What strange claim, Kanga.

>>I am no more at liberty to reveal my true identity than that dentist who speaks on behalf of a plaque-combating toothpaste<<

Of course you are at liberty to do so, Kanga. Unlike the "dentist", who is prevented from doing so by his profession's code of ethics.

You are however not obliged to, which is an entirely different concept.

>>The only reason Kanga would have to be ‘embarrassed’ at promoting Sheila Newman’s work would be if it were as manifestly inadequate...<<

I don't agree.

For one thing, your assessment of its adequacy is coloured by the fact you wrote it in the first place. For another, pretending to be a disinterested observer in an attempt to boost its credibility is - to say the very least - extremely tacky.

I think it speaks volumes about your character that you do not see this.

And if you are going to use the defence "well, Malcolm Turnbull does it", all you have achieved is to place yourself at his level.

I'm not sure that does a great deal for your argument.

In much the same way, you have managed to equate your work with the "‘grey fluff’ that is constantly incestuously promoted by the property development, finance and housing industries and their accomplice ‘think’-tanks, advertising agents, elected stooges and corporate mates."

If that was your objective, you have succeeded brilliantly.

>>And yet, the tiny efforts of those humble glove-puppet champions...<<

Is that how you see yourself? Good grief.

Have a great day.

Pericles,

Whether you are Kim Jong Il and whether Kanga is Meg Lees and whether I am really Campbell Newman is worse than irrelevant if we have nothing useful to contribute on the problem of affordable housing.

Not to have an argument is bad enough, but to have no sense of the absurdity of your focus on identities whilst you continue to masquerade as Pericles indicates a lack of the intelligence and the sense of humour that makes debate socially and intellectually rewarding

Daggett, I'm sure that little bit of late night venom made you feel righteous and worthy, but the fact remains that the standard of argument put forward by yourself and Kanga falls far short of convincing.

>>Not to have an argument is bad enough, but to have no sense of the absurdity of your focus on identities whilst you continue to masquerade as Pericles indicates a lack of the intelligence and the sense of humour that makes debate socially and intellectually rewarding<<

Let's examine this "absurdity" for a moment.

I pointed out that Newman's thesis was based upon an unrealistic set of comparisons. I laid out my argument for this, which has yet to be properly answered - simply referring back to the flawed text concerned is not, in my view, sufficient.

At this point it appeared that a contributor who protested my argument is, prima facie, the author of the text in question - a position that has also yet to be denied. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to describe that contributor's support as being also flawed, and to bring into question the ethics behind such actions.

Debate is "socially and intellectually rewarding" when it pays at least passing acknowledgement of some basic rules. One of these is that it is perfectly permissible, in the search for meaning within a text, to question the premises upon which it is based.

Another of those rules is that simply rep[eating something at great length is no more convincing than saying it once, and eventually detracts from the force of the original point.

Yet another of those rules is that the standing of the commentators can also be relevant, especially if they simply stand around saying "she's right, you know", when a more honest approach would be "I'm right, you know."

And who is Campbell Newman?

Pericles,

You wrote: "I pointed out that Newman's thesis was based upon an unrealistic set of comparisons."

You have done nothing of the sort!

Both France and Australia are advanced industrialised societies, both have people who need housing. They have roughly comparable populations and comparable amounts of fertile arable land as distinct from say, China, Uganda or Indonesia.

You have yet to answer the simple questions I put to you above (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#55660), including :

"If you dispute that France or any one of these countries make valid comparators, then what comparators would you suggest?"

So, as far as I am concerned, my conclusion still stands:

"Your seeming attempts to mislead and to to divert the discussion away from the substance of (the discussion)to side issues, can lead me to no conclusion other than that you have no wish to seriously discuss these issues.

"Rather, it seems that you intend to misuse your voice on this forum to prevent people understanding the evidence which shows that population growth leads to the increase in the price of land and that is why property speculators have lobbied fiercely in favour of it, without any regard to the welfare of those already living in this country, our environment or our long term sustainability."

Clearly, until things change, any further discussion with you on this issue is a waste of time.

I would encourage others to read for themselves the evidence contained in the contributions made by those of us who have tried to point out the negative correlation between housing affordability on the one hand, and population size, globalisation and the increasing use of the Internet by property speculators on the other, and judge for themselves.

I would urge them not to be sidetracked by irrelevant concerns such as your personal attacks against Kanga and myself, and by your subjective judgement of the quality of Newman's Master's thesis and submission (downloadable from http://www.candobetter.org/sheila).

See http://www.notunnels.org about Campbell Newman, Lord Mayor of Brisbane who is building extravagently priced tunnels as a 'solution' to the traffic congestion caused by the population growth he is actively encouraging.

Daggett, you are a past master at missing the point.

My question, "why France?"

>>Both France and Australia are advanced industrialised societies, both have people who need housing. They have roughly comparable populations and comparable amounts of fertile arable land as distinct from say, China, Uganda or Indonesia.<<

There are a number of other "advanced industrialised societies", so that doesn't qualify.

Every country has "people who need housing", so that isn't a differentiator.

France has three times the population of Australia. How can that be termed "roughly comparable"? Is eating one Big Mac for lunch "roughly comparable" to eating three of them? Are the problems of a city with twelve million people, say Beijing, "roughly comparable" to one of four million, such as Sydney. Or Abidjan.

France has around 180,000 sq km of arable land, Australia has close to 500,000. "Roughly comparable"?

Only on the level of the most gross generalization can you show any comparability between the two countries, which leaves the impression that it was chosen to illustrate the point the author wanted to make, as opposed to having sufficient baseline similarities to make the comparison meaningful.

>>"If you dispute that France or any one of these countries make valid comparators, then what comparators would you suggest?"<<

With the greatest respect, it is not up to me to make alternative suggestions.

Where I come from, if I were to claim that the world is riding on the back of a giant turtle called the Great A'Tuin, I would expect you to ask for some evidence.

It would not be acceptable justification for me to say "because a tortoise wouldn't be strong enough".

And if you raised an objection to my theory, it would certainly not be appropriate for me to respond "if it isn't a turtle, what animal do you suggest it is?".

And as far as "personal attacks against Kanga and myself" are concerned, I encourage you to check your own - and her - previous posts for their sobriety and politeness.

Pericles, you wrote: "it is not up to me to make alternative suggestions."

Of course not!

My apologies for not allowing you to go on knocking the ideas of others, without putting forward any of your own.

Sheila Newman should have realized that the fact that throughout nearly all of the post-war period France was able to keep the cost of decent affordable housing well within the means of all of its citizens, whilst Australia has manifestly failed to do the same, was of no interest to Australians and she should not have tried to confuse the picture that the property developers and land speculators were attempting to present to the Housing affordability enquiry.

And please don’t, on my account, take your head out of the sand in regards to the population driven water crisis that has now gripped Victoria as well as New South Wales, Queensland, and West Australia.