Flux

....website ..http://www.waterfront.nt.gov.au/
08.02.2006 ..TIO not to be sold ..yet ..people power? How's about the same thing happens against the selloff of a main asset of the people of Australia : Telstra ..it appears to be going ahead, even tho the majority don't want it sold
27.01.2006 ..Leon Compton .. afternoon interview on the local ABC radio station [ www.abc.net.au/darwin ] ..is the threat of a bird-flu epidemic being overcooked ...for political purposes ?
Back to the possibility of the NT Gov selling off a public asset : TIO....what is it about, this recent privatisation epidemic, whereby BB [ big business ] has convinced governments, globally , to sell off public, tax-payer owned assets ..a la Telstra, and now the local insurance/banker, TIO ..? They [Governments] seem to have been distracted by BB and seduced into selling off the whole shebang, instead of just the management rights, or rather the rights to operate the same asset, as a going concern, on the existing infrastructure . Surely, with the technology available and the business acumen accessible, it is possible to come up with a deal to tender out the rights to operate the business... to the highest bidder.. while still retaining ownership in the common wealth of the taxpayers , the people who paid for the original construction of the entity [ and not the Government of the day ] , whether it be an insurance company/banker, or a national communications carrier...or a road !
Put out tenders , globally , to run the business, on the existing infrastructure , by leasehold..to the highest or best bidder ;while the public, not the government of the day , still owns the asset...as it is now, in the present day , and how it will be in future iterations....and no person alive can foretell where technology will take the world in 5 years , let alone 50,considering the accelerating pace of change.
TIO, a QUANGO [ a quasi-autonomous non-government organisation ], and Telstra, a public company constrained in business by it's major shareholder, the Fed Gov, being unable or unwilling to do it's supervising job at arm's length , would be able to be run so much more efficiently by professional managers, rather than those on the public teat,the risk-averse and not-market-savvy bureaucrats. Government , at both levels: politicians and bureaucrats , is supposed to make regulations by Act of Parliament and then supervise those regulations, and if necessary, punish the lawbreakers , including white collar workers at all levels [ even CEO's ] who disregard the rules and conventions .
All done in the common interest, managing the common wealth, created by the monies contributed by generations of taxpayers ...this "common wealth" includes roads, schools, hospitals, tele-communications networks...and the businesses which run on top of these infrastructures . Public servants should not be in the business of business, and governments should not be in business as competitors . The current system of governments, democratic capitalism, is supposedly free-market ; in reality, it is a regulated competition, according to Graham Samuels, head of the ACCC.
The richest man in the world,Bill Gates, came up with this idea : one does not own Windows operating system: one merely licenses a copy, and then one pays for its ongoing upgrades and iterations !!!!
Consider how wealthy the ordinary people, the taxpayers , would be if they still owned everything which has been privatised ...and were able to have access to even a percentage of the cashflow generated.Telstra had something like 4 billion dollars profit to distrubute, albeit by wilfully neglecting it's infrastructure and future needs....what a cash cow ! Surely Government, at the level of the politicians, can understand why BB wants the lot, not just the leasehold of the network, or the right to run a business over the network? It seems the majority of taxpayers, at the latest polls, don't want it [ the infrastructure and the businesses which run on it ] sold off, and then be at the mercy of BB for the provision of ongoing technological and communication needs.
America, and Australia, already lags way behind other OECD countries, in broadband uptake ....sold a mickey-mouse level of internet as broadband, when others have multiples of speed faster access to information, entertainment, education and health services : all delivered over superfast internet, not just souped-up dialup ...and not universally available....network equipment not up to the job, apparently......management distracted by plans to sell to BB, making it [Telstra] more attractive for sale, and in the meantime, technology moves on....leaving the users [btw, the owners] in the horse and buggy, when Japan and South Korea are on the bullet-train, and disappearing ahead into the distance. If the Governments of the day, this day , don't wake up soon , and do their jobs as managers, instead of playing warriors and rattling spears...trying to implant democracy at the point of a gun... that distance will become a gap too wide to recover for years, if ever.....will our workers become the working poor of the world, instead of the third world countries, or China and India?

??.01.2006 ..Leon Compton ..interview with Quito Washington , local film-maker and director , re DCP ..[ www.digitalcinemapictures.com ] entry in short film festival
Apropos of not much , and a lot : Congratulations to Les Hiddens and the Vietnam Vets on their win at Pandanas Park in FNQ !!
14.12.2005 .. Prof Tim Berra ..finally talked local council into investigating some form of recognition of Darwin as being on the route of Charles Darwin's "Beagle" voyage in ? How's about an iconic [see below] structure , even an historical maritime infospot/museum , in his honour and also the Macassan seafarers , involved in the trepang fishery ..and the pearlers, too? That would put the new development and the harbour on the map!

9.12.2005 ..Leon Compton , local ABC radio afternoons ..re TIO sell-off ........more later [ 27.01.2006 ]

5.12.2005 ..Solar Towers [ check out Enviromissiom ..ASX symbol EVM ], useful for car parks .. and used for stanchions for rail extension into the CBD ..this development, in conjunction with the enormous potential for Darwin to emerge over the next few decades as a major GasHub, is screaming out for ideas for an iconic structure ..to "brand" it ..in the same manner as Ningbo Harbour [ http://www.chinaforgroups.com/ningbo_travel.html ] Fremantle,Sydney .. see what happens when the imagination and good architecture get a go ..have to post links or images of stand-out Harbours of the world

Today 31.8.2005 local council announced plans for 11 mill upgrade to mall ...wonder if they are working with the waterfront consortium........or will the different levels and flavours of politics intrude on common sense?

2.12.2005 ..Interview on local ABC with mayor ..trial of video surveillance of Mall ..needs work ..public comments ..input wanted from all tiers of government/administration ..where is the data stored, and who may access it, in real-time and the future?