The stimulus: just how big is it?
March 26, 2009
No wonder Kevin Rudd got such an enthusiastic reception in Washington. Given our size, he’s spending nearly as much money as Barack Obama.
The Rudd government also spent this week talking about how good its new FOI laws are. What they didn’t tell you was:
- government officials will have the power to publicly release private information they have about you – without them asking your permission first and without them telling you they’ve done it (p12).
- the government is considering extending FOI laws to the private sector (p14).
-
Want to know what your business competitor is up to? No problem – just FOI them. And if you are FOI’ed and you don’t want to release commercially sensitive material you’ll have the pleasure of spending thousands of dollars in legal fees fighting it.
If you think we’ve been a bit hard on Barack Obama lately, you can relax.
This week we’re picking on Gordon Brown instead. On Tuesday there was this fantastic speech (it’s three minutes long) by a British MEP in the European Parliament. Even better – you’ll see that Gordon Brown had to sit in the chamber and cop the whole thing.
Worried about the new protectionism? The IPA is co-sponsoring an international petition supporting free trade. You can show your support here.
Finally, you can read my piece from the Australian Financial Review last week about the real purpose of our PM’s overseas jaunts. And in the Herald Sun, Alan Moran talked about why a solution to the crisis is further away than ever.
| Subscribe to Hey... what did I miss, delivered each week for free directly into your inbox. |
