Farmers fight back in Tasmania

By on March 4, 2013 in Property rights

Twelve concerned farmers from Southern Tasmania have banded together to start fighting back against the government’s attacks on their property rights. One of the group’s members, Lindsay Wright, was recently interviewed on ABC Rural:

Sally Dakis: And what are your concerns? And I guess that’s a very big question, but number one?

Lindsay Wright: Number one is probably that our property title rights have been eroded over the years – probably the last 20-30 years – to such an extent that everything we try and do now on our farms – we have to fill in forms, we have to get authority from someone in town who’s done a university degree that really has no idea how we run our farms and we are quite upset by all this. The fact that we are just farmers and we’ve run our farms for generations and we’ve run them well, and in the last 20 or 30 years, particularly the environmental movement has become so strong, and they’ve got the high moral ground, and we’ve decided that enough is enough and we want to get some of this ground back.

Wright is spot on. Successive governments have been chipping away at farmers’ property rights over a long period of time. Controlled burning and native vegetation policies are paternalistic and ignore the fact that the best conservationists will always be the landowners themselves.

The IPA has previously called for an end to native vegetation laws.

One step, two step, three step, ban!

By on March 4, 2013 in Nanny State

AlcoholThe British Medical Journal’s editorial is advocating that alcohol advertising should now be treated like tobacco, and by that they mean it should be banned. The proposal is based on Helen Lovejoy’s hysterical cry “won’t somebody please think of the children”. According to the Editorial:

“If protecting children from harm is the hallmark of a civilized society, the United Kingdom is failing the test when it comes to alcohol marketing”.

The editorial continues:

“Although television is still the alcohol marketer’s principal channel of choice, it is rapidly being overtaken by new types of media, especially campaigns that harness social networking sites such as Facebook and twitter. The sector is so ubiquitous and multifaceted that RAND’s analysis [of the marketing of the alcohol industry] was unable to draw any sensible conclusions about relative exposure”.

Ordinarily when a report cannot draw sensible conclusions the logical thing is to reanalyse the data, get more of it, or note it without action. But that isn’t the position of BMJ, which continues:

“Digital media are tearing up the communications rule book. Phenomena like user generated content, view-any-time TV, and passed along video make age based controls on access increasingly meaningless”.

That’s true, and broadly amen because it makes it harder for government to silence free speech. But free speech, commercial or otherwise, is deemed disposable by the BMJ which concludes:

“Our children urgently need protection from alcohol marketing. Voluntary codes and partial measures have all too obviously failed, and marketing through digital media is set to multiply the resulting harm. This week sees the publication of the UK’s first independent alcohol strategy, which calls for a comprehensive suite of measures to combat the public health harms being caused by alcohol. Central to its recommendation is a complete ban on alcohol advertising and sponsorship. The RAND report confirms that such a step is long overdue”.

It’s a fascinating conclusion to draw from a report that only a few paragraphs before stated the report could not draw “sensible conclusions”.

In a liberal society most people accept reasonable laws that differentiate children and adults. It’s vital because children can never be held to the same standards when they lack mature minds. But blanket miss the point.

The claim of the editorial and RAND report is that kids are exposed to content online that they should otherwise not have access to. First, commercial social media providers generally screen advertising for kids under the age of 18. The issue is content that is circulated from peer to peer, and often is not generated by companies. No regulation can stop that, and if it a law could it would be so draconian that it would not be worth having.

Second, while children do need to be protected, they should not be wrapped up in cotton wool. Children need to be engaged in a process of maturing which involves being exposed to life learning, choices and responsibility. Denying them that information earlier in life won’t prepare them for making mature decisions later in life.

Third, this is lazy policy. It’s quite common for the health community to replicate policies used against tobacco on food and alcohol. The assumption is that they worked once, so they will work again, except the objectives are different.

Whether you agree with it or not, the objective of policies to target tobacco was to wipe it out. It is not the same objective as food and alcohol where people are being encouraged to engage in healthier and more moderate consumption. Cultural change needs to be achieved and people have to exercise individual responsibility. As a consequence one-size-fit-all policies are not likely to be effective.

Electoral act amended

By on March 4, 2013 in Liberal democracy

Australian Conservative on a little-covered recent change to the Electoral Act:

In a rare outbreak of bi-partisanship, or what some might see as a very cosy arrangement, the Liberal Party and the ALP are supporting amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act that will double the amounts required to nominate for election to the federal houses of parliament.

Under the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Improving Electoral Procedure) Bill 2012, the amount required to nominate for election to the Senate will increase from $1,000 to $2,000 and from $500 to $1,000 for the House of Representatives.

Family First chairman Bob Day says the change will cost the party an extra $90,000 at the forthcoming election.

The Greens, to their credit, opposed the move. (This is probably the first and last time FreedomWatch will link to a speech by Senator Lee Rhiannon).

Nick Cater on anti-discrimination laws and free speech

By on March 4, 2013 in Freedom of speech

This is a very interesting article by The Australian‘s Nick Cater on Spiked. He revisits the parliamentary debates in 1975 when racial discrimination law was first introduced in Australia, and the warnings of one Senator who opposed them:

His finest hour came when Gough Whitlam’s Labor government tabled the Racial Discrimination Bill in 1975. Even as the conservative opposition was preparing to bring down the government by vetoing the budget, it was too nervous to back its instincts and block Australia’s first human-rights legislation.

It was left to Thumpa, and a handful of other crazy-brave senators, to raise questions about the bill’s questionable constitutional validity and its threat to free expression. Only Thumpa and his backbench chums were prepared to defend the reputation of the Australian people, impugned by the tabling of legislation designed to cleanse society of ingrained racism.

‘The passage of this bill would take some fundamental rights away from us, such as the right of free speech, free discussion and publication’, Thumpa told parliament during the bill’s second reading speech. ‘Far from eliminating racial discrimination by making it illegal, the bill will highlight the problems between the races and create an official race-relations industry with a staff of dedicated anti-racists earning their living by making the most of every complaint in much the same way as does the Race Relations Board in the United Kingdom.’

Nick has a book out in May which looks like it will be a must read.

The non-human right to welfare

By on March 4, 2013 in Freedom of speech, Property rights

The Left has a strong track record of promoting non-human rights. In Australia, the most infamous example in recent years has been the right not to be offended – enshrined in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Other bizarre examples include the non-human right to housing, the non-human right to education, the non-human right to employment and even the non-human right to broadband.

The latest example is the non-human right to welfare. The United Nations has raised concerns with the federal government’s plans to change welfare laws because it will result in a cut in the payments to some single parent recipients:

The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and the working group on discrimination against women are warning the cuts could have a detrimental effect on the human rights of up to 100,000 Australians, and could be contrary to some of Australia’s international obligations.

These examples demonstrate that the Left simply ignores the basic characteristics of what constitutes a human right. You don’t have a right to someone else’s stuff – if your so-called right depends on taking property from another person, it’s not a human right. That’s why the right to freedom of speech is a human right, but the right to broadband is not.

Instead of a principled approach, based on the idea that rights are exclusive claims, the Left-wing human rights lobby just co-opts the language of human rights to defend the things it likes.

Video: The Biggest Vested Interest of All

By on March 4, 2013 in Liberal democracy, Nanny State

Watch Chris Berg explain his new report, on how governments use taxpayers’ money to lobby to take away our freedom:

 

Finnis: ASADA powers undermine “fundamental human rights”

By on March 4, 2013 in Rule of law

AFL Players Association chief executive Matt Finnis appeared on Friday before the Senate inquiry into the Australian Sports and Anti-Doping Authority Amendment Bill 2013. Finnis criticised the proposed changes:

“Some of the other aspects of the legislation, they alter the fundamental human rights of athletes because they seek to remove usual protection, such as the right against self-incrimination,” he said.

“They seek to put an onus on athletes in some cases to prove their innocence and, in other cases, despite some of these proposed changes, there is also no protection for traditional privileged relationships, such as those between a lawyer and his client, or a doctor and his patient.

“While the intentions of what they are trying to do is sound, the manner in which this has been proposed leaves much to be desired.”

You can read more on the ASADA bill here and here.

New paper: The Biggest Vested Interest of All

By on March 4, 2013 in Liberal democracy, Nanny State, Personal liberties

Today the IPA is releasing a new paper of mine: The Biggest Vested Interest of All: How Government Lobbies to Restrict Individual Rights and Freedom.

The Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan wrote in The Monthly in March 2012 that: ”Australia’s fair go is today under threat from a new source. To be blunt, the rising power of vested interests is undermining our equality and threatening our democracy.”

But not all vested interests are private corporations.

This paper draws attention to two statutory agencies of the Commonwealth Government that have an explicit, legislatively-defined functions to lobby and advocate for public policy change – the Australian National Preventive Health Agency and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

These two agencies are effectively taxpayer funded lobbyists, embedded in the public policy process, enjoying privileged access to the institutions of government.

Both of these agencies are highly ideological. The Human Rights Commission pushes a distorted idea of human rights, which FreedomWatch has been documenting over recent months . The Preventive Health Agency gives paternalistic policies an institutional foundation: an advocate for the Nanny State in the corridors of power and a body that is likely to remain with us indefinitely.

Here’s the press release we sent out this morning about it.