Economically, I am pretty firmly a socialist. I don't think that the state should own or control all industry, but I believe that essential services such as health, education, transport, water and electricity supply, and telecommunications infrastructure should be owned, controlled or heavily regulated by the state. Outside of these natural-monopoly forming essential services, individual businesses can and should be allowed to operate, with the caveat that they are monitored and regulated by the state to ensure that they meet their social and environmental obligations. The current political and economic climate in this and other countries assumes that businesses have little or no such obligations, which I believe is damaging and unsustainable. The state is also obliged to ensure that people are provided with a minimum standard of living in which their basic needs are met - in most western countries this entails some form of welfare payments for those unable to meet these needs on their own, but I am in favour of a social wage paid to all citizens and residents and the abolition of such welfare bodies with their compliance rules and checks.

    In a nutshell, I believe that the function and purpose of the state is to provide people with the infrastructure to enable them to live their lives and conduct their business. Further, I believe that this is the full extent of the state's purpose, and that it should not ever intrude into an individual's life, choices, or private affairs, except as necessary to fulfill this function (eg, to protect people from violence or harm perpetrated by another individual). People should have maximum freedom to do as they wish, even if what they do leads to self-harm, and the state should only intervene to mediate when a clash of freedoms aor right occurs between two individuals, or to protect an individual's freedom and rights from the actions of another that will infringe on those rights. It is not the state's job to act as a nanny, to be a moral arbitor or to "protect us from ourselve". For instance, I believe that criminalising drug use is a pointless waste of time and effort and only makes the problems associated with drug use worse by forcing them underground. IMHO, the only reasonable approach is to legalise drug use, regulate the supply for quality and then treat drug abuse and dependance as the health and social problems that they are, rather than turning them into criminal issues and ignoring the real problems. In one fell swoop this would remove most of the secondary crimes associated with drug trafficing and use that currently plague us.

    Some of my thoughts on social and political issues can be found here on my Live Journal (also contains listings of relevant political discussions on other people's journals).

Amnesty International - "You have the right to remain silent".

UNICEF, UNICEF Australia - the United Nations Children's Fund, is affiliated with the UN but receives no funding from it, all funding comes from donations. The work of UNICEF is based on the premise that by improving the helath, education and prospects of children, you improve conditions for the whole community. UNICEF is often the first organisation "on the ground" during a humanitarian crisis, working to protect the most vulnerable members of society - children.

Project Gutenberg and Project Gutenberg Australia - I firmly believe that the Internet is a very powerful tool for ordinary people to become informed and have their opinions heard. This site makes out-of-copyright material freely available to all.

Electronic Frontier Foundation and Electronic Frontiers Australia - With the rapid advance of technology, the law is often left lagging behind, and unscrupulous individuals and organisations are taking advantage of this to push their own agendas and erode rights and freedoms that have long been taken for granted in traditional media. Organisations like these work to defend the public domain and individual freedoms in the digital world.

NSW Coucil For Civil Liberties - With the so-called "War On Terror", we are currently experiencing a period of renewed attacks on and erosions of civil liberties and individual freedoms, with the amorphous and ambiguous "national security" being used as a thinly-veiled disguise for special interest groups and lobbies to push their own moral and social agendas. Organisations like this (similar to the ACLU in America) are vital in the fight to defend these hard-won freedoms.

Grameen Bank, Grameen Bank Australian Support Group - We in the developed nations give millions of dollars to help people in underdeveloped countries out of life-threatening poverty. Why then does it remain? Partly its because most aid organisations, by their very natures, are inefficient at filtering the money through their beauracracies. Partly the governments of these nations interfere in aid projects. Partly because simply handing money or even infrastructure to people does not really help them to develop the initiative to raise above it in the longer term. And partly because there is no change made in the underlying social structures that contribute to or cause the problems. So is there a solution? Check these links out to see one that is really working, for far less than the amount donated annually to "third-world" charities.

Council for Aboriginal Reconcilliation - Its time to set the record straight and make amends for the atrocities commited in the past.

World Wildlife Fund (World Site), World Wildlife Fund (Australian Site), Planet Ark- Biodiversity is vital for our survival and that of other species. We do not sit at the "head" of some hierarchy or apart from the other species that share the planet with us. We are all interconnected, and a threat to one has knock-on effects to all others. Yet we are losing wilderness areas and animals species at an alarming rate, mostly due to human activities.

Australian Republican Movement - That Australia will eventually become a republic seems almost inevitable, the question only remains when, and what form will it take? To tell you the truth, I, like many Australians, have become a little disillusioned with the many different factions of the republican movement. I am not impressed with the "lowest common denominator" republican model that was eventually decided upon (and thoroughly defeated) in the referendum in 1999, which allows for a president selected by parliament. I am in favour a popularly-elected president of some form or another, although not quite in the same mould as the farce that has become the American Presidential Elections. I don't want to place more power into the hands of the politicians.

Critical Mass - With traffic and pollution the problems that they are, and becoming worse, we need better public transport systems and support for alternate forms of transport. Critical Mass offers one solution - the bicycle - and uses real "people power" to get councils and planning bodies to provide safe, well-maintained cycle routes, and tries to encourage ordinary people to leave the car at home.

McSpotlight: McDonald's, McLibel, Multinationals - The business and advertising practises of many large corporations leaves much to be desired ...