A government grant

That used to be the answer to the age old question, What's the difference between art and porn. Now, the answer is unclear.

For those of you who have not been following the news, celebrated Australian photo artist Bill Henson has had an exhibition in a Sydney Art gallery shut down and pieces of his work confiscated, including pieces that have been owned by galleries all over Australia and toured a lot of regional galleries for a decade.

Why? Because they are pictures of naked adolesences.

Police are investigating and are confident that charges will be laid any down now.

This has galvanised the Australian community into two, well three sides actually. The art "Leave him alone, it's not porn, it's art you neanderthals!" community, the "It's not art, it's vile and any sexualisation of children is wrong, let me wrap you up in more bubble wrap my dear" Community (which includes the PM) and the "Let me make it clear, I do not like looking at naked children in any way, but I think there is a different between art and porn, no I made it clear I do not like looking at naked children at all" Community.

Personally, I fall somewhere between the first and last group. I can't comment on the pieces confiscated as I haven't seen them, but I have seen some of Henson's work and as far as I can tell it was not erotic or pornographic. I may not be an art expert but there is a difference.

The controversy that this has raised several problems for me

First, our political leaders, who have made oaths to up hold our laws and traditions, coming out and condemning the man without not only having seen the photos in question, but before any charges have been laid. PM Rudd said he did not "understand why we can't allow kids to enjoy something of the innocence of childhood". "I find them absolutely revolting ... Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly, I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids," Brendan Nelson claimed the photographs violated Australian values and said it was "time for us to take a stand".

One of our first and often cited values and a legal tenant is "Innocent til proven guilty." Now I'm not naive enough to believe this is true, as the wider community will often jump to their own conclusions, usually around the water cooler or the bar. But Rudd is our highest elected official. Part of the legal process, the legislative arm. He has a duty to up hold our legal tenants. All elected officials do and they should let the judicial system do it's job before condemning a person.

Second, there is the usual outcry that child protection laws need to be strengthen. One proposal will make naked shots of children illegal, including shots of babies' in nappy commercials. This seems a little extreme to me and has some scary implications. How far would such laws go? Would it be illegal to own or take photos of naked children all together? Goodbye those embarrassing photos wheeled out at 16th, 18th or 21st birthday parties of first nappy change, first potty or first bathtime. Parent's pissing you off, just report them to the cops, books full of child porn in their cupboards. Christian groups could have mass photo abulm burnings.

Thirdly, and this I consider the most interesting one, is nudity automatically pornography? As far as I can tell, the models were not doing anything sexually related (aside from being naked). Not kissing, or touching anything (such as each other, themselves etc) in a sexual manner. Not in sexual poses or doing anything to suggest sex or sexual activity except being naked.

Is nudity a sexual activity? The art community is claiming no. They claim that nudity expresses vulnerability and a loss of identity.

I have to agree with them. A torture technique (or extreme interrogation method) is to strip a person naked. As this makes them vulnerable and takes away their identity.

People wear clothing for more then warmth and physical protection. They are part of who we are. Think back to your childhoods and the various different styles worn by the various cliques. Nerds were buttoned up collars with pocket protectors, goths all in black and red with dog collars, pop queens in the lastest fad etc. Now look at your own wardrobe. I personally own something like five T-shirts, three collar shirts, 1 pair of jeans, two pairs of trousers (one for work, one for formal) a long coat etc. All in the basic black or dark colours. What this says about my personality I have no idea, but the important thing is I wouldn't feel like me in a bright green tropical shirt.

And if nudity is a sexual activity then all my National Geographics, my medical text books, my history text books etc will have to removed from my bookshelves and placed under my bed where they belong. Actually I should hand myself in, I'm sure there's pictures of naked children or parts of naked children in my medical text books. Most certainly in National Geographic.

And finally, who is really the dark and twisted element of society? The artist trying to make art or his detractors who see naked children as sexual objects?

Opposition, Medicare and old farts

The budget aftermath. This is when the government starts to jump up and down to defend any cuts/spending, oppositions savage the government and put forward wild spending ideas (safe in the knowledge that they will be largely ignored) and special interest groups crying "What about me?"

And despite this being what some people called a "neutral" budget, a "safe" budget, the aftermath has occurred.

Sort of.

The two headed giant know as the opposition (Nelson and Turnbull) has indeed put forward wild ideas on what they would spend money on. Well, one idea actually, the fuel excise. And I'm sure that once they stop trying to bite each others head off, they proceed with the savaging of the budget.

Any day now.

So far they managed to accuse the government of being high taxing and high spending, while not taxing or spending enough. They have threatened to use their senate majority to block taxes on premix drinks and changes to the medicare levy and blow the budget out of the water. The majority they hold til June.

The opposition claim that the premix drink tax is nothing more then a blatant revenue grab and has nothing to do with curbing binge drinking, as their research shows that young girls aren't binge drinking as much as they use too.

As the opposition been in a pub or club lately? I often see them stagger out of the pub across the road, on my way to work. I can't help but also notice that the young man who trips over someone's feet on the way to the bar will be refused service but the young woman dancing on the tables with her underpants on her head can still be served.

The opposition then points out that cask wine and beer has a low tax and if the government was serious about curbing binge drinking they would tax by standard drink. (Which would of course bring in more revenue)

The medicare surplus levy, brought in by the Howard government to encourage people to take up private health cover, will have it's threshold increased after ten years of an amazing economic boom, lowest unemployment and "real wage" increase. Now I think the new threshold of $100,000 (single. $150,000 family.) is a tad high. But if the threshold isn't visited again for another ten years then fair enough.

The private health industry is furious. (Surprise, surprise) They claim that hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, will abandon their private cover and opt for public cover. It gets interesting when you see that they claim that it will mostly be young single people who don't make claims leaving in droves and then placing the public cover in crisis as it won't have the funds to cope.

Hang on, people who don't actually need private cover will suddenly strain the public system.

Nope, still not making sense. Lets try again: People who don't make claims will suddenly, en masse, jump into public hospital beds.

The industry claim that by having these young people jump ship, rates will go up and poor people will leave the system.

But the government has to approve rate rises, which they're not going to do right after the budget. Not if the industry is going to pin it on them. Plus, people in private cover still opt for public care over private.

Why?

Because public is free. Private requires a co-charge, gap, whatever the hell you call it. Sure, there is a lot of advantage to private cover - it covers services that public doesn't, but when given the choice it's boils down to gap versus queue. If the queue isn't needless long, or the gap is too high, people go public.

So some how I don't think it will be much burden on the public sector.

Now to the special interest groups. The pensioners where incensed about the budget as it did not increase the pension. The pensioners gathered en masse and protested and stripped off their clothes.

Now it may be that I'm biased because of my job, but seeing old people strip off their clothes doesn't make me what to give them more money, but take them back to their rooms until they settle down before letting play anymore bingo for the day.

I mean, what the hell was that going to achieve? They look like a bunch of demented nuts who escaped from the local nursing home

That aside I do agree that the pension should be increased. However since then not a day has gone by when I haven't heard some pensioner on the radio or read in the letters to the editor a pensioner griping about the lack of rise.

"The average wage is $1,100 a week, where the pension for a single is only $264 and yet we have the same living costs. We should get near the average wage" Wrote one pensioner in the Herald on Monday.

Hang on, same living costs? Like FUCKING HELL!

Okay you old farts (an old fart is someone who believes they have the same cost as an young person) listen up. First of all, that figure of $1,100 is gross. As a pensioner you don't pay tax. Because if you're a pensioner you are getting the pension, which means you can not have an external income source above a certain amount which means you DON"T PAY TAXES

Second, your travel on state transit is subsided. Do you know how much it costs you to travel on state trains or buses anywhere in NSW for the day. $2.50, that's all. Anywhere in NSW for the entire day. And if you do have to catch private buses, you get concession price anyway, so hardly the same living costs.

Third, electricity, water and gas are also subsidised. So are hair cuts, movie tickets, theatre tickets etc.

And you the one group who can still bulk bill at any doctor!

And if you're an old age pensioner then you shouldn't have to worry about a mortgage.

SO WHAT SAME LIVING COSTS ARE THERE?

So to those old farts I say this. Get a haircut and a real job.