Woroni: Edition 4, 2014

Powerful groups at the ANU. Woroni talks trade unions.

Why you can’t kiss in public Inflation, yo. D’em in Amman, Jordan. gravitational waves be cray.

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Features

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25 MARCH 2 0 1 4 - NO. 4, VOL 66 - WORONI.COM.AU - T: @WORONI - F: WORONI

MARCH IN MARCH Canberrans March in Discontent Jason Andrews

took to the stage to read out a Statement of No

LAST week, before Parliament House, up to 1500 people gathered on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples; families, students, couples, grandparents, elders and activists, all brought together for a day to publicly voice their discontent with the federal government. Following the weekend where up to 100,000 Australians marched across the nation in opposition to policies deemed an “affront to the common good”, Monday’s citizen-led protest was the largest mass-demonstration that Canberra has seen in almost 7 years.

Prior to the protest, perceptions of the campaign was mixed in the mainstream media, with some attacking its credibility and others perplexed as to its ultimate purpose and desired outcomes. The massive nation-wide reaction to the

Leader of the Greens Party, Adam Bandt.

Beneath the banners and placards the mood was upbeat and peaceful with many reclining on picnic rugs or on the grass whilst soaking up the early afternoon sun. The cheers and jeers were loud and frequent as speakers took to the stage to articulate a lengthy list of grievances. Craig Batty, one of the national directors of the March in March campaign, addressed the demonstrators and summarised the spirit of the day: ‘this is not about the ALP versus the LNP, the left versus the right, this is about right versus wrong’. This sentiment was most evident in the views expressed by multiple speakers concerning the notable lack of progress made by either party since 2007 in facilitating the improvement of the health and ples and current bipartisan support for brutal and inhumane policies towards asylum seekers.

Amongst the speakers were three of the ANU’s

Amongst the speakers were three of ANU’s own activists: John Minns, speaking on behalf of the Refugee Action Committee... call-to-protest, however, must give critics pause considering the massive outpouring of support, both at the protests themselves and throughout all forms of social media.

The Canberra March commenced at 10am behind Old Parliament House with an open mic speak-out where protestors were encouraged to address the growing crowds and express their reasons for marching. Following this, chanting bott!”, protesters marched to the top of the Parliamentary lawns for the remainder of the afternoon where a speaker’s stage had been erected. Attendfrom a peak of 1500, about 1000 people stayed throughout the afternoon. At 1.30pm, Loz Lawrey, one of the national organisers of the event,

on behalf of the Refugee Action Committee, the doctoral candidate Lorenzo White, speaking on behalf of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, and masters candidate Tom Swann speaking on behalf of the ANU Environand daily violence of offshore processing and mandatory detention and Mr. White highlighted the renewed attacks on wages, working conditions and organised labour. Mr. Swann’s speech, though, delved much closer to home as he critithe oil and gas exploration company Santos and called upon the ANU to divest from fossil fuels.

At a time when there is no shortage of issues for and Mr. Swann all emphasised the importance of student mobilisation, engagement and action on these issues in the coming months.

The March in March protests have also come at a precarious time for the Liberal-National Coalition who are currently conducting a vigorous campaign across Western Australia in a bid

to obtain the upper hand in the Senate. Failure to secure favourable results in the election rerun

government as they will be forced to negotiate in order to pass the legislation and reforms that they have been promising to deliver since their election last September.

Whether or not the March in March protests will have any immediate impact on voters in Western Australia, or on grass-root activism in Australia in general, remains to be seen. It has certainly demonstrated that co-ordinated and organised citizens can effectively demonstrate

public opinion. But as is often the case, public demonstrations in Australia are often merely momentary instances of dissent and since the early 1990s they seem to have had little effect in changing government policies. In 2003, more than half a million Australians demonstrated against the Iraq War with negligible effect.

Nevertheless, the March in March protests are a dence in the current government, demonstrating the discontent in Australian society, and it can only be hoped this will spur further discussion, activism and eventually policy change.

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

NEWS// 2

News Briefs

The Fortnight in Numbers

A collection of news stories from around the world that weren’t covered by the mainstream media.

Dan Lynch

Number of Google News results about MH370:

Abbott drones on defence spending

461,000,000

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Number of planes found:

0

Quotes

Drunken photos on Facebook; more than just embarrassing -

per cent of people believe climate Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

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“Ninety-seven percent of climate -

Queensland: Australia’s Texas?

- NASA Woroni is published on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people.

We pay our respects to their elders past and present.

Even on the Titanic Britons embraced the art of queuing -

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief Deputy Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Digital Ross Caldwell Print Print Elena Tjandra Print Radio Elise Terrell

Construction industry rife with illegality -

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News Comment Features Life & Style Arts Science Sport Josh Chu-Tan Radio Radio Polly Mitton Radio Michael Carton Radio Photos Design Video

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Paris rivals Beijing as world’s most polluted city

PRINTED BY CAPITAL FINE PRINT PUBLISHED BY ANU STUDENT MEDIA

Breastfeeding in Public – a legal right the editor can be sent to -

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

NEWS// 3

National Concession System More Urgent Than Ever Daniel Lynch FROM next week, ANU students from NSW will no longer be entitled to reduced price “student” transport fares in their home state. The move will bring NSW into line with other Australian states by refusing to recognise the status of students from interstate – students from Victoria and Queensland have long been paying full priced transport fares at home.

As Australia’s national university, the ANU attracts students from across the country. More than a third of domestic undergraduate students come from outside the ACT, with more than half In previous years, a tacit reciprocal agreement was in place between the ACT and NSW governments, which allowed ACT students the right to discounted travel in NSW. New requirements of residency mean most ANU students, even those with a family home in NSW, will no longer be eligible for concession fares in that state.

On Tuesday last week the ANU sent out an email to all students informing them that: “Most ANU students are unlikely to be eligible for travel concession in NSW under the 2014 guidelines”. Clarifying the situation, the Deputy Registrar adds in her email: “Discussions with or online students are not entitled to the concession, nor are students who maintain a residence reside in the ACT for the purposes of their study.

Students returning home to NSW on the weekend or during semester breaks are not entitled to NSW travel concession.”

Given that so many ANU students come from cant disincentive for students who have previously made regular weekend trips to Sydney. That students in the ACT will no longer be entitled to NSW concessions may even cause damage to the number of students seeking to come to the ANU from Sydney and other parts of NSW, given that increase to their transport costs back home.

Photo by Janis Lejins

The cause of the change has so far not been from the NSW Minister for Transport, Gladys Berejiklian, and the ACT government. There interstate students full price fares to boost public transport revenue, however it would be interesting to see whether doubling the fares paid by non-resident and cash-poor students would visitors and encourage fare evasion.

In contrast, the ACT government continues to allow all tertiary students, regardless of their state of origin, the right to concession fares in the ACT. This stands in sharp contrast with the tightcourse Canberra’s public transport system is on a in NSW or Victoria.

The changes must prompt renewed discussion on the need for a national student concession system. The issue was a popular one for the National Union of Students in previous years, but seems to have fallen off the agenda recently. The federal government is unlikely to be able to negotiate such a scheme nationally, or, in any case, not quickly, and as such, reciprocal arrangements, like that previously in existence between NSW and the ACT, provide a straightforward way of reducing students’ travel costs.

The big picture question here is to ask why we discount fares for students at all. Perhaps we believe students should be entitled to cheaper rates because of notions of equity or proportionality, because people should be able to access public transport on any budget. Perhaps it’s because we want to encourage young people to use and rely on public transport or because it helps prevent fare evasion by making ticket prices more affordable for students. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t seem to add up that state governments can afford to reduce the prices for their own students, but not extend the gesture to those from interstate.

Unless public transport is just one big revenue raising exercise after all.

Everyday 31 Australians are told they have leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma or a related blood disorder. To help over 11,500 Australian’s diagnosed every year Shallan dyed her hair purple and Shellie shaved all of it off.

To find out more visit: worldsgreatestshave.com.au

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

NEWS// 4

Election Highlights Tasmania's Peculiar State Politics

Jordon Morissey

ON Saturday March 15, Tasmania went to the polls, with a Liberal win contributing to the party’s strongest position nationally since the Whitlam Era. The southern isle is the best represented of the Australian states, and has a state electoral system that never fails to entertain.

The state’s lower house electorates are linked to the federal boundaries, with each electorate

the state’s south, has the rare honour of hosting the leaders of each of the three major parties: leader of the Greens, Nic McKim, outgoing Labor premier Lara Giddings and new Liberal pre-

Hodgman achieved a remarkably high personal vote, reaching more than two quotas guarantee-

The forest state uses a variation of the HareClark system, with optional preferential voting, tive of a campaigner, this is a nightmare. The result is that candidates from the same party compete against one another, and a large part of the campaign is devoted to delivering the “vote

the voters however, it arguably leads to bet-

Greens and other minor parties, to the detriment of both major parties, particularly Labor, in competition with the Greens for the left of centre vote.

Rather oddly, the upper house, or legislative council, in the Tasmanian parliament not only exists, but is single member preferential. The

are up for election every year, with legislative councillors serving six-year terms. Many legislative councillors are former mayors, and are able to effectively run as independent due to upper house seats tending to coincide with city council boundaries.

with electors primarily located in Hobart, and its satellite towns. Denison is known for being among the ‘greenest’ electorates in the coun-

try, and could eventually put another green in the federal House of Representatives. The two candidates winning the most number 1 votes for Denison, were Scott Bacon, son of former is indicative of the kind of localism inherent in Tasmanian state politics. had two Hodgmans (the father and uncle of the current premier), and two Grooms, including Hodgmans, the Grooms and the O’Byrnes are not hegemonic, but are just very popular. It is

Denison and Franklin are located in the south with electors primarily located in Hobart, and its satellite towns. also not uncommon for Tasmanian politicians to be married, Greens Leader Nic McKim is the husband of number three candidate for Denison, Cassie O’Connor, and two more “couples” are Greens candidates in Lyons, including incumbent Tim Morris.

Lyons, the former state seat of Christine Milne, is the largest electorate in Tasmania, and until when it fell with a 11% primary vote swing to the tural in the country, based on the low number of residents with English as a second language.

The seat also suffers from extreme economic disadvantage, is mostly rural and has few, if any, this educational and economic inequity, as well as with Tasmania generally were central to the turning around the lagging economy of Australia’s most governed state.

Election of Union Directors Underway Daniel Lynch & Ben Latham IT is once again time for the annual election of the ANU Union Board of Directors. Twelve candidates have been nominated this year and elections will be conducted this week.

The ANU Union is the body responsible for the Union Building in Union Court, and also oversees a number of services and food outlets on campus. It is primarily a business-related

There are five places on the board, however the postgraduate position was uncontested...

popularly elected by students. Notably, they are responsible for the ANU bar and other establishments in the same building.

catering options on campus with pop-up food at the ANU bar, extend opening hours for services, host more events and improve advocacy and communication.

Refresh, which includes Alex Bell-Rowe, Orchard, is seeking to bring Brodburger to campus. Their “big three” election ideas are to try and bring the popular Canberra burger joint to campus, to make pool tables at the ANU bar free for happy hour and to have a fund to enable student entrepreneurs to add to campus culture. Alex Bell-Rowe is once again promising full body massages to anyone who votes for him (whether this is an incentive or not remains to be seen).

Other candidates include Daniel McKay, who is running as an independent and stresses the importance of accountability and communicating more effectively and directly with

the postgraduate position was uncontested, position.

Group ticket registration was open until

Students can vote in the Union Board elec-

launched last Thursday, hopes to diversify

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Full Gym Cardio Theatre Personal Training Group Fitness Classes Strength & Conditioning Coaching Lifestyle Program (Short Courses) 32+ Sporting Clubs to join University Games

tions, either as independents or on a currently unannounced ticket. Woroni also understands that there may yet be a ticket running named

Woroni ing this year.

Revive Your Union, with Shenelle Egbert, Rachel Hao and Harry Hughes, is running

Even geniuses need a break

campaigns and policies will be available this week, and all students are encouraged to vote.

www.anu-sport.com.au tel: 02 6125 2273

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

NEWS// 5

Transgender and Intersex Birth Certificate Laws people to discrimination, verbal abuse and denial of services “because the sex on their birth

Sophie Yates NEW laws passed in the Legislative Assembly will now allow the ACT intersex and transgender community to change the way in which their Prior to the new laws, the Births, Deaths and Marriages Act required a person to have undergone sexual reassignment surgery before being

“This predicament has raised very real safety and privacy issues for transgender and intersex people when going about their daily lives” notes and transgender people experience high rates of mental illness, violence, unemployment and

The new Bill, passed by the Assembly on

For people not born wholly male or female, -

ditional gender category, ‘X’, by which inde-

The new laws will have significant social and legal implications for intersex and transgender people wishing to correct their birth certificates.

period within which parents must have registered the sex of their newborn child; from sixty days to

For people not born wholly male or female, the third neutral category is seen as an accurate reflection of their biological gender. the third neutral category is seen as an accurate transitioning people regarding the way in which population will be empowered to make these The legislation is seen as a step towards recognising the inadequacies of a registration system that discriminates according to binary gender notes, the previous system allowed only for the “easy administration but not true inclusion” of

legal implications for intersex and transgender As Peter Hyndal, a spokesperson for the lobby group ‘A Gender Agenda’, commented, previous provisions subjected transgender and intersex

ACT recognises sexual diversity and respects the contribution of all Canberrans to our commu-

Experience ANU events.anu.edu.au

Featured events Public lectures

Thursday 3 April, 7.30pm

Thursday 27 March, 1pm

Presented by the ANU Film Group

Professor David Sloss, Santa Clara University

Tuesday 25 March, 6pm

Thursday 27 March, 6pm

Is the universe getting more complex?

Syria to Scotland: Geopolitics in today’s world

Dr Charley Lineweaver, ANU

Professor Sir Hew Strachan, University of Oxford

Physics Lecture Theatre, University Ave bit.ly/1cPgdBS

Common Room, University House, Balmain Cres bit.ly/1dOyIEK

Moot Court, ANU College of Law, Building 5, Fellows Rd bit.ly/1okYiV6

Exhibitions

Thursday 3 April, 9am-1pm

Thursday 3 April Saturday 3 May

Power, money & resources: Addressing the drivers of health inequity Presented by The Menzies Centre for Health Policy Theatre 1, Hedley Bull Centre, cnr Garran Rd & Liversidge St bit.ly/1edVRk9 Tuesday 8 April, 6pm

Inward Bound

Earth Hour 2014

An inter-college competition of navigation & endurance

Performances by the Brass Knuckle Brass Band & more

Location is top secret check website closer to date bit.ly/1nzi95X

Chifley Meadows (outside Chifley Library) bit.ly/1okTz5W

Artist exchange between Chiang Mai University & ANU ANU School of Art Gallery, Ellery Cres Open 10.30am-5pm, Tuesday to Friday & 12-5pm, Saturday bit.ly/1cSkRcK

Other

Professor Joan Beaumont, ANU

Australian National Internships Program information session

Films Saturday 29 March, 6.30-9.30pm

Chat

Warring Australians: The battles overseas & at home, 1914-18 Theatre 1, Hedley Bull Centre, cnr Garran Rd & Liversidge St bit.ly/1cSJYRY

Fri 28 March - Sat 29 March

Coombs Theatre, cnr Fellows & Garran Rd Admission charges apply anufg.org.au

Wednesday 26 March, 6pm

Faust Presented by the ANU German Society Theatre 4, Manning Clark Centre, Union Court germansociety.weblogs.anu.edu.au

Thursday 27 March, 4pm

Theatre 4, Manning Clark Centre, Union Court bit.ly/1d8fVGn Thursday 3 April, 11am-3pm

ANU Exchange Fair

The ANU campus is always alive with plenty to see, hear and do.

All events held on the ANU campus unless otherwise indicated. Schedule is subject to change, please check website closer to the date to ensure event information is correct.

Global Programs Team

youtube.com/ANUchannel

Union Court bit.ly/1g43tHT

@ANU_Events facebook.com/TheAustralian NationalUniversity

CRICOS#00120C_MO13163

The forgotten history of nineteenth century public law litigation

The Book Thief

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

COMMENT// 6

A ‘Tutorial’ in Student Ac- Has Woroni Gone Too Far? tivism Geraldine Fela

Tom Murphy

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Woroni

that many people wouldn’t have realised that it was a Woroni

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Woroni Woroni is newspaper which targets university students -

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a superior learning environment to the more It was stated that any -

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COMMENT// 7

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The SPIR Rout Continues: World-Leading Scholar & Team Head to the University of Canberra.

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Jason Andrews

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Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance.

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Professor Dryzek’s status as a world leading political theorist had long been recognised by the ARC who in 2008 awarded him a Federation Fellowship ...

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proach the disciplines of political science and international relations from critical, philosophical Woroni highlighted the fact that, in addition to the

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Australia's Region Not Wedded to the Idea of Gay Marriage Gary Oldman -

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servative social mores. This only increases the ne- of gay rights may be limited or demand long-term

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TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

COMMENT// 8

Time to revamp the delivery of economics education Jasmine Zheng ACCORDING to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (now dissolved), labour Business Deans Council (ABDC) endorsed a set of new academic standards for degrees in economics in Decem-

rate movements and its impact on the economy, evaluate a proposal to completely deregulate the energy industry in Australia, and to be able to identify the trends and outliers in electricity prices using economic intuition and standards were drafted after a thorough consultation process with academics and professionals and employers in

In an interview with The Australian, Professor Guest recognised that both international and domestic students have been in the industry for many years continue to struggle to present the economic ideas in their papers clearly Do these newly endorsed learning standards for economics graduates sound like an insurmountable challenge?

One may be inclined to think economics graduates from ANU would certainly be well equipped with this endorsed set of skills, given how well regarded the economics degree and the university are in national and worldquantity of international research output, an indicator that is perhaps more important to academics and potential over the last few years, there are at least two ways in which I suggest the delivery of economics courses in ANU (or 1. Tutorials means that tutors go through the tutorials on the whiteboard each week, with students often coming in without are several studies that suggest that group work is a more conducive way of learning compared to the “chalk and -

start learning from one another, working and talking through the thought processes in economics, while the tutor

FEATURES// 9

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

Areti Metuamate Deputy Editor-in-Chief WE had lots of feedback on the 2014 ANU Power List, published in the last edition of Woroni. While many people felt we were ‘spot on’ in our rankings, a couple have been included in the rankings! a few sources what they thought of this list. Some of these groups you’ll know of and others you may not. Here is what we’ve come up with, in no particular order.

This one is a given. The University Council appoints the Vice-Chancellor and controls the overall strategic direction of the University. The Council is chaired by the Chancellor, Gareth Evans, and it has the power to impact on any and every aspect of the ANU.

The ANUSA departments deserve a mention in their own right as they have some autonomy from the ANUSA executive and in recent years some have made names for themselves as big achievers. The International Students’ Department has risen in its prominence after having an extremely active president last year whose political and networking skills have been commented on by many. The Queer Collective and Women’s Department have also been hugely effective in a number of campaigns with competent and passionate people taking the lead in recent years.

This group of heads (or Principal, in the case of Burgmann) is a close-knit group of people that many students here refer to as their ANU mum or dad (or grand-dad in one case!). This group meets plus students who live on campus. ANU has more student residents than any other Australian university, both proportionately and in real numbers, and so cant than it might be at other, similar universities around the country.

There are many other student groups at the University

ARC Laureate Fellowships are awarded to Australia’s most outstanding researchers. A Laureate Fellow is like a superstar in academia, and we have more at ANU than any other university in the country. The research money each Laureate Fellows get is in the millions of dollars and so this gives them a huge amount of weight in their academic colleges and at ANU in general.

You can say what you want about student politicians, but at this University the two main student encourages this as the presidents are on University Council, and representatives from both of these associations are on decision-making committees, working parties and project groups in every part of the ANU.

Last week we included Professor Toni Makkai, Dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences, in the power list and she is one of seven College Deans (or eight if you include the Dean of Medicine, although he technically falls under the College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment). The deans have direct control over the huge

most. The ANU Law Students’ Society and the Medical Students’ Society are both large student groups with active memberships. They have well organized structures and networks across the campus and, unusually for student groups; they never seem short of money!

A number of campaign and activist groups have made their mark too. The ANU Education Action Group comes to mind as very brave having run a campaign last year that included gate-crashing a speech

by Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic), Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington (no.2 on the power list), to prospective students and their parents at the walk in to the theatre Professor Hughes-Warrington was speaking in to the sound of a funeral march and izing dead student corpses with another dressed as the grim reaper in the background with the words ‘ANU’ on their dark black gown. Another example of student activism working is the very impressive campaign by Fossil Free ANU (a working group of the ANU Environment Collective) to get the University to divest its holdings in fossil fuels. This has been one of the most effective campaigns of any student group at ANU in recent years with the group getting the issue on the University Council agenda and making it an ANU headline internally and in the news media.

This is the group of most senior staff of the University. The Vice-Chancellor, two Deputy Vice-Chancellors, four Pro Vice-Chancellors, and the Executive Director of Administration and Planning. Some people call this the Vice Chancellor’s cabinet.

The role of ANU alumni (and not just the famous ones like Kevin Rudd or Boediono, the Vice-President of Indonesia) has become increasingly important in recent years. Alumni bring key networks and relationships to ANU and, in cases such as Graham Tuckwell, lots of money!

This is the University Executive and the Deans. It meets semi-regularly and is an inclusive initiative of the current Vice-Chancellor, where the deans are given input into a wide range of ANU-wide matters.

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

FEATURES// 10

LEST WE REGRET Christopher Orchard

THERE is something you need to know about the Gallipoli legend. It’s a myth. And the events ANZAC day commemorates should not be “celebrated”.

Before you spit out your half chewed lamb sandwich and scream “torches and pitch-forks!”, remember that I’m referring to your conception and interpretation of actual events. That is, actual things happened at ANZAC cove, and since those events occurred many other things we want to believe, all the while ignoring the truth.

There are three myths in particular that have been defaced onto the ANZAC legend since Gallipoli: They died for our country at Gallipoli They died for our freedom at Gallipoli They died for our way of life at Gallipoli All of these claims, on any objective test (remember, this means to test them against the facts of the invasion), are wrong. And to claim They died for our country at Gallipoli At the time of the Gallipoli campaign, Australia was a “dominion” of the Imperial Empire of the United Kingdom. The word “dominion” did not have a diplomatic service. Importantly, we didn’t declare war on Germany, the mother country did it for us. nese Army. Until that time young men from Australia went to war where the English pointed.

Australia?

At the time of the Gallipoli campaign we were, in terms of our military and international capacities, a British outpost. This is plainly obvious to any reasonable person who can contemplate basic factual evidence. To superimpose the Gallipoli campaign on what is today Australia, an independent federated democracy in total control of all of its affairs, is just plain wrong.

As to the argument that the Anzacs and Gallipoli were the “birth of the nation”, and therefore justifying the legend as it helped “build” Australia, one need only look as far as New Zealand. The forgotten dominion (in Australian ANZAC “celebrations” at least) which made up the other part of the ANZAC acronym. To suggest the Anzacs died for our country is to suggest thousands of New Zealanders died for Australia. A manifestly absurd sentiment.

They died for our freedom at Gallipoli There was absolutely no threat posed to Australia’s territorial sovereignty from the Germans. None. Nor for that matter from the Turks, or google it.

As to defending our democracy at Gallipoli, Australia was default allied to Tsarist Russia at the time we landed in Gallipoli.

Turkey posed zero threat to Australia, then we decided, under instruction from an empire, to invade this country that was in no way a We landed in Turkey.

They were defending their to peacefully and freely commemorate each year our landing on their beach. Cheers Turkey.

They died for our way of life at Gallipoli understandable thing to do. Traits such as “mateship” were present in the Anzacs at Gallipoli, no doubt; consider Simpson and his donkey. our way of life, is the sycophantic praise heaped on the actions of those battered and destroyed young men. This praise is used to glorify war, to glorify killing, to glorify death; not to comfort them, Take this excerpt from Glorious Deeds of Australians in the Great War (Ernest Charles) you have honoured our land; you, the novices, the untrained, the untaught in war’s grim school, have done the deeds of veterans.”

Obviously the above is patronising to the women who presumably just lost sons, husbands, and brothers, yet the myth is more insidious than that. The young men who fought returned destroyed and traumatised. Our want to “celebrate” ANZAC day, derives directly from propaganda like the above.

Ignoring what happened in the trenches and instead focusing on how great Australia is, and by extension our troops, obviates our need to constantly remind ourselves of the hideousness of war. This wilful blindness is our original ANZAC sin, and it is not how we should remember them. To glorify war, to celebrate what happened, is to ignore what actually happened entirely, and therefore their memory. There could be no greater insult.

Or could there be? In 2005 some two thousand young people from Australia made a pilgrimage to ANZAC cove in Turkey for the commemoration ceremony. These are presumably the very people who would have us believe the three myths I have debunked. At the rememthe cove and the tombstones were littered with rubbish and cans. This is the result of neglecting our real responsibility, remembrance, and instead indulging in nationalistic gluttony. This is not the “way of life” we are told the Anzacs died for. Yet it is the way the most zealous believers in the ANZAC legend act.

Lest we forget In researching this article I interviewed Peter Fitzsimons AM, author of over 20 books on Australian history and our best selling nonmilitary honour, for gallantry during battle at Gallipoli. Hugo returned home to Australia with the rank of captain and a decorated military

By imparting our own desire for identity onto these young men, we ignore the facts of the Gallipoli campaign. It stands to reason that they did not die for our country at Gallipoli; they did not die for our freedom at Gallipoli; and they did not die for our way of life at Gallipoli.

They died in horrible circumstances that must never be repeated. That is the truth. Lest we forget.

The author tweets at @CEOrchard and would like to thank Peter Fitzsimons for his assistance.

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

FEATURES// 11

Questions of Gender and the Law Meghan Thomas-Richards ABOUT a month ago I attended a student-run activity, where at the start of the meeting everyone had to say which gender pronoun they preferred to be referred to as. For example: as a person identifying as a female I would say female and genderneutral pronouns are ok with me. Before this time I never really thought about gender identity as an issue, mainly because I identify as a female and I generally look like what people would stereotype as a female, so it is not really a problem for me.

However looking further into this issue, I found myself a few weeks ago at the High Court of Australia. This is where a gender issue case was being heard involving New South Wales (NSW) Births, Deaths and Marriages v Norrie. This case, on a national level, has put gender back on the, ahem, agenda.

Norrie was born a male before undergoing gender alteration surgery in 1989. She now does not identify with either male or female genders. When Norrie applied for a name change with the NSW Birth, Deaths and Marriage Registrar she also wished and attempted to alter her gender, to not trar subsequently rescinded it. They claimed the -

Since this time, Norrie challenged this decision by the NSW Registrar in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in 2010 and between 2010 and early March this year the case has been appealed all the way to the High Court...

Since this time, Norrie challenged this decision by the NSW Registrar in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in 2010 and between 2010 and early March this year the case has been appealed all the way to the High Court.

The main basis for the appeal made by the NSW Registrar in the High Court, is that it wishes to argue there is a binary approach to gender for either male or female. There is no third category [that] draw the binary distinction for which you mean drastic changes to how people can identify trar included many pieces of legislation in their submission that would be affected by the third genwidespread recognition that there is not simply a der category. Once of which included the combat sports regulation. Justice Bell referred to, in slight jest, this particular inclusion, specifying a female genders. gendered combatant “may wear a lightweight At the hearing, the NSW Registrar cautioned that there would be numerous pieces of legislation raising the question that if there was a third genaffected if there is to be a third category of gender.

Justice Bell stated during the High Court hearing wear when engaging in combat sports? Maybe we there are “comparatively few pieces of legislation should all panic because the combat sports regula-

Images Law School Memes.

der player might have to choose between male and MacFarlane successfully campaigned to have female sporting attire. a third gender category of ‘indeterminate’ as an been questioned in court. In 2003, Alex MacFar- rently not possible in NSW. lane successfully had a passport issued with their It seems the real question for the court at this point is to see if there is a large amount of legislagender as neither male nor female but under the tion that would be affected by a third category of tion: if it is already possible in Victoria, then why This change, according to the Department of For- not New South Wales? The High Court of Auseign Affairs and Trade, is a step forward in “re- tralia is still hearing the case with the decision moving discrimination on the grounds of sexual pending.

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

FEATURES// 12

Industrial Relations 101 Daniet Rose XIAOFAN Bi’s article ‘Time for Trade Unions to Grow Up’ is an anti-union screed, notable not just for its factual inaccuracies, but its wild innuendo and fundamental misunderstanding of Australia’s industrial relations system.

The author says he can “no longer tolerate” rogue unions, but he never explains what a “rogue union” is. If you glean the article for clues, it for better pay and conditions for its members (all unions). What this also implies is that at one stage the author did tolerate these “rogue unions”, with no explanation as to what shifted his perception ex cept from reading that Martin Ferguson and Paul Howes had called for wages restraint.

Something needs to be made of the analogy the author uses, comparing the unions to Dark Age peasants. This is an entirely trite and offensive slur against the millions of workers across Australia who pay union dues, not to mention those who fought and died on picket lines for the pay and conditions we enjoy now.

What the author seems to be implying with this analogy is that the peasants were wrong to use their deductive reasoning to believe there was gold contained within the goose who laid the golden eggs. Rather, he would have us believe that the gold is produced magically somewhere inside the goose (“the economy”), and that the peasants (“workers”) should invest their trust in it to deliver wealth for them. Perhaps a small reference to What was missing from the article was what the author thinks a reasonable pay rise, or wage, or set of conditions should be. If 3% is too much, would he be happy with 2%? Or maybe he wants a pay freeze or even a pay cut? How about putting all these manufacturing workers on the award? This omission highlights the fact that the article was nothing but an attack piece on unions.

The author also misrepresents the pay rises afforded to workers between the period of September 2011 to April 2013. It was in fact 4.5% (not 7.75%) and his mistake arises from rolling in the April 2013 to April 2014 pay increase of 3.25% into the equation. So here is an author clamouring for wage restraint for Australia’s blue collar workers, and he is not even able to demonstrate The offensive letter he quotes to the 400 workers scabbing on the 2011 strike represents another instance where the author demonstrates a misunderstanding about how unions function. The letter bore no AMWU letterhead, and was written by striking workers, not the AMWU. It was most definitely written by AMWU members, because only union members have the right to take protected industrial action (something the AMWU would have known), but the question the inclusion of this “evidence” poses is to what extent does the union have responsibility for what its members do?

The author also fundamentally misunderstands the way in which an enterprise agreement is formulated. Before an agreement expires, the employer calls for workers to nominate bargaining representatives. Some workers elect themselves or their peers to sit at the table. Unionised workers may (and do) elect their union to do the same.

Only unions who have legal coverage of that industry are entitled to represent their members.

During negotiations, both the employer and staff (some represented by their unions), must engage in “good faith” bargaining. If a party is found to have not bargained in good faith, the Fair Work Commission may compel that party back to the bargaining table for further negotiations.

The employer at any time may put the proposed agreement to a vote with all staff. This vote is a secret ballot, and a union will advise staff to vote yes or no. If a majority votes no, then negotiations continue, until a position is reached where the majority of staff vote yes. If the agreement expires, it continues without pay rises, providing an incentive for staff to reach an agreement with their employer.

The author seems to have this impression that the unions are all-powerful and monolithic organisations, when in actual fact they are only as strong as their membership. A good enterprise agreement is an indication of the strength of workers in that workplace. Unions are member-driven organisations, and the push for better pay and conditions thor is unhappy with the current system of enterprise bargaining, perhaps he’d like us to go back to the old system of compulsory arbitration and conciliation? Or maybe he’s calling for a return to Australian Workplace Agreements?

The article revealed another interesting point:

The author also fundamentally misunderstands the way in which an enterprise agreement is formulated...

Why would the AMWU put itself out of business?

If workers and AMWU leadership knew that the agreement would lead to massive job losses, why would they have pursued it? Unfortunately, trade unions do not possess crystal balls that allow them to peer years ahead. The author is right to say that losing jobs is not advantageous for the AMWU, and I would hazard to suggest the AMWU knows this too.

The reason we enjoy great pay and conditions in Australia is not because of the generosity of the bosses, it because there is a 150 year old history of struggle, with thousands of workers having lost their lives and endured poverty on the picket lines for demanding safe workplaces, fair pay and the right to unionise.

What the original article sought to do was attack unions, but in actual fact the author attacked the workers who make up unions, labelling them as greedy and stupid. This is shameful rhetoric: pure ideology masquerading as analysis. The predicament in the manufacturing sector hints more towards the dynamic nature of global capital, not the avarice and power of unions, despite the author’s claim that wages were a “main factor in cause the planned departure of Toyota and GM Holden”. Trade unions are an essential component of Australia’s workplace relations system, and wholesale attacks on their credibility by cherrypicking enterprise agreements and posing singlecause explanations are only assisting those who

The Only Problem With Trade Unions Is They Aren't Strong Enough David Tuckwell & Ethan Wallace

20 years. Similarly in Germany auto workers are highly unionised. They enjoy average wages that are roughly double what an Australian or AmeriUNLESS you’ve been living under a rock, you’d can would earn, while the three big German car probably be aware that Toyota recently announced companies (Daimler, BMW & Volkswagen) are their intention to pull out of Australia, ending tens of thousands of jobs in South Australia and VictoBut for some reason in Australia, we are told, ria. Cue right-wing commentators and politicians the auto industry collapsed thanks to “outrageous” lining up to attack manufacturing unions who, they claimed, were largely responsible for sinking tion. This seems somewhat strange given the inAustralia’s car industry. ternational evidence.

“The union, the AMWU, is at war with Toyota,” If it’s not the unions that killed our car makers, said the federal treasurer Joe Hockey. “They are then what was it? creating the conditions that make it extraordinarToyota Australia makes around 100,000 cars

each year, of which around 80,000 are exported. in Australia.”

So when you’ve got a high Aussie dollar – as we The “extraordinary level of union control over have for the last six years - your exports become daily workplace organisation,” said Grace Collier more expensive. It also means that the market gets of The Australian, was “outrageous”, “destrucHowever, before we cast blame on the AMWU, it is important to understand what a union actually is. Simply put, a union is a group of workers who have decided to pool their resources and their power so as to make their voices heard, both in the workplace and in politics. Their membership is generally drawn from the working class, often people of very limited means, who seek to push their demands on the political elite. Unlike corporate CEOs, trade union leaders are democratically elected by members. According to Noam Chomsky: “trade unions are a democratizing force, the historical record is unambiguous on this”.

In the early 1980s around 50% of the Australian workforce was a member of a trade union, today less than 18% are. In the same period income inequality in Australia has worsened with our Gini our conservative media may fail to see the correlation between these two statistics, the Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz suggests in his book The Price of Inequality that “strong unions have helped to reduce inequality, whereas weaker unions have made it easier for CEOs… to increase it.”

The average punter reading their morning paper would be forgiven for thinking that Australia was the only country with a unionised auto industry.

But in Japan the main auto workers union, Jidosha Soren, has over 700,000 members and recently negotiated with Toyota for the largest pay rise in

fell 2.8% last year for this very reason). You end up in an awkward situation.

For Richard Denniss, executive of the leftleaning think tank The Australia Institute, it’s straightforwardly the high dollar, which is fueled by the mining boom: “We’ve substituted a boom in foreign-owned mining for the decline of largely Australian-owned agriculture, tourism, education and manufacturing.”

The Australia Institute estimates that the resource sector receives roughly $4.5 billion a year in federal government subsidies. Toyota, by contrast, has received $500 million over the last four years and their requests for additional assistance earlier this year fell on deaf ears.

In short, the high dollar, fueled by the mining boom, took away Toyota’s competitive edge, and the government was offering no help. The company was left with no choice but to pack their bags.

So why is it, then, that the Australian media, politicians and much of the public believe that car manufacturing was killed by overpaid trade union “fat cats”?

Simple: because it’s easier to blame blue-collar workers and their union than confront whitecollar mining executives and their lobby. It’s always easier to blame people lower down the social ladder than those higher up. Or as our old buddy George Orwell put it: “everyone knows that class-prejudice exists, but at the same time everyone claims that he, in some mysterious way, is exempt from it.”

FEATURES// 13

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

Full Fees For You

Mr Abbott himself probably didn’t have to pay tuition after Whitlam abolished fees in 1974...

Mark Fabian unpacks the student response to the Abbott governments’ proposition that group of eight universities charge some students full fees.

e t

Mark Fabian

r e There’s been a bit of fracas in the last fortnight or ,so over a recommendation in a Group of 8 Uni”versities’ submission to the Abbott government’s review of higher education funding. The recommendation asks the government to allow universities to forgo HECS subsidised places in certain ,courses and instead charge full fees. The universities identify commerce, economics, accounting and law as the best places to roll out the policy. .This is a complex issue, and much of the discussion thus far has done little to make that clear. e Student groups, including the ANU student’s sassociation, have understandably condemned the proposal, which would see hefty fee increases for dstudents in affected courses. They have cited equity as a critical issue. In the words of ANUSA: ‘ANU has a duty as the national university to be accessible to all domestic students’. d Yet while student associations are simply doing mtheir job when they oppose such proposals, it is unclear that equity is a valid argument, especially nwhen placed in the broader context of University funding.

First, removing HECS subsidised places and moving all students to a full-fee paying structure does not mean that students cannot get a very lowrinterest loan to cover the cost of their degree. The eAustralian student loans system, FEE-Help, covers full fee paying domestic students. Most Ausgtralian postgraduate degrees are offered on this dbasis. HECS is a subsidy, not a loan scheme. This proposal would mean students of low socio-economic status (SES) need to take out a larger loan ,to get a degree, but it would not privilege those rfrom rich backgrounds. n Would this make university study prohibitively

sor Bruce Chapman, who pioneered the income contingent loan policy in Australia, noted that empirical research suggests the price elasticity of tertiary education in the presence of income contingent loans is negligible. Essentially, when individuals do not have to pay back their loan unless their degree pays dividends, increasing the price of a degree does extremely little to discourage someone from studying.

An anecdote might make this clearer. When they came to power, the current conservative administration in the UK abolished all subsidies for tertiary education. Enrolments did not budge.

One more equity issue needs to be mentioned.

According to the Grattan Institute’s 2013 report “Keep the Caps Off!”, students with ATARs over 80 — the kind of ATAR required to enter an Go8 university — come overwhelmingly from high SES backgrounds. It could therefore be argued that HECS is essentially subsidising the rich to get

The proposal would make it so that fees go directly to the University the way they do for postgraduate degrees.

richer.

In favour of the proposal is its potential effect on funding. At present, universities enrol students and government then pays an amount per student to the university — this is the HECS subsidy. The amount is rather arbitrarily set by the government. not.

Under the current loan repayment structure, As such, universities cannot gain more revenue by r simply increasing fees, because the government might not commensurately increase the payment to the university. This creates a perverse incentive for universities to lower the cost of teaching while ...while student associations enrolling as many students as possible. This has a are simply doing their job deleterious effect on the quality of teaching. Grattan’s ‘course experience questionnaire’ suggests when they oppose such

proposals, it is unclear that equity is a valid argument... students do not need to repay their loans until they are earning just over $51000. According to a 2013 report by Graduate Careers Australia, the average years out of University. As noted in the Group of Eight submission, a 2012 report by the Grattan institute found that the net-present value of degrees for male graduates in dentistry, medicine (currently unsubsidised) and law exceeded $1 million, while those in commerce, engineering and IT were above $600 000. In this context, it doesn’t seem reasonable to suggest that making the size of student loans larger makes it harder for low-SES individuals to access tertiary education.

Would it discourage poorer individuals from says no. In an interview for Woroni, ANU Profes-

the quality of teaching.

The proposal would make it so that fees go directly to the University the way they do for postgraduate degrees. The students would take a loan from the government, and the government would transfer the money to the universities. Because the universities would know exactly how much they make per student they could effectively balance their revenue against the cost of course provision.

This would ensure the quality of a course, its delivery and the reputation of the university hosting it are commensurate to the cost of taking it. No more perverse incentives. It would seem then that while the proposal will increase fees it will also ensure value for money.

It should be noted that university funding has never proceeded along these lines, and it would represent a radical departure from current policy.

This article is not intended to be a criticism of public support for education. Regardless of whether the HECS subsidy turns out to be a poor way of publically funding education, public funding is

probably still a good policy. This is because edu- all do well to be abreast of its complexities.

The author blogs at markfabian.blogspot.com cation is the textbook example of a positive exter-

educated. Among other things, research suggests educated individuals will raise the knowledge tacted for comment on this issue. They offered the level of those around them, are less likely to comThe Group of Eight canvassed a large number mit crimes and more likely to support democratic processes. They are also likely to attract higher tech, higher-skilled industries to their location. If demand driven system. You can access the Go8 anything deserves a subsidy, it is education.

Yet the size of these positive externalities is almost impossible to measure, and so the ‘correct’ level of public funding for education will always be debated. It is an important question for Australia’s economic and political future, and we would demand-driven-system.

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

WORLD// 14

Ukraine: Look Again James Gillard Cards on the table, I am a foreign policy nerd.

This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me. So you’d think I’d be happy there’s so much international news going on at the moment, especially the situation in Ukraine. But the western media narrative decrying Vladimir Putin as some sort to Hitler, is doing little more than making the masterful dictator out as some sort of Gothic Monster rampaging through Eastern Europe.

But James, I hear this literary device ask, why are you supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea?

Well I’m not, what I am doing is letting out the rant that I’ve had to everyone I know who’ve asked me about this. We need to understand how Frankenstein’s Monster was made, and we need to understand that in this tenuous metaphor, the United States of America is Dr. Frankenstein.

This self-indulgent rant (like so many others)

Bush achieved America’s goal of breaking up the Eastern Bloc. Germany was reunified through peaceful diplomacy with the last Soviet leader... starts with a Winston Churchill truism: “In Victory: Magnanimity.” I think President Bush understood this at the end of the Cold War. Bush achieved America’s goal of breaking up the Eastful diplomacy with the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. In return for letting Germany reunify, Gorbachev was assured by US Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not expand ‘one inch’ eastwards in recognition of Russia’s security needs. Indeed, Bush the First publicly warned the new small states surrounding Russia against ‘suicidal nationalism’ in opposing Russia.

But then came Clinton. And Yeltsin. The US urged Russia to privatise its state industries, and fast. Yeltsin ended up selling Russia’s industry for US$ 5 billion when Russia’s GDP was US $ 457 billion. That is, almost the entire production of Russia was sold for roughly 1% of what it made that year. It was one of the most brazen thefts in history, and the US supported, if not pushed it, on Russia. Not surprisingly, Russian living standards went into freefall. Then Yeltsin was opposed by his own Parliament, which created a constitutional crisis. How did Yeltsin resolve that? He ordered

constitution which left him unrestrained like the Tsars of old. Clinton gave him ‘full support’ in doing so. Wealth, social equity and democracy left Russia, all with American help. Then NATO expanded eastwards (it turns out you need international agreements in writing) and fought against Russian supported governments in Yugoslavia.

The US was warned that its actions were creating a new ‘Cold Peace’ Bush the Second and Obama have done little different. NATO has expanded further and further. years is on their borders. Not just on one border, but in every single neighbouring state except for China and Belarus. Add to that the pro-NATO regime changes in Ukraine and Georgia over Bush the Second’s administration, and NATO looks increasingly aggressive in Russia’s backyard.

I don’t know if these regime changes were truly democratic revolutions. There’s a lot of western money and elite intrigue in these revolutions. But the Russian government certainly doesn’t believe they were democratic. Medvedev has said as much. He also said that the 2008 Russo-Georgian War was fought because Russia would not allow NATO troops on its Caucasus borders.

So we get to the recent regime change in Ukraine. In the Kremlin’s eyes, Russia is no longer weak and it is not to be messed with in its own backyard. Yet this is exactly what they see the West doing, especially when the US has spent US$5 billion on the Euromaidan protests (leaving aside the more tenuous links of Western policymakers’ various goodwill cake-drops, photo-ops and leaked phone conversations regarding Ukrainian snipers and fucking the EU).

When Russia sees the US expanding NATO and ‘post-modern coup’, in the context of constantly weakening and threatening Russia since the Cold War, how should it react? Exactly as it has. Putin is trying his own post-modern annexation through ‘passportisation’ and using regional ethnic Russian majorities. The Western media has called him out on it, just as the Russian media has called Obama out his involvement in the Euromaidan regime change.

As thinking tertiary students, we should strive to see all perspectives, not just the ones foisted upon us by our media. I for one cannot wait until the Ukrainian and Georgian regime changes. Perhaps the evidence will show a magisterial US foreign policy and truly democratic revolutions. Then again, perhaps we’ll only see Dr. Frankenstein’s plans for creating a monster.

James Gillard reblogs pictures of cats and pornographic .gifs at jamesgillardssecrettumblr.tumblr.com

Australian media misses the big picture on Ukraine David Tuckwell & Luke Smyth THE Ukrainian revolution and Russian occupation of Crimea has been seen in Australia through a haze of biased reporting. Although most reporting has been factually accurate, the Australian media have consistently omitted key facts. And although there are some exceptions, a general trend in Australian coverage has emerged. testors are fascists. By some estimates, the fascists number as many as one third of the protestors. Commentary in the Australian media has typically ignored this, or dismissed this as “Russian propaganda.” But neofascist participation in current government gave the far-right Svoboda party a number of important cabinet positions, including deputy Prime Minister.

Secondly, Russian President Vladimir Putin on the grounds that ethnic Russians were in danstream press with hardly a moment’s thought. The Australian, for example, called it a “ridiculous pretext”. But Putin’s claims have some merit, if overstated.

On coming to power, the new Western-backed Ukrainian administration immediately attempted tion to minority languages such as Russian. This repeal bill, tabled by the far-right Svoboda deputies, gained a majority of votes in Ukraine’s parliament, but was vetoed by the acting President after neighbouring EU states, such as Poland and Greece, objected. At the time of writing, Ukraine’s language policy remains up in the air.

But this failed repeal bill validated the fears of many Russian-speaking Ukrainians and other minorities that they would be victimised by the new government.

Thirdly, Ukraine itself remains deeply divided.

There is not one Ukraine, but at least two: generally divided between the more pro-Europe west and the more pro-Russian east. The protests and civil unrest, which led to the ousting of former President Yanukovych, mostly took place in the west. By and large, the west Ukrainian revolutionaries did not connect with eastern Ukrainians, not even the ones that sympathised with the revolution. In the long term, this fracture could haunt relations between the two Ukraine’s, and possibly threaten the stability of the new administration.

Fourthly, there is the EU and the association agreement it offered Ukraine in 2012. Whilst this

agreement – which will be signed this month - is almost never discussed in the Australian press, the role it played in provoking Russia is substantial.

Under the agreement, Ukraine would be barred from economic association with Russia, one of its major trading partners. Moreover, it also called for greater military cooperation between Ukraine and Europe, and “gradual convergence” on security policy. The latter feature led one former US congressman to describe the agreement as “Nato’s Trojan Horse”.

Finally, and most importantly, the Australian media has not mentioned the eastward expansion of Nato - the critical factor. It is this above all else that explains Russian action.

As Woroni readers will no doubt know, Germany invaded and destroyed Russia twice in the twentieth century: in the First World War and then again under Hitler’s murderous Operation Barbarossa. Despite being invaded and destroyed by Germany twice that century, Gorbachev allowed Germany to reunify. But only on two conditions: that Germany did not join Nato; and Nato did not expand eastwards. At the time, President George H. W. Bush agreed to these terms and Germany was allowed to reunify.

But under President Bill Clinton, the American pledge to Gorbachev was betrayed. Germany joined and NATO began expanding eastward, in what the Russians regard as a de facto antiRussian alliance. Today, Nato now includes nine former Warsaw Pact states and three former Soviet republics.

When we throw in Nato’s partnerships with the ex-Soviet Central Asian states; its attempts to extend full membership to Ukraine and Georgia; and the United States’ efforts to establish a missile “defence” system for Europe – the picture looks even worse. Indeed, you could be forgiven for believing that cold war-style containment of Russia is very much alive. In any case, it’s easy to see what makes many Russian decision-makers uneasy.

Commenting on Chile’s limited geostrategic importance, Henry Kissinger supposedly quipped that is was a “dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica”. Ukraine, as seen from the Kremlin, is an axe pointed at Russia’s soft underbelly. We vent others from grasping the handle.

The point of all this is not to excuse Russia’s actions in Ukraine; to explain is not to justify.

However, the majority of news media in Australia have simply failed to present the public with full picture.

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

WORLD// 15

Why kissing is wrong (and banned at Jordan University).

Jordan borders Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Kara Hawkins and Sam Davies will live here for 2014, studying Arabic and travelling the region, before returning to ANU in 2015. We will talk culture, politics, ourselves in. Enjoy.

Kara Hawkins & Sam Davies THIS is pretty cool, what is happening in our apartment right now.

Kara invited our landlord’s mother over for two reasons: to get to know her and talk about the country and its culture, and also to practice Arabic.

They’re on the couch with tea and biscuits in front of them. They’re talking about… oh right, I have no idea what they’re talking about now because my Arabic is at the level of a 2 year old.. If that. But Kara may as well be a local, it’s very impressive to watch.

Earlier we were talking about Palestine – a topic that comes up almost daily here – and I had my first feeling of guilt over the topic.

This lovely woman is Palestinian, and she was telling us about her family’s story. They left their home in 1948, when Israel was established.

Her family is from Jaffa, which is a gorgeous, smaller city on the coast of Israel. I told her I had been there and that it’s beautiful, and then saw the look on her face. She hasn’t been there. She, like most of the 4.7 million Palestinians alive today, are unable to enter Israel and see their old homes. But I can go anytime I like, despite having never lived there. That’s why I felt guilty.

It’s just one of the injustices of the complicated situation. Please do not take this as a blanket anti-Israeli statement – it’s not – but I wanted to share that particular feeling and that particular moment with you. Nothing more.

But here is the story that relates to the title of this post: It’s against the rules for men and women to kiss on university grounds. Guess how we found that out? Yeah, the campus security told us. Whoops.

Kara immediately felt guilty and reprimanded herself for not knowing better. I shrugged it off (like the culturally insensitive guy that I am) more easily, but we don’t kiss on campus anymore. This makes me sad.

For the record: we were’t making out or anything. It was just a good-bye peck – Kara was off to her class and I was off to nap in the library.

And because I’m a really slow learner, to-

day I wore my shorts on the walk home from the running track at the uni. It was hot, I was sweaty and I didn’t want to get my jeans all gross. For the record: Kara said I should put some damn pants on.

Walking through campus with these shorts on resulted in groups of girls giggling, or looking at me with disgust, and guys doing doubletakes or laughing. I didn’t feel judged, I felt like a sort of weird stranger, like an alien.

A lovely male student politely stopped us and asked if we had a moment to speak with him. He told me that my shorts were a little too short because the Uni is quite conservative, the girls are Muslim, and that I should wear longer shorts or pants. I can wear shorts on the track though, or while playing sport.

He was incredibly nice, in fact we exchanged numbers and we’ll meet up and help each other with languages (we will help him with English and he’ll help us with Arabic!). It was a very gentle, but important, lesson about the culture here.

A lovely male student politely stopped us and asked if we had a moment to speak with him. He told me that my shorts were a little too short because the Uni is quite conservative, the girls are Muslim, and that I should wear longer shorts or pants...

That is, some things are very different here.

Spending most of my time with Westerners – in the classes and because that’s who I meet also in social situations – it’s easy to think Jordan is not so different to anywhere else.

People dress differently – at Uni I’d say 90 or 95% of women wear a hijab – but they don’t seem to act so differently. Girls still giggle, guys still strut.

But there are very different boundaries.

Kara had a conversation with some girls our age and they were fascinated by our relationship. For them, boyfriends just aren’t a thing.

For us, getting married without really knowing your partner isn’t a thing. In Australia, if we were married both our parents would freak out. Here, if we kissed and went on dates but weren’t married our parents would freak out.

It’s the exact opposite. Each cultural system has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.

I like to think of myself as someone who doesn’t change depending on who I am around.

No matter where I am or who I’m with, I’m me. That’s not meant to be abrasive, I don’t

try and bulldoze my way through life, but I do try to be open and honest about who I am and what I think with everyone. With empathy and respect this shouldn’t, I think, cause problems.

So I have a weird little conflict in my mind about wearing longer shorts. Obviously I will, and I feel stupid for not doing so in the first place. But it’s one of the few times where I will change something about myself against my own will to suit or please others.

It’s SUCH a small thing, but I wonder what it would feel like to have to do this on many levels all at once? I’d hate it. I guess that’s what they call oppression.

I’m not saying people here who wear longer

shorts or hijabs or whatever don’t want to.

And to be completely honest I quite like not having cleavage all around me. I like the less sexualised environment. And I think if I grew up here and saw a Miley Cyrus music video I’d think the West is a morally corrupt cesspool of shit, too.

Anyway, that’s my stream-of-consciousness cultural observations related to clothing.

Hope you liked it.

Next issue: We run an ultra-marathon from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea, with at least one disaster for each and every of the 242 kilometres our team ran.

We have a blog, too: http://theartofmispronunciation.wordpress.com

the

Indigenous

issue.

The next edition of Woroni will discuss issues facing indigenous peoples.

Woroni wants to provide a platform for Indigenous members of the ANU community to have their say.

If you are an indigenous staff, student or alumni contact Woroni. contact@woroni.com.au

W

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

WORLD// 18

The Real St Patrick's Day Alex Hackett ON the 17th of March every year, millions of people celebrate the Irish culture by drinking green beer, wearing ‘Kiss Me I’m Irish” t-shirt’s and embracing the Irish concept of ‘craic’ (humour, conversation and enjoyment). Saint Patrick’s Day is the feast of Saint Patrick, the famed Bishop and Missionary who most famously ‘drove the snakes out of Ireland’, an important symbol for his conversion of the masses to Christianity and his casting out of the original pagan inhabitants. Whilst Saint Patrick’s Day is essentially a religious celebration, for a country that has endured much hardship in its history, there is a clear preference to celebrate a mythical story rather than some of the events that have shaped its destiny. It seems that everyone wants to be Irish on Saint Patrick’s however no one wants to be Irish on Bail-Out Day or 30% Unemployment Day or even on ‘Troika Day’. Not even the Irish.

In some ways, we are similar in Australia underlying our links to Irish heritage. We celebrate a public holiday for a horse race in Victoria rather than the day the Mabo judgment was handed down, or the day we gave women the vote.

Are we bastardizing the Irish culture by selectively jumping into this one day celebration, and contributing to its commercialization by purchasing ‘Shamrock Shakes’ from McDonald’s (like itself lies in Saint Patrick’s introduction of Christianity into Ireland which effectively beginning the new Irish state; the fact that the feast day of Saint Patrick is associated most commonly with a day’s drinking is a slap in the face to Irish Culture. Or is it?

400,000 people have left the Emerald Isle since the Global Financial Crisis pummelled the Celtic tiger economy in 2008. On average 250 people leave the country every day. What makes this situation even worse is that the immigration doesn’t lantic in the 19th century; rather, more than 70% of the people who have left Ireland since 2006 are in their 20’s and have a university education (University College Cork Survey). Since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 which brought an end to ‘The Troubles’, Northern Ireland has been relatively peaceful. It is no coincidence that the emergence of the Celtic Tiger – resulting in high GDP growth, low unemployment, and rising property values – had a combined effect to distract everyone except the minority (namely the Irish Republican Army and Ulster Volunteer Force) from ‘The Troubles’ which had dominated its history for centuries. Yet, as night follows day, the economic wonderland has deserted the Irish with key industries now relocated to eastern Europe and the common economic ailments of high unemployment, negative equity caused by falling property values and increasing migration of skilled young people has reignited ‘the Troubles’. tack from homemade bombs on The Fall’s Road in Belfast, which is a nationalist stronghold. The New IRA claimed responsibility for these attacks 1998 was over. Saint Patrick’s Day only averts attention to the reality that Ireland, both North and South, is in deep trouble both socially and economically.

When considering the immensely broad and tragic record of Irish history, many events such as the Easter Rising of 1916, Bloody Sunday in 1972, the 1981 Hunger Strike and even the histor-

ic Good Friday Agreement which ended decades of bloodshed dwarf Saint Patricks Day. Ultimatein the shaping of Ireland as a nation; so why is it that only Saint Patricks Day is celebrated by the general public when there are clearly more the historian or the nationalist?

The Easter Rising took place in 1916 and involved Irish Nationalists seizing control of the Irish Republic (Ireland at the time was still under the control of Britain). The Rising was led by the famed patriots Padraic Pearse and James Connolly and although in ended in an overwhelming defeat and eventual surrender to the British forces, the Rising of 1916 signalled the beginning of the Irish Independence process which resulted in the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. The Easter Rising is commemorated by patriots each year and it is immortalized in literature and drama however the attendance at the General Post dwarfed by the attendance at various Saint Patrick’s Days parades. This is because people want to focus on the trivial side of Irish history and this is what Saint Patricks Day has become, people do not want to dwell on the serious questions that the Easter Rising still poses on national identity nearly 100 years later. Perhaps Saint Patrick’s Day is a bastardisation of Irish culture with a convenient ignorance of the rich socio-economic and political history that should be celebrated in-

Are we bastardizing the Irish culture by selectively jumping into this one day celebration, and contributing to its commercialization by purchasing ‘Shamrock Shakes’ from McDonald’s (like they do in the USA)?

stead – such as the 1916 Easter Rising. U2 would certainly agree. believe that the Good Friday Accord that was signed in 1999 is the most important event in Irish history. The Good Friday Accord or the Belfast Agreement was the end to the bloodshed in Northern Ireland and it also established a devolved parliament which takes the form of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive. Crucially however, the agreement also committed parties to “exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences on political issues” which effectively was the decommissioning of weapons held by paramilitary groups such as the IRA. The Belfast Agreement ultimately set up a framework for Northern Ireland to develop its own institutions and it crucially allowed for the people of the north to decide their own future in terms of Nationalism or Unionism. An agreement that ended ‘The Troubles’ which claimed the lives of over 3500 people should be commemorated much more than the Feast of Saint Patrick.

Ireland today is struggling. The economic re-

covery is ongoing and though it is on an upward trend, the future is still bleak. The ‘New IRA’ has issued a statement that they will ignore the ceasethis makes a return to the dark days of The Troubles a real possibility. For these reasons, Saint on the past, present and future of Ireland as a na-

tion and understand the enormous challenges it faces, but still have the “craic” and embrace what it is to be Irish.

FOOD & WINE// 19

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

Review: Pankhurst Pinot Noir 2005 Decant!

Ian is a total oenophile whose love for wine has resulted in him examining Canberra district wines for Honours, while working part-time in wine retail.

Ian Lee -

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Ian Blogs at http://ianhllee.wordpress.com/.

Spiced Cous Cous With Yoghurt Louise Stockton -

Preparation

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Ingredients

*really though, if you try it and it’s awful, I will give you 20 cents.

LIFE & STYLE// 20

The Five Guys You’ll Have A Crush On At ANU Beatrice Smith WHATEVER your sexual orientation, ANU is home to a plethora of archetypes, if you will, of desirable males who you will encounter during your degree. Here is a small selection to get you started.

1) The Barista Possibly residing at Vivaldi’s, Degree or wherever else they serve coffee on campus, this crush is more likely ensconced in the dense, cool interiors of one of the dedicated student coffee haunts off campus. With slicked back long hair, a casual t-shirt and a excess of minimalist tattoos, this guy knows his cold brew from his varietal blends. His playful banter over your hilarious order of a skinny chai with soy will entice you back into his place of business again and again while your friends will quickly grow sick of your new found interest in single origin blends. But go to Harvest, The Cupping Rooms, 2 before 10, LSR or Mocan and you’ll see that you’re not alone in your worship. One drunken night you’ll stumble into him at Hippo, accidentally yell in his face coffee jargon he already knows and wake up feeling embarrassed the next day.

Never fear, just move on to the next place, keep cup with your number on it optional.

2) The Sportsball Player personal trainer you know caught your eye on purpose last visit to ANU gym, eye candy is a natural part of the diverse mix of people at ANU. Whether you see him sauntering sweatily through Union Court on his way from his mad gains sesh at the gym or thrashing your college on South Oval, your interest in this crush in more David Attenborough than action, more looking than touching (unless you count that time in ANUSA gold coin Yoga when you accidentally touched hands while getting mats and smiled at each other awkward3) The Rake Impersonator You don’t exactly know how on earth the same guy that you saw strawpedo-ing double blacks in Meche last night is a) still alive and b) sitting in your Law tute but here he is, looking a little worse for wear in yesterdays clothes. Your tutor, picking up on this, will scathingly ask his opinion on Turner vs. Smith and... what’s this? He’s done the readings? And the recommended readings?! There is no rule or reason to discern the stamina of this elite class of Law student as this one manages to balance 4 subjects, an internship at Clayton-Utz, a place on the rowing team and a permanent sport by the bar at Knightsbridge with effortless ease (although you strongly suspect he doesn’t sleep). Devlishly disheveled good looks and even more dangerous charm make this guy loved by many, hated by more and envied by the larger population of Law students. Fragile hearts steer clear; this guy has watched enough episodes of Boston Legal in his youth to form a personality similar to Sterling Archer. Don’t take him on in a debate unless you want a red face, which ironically is what most of the female population probably want from him.

4) The Student Politician

prospective Gen Rep/Treasurer/VP of ANUSA who’s been spamming your friend’s facebook walls for the presence and designer shirts are drawing you in. This is a guy that gets the job done. He has drive. He has es allowance.

These guys are sometimes a little too intimidating to approach initially, so just wait until that certain week in August, stroll on down to Union Court and you’ll have trouble getting them to leave you alone.

Sadly, with this crush’s schedule of commitments being more ridiculous than the amount of product in his hair, the closest most of his admirers will come to him is when you accidentally sit on his face. On his cam5) The Woroni Radio Jock You’re studying with a friend one evening when they casually click on a podcast from Woroni Radio, telling you they want you show you some new song they played. You grit your teeth and resign your place in this folly to making snide remarks about the awkward silences and poor song choice that must occur on student radio and....hark? Is that an angel?!

Their look of horror as you throw yourself across the table to press your ear to their laptop keyboard is ok with you. You don’t care. You HAVE to hear those dulcet tones. Who is this guy? These guys? Are there more than one? There has to be. No one is that funny on their own. Before you know it, you’re one of those people who walk along listening to podcasts with a huge smile on your face while people give you sideways glances while you giggle along with the jokes.

Finally, your time comes. One night at Moose, your friend will take pity on you and direct you to the source of the voice that made love to your ears (in the non gross-repressed-sexual-urges way) all those times.

Oh. Oh right. So, like his voice, he has a face for radio too. You can deal with that. You’re not shallow.

You’re not...you’re turning around. You’re walking back to your friend with the triumphant smirk on her face. You always knew there was truth in the saying that you shouldn’t meet your heroes. Oh well, at least you’ll always have iTunes.

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

LIFE & STYLE// 21

The 5 Women That You* Will Develop A Crush On At ANU Alex Bell-Rowe *so long as you are sexually attracted to women, it’s all cool if you’re not.

I think it was Abraham Lincoln, or Freddie Mercury, or the middle child of that band Hanson, that once said “one’s university years are the perfect time to discover oneself, romantically”, which I assumed was a process most boys went through at the age of 13. Regardless, university, for those of you not tied down by the shackles of love, is a fantastic time to unleash your inner Romeo, Casanova or ver in who will take your fancy.

1) The Girl Who Lends You Something In Your First Tute Dude, she smiled and she gave it to you. I mean, it’s just a pen, but it could be more than that. What if she wants to get coffee? Maybe even dinner? Man, I reckon your children would look fantastic. Maybe you should just yell out “I love you” immediately? That’ll work? Man, it makes it so much easier since you read so much into a fairly normal gesture. Nothing unhealthy about that.

2) The Go-Getter Nothing is sexier than someone who has no time to talk to you since they are very busy and important, just look at Cam Wilson’s success rate, despite his mediocre looks. At some stage you are going to get a ‘vote for me’ facebook message or come across a poster in Union Court that will inspire nothing but the deepest affection waithin you.

3) The Hot Tutor Nothing is more attractive than knowledge, and there is one tutor who just has that in spades. Never mind how frequently she references her husband and teenage children, it’s really you that has stolen her fancy. Maybe if you keep asking insanely obvious questions she might notice you?

4) The Worker Be it Gods, Harvest, Subway or even the bakery lady (Woroni is a judgementfree zone) there is nothing like a little friendly customer service to get those 5) That girl who was once in that thing that you were watching…

I dunno maybe it was a sportsball game or a play or a concert or a choir practice or tango class, and you looked at her and it kinda looked like she was looking at you but she may have been looking at Geoff but you don’t know, but you are pretty sure that you know her name but can’t add on her on facebook but then you see her in Meche and you introduce yourself but then it turns out that you guys have already met and it’s really awkward. Yeah, about that...

LIFE & STYLE// 22

Guys and Girls at the ANU Illustrations by Lauren Cawthorn

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

LIFE & STYLE// 23

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

Bright Lights Safe City Adam Huttner-Koros A message to bike riding students.

Next week, that dreaded and slightly confusing thing known as Daylight Savings will once again occur, in an attempt to make the most of the short-

All you need is one white light on the front so you can see where you’re going and one flashing red light on the back so that cars can see you. ening daylight hours brought on by the coming of winter. Most people reading this will be more concerned about being an hour late to meetings for those next few days, but there is something else that bike riding students need to take into account.

Once we turn our clocks back one hour on Sunday the 6th of April, the sun will set at around ten to 6. By the end of April, 20 past 5. And by the end of May, 5pm.

With the sun low in the sky and setting earlier and earlier, it starts to get dark quite quickly.

Imagine: you’re heading home after hanging out with your mates for a few hours one afternoon, and it’s dark outside already. You’re riding from street light to street light just to see where you’re going, and cars have had to swerve to miss you, because they couldn’t see you in the dark.

The solution? Bike lights.

All you need is one white light on the front so

Professor Love (AKA Gary Leigh) Each edition Prof. Love will seek to answer your questions on tahe discipline of romance.

red light on the back so that cars can see you. You can get them at the bike shop in Union Court, at any of the bike shops in the City or at Kathmandu and other outdoor gear stores. Alternatively, wiggle.com.au is currently running a big sale on lights: you can get your set there for under 50 dollars.

Although it only happens rarely, riding at night without any lights will set you back $98 dollars each if the cops stop you. More importantly, riding without lights could seriously put you in danger when riding on dark, poorly lit streets. Even attentive drivers cannot notice unlit cyclists, providing the potential for serious damage for anyone on the receiving end of a head check gone wrong.

As cyclists riding on roads or bike paths, we’re constantly in contact with other road users: cars and buses, motorbikes and pedestrians. Everyone has a responsibility to look out for others when on the roads, and everyone has a responsibility to look out for themselves. As we’re sharing a bit of road, we all need to try and make it work as well as possible for everyone. That means being polite, slowing down and communicating clearly so that we can get to where we’re going without any hassles. If we get better at this, there’ll be more bikes and fewer cars, making roads and riding safer.

And one step in this process is making sure we’re visible.

If you want more information about cycling in Canberra, including bike maintenance courses, insurance for bike accidents and all kinds of rides around Canberra, consider joining Pedal Power, our own bike advocacy organization. As a bonus, members get discounts at all the major bike shops, as well as some cafes and restaurants.

For more info, visit pedalpower.org.au.

You will get rejected. It's a fact of life.

THE love doctor isn’t immune to rejection. Did you know that during O-Week I made, for lack of a better term, over 100 ‘cold’ approaches and I can say unashamedly the results were far from stellar. There is a simple fact of life here people, and that is you will get rejected. Once you come great loves will increase dramatically.

People say that dating and hooking up is a numbers game. Well, in some respects it is, there are numbers (like phone numbers) but I imagine what most are considering is the number of people you

where he was. Ultimately, the key is this, you have to approach and put yourself out there. You have to meet as many people as possible and practice your social and seductive skills until you become so excellent that you increase you chance of clicking with that one person across the street with ease. Locked in the stagnant pond (forgive the wording) of your college, friendship group or course-mates, your chances of successfully pulling will go from low to woe, the more time you spend with them. Take the next step, explore new clubs and societies, bars, sports or other extra-

the one for that Thursday night or the one for life. others with similar interests. Similar interests = People watch their perennially successful friends banter, banter = numbers, numbers = dates. Boom. and see and think that the pro’s or the naturals, just Now for my pièce de résistance, what I call: go up to any random person on the street and get the instant date. not to take rejection personally. Do your best to I once met a guy in Mooseheads who had over

not rely on validation from other person, in the form of living for compliments or praise or being a ‘pleaser’. The more you rely on others for your self-esteem, the harder it will be to lose the fear of rejection. Secondly, you have no idea whatsoever what that person is going through. Maybe they just broke up with someone, maybe it’s a bad day, maybe the ex is back in the picture, may they’re feeling unattractive, maybe they just dropped their phone, maybe this, maybe that, all you can control is yourself, so you may as well feel good and let them feel your positive vibes. Finally, dear listener, you might get rejected once, but sometimes the timing is just off, give it a week and try again. I usually give someone two chances to have a date, after that I move on and so should you, until they reach out to you that is.

All the best in your future endeavours, my pupils.

Prof. Love

LIFE & STYLE// 24

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

Photos by Abigail Widijanto & Em Roberts

LIFE & STYLE// 25

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

HUMANS OF CANBERRA

Now over a thousand people go every week.”

“What was one of the saddest moments of your life?”

“When I lost one of my friends to a car accident.”

“How did you cope?”

“I had help from the likes of Beyond Blue and Black Dogs.”

“I’ve been doing portrait photography for four feel and appear comfortable.”

our senses.’

‘Has there been a time where you’ve found it hard to be creative?’

‘Yeah. Actually, all the time.’

Photography by Miciah Kim

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

ARTS// 26

par excellence in comic writing. Yet until very recently

rival of Satyros ANU is at last beginning to get a sense of humour. ros were more concerned about having a good time together than -

sketch worked it worked well. Pieces like One Last Time—a noir Lion Hunt they were less certain about ideas the audience could smell it like blood in the water. There was a running gag about minor terminal like Intermission -

Michael Gemmell THE ground-breaking Emmy award winning television series House of Cards took the internet by storm later last month. Pro-

MISTER Pip

Mister Pip

on and the gang’s sense of structure and timing had a natural ease the show was a delightful conceit that gave a focused continuity to the whole thing and was timed well enough to always grab a chorus of laughs from the audience.

limitedly released last year. The novel is startling in the way you Mister Pip

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-

After watching season one for the second time it would be hard to admit any fault in the show without feeling like I would be beHouse of Cards?

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novel’s relevance. novel Great Expectations, Mister Pip device is that it’s not necessary for the reader to have read or even know of Great Expectations to follow the story. It’s almost an advantage to have not read the classic because it makes for a richer

when concerning the realities of running the country. This is unforof Great Expectations. beguile the reader into the imagined world within the island com-

reasons that Mister Pip Technology was also the factor that allowed the huge gamble that Mister Pip show for its subscribers. Although traditional TV still has a while time.

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WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

ARTS// 27

for Sonny, the familiar Try It Out follows. He’s back in his comfort zone, hitting us with a gutter-stomping panty-dropper. It’s textbook Dubstep, but it’s hard and it’s good.

Coast is Clear brings the Drum ’n’ Bass with brassy synths, and Chance brings the soul and the romance, with comically brilliant lyrics. But don’t be fooled, because Dirty Vibe is where Diplo -

Alex Catalan-Flores

It Bun Dem, Skrillex has been awarded six Grammys (as ridiculous as the Grammys are), composed the soundtracks for the incredWreck-It Ralph and Spring Breakers (the latter is more

ON Monday March 10th at 6.30pm EST, Skrillex’s debut studio album Recess went public. Initially I was taken aback by the fact

Britney Spears, and toured the world in a spaceship with sold-out shows. All without ever releasing a single studio album.

Recess disregard for labels by introducing the record as Brostep, along with all the negative connotations. It’s a simple track, and apart from the Ragga Twins’ fantastic vocal work it’s uninteresting. It’s

my ignorance excusable, as Sonny Moore (aka Skrillex) has prominently been in our social consciousness for some time now, with an extensive and diverse body of work. I’ve been listening to his music since his 2009 remix of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance, giving me every right to shamelessly declare, in classic hipster fashion, that I was listening to Skrillex before it was cool. He has become an EDM sensation, a well-respected producer, and an iconic symbol of our generation. From Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites to Make

never contentious. The title track Recess follows, and once you get over the hilarity of Fatman Scoop yelling “bass drop!” it becomes obvious that Skrillex tailored it for his live shows, through strategic instrument choice. Next is the mediocre and senseless Stranger.

Featuring the mindless use of bongos, high-range synthlines and purposeless tempo changes, this track makes Skrillex sound like Thom Yorke if he tried to produce dance music. Oh wait, he has tried, and even that’s better than Stranger (see Jump Up). Luckily

Elise Horspool

sible for saving cultural artefacts during the war. They managed to save hundreds of thousands of artworks and artefacts from the Nazis and until now have been relatively unknown in popular culture. The premise of The Monuments Men is engaging and it’s easy

to go and see it anyway? War and military buffs alike would have been thrilled with excitement when they saw the previews. The Monuments Men was advertised as an edgy, hip, upbeat Oceans tirely short of satisfaction.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night, and Good Luck. He Stokes who was based on Monuments man George L Stout. Along Bill Murray, John Goodman, Hugh Bonneville, Bob Balaban and the effervescent Cate Blanchett.

The Monuments Men were a group of Allied servicemen, cob-

Clooney got far too involved with just showing us the story rather than telling it. than a drama. It tries so hard to retain its upbeat light heartedness that it really takes the depth out of more sensitive scenes. One-lining. Matt Damon is Matt Damon in uniform and George Clooney is George Clooney. It’s like a dot point essay of The Monuments Men, while throwing in the odd courageous speech related to saving culture and inserting the occasional dramatic death scene. It jumps back and forth between important battles and cities of Europe but there are surprisingly no battle scenes or any violence at all.

through. The Ragga Twins return once again in Ragga Bomb, and they’re back with a vengeance. The dark D’n’B riffs at the beginning work seamlessly with the Twins’ attitude. Then it hits: a phatas-yo-momma, face-melting bassline that leaves everyone in need of new underwear. Doompy Poomp is exactly what it sounds like; a Glitchcore composition for what is the album’s most experimental track, with a surreal mélange of wahs and pads. If Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice were to have a rave, this would be on repeat. It’s honestly brilliant. Skrillex could’ve simply hit us with more run-of-the-mill Dubstep, but instead he got a hold of his balls and said “fuck it”. He continues to defy boundaries in Fuck That, with crisp percussion and sawing synthlines that build up to classic wubs.

The penultimate track Ease My Mind is a rework of Niki & The Dove, and it’s blatantly handcrafted for radio play. The beginning feels like it belongs on the Frozen corrected when the crescendo hits, followed by what I can only describe as an Egyptian synthline. He concludes the album on the sombre and remarkable Fire Away. There is substantial vocal rework done to Kid Harpoon’s lyrics, but it is kept within the boundaries provided by the beautiful pads and breathtaking percussion.

The percussion deserves a special mention, as I have no idea how Skrillex gave it the smooth and natural character of water. It’s inspiring, and it works perfectly with the piano towards the end. This

perspective, and it’s truly extraordinary.

Recess was never about Skrillex introducing his sound. This album is about Skrillex expanding his musical horizons and demonstrating to people that he is a musician and not merely a poster boy for Coachella and Stereosonic. He’s demonstrated an astonishing musical palette, and while the beginning is very hit-and-miss, when taken as a whole Recess proves to be an exhilarating experience.

Claire Simone, a French woman who secretly works for the Resistance. Although her French accent is a bit patchy, she certainly embodies more of her character than any of the other cast could even hope to accomplish. She brings a little class and glamour to a somewhat male dominated cast.

genre contain. The characters are one dimensional and it tries to cover far too much ground without paying enough attention to detail. Clooney has tried to make parts of it ‘arty’ and deep with sweeping monologues of whether art is worth someone’s life and ously as it almost feels like Hogan’s Heroes or M.A.S.H. It’s certainly interesting to watch, if only to learn about what The Monuments Men accomplished and just this general sub facet of the war, you bereft.

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ARTS// 28

Raphael Kabo my body speaks to your body not through my mouth though my mouth speaks to your mouth, and is coy or bold and always irreverent my body speaks to your body with legs and arms rhyming muscles with bones eyes with ears breasts with backs because my body speaks to your body, and shares its every pink inch of skin, with your body, my body speaks and argues, whispers and pleads and plans with your body, and sometimes it speaks in Russian and then ; your neighbours though they peek over garden walls and thread microphones under potplants cannot hear us when the talk of our bodies drifts through the night comes to rest in bed and then while our droswy pillows talk pillowtalk we sleep entwined safe in the atlonglast silence of our bodies.

Hamish Dean Identity you are not my master, For many you have fooled but not I, I will not surrender, You are my decisions but you are a delusion, And you are not me but you are an illusion, For my decision now is the real solution.

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

SCIENCE// 29

Research Roundup Eleanor Campbell Science Sub-Editor

James Ansell AT 2:55am EST on Tuesday the 18th of March 2014, Physics changed forever.

Okay, that might be a little overdramatic, but at 2:55am EST on Tuesday the 18th of March 2014, an announcement was made that makes last year’s Higgs Boson (aka God Particle) discovery look about as revolutionary as someone discovering that water is wet.

A Weighty Announcement AFTER three years of observing the sky over the South Pole, an interdisciplinary team of of gravitational waves; ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by the Big Bang. After analysing the orientation and polarisation of cosmic microwave radiation, the astronomers have stated that their results strongly suggest that gravitational waves are a reality as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Read more across the page.

New Mineral Hints at Underground Oceans provided evidence that there may be expansive oceans of water beneath Earth’s crust. The mineral, named ringwoodite for Australian earth scientist Ted Ringwood, contains higher than expected levels of water (1.5 per cent by weight), and formed 400 to 700 metres below the surface.

This has led researchers to believe that vast quantities of liquid water may be churning at a similar depth.

Slow Decay at Chernobyl A seven year study of leaf litter in and around Chernobyl, Ukraine, has shown that the decay of plant matter takes place much more slowly in areas of higher levels of radiation. An international team of researchers placed netted bags of local plant matter around the radiation-affected region in 2007, and have monitored the subsequent decay. The team’s control experiments suggest the slower decay is not due to lower populations of organisms in radiation-affected areas, as was previously suggested.

Pain-Killing Snail A group of researchers from the University of Queensland are investigating the medicinal potential of toxins from cone snail venom. The venoms of the sea-snail contain a number of small proteins that have analgesic effects on humans by interacting with neurological receptors.

The researchers hope to develop drugs capable of providing relief from chronic nerve pain.

Your Hand is a Phone Charger RESEARCHERS at the Georgia Institute of Technology have been investigating the possibility of charging mobile devices just by tapping or rubbing them. Using new polymers in piezoelectric systems (materials that can turn mechanical energy like pressure or friction in electricity), the team hopes to harness everyday motions for generating energy, from charging mobile phones by rubbing them to powering street lights with the rumble of footsteps or cars.

some background information.

Just over 13.7 billion years ago, the entire universe came into existence after the Big Bang. Less than one second later, the universe expanded by more than 30 orders of magnitude, which is more than it has expanded in the subsequent 13.7 billion years.

To try put that into perspective, imagine if one of those one metre long rulers teachers used in primary school suddenly expanded to be one million, million, million, million, million, million metres long. That the ruler became so large that the Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way and the entire universe would be less than 1mm on this gigantic one meter ruler. And that the ruler had this massive increase in size in less than one second. In a tiny fraction of one second. tion’, which is what scientists call the theory that predicts this tiny period of time that the universe experienced this massive expansion.

physics using a super sensitive instrument built near the South Pole detected evidence that strong-

dence that the scientists have found are distortions in the polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which is the faint afterglow from the Big Bang that stops us from directly ob-

the universe.

These distortions in the CMB appear to have been caused by gravitational waves. That is major

predicted by Einstein over 100 years ago but had never been observed by scientists. Until now.

Even more awesome is that these gravitational waves allow us to smash past the 300,000 wall of the CMB,letting us observe the universe up to 1035 seconds after the Big Bang. Or about one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second. Which is why we can use

So why is it important that we discovered evi-

and we had no way to tell which (if any) were correct. This observation rules out all but a handful of these possible theories from being true.

What’s more, the energy levels of the distortions detected put it square on level with what

Alan Guth in 1979 as a possible explanation for a hypothesis where three of the four fundamental some strange observations that were being made. forces (electromagnetism, the weak nuclear and Physicists were discovering that the universe ap- the strong nuclear) are combined as a single fundamental force in the highly energetic early uniin English, that it looked pretty much identical in verse. This brings us one step close to the grand ‘Theory of Everything’ which merges the GUT every direction.

This was an observation that the theory behind with gravity (the fourth fundamental force) and the Big Bang didn’t predict,so scientists were would, as the name implies, explain everything scratching their heads as to how it could be ex- about the universe.

Also the fact that this discovery has once again plained. shown that Einstein was right is pretty cool too.

Needless to say there is going to be a lot of inin. This rapid expansion would have taken the vestigation by other scientists to try to prove or unevenness caused by the Big Bang and then disprove what the Harvard Scientists have found.

But if they are correct then they will easily get a Nobel Prize for it. And Tuesday the 18th of March, one is smooth.

And until 2:55am EST on Tuesday the 18th of 2014, will go down as an incredibly important day in the history of human knowledge.

March 2014, it was just a theory. from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astro-

TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014 WORONI

SCIENCE// 30

Carsten Vos

Oli Chan

plenty more where that came from. Just relax - don’t wear yourself rely harm-

actually happens.

chologists and mental health professionals from the University of

occurred to you that you just encountered one of the most extraordinary miracles on the planet - an immortal being.

ranging from ancient Greek mythology to Pirates of the Caribbean and Doctor Who. only managed to extend our

resort to when burned out.

‘Burnout’ is essentially the psychological state in which someone feels exhausted or disinterested in their work as a result of ing strategies to deal with the stress. There are three main types of burnout depending on how dedicated people are to their work.

plies to humans does not necessarily hold true for other forms of life. Several kinds of bacteria are thought to be immortal and animals such as lobsters and hydras do not seem to age the way other

The ‘frenetic’ burnout type becomes overly exhausted as a result of working too hard in search of success. This type of burn-

overloading themselves with taking on more work than they can

well-being and social life to attain success – and often feel utterly exhausted as a result.

The ‘under-challenged’ burnout comes about when the worker

snorkelling at the Italian coast. Looking for hydrozoans for his reTurritopsis dohrnii

unstimulating environment that provides minimal to no satisfacaged nor died.

the individual feels there is absolutely no potential for personal development – they’re essentially wasting their time. Why should swimming around in the ocean. This in turn produces eggs and in any way? a reef where they form a new polyp - the adult medusa dies.

T. dohrnii, ing to a process called transdifferentiation. Several species of animals are known to turn mature cells back into stem cells in order to T. dohrnii is the only known instance of an organism entirely skipping the stem cell stage and directly turning mature

or their work. A ‘worn-out’ person just gives up when faced with

life – those moments where you just don’t give a toss about that essay and can’t be arsed doing anything at all.

developing burnout syndrome seems to be the degree of passivity

Ellen Rykers Shortly thereafter it spawns and produces another medusa consist-

IN the rainforests of South America lives a strange frog species called the Surinam toad. These guys are pretty damn weird looking:

able to actively recognise when you’re feeling burnt out and need a

their bizarre method of raising young that will truly gross you out.

that essay and bounce back.

managing to keep specimens alive in captivity over a prolonged pecompletely regenerated themselves ten times. The process occurs translate into eternal life though. T. dohrnii fact most are eaten by predators sooner rather than later.

Whether research into the species will one day lead to immornity is less optimistic. For the time being the mere knowledge that immortal life exists should be exciting enough.

female with his front legs in a form of pseudocopulation called amwhile the female releases a number of eggs that become fertilized the female toad’s skin grows over the eggs and her back becomes a What comes next is akin to popping giant back pimples. At a emerge as fully developed toadlets. This emergence is both disturbing and fascinating – just search “Surinam toad” on YouTube to see for yourself!

Frogs with unusual parental care methods are not restricted to the exotic rainforests of South America – in fact we used to have some right here in Australia. Northern and Southern Gastric-brooding frog females would swallow their fertilized eggs after mating and their young would develop in their stomach. To prevent digestion of which turned off the production of stomach acid. The hatched tadpoles also secreted this chemical. Throughout the development pro-

odiversity and fragile ecosystems. Our froggy friends may be slimy but they do keep the insects in check! entists at the University of Newcastle and the University of New South Wales have led attempts to clone these species. In March their own offspring hopping happily in our forests again.

WORONI TUESDAY 25 MARCH 2014

Sports Shorts Josh Chu-Tan Sports Sub-Editor Interhall Sports

SPORT// 31

Australia’s Continuing Cricketing Dominance Zack Mackey

Premier League

Formula 1

AFL

52 Years and Counting

EM Cheyne

Super Rugby

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Twenty20 World Cup

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The Back Page

MORONI

25 MARCH 2 0 1 4 - NO. 4, VOL 66 - MORONI.COM.AU

Henry Ladd IN a statement released today, the CEO of Nando’s admitted that the multinational company had stolen MH370. Releasing a statement today David Niven admitted that the chicken provider had stolen the plane to release it’s new aeroplane menu. “In keeping with our recent stealing of the big menu in Bowen we felt this was the only way to outdo ourselves in terms of marketing” Niven wrote. “We are of course extremely sorry for confusing the families of those onboard, but we felt telling them would only give away the gag. The plane will be returned in good time, we are just working out the logistics of getting it to Beijing.” in Bowen, Queensland. Opponents to the marketing stunt in the town said it was “heart wrenching not knowing where our fuckin’ mango was” and “the whole town would go to shit if we don’t get

the tourists in”. Niven acknowledged the stress of the mango situation but stated “the people of Bowern have had a warm shower in comparison the shit storm Nando’s is about to cop for this one”.

Already the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak was seeking legal advice to lay sodomy charges against all Nando’s employees in the predominantly Muslim country while China’s leaders had called for a re-education program for the Nando’s executive. When asked about these threats Niven responded “clearly these people haven’t tried our Peri Peri chicken – no one argues against that. We will get these people back, right now I can’t tell you how or when but they will are all currently safe and happy in the knowledge they have won a lifetime supply of Nando’s Chicken.” Nando’s Aeroplane range will be available to try on

By Tara Shenoy

By Rocky Hammer

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