My Sunday Age piece, which both abuses and defends local government councillors, is here: “Clamp on conflict of interest may hobble sound judgement“

Weirdly, Henry Thornton, a friend of the Institute of Public Affairs, thinks that the IPA has been reluctant to talk about the financial crisis.

Considering the IPA has been extraordinarily prolific in its analysis since the crisis really hit a few weeks ago, this is a strange claim to make - for an example of some pieces on the crisis, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and my own modest effort here, all of which are available on the front page of our website. The IPA Review, which will hit newsstands and mailboxes sometime early next week, also has some significant commentary on the crisis.

I know for a fact that, as a rule, we will respond to pretty much every request for public commentary - many of the pieces linked above have been deliberately commissioned by print and online editors from across the country. Which is why it is strange to read this morning that we have been reluctant to write for Henry, on whatever topic.

The Institute of Public Affairs is putting on a new essay competition with some pretty lavish prizes: The 2009 Kennard Freedom Prize.

There are typically fewer submissions to most essay competitions than one would expect, so the chance of winning a prize is quite high.

And for the Kennard Freedom Prize, there are lots of things to win. There are two first prizes - one winner will head to Las Vegas for FreedomFest, and another winner will head to the Property and Freedom Society Conference in Bodrum, Turkey.

Furthermore, every entrant will go into the draw to win one of two Apple iPhones. And each entrant will also receive a one year subscription to the IPA Review.

The website contains all the information about the prize, including runner-up prizes, as well as a resource bank of online material on liberty in Australia and overseas. The competition is open to those who were born after 1st January 1981, and are Australian or New Zealand residents.

My Sunday Age column this week was on the financial crisis, and a partial defense of the “greed is good” mantra: “Why greed’s just too small a word to hang a crisis on”

A piece of legislation now currently winding its way through Victorian Parliament gives the Director of Liquor Licensing more flexibility in imposing entry declarations - that is, late night lockouts - on licensed venues, whether individually or as a group.

I’m no lawyer, but is it unusual to declare that “Director is not bound by any of the rules of natural justice”?

With the Liquor Control Reform Amendment Bill 2008, the Victorian government doesn’t appear to have given up on the 2am lockout yet. It would not be surprising to see lockouts be part of the Health Minister’s meeting in late November, which will, apparently have a focus on alcohol. After all, the Victorian government has been eager to tie the law and order problem of late night violence to Canberra’s binge drinking strategy.

I don’t have a particularly strong view about the Bill Henson photos that were such a bright flash in the political pan a few months ago - remember that more innocent time, when everybody was arguing about child exploitation, and not about how much canned soup we’ll need to stockpile for the financial winter?

The debate was only ever about the margins of art, pornography and consent, and consquently could only be resolved by subjective judgment calls.* Some people thought the line should be drawn one place, others thought it should be drawn another place - not a particularly interesting discussion, but one which managed to consume a lot of newsprint and blog inches. (At the time, I wrote about a much less publicised, but arguably more worrying case for free speech here.)

Nevertheless, this piece by David Marr on the Henson controversy seems to strike entirely the wrong note. One is entitled to be outraged that the police raided an art exhibition. But Marr seems more concerned that there was widespread condemnation and furious national debate over the validity of Henson’s artistic and moral judgment.

Even putting aside whether the public - wherever they are found, from radio talk show studios to the eponymous watercoolers - can deign to have an opinion on high art, Henson courted this controversy in the first place. He made an artistic decision, legitimate or illegitimate, to photograph minors in the nude. Nobody in their right mind would be unaware that such a decision could be controversial in some circles.

You can’t deliberately traverse bourgeois social mores and then claim to be the victim when society condemns you for doing so.

* UPDATE: Although Marr’s report that Henson sometimes browsed schoolyards for potential models makes this whole story take on a very creepy tone. If Marr’s book is supposed to be a defence of Henson, it is a spectacular failure.