Issue No 101 | 06 July 2001 | |
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Academic Freedom On Trial Unified Approach to Sheahan Inquiry Living Standards Shape as Election Factor Clairvoyant PM In Secret Deal Fantasy Hotels Face Workers Quiz Call for Senate to Decide Spammer's Fate PNG � Howard Should Speak Out Couriers Buck Over Tax Ruling Kempsey Killing Highlights Health Fears Checkout Operators Better Paid Than Aged Care Workers ACTU Weighs Into Bank Campaign Fund Bad Health for Families Australian Music Web Radio Station Needs Recruits Activist Notebook |
Political Smarts The lukewarm response to this week's Knowledge Nation report reflects not just on the failings of the national media to grasp big ideas, but the limitations of the Labor Party in selling them. The pity is that the bulk of the Knowledge Nation report is spot-on; a radical shift in the way that government interacts with the community. As Science spokesman Martyn Evans says: it is not about being smarter, but working smarter. The Spaghetti and Meatballs jibes- focusing on brain-iac Barry Jones' complex-looking map - resonate because they tap into a broad feeling that people don't want to be told they're not smart enough. Unwitting or not, this is the subtext of the Knowledge Nation branding. But this is not really a report about Knowledge - it's a report about how to manage our social structures, how the State should define its role in a new century. The Meatballs are the existing hierarchies that dominate our society. The Spaghetti is the linkages between these institutions that need to be made if we are to make our society work for us. On this reading the Knowledge Nation report is totally consistent with the rise of network technologies that - despite the Dot-Com crash - will transform our society over the next decade. It's really about flattening the Old World hierarchies - spreading information that has been held and guarded by one institution - and making it accessible to all, building up our common base of IP for our mutual benefit as a society. This is the theory that the Labor Council's Michael Gadiel and I have been mulling over for some time. We'd shaped it into a book, which was ready to go to print before the Dot Bomb convinced our publisher there was no market in new Net-based ideas left. In the spirit of Knowledge we begin publishing our tome online this week. But back to Knowledge Nation. If what I am saying holds true - it's clearly the wrong sell. Rather than a Knowledge Nation, the Beazley team is really offering a Networked Nation - people linked with their government and with each other through both new technology and a culture of sharing, not hoarding. This reorientation taps a broader nerve, about how we operate as society, and fits snugly with our Labor-ist traditions of egalitarianism and a fair go for all. In an era where Wedge Politics has divided our society into a sullen majority and dispossessed minority, this could be a truly saleable antidote, reconciling our fractured society, sharing our resources rather than keeping them in elitist boxes. But it is not the Knowledge Nation that will wind the hearts and minds. What we really need is a United Nation. And that's a product that I reckon Beazley could really go out and sell. Peter Lewis |
Aussies Are Ruder! | The Bunnies Bite Back | Neale Towart's Labour Review | A Flaming Ideologue |
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