Blogs on Joseph Mann

In defence of the political local council

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 22:15:57 +1000

The zoning reform group YIMBY Melbourne posted a response to an article in The Age listing Melbourne’s best paid mayors. The article also points out the comparatively paltry pay and conditions of local councillors, most of whom work only part time despite sharing accountability for council decisions:

Chief executives of Victorian councils are raking in more than half a million dollars a year, while the state’s councillors have received a modest pay rise and may earn as little as $26,368.

Regarding that immigration panel

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 07:33:41 +0000

The Democracy Society organised, and has now cancelled, a panel on immigration policy featuring (among other guests) Andrew Fraser.

I’ve decided to set out my thoughts on that subject in anticipation that, as a former Secretary of the Society, I’ll be asked my views on this event and its cancellation. These views are too complex to summarise succinctly, so I have set them out in this blog post.

I’m disappointed, for reasons I will set out later, that this guest was invited. Had I continued on the Society executive, I would not have supported extending the invitation to Professor Fraser.

Answering a question on the Voice

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 16:54:32 +1100

I saw this question on UC Confessions about the Voice to Parliament and considered that it required a longer answer than the Facebook comment section makes readable.

Here are a couple of questions: If the referendum were to succeed, (a double majority in favour), we should expect the government to do the job and make the necessary changes to the constitution and make the body quickly and properly, right. If the government doesn’t in the timeline they propose, then what? Similarly, if the referendum were to fail, (a majority no vote amongst the Australian voting population, or in the states or both) what is the next step moving forward?

Gender and principle in the federal Labor Party

Wed, 03 May 2023 17:12:39 +1100

While in London for the coronation, federal Labor leader and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave an exclusive interview with Piers Morgan. In it, Morgan asked (among other things) “what is a woman?”, to which Albo responded “an adult human female”.

The particular string of words Albo used here, which he has used before, has become something of a transphobic dog-whistle. “Female” here excluding trans women. The only reason Morgan asked the question, of course, is that he is one of the leading “anti-woke” crusaders in an obsessive culture war which has increasingly seen trans people targeted for violence and discrimination around the world. In the Australian context, it was a rallying cry of the fascist TERFs at the Melbourne Let Women Speak rally a few weeks ago: a rally Albo (sort of) condemned. Is Albo aware of this nuance? Likely not, but its certainly what I would call a Bad Look.

About that time Malcolm Fraser created a fake department

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 21:30:00 +1000

With the controversy erupting earlier this year over Scott Morrison’s decision to keep embattled ministers Christian Porter and Linda Reynolds in his cabinet, it may be worth remembering how much worse it could have been had the Prime Minister not been able to find “real” jobs for Porter and Reynolds. He could have, as Malcolm Fraser did in 1982, created a fake department for one of them to lead.

To understand how and why Malcolm Fraser did this, you first need to know about the Executive Council.

The crisis in Samoa

Thu, 27 May 2021 18:27:58 +1000

Note: This post was originally published before the resolution of the various legal disputes arising from the election and the swearing in of the new FAST government.

Last month’s election in the small Pacific Island nation and the constitutional crisis that continues into this week has me asking: Was Samoa ever a democracy? By any intuitive account, yes. It has free elections for a parliament from which ministers are appointed and a head of state is elected, and the Samoan constitution grants several civil liberties, namely freedom of expression.