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Two Conferences, Cisco Studies Update
Aug. 3rd, 2005 07:51 pmNow We The People 2005 conference was worthwhile. Not quite as exciting as the first conference, but a lot tighter in its analysis. Andrew Wilkie's political perspective has notably matured significantly. Guy Rundle is trying to push the left into accepting "neoliberalism" and "globalisation" and redirecting it for the purpose of social justice. Challenging, but I agree with him. Rob Watts followed on a similar theme by criticising the left for being conservative, and missing the agenda. Fair call.
The first of the two workshops I went to were "Women, GLBT and the rise of the Christian Right" and was quite honoured to see that my article on said issue was marked as background reading. For the second, I started to attend Community Organising and Mobilisation but left as it became quite clear that my area of interest (infrasture that creates communities in the first instance) was not on the agenda. Instead, I went to Pamela Curr et al., "Reignating hope for asylum seekers and refugees" which was a small but excellent presentation. Pamela also passed the torch to me towards the end as the scribe to engage in my relentlessly pragmatic agenda of achieving results.
Second conference was the symposium on Equity in Sourcing Revenue. Was the sort of quality that you would expect from three professors, an economics editor and a valuer. John Freebairn gave an excellent overview of tax options, examples, and why some systems simply don't work (either for equity or efficiency purposes). Julian Disney gave examples on how our tax system punishes the poor, assists the rich, and provides benefits when we don't need them and takes money away when we do. Tim Colebatch showed why this happens and used John Howard as an example on how to drive policy. Bryan Kavanagh concluded with long-term comparisons between land prices and GDP, noting that sudden increases in land prices will lead to a crash in the economy. Pay attention.
Currently writing this from my third Cisco session at NMIT. As one should expect, I'm doing OK with the module exams (average 84% so far), but haven't really gotten into it so far - have been too busy! Instructor is much, much better that the previous experience and has even organised for me to sit the exams outside normal times because it clashes with my presentation for the SAGE-AU conference. Certification, here we come! About time too!
The first of the two workshops I went to were "Women, GLBT and the rise of the Christian Right" and was quite honoured to see that my article on said issue was marked as background reading. For the second, I started to attend Community Organising and Mobilisation but left as it became quite clear that my area of interest (infrasture that creates communities in the first instance) was not on the agenda. Instead, I went to Pamela Curr et al., "Reignating hope for asylum seekers and refugees" which was a small but excellent presentation. Pamela also passed the torch to me towards the end as the scribe to engage in my relentlessly pragmatic agenda of achieving results.
Second conference was the symposium on Equity in Sourcing Revenue. Was the sort of quality that you would expect from three professors, an economics editor and a valuer. John Freebairn gave an excellent overview of tax options, examples, and why some systems simply don't work (either for equity or efficiency purposes). Julian Disney gave examples on how our tax system punishes the poor, assists the rich, and provides benefits when we don't need them and takes money away when we do. Tim Colebatch showed why this happens and used John Howard as an example on how to drive policy. Bryan Kavanagh concluded with long-term comparisons between land prices and GDP, noting that sudden increases in land prices will lead to a crash in the economy. Pay attention.
Currently writing this from my third Cisco session at NMIT. As one should expect, I'm doing OK with the module exams (average 84% so far), but haven't really gotten into it so far - have been too busy! Instructor is much, much better that the previous experience and has even organised for me to sit the exams outside normal times because it clashes with my presentation for the SAGE-AU conference. Certification, here we come! About time too!