Ulysees

Alas, I didn’t finish Ulysees by Bloomsday.

Why there should be wards in the City of Sydney Council

Last year I argued in favour of having wards in the City of Sydney during a referendum to introduce them held in conjunction with the September 2008 City elections.* (I have to declare that I was a Labor candidate for Council – number six on the ticket of ten candidates, and that our team supported a Yes vote in the referendum.) I argued that not having wards meant that Councillors were responsible to voters through their teams, and that having “team” votes meant that it was much more difficult for voters to vote for or against particular Councillors.

I now support having wards more strongly than I did at the election. I used to be against having wards but my view changed since being involved in community groups.

While I used to think that having wards promoted parochialism, this relatively minor point is much weaker than the negatives associated with not having wards. The fact that all nine Councillors represent the entire City of Sydney means that that no particular Councillor (or group of Councillors) is directly responsible to the voters in any particular area of the City. There is no obligation for the issues in any area to be taken up by any Councillor.

NSW Government introduces state preference – NSW protectionism!

The Daily Telegraph today published a story stating that:

…all NSW Government departments and agencies will be forced to protect Australian jobs by giving preference to locally made products.

This would include stationery, uniforms, cars and even trains and building contracts. And to make local bids more competitive, a 20 per cent discount will be applied to Australian products when comparing the cost with overseas bidders.

What can one say? This will lead to NSW residents being subject to higher taxes and charges than necessary, and likely to lead to increased prices due to decreased competition to supply the NSW Government. One wonders how managers in the NSW Government will attempt to run their organisations efficiently given this protectionist policy.

The NSW Treasurer agreed that this could lead to increased costs, but that this was ok given that it would “help local jobs”. The NSW Treasurer should answer the question about why Australia ever reduced tariff barriers, given that the tariffs helped support local jobs at higher costs to taxpayers and consumers.

“All NSW Government and state-owned corporations (SOCs) are to give preferential treatment to Australian-made goods under the new Local Jobs First plan,” Mr Roozendaal said.

“The NSW Government is putting NSW jobs first. Every year, NSW Government agencies spend billions of dollars buying the things they need to deliver services to the people of NSW.

“This plan tips the balance in favour of local businesses, providing them with greater opportunities to expand and sell to government.”

The Local Jobs First program has been endorsed by Unions NSW.

While protectionist sentiments are understandable in the present environment, they should be resisted. It would be better for tenders should be won by businesses offering the best product, regardless of where the business is located.

McKinsey Quarterly article – ‘Power curves’: What natural and economic disasters have in common

McKinsey Quarterly has a nice article discussing the oft-quoted power law distribution of events in the natural and financial worlds, together with readers’ comments:

Executives, strategists, and economic forecasters, somewhat sheepish after missing the “big one”—last year’s global credit crisis—turned to the lexicon of natural disasters, describing the shock as a tsunami hitting markets and as an earthquake shaking the world economy’s foundations. Shopworn as these metaphors may be, they aptly capture the extreme and unexpected nature of the circumstances. In fact, the parallels between the dynamics and failures of man-made systems, such as the economy or the electricity grid, and similarly complex natural ones are bringing new ideas to economic forecasting, strategic planning, and risk management. This trend may have profound implications for policy makers, economists, and corporate strategists alike.

NSW electors selecting political party candidates

Via pollbludger comes news of the NSW Nationals using a US-style primary to select its candidate for one NSW state electorate for the 2011 state election. Quoting the story:

Under the trial, polling booths will operate to allow everyone enrolled in the chosen electorate to vote on who they would like to see as the Nationals candidate.

Currently, only card-carrying members of the party have a say in that process.

Individual electorate councils within the Nationals will now be asked if they would like to have their candidate chosen via community pre-selection.

Mr Stoner previously has said that if the trial works, it would be expanded to other seats for the 2015 election.

It would be great to see the Liberals and ALP adopt a similar process for selecting a candidate for at least one seat in the next state and federal elections, perhaps in independent-held seats. This seems unlikely though given the conservatism of both party organisations.

Maths problem – which \beta satisfy \beta(i+j, k)\beta(j+k, i)\beta(k+i, j) = 1?

A problem has recently arisen when attempting to define colour traces on square traces using minimal assumptions. The problem is as follows.

Let i, j, k = 0, 1, 2, …, m-1, and let + be additive addition modulo m, i.e. we identify m and 0.

Let \beta(i, k) -> C be a complex-valued function of i and k, where \beta satisfies:

• \beta(i, k) \beta(k, i) = 1, for all i, k, and
• \beta(i+j, k) \beta(j+k, i) \beta(k+i, j) = 1.

The problem is: what are the allowed values of \beta(i, k) ?

Note we have: \beta(n, 0) = \beta(0, n) = 1 for all n which can be seen from fixing i=n-1, j=1, k=0, which gives \beta(n, 0) \beta(1, n-1) \beta(n-1, 1) = 1. We also have \beta(1, 1)^{2}=1.

The ACTU’s “fair go for Australian industry” that isn’t “a call for a new wave of protectionism”

The ACTU is doing Australian workers no favours in pretending that its call for protectionism under another name is not, actually, a call for protectionism.

This call appears in an ACTU press release dated 4 June 2009 entitled A fair go for Australian industry by government purchasing will support local jobs, which states (in part):

Unions are proposing a set of National Interest Expenditure Principles to guide government spending and investment so that it maximises jobs and benefits Australian industries.

“Federal and state governments should do more to protect Australian jobs through procurement policies that give a fair go to domestic industries,” said ACTU President Sharan Burrow.

“This is not a call for a new wave of protectionism,” Ms Burrow said. “This is about a fair go for Australian jobs and industries.

NSW MPs should not also be Local Government Councillors

A reform should be made in New South Wales so that MPs cannot also be local government Mayors or Councillors.

This reform would improve NSW political culture and should be implemented by Political Parties if not the Parliament. The reform would also bring NSW in line with Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.

It’s common for NSW Councillors to be elected to Parliament and to remain on Council at least until the next Council election.

However, there are likely to be conflicts of interest between the roles of an MP and a Mayor/Councillor, and it’s difficult to see how an MP can do the job of Mayor or Councillor given the time required for both. The statutory roles of NSW Mayors and Councillors are detailed at the end of this post.

The strange but common distinction between “creative” industries and others

The front page story on last week’s City News (Festive Sydney gets creative) included the strange but commonly-made distinction between “creative” industries and other industires. While the story focussed on a festival (the inaugural Creative Sydney festival), its messages were consistent with a commonly-expressed theme of particular industries being “creative”.

Interestingly, “creative” has been turned into a noun, e.g. “I employed a creative to work on X”. This usage appears to be used for a person employed in “creative” work or in a “creative industry”.

The City News article stated:

Creative Sydneysiders have a chance to let their true colours fly, with new events announced as part of the inaugural Creative Sydney festival.

Launching in late May, the festival will celebrate the strength of the city’s creative talents.

Geoff Parmenter, CEO of Events NSW said: “The festival features many free events that will engage the community with the arts and the city’s creative industries.”

Creative industries include music, design, architecture, gaming, photography, performance, writing, radio, film, TV, advertising and visual arts.

Over three weeks from May 27, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Foundation Hall will be home to the Creative Sydney event series featuring talks, performances and exhibitions showcasing the local creative industries.

I object to this labelling of some industries as “creative”, as it implies that work in those industries, as opposed to others, particularly draws upon creativity. Now people are creative in all different types of work, across all kinds of industries – and not just ones such as discussed in the news article.

The apparent distinction between “creative” work and other work will probably disappear in time, although it’s impossible to know how long this will take. But after it disappears, people will look back and wonder why such a strange distinction was ever made. The current distinction may well be a simple stereotyping of what different sorts of work entails, but this stereotyping isn’t very useful nor informative.

Federal opposition and its reading of the political situation

It’s appeared to me that the federal opposition has had the politics all wrong since at least Lehmann’s Brothers went bust in September 2008, and that their message on the CPRS is all over the place as well.

This isn’t surprising after having had trouble defining themselves and a coherent message since the 2007 election. There’s a general assumption that the Rudd Government would have to stuff up in a really major way to lose the next election. However, what is surprising is how they havn’t read the politics of the GFC well. On the other hand, perhaps they have read it well but don’t see an alternative.