Interest rate rocket rides

And the other article that got my attention this week was about rising interest rates. Again.

The Reserve Bank lifted rates by 0.25%. My bank then lifted rates by 0.29%. After an earlier rise of 0.1%. I've only had my home loan for 18 months and already rates have gone up almost 2%. It's beginning to hurt.

I've already said that this is my year for not spending money. I don't think that's going to be a choice, really, since everyone is expecting at least one more rise in the next month or so.

Can I still blame John Howard for this??

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Sir John and the Jihad

Two news articles got my attention this week. One was about John Howard (groan! hasnt' he disappeared yet?) and the other was about Islamic law in the UK.


First to John Howard. Apparently there are rumours going around that he's about to be knighted by the Queen. Sir John. My first reaction was "Oh God not another John Howard story!" I really am sick of hearing about this man. Now that he's lost the election I was hoping that there would be a Howard-free zone for at least a few more months. But it seems that's not to be - he's still regularly making it into the news.

I hope this rumour is false. It's far too soon to talk about giving him a knighthood. For a start, his time in office is still very recent. It's too soon for his legacy to be judged impartially, to see if he actually merits the honour. For what its worth, I think his first two terms (1996-2001) were competent to average. If he'd lost in 2001 he'd have gone down in history as unremarkable. After 2001, though, I think he and his government went from average to bad and then after 2004 to out-of-control. His legacy from this time will ensure his place in history, and not just as our second longest serving prime minister. The policies implemented during this time were controversial to say the least. In my opinion, many of them have damaged Australia - the rule of law, democracy, reputation, social cohesion, and so on. In some respects an over-reaction was natural after the September 11 attacks. But that over-reaction continued was too long and did too much damage. I think John Howards legacy will come to be seen as largely negative due to his actions since 2001.

Overall, then, I'd say he doesn't deserve a knighthood. And certainly he shouldn't get one yet, until some time has passed and we can all be a bit more impartial in judging him.

The other story was from the UK, where Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) seems to have claimed that some elements of Islamic law should be included into the laws of England.

At first I thought this was a bit of a beat-up, with the whole thing being taken out of context. But it seems that he did actually raise the idea of recognising some aspects of Sharia law into the civil law of the UK. He said this would be in the interests of social cohesion and help with community relations in integrating the large and growing Islamic community.

Personally I think its a bad idea. I don't think any specifically religious laws should be included into the law of the state, even (or especially) if they're only designed to apply to one group of people. I think that's a dangerous path to go down.

In my opinion, the state law should be as neutral as possible when it comes to religion and religious rules. It should create an area of legal space in which everyone is judged by the same rules and has equal rights before the law. It should be a space that everyone in the country can recognise as the basis of pretty much all interactions.

After that, if people choose to live to a higher standard (Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, whatever...) that is up to them. If these people then choose to apply the standards of their religion to interactions between themselves, that's fine with me. That only applies, of course, if all the people involved choose freely to apply those standards. If there's any dispute about that, then the state law is the area to resolve these problems. It can't be used to enforce purely religious standards if a person chooses not to submit to those standards - that's a matter of conscience.

So if religious groups in the UK want to set up their own religious courts, that's fine. But they should have no legal standing in the wider civil law system. Any issue that falls under the wider civil law should still be dealt with that way. If people then choose to follow an extra religious judgement, that's their right but should not be their obligation.

So - incorporating religious law into the basic law of the land is a bad idea. I'm not surprised that the Archbishop has got a lot of criticism. At best his ideas were poorly expressed. At worst, I think they were pretty silly.

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Celebrate good times!

And while I was away, the election happened. It was good good news! The Liberals lost, and lost big. John Howard lost his seat!! I wasn't expecting that, but it's great news. The Labor party is in power, and Kevin Rudd is prime minister.

Already they are dismantling the Howard legacy - they're ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and talking about bringing down the disclosure limit on political donations.

I'm so relieved that John Howard lost - I thought he was going to creep back in. I'm so happy to be wrong about that. Now its' just a matter of waiting to see how the Rudd government goes - will it keep its' promises, how much of the Howard legacy will it undo, how will the economy run, will the country start to take back its values of fairness and honesty etc?

Interesting times...

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Election pending

One of the good things about going away is that I will miss the final week of the election. But here's a fun piece of election commentary that puts the entertainment back into the game.



In other news - Queer Penguin is writing a series on why he's preferencing Labor at this election. Its a pretty good list of the reasons for not voting Howard this time around. Parts 1,2 and 3 are up so far.

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Sorry means... not sorry??

John Howard at his best - again! Yesterday he said he was sorry that interest rates have gone up again. But now he's saying that he's not apologising for it. So sorry no longer means sorry, in Howard-speak.

Sounds familiar, though. The last time he said sorry for anything was when petrol prices were rising. He was very quick to say sorry then. And he was very quick to say it now, too, even though he has just admitted he didn't really mean it.

It's interesting that he chose to say sorry both times for something that isn't technically his fault. There are plenty of things he could apologise for (even in the Howard-speak sense of the word!), but he's chosen to say sorry only when something has hurt voters in his marginal seats. So much for demonstrating leadership, Australian values, morality, taking responsibility...

The guy is a fraud and I really really want him gone from government.

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Interest rates rises are good for you

Interest rates rose today, by 0.25%. And since this is an election campaign, Peter Costello has to jump in and tell us this is a good thing. Or, ate least, that rising interest rates are a sign of good economic management.


Well, if everything is so good (as the Labor party ads keep reminding us, according to John Howard we've never had it so good) then maybe Peter Costello and John Howard can pay my mortgage for me. That'd be nice!

And anyway, if rising interest rates are a sign of good economic management, what did they mean when they promised to keep rates at record lows during the last election? Does that mean Howard and Costello were promising to give us bad economic management?

These guys really need to pick a line and stick to it. At the rate they're backflipping at the moment they'd outperform most circus acrobats!

Thanks, John Howard!

(Of course, I know the government doesn't directly control interest rates. But when they claim low rates as their responsibility but try to dodge the blame for higher rates, then they deserve everything they get! I really really hope they get voted out)

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The Liberal Party tells the truth!

Found on Road to Surfdom - a good laugh. And a lot of reasons not to vote for John Howard.

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Laugh out loud Howard moments

He really is ubelievable.

After spending all of the 2004 election campaign telling us that interest rates would always be low under his government, he's now denying it. Apparently we have to forget everything he promised last time, because that's all in the past. I burst out laughing when I heard that - is this guy serious??


He might have a point though, technically. Its hard to say now, three years later, whether he personally ever made the claim that interest rates would remain at record lows under his government. He might be right when he says that all he ever said was that rates would be lower under him than under Labor.

But it really doesn't matter if it was his words or a Liberal party ad. It's basically the same thing. And he wasn't actually out there correcting peoples misunderstanding, was he? No, he was very happy for us to believe that he'd promised to keep rates at record lows, even if that's now what he technically said.

And now he wants us to forget he even said that! Apparently the past doesn't matter and we have to concentrate on the future - while at the same time we have to remember that interest rates got to 17% under the last Labor government. So which is it? Is the past important or not? If we can remember Labors interest rates, can we remember his (broken) promises? Or if we forget his lies, can we forget Labors rates?

He really is a tricky politician. He has a way of telling the truth that makes lying look honest. He has to go, and so does his government.

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