Courts are notorious for being stuck in a constant loop of gridlock, delay, and inaccessibility. However, technology-driven innovation has sought to change this never-ending cycle through a new form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR); online trials.  

In the past decade, ADR has emerged as an incredibly popular (and often mandatory) measure that prevents litigation. For the uninitiated, ADR is a process by which disputes are settled other than through the courts, and with the assistance of an impartial third party. For clients, it cuts costs and stress. For judges and lawyers, it eases an incredibly congested court system. Online trials are a new and radical form of ADR, allowing the dispute to be removed from a court setting and decided entirely online by an impartial third party.

Several countries have introduced online trials differently, with the aim of freeing up court resources and alleviating costs. China has implemented an AI-driven app that allows parties to attend trials online from anywhere in the country, whereas the UK and Canada have opted for an online tribunal focused on small claims.

China

Court attendance in China has been the biggest bottleneck to litigation, according to John Liu, Chief Technology Officer at Gridsum, a firm that provides AI solutions to governments and private companies around the world.  

Gridsum has partnered with the People’s Court Press, the official publishing group of the Supreme People’s Court of China, and Tencent, one of the world’s biggest tech companies, to solve this problem. It has created Faxin Wei Su, an AI-driven legal database integrated with Tencent’s WeChat—China’s Facebook equivalent. The integrated platform will allow parties to join to a proceeding remotely using WeChat’s video chat function. Parties may make inquiries about a case’s status, submit files and set appointments with judges. They may also question evidence throughout the proceedings. The platform’s ultimate aim is to assist the courts in transitioning to an efficient “smart court” system free of congestion.

China’s first online trial was recently held in Hangzhou. It concerned a copyright dispute between two litigants located in opposite ends of the country and only took 30 minutes to conclude. While video conferencing is used in Australian courts, Gridsum’s platform is far more advanced. Faxin Wei Su takes the form of a WeChat mini-application that would be available to any of its almost 1 billion active monthly users on any mobile device, meaning that anyone could attend a trial anywhere in the country using nothing more than their phone.

UK and Canada

The UK and Canada have begun to facilitate online tribunals for small claims in an effort to free up court schedules for more serious matters.

The UK’s Online Court (OC) system aims to process small claims, automating them with minimal supervision. The OC has three phases.

Firstly, the OC’s systems will guide the user through an analysis of their legal issue so that it can be properly understood by the other side, and by the courts. In essence, the purpose of this phase is to assist the litigant in producing a statement of claim.

Secondly, a case officer is employed to facilitate case management and conciliation. This phase aims to utilise ADR if necessary, as well as educate the litigants about the small claims process, and their options. If the dispute is not resolved, it then proceeds to the final phase.

In the third and final phase, a determination is made by a judge, who relies on the submitted documentation. The parties are then notified of the outcome online, or over the telephone.

There also exists a phase 0 and 0.5. The former encourages parties that undertaking litigation in court is often a last resort, while the latter seeks to establish whether the parties have a legal dispute.

The OC’s creator, Lord Justice Briggs of the UK’s Supreme Court, claims that the benefit of this model is that it provides clients with “insulation” from the civil system’s adversarial culture. This can certainly be seen as beneficial, as the court system can be incredibly stressful, particularly for those that are unfamiliar with the process. This stress can be altogether avoided if the litigant is separated entirely from the judicial process. Additionally, small claims matters are typically fairly simple, and conducting the process online would alleviate stress on the judicial system, as well as reduce costs for litigants. This system has already begun testing for Tax Tribunal matters, with claimants being able to use video links to appear from home or work.

Canada’s Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT), similar to the UK’s OC, launched in mid-2017. The CRT also facilitates the quick resolution of small claims disputes, with a focus on rural litigants. British Columbia’s population is sprawled across a predominantly rural area, with many unable to access legal services or courts. The CRT would heighten their access to justice by allowing them to handle small claims from the comfort of their home.

Australia

Australia’s online court facilities are not as extensive as their overseas counterparts. Australians are able to lodge documentation to Federal and State courts electronically through electronic lodgment. The Australian Federal Court has also introduced an e-court scheme that works alongside e-lodgment, which is used for case management and the hearing of specific matters. The Land and Environmental Court is another example of a court that has utilized electronic processes, allowing for online document filming and preliminary case management. It is important to note that New South Wales courts do facilitate an ‘Online Court,’ but this is merely a messaging tool that allows for communication between practitioners and court staff in instances where it is not necessary to attend court. The breadth of its application is left wanting, as it is not available to non-practitioners and is only used for a select few non-contested civil matters or preliminary committal in criminal proceedings.

Australia’s systems are distinct from Canada and the UK’s solutions as they do not facilitate the entire court process, but instead take a piecemeal approach. Former High Court Justice, Micheal Kirby and NSW Law Society president, Pauline Wright agree that the Canadian and UK services are heading in the right direction and suggest that Australia should adopt similar systems. From examination of these international online court solutions, it is clear that Australia’s systems should aim to provide more holistic services by facilitating entire court processes. It may also be beneficial to examine whether Australia’s video-linking services need streamlining akin to systems like to Faxin Wu Sei.

Introducing online trials in Australia could potentially minimize the endless loop of gridlock and stagnation that is present in our court systems, as well as making justice more affordable. It would also prove to be an unprecedented step forward towards accessible justice for those who live in regional and rural locations, as an online trial system would reduce or even eliminate the inconvenience of travelling long distances to court. An online court would also provide services such as Legal Aid with much-needed resources such as greater access to regional lawyers, as this system would allow pro bono lawyers to represent a litigant over long distances without the need for lengthy travel or the associated costs.

Bringing Australia in line with other jurisdictions would not only end the endless loop of judicial gridlock, but also make court processes more transparent, and provide a much-needed boost in trust in the judiciary through greater access to justice.

The post Taking The Law Online appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

From the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system to the biased nature of medical accessibility, colonial Australia immortalises systemic racism through institutional structures and policies. The lingering effects of colonialism (think high suicide rates, premature deaths, intergenerational trauma within Indigenous communities) in collaboration with remodelled forms of colonialism (e.g. gentrification and the increasingly bureaucratic control of Aboriginal affairs) serve to produce and sustain inequality. We live in a state where racism manufactures parliamentary consent for the economic exploitation of Indigenous Australians, immigrants, refugees and people of colour, rendering the dichotomy between the powerful and powerless impenetrable. The Community Development Program (CDP) is the latest of the Australian Government’s plan to divide, fracture and weaken Indigenous communities. Yet the conversations surrounding this racially discriminatory work-for-the-dole program are largely absent from mainstream headlines. What is the CDP, and why is no one talking about it?

The CDP was introduced in July 2015 by the Australian Government to support jobseekers and reduce welfare dependency in remote Australia. The scheme is designed to meet the requirements set by the Howard Government’s 1997 Mutual Obligation policy, which is premised on the idea that making an active contribution to society is a precondition of citizenship. This policy, intended as a method of empowering individual self-reliance, commanded wide consensus amongst leaders of both major political parties as well as prominent Aboriginal advocate for welfare reform, Noel Pearson, who expressed concern over the impact of passive welfare dependency on important community values such as self-reliance and hard work. Such positions reflect the dominant neoliberal agenda, wherein breaking the cycle of welfare dependency is pivotal.

The exploitation of Indigenous Australians through compulsory mutual obligation programs is certainly not a new concept. In fact, there has been a complex history of changes to unemployment schemes in remote Australia. The CDP was designed to address the shortcomings of the policy that preceded it, the Remote Jobs and Communities Program (RJCP), which in turn replaced the 2008 Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP).

The CDP is eligible for jobseekers aged between 18-49 that receive income support, live in a designated remote region and meet other criteria. Those that are expected to undertake work-like activities under the mutual obligation policy as a prerequisite to receiving their income support payments must cooperate with the CDP. Though the CDP is mandatory for anyone that meets the requirements, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people make up 83% of the 35000 participants. The program operates in more than 1000 communities and in 60 regions around Australia. These regions are determined by their weak labour markets, which make it difficult for residents to acquire work skills and experience.

Since its inception, the program has been censured by a range of human rights groups, community organisations and parliamentary members from the Greens and the Labor Party. Not only has the CDP fallen well short of achieving its policy objectives, it has also had antagonistic impacts on its participants, their families and their communities. Under the program, participants are not classified as workers, receive well below the minimum wage, whilst also being denied annual leave, sick leave and carer’s leave. They are not covered by the Fair Work Act, workers compensation or by Federal OHS protections. At times, participants are engaging in unpaid labour disguised as workplace experience.

There is no evidence proving that the CDP is effectively providing long-term solutions to joblessness or improving employability. The insignificant number of jobseekers that have secured long-term employment and the overwhelming increase in issued penalties are indicative of the program’s failure to affect the behavioural changes necessary for productive capitalist economies. Less than 3,500 of the 35,000 CDP jobseekers have continued to secure full-time or part-time work lasting six months or longer. These jobs were also more likely to go to non-Indigenous participants.

The enforced non-compliance measures are leaving many vulnerable people without income support and have created additional financial and social burdens for many individuals. Remote jobseekers are being penalised financially at a rate 70 times higher than non-remote dole workers and the program has seen a 740% increase in the issuing of punitive measures when compared to the RJCP. The dramatic increase in penalties is impoverishing many participants, predominantly Indigenous Australians, and causing additional financial and social stress for them and their families. Flow-on effects include reduced food security in affected communities, which has been reflected in a significant decrease in food sales.

Furthermore, there have been extensive reports of the allocation of relatively meaningless tasks and a serious lack of appropriate training or resources needed to increase the employability of jobseekers. No funding is reserved in the budget for training, which means that providers are discouraged from providing meaningful training or training at all. Participants have additionally reported to have been assigned the operation of dangerous machinery with no training and limited supervision, resulting in serious injuries.

Critically, the program disproportionately impacts Indigenous Australian communities. The CDP applies to a particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged group and rather than achieving the intended policy outcomes, most participants have experienced feelings of demoralisation and disempowerment. Many have been pushed further below the poverty line. The program also conflicts with Australia’s international human rights obligations as stipulated by the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Sustained efforts to overhaul the CDP have been met with resistance and indifference from our political representatives. Despite this, the movement has persisted. Notably, the First Nations Workers Alliance (FNWA), a First Nations-led union established in 2017 by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), have been campaigning to provide CDP workers with a collective voice to fight for fair wages and working conditions. Their mission is to abolish and replace the CDP with an appropriate model as soon as practicable. Alongside the National Social Security Rights Network and 30 other organisations in Australia, the FNWA endorses the Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT’s (APONT) community driven alternative, the Remote Development and Employment Scheme (RDES). Their proposal emphasises a focus on increasing economic opportunities in remote communities, incentives to participate and the recognition of cultural and social priorities. Ultimately, the policy approach must be owned, led and delivered by local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The CDP serves as a reminder of colonised Australia’s failure to acknowledge the relationship between welfare recipients and broader structural and systemic causes of disadvantage. Rather than empowering Aboriginal communities to exercise control over their own affairs, the CDP has only served to forestall Aboriginal self-determination and self-sufficiency. The challenge into the future is to sustain the campaign while navigating the increasingly bureaucratic control of Aboriginal affairs and the fortification of neoliberalism.

The post Racist Profiteering In Government Employment Scheme appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

CW: Self-harm, suicide, death

Author and intellectual Cornel West once said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” He speaks of a love that is healing, restorative, and nurturing. One which is unifying against division.

And yet, in turning to the public sphere of this nation, with the designer of the torturous and widely condemned “Operation Sovereign Borders” as prime minister, we do not see love, or healing, or restoration. Instead, we see the permeation of lovelessness, and an abolition of care and empathy and all the things that make us good.

In mid-August, Buzzfeed reporter Lane Sainty wrote about how children on Nauru were descending into a catatonic state known as ‘resignation syndrome’.  Children in detention centres are reported to have lost hope, some no longer eating or moving from their beds. Children as young as ten are committing self-harm and attempting suicide—a twelve-year-old girl reportedly set herself on fire. The conditions on Nauru have been described as “dangerously chaotic” with doctors and lawyers warning politicians and policy makers that if urgent action is not taken soon, a child is going to die.

While reading the article, there is a constant search for hope. Perhaps somewhere between the lines there is a distant hope for change and a willingness on behalf of politicians to make it happen. This hope is left unrequited.

Instead, a week after news of the children on Nauru broke, the Liberal Party descended into a chaos of its own.

Peter Dutton, Australia’s leading example of lovelessness personified, challenged Malcolm Turnbull for the position of Prime Minister. This is a man who is complicit in the death of twelve refugees. A former policeman who built his political career on xenophobia, racism, and fear.

After first losing the attempted spill 48 to 35 in Turnbull’s favour, Dutton once more challenged Turnbull, only this time the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, and the Treasurer, Scott Morrison threw their name in the ring.

What ensued was an embarrassing mess of partisan politics and factional drama, a mess made all the more atrocious in light of the responsibility these ministers were elected to fulfil. In a scathing speech, Greens leader Richard Di Natale called the Liberal Party out on their bullshit, saying, “You are so focused on yourself, that you have forgotten what you have been elected to do. And that is to govern for them, not for you. You don’t deserve to govern. You deserve to be turfed out.”

In his speech, Di Natale mentions a slew of more pressing issues the government should be paying attention to, one of which was the prevalence of domestic violence and the fear women face going home to an abusive partner. The spill led the coalition to adjourn parliament, meaning the government was unable to debate a reform bill which would put an end to the harmful practice of domestic violence victims being directly cross-examined by abusers.

Again and again, the government, including the Labor Party, has failed to exemplify basic principles of love and care. And it extends far beyond policies related to refugees. The inaction on climate change and the pillaging and contamination of this nation’s soil, oceans, and air is loveless. The complete and utter disregard for homelessness in Australia is loveless. The push for neoliberal policies which alienate and further entrench poverty is loveless. The coalition’s denial of the Uluru Statement From The Heart, which calls for a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, is loveless.

In a political era marred by racism, xenophobia, and homophobia, it is difficult to be positive about the future. Though few and far between, there are instances of politicians, activists, and policy makers who are fighting to imbue love, empathy, and hope back into our cultural and political zeitgeist. The utopianism of the Black Lives Matter policy platform, which calls for the defunding of prisons, the demilitarization of the police force, free college education, and the abolishment of student debt. The rise of democratic socialist style policies in Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, which offers an antidote to the dehumanising American healthcare system that prioritises profit over people. Over in the United Kingdom, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, runs on a policy platform demanding the renationalisation of transport, water, and energy services, and remains steadfastly against war and nuclear weapons. Back home, we see the galvanisation of the grassroots Stop Adani movement, where Indigenous organisations such as SEED rally against the destruction of sacred Indigenous land.

Australia’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison is a devout Christian and regular layman at the Pentecostal Horizon Church.

Philippians 2:3 reads, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”

Across the waters, refugees on Manus and Nauru stir anxiously, waiting for a miracle.

The post The Politics Of Lovelessness appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

When we compare Australia to the rest of the world, it can feel like we’re a nation stuck in the mud. Political instability has led to paralysis, and no government of the last decade has been brave or popular enough to create meaningful change. Governments now enter elections as if they’re back begging for another term despite their middle of the road ambitions, while opposition parties spend their time kicking political goals in the media, trying their best to not fuck up. Our politics has lost its sense of urgency and given up on fighting for deeply held values.

In the search for an example of political dynamism, we need only look to the other side of the globe, between Scotland and the Arctic, to the small island of Iceland. On April 3rd 2016, the Panama Papers revealed that Iceland’s President Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson had sheltered millions in offshore accounts. Outside the Alþingi (parliament) on April 4, a small circle of Icelanders wrapped in thick coats and scarfs bopped in time with each other and sang. Behind them, between ten and twenty thousand protesters talked amongst themselves and held up placards opposing the President’s refusal to resign. By April 5th, the President had resigned, and a new election had been called.

On 24 October 1975, ninety percent of Icelandic women did not show up to work or partake in any housework or child-rearing at home. One year later, the government passed the Gender Equality Act, outlawing gender discrimination in workplaces and schools. Four years later, in 1980, Iceland boasted the first democratically elected female president in the world. For the past nine years, the country has topped the World Economic Forum’s gender equality index and has this year passed a law to make companies legally obligated to prove they pay men and women equally for equal work.

This kind of sustained commitment to equality makes any progressive Australian melt with envy. Our previous Minister for Women, Tony Abbott, stated in 2012 that virginity “is the greatest gift you can give someone,” and in 2010, began a sentence about power prices with “what the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing…”. In March this year, the member representing the Minister for Women, Michaelia Cash, threatened to “name every young woman in Mr Shorten’s office of which rumours in this place abound.” Sexism has a warm and comfortable home in Australian politics, despite a decades-long, rigorous attempt to make parliament a safe and empowering space for women.

On issues like same-sex marriage, environmental protection and Indigenous rights, the Australian government has failed to enact substantive change over the span of decades.

In some areas, our government is not only stalling on widely supported reform but actively regressing. Under both the Abbott and Turnbull governments, Australia’s leading science organisation and leader in climate science research, the CSIRO, has undergone immense funding cuts. In 2016, CSIRO Staff Association Secretary Sam Popovski stated that “since 2013 the organisation has lost 1 in 5 positions or more than 20% of the workforce.” The attack continued in 2016 with a $115 million cut in the federal budget, resulting in another 450 planned redundancies across the board.

In 2018, the leader of the Labor party continues to rule out opposing the Adani mining projects, while the Coalition spruiks “clean coal” and the need to increase coal seam gas fracking. As it turns out, Turnbull’s 2010 promise to “never lead a government that isn’t as committed to climate action as I am,” has been left in the dust, along with any sense of integrity the Prime Minister was once able to project. All significant opposition to further investment in coal mining in Australia has come from grassroots organisations, particularly those in association with Stop Adani, who have pressured the major Australian banks to rule out funding the proposed mine through consistent direct action.

In stark contrast, 100% of Iceland’s electricity is generated from renewable sources. Roughly 20% of the country’s primary energy (for manufacturing and transportation) is supplied by fossil fuels, with the rest generated by either hydro or geothermal power. This dedication toward renewable energy has required little public outcry. To the Icelandic government, investing in renewable energy is common sense.

We have seen some progress on LGBTQI+ rights in Australia with the legalisation of same-sex marriage. While this development was widely celebrated, the national postal survey was a gruelling measure that put the relationships and identities of many vulnerable Australians on public trial for a number of months. The vitriol that our community was exposed to during this time cannot be understated. Furthermore, the percentage of Australians in favour of legalising same-sex marriage has consistently polled above 50% since 2007, according to NewsPoll, Galaxy, Essential, YouGov, Ipsos and Roy Morgan polls. Safe to say, they took their fucking time.

To add to the overwhelming cloud of inertia that sits over Parliament House, the Prime Minister recently turned down a set of recommendations made within the Uluru Statement From The Heart. The proposal outlined a constitutionally entrenched Indigenous voice to Parliament; a recommendation which was established after a year of consultation, followed by a three-day summit that heard from more than 300 Indigenous community leaders and legal experts. In addition to this, there are currently twice as many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being removed from their families as there were at the time of Rudd’s 2008 apology. After a decade of disappointing Close The Gap Reports, government promises to “do better” come across as empty deflections of our national obligation to do this land’s Indigenous populations justice. Sovereignty was never ceded, legal systems continue to perpetuate colonial oppression, and our determination to rectify a violent history remains despairingly low.

We need to look to other parts of the world and recalibrate our expectations, not only of our politicians but of ourselves. Australia desperately needs politicians with values and a population willing to listen if we are to have any hope of breaking the surface of our own stupor.

The post skriðþunga (Momentum) appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

There is clearly a global consensus that we need to fundamentally change our attitudes towards climate change, as evidenced by the astounding 195 countries which have agreed to take steps to address rising temperatures under the Paris Climate Agreement. However, despite such international efforts and several decades worth of domestic laws aimed at environmental protection, existing measures have largely lacked the enforceability needed to effectively mitigate climate change. Just last year, it was reported that climate change had caused the rapid melting of Arctic glaciers, severe droughts in Brazil, and uncontrollable fires across Australia and the United States.

Ultimately, our existing laws have done little to address our legal system’s human-centred view that the environment is merely an item of property for us humans to own and exploit for our own benefit. Consequently, existing laws perpetuate the exploitation and destruction of the Earth, as environmental considerations are subordinated to the dominant economic or personal interests of humans and corporations.

Earth jurisprudence attempts to challenge this presumption of human supremacy over nature by recognising that nature has a set of enforceable legal rights. The theory recognises that humans are dependent on a flourishing natural environment for our own survival. We depend upon free-flowing rivers for water, plants and trees for oxygen, and plants and animals for food. However, our current legal system fails to reflect this co-dependency. Instead, we prioritise short-term economic endeavours such as mining and construction, often at the expense of the environment.

The concept of recognising and enforcing the legal rights of nature first saw practical application in 2009, when a city in Washington passed world-first legislation acknowledging the rights of rivers to flow and of ecosystems to exist and flourish. Unfortunately, this attempt to confer enforceable legal rights upon nature was later rejected by the Washington Supreme Court, as it exceeded the legal scope of local authority. However, a few years later, the Whanganui River in New Zealand became the first natural landmark to obtain legal personhood, confirming that the concept of nature rights can apply in practice. The Whanganui River now has the same legal rights and responsibilities as a person, meaning that anyone who infringes upon the ‘health and wellbeing’ of the river can be held legally accountable.

The notion that soils, rivers, oceans, and ecosystems should have legal status clearly represents a step towards holding people and businesses accountable for causing environmental detriment. Where nature is acknowledged as having legal rights or even legal personhood, it becomes far easier to prevent and punish harmful behaviour that degrades our natural environment. In the context of climate change, Earth jurisprudence could provide an additional incentive for businesses and countries to lower greenhouse gas emissions so as to preclude their liability for the legal consequences of infringing upon the legal rights of nature.

Ultimately, legal recognition of the rights of nature might be the ‘legal revolution’ needed to challenge our prioritisation of short-term economic gain over environmental sustainability, which has been a major hindrance to our efforts to combat climate change thus far.

The post Earth Jurisprudence: Towards Achieving Climate Justice appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

I’m thinking about Donald Trump’s first year as President, and I also happen to have a boomer of a headache. There’s a pretty obvious cheap shot to be had here, but let’s resist it. It has, after all, been a year of cheap shots.

The next thought to fly across my aching brain (after “I wonder if some Panadol would help?”) is that, for all of his apparent unpredictability, President Trump seems to have more or less met everyone’s expectations. I don’t mean this in an overly specific, policy-directed way, but rather in terms of how people continue to see what they choose to in this man, a Rorschach inkblot with a toupee.

Trump’s detractors see an arrogant and thin-skinned narcissist presiding over the most chaotic administration of any developed country in our time, an administration laced with inexperience, incompetence, cronyism, and ideological extremism. Conversely, his supporters continue to see these traits as bold points of difference from the staid and clinical administrations which preceded it. They elected this man to be a maverick who “speaks his mind”, and erraticism was part of the package.

President Trump has surprised me on multiple occasions. I expected a tack towards the centre when he won the nomination. I expected him to become more statesman-like when he won the election. I expected the self-centred melodrama and the Twitter tirades to subdue after he took office. Yet Trump did none of that. His enduring popularity with his supporters has come from his resolute commitment to being the politician he was when he launched his candidacy; albeit one that was riddled with contradictions (just Google “Trump criticises Trump”).

However, not only did President Trump use 2017 to continue fighting fires which burned on from 2016 (constant what-about-ism in relation to Hillary Clinton, unprecedented full-scale attacks on most of the media culminating in the ‘Fake News Awards’, an unsettlingly equivocal relationship with the white supremacist movement), he also used the platform of the Presidency to light a few new ones.

Throughout 2017, the world watched on in a heady mix of confusion, mirth, and growing horror as President Trump and his arch-rival, Kim Jong-un, traded big-red-button rhetoric like schoolyard banter. President Trump’s poking and prodding certainly didn’t defuse the situation, but at least there was a second player responsible for that dramatic escalation. Conversely, responsibility for the recent riots and instability in the Middle East lies predominantly with President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. While there had been calls for the US to do this in the past, there was no urgent political pressure for this move. It was made from nowhere, being called for by seemingly no one.

This feeds into the most plausible theory on President Trump’s modus operandi: by creating stories which dominate and polarise the media and wider society, while keeping attention firmly on his own actions, Trump is able to retain his position as the “maverick martyr” with his chosen half of the political spectrum without relying on the dull and laborious process of promoting policies.

This is not a new phenomenon. Trump’s campaign was full of grand promises to bring back manufacturing jobs, achieve economic growth to bolster the middle class, and win back respect for America within the international community. It was light on the actual detail on how he would get there. Would a Trump presidency include building a wall along the Mexican border? Stopping Muslim migration for an indeterminate period? Withdrawing from a multilateral trade agreement which actually conferred more trade power on America?

President Trump has, however, continued to be light on policy. Where there have been some sporadic attempts at policymaking, Trump has left most of the work to the Republican Congress. Repealing Obamacare was part of Trump’s obsessive quest to dismantle Obama’s legacy, but his legislative counterparts assumed the bulk of the leg-work. There was some vague talk of lowering taxes across the board, but Capitol Hill created the actual plan. The end result was a typical reduction-in-company-tax-rates-focused plan which any Republican of the past 30 years could have produced. So much for the “maverick martyr”.

And then there was the so-called ‘Muslim ban’. This, at least, appeared to be principally the work of President Trump and his close advisors. Implemented by a blizzard of Executive Orders, the ban was so strikingly blunt that a succession of courts found it to violate the Constitution. Despite continual amendments in the hope of a better outcome, the administration and its supporters were largely unchastened by setbacks. Instead, the judicial system became the latest institution to be lumped in with the “leftist” monolith that Trump and his anti-establishment supporters railed against. This hit a particular nerve with me. When even the authority of the judicial system to interpret the law is questioned, what socio-political common ground can possibly be found? When the core institutions of state are so fractious and fractured, the only thing left to break apart is truth itself.  

This was proved in the early days of the Trump Administration, with new Press Secretary Sean Spicer asserting (against all evidence) that Trump’s inauguration was the most-viewed ever, and Kellyanne Conway defending Spicer’s right to present “alternative facts”. Entirely unintended, herein lies the genesis of what might be Trump’s greatest legacy. Throughout 2017, mainstream media organisations seemed to shift their role from spectators to key actors. Their role became increasingly concerned with discerning truth, and falsehoods were increasingly named as such. Analysis of Trump’s actions grew in boldness and honesty. The ‘old’ values of logic, facts, and objective truth seemed to be making a resurgence.

I am not naïve enough to think that this will immediately remedy the deep fractures within social and political discourse, or even that those divisions won’t deepen in the short-term. Yet, if much of the news media continues to accept its responsibility as a key actor in social discourse, then the notion of a higher objective truth may yet come back into vogue. That may be the most valuable form of “resistance” of all.

For now, however, President Trump remains in office. Among those of us who believe that he has set an exceedingly poor standard of conduct, many have been spurred on to combat the normalisation of his behaviour. Yet I wonder how possible this is. Four years is, politically and culturally, a long time. Over the course of that time, it is conceivable that an entire group of young people gaining political consciousness just accept that this is the way that world leaders behave. It is totally possible that sacking the holders of impartial offices when they dare to disagree with you, then mocking and demeaning them over Twitter, will become normal presidential behaviour. It is also possible that, as one of the leaders of socio-political discourse in the West, President Trump has irreparably cheapened the political realm.

This is to say nothing of the geopolitical consequences of President Trump’s isolationist rhetoric and petulant anti-statesmanship, which may see moral (and consequently strategic, economic, and military) authority pass to more militant and less democratic states. Those are nightmarish scenarios better deconstructed by others. I have neither the geopolitical expertise nor the Panadol supply to do so.

Three years left. My headache thunders on. I’ll continue to resist the cheap shot.

The post President Trump: One Year On appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

cw: crucifixion, self-inflicted punishment, bludgeoning, decapitation, blood rituals

In the two thousand odd years between Romulus suckling on the she-wolf and being crowned the first king of Rome, and Mehmed bringing down the walls of Constantinople in cannon fire, the Roman Empire is most admired for how long it endured. Holding onto territories from England to North Africa and the Middle East, Rome fought off incursions and civil war on every front, regularly reformed their economy and bureaucracy, amended the pantheon with every passing year, implemented surprising progressive immigration policies and career pathways for their conquered neighbours, and survived a long line of eclectic emperors. These emperors fluctuated between tyrants, philosophers, sex-fiends, those who role-played as gladiators, gluttons, puppets, romantics who created entire religions to worship deceased lovers, the occasionally competent ruler, and way, way too many child-emperors.

All of this is incredibly evocative — so evocative that there are Shakespearean dramas to never read and a low-budget HBO series to give up on when (spoiler!) Brutus shanks Caesar. However, in all these conquests and disasters it’s easy to dehumanise who these people actually were; it’s forgettable that there were ordinary citizens just looking out for their own, short-lived happiness while the politicians and generals left the forums painted in blood and intrigue. In light of this, I’ve elected to write about five disconnected but interesting facts and stories about Rome, for no other reason than I’ve spent the entire year telling my Vertigo comrades that at some point I would.

Rome had an effective, natural contraceptive — and fornicated it into extinction.

When Rome was still a small tribe on the seven hills, the Greek noble Battus Aristottle consulted with the Oracle of Delphi after his home island had weathered perpetual drought. Rather than telling him install a 375,000L Bluescope Steel watertank, she advised the next best thing — travel to North Africa and found a new city. Battus, not being a pushover, did just that. One trireme trip later and the local Libyans were leading Battus and his men to a place known as Apollo’s Fountain, where it rained so much it was as though there was “a hole in the sky”. Here, Battus founded the city of Cyrene and discovered the existence of an unusual herb: siliphium.

The siliphium herb had a range of uses, including as perfume, spice, and a very potent contraceptive. In fact, the anecdotal support for the herb was so great that in an essay that reads more like spam email promising to cure diabetes with green tea, ancient academic Pliny the Elder lists 39 remedial uses in The Natural History. He affectionately refers to the herb as “nature’s gift”, which it very well might have been, as it is further believed it contained aphrodisiac qualities.

However, as is the natural way of things, the older generations of Romans ruined the fun for everyone afterwards. Around 500 years after Cyrene began exporting the herb, all traces of it disappeared. Currently, blame is pinned on a combination of environmental shifts and rampant overuse which left almost no time for the seed stock to replenish. The final siliphium stalk was delivered as an “oddity” to Emperor Nero — one of the more villainous emperors — who promptly ate the stalk, dooming it to the annals of amorous history.

But siliphium wasn’t completely erased. Images of siliphium seeds have been discovered etched onto Cyrenese coins, and because of their uncanny resemblance and essential role in Roman sex lives, it is thought to be the source of one of the world’s most famous icons: the love heart.

Modern beef just isn’t as good.

It’s easy to believe we’re living in the high time of political beef when there are entire industries churning a profit from it. However, the reality is it doesn’t matter how many times the pollies stumble over their words — the cogs of their mind grinding away half a step behind their speech — or how banal their attempted witticisms are, because regardless Buzzfeed is sure to follow up with a listicle titled “Shorten SLAMMED Turnbull in the BEST POSSIBLE WAY”. Political beef just doesn’t compare to what it once was, such as what existed between Cicero and Mark Antony.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was an oratory mastermind whose tactics of persuasion remains a focus of linguistic studies today. Cicero was a vocal defender of the Republic even as Caesar began consolidating his dictatorship, and while he didn’t play a role in inflicting any of the 23 stab wounds on the would-be first emperor, he wished he had, saying to the conspirators, “How I wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March!”

Marcus Antonius, commonly known as Mark Antony, served under Caesar as a general in Gaul before returning to Rome as his strongest political ally. Antony even unearthed the plot to assassinate Caesar, but was intercepted before he could warn his friend. Caesar had been extremely popular with the lower-class Romans, and after his death Antony exploited this support by seizing portions of Caesar’s property, inciting riots, and moving thousands of troops into the capital, even though Caesar had named his nephew Octavian as the true heir. Cicero then had the audacity to suggest Antony was taking unfair liberties in interpreting Caesar’s will, which for some reason upset Antony.

Cicero planned to pit Octavian and Antony against each other. In a series of fourteen defamatory speeches known as the Phillipics, each thousands of words in length, Cicero stood on the Rostra — the podium in the centre of the Forum — and began the careful character assassination of Mark Antony. He often referred to Antony as a “gladiator”, a typical insult hurled at military elites to infer they were no better than slaves given the job of killing. The bulk of his speeches focused on Antony’s moral depravity accusing him of being a careless gambler, a bankrupt, a coward, a thief, a lecher, and most prominently a drunk:

“You had swilled down so much wine at the wedding of Hippias that you had to vomit it all up the next day right before the eyes of the Roman people. What a disgusting performance, even to hear about, much less to see… [Antony] threw up and filled his own lap — and the entire dais! — with goblets of food and reeking wine!”

These tirades successfully led to Antony being declared an enemy of the state and Octavian being given the task of bringing him to justice, however in a cruel twist of fate Antony and Octavian ended up combining military forces and forming the Second Triumvirate. The Senate had no choice but to legislate their five year not-quite-so-but-essentially-was dictatorship. The Triumvirate then began the piecemeal process of proscriptions, where old enemies and political rivals were ‘removed’ — and Antony hadn’t forgotten about Cicero.

While Cicero was one of the most popular politicians of his era behind Caesar, and the public was reluctant to sell him out, he was eventually caught leaving his villa headed for a ship to spirit him to Macedonia. Cicero met his death gracefully, saying to the unknown mercenary who caught him, “There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly”. He was beheaded, and his hands, the very same that penned the burns which still sizzle two millennia later, were nailed onto the Rostra for all to see.

Antony was a soldier who was by all accounts a classic schoolyard bully. Cicero, a politician and bookworm, underestimated (or correctly assessed, damning the consequences) how fragile Antony’s ego was. While Antony succeeded in eliminating Cicero, it would be Cicero’s son who would announce to the Senate the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt decades later, where he forbade anyone from the Antonii family to ever again adopt the name ‘Marcus’, decreeing, “In this way Heaven entrusted the family of Cicero the final acts in the punishment of Antony”.

It’s not a fad, Augustus.

Once upon a time, vegetarians used to keep the details of their diet to themselves.

People who abstained from eating meat in Rome were viewed as subversive and, by virtue of not being able to partake in various blood rituals, immoral. This was a problematic position to be in in a society where politicians murdered each other by the day. However, as surreptitious as they were, there did exist practicing vegetarians in Rome.

Vegetarianism in the Roman Empire was often an offshoot of the teachings of Pythagoras (the very same who helped you draw triangles). Pythagoras theorised that all living creatures had souls, and therefore it was a crime against nature to consume the flesh of animals and fish. However, he even puts the most faithful vegans to shame, as he insisted that many strands of beans also had a soul, and that it would be just as sinful to consume them.

Publius Ovidius Naso was born in the tumultuous era when Republic transitioned into Empire, and he rose to superstar heights — complete with fixated fan girls — with his romantic and mildly erotic poetry. Ovid’s works were a reaction against the conservative sexual ethics and moral teachings imposed by Emperor Augustus, however his most controversial work happened to come from his Metamorphoses series, where he admitted to following Pythagoras’ teachings:

“Human beings, stop desecrating your bodies with impious foodstuffs. There are crops; there are apples weighing down the branches; and ripening grapes on the vines; there are flavoursome herbs; and those that can be rendered mild and gentle over the flames; and you do not lack flowing milk; or honey fragrant from the flowering thyme. The earth, prodigal of its wealth, supplies you with gentle sustenance, and offers you food without killing or shedding blood”

While the reasons for his eventual exile are not clearly understood, it’s nice to imagine that the Augustus tired of the ancient hipster when he banished Ovid to a villa by the Black Sea. Ovid spent the rest of his days — bean free — writing mournful poetry and letters to his family and adoring fans.

Count to ten.

There are few things more frustrating than being blamed for someone else’s mistake; it’s unfair, embarrassing, and it just feels wrong on a spiritual level. But compared to those employed in the legions two millennia ago, most of us have been getting off lightly.

Decimation was used as the most extreme form of punishment in the Roman military, typically reserved for acts of cowardice and insurrection. While it was seldom practiced, anyone serving in the legions was sure to have heard the stories of what might happen if orders were disobeyed. Even by the time of Caesar, the practice was considered out-dated and backwards, because even the nastiest generals could admit that it was an arbitrary, cruel, and self-inflicting punishment.

Arbitrary — because those selected weren’t necessarily involved in the offence.

Cruel — because the sentence was executed by their own comrades.

Self-inflicting — because a general was diminishing their fighting force by a tenth.

Decimation was a lottery system style of punishment, where the one-in-ten soldiers who drew the short straw were then bludgeoned to death by the remaining nine.

This was famously employed Marcus Licinius Crassus after he was ordered by Senate to subdue Spartacus’ slave revolt. The gladiator king defeated two of Crassus’ legions who then fled the field, leaving behind an army’s worth of weapons and supplies. As a rule of thumb, upgrading the tools of 70,000 rebellious slaves from sickles and pitchforks to military-standard weapons and armour is not in the best interests of the state. Crassus was a little more than upset; he decimated his legion, murdering up to 1,000 of his own men. While it’s difficult to comprehend the psychological impact this would have had on those who remained, they didn’t flee the next time, and by the end of the year 6,000 still-breathing crucified slaves lined the highway to Rome

No boys allowed.

Bona Dea was a goddess worshipped for agriculture, chastity, and paradoxically, fertility and virginity. The goddess was particularly revered amongst the slave and plebeian classes and rites were exercised exclusively by women. Not only were men forbidden from attending, they weren’t even allowed to know Her name. This meant that two times a year — for the summer and winter festivals — women were allowed to drink strong wine and hold animal blood-sacrifices. However, like any marketable and enjoyable idea, the nobility soon co-opted the festival practices, and thereafter the wife of the Senior Magistrate hosted the main ceremony, where only the wealthy matrons of Rome were invited to attend.

Festival rites were remarkably similar to any preparations for a viewing party of The Bachelor. Firstly, the hostess’ house was ritually cleansed of all men, meaning most busts, portraits, and manuscripts had to be removed, and the hallways were sprayed with ‘feminine’ perfume. Even male pets and depictions of male animals had to be hidden from plain sight. Then, the Magistrate’s wife (or more likely her slaves) made ornaments of vine-leaves and decorated the dining hall with blooming plants. After this point, little more is known. The entire festival is veiled in secrecy and without any female historians to elucidate what exactly happened behind closed doors, the rest is speculation.

According to Cicero, the rest of the evening was simple enjoyment — debate, games, and music performed by female musicians, where any discussion of men was forbidden. Other historians speak of unbridled hedonism, where early 3^rd Century historian Juvenal recounts drunkenness, lewd dancing, which eventually devolved into “bestial orgies”. However, Juvenal was writing centuries after the festival had fallen from popularity, and without any corroborating evidence it seems references to these women-only orgies was nothing more than wishful thinking.

We can however be certain that male non-attendance was sacrosanct. In the winter of 62 BC, Julius Caesar’s wife, Pompeia, was tasked with hosting the festival. Scandal erupted when Publius Clodius Pulcher, a populist politician, was caught loitering amongst the festivities dressed as a woman, allegedly with the intent of seducing Pompeia. Clodius was then brought before trial and charged with ‘desecration’, which carried the death penalty. However, after two years of legal proceedings, Clodius managed to escape any punishment, though he remained the butt of parliamentary jokes for many centuries. Julius Caesar nevertheless was resolute in divorcing Pompeia despite her proven innocence, famously declaring, “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion”.

The post I Just Wanted to Write About Rome appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

Lachlan Barker has been elected as President of the UTS Students’ Association (‘UTSSA’) after a convincing victory in the Students’ Representative Council (‘SRC’) elections.

Barker ran as the presidential candidate for the Focus ticket — a Labor bloc — and experienced smattering opposition from the Swipe Right Liberal ticket, independents, and a variety of ‘joke tickets’. Focus had a sophisticated campus presence with A-Frames and lecture bashing during pre-campaign, and had substantially more campaigners on the ground during the three election days.

The Focus factional alignments contrast those of the 2016 election, where the combined Unity, SLS, and Liberal Connect ticket painted the opposing ticket as “extremists”, while the combined NLS and Grassroots Stand Up ticket alleged they had been on the receiving end of bullying and harassing tactics. Evidently, factions looked past old wounds in the face of bettering the UTSSA to form this Labor bloc.

During the course of the campaign, Barker placed heavy emphasis on his wealth of experience from years spent in various UTSSA roles. Barker has previously served as Assistant Secretary and Secretary, and is the current Treasurer of the UTSSA. This year, Lachlan has worked extensively on amending UTSSA regulations and has collaborated with UTS management to improve University sexual assault policy.

Barker’s tenure as President will commence in early December.

The post Focus Your Eyes on Barker’s SRC appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

“Fear is the path to the dark side” – Yoda.

It was a Republican who aptly diagnosed the cancerous US election as early as May last year. But it was already too late, the virus had spread throughout our newsfeeds, newspapers, and across screens the world over, with no end in sight.

Diagnosis: Trump. Cause: anger.

Frank Luntz, a Republican political consultant, spends his time in focus groups aimed at gauging the public’s opinion. But in the lead up the election, these meetings resembled more of a Conor McGregor weigh-in than the usual dull affair. In a TIME article, Luntz termed this phenomenon as: “The American Anger Agenda”.

“[The voters] demand that politicians speak as angrily and as disrespectfully as they feel. Anything less, in their words, is politics or pandering.”-  Luntz.

Benjamin Isakhan, Associate Professor of Politics and Policy at Deakin University, announced “Australia’s own ‘anger agenda’” in a recent essay,  where he came to the conclusion that Aussie anger, thy name is Pauline Hanson.

Australians are a laidback bunch. But we have plenty to be angry about, and Hanson feeds on it like a wolf in the wild.

Think about it. Our Prime Ministers get tossed out every five minutes; inter-party politicking has become a sport. Our leaders are completely uninspiring, they milk their benefits with utter disregard and turn around and blame welfare recipients like a bunch of holier-than-thou hypocrites.

They promise jobs and growth and deliver an impending credit downgrade. They’re corrupt. The Obeids and Dastyaris of our parliaments are the reason there is an ever-shrinking trust in the system.

So my question to the leaders of Australia’s left is: where is the anger?

“Maintain your rage…” – Gough Whitlam.

Across the pond, Trump’s and Sanders’ supporters were angry. These leaders operated within the deep dissatisfaction and disapproval of the status quo like surgeons. The more they resisted the traditional political establishment, the higher their stocks climbed.

“Why I’m celebrating is that I can see that people … around the world are saying, ‘We’ve had enough of the establishment.’” – Hanson on Trump’s victory.

Opinion polls are showing that support for Hanson’s One Nation is growing rapidly, largely from frustrated Liberal voters. Her approval ratings have spiked nationwide; making her the fourth largest party behind the Greens.

This marks her as dangerously influential. Her preference vote could now become election-deciding. We’ll get an idea of how much power she holds in the upcoming WA state election in March.

So now if Hanson is the Trump of Australia, where is our Sanders?

“There is a lot of sentiment that enough is enough, that we need fundamental changes, that the establishment — whether it is the economic establishment, the political establishment or the media establishment — is failing the American people.” – Bernie Sanders

A Harvard study, showed that 51 per cent of American millennials do not support capitalism, and 33 per cent support socialism. Although this survey was conducted in the US, where it is far less equitable, it shows where the Australia is going if the current trend prevails.

The main beneficiary of this shift will be the Greens, who have been stealing Labor’s youth vote in droves. The only problem is, an estimated 400,000 youth between 18 and 25 can’t be bothered to register to vote.

You can blame the young all you want, but shouldn’t the buck stop with the leaders? There is no one on the left tapping into the resentment of the Australian people. No leaders are rising up to keep the political class accountable. And if they do, they are not doing it in an engaging way.

People remember Julia Gillard’s ‘Misogyny Speech’, and Keating’s address at Redfern Park. Everyone remembers Whitlam’s call to “maintain your rage”. We need enthusiastic leaders with a just cause. Otherwise people like Hanson dominate Australia’s “anger agenda”. The left needs to do its job better.

If there was anything the US election showed us, it is the power of the perception of success and celebrity. Trump certainly ticks both these boxes, but so could many other left-leaning Australian public figures, like Stan Grant or Waleed Aly. Both are media trained, politically-savvy, great orators, and outsiders of the Canberra establishment.

Hanson and Trump are also both unapologetically divisive. They know that they will never win the mind, heart, and soul of every voter. They don’t speak like politicians because they aren’t. They make their message controversial and the media eats it up. The left needs to use this to their advantage.

“Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” –Princess Leia

Do not let Hanson win. The major political parties will pander to One Nation because her preference vote is too valuable. So take a page out of her book and justify your anger. After all, it’s okay to be angry, if it’s justified.

The post The left need a few Jedi mind tricks to win against Hanson appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

Unless you’ve strategically remained indoors, disconnected every electronical device and lived off m&m rations, you’re probably experiencing a bit of a budget hangover. But making sense of how you ended up in Treasurer Scott Morrison’s bed hungover is proving to be a bit hazy. As your budget confidant I’ll run over the night and help you make sense of things.

The party actually started pretty early, things kicked off yesterday at around 2.30pm. A tonne of very important and serious journalists willfully walked into the budget room, where they gave up all rights to tweet, Facebook and publish whatever saucy info they found in the thick 2016 Budget papers. What was the saucy info again, you may ask? Whilst there are plenty more winners and losers found in the pages of the budget but those are the key points that stuck out during the night.

Here’s a rundown:

WINNERS

1. Small businesses

Hoorah! The little guy is finally catching a break…or not? George’s fruit market is receiving a tax cut, 27.5 per cent in fact (you’ll realise how the treasurer is redeeming all this money in a second) from July 1 this year. BUT this won’t really come into effect until 2025…that’s if the Turnbull government goes swimmingly for four terms.

2. High Rollers

The upper limit for the middle income tax bracket increased from $80,000 to $87,000 meaning that if you’re a lucky duck who earns above $87,000, you’ll pay less tax. Collect $200 for passing go.

3. Transport i.e Roads

$3 billion will be spent on new infrastructure projects.

LOSERS

1. Uni students

Low socio-economic students (SES) will find it more difficult to attend uni. The government has slashed $152m from The Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program university scheme which helps low SES to study at uni.

2. Smokers

So if you’re a smoker now’s a good time to quit. The tobacco excise will be raised by 12.5% each year from 2017-20. So the sweet cash spent on smoking will eventually turn into $4.7bn.

3. Public broadcasters

Turnbull gov. will continue to fund the ABC and SBS, however because of the 2014 budget, public broadcast will actually receive a cut of 6.5%. The government has apparently also heard my prayers about wanting to become a legit paid journalist with their new PaTH scheme. $4 dollaroos an hour really seems like with this PaTH (Prepare, Trial and Hire) internship scheme.

4. Future Welfare

You’ll receive $14.10 less a fortnight than your mates who are already on welfare.

Anyway, Treasurer Scott Morrison made an appearance at some point and thought it was important to mention “It’s not a great big tax cut.” Ok Mr Morrison, whatever you say Mr Morrison. The clock ticked closer to 7.30pm, journalists were mumbling possible budget headlines, “‘Winners vs. Losers’…No, no it’s too original,” said a pained Fairfax journalist. Then 7.30pm hit. Amidst the panicking journalists sprinting to be the first ones to publish something on the 2016 budget, I can’t say I remembered too much after that either.

The post ICYMI Budget Hangover: Making Sense of the Haze appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.