This will hurt me...

Here is a photo of Tasmania Police's Hobart HQ right in the middle of town. Following on from the earlier post, ABC radio have had a story on loop all day saying how I have “ criticised ” Tasmania Police’s decision to utilise sniffer dogs at an upcoming music festival. I guess that I have, but I thought that what I offered was far more constructive than. I’d like to think that I have an excellent working relationship with the local constabulary. I certainly think that they do a good job more generally. But the thing with the gigs and the sniffer dogs is that it just isn’t very effective. The ABC quoted Tasmanian Police as saying they have a “no tolerance” rule for all drug users at the festival, but that doesn’t fit with how they deal with drug users in a general sense. Public policy is not a neat, simple business, and it generally doesn’t fit with black and white visions of how things work, so in this sense, I don’t envy the police when it comes to something like drug use. The law...

Here is Jen and Ezra, looking for a wayward Henry in an artistic display that featured at Salamanca's Long Gallery through January. I know that it looks like a nightclub, but Ezra doesn't like them, he thinks that they are " common ". That ultraviolet light was a little disconcerting, I'll grant you that. And there is my crude segue for the day! For some reason, the local news media outlets have taken a shine to me of late, and I can now expect the phone to ring whenever someone has got something controversial to debate (when you're talking drugs and alcohol, it's always controversial). Being an arrogant kind of guy, and not lacking in confidence to express and opinion or argue a point, I'm always happy to oblige them. Yet seeing yourself or hearing yourself on the news is a very disconcerting experience. Predictably, my default news-watching setting is "who is this moron and why am I supposed to care what they think?" You would think that...

Got to love the news.

One does love it when the media are prepared to tackle the real issues. From the national broadcaster, the best headline of the week .

I am all for encouraging people's hobbies, but there clearly cannot be a better example of a slow news day than this here from the ABC here in Australia!

Back on the bad public policy bandwagon, I'll be interested to see where the Rudd government goes with regards to the baby bonus. Despite the fact that Jen and I are sitting on a nice little earner come August, I think that it is yet another good example of terrible public policy from the Howard government. There is no real social or economic rationale to the policy (in its present form), and really stands out as a crude inducement to win votes. These are generally where the most obvious public policy failures occur.   Thus, I was interested to read this piece by Professor Joshua Gans on his Core Economics website . In it, he argues that the bonus can be eliminated with little political cost. It is an interesting take on how government might phase out the bonus, and if there is one thing to be learned from the media's appalling presentation of the issue of carers' bonus payments, the purging of previous government's bad policies ('inducements') will have to be ...