...and then there's Claude

The Liberal Party in Moreland

Before discussing the Liberal Party's political fortunes in Moreland, it is worthwhile outlining the environment in which they must contest elections.

Locally, Moreland City Council is dominated by Labor with some Green and independent representation. It is a widely held opinion in Moreland that any Liberal-leaning candidate for Moreland Council must nominate as an independent or face certain defeat.

At the state level, the Liberals in the past have garnered votes in Brunswick through being the only viable alternative to Labor. But the rise of the Greens has seen the Liberals move back into the pack, and in the 2006 state election, they were gracious enough to provide a decent contest by passing their preferences to The Greens.

Federally, the Division of Wills falls almost exactly within the City of Moreland. Wills was all-Australian legend and former PM Bob Hawke's seat, and before that ALP stalwart Gordon Bryant held the seat for 25 years. The only non-ALP candidate to achieve office in Moreland was VFL champion, union heavyweight, and social justice campaigner Phil Cleary.

Conclusion: the City of Moreland is No Person's Land for the Liberal Party. But then, there is no person like Claude Tomisich.

Who is Claude Tomisich?

The perennial Liberal Party candidate for Pascoe Vale and Wills!

What a champ. Although he has only cropped up since the 2006 state election, Mr Tomisich has contested both state and federal elections for the Liberal Party, and most likely will continue to do so. And M.Shriek says that's a Good Thing.

Why? Here's why:

First of all, Mr Tomisich is a secondary school teacher by trade, and M.Shriek endorses teachers. True, he hasn't been rated too highly by his students, but then only two of them bothered to rate him at all. But M.Shriek loves this assessment from one of his former pupils: 'as exciting as the abc channel!'.

Secondly, Mr Tomisich lifts weights. And not just the piddly little weights people jog around with in parks. No, Mr Tomisich is a member of the Victorian Weightlifting Association.

Thirdly, even though he is a secondary school teacher AND a weightlifter, Mr Tomisich has been known to take on - and be defeated by - teenage boys in hand-to-hand combat. It is difficult to quantify the admiration M.Shriek holds for weightlifting teachers who are licked by 14 year olds, and then nominate for election, but readers (and Mr Tomisich) should rest assured it is larger than astronomical.

Performance to date

To date, Mr Tomisich's political performances have been sub-par. He stood as the Liberal candidate for Pascoe Vale in the 2006 state elections, and was soundly thumped by Christine Campbell - although he did poll twice as well as The Greens. He also stood as the Liberal candidate for Wills in the 2007 federal election, where he polled 24.5% of the primary vote, which was 2nd best, but still less than half of the Kelvinator's whopping 56.9%. More worryingly for the Liberal Party, Mr Tomisich swing of -3.6% was appears largely redistributed among Labor (+1.7%) and The Greens (+1.5%).

Happily for those of us who like a good dose of political melodrama, Mr Tomisich has not given up. On the contrary, M.Shriek understands Mr Tomisich will forge ahead with his mission. How does M.Shriek know this?

From this fabulous documentary of Mr Tomisich's political career and aspirations:



Submitted into this years Blue Dandenongs Young Film Makers Festival, ...and then there's Claude is a heart-warming (but maybe not vote-garnering) exploration of the touchingly dysfunctional life of Claude Tomisich. Huge plaudits to Guiseppe Pantaleo for producing one of the cultural gems of hyperlocal politics. M.Shriek will seriously consider giving Mr Tomisich a vote next time he nominates. Somebody has to, or we will lose him forever.

So what to make of the Liberal Party's prospects in Moreland? What do you think? Can they pose a viable alternative to Labor at state and federal level?

The Greens

To date M.Shriek has largely concentrated on the dominant political force in Moreland, the ALP.

However, a pluralistic democracy requires some form of legitimate alternative. The following two posts detail the two foremost political alternatives in Moreland: The Greens and The Liberal Party.

At the local and state level, the primary political opposition is The Greens.

Political performance to date
So far the Greens have made inroads to political fortune in Moreland without achieving compelling success. There are two Greens on the City Council of Moreland, and the Greens have had a presence on Moreland Council for 8 years.

At state level, the City of Moreland captures the seats of Brunswick and Pascoe Vale, as well as a slice of Preston. In Pascoe Vale in 2006, the Greens polled just over 12%, an increase of about 1000 votes from 2002 - modest efforts by anybody's standards.

However, in Brunswick the story is different. Those who have spent a bit of time around Brunswick will know there have been some significant demographic changes in the past 10 years. Older migrants are moving out and younger chats are moving in. In 2002, The Greens polled the seoncd most first preference votes, just over 24%, against the incumbent Carlo Carli. In 2006, Greens candidate Cyndi Dawes raised this to just under 30% of first preference votes. With Liberal Party preferences, this put The Greens at 46.37% of the two party preferred vote.

The Labor vote in Brunswick dropped by some 5% between 2002 and 2006. Further demographic change, a further drop for the ALP primary vote, and Liberal preferences will see The Greens win Brunswick in the State Election next year. It promises to be a doozy.

Readers will recall that the ALP candidate in the State Election next year is Jane Garrett. The Greens have not yet announced their candidate for Brunswick, but M.Shriek imagines that having performed so well last time, Cyndi Dawes will have another go.

How active are The Greens in the hyperlocality of Moreland?

There is a barebones information page on the Victorian Greens website, but of more interest is the Moreland Greens local site, Green Moreland City. Green Moreland City is a rather nifty drupal site which nonetheless needs some love. The last post from the Moreland Greens was to announce the results of the November 2008 Local Government elections - some 12 months ago!

Prospects for the Future


As this DHS map shows, Brunswick is one of the wealthiest parts of Moreland. The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 Census data indicates that Moreland is the youngest population in Moreland:

15-24 years	2006
Brunswick	16.00%
Coburg	13.50%
Pascoe Vale	11.10%
Fawkner	11.60%
Glenroy	12.00%
25-54 years
Brunswick	54.10%
Coburg	46.80%
Pascoe Vale	43.10%
Fawkner	36.00%
Glenroy	39.50%
55-64 years
Brunswick	7.30%
Coburg	8.20%
Pascoe Vale	8.00%
Fawkner	8.40%
Glenroy	9.00%
65+ years
Brunswick	11.50%
Coburg	14.00%
Pascoe Vale	20.10%
Fawkner	24.00%
Glenroy	21.30%

And if Cr Jo Connellan's election results are anything to go by, The Greens are very politically popular in Brunswick.

So are the Greens the real political alternative in the seat of Brunswick? Or is an independent more likely to pose a serious challenge to ALP new-comer Jane Garrett?

OHS haiku

Blue stone walls witness
Yet another needless death
Please be safe at work

Prepare. Act. Survive.

This is the new refrain to guarantee fire safety this coming fire season.

So far, it feels a lot like being in the scouts. You get to feel responsible without having any real responsibility other than staying alive. You get to talk about survival and consider the grim prospect of mass tragedy. If you're sufficiently enthused, you can join a volunteer brigade and get a uniform.

It's all very self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is a good thing. But in terms of fire safety, so is a collective effort, and so is having the government constructively engage. Recent state-sponsored efforts to prepared Victorians for the coming fire season leave a lot to be desired.

October 11-18 is Fire Action Week. For you and I, this is a week to begin preparing for the summer ahead. For the State Government, it is a week of telling you and I to begin preparing for the summer ahead.

Fire Action Week has seen any number of compelling intitiatives to ensure we are fire safe and fire ready. For example, Monday's Age contained an 8 page lift-out on how to 'be prepared'. Step 1 (not listed in the lift-out) was 'be prepared to read through the Sports section to obtain your lift-out'. Non-readers of the Sports section of The Age should feel free to perish.

We have also had John Brumby's Fire Action Week Address:




However, the real cracker during Fire Action Week has been the implementation of the 'Probably Best to Go, Unless You Really Want to Stay and You Are Adequately Prepared, Except if it is an Emergency, in Which Case for God's Sake Don't Stay' policy. Formerly, Victorians were encouraged to decide early whether in the event of wildfire they would stay and defend their property or evacuate. The bushfires of Black Saturday earlier this year exposed a fatal disparity between understandings of the preparation needed to stay and defend a property, and the reality of a widespread lack of preparation. Now, Victorians are being encouraged to Stay and Defend unless it happens to be a Code Red day, in which case, they should evacuate. So long as it is not too late.

Others have already deeply criticised the confusion which will surely result.

But in part the issue here is not so much that the State Government needs to vastly improve the effectiveness of its communication techniques. It also lies in the government's willingness to ensure there is adequate fire coverage from professionals as well as citizens. Earlier this year, an independent Board of Reference recommended the State Government increase the number of professional CFA firefighters. In August, Premier Brumby acknowledged there would be 700 'seasonal' firefighters deployed this coming summer.

This is a measure which falls some way short of the recommendations required to ensure we are adequately protected this summer.

There is a need for more professional firefighting coverage across Victoria.

Wherein lies the value of delay?

Population Control

Honourable Member for Wills Kelvin Thomson has been causing something of a stir lately.

On 17 August this year, Mr Thomson made a speech in Parliament endorsing two propositions:

1. That the world's population needs to be stabilised.

2. That Australia's population needs to be stabilised.

The Hansard text is here, or you can watch the full speech below:



Most readers will know that population control is already practiced in a number of countries, particularly India and China. In the past few decades, notions of population control have been shunned in the west, largely thanks to relatively-recent support for the view that control over reproduction is a basic need and right for women. However, with unprecedented levels of concern over climate change has come calls - such as Thomson's - to revive discussions on how to manage overpopulation.

In his parliamentary speech, Thomson delivered no suggestion as to how we might remedy the problems exacerbated by overpopulation. Rather, he outlined how overpopulation might make more difficult the management of issues such as global warming, food and water shortages, housing affordability and over-crowded cities, species extinctions, waste and terrorism.

Naturally, the proposition that population requires stabilisation has been met with considerable criticism. But it has also received a great deal of acclaim. Neil Mitchell has observed that one way or the other, population management is a discussion this nation needs to have. Others have suggested a vote-harvesting exercise: that Thomson expects to achieve nothing more than public sympathy in the polling booth.

This last approach deserves closer attention. Population control is a matter of considerable importance for environmental groups, and Thomson stands to gain credence among these groups for his stance. But Thomson has also called to cut migration not for reasons of population control, but rather for national security. In a speech to school students some 10 days earlier, and subsequently in a mail-out to his constituents, Thomson suggested slashing Australia's migration programme to 1990s levels would 'provide authorities with much more time in which to assess applications, and thereby improve Australia's security'. This position is likely to prove popular with those voters who sympathised with the War on Terror.

How do we quantify the urgency of a national discussion of population control? When will it be too late?

Is there value in Thomson's suggestion that Australia should cut migration levels to permit a greater degree of national security?

Should Australia manage its population, and if so, how? How can population control be reconciled with individual rights for reproduction?

Thomson has foreshadowed a series of compelling national conversations. The way to ensure it is more than a vote-harvesting exercise is for the public to seize the initiative, and input their own views on population control.

map of where you go

Some people don't know that bike riding is serious business.

It's life and death, death or glory, glory glory hallalujah out there on the bike paths.

That's why it pays to be prepared.

Know Your Way

Maps are good. Every bike reader needs a map of where you go. But don't go to Bicycle Victoria, they don't know. You could go to Moreland City Council for an 8MB map which is about as comfortable to use as a penny farthing, although happily they have formed a committee for being told to get a better bike map. They can be told here.

Know Your Philosophy

Philosophy is important for bike riders. You can't answer the death or glory? question until you've reconciled some pretty deep shit. Happily in Moreland there are an array of bike riding philosophies going around.

Commuter Cycles

We're always going places. Commuter Cycles is for people like us. People not like us should go here. Which is not to say that the content of Commuter Cycles website is not shamelessly commercial, but M.Shriek appreciates candour while commuting.

Human Powered Cycles

M.Shriek approves of websites which have a Philosophy page. That's why M.Shriek approves of the Human Powered Cycles website. The approval stops there because the philosophy is suspiciously vague: community-minded environmentalism. Happily, the memoriam suggests they have got the life/death, death/glory aspects of bike riding covered pretty well.

Ceres

God dam hippies are everywhere; it's like the 60s all over again but nobody's having any fun.

Except down at ceres. Down at ceres it's a wonderland of organic food, animalia, and good old fashioned bike fixing. The devil knows how good they fix bikes, but their philosophy is spot on: the Bike Group aims to 'encourage mutual respect by cultivating fair and equitable processes in the Shed'.

Hmm. Sounds like an artel to M.Shriek.

Long live communist hippies on bikes!

Just watch the delusional yuppies with prams.

Moreland BUG

The Moreland Bike Users Group is for serious people who think about the overall plans and policies for bike riding in Moreland. It doesn't sound like much fun and 12 seconds on the website bears this out, unless you happen to be into policy, budgets, and meetings.

On the upside, the Moreland BUG Philosophy is charmingly proto-evangelical, with volunteers who 'love cycling' and 'wish to share the enjoyment'. So long as they're quiet about it, M.Shriek wishes MBUG all the best in their mission to bring more bicycles and safer bike paths to the world.

Ethics, Terminology, and Christine Campbell, MP

Meet Christine Campbell, MP.


Christine is the State Member for Pascoe Vale, which encompasses Pascoe Vale, Pascoe Vale South, Oak Park, and the western districts of Coburg.

Her profile reads much like that of any other apparatchik: concern, compassion, community-mindedness, early age, community groups, member of, many years, keen involvement, electorate officer.

However, Christine's story has a curious theme: ethics. Yes, although her constituency mail has her fascinated by 'jobs jobs jobs', in fact she is frequently concerned with 'the dignity of the human person', and is currently studying a Masters in Bioethics.

How bloody fascinating.

What a relief to have a polly who isn't writing their own prognosis on how the first way can be combined with the second way to create the Third Way to salvation.

Yet how is this concern for ethics manifest?

As a member of the 2nd coolest creek gang going around (Friends of the Merri Creek, of course), is she raging against the degradation of the Merri?

Mmm, no.

As a member of the Moreland Bicycle Users Group, is she lurking at intersections, casting guilt-trips at single-occupant cars?

Mmm, no.

In fact, Christine is concerned about abortion, in particular the devaluation of a human life in embryo form. Kudos for Christine for stating her views; she makes no bones about the fact she believes motherhood begins with pregnancy. Her views are not held by M.Shriek, and at least for the purposes of this initial observation of Christine's interest in bioethics, we are concerned with terminology, not rationale.

In particular, her use of the term 'abortion industry'.

Now, terminology is a funny thing. We all use it with different meanings, and goodness knows the discourse surrounding abortion has been punctuated by regular use of heavily-laden if not downright nasty terms. 'Abortion industry' is one of them. It implies an industry which actively encourages poor contraception, unsafe sex, and accidental pregnancies purely in order to make a profit. 'Abortion,' says Christine, 'is about both a woman and her unborn. Abortion can never be about one or the other'. That's a noble sentiment, so long as we bear in mind that there is no Third Way in bioethics either - you cannot synthesise a woman and her unborn to concoct an 'abortion industry'.

Why should this get my goat? Because the kind of people who use the term 'abortion industry' are people like David Duke. The same David Duke who argues that the 'abortion industry' is run by 'extremist jews'.

M.Shriek eschews guilt by association. But M.Shriek also implores with Christine to watch her terminology, lest the unwitting mistakenly connect her to the profoundly unsavoury opinions of people like David Duke.

All the best to Christine Campbell, MP.