COAG met yesterday, the Prime Minister and the premiers of the states and chief ministers of the territories with Tasmanian premier, Will Hodgman, only allowed in after facial recognition technology was used as no one really knew what he looked like.
When the day came to an end, they all stood around backslapping for the cameras having agreed to everything the Prime Minister had placed on the agenda, including the creation of a national database of drivers’ licence photographs from across the country to give some muscle to photo recognition technology and continue the creeping sense of state surveillance on the citizenry.
It was a brief moment of political unity with Labor and Liberal leaders speaking as one.
How do we feel about this? The idea of a national voluntary non-binding postal survey didn’t get a look in this time, funnily enough, so we’re not quite sure about the national mood but it was one of those moments where clearly government didn’t give a damn what people thought.
Full column here.
I don’t know what it is, Mr Insider, but am quite taken with NZ Labour Leader, Jacinda Ardern. She has a lovely winning smile imho. The result of the NZ Federal Election will supposedly be known by this coming Thursday when “kingmaker”, the seat less Winston Peters, says who he will support. I am rooting for Jacinda and Labour!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader_of_the_New_Zealand_Labour_Party
And she’ll empty the NZ cookie jar in no time HB.
Not necessarily the uptake in the street Tracey .
More dependent on how much band width your ISP has bought and how good his downstream equipment is.
At the moment, I am being driven crazy by slow internal WI-FI n- cannot figure it out..
Military risk assessors say that if the risk of death is no more than one in a million per year, which is lower than the risk of being struck by lightning, and much lower than the risk of being killed in car accident, then we should stop investing time, money and effort in the nonsense Turnbull is inflicting upon us. Could the government be asked to supply its risk assessment – or is asking such a question an attack on our national security? The whole beat-up is to distract us from the shocking performance of the economy which is diving once again. BAH!
World gas prices have crashed yet our manufacturers in Oz have to pay up to three times what those overseas are paying. Malcolm’s gas talks about ‘supply’ are irrelevant. Just TALK no action or outcomes. What consumers need to know is WHAT THE PRICE OF GAS AND ELECTRICITY WILL BE. And Abbott won an election on ‘Electricity will be cheaper without the carbon tax remember’. Well Peta bombed that lie when she said “It was never a carbon tax we just made it into one”! The Looters can start by taking off the 10% GST they put on power. Bring back Tones….at least he lied with a straight face!
Bob Hawke was wrong when he accused Malcolm Turnbull of his $122million survey being the worst economic decision of any PM since the war. No, the singular worst economic decision made by a Prime Minister was John Howard signing us up for 16 years of war with the Americans which to date has cost us just on $40billion with no end in sight.
The unfair way bookmakers deal with winning punters. This is good Bald. Reminds me of insurance companies who won’t insure you after a claim like when my freezer blew its motor.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/10/economist-explains-5?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/howbookmakersdealwithwinningcustomers
I wonder who choose his ties every morning – the man is incapable of making a decision.
Can we make Lucy PM? Is she a better decision maker and less of an invertebrate?
Two words: Grattan Institute.
please do..please
WINX extended her winning sequence to 21 today, Mr Insider, winning the Turnbull Stakes at Flemington by 6 and a half lengths. The race named after Richard Turnbull a previous VRC Chairman, not our PM Malcolm. What can one say!
http://tinyurl.com/yd9kvque
I said to my students awhile back that in my youth we had fought for a right to privacy, but their generation had unilaterally disarmed using Facebook. Some of my students were shocked that employers might actually use it in hiring decisions!
I lost that first bit of innocence when I was hired by the US government in 1980ish–and promptly fingerprinted. My FBI file is now known to DHS (and probably ASIO). Two passports with digitized photos, so US State Department and DFAT (and a special travel pass from DHS). My international travel all documented to Homeland Security (and now DFAT) for the last ten years. The list goes on. Oh, and now the Indonesian government!
I wonder how much stuff gets collected with all the credit and debit cards and loyalty cards and membership cards and all the rest as well.
Google and Amazon know more about me than any government.
Rhys, via loyalty cards, credit cards, ISP information, Google and Face book, Opal Cards, Toll payments etc your life is an open book if people want to use all the info available.
Of course all the checks and balances we have in the system will prevent misuse.
Piffle! If it is there it will be used.
Thanks for the heads up about the DHS database. My info was out of date. I had picked that tidbit up from a former NM policeman during my trip last year, in a conversation about gun smuggling to Mexico.
I’m just glad that if this nonsense goes ahead, I don’t think I have a doppelgänger or an evil identical twin.
Maybe we’ll all just have to walk around in our glasses or something – except that mine are reading glasses only. Or in one of those Marx Brothers disguises from a joke shop; walking around in a Karl or Richard Marx mask might be a way to circumvent such technologies.
Gee who would have thought Power in SA would be 4 times cheaper than QLD? Especially with all the renewable energy feeding into the NEM? the level of renewables feeding in has even dropped Vics. power prices too. oh dear.
…and I heard an audio last week that SA has so much power now they are feeding it into the Victorian grid.
enjoy bm… That brown bar is getting chopped in half v soon. http://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/
Probably why NSW power is so expensive 🙂
….and don’t forget the only reason NSW escaped a Blackout Bill last summer was because they sucked into Qld’s renewable energy!
And SA was providing them gas from Moomba.
Good on SA mate, your Premier believes in renewables.
Here in Qld our government has been conned by sleazy corporate criminals but the good news is that they will pay a gargantuan political price for their deception.
Apologies of topic. Hear, Hear Ms Guthrie Hear, Hear. “Legislation designed to further a political vendetta by one party uncomfortable with being scrutinised by our investigative programs is not good policy-making”, Ms Guthrie
Jack, the first person to break the mould would be Bob Carr, old rubber face as he is known.
It recalls the old joke about my face and your arse, or is it the other way round.,I guess it depends on where they put the camera. Either way, our freedoms are on the slippery slide and have been for years.
Are you baiting cupboard boy again?
Might have done a couple of times.
Saw that…..
Sorry JTI. In 2 months I’ve gone 180 degrees on data retention. It’s incredibly important and as you know I never used to think so. Also the facial recognition stuff is crucial. As I said on the last topic. How do we want to manage the risk?
Groan!