Greens in London

Greens volunteers at Australia House, London
Some of the Greens volunteers

Voting started last week at the busiest polling place in Australian elections, Australia House situated on The Strand in London. The embassy is open all this week, including until 20:00 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The queues from the 2004 election
Queues at the 2004 election

Australia House saw more than 20,000 voters pass through last time, with queues wrapped around the block on the busiest evenings. Working hard to get as many Green votes as possible, while standing out in the cold, is a small team of Greens volunteers organized by the resourceful Michelle Wauchope (first on the left in the first photo) from South Australia.

"Many ex-pats do see the Greens has having an important role to play in Australia's future," booth coordinator Michelle said. "With the recent statistics about Australia being the worst Co2 polluters per capita, the refusal of Kyoto, our role in the Iraq war, and our treatment of refugees, Australia, and therefore Australians, are often poorly perceived by the people we brush up against every day."

Last election we were inside the Embassy itself, but this time party volunteers have been forced into the harsh London winter. Michelle has found relief from "a set of thermal pants under the trousers, a scarf and a decent jacket and jumper. Still wish we were in 32 degree days doing this though!"

So if you're over in London, get yourself down to the embassy and vote. If you're keen, help out the Greens at the booth.

The full timetable and details of voting are available on the Australian High Commission site. To get involved in the campaign in London and help out, get in touch with Michelle by email at london@greens.org.au.

Greens volunteers from 2004 election
Greens volunteers from 2004 election

Recruiters just don't get it

Recruiters just don't get this "ethics" thing, do they? With this behaviour, Charterhouse Partnership have joined my recruiter blacklist.

Yesterday I got this email from "Principle Consultant" Paul Roberts:

Good Afternoon,

I hope you don't mind the approach, I am emailing you as you have been
or are currently registered with Charterhouse Partnership. I am
currently working for a valued client and in such a tight candidate
market feel it correct to pursue every avenue on their behalf,
including possible referrals.

The role I am currently recruiting is a Tax Specialist for a unique,
global organisation listed on the ASX and headquartered in North
Western Sydney. They have experience exceptional growth and hence
increased complexity in their business, resulting in a newly created
position as Tax Specialist. The role will work with an existing Tax
Manager on tax compliance and planning issues across Australia and
Asia Pacific. A package of between $80k - $100k is on offer, the role
would suit someone with 1-4 years Australian tax experience.

I am actively seeking candidates for the role so if you know of anyone
that may fit the criteria please forward this email on to them
straight away. If you can recommend a friend or colleague and they are
successfully placed by Charterhouse Partnership (minimum 3 months),
you will be rewarded with a $250 voucher of your choice.

Paul Roberts
Principal Consultant

When I complained an demanded they remove me from my database, I got a perplexed reply, showing that he clearly doesn't understand why I think spamming me to do his job for him is unacceptable.

Simon,

I will happily remove you from our database but I don't think you have
taken note of the email title or it's content.

It was aimed at generating candidate referrals IE people you may know
with Tax experience, NOT approaching you about directly about a Tax
role.

Good luck in the future.

So the only reason I'm in this recruit scum's database is because I've applied for a job at some point in the past. So keeping it in their database is solely for the purpose of finding me a job. If they have a relevant position for me, I'm happy for them to contact me. Offering me special offers and asking me to shop my mates around is not part of the deal.

How is this different from him sending me vouchers to save money at the supermarket?

I guess given the compensation model of recruit scum, this shouldn't be surprising. They have little incentive to avoid poisoning the well if it might help them do their job. Soon enough, they'll have their commission and move on. The company, however, won't be so lucky.

Why vote for minor parties?

The Greens have done a great short video explaining how parliament works, and why voting Green in the upper house is so important, regardless of how you vote in the lower house.

A tax and spend election

This election I've spent some time making fun of the tax-dodging gun nuts, but they make an excellent point about Howard's campaign launch yesterday. While promising $4 million a second, the Liberals really put the lie to their self description as "fiscal conservatives". The elephant in the room is that their tax and spend culture has contributed enormously to inflation, which has forced up interest rates.

A risky but potentially knockout option for Labor would be to promise less and attempt to force the narrative in the direction Lindsay Tanner's description of Costello's 2007 Budget: "a budget built on preaching abstinence and practising incontinence". I suspect the Labor hard heads will look at the polls and decide not to take the risk.

So on election day, just remember that it's your money they're buying your vote with! Of course, the difference between me and the libertarians is that I don't mind governments taxing and spending, provided the money is spent on something more useful than another Olympic sized swimming pool for a ridiculously rich private school.

Floating utopias

Easily Confused pointed me at this great article (via Danny) about floating libertarian microstates. It's a remarkably common theme amongst the tax-dodging no-such-thing-as-society fear-the-black-UN-helicopters-who-want-your-guns set. I remember reading, with interest, about The Atlantis Project back in my early days on the Net.

It seems the most common factor amongst all these state opt-out projects is their continuing non-existence. The article is hysterical! I particularly love the closing line.

Make blog is gone

I've been reading the Make magazine blog since it launched, but recently I've found myself hitting "mark as read" for it. The problem is one of volume and repetition. I just don't have the time to read 20+ posts a day from a single blog. What's more, when they show a single item they often then include every possibly vaguely-related post in that blog entry.

So it's with heavy heart that I must unsubscribe. I've enjoyed the blog, with lots of very cool projects shown, but until they have an "edited highlights" version with less than 3 posts a day, I just can't keep up.