Well 2010 was a year that rained bullshit on us and it looks like 2011 won’t be much better, despite the blessed relief of there not being a federal election on.

The hypocritical nature of big business has already stepped up this year and demonstrated its ability to serve up great big steaming plates of fertiliser. Witness the Lew/Harvey/Brookes campaign against online retail. You all know what the campaign is about, so we won’t bother rehashing it, we’ll just make a few ranty points:

1) GST isn’t collected on imported items that cost less than $1000 because the ATO has determined that compliance costs would outweigh the return, i.e. it would cost the government money to impose the tax.

2) The big retailers put a lot of small stores out of business with their better buying power and ability to discount. When a new, better way of doing business (like, say, the cotton mill) comes along, the old model dies. That’s the free market, it happens. Sorry about that.

3) Speaking of competition, the big retailers buy most of their products from overseas because they’re cheaper. Would they be happy if the government stepped in and forced them to buy Australian?

4) The price difference is far more than just GST. We’ve read dozens of stories from consumers over the past couple of weeks, here’s just one: the cheapest HDMI cable at Dick Smith is $40, you can get them online for $5, shipped. GST would make that online purchase $5.50. Whether it’s an over-the-top markup or simply the costs of doing business in Australia, we don’t care, 30 bucks is 30 bucks.

5) “They’re tekken ur jurrrrrrbs!”. The postie or the courier still has to deliver the product and we’re still using electricity to power it once it arrives. Oh yeah and if you think Gerry Harvey’s so concerned about the workers of Australia, google “Gerry Harvey immigrant workers” and you’ll find an article from 2007 where dear old Gez was exhorting the government to allow him and other big businesses to employ immigrant “guest workers” at far lower wages than citizens.

6) Harvey Norman recently dropped a huge bundle of cash on its investments in Ireland. That’s its fault, not ours. It can answer to its shareholders, not expect the fucking taxpayer to cough up for its bad business decision.

7) Online retailing is not killing retail stores. JB HiFi are doing quite nicely thank you very much. This may have something to do with its staff knowing what they’re talking about, their ability to negotiate on price rather than sign me up to usurious credit and the user-friendly website.

#PublicRelationsFAIL? Until the next time Eric Abetz opens his mouth, the benchmark has been set.

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We were invited to a friend’s Christmas party last year and since Twitter was how we’d initially met him, he introduced us to everyone as “Justin and Jane, they’re from the internet”. Afterwards, as we drove home and congratulated ourselves for not breaking anything or spilling drinks on anyone important, we got to thinking about what “from the internet” means. The internet and most particularly Twitter, is what turned the Tribune from a vanity project to the fabulous and edgy new independent magazine it’s about to become. It’s how we found our writers, read their blogs, contacted them to ask them to write for us and told thousands of strangers about our magazine.

You may be aware of the “Real Journos vs Bloggers” squawking match that’s been masquerading as a debate over the last few years. As far as we can tell it actually doesn’t matter whether writers call themselves journalists or bloggers. If they can write articulately and intelligently, if they have a well informed opinion and something interesting to write about, people will want to read it. The line between the internet and the printed word is not so far to cross after all.

So welcome to 2011, enjoy your status as one of the new twitterliterati and please, try the fish.

Jane & Justin Shaw – Editors

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