8. CAPTCHAs

Hi, I am Greg and I want to grumble about CAPTCHA. You may not recognise the name, but it stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Now that name alone should tell you something of the complexity of the beast, but in less formal language, CAPTCHAs are those bloody annoying text and number patterns that you have to enter on an increasing number of websites before you can post online messages or sign up to services.

I’m sorry, maybe my brain is not abstract enough, but sometimes I just can’t see letters in the patterns, or the letters are so distorted that they could be any of 3 or 4 different ones. So I sit there reloading the screen until I get a set of letters and numbers that I can actually read. And I am told that the audio versions are no less confusing.

Now given that I have spent the last seven weeks grumbling about elections and matters of national importance, you might think that issues with CAPTCHA are a bit trivial. Well, if you have a vision impairment or are using one of the various programs designed to assist you to read online – and therefore to connect to the digital world, guess what, the very secure CAPTCHA system just blocked your participation in that world. Ditto if you have a learning disability like dyslexia. You won’t be able to sign up to basic services like gmail and skype, comment on that article that everyone else is talking about or do that business transaction online. Ah, I think that’s called discrimination!

And what does it say when a device that is designed to tell humans from non-humans, excludes someone with a vision or learning disability from the category of “human”. Would we accept any real person saying that someone with a disability was not human?

It is not even clear that CAPTCHA is needed for security purposes. I am sure it wasn’t needed (but it was there) on my online inquiry last week about whether a particular caravan park had a vacancy at the end of the year. Even on more serious transactions, there are several alternative methods of proving web users are human rather than spamming computers. Some of these also have drawbacks, but as a spam-busting device, the discriminatory CAPTCHAs are not necessarily “bot-proof” and can be defeated by equally smart non-humans.

Now it is not just me grumbling about CAPTCHA. The leading telecommunications consumer voice, ACCAN, which is the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network – has begun a campaign to “kill CAPTCHA”. They are calling on organisations with websites using CAPTCHAs to phase out the skewed and confusing text devices. There is also an online petition which asks for their phase out. Sound good to me.

Let’s kill CAPTCHA – but until then, I am Greg and I am grumbling. 

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-8/ 

First Broadcast: 24 September 2013

7. The Cabinet

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about Tony Abbott’s new cabinet. Yes, I know it is predictable grumble, but I am not actually going to grumble about the embarrassment of having only one woman in Cabinet. Nor am I going to grumble about the stream of commentary and Twitter outrage at the notion of quotas or some mechanism to promote women. Apparently these are an attack on merit and individual rights, as if there are no social processes and power structures which disadvantage women or define merit in a gendered way. But I will leave that alone.

I am not even going to grumble about the fact that the Ministry is never appointed simply on merit as there is always a juggling of positions and balancing of numbers, between factions in the Labor Party or party wings in the Coalition, and between country and city representatives, between members of the Liberal and National parties, and between members of the upper and lower houses. If I did that, I would have to wonder why gender balance could not be included in that balancing process.

Alternatively I suppose, I could just accept that this was in fact a merits-based process and that there are just far fewer women than men with the skills to be a Cabinet Minister – but then I would have to spend my weekends painting picket fences and tinkering with the FJ Holden in the driveway. So I won’t go there either.

What I really want to grumble about is that in the lead up to the election, the Coalition’s Policy for Disability and Carers promised that there would be a “Minister for Disabilities and Carers”. Now apart from the problem of the name focussing on the disability and not the actual person living with a disability, I searched the new Ministry and there is no Minister for Disabilities and Carers. There is a someone with responsibility for the NDIS (Mitch Fifield, the Assistant Minister for Social Services), but that is not the same thing. I checked the fine print of the original policy statement, and it says that, and I quote “The Coaltion will put all policy and programmes for employment of people with disability under the Minister for Disabilities and Carers”. This is clearly beyond the NDIS (which thankfully will return to that name rather than the ill-fated Disability Care), but the title of the proposed minister is capitalised, suggesting a separate Minister – not subsuming the position in a broader portfolio.

Personally I am happy to be rid of portfolios where we had the Minister for A,B,C,D, E, and F, but having a dedicated voice at the cabinet table is important. And this Cabinet has no singular voice for disabilities – or for mental health for that matter as it is subsumed into health. But unless this is the first broken promise of the new government, we still wait for the appointment of a Minister for People with Disabilities and Carers – which would be a great recognition of the importance of the issues and of people living with disabilities. And who knows, we could even have a woman appointed as Minister.

But until then, I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-7/
First Broadcast: 17 September 2013 

6. The Final Election Grumble - How to Vote Cards

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about the election. Yes, I know it is over, but I want one more grumble – not just because I am like that, but because even as we speak millions of pieces of paper with candidates faces and how-to-vote recommendations are on their way to be pulped, or worse, to go to landfill.

Thousands of people all over the country spent hours and hours on polling booths handing the brightly coloured advertisements to voters, almost all of whom didn’t want to know or didn’t care. Running the gauntlet of the line of how-to-vote spruikers is part of our electoral tradition, but it is a pretty wasteful one. Think of all the trees, bleaching chemicals and toxic inks that went into the leaflets whose life-span is a nano-second in environmental time. And think of all the good community work that could have been done by that army of volunteers if they had been channelled into something more useful.

Now don’t get me wrong. As long as one party does it, all the parties need to hand out how-to-vote cards, and I confess I was one of that army of volunteers spreading the paper trail.

Yet I find it a profoundly depressing experience. Partly this is because of the ignorance and apathy of so many voters, and partly, to hand out how-to-vote cards you have to believe that someone will vote for your candidate on the basis of the banal advertisement, the false smile or simplistic slogan you have given them.

How come our system of government, one of the most successful democracies in the world, has so alienated people that they feel they have no stake or interest in who governs us?

The issues here are huge and complex, but I continue to dream of a system of democracy which is more than a vote once every 3 years – a system which engages people and where real decisions that affect people are made in the community and not in distant government forums or corporate board rooms. But until then, I get stuck spending election day handing out how-to-vote cards.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-6/
First Broadcast: 10 September 2013 

5. Election Debate

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about the state of the election debate, in particular about the contribution of leading journalist, Ross Gittins, the Economics Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Last week he published a column claiming that there is not much difference between the two major parties in terms of economic management credentials, but there is in fact a big difference in relation to who wins and loses from their policies. He pointed out a whole range of policies like superannuation, the abolition of the mining tax, paid parental leave and the fringe benefits tax treatment of company vehicles where Tony Abbott’s policies will disproportionately benefit those who are better off. And then there are policies like the plan to abolish the twice yearly supplement to the pitifully small Newstart unemployment allowance which take directly from the poor.

But Gittins also savaged Labor which refuses to talk about inequality and which, to its unforgivable shame, has repeatedly refused to increase the poverty level-rate of Newstart.

Taken together, he says there is class warfare going on and the rich class is winning.

Now you may be thinking that whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, Gittens has given us an important analysis of policies. So why am I grumbling? Well, I am grumbling because of what it says about the political debate and how far we have drifted. What does it say about the policies at play in this election when the Economics Editor of one of the bastions of the establishment media is driven to warn us of inequality and impact of the policies on the poor!

Still, if Ross Gittens wants to put it out there, I say yep, let’s vote for a fairer share of wealth. And more than that, let’s vote for justice, for the environment and all the things that are important. Let’s vote for community and for compassion, and not for the purveyors (of any political colour) of so-called “tough love”, or of greed and economic self-interest.

As the great English songwriter Billy Bragg put it many years ago, vote not for the iron fist but for the helping hand.

We’ll see what happens on Saturday, but until then, I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-5/

First Broadcast: 3 September 2013

4. Transportism

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about transportism.

Transportism is a little-understood problem in our society. Just as racism is discrimination on the basis of race, and sexism is discrimination of the basis of sex, so transportism is discrimination and disadvantage on the basis of one’s mode of transport.

Transport is important because it allows us to participate fully in society. Lack of access to transport or discrimination on the basis of transport means we can’t fully participate

If you drive a car, you have to have a licence, but it does not get checked every time you get in car. But when I catch the train home from work, I have to show my ticket to get on to the platform, walk 50 metres and show the ticket again when I get on the train, and then have a guard come by 5 minutes later to check that I have a ticket. That is petty transportism.

When I combine a bike and train trip home, only to get to the station to find that I can’t get home because “buses have replaced trains”, that is transportism. And when there is just no public transport available in many regional areas, or when the city transit system is built around office commuting and barely provides a service outside of that, that is transportism as people are disadvantaged because they rely on a particular form of transport.

Every time someone in a wheelchair can’t get into a building, or has to wait way, way longer than anyone else for a taxi because there are too few access cabs, that is transportism. People are being disadvantaged because their mode of transport is a wheelchair rather than by foot.

And then there is transportism in our immigration policy. Unfortunately in our world many people are forced to flee violence, dictatorial governments, religious intolerance or persecution. If they can fly to Australia they may ask for asylum and be treated with some respect and be offered support and protection. But if they arrive by boat, they will get shipped off to a tropical prison never to return to Australia. Their trauma, their claim for asylum and their need for protection may be equally as valid as someone arriving by plane, but different rules apply simply because they arrive by boat. They suffer discrimination and vilification and are denied equal protection under the law simply because of their mode of transport. That is transportism. I mean, really, what else could it be?

I am Greg, and I am grumbling.


This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-4/
First Broadcast: 27 August 2013

3. Election Preferences

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about election preferences. Now preferences are a good thing – having your vote still count if your first choice candidate does not get elected gives you a much better say in the election and gives us all a much more representative government.

However, the preference system needs to be open and accountable, especially in the Senate. Unlike in your local seat where you direct your preferences, in the Senate the parties direct the preferences in the vast majority of case – those where votes are cast above-the-line.

Personally, I am a fan of the Senate and the proportional representation system which gives a broader range of voices in the parliament. I think that it is vital we have this breadth of views to have accountability and close scrutiny of legislation. Unfortunately though, the election process is so complicated that voting and counting is far from transparent and the results can be a lottery. I am not going to grumble about that today, but I do want to grumble about parties whose preference deals undermine what they stand for, or mislead voters or make voting on principle or policy difficult.

In the South Australian Senate race there are the usual assortment of parties on the right preferencing eachother, and those votes will probably eventually find their way to the Liberals. And there are the competing groups of leftish or social-issue candidates whose preferences will flow to the Greens or Labor. That is fine and relatively transparent. My grumble is about some other parties.

Do the warm fuzzy supporters of the Animal Justice Party, the Sex Party or the Hemp Party know that their preferences will go to the climate sceptics before they go to parties and candidates who have moved legislation in support of their causes? And will the voters for the Australian Christians know that they will be preferencing the climate sceptics ahead of other nominally Christian parties like Family First and the DLP. Curiously, the Australian Independents are preferencing a political party (Family First) before any other independents, and the Socialist Equality Party is preferencing all the major parties equally!

And what do we make of Senator Nick Xenophon’s decision to split his preferences between the Liberal and Labor Parties. He is most famous as the no-pokies MP, but the Liberal Party never supported poker machine reform and the Labor Party tore up the pokie reform agreement in the last parliament. So why did Senator Xenophon preference these parties above the Greens who, like him, have campaigned for good reforms like mandatory pre-commitment and one-dollar bet limits on pokies? Where does that leave those who care about the harm caused by gambling in our community as voting above the line becomes difficult and contradictory.

Is it really too much to ask that political parties make preference decisions based on policy and principles, so that those who want to vote above the line can be confident that their vote won’t end up somewhere they don’t want it to go?      I am Greg, and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-3/
First Broadcast: 20 August 2013

2. Election Posters

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about the election. No, I am not going to grumble about the blandness of Sunday night’s Presidential debate where the man with the blue tie and the man with the red tie seemed incapable of answering questions in any detail or without abusing the other tie. I am not going to go there.

I want to grumble about the visual pollution of those core flute election posters which an army of party volunteers put on stobie poles and fences the moment the election is called. The posters are a product of PR firms who are paid a small fortune to get the magic mix of colour, font and image, and members who have no real say on anything important in their centralised and media driven parties compete to put them up in the most visible locations – or least above the other candidates’ posters. Such is the local electoral contest.

But what do these election posters really tell us? The Liberal and Labor posters tell us nothing other than the name of their local candidate. But if we are to elect these people to represent our local community, surely we need to know more about them than simply whether they play for the blue team or the red team?

Lacking the brand power of the major parties, the smaller players have slogans on their posters. The Greens urge us to vote Green if we care, the Christians will save our nation, and Family First has “strong values”. But I am not sure what I should care about, what the threat to the nation is, or what values are strong.

And so we are left with the smiling visages of politicians looking down at us from light poles all over Adelaide. Presumably the posters are supposed to reference other political propaganda or remind us of candidates we have seen or heard elsewhere, or is it that we might just vote for someone because of the way they look?

I want to see election posters that talk about addressing homelessness and housing stress, about raising income support payments to the poorest people in society and funding services to vulnerable and disadvantaged people – and about using taxes and government policy to make a fairer society. When I see those posters, I will know there is a real election contest.

But until then, I am Greg, and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at: https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-2/
First Published: 13 August 2013

1. Taxes

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about taxes. I know everyone grumbles and about taxes, and nobody wants to pay them, but I want to grumble about people not paying tax. We are about to have 5 weeks of an election campaign with politicians mostly promising to cut or abandon taxes.

But taxes are important. They pay for our schools, universities and hospitals, for our roads, trains and buses, for our police and our public spaces, for environmental protection and for sports and big public events. And dare I say it, they pay for defence and border protection! Taxes also pay for social services for those in need, and they pay for pensions and for a safety net for those who can’t support themselves. In short, taxes underpin the social fabric of our society.

But you would not think that listening to the public debate. Just look at what happened recently when the government moved to close a rort in the Fringe Benefits Tax. Outcry. It was simple proposition – that people should not get a tax benefit by having a car paid for by their employer. Everyone else has to earn the dollars, pay their tax on that income and then buy a car. But some people got a car as part of a salary package, and that was counted mostly as a work vehicle and not as part of their income. And now, oh my god, they have to keep a log book if they want to claim it as a work vehicle, or pay tax the same as everyone else as part of their income. Howls of protest from the parasite industry that has been built around this rort. Unfair, the end of the car industry and civilisation as we know it!

Please.

But there will be more of this stuff during the election. So what I want is every time a politician talks about cutting taxes, I want them to name the service they will cut, the homeless or domestic violence shelter that will shut, the species that will die, the train that won’t run or the section of road that won’t be repaired, or the social security payment which will fall further behind the cost of living. And then we can have a real grumble about taxes.

This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at: https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles/
First Published: 6 August 2013