Monopoly Australia - Internet

Australia has a long history of creating wealth by contrived scarcity licensing. A government licence enables wealth transfer from consumers of the resource to holder of the licence.

Badly privatised monopolies like Telstra are some of the worst examples of contrived scarcity licensing.

Why we all hate Telstra
"Where are the hot spots?" I asked.

"Oh," he replied, "we don't have open hot spots in Australia. Our bandwidth is metered — no one can afford an open point for access to the net."

Coming from the United States, I was accustomed to free, wireless internet in nearly every space where people gathered — I even began to see it as a necessity. How had things turned out so differently in Australia?

"A few years back," Weiley replied, "Telstra — that's the national telco — made an agreement with all the internet providers in Australia that set the price of data traffic incredibly high."

I asked: "Isn't there any way around Telstra?" He gave me a sarcastic grin. "No. They control the cables that go overseas. They've made it impossible for anyone else to build a competing service."

From that moment, I hated Telstra with a passion.

Monopoly Australia - Doctors

Australia has a long history of creating wealth by contrived scarcity licensing. A government licence enables wealth transfer from consumers of the resource to holder of the licence. The medical field specialises in licences and high salaries to licence holders and barriers to entry are testament to their success.

Doctor shortage: 10 years before a cure can be found
AUSTRALIA'S system of registering and accrediting foreign medical graduates is so "dysfunctional" hat the country is likely to face chronic doctor shortages for another decade, says a Canadian-born doctor.

Married - by order of the Government

Till debt do us part: a rude shock for de factos
Here is another case of yet another question that can no longer be decided by individuals, but must now be decided by the government. The question is whether two people should be married. Before the de facto marriage was created by government, people could either decide to marry or decide to not marry. The two people involved made the decision. But now government deems that two people may not make the decision not to marry. In fact government will pry into their affairs, and depending on what they have been doing to each other in which bedrooms, paid for by whom, and for how long, government will decide they are in fact married.

"Marriage is being imposed on everyone whether they like it or not," says Patrick Parkinson, professor of law at the University of Sydney. "It will come as a shock to some people."
Yeh, that is exactly the problem.

Nazstralia

Concern as police bugging power widens
NSW takes another step toward a police state. Now police will be able to bug anyone at any time without Court approval for up to 4 days. They can go on fishing expeditions for 4 days and if they find nothing of interest, simply destroy the records and don't ask a court for approval. Or they can bug for 4 days, ask a court for approval, and what if the court rejects the request? Sure the evidence will be destroyed, but the police can remember what they saw or heard.

Mr Hatzistergos said. "The law says the emergency powers may be used if there is an imminent threat of serious violence or substantial damage to property, or if a serious narcotics offence could be committed.
Yeh, that means the emergency powers can be used whenever the police want.