soon as a winner is announced, it's all forgotten and the other party are the bad guys again.

Hopefully American's will pull their fingers out and put in a representative vote this time. Once the Democrats are in we can all go back to picking on TV Evangelists, paedophiles and fast food chains (not necessarily in that order).

lets all work for the public service

I feel that i shouldn't even talk about this, so forgive my vagueness.

I'm currently working on a project for a large government department. This is a multi-million dollar software upgrade and is impacting the business across the country.

Every user of this system has to be re-trained, as there hasn't been an upgrade in nearly 8 years.

This all sounds reasonable so far, right?

As a trainer, and having worked for commercial organisations in the past, I have never come across the idea of "course jockeys" before. That is, people who come to training a. for a day off normal duties, b. to see what all the fuss is about, c. just in case there is a job available in future involving the skills taught in the course, or c. to push for a pay increase.

In most organisations training is provided to those who require it and is based on how much value the organisation can gain from the time put into the training by each individual attending.

Individuals can NOMINATE THEMSELVES for training here, and furthermore, they can even turn up on the day and cause overcrowding and disruption in the training room, and we are NOT ALLOWED TO TURN THEM AWAY.

I'm pissed off as a trainer who wants to provide the best service to those who require the skills being taught, and I'm pissed off as a taxpayer who now sees where the funding disappears to.

Some people don't even have the vaguest idea of what the course is about, nor do they have the prerequisite skills and courses that enable them to complete the course and utilise the concepts and technology.

Combine this with decent benefits, short hours, flexi time, accrued sick leave, and all of the other public service perks - I think I am going to consider a change next year.

Censorship - don't read this

One day I will be a terrorist simply because I don’t agree with the government. This is how I, and I am sure many others, read the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock’s, proposal to widen Australia's censorship laws. The more they tweak and specify, the more likely your average person will fall into the trap of sedition.

Ruddock wants to impose a new power to ban books, films and computer games that advocate terrorism. The government has fulfilled its obligations and the period for public consultation closed last week, so now, no matter what anybody says the changes will no doubt soon become law.

Here’s an article discussing the issues “Terrorism proposal extension of censorship laws” by George Williams.

I don’t condone terrorism. Never have and never will. My issue is with who determines what is terrorism. A bunch of conservatives (doesn’t matter which side of politics) who have never really had much to do with the real world. They live at home with wealthy parents until their 30s then get jobs with mates or in the public service. By the time they start dictating what happens in our day to day lives most of us have held down several jobs, battled to pay the bills at some point or another and have seen authority and the government as playing a little or larger part in our problems. No wonder people want to protest and speak out against the government, but careful you are not being seditious.

And what about “terrorism”? One man’s terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. The Israelis are terrorists if the many UN resolutions ruling against their actions mean anything.

David Hicks was a freedom fighter in Kosovo, but a terrorist in Afghanistan. Why? US political alignment. The US were finished with their former allies in the region, the Taliban, and had swapped sides back to the Northern Alliance who they had helped the Taliban defeat years earlier.

So just be careful. One day you may think that you are standing up for the rights of the downtrodden in a conflict that seems unjust, or maybe you will be speaking up for your own rights to express your dissatisfaction with your government. The next thing you know you may be in an orange jumpsuit being brutalised by the people who declare that they are protecting us.

George Williams is the Anthony Mason Professor and Director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales.