Whatever next?

From The Age:

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has defended the government's intervention in gambling advertising during live sports broadcasts, declaring it has balanced community concerns with the economic needs of broadcasters.

Ms Gillard formally announced the government's demand that TV and radio networks ban the promotion of live odds and restrict gambling advertisements during sporting matches in a press conference at Kirribilli on Sunday afternoon.

In other news:

Adverts for kids' toys and fast food to be banned from children's TV; adverts for cars to be banned from repeats of Top Gear on Dave; adverts for food and supermarkets to be banned from cookery programmes (that's Food Network down the tubes, eh?); adverts for DIY superstores to be banned from home makeover shows; adverts for cosmetics and perfume to be banned from Loose Women etc etc etc.

Short List

1. The leader of the Green Party of England & Wales was born in Australia.

2. The leader of the Australian Labour Party was born in Wales.

3. They are both women.

4. The leader of the Welsh independence/nationalist party Plaid Cymru is also a woman, but sadly appears to have no link with Australia at all.

Your challenge is to decide who's on the list and then to name or define it.

"Australia floods: PM Julia Gillard unveils new tax"

From the BBC:

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced a new tax to help pay for devastating floods that she says will cost A$5.6bn ($5.6bn; £3.5bn) in reconstruction.

Ms Gillard said the 12-month tax, starting from 1 July, would be levied on those earning A$50,000 or more, and those affected by floods would not pay.

"We should not put off to tomorrow what we are able to do today," she said.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Any sort of logic or justice or matching costs with benefits has gone out of the window here.

Seeing as it as very easy to identify who will benefit from the reconstruction works (land owners in affected areas), wouldn't it be fairer (let alone make more economic sense) to ask exactly those landowners to contribute - maybe in proportion to the amount of benefit that each individual landowner will get? We could call it 'land value tax' or something.

If anybody can explain to me why it is better to pay for this reconstruction by clobbering a random selection of individuals who won't particularly benefit (in this case, above average earners in the rest of Australia), then I would be delighted to hear.

Julia Gillard