Police powers draw line | Marketers get mean | Revolting Hollywood
This week the InSider finds the new police boundaries confronting, while rejoicing in proof that the human brain can match AI.
How right is right?
The InSider is in a spin after a week marked by pollies pointing their fingers at opposing parties over who is leaning to the right and just how far.
When news emerged of the SA Liberal Women’s Council inviting exiled Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming to be a guest speaker at its AGM the Labor State Government was quick to call a presser about the “Liberals’ far right takeover”.
Deeming attended an anti-trans rally gatecrashed by neo-Nazis and was suspended from the Victorian parliamentary party.
Curiously, the State Government’s press conference was fronted by Labor right faction MP and Treasurer Stephen Mullighan who was keen for the media to ask the Liberal party’s moderates Michelle Lensink and Jing Lee whether they “endorse the move”.
He was backed by another on the more conservative side of the Labor Party, Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis.
The two were not as chatty when news emerged about their own Primary Industries Minister Clare Scriven attending last weekend’s ball held by anti-abortion group Love Adelaide along with the Liberal party’s Alex Antic, Ben Hood, Nicola Centofanti and One Nation’s Sarah Game.
Confused? Well the argy-bargy over who really is right is bound to continue as the State Government pushes its line of an Opposition in turmoil following the resignation of Liberal Party member Nick McBride.
You might like
Getting our most troubled out of sight
It’s been a brutal few weeks for some of the state’s most vulnerable, as tough-talking politicians and police start shifting some of our troubled and homeless folk around the city.
One Adelaide media headline described draconian new rules giving police more powers to search and remove people from places like outside parliament house in North Terrace as “pest control”.
A photograph taken from a Parliament House window showing one clearly struggling person lying on the ground near a bus stop is apparently clear evidence of how anti-social behaviour is gripping our city.
Luckily for that parliament house snapper, Attorney-General Kyam Maher has stepped in to give police extra powers to get rid of problem people in a new grid bordered by Grenfell/Currie Street, Pultney Street, West Terrace, Montefiore Road, the River Torrens, Victoria Drive, Kintore Avenue and North Terrace. The zone also bisects two city squares.
Police are now free to search, remove and ban people from the area seven days a week and, if they dare venture back into the grid too soon, they can be fined $2500.
Bedding for those sleeping rough is already appearing in doorways on the outskirts of the grid: one can only surmise the answer to this sad social problem will be to just keep making the grid larger.
While there have been press releases saying a new “camp” will be set up on parklands and services will wrap around those being moved out of sight, it’s not clear where people searched, removed and banned will actually land.
Stay informed, daily
It’s a far cry from the language our state was using just a few years back when a coalition of more than 30 organisations – including three SA government departments and the City of Adelaide – signed up to a zero homeless target by 2020.
Marketers v. Marketers
Mi3, a website that provides “intelligent and challenging perspectives from the industry on the key themes that are shaping it now and into the future”, has taken aim at the University of South Australia’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (EBI).
In a post titled “It’s not enough merely to win – others must lose: Why the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s MO is destructive to the marketing profession”, James Hurman, a founding partner of the site, states that the institute “is back at it again – out in the world denouncing anything marketing effectiveness-related that hasn’t been produced by about 100 of its own marketing science researchers and academics”.
The stoush has been brewing for a while but seems to have come to a head at the World Federation of Advertisers’ Forum Connect event in Singapore, when EBI reps reportedly dismissed industry thinking around effectiveness research in marketing.
In his close to 3000-word rebuttal, Hurman slings everything at EBI and delves into why its 95/5 rule is less effective than the industry standard 60/40 rule. Don’t ask, the InSider can’t figure what that means out either. But suffice it to say, the South Aussie institute has ruffled a lot of marketing feathers.
AI’ing the obvious
Speaking of feathers, Flinders University released a research paper this week titled “Predicting predator-prey interactions in terrestrial endotherms using random forest”.
The accompanying press release states that “the Flinders team’s new research found that machine learning techniques can use a species’ traits to predict predator-prey interactions accurately for birds and mammals. By identifying species that interact, machine learning can then help to predict and hopefully avoid extinctions before they happen”.
The InSider is no ecologist but reckons we could have charted this just as well as the bot after studying the infographic attached to the release.
Stuff you should know…
It’s Bastille Day, the most famous day of the French Revolution, and that should inspire striking Hollywood writers and actors to storm the hills of Los Angeles and tear down the famous Hollywood sign that was erected on this day in 1923.
That would entail a bit of artistic license, however, since the original sign said HollywoodLand and was an advertisement for a new subdivision.
It wasn’t until 1944 that the sign became the property of Los Angeles and a renovation dropped the “Land”. And with the writers on strike, there’s no one to script the perfect revolt.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
