First the Opposition said that it was irresponsible for him to leave on such a long trip while the Government was drawing up the budget. Then Nelson decided that it wasn’t long enough, that he should include Japan to his list of destinations. I’m sure if Rudd had stayed in Australia while the Budget was being drawn up, Nelson would have accused the PM of micromanaging the economy and his cabinet were puppets on his strings.
If China was not on the list of his trip, the journey would have been seen as atypical. Visiting the US, UK, EU and NATO. It was a smart move to rehash the context of the trip around the economy, automatically nullifying the trip as extravagant in a time of ‘economic conservatism.’
Back to China.
The PM has to be careful with China and Japan. Their history and relationship can easily get you accused of picking sides, with both being important politically and economically for Australia’s future we definitely don’t want either.
Let’s look at the big picture, Rudd is the Mandarin speaking Prime Minister and the trip looks like favouritism but the Government has been taking a publicly negative attitude to China’s human rights record and I’m sure behind the scenes there has been some very busy diplomats relaying Australia’s concerns. The Government also restricted foreign investment laws to restrict Beijing from getting a stake in Australia’s mineral exports. Just about half the cabinet has gone to visit Japan since the November election, Trade Minister Simon Crean, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, Industry Minister Kim Carr, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson and Agriculture Minister Tony Burke have all made the trip. Meanwhile Rudd is pushing for Japan to gain permanent status in the UN Security Council and will visit Japan during June and then again a month later at the G8 summit.
Deuce.
Your Opinion Counts. CLICK HERE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It’s all a bit Week
I saw a menacing advertisement on the internet warning me that “over half of ice users get addicted.” After being surprised that the figure wasn’t much higher, I clicked on the image to search for the science behind the claim. The link sent me to a webpage called http://www.mynite.com.au/. Click on the link have a look for yourself.
I was disappointed but not surprised. The webpage had little to do with damning drug statistics, in fact it was a place for youth to register their parties. An initiative of NSW Police, the website was light on content and having never heard of it, I thought it was hardly well publicised, considering the amount of advertising for government initiatives of any persuasion.
I think it’s a good idea but poorly executed. For instance, my original attraction to the advertisement was because I was researching binge drinking, drug culture etc. I’m not sure there would be many teenagers or young adults having a similar interest.
Another random addition to the site was a survey asking “are you a binge drinker?” requesting that the user submit how many drinks a night they have. After submitting your answer the respondent is told:
For adult males, binge drinking is more than seven standard drinks at a time and for adult females more than five standard drinks at a time. Just over 10 per cent of Australian young people binge drink every week, without knowing.
This got my mind going again. According to the site if you started to drink at 7pm and had one standard drink every hour until 2am you would be a binge drinker but would be under the legal driving limit. That’s just for males. Females could drive home at midnight and still be considered a binge drinker. Leaving at 2am would be considered an average night out, midnight would be to say the least ‘responsible.’
The second sentence is just as confusing, do 10 per cent of young people binge drink? Or are 10% of Australia’s young people binge drinking without knowing?
On further inspection of the site, there were a few partying tips, notably to hire professional security guards for your party. But the only other useful information were links to other websites. Most of them were support agencies, NSW Rape crisis centre, the sexual assault service, NSW Health centre, Victim services, Kids Help line, and DoCS. The other two failed to get me to http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/ and http://www.lawstuff.org.au/. I got the impression that parties were common place for laws to be broken, kids to take drugs, get raped and get drunk, of which only the later is common. Now its good that these links are on the website but that was basically the only thing on the website, taking the emphasis totally off what it should be, having a fun time in a safe environment.
I also found a link to the National Youth Week website. I was totally surprised because at the time I hadn’t even heard of Youth week. Apparently it’s next week.
It’s only been in the last couple of days that there has been any advertising for the event. If your interested go to http://www.youthweek.com/ and follow the slightly less confusing design to find out what’s going on in your area.
I think the concept for Youth week is a good one, celebrate youth culture in an environment devoid of drugs, alcohol and violence. My issue is with the disjointed execution. There looks like there is a few good music gigs and workshops but what long term goal is this achieving? Is it suggesting that for only one week a year we actually care about our youth? I hope not.
But Youth Week isn’t alone. Currently we are right in the middle of Law Week. Of course if you’ve had enough of Law Week taking over the City, you can head to Queensland and take part in Bike Week. At least the banana benders didn’t have NSW’s Wine Week and Sydney Harbour Week, which both took place last month.
It’s all just getting a bit ridiculous, do we need all of these initiatives and websites when on the most part they are poorly executed. So to whichever government organises these things: Either go the whole nine yards and make a useful website or a spectactular cultural event, that will have long term benefits or just save your money and use it on the hospitals.
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