Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Ben Cannon is heartened to see youth crime rates go down but says repeat offenders are a key issue(ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)
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Queensland
is frequently portrayed as being in the grips of a worsening crime
epidemic, largely due to a growing cohort of seemingly uncontrollable
youths.
The data on the state's
crime rates is freely available, but the picture it paints is far more
nuanced than what some media reports would imply.
Is crime getting worse?
Monthly
figures from the Queensland Police Service shows that over the past 20
years, crime rates have decreased for nearly all categories.
Notable
exceptions include rape, assault and shop theft, which all
saw significant increases, but the long-term crime trend is
overwhelmingly downwards.
The short-term trend, however, tells a different story.
The
rate of break-ins has doubled since July 2020, from 37 offences per
100,000 people in the population, compared to last month's rate of 74
offences per 100,000.
But this
increase comes off the back of the COVID-19 lockdown period, when the
break-in rate plummeted 59 per cent between March and July 2020.
This
same pattern is reflected in other categories like car theft rates,
which fell 51 per cent between March and July 2020 before making a
resurgence to pre-pandemic levels.
But
despite the short-term increases across some categories in the
post-lockdown period, it does not change the overall long-term downwards
trajectory.
Are young people behind the crimes?
Queenslanders aged between 10 and 17 commit more crimes than the general population, a trend that is echoed across every state.
But data from the Bureau of Statistics shows the gap has been rapidly closing as the rate of youth offending continues to fall.
Twelve
years ago, there was a 31.5 per cent gap between the youth
offender crime rate and the general population, but in the
2021-2022 financial year it shrunk to 5.5 per cent.
The
types of crimes committed differed between the general population and
youth offenders, with their rate of robberies nearly four times higher
and break-ins three times higher.
The rate of homicides was similar between youth offenders and the general population.
In
the 2021-2022 financial year, the largest cohort of criminals was the
20-24 age bracket, which made up for more than 15 per cent of offenders.
In Queensland, 23.2 per cent of youth offenders had committed three crimes or more, with 61.8 per cent being one-off offenders.
Is Queensland worse than other states?
According to the Bureau of Statistics, Queensland
had the third highest rate of crime in Australia, behind New South
Wales and the Northern Territory, which far outstripped other
jurisdictions.
In the
2021-2022 financial year, Queensland's crime rate was 1,761.9 per
100,000 people, compared with 1,891.9 in NSW and 4,061.5 in the NT.
Since
2008, Queensland has remained decidedly middle of the pack, jostling
for third and fourth place with states such as Tasmania.
In 2022, Queensland was third place in terms of its proportion of repeat youth offenders.
During
that time the NT has consistently had higher crime rates, while the ACT
has consistently had lower crime rates than the rest of the country.
Repeat offending a big issue
Voice for Victims campaigner Ben Cannon said he was heartened to hear that youth crime rates had fallen in the long-term.
But Mr Cannon said in his view there was much more to be done to reduce Queensland's rate of youth offending.
"That
is excellent to hear we're going down, but I think the community
sentiment is that they're feeling at the mercy of some of these
criminals," he said.
"Repeat
offending, in my view, is one of the biggest issues we've got, where we
don't have a good framework to capture these young criminals and put
them on a different path."
Tech companies have used the work of hundreds of Australian authors to train generative AI tools without their consent.(Penguin Books, Text Publishing, Pan Macmillan Australia, Harper Collins Australia and ABC Everyday: Christian Harimanow)
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Australian
authors including Peter Carey, Helen Garner, Tim Winton, Jane Harper
and Miles Franklin have been swept up in a Silicon-Valley-based AI
scandal.
Analysis of a dataset
of pirated ebooks, known as Books3, has revealed works by some of the
world's most successful authors, including John Grisham, Colleen Hoover
and Stephen King, have been used to train generative AI.
"[We
know] AI systems are trained by ingesting vast amounts of text …
scraped from the internet," says Olivia Lanchester, CEO of the
Australian Society of Authors (ASA).
"But
the lack of transparency over what has been used to train generative AI
means that authors haven't known whether their works have been used."
Now, many do know — and they are furious.
"We
have been receiving phone calls and emails from Australian authors
who've been dismayed and outraged to learn that their works have been
appropriated without their permission," Lanchester says.
In September, The Atlantic published a tool
to search Books3 after reporter Alex Reisner identified author
information for 183,000 of the 191,000 ISBNs he extracted from the
dataset, used to train Meta's LLaMA, Bloomberg's BloombergGPT and
EleutherAI's GPT-J.
The Books3 creator, Shaun Presser, told The Atlantic
he developed the dataset as a high-quality training resource for other
independent developers to allow them to compete with tech giants such as
OpenAI, which is believed to have trained ChatGPT using mystery
datasets known as Books1 and Books2.
The Silicon Valley way
Irish-born
crime writer Dervla McTiernan was incensed to learn her bestselling
crime novel, The Ruin (2018), was one of the thousands in the
collection.
"It's outright theft. People who stole all of these books … did it for the purposes of making money," she says.
Companies like OpenAI and Meta "are 100 per cent acting in their own self interest," says McTiernan, the author of four novels.(Supplied: HarperCollins/Julia Dunin)
McTiernan, who lives in Perth, believes the companies knew the dataset contained stolen material.
"They
knew they were using pirated books, and they did so with gross
indifference, and I think that's characteristic of the mentality of
people who work in this industry," she says.
"It
was Facebook that had the motto … 'move fast and break things'. Well,
we're the things that are being broken, and we're not very happy about
it."
Weren't there other options?
Professor Toby Walsh, Chief Scientist at UNSW's AI Institute, is one of Australia's leading AI experts.
He was disappointed to find one of his books, Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI (2022), in the Books3 dataset.
"If
you just want to train a chatbot to speak English, there are tens of
thousands of books that are out of copyright that they could have used,"
he says.
"It's typical of the cavalier way that people in Silicon Valley treat people's intellectual property."
Lanchester says more than 30 authors affected by the Books3 scandal have contacted the ASA.(Supplied: Olivia Lanchester)
Lanchester agrees.
"AI
developers could have trained their systems on works that are in the
public domain, or they could have sought a license from the copyright
owners, but instead, they've ingested copyright works without seeking
permission," she says.
"This
has been done disregarding copyright laws, and it's treating authors'
works as though they're a public commodity, which ignores the fact that
there's a real cost of creation and that licensing is how authors earn a
living."
Lanchester says the
ASA is not "anti-technology" but argues that tech companies should
acknowledge the value of the authors' work in the development of
generative AI tools.
"They
couldn't have built the AI systems they've built without high-quality
inputs, and there was a real opportunity for authors' works to be
licensed and for the creative and intellectual labour to be
recognised. Instead, their works have just been appropriated," she says.
Legal ramifications for AI overreach
Tech
giants, including Meta and OpenAI, face several lawsuits in the US over
their alleged use of authors' work without their permission.
Two
authors, Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay, filed a lawsuit against Open AI
in July, claiming OpenAI used their copyrighted books to train ChatGPT
without their consent. They say the AI tool generates "very accurate
summaries" of their work.
Other
lawsuits have been filed against the tech companies by comedian Sarah
Silverman and Michael Chabon, who won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction for his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
In
September, a group of high-profile authors, including George RR Martin,
Jodi Picoult, John Grisham and Roxane Gay, filed a joint suit with the
Authors Guild against OpenAI.
While
the suit accuses the company of "systemic theft" and "mass copyright
infringement", OpenAI and Meta have claimed their use of authors' work
amounts to "fair use".
"This is
a new way of using people's copyrighted material, and the courts have
yet to decide whether it's fair use, whether it's within the bounds of
the law or not," says Walsh.
A meaningful threat
Lanchester says generative AI poses a direct threat to authors' livelihoods.
"We're concerned that the market is going to be flooded with inferior AI-generated content.
"A
market crowded with AI material doesn't serve anyone. It makes
discoverability harder for professional writers and lowers quality for
consumers."
OpenAI, the tech giant behind AI-powered language model ChatGPT, is valued at US$90 billion. (Getty Images: Stockcam)
McTiernan also questions the viability of a literary career in a marketplace dominated by AI.
McTiernan
says ChatGPT might be a "bad writer" now, but she worries that in three
to five years, generative AI tools will be able to create works similar
in character to contemporary authors that will be offered in direct
competition with their original novels.
"If
[tech companies like Amazon, Apple and Meta] are able to generate their
own books and stories, why would they sell anything else? Why would
they give prominence in the market to any sort of competing efforts? I
don't see why they would."
What will Australian authors do next?
Writing is already a precarious occupation in Australia, where the average annual income for an author is $18,200.
While
McTiernan says the writers she has spoken to "would love to have the
opportunity to take action", for many, it is not an option.
"[Given]
what authors are earning as a general rule in Australia, how many
authors are in a position to fund or even contribute to the costs of
litigation? Very few," McTiernan says.
"This
is, again, one of the situations we find these days where these massive
wealthy companies can take this sort of action, almost with impunity,
because they know the people that they're damaging most are not in a
position to take action against them."
Lanchester says ASA intends to continue to advocate for authors.
"We
are advocating to the government and hoping there will be a pathway
forward to negotiate licensing solutions with the tech sector," she
says.
"We're watching the US
litigation brought by the Authors Guild with real interest and
absolutely cheering those authors on, and … we're trying to get a handle
on the number of Australian authors affected. We think that there will
be many.
"It's incredibly difficult because there are complex legal and jurisdictional issues to grapple with."
While
Professor Walsh concedes the risks posed by AI may require specific
regulation, he says existing laws governing intellectual property and
privacy could be applied "more forcibly to the tech space" to rein in
unlawful conduct.
"I'm not sure
that now the tech industry is such … a large component of our lives
whether it can be left to be the free-for-all, to be the Wild West that
it has been for the last 20 years."
After the voice referendum on 14 October, an act of leadership will be needed to knit the country back together
I thought: that bloke’s done.
Victorian politics is outside my wheelhouse, so I had zero intelligence that Andrews was on the brink of quitting. All I saw (and later referenced in passing)
was the former premier’s very evident burnout. Andrews looked more
spent than the last time I had seen him (which would have been some time
back in February or March). He looked like a man who had enough.
Burnout
feels relevant again in our politics. There has been an exodus at the
state level. Mark McGowan, Peter Gutwein and Michael Gunner all ejected
from the arena before Andrews. It feels reasonable to wonder how long
Annastacia Palaszczuk, hounded by the media and white-anted by colleagues, will last.
Burnout
is an ever-present risk for people in public office. The most effective
political leaders live in a constant state of hyper-vigilance. They
scan the horizon for incoming risks and run multiple scenarios in their
heads at once. It’s an occupational necessity, but it’s an exhausting
and unnatural way to live.
The battle-scarred
Andrews survived longer than most. It is pretty amazing he was still
upright given the complexity he has had to manage over recent years. I
watched him navigate those freefall months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the
time before vaccines. The pandemic picked the world up and put it down
in a different place, and Victoria bore the brunt of draconian measures
intended to lower the death toll.
Political leaders tend to burn out faster when their operating environment feels hostile to humans;
when the daily practice of politics feels drained of collegiality; when
the whole ecosystem cycles between paranoia and pageantry.
Andrews
didn’t seem to face much partisan pressure because the Liberal party in
Victoria looks to be in disarray. But he lived in a boiling cauldron
nonetheless. The premier faced a barrage of baying and sometimes bullying media coverage.
Let’s
be clear. Given Andrews seemed to preside over a one-party state,
persistent press scrutiny of his premiership was entirely valid and
necessary. The former premier certainly wasn’t a saint, and the most
cursory glance at his strong-man demeanour tells you he didn’t love
scrutiny.
Abbott was an enthusiastic polariser. Turnbull wasn’t, which proved a sackable offence in the Liberal party.
But
the media bullying Andrews faced was gratuitous. Some of it looked
nuts, frankly. Who (apart from his GP) cares if the premier has a sneaky
fag outside a function? What was all that kooky business about the
stairs?
Thinking about Andrews in his cauldron leads me back to my own theatre, which is the national political scene.
A few years ago, I found myself writing about political burnout
frequently because the torrid atmospherics warranted it. Canberra was,
truly, a cauldron. Things were genuinely terrible during that decade of
unhinging – the war between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard,
the slugfest inside the Liberals that saw leadership passed between
Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, back to Turnbull, then finally rest with Scott Morrison.
Canberra’s
deranged coup culture was fuelled by a disrupted media chasing
spectacle to engage readers and viewers in the new digital world, and
the internal instability inside the major parties was the backing track
for the pulverising hyper-partisan politics of the period.
It’s
a simple, albeit depressing, formula. Extreme partisanship drives
extreme polarisation. Extreme polarisation always delivers freak show
politics and it empowers and validates freak show narration of politics
by the mainstream media – a symbiosis that fatigues a country.
Fatigue
isn’t the only problem. During the polarisation peaks of the recent
past, trust fell in government. If we look at data from the Scanlon
Foundation’s Mapping Social Cohesion report, trust in government started
to wane after 2009 as we entered the decade of unhinging. It began to recover in 2019,
but the significant positive movement happened in 2020 when the
governments of Australia worked together during the pandemic. Most of
2020 was a period of constructive deliberation. When that goodwill
fractured, trust in government declined again.
Division
staged for its own sake, for its own ends, makes everything feel
sisyphean, because it is a deadlock strategy. It is a strategy for
spinning wheels. Abbott was an enthusiastic polariser. Turnbull wasn’t,
which proved a sackable offence in the Liberal party. Morrison had a
foot in both camps. Anthony Albanese has tried to quieten the whole
arena because he knows the country suffers from conflict fatigue. But Peter Dutton is back on the tools because he likes high visibility contrast.
The
voice to parliament referendum has pushed Australia back into another
cycle of pronounced polarisation. Albanese hoped he was doing the
opposite – staging a moment of national unity and inclusion by pursuing
the voice. Instead, Australian politics and the conversation orbiting around it has served up the worst of times.
My colleague Lorena Allam, a Gamilaraay and Yuwalaraay woman, has described what it has been like;
feeling like a punching bag “belted about by unrelated resentments:
about welcomes to country, perceived special treatment and nasty
stereotypes disguised as jokes”. Being adjacent to this makes me feel
sick.
Given
Dutton has done everything he possibly can to sink the yes vote, given
the strategy has been contention at any cost, I asked Albanese this week
whether proceeding with the referendum still felt like a good idea. We
thrash this conundrum out for the best part of half an hour on my podcast, which you can listen to this morning.
Albanese
argues it was impossible for him to walk away from an election
commitment he’d repeated dozens of times, unthinkable to tell the
Indigenous leaders on the referendum working group “just hold on, we’ll
wait until everyone is agreed”, impossible to turn his back on the
“enormous support and goodwill” from faith groups, corporates, sporting
codes.
Given the heightened moment we find ourselves in, we also canvas a scenario where all the polls are wrong,
and Australians vote yes on 14 October. Might the no camp go full Trump
and start declaring the referendum has been stolen? Once upon a time
this would have been a ridiculous question, but it doesn’t feel
ridiculous when the no campaign has been so obviously informed by
Trumpian strategy, and when the leader of the opposition has talked publicly about “rigged” processes.
Albanese
says it’s true that some people buy in to conspiracies and “rhetorical
positions … but it’s a minority”. The prime minister says he has faith
in Australian common sense and he insists our democratic systems are
robust. He says: “If a yes vote is carried I think overwhelmingly the
nation will move on pretty quickly.”
Whether
it’s yes or no on referendum night, given the revival of forces that
seek to profit through division and rancour, and given the validation a
no vote on 14 October will give those forces – an act of leadership will
be required to knit the country back together after this question is
resolved.
It doesn’t quite feel enough, but it’s all we’ve got.
Donald Trump has made many claims about his net worth over the years.(Reuters: Jonathan Drake/File)
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A New York judge has ruled that former US president Donald Trump lied about his wealth for a decade, defrauding banks and insurers as he built his real estate empire.
It is one of many legal cases Mr Trump is facing while he ramps up his 2024 presidential campaign to return to the White House.
As the New York state court in
Manhattan continues to dissect Mr Trump's business dealings and his
claims of astronomical wealth with a trial set to begin next week,
here's what has happened so far and what it all means.
What's this case about again?
The case is one of three civil cases Mr Trump is facing, in addition to four criminal cases that are underway.
It was brought by New York State Attorney-General Letitia James, who accuses Mr Trump, his adult sons and the Trump Organization of lying for a decade about asset values and his net worth to get better terms from banks and insurers.
Some
of the assets include Mr Trump's golf courses, hotels, his penthouse at
Trump Tower and his Mar-a-Lago and Seven Springs homes.
Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York state court found Mr Trump liable for fraudulently inflating his assets, making it easier for Ms James to establish damages at trial.
Mr Trump insists he has done nothing wrong.
How much is Trump actually worth?
Forbes estimated Mr Trump's net worth to be $US2.5 billion ($3.9 billion) in April 2023.
Justice
Engoron said Ms James submitted "conclusive evidence" that Mr Trump had
overstated his net worth by between $US812 million and $US2.2 billion.
Over the years, Mr Trump has often made claims of his net worth.
When launching his presidential campaign in 2015, he said his total wealth was at $US8.7 billion.
"I'm really rich," Mr Trump said at the campaign announcement.
"I
have total net worth of $8.73 billion. I'm not doing that to brag. I'm
doing that to show that's the kind of thinking our country needs."
A month later, his office put out a statement saying his net worth had grown to over $US10 billion.
Mr Trump's actual net worth in 2015 was $US4.1 billion, according to Forbes.
So what are the consequences for him?
In a civil case, there's no risk of going to prison, but Mr Trump could suffer significant financial losses.
The
attorney-general is seeking $US250 million in damages, a five-year ban
on Mr Trump's company to engage in business transactions, as well as
preventing him and his sons from serving as officers of a business in
New York.
The former
president's legal cases are also likely to pack his schedule as he
campaigns for a return to the White House, but they won't stop him from
running.
Donald Trump inflated the value of many of his assets, including his penthouse in Trump Tower, a judge has ruled.(Reuters: Caitlin Ochs)
What about the tax stuff?
Exaggerating his net worth is not the only financial scandal Mr Trump has been embroiled in.
As
many may remember, his taxes were a burning question after he became
the first US president in decades to not release his tax information
during his campaign.
In late 2022, the US house of representatives released his tax returns from 2015 to 2020, showing that he had declared negative income and paid little to no income tax over that period.
Prior to the release, Mr Trump fought a three-year legal battle to keep his tax returns away from the public.
As to his tax returns after leaving the office, we don't know.
What happens next?
Justice
Engoron's decision resolves the key claim in Ms James's lawsuit, but
several others remain to be decided at trial, which could go on for
months.
The trial is set to begin on October 2.
Mr Trump and his lawyers plan to appeal Justice Engoron's decision and have sought to delay the trial.
