EDITORIAL : THE AUSTRALIAN, AUSTRALIA

Playing straight on and off field

SUSPICIOUS betting plunges on AFL games revealed in The Australian yesterday should prompt some hard thinking about modern gambling trends.

Punting on the winning team is one thing, but by allowing exotic bets on individual performance rather than team effort, the AFL is gambling with the integrity of the code. Sports fans are willing to forgive their heroes a lot -- excessive high spirits, philandering and making occasional fools of themselves after a big night. But fans rightly treat cheating and corruption with disdain.

There is no suggestion that AFL players were involved in recent wagers on who would kick the first goals for Brisbane and Hawthorn. Correctly, officials are investigating whether clubs leaked information about match strategies and team selections, including switching defence players to the front line.

The alleged NRL betting sting when the North Queensland Cowboys were backed heavily to score the first points with a penalty goal against Canterbury in August was equally problematic. Authorities must recognise that betting on the unpredictable minutiae of the game leaves teams, coaches and managers open to claims of corruption.

Recent scandals in cricket on the sub-continent show how quickly faith in a game can be eroded once bookmakers, rather than players, gain the upper hand. Venal wagers are routinely placed on outcomes that are easily manipulated, such as no-balls and maiden overs at particular stages of the game.

Test cricket fans know that despite the game's noble traditions of sportsmanship, the conduct of former Pakistani players Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and former captain Salman Butt in arranging and bowling no-balls during the Lords Test against England last year was the tip of a filthy iceberg. Rightly, they were banned from the game for long periods.

Australian fans, who were on the edge of their seats as Ricky Ponting's men snatched an unexpected victory against Pakistan in Sydney in January last year still feel affronted by match-fixer Mazhar Majeed's shameful boast that he earned pound stg. 1.3 million because Pakistan threw the match.

If public interest in popular sports is to be maintained, authorities should embrace the same approach as the racing industry's tough stand on doping and work with law enforcement agencies to minimise the potential for corruption. 

Spare us the lecture again

AUSTRALIA has some of the ugliest cigarette packets in the world.

The images of diseased eyeballs, bloodied lungs and blackened feet mean that those who decide to smoke know the risks they are taking. But it's debatable whether making the pictures larger and replacing brand packaging with dull, olive-green will prevent teenagers from experimenting or prompt hardened nicotine addicts to give up the habit.

If Health Minister Nicola Roxon and the Gillard government were determined to cut Australia's already-low smoking rate of 16 per cent rapidly, they would make cigarettes illegal or price them out of reach with excise, although those who would suffer are poorer families among whom smoking is most prevalent.

In a society in which many of our most disadvantaged children suffer because their parents are addicted to illegal substances such as heroin or crystal meth and spend their waking hours trying to obtain and pay for them, Ms Roxon, curiously, says little about how such a serious problem needs to be tackled. She is more inclined to moral posturing over cigarettes, teenagers supposedly "binge drinking" alcopops and even cartoon characters on yoghurt packets. And she was back on her soap box recently supporting "getting your hands dirty in a community garden" projects to help overcome obesity in South Australia. What's next -- sunbathing police?

Perhaps Labor's senior ranks have embraced some new age morality that compels them to tell the rest of us how to live our lives. Human Services Minister Tanya Plibersek wants Australians to behave "ethically" by giving up bottled water to help the planet and has urged illicit drug users to stop because of the deadly violence of the Mexican drug wars.

Smoking causes heart disease, cancer, emphysema and other illnesses. This is why the proportion of Australians over 14 smoking has almost halved since 1988, and why it is so much lower than in 1945 when 75 per cent of Australian men smoked. But as with other harmful but legal behaviour, responsibility rests with individuals. It is beside the point whether market research supports or contradicts the possibility that the world's first plain packaging would cut smoking further. In a market economy, the only goods and services that should not be marketed are those.

Focus on spin threatens the Malaysian solution

IT feels like groundhog day in Canberra as the government tries to finalise its asylum-seeker swap with Malaysia.

The proposal to trade 800 asylum-seekers for 4000 humanitarian refugees is a belated recognition by Labor that it must address pull factors if it is to stop the boats. The motivation for the deal is similar to that behind John Howard's Pacific Solution -- to shatter the perception that anyone who makes it here will be settled here. Yet the clumsy way the deal was announced before it was finalised has left Malaysia with far too much bargaining power. After the debacle of the East Timor detention centre, Labor cannot allow this initiative to collapse -- and Kuala Lumpur knows it. By going public early, Julia Gillard handed Malaysia most of the cards. There is plenty of room for embarrassment and the potential for a reprise of East Timor in the Malaysian "solution".

The wrinkles are apparent, with the astounding admission by Immigration Department secretary Andrew Metcalfe on Monday that the swap could be a one-way deal -- we will resettle 4000 humanitarian refugees even if we don't send any asylum-seekers there. Run that past us again.

On May 8, when the government announced the trade, it also announced it would provide free set-top boxes for pensioners. The proposals are unrelated but are linked by a culture of media management rather than serious policy. This was identified by former finance minister Lindsay Tanner in his book Sideshow: Dumbing down democracy. Noting Canberra's obsession with spin, he writes that "the creation of appearances is now far more important for leading politicians than is the generation of outcomes." It beggars belief that a government that suffered the fallout from taxpayer-subsidised programs such as pink batts would decide to hand out television equipment; or one that announced a half-baked East Timor plan would risk it again with Malaysia. Both decisions demonstrate the government's focus on managing the media cycle at the expense of good judgment.

The Prime Minister's stubborn search for anything other than reopening Nauru leaves her badly exposed, with attacks coming from every direction, including from UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay, who argues that the Malaysian plan breaches international law because Malaysia has not ratified the UN torture conventions on refugees. That is a ludicrous argument. This deal is not perfect but the way ahead lies in forging regional agreements that will involve negotiations with countries that have not signed up to UN conventions.

Labor is more realistic than the high commissioner, the Greens and the refugee lobby. The Malaysian solution recognises that while our policies must be fair and compassionate, the tragic deaths at sea demand Australia ensure desperate people are not encouraged to make these perilous journeys. The perception Australia is an easy mark has helped people-smugglers sell passages. It has taken Labor a long time to accept it must minimise pull factors. The Malaysian solution may be less effective than Mr Howard's use of Nauru but Labor's fear of following him by reopening the detention centre there leaves it with no option than to make this plan work.