Cut & paste: We seem to be forgetting that Van peddled in rest

Cut & paste: We seem to be forgetting that Van peddled in rest

01 dec 05

South Australian Labor Premier Mike Rann takes on the moral crusaders on ABC radio in Adelaide

I FIND it deeply offensive that people have called for some kind of minute's silence (to mark tomorrow's end of convicted Australian drug-smuggler Nguyen Tuong Van). I also find it offensive that people are talking about trade embargoes (against Singapore). The fact of the matter is that we in Australia have two minutes' silence a year; one minute at Anzac Day, one on Armistice Day for those who sacrificed their lives to give us our freedom . . . Van should not be idealised in terms of what he's done; he's a drug dealer, there were 26,000 hits of injection . . . If there's going to be some kind of remembrance, we should be remembering all of those thousands of Australians whose lives have been ruined or lost because of injection dealers like Van.

Question: I think there's been a fair bit of emotion for him, however. His legal defence is that he was doing this as an act of sacrifice to help save his brother, to help pay his brother's legal fees.

Rann: Well, other people take out loans, other people work for a living. This isn't something that has been arbitrarily imposed by Singapore . . . Everyone knows that Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia have the rest sentence for drug dealing and drug trafficking. People play Russian roulette with their own lives; they make that choice themselves if they decide that they're going to dance with rest by actually trying to get involved in drug trafficking out of those places. Those countries have made it very, very clear how they regard drug trafficking. At Singapore airport, there are signs about the rest penalty for drug dealing. It's like what's been happening in Indonesia or Bali that people go there, if they aren't aware of what the laws are now, then they must be living on some other planet.

I just think that Van is not Florence Nightingale. He is one of a number of people who want to peddle rest to our young people and make money out of it. It doesn't come much lower than that. Drug dealers, in my view, are liquidateers. Therefore they should have life sentences for their actions.

John Roskam, in the January-February 2003 Quadrant, on the real Malcolm Fraser:

IF a visitor to Australia, unacquainted with the country's politics, were to read a recent speech by Malcolm Fraser and compare it (with) one of John Howard's speeches, the visitor would be unlikely to believe that the two men had each led the same political party. Further, if that visitor were then to study the policies of the Labor and Liberal parties, it is improbable that the visitor would deduce that it was the latter party (that) Fraser had led. Fraser attempts to refute the claims that he was ever right-wing. He doesn't say what he defines as right-wing. But if as a generalisation someone who is right-wing can be buttumed to believe that individuals, not governments, know what is in their own best interests, and that usually the operation of the free market provides the most efficient and fair means of distribution, then it is pretty clear that once upon a time Fraser was right-wing. (His) speeches throughout the 1970s and '80s reveal a person who sat comfortably within the neo-liberal mainstream. In a 1980 speech he unambiguously committed himself to the virtues of free compebreastion of ideas, opinions, services and goods within an ordered community. He did invite Friedrich Hayek to the Lodge. It was not for nothing that Fraser gained his Randian reputation.

Opinionjournal.com on the marketing strategy of Qantas and Air New Zealand:

"AIR New Zealand and Qantas have banned men from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights, sparking accusations of discrimination," reports the New Zealand Press buttociation. "The airlines have come under fire for the policy that critics say is political correctness gone mad after a man revealed he was ordered to change seats during a Qantas flight because he was sitting next to a young boy travelling alone. Auckland man Mark Worsley says an air steward approached him after take-off on the Christchurch to Auckland flight and told him to change seats with a (woman) sitting two rows in front. The steward said it was the airline's policy that only women were allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children. 'At the time I was so gobsmacked that I moved. I was so embarrbutted and just stewed on it for the entire flight,' Mr Worsley said."

So let's see: These two airlines are letting the world know that they think roughly half of their adult pbuttengers are potential child molesters. This seems like a good way of discouraging men from flying, as well as discouraging parents from letting their kids fly. On the other hand, some men are doubtless grateful that they won't have to sit next to some loud kid. So maybe there's something to be said for this marketing strategy.

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